Pick Your Pursuit
By Jeff Cranston
The world can be divided into two kinds of people, and we see the differences come out in many different ways. Let me give you a few examples:
There are bath people, and there are shower people.
There are crunchy peanut butter people, and there are creamy peanut butter people.
There are black licorice people, and there are red licorice people
There are toilet paper “over” people and toilet paper “under” people.
Mark Twain said, “There are basically two types of people: People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”
We could keep going, couldn’t we? In many, many cases, there really are just two types of people in the world. And in 2 Timothy 2:19-26, Paul says basically there are only two kinds of people in the church. And the question quickly becomes, “Which one are you?”
Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, a younger leader in the church in Ephesus, to tell him how to lead within the church. And one of the things he had to do is to deal with corrupt teachers in the church whose false teaching was spreading like a sickness, like gangrene.
Paul wants the church to keep focusing on the good news of Jesus, to raise more and more faithful leaders and for the church to stay fixated on scripture. This becomes a pivotal message in the letter and is of utmost importance—not only to Timothy but also to us.
Option A: Stay focused on the gospel, keep raising up new leaders, faithfully teach the Bible, and focus on becoming a healthy church that brings God glory and makes an eternal difference.
Option B: Lose track of the gospel, tolerate false teachers/teaching, drift from the truth, and become a sick church that doesn’t bring God glory or make any difference whatsoever.
Which will it be? There are only two options for us as a church, and we must pursue option A. But let’s get personal. What kind of person will you be?
Flourish as a useful vessel
“Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.’” – 2 Timothy 2:19
The Church of Jesus Christ is the foundation, the society, the association which God Himself has founded; we belong to Him. And we have His seal upon us. A seal is a mark proving genuine ownership. Paul has been warning against people within the church who seek to do it harm, and he lets us know that God knows the righteous from the unrighteous. God knows who belongs to Him and who doesn’t. And to those He knows let them stay far away from wickedness.
In verse 19, while not directly quoting from the Old Testament, Paul is alluding to a sad story in Israel’s history found in Numbers 16. A man named Korah led a rebellion with about 250 people against the leadership of Moses. Moses responded by telling them to appear before God the next day. When the time came, and they were gathered, God spoke to Moses:
“’Get away from all these people so that I may instantly destroy them!’” Then Moses warned the congregation to separate from the rebels. “He had hardly finished speaking the words when the ground suddenly split open beneath them. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed the men, along with their households and all their followers who were standing with them, and everything they owned. So they went down alive into the grave, along with all their belongings. The earth closed over them, and they all vanished from among the people of Israel. All the people around them fled when they heard their screams. ‘The earth will swallow us, too!’ they cried.”– Numbers 16: 21, 31–34, NLT
The point of the story is: Move away as fast as you can from false teachers because if you don’t, you’re putting your own life in danger. It’s that serious
Then in 2 Timothy 2:20, Paul compares the church to a large house: “Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor.”
Imagine having a huge banquet at a rich person’s house. You’d have gold and silver utensils and dishes. Those are the ones you’d bring out for a fancy banquet. But you’d also have some others that wouldn’t be appropriate to bring out for a big banquet. You have some that are wood and clay that are fine for being used behind the scenes. And you’d have some that are just dishonorable: You don’t want to serve fancy hors d’oeuvres from a garbage pail.
So what’s the point? You’re one of these vessels. The church needs vessels of gold and silver. It has others but doesn’t need them. Which one are you? Well, how do you know? If you follow or promote corrupt teaching and if you deny key Christian truths, then you’re not the kind of vessel the church needs.
What you believe matters. It’s not just what we teach up here. You matter. Your worldview matters. Your adherence to the teaching of God’s Word matters. What you believe matters and will help determine what kind of church we become.
So what can we do? In 2 Timothy 2:21, Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.” If you’re a wooden or clay vessel in a large house, you’re never going to be a gold or silver vessel. But if you’re a dishonorable vessel in the church, there’s hope for you. Cleanse yourself.
When Paul talks about cleansing ourselves, he’s talking about taking inventory and getting rid of anything that doesn’t belong so that we can be useful for service to our Lord. You say, “Sounds great, and I’d love that … but how?!” Paul answers: By getting rid of two things: falsehood in your head and wickedness in your heart. The purity of your beliefs and the purity of your actions matter. Paul breaks it down in the next few verses.
Flee from lusts and foolish arguments
“Now flee from youthful lusts.” – 2 Timothy 2:22
If you take this verse out of context, you will think that Paul is addressing teenaged, raging hormonal people and telling them to avoid sensual desires. That is certainly a biblical idea and something we should do, but that’s not exactly what Paul is saying here when you look at the context.
He’s talking about avoiding things like self-assertion, headstrong stubbornness, arrogance, impatience and harshness. When you’re youthful, you like a good fight. You put your mouth in gear before you engage your brain. Flee from these things.
“But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.” – 2 Timothy 2: 23b
Here are a few other things we should flee: Run away from false teaching and argumentative people. Flee from these things because they will damage you, and they will damage the church.
Follow after the Lord
“ … and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” – 2 Timothy 2:22b
Paul describes what the church should look like. What are these qualities?
Righteousness (right conduct) — It’s how someone lives who loves God and aims to please him. Want to be someone God can use? Pursue holiness in your life. When you turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, you are given Jesus’ righteousness, and then you are called to work that out by pursuing righteousness in your life.
Faith (belief and trust in God) – It’s amazing how important this is: simply to trust God in every area of your life.
Love – Love is central to who God calls us to be. We’re nothing without love. Love is the defining characteristic of God’s people.
Peace (tranquility and harmony with people) – As Paul says in Romans 14:19, “So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.”
Godly vessels can lead well
What we’ve just talked about applies to everybody. But in verses 24 through 26, Paul makes special application to the Lord’s servant, for church leaders like Timothy.
“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” – 2 Timothy 2:24-26
“Bond-servant” is the phrase from which we get our word “slave.” A slave has no will of his or her own which may be acted upon; a slave is completely under the control of the master. Once, we were slaves to sin; now, we are slaves to God. But this is a slavery of love wherein we place ourselves under His complete control and desire no one or nothing else on earth or in heaven.
And God’s honorable servant is to instruct those who oppose the church, who oppose the gospel, so that they may be rescued from Satan’s captivity. A servant’s purpose is not to win arguments but to win souls. Unlike Jonah, we want to see deceived people brought to repentance and conviction of sin, that they might turn to Christ and find redemption in Christ and in Christ alone.
“… that they might come to their senses” or that they might “recover.” This phrase describes someone coming out of a drunken stupor. They are drunk with the lies of the enemy, and the Holy Spirit, as it were, sobers them up and rescues them. And God desires to use His honorable vessels to help that transaction occur.
There are two kinds of people in the church: useful or useless. Honorable or dishonorable. Cleanse yourself so you can be useful to God and be prepared for every good work.
Jeff Cranston is the lead pastor at LowCountry Community Church in Bluffton, South Carolina.
