Faithfully Discern Truth amid Godlessness

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Juan Sanchez
What is important is that we’re here to look at God’s Word together. And we are working through Second Timothy. And I just want to confess, as we begin, Julius mentioned that I have five daughters. And I have to confess you, parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And if you’re a parent, you have children all the way from 27 years of age to 15 years of age, we have an 18 year old and a 15 year old at home. And as you navigate through all the stages of life, and and you’re working through in my house with girls, you know, I live most of my life with six women, as you’re working through all the the issues in each of their lives, different perspectives, the ups and downs, and the roller coasters. Really, what you want more than anything is to see your children come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to fight the good fight of faith, to run the race with endurance, and to cross the finish line, and to receive the crown of righteousness that awaits all those who have loved the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if that’s my desire for my children, that’s your desire for your children as well. Well, Paul is Timothy’s father in the faith. And that is Paul’s desire for Timothy. Paul wants to see this young man whom he had something to do with his coming to faith in Jesus Christ. He wants to see him fight the good fight of faith. He wants to see him run the race with endurance, he wants to see him receive the crown of righteousness that is there for all at the revelation of Jesus Christ, and who remained faithful to that day. This is the impetus of Second Timothy, this is what’s going on. There’s a there’s a three beat rhythm throughout Second Timothy, Timothy, preached the Word, Timothy, endure suffering, Timothy, don’t be ashamed. And you hear that three fold beat throughout Second Timothy, preach the Word, don’t be ashamed, endure suffering, preach the Word, don’t be ashamed, endure suffering. There’s a problem. It’s Paul is at the end of his life, and He has fought the good fight and he is finished the race and now he awaits to receive the crown. He wants to make sure that Timothy endures likewise. But the problem is in chapter two, verse 20, there is opposition to Timothy, and to his perseverance. And in chapter two, verse 20, is Stephen showed us in God’s house in the church, there are two kinds of vessels, two kinds of workers and approve worker and an unapproved worker, a vessel for honorable use and a vessel for dis honorable use. And so part of Paul’s encouragement and exhortation to Timothy to persevere in the faith is that he would remain an approve worker that he would remain an honorable vessel that is usable to God, and that he would not fall prey to becoming in a dishonorable vessel that is not useable to God. And so Paul in verse 21 of chapter two urges Timothy to cleanse himself from what is dishonorable that he may be a vessel for honorable use set apart is wholly useful to the master of the house ready for every good work. So the question for us to consider is how is Timothy to cleanse himself from what is dishonorable that he may be such a vessel? And we see this in the remainder of chapter two in verse 22, he tells him flee youthful passions or flee immaturity, and then he also tells him to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace and he unpacks that is Steven did for us earlier this morning. But in our text, there is another exhortation by which Timothy is to cleanse himself from what is dishonorable so that he may be a usable that So for God and approved worker, and the agitation and chapter three is avoid such people. So if Timothy is going to cleanse himself and what a dishonorable, he needs to negatively speaking, Flee youthful passions, positively, he’s speaking, he needs to pursue righteousness and faith, love and patience. But he also needs to avoid certain people. The question that we have to enter is what people? Who are we to avoid? And we’re to be usable to God? And what does that mean? What does it look like when we avoid such people? Can you feel the tension between chapter two and chapter three? Can you feel the reality were to pursue our opponents in righteousness, faith, love and peace, as laid out in chapter two? And we’re also to avoid such people in chapter three. And there’s a tension here for us because we have to be discerning to try to understand which is which, who is what, how do we navigate this tension of pastoral care, where we must distinguish between those who are acting like children and those who are basically being fools. We have to distinguish between those who are immature, but are genuine Christians, and those who seem hard hearted, unrepentant, recalcitrant, and opposing to the truth. I think the key is, and I mentioned this last night in our panel, the key is in chapter two, verse 25, and chapter three, verse five. Look there with me very quickly. In chapter two, verse 25, Paul is talking about going after our opponents, correcting his opponents with gentleness, so that God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. So there are opponents that seem to have hope for repentance, they seem to have a desire for the truth. And we deal with them with gentleness in such a way that God may grant them repentance, leading them to knowledge of the truth. But in chapter three and verse five, Paul tells us that there’s a reality that is different. These are people having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power of void such people, looking for seven always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. That’s the key. Some are able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth through repentance granted by God’s grace, and there are others who will never be able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth because of the hardness of their heart. Still, it’s hard to discern, isn’t it? It’s hard to discern which is which. But this is a ministry to which we have been called as pastors. And I take second Timothy to be primary and application to Timothy himself, secondarily, to pastors in general. And then thirdly, to all of us who are Christians, and in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so pastors, I will speak to you primarily and secondarily to all the rest of us who are in the church to try to consider how do we how do we distinguish but as far as pastors are concerned, our role is to shepherd the flock of God among us, which includes feeding, it includes caring, it includes correcting, and includes protecting the flock of God among us. And as those of us who are Christians, we have to be discerning. So as we think about this tension and the reality, and we we get to chapter three of avoiding such people, let me just encourage us, first of all, to pray, pray for ourselves. Pray for wisdom. Pray for thick skins and soft hearts, so that when people come at us, we have a thick skin, and that when we go with them, we have soft hearts. Let’s pray for our opponents. Let’s pray for our church and for the protection of the church. And let us seek counsel of your pastor, seek counsel from other elders, seek counsel from other wise counselors, perhaps other pastures that you trust and then meet with your opponents. Find a time to meet with those who are in opposition to you, that you may encourage them that you may discipled them that you may even rebuke them. If the the moment requires the kind of rebuke and always maintain the dignity of your opponents.

But if there is no evidence of repentance, if all that there is is recalcitrance, and hardness of heart opposition to the truth, Paul tells Timothy avoid such people. Let’s look together at Second Timothy chapter three verses one through nine and let me read that for us. And as I read it, let’s stand together in honor of the reading of God’s Holy Word. Second Timothy, chapter three verses one through nine. This is God’s word for us at this moment. But understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving, good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having the appearance of godliness but denying its power of Boyd such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth, just as genossen Jambres. Suppose Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind, and disqualified in regarding to the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be playing to all, as was that of those two men. As asked for God’s help our Father in heaven, we ask now that you would show us your glory in the face of Jesus Christ, from the pages of Scripture by the power of your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, we ask, amen. You may be seated. So in the church, verse 20, of chapter two, in the church, there are honorable vessels that’s approved workers, useful to the master and dishonorable vessels, unapproved workers unusable to the master. And Paul has been exhorting Timothy to be a useful vessel to remain a useful vessel and approve worker. And he’s asking him to cleanse himself. And of course, one of the dangers, as I’ve been saying is, is that if we’re immature, we place people in this category of avoiding people too quickly. We just want to dismiss people immediately. And it requires patience. It requires correcting with patients, as we see in chapter two. But it’s also important to understand because we have this tension, don’t we in our own hearts, and we have this tension in our churches, we may even have this church, these tensions in the pastoral staff, and that there may be some, even among the elder board, there are some elders who just want to Well, let’s let’s not move too quickly, let’s, let’s just be more patient. And they never deal with issues that need to be dealt with. And then you have some people that they just want to deal with. It’s very quickly. The first time there’s any kind of sniffer of error, or or any kind of misunderstanding of the gospel, they just want to cut someone off. So this is the tension that we have to navigate as we as we work through here. But understand that there does come a time to separate from hard hearted, recalcitrant unrepentant hypocrites. The question is how do we discern the difference between those that we are to pursue in righteousness, faith, love and patience, and those that we’re to avoid? And this is what Paul is trying to help us to understand. Look there in verses one through four of chapter three, Paul helps us to see that you will know them by their character, or actually by their lack of character, verses one through four. But understand this, notice that this is a command, understand this or know this you might have in your translation. In other words, it’s a command for Timothy to be discerning. It’s a command for him to be engaged in understanding the difference in character of people understand this, that in last days, we come times of difficulty, for People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy heart, this unappeasable, slanderous without self control, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. I mean, we see people like this all the time, don’t we? And the first tendency for us in the church is to look at this, and then to look outside the church and to say, Yeah, this world is going to hell in a handbasket very quickly. But it’s important to know the context here is verse 20 of chapter two. Paul is talking about the vessels in the house of God. These are people in the church. These are people that are mixed in with within the congregation. Now you don’t need to understand the original languages to to feel the weight of this language of what they’re actually doing. These people are just like the world they’re in the church, but they’re just like the world. In First Timothy chapter three, Paul emphasizes godly character as a requirement for elders You know, what’s remarkable about the qualifications of elders is that there’s nothing remarkable about the qualifications for elders. Except for the ability to teach. That’s how all Christians should be. That’s how all of us should live is above reproach. Here, Paul commands Timothy to know these kinds of people, and to know that they’re in the church so that he wouldn’t be discerning. This is one of the sad realities of pastoral ministries. One of the sad realities of pastoral ministry is that there are people that come in, they call themselves Christians, they might even believe themselves to be Christians, but they are just like the world. There’s a man who started visiting our church some time ago, he, he was a pastor’s kid. In fact, I even met his father, who is a pastor still. And as he began talking to people, there was just something odd about him. And I personally met with him and others of our elders met with him. And there was just a discomfort the way he was quoting scripture, and sometimes miss quoting scripture, he appeared to have knowledge of the Bible and, and some scripture verses, but there were some things he was just leaving out. And as we got to know him, he began to seem actually predatorial, particularly he seemed predatorial toward the women in the church, he seemed to be wanting to get to know them. And when we rebuked him, he was very upset. And eventually he ended up leaving the church, even though he was through the membership process, and in our membership process, where we have a class and, and we have a, an elders interview. And it was in that interview that some of these issues began to be raised. And we began to wonder, where’s this guy really coming from? And so as we slow down the membership process, and eventually halted it, because of our concerns, and our concerns proved to be true. I mean, this man was just coming to church, because he wanted to get to know women. And sadly, in the church, there will be people like that there will be people that are trying to come in like that. There will be people that are already in like that. Some of them will be members of the Church, some of them will actually be teachers or small group leaders, perhaps I think, like in First Timothy, perhaps even elders, people with teaching responsibilities in the church, Paul wants us to know, faithful Christians by their character. These people appear to be godly, verse five, but in fact, they’re not another reason why I take this to be a warning about people in the church. Look at Verse five, they have the appearance of godliness, but deny its power, avoid such people. You know, people can appear Godly in a number of ways, right? Some people appear godly. But in fact, what they’re doing is they’re, they’re pursuing legalism, right? Unless you fill in the blank, you cannot be saved. That was that’s what’s happening in x 15x 14x 15. They were saying, unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved. And we look at that. And we think how ridiculous that is. But in our own churches, there’s a temptation to say, unless you fill in the blank, you cannot be saved. Now, we don’t say you cannot be saved. But we have a tendency to look down on people unless you fill in the blank, you do it for yourself. Unless you vote Republican, you can’t really be saved. Unless you vote Democratic, you really can’t be saved. Unless you homeschool your children unless you unless you private educate your children unless you public educate your children so that your children can be missionaries. I mean, we could go at this all day, can’t we? Let’s confess, we are all recovering legal lists.

And that’s it’s a temptation. It’s a temptation for us. Legalism imposes our standard on every one else. And then we judge everyone else based upon that standard, and they never quite measure up. And the irony about legalism is that it seems to be based on an arrogant ignorance. Now think about those two words together. Arrogant ignorance. It’s an arrogant ignorance of how to understand the Bible. Maybe it’s an ignorance of the relationship between how to understand the Old Testament and the New Testament and how they work together or, or an ignorance as to how to apply basic principles of interpreting the Bible. legalists are ignorant about these things, but they’re really confident about it. And then you have some people that kind of they maybe they were there and they tend to react against the legalism, and they pray It’s license and boy they appear godly because they’re so smart and they’re so intelligent and, and while we’re the legalist it’s probably an arrogant ignorance. You know with the with the libertine is this arrogant kind of knowledge, as Paul says, Knowledge puffs up, and First Corinthians eight through 10. And he’s dealing exactly with this kind of, of issue here. A debate between legalism and license so to speak. The arrogance of the libertine is they believe only they know how to put the Bible together. And they look down on the ignorance of the poor legal lists. And both groups appear really, really godly. Paul tells the Colossians in Colossians chapter two that legalism may have an appearance of godliness, but there is no power in legalism for godliness. In fact, there’s no power in licence for godliness. And this is exactly what Paul continues to say. While the young and immature believer both the legalist and the libertine appeared godly, they deny the true power of godliness. Again, verse five, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power, the true power of godliness, gospel, rooted Grace fueled spirit and powered obedience. And they just deny that Paul wants us to be aware of these folks. And so Paul reminds us, you will know them by their character or lack of character, but he also warns us, you will know them by their methods. Look at verse six, you will know them by their methods for six. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women. In other words, they have the kind of underhanded tricks and the underhanded activity, they take advantage of the weak in the church. They’re like, hunters hunting after prey, looking for the weak ones within the congregation. And they set their gaze on the weak ones in the congregation, and they go after them, is what Paul wants us to understand. They may even have a platform in the church, whether it’s a Sunday school classroom, or a small group, or maybe again, and elder board, I remember when I was serving on staff at a church, not where I am now, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. I was really, I was a new Christian. I was 19. I was about 2021. And I had come to faith in Christ at 17. So there was a lot I didn’t know. But there was just some activity that seemed kind of odd in a Sunday school class and, and one Sunday, I noticed that this woman who had injured her ankle, who was on crutches, the very next week, I encountered her in the hallway, and she wasn’t wearing crutches, but she was limping and wincing in pain. And I thought, are you better what happened? And she says, I’m healed. And about how did you get healed what happened? And and she said, I’m just I’m just believing only positive thoughts. I’m not going to claim anything negative. And so she just threw the crutches away, and hopefully she didn’t damage her ankle any further. But as I began to research this, this was a Sunday school teacher, a couple who was in a Sunday school class, who actually had come directly from Kenneth Hagen’s church. I mean, even called him daddy Hagen. And they were propagating this word movement kind of theology, within this small rural church in this town. You will know these people by their methods, they, they may have a platform, they may distribute resources, whether it’s books or sermons. Hopefully, if they gave you a cassette tape, you know, I’m not going there. Right. If they gave you a VHS tape, don’t go there. But they distribute resources, don’t they? They distribute resources, they try to win people over, they may even invite you to an event or invite you to their home. The man that I had mentioned earlier that had come into our church that was predatorial. He was he was visiting our church and he actually printed up business cards. He printed up business cards, and we found that he was distributing these business cards to our members as many members as he could inviting people to come over to his apartment for Bible study. If these issues are not addressed quickly, false teaching and false influence is like a cancer. Paul says in chapter two verse 17, he said it’s like the spread of gangrene. It’s slow but it’s deadly. We need to know their character know their methods. But Paul also says, We need to know their motives again, verse six their burden with sins and let us stop A by various passions. In other words, they’re driven by their own selfish, sinful desires, by their own sinful passions of their flesh. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s power, sometimes it’s control. Sometimes it’s having a status within the church. Sometimes it’s just controlling people by being right and then being wrong. Sometimes it’s actually seduction and sexual immorality. But there’s a motivation, there’s a sinful passion, there’s a sinful desire that moves these people. Like I mentioned, this man that had been coming to our church, he, he wanted to get married, he had some kind of agenda. He just wanted to meet as many women and then choose a bride for himself. Ultimately, you will know these people by their opposition to the truth for seven. Look at verse seven. They’re always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. Verse eight, just as Janus and Jambres opposed Moses. These are what we now understand to be the priests that oppose Moses in Pharaoh’s court, just as genossen Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth. Notice how he describes them. These are men corrupted in mind, and disqualified regarding the faith. They’re not only disqualified regarding, say, an office in the church like elder or even Deacon there, they’re actually disqualified in the faith. It’s interesting how these people appear to know a lot about God, they appear to know a lot about scripture, but they never actually arrive at the truth. Have you ever met anyone like that? They can quote a lot of Scripture, but it’s just kind of off by just a few degrees. They can talk about theology, and in some of it you’re tracking but then there are a few things they say they just this is slightly off. At some sometimes what happens is that slightly off as they continue pursuing that track, ends up being off quite a wide margin. But they appear to know a lot about God appeared to know a lot about Scripture appeared to know a lot about theology, but they never arrived the truth, they actually oppose the truth. It’s man that I’ve been telling you about, we finally figured out where his foundation was he he’s what we would call a red letter Christian. He is someone who believed only in the words of Jesus and, and he rejected the words of Paul or any other words and, and we began to realize kind of what was going on when when, when he was saying things and they weren’t quite right. And then he just finally came right out and said, Well, I just listened to Jesus. I don’t even listen, anybody else. It was a modern day marcionite. To the young and immature, this person sounded smart, quoting and even misquoting scripture. One of our members met with him and sought to disciple him. But, but there was never any traction. There was never any, any route that the word took in him. He was arrogant. He was proud. He he was a lover of himself, and, and he didn’t really care what anyone wanted to tell him. He just had an agenda, and he was going to pursue his own agenda. So he was unmoved. He was recalcitrant. And he was arrogant. You know, it’s funny, I don’t know what it is about our church, but we attract some of these people. And there’s something interesting that happens, I suspect, you might attract some of these people as well. This is California after all. And I’m just kidding, because I’m from Austin, and that’s the other California.

But one of the things that I’ve discovered is as you preach faithfully and biblically and exposed the Word of God, it attracts both those who love the word, and those who think they love the word, and those who think that only this church has the truth, and those people eventually will turn on you. I remember one night it was I was about to preach on a Sunday evening. And it was, it was the same day that a pastor in California was shot and killed in the pulpit while he was preaching in early service. And so as you can imagine, there were tensions in the church and that evening is I was about to preach. There was a group of about eight people that came to our church, and they came to the church holding up these white crosses, these white wooden dowel crosses and and they came in and our ushers tried to greet them and say, you know, welcome who are you? What’s your name? They didn’t budge. They didn’t tell anybody anything. They just came sat in the second row. And as you can imagine, there was a little bit of a panic. My wife who happened to be singing she’s wondering, Am I gonna make an a have a struggle here, you as my husband safe and and thankfully our men knew what to do immediately. But we came to discover that This was a group they call themselves, you know, something about exposing false teaching. And they were attracted by faithful Biblical preaching. But these were people that were going to a certain extreme. They were visiting church after church after church, and they were casting judgment on church. And they were trying to expose false teaching, they would say. But in fact, they were opposed to the truth, they had their own version of the truth. Paul wants us to know these people, He wants us to be aware of them. Eventually, Paul says, The truth will come out, they will be exposed. Look at verse nine. But they will not get very far for their folly, there’s a foolishness, their folly will be playing to all as well as those of those two men, Janice, and Jamie Brous. These people who continue in their ways, the truth will eventually come out. It’s one of the things that I’ve come to understand is, as we preach faithfully, and as we have thick skin and soft hearts, and as people attack us and criticizes, I’ve learned that eventually if we entrust ourselves to the just judge, the truth will come out. And even if it doesn’t come out in this life, it will come out at final judgment, all truth will be exposed. But for now, Paul commands Timothy to avoid such people notice. Avoid such people doesn’t mean simply ignore them. Avoiding such people doesn’t mean treat them poorly. Avoiding such people does not mean pastors use your pulpit as a bully pulpit and attack them from the pulpit. Avoiding such people does not mean send them to the church down the road so they can have to deal with them. I take avoid such people to be another way of speaking about church discipline. Now, why might I say that? I say that because Paul is talking about dishonorable vessels in the church in God’s house in verse 20 of chapter two. I say that because Paul never tells the church to avoid unbelieving sinners. And First Corinthians five, he says, I wrote to you my letter not to associate with a sexually immoral people, I did not at all mean the sexually immoral of this world, but the so called brothers in the church, and he actually says purge the evil from your midst purge the evil person from your mitts. The context of that is first Corinthians five, one through five, where Paul talks about the man who has committed sexual immorality, having relations with his stepmother, and they’re putting up with it, they’re letting it go. They’re not addressing it. And Paul says, For my part, I have already judged this person, and I have delivered Him over to Satan. I think that’s what’s going on here. Primarily, because in the context surrounding our passage, is there is a sense of separating oneself from those in God’s house, who will come under God’s judgment. Now, Kevin, yesterday talked about chapter two verses 11 and 13. And I agree with Kevin, I take that to be a negative stipulation. If we have died with Him, we will also live with him positive we endure, we will also rain with him positive, if we deny Him, He will also deny his negative, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself negative. I think God will be faithful to all his promises and part of that, In God being faithful to the covenant. It’s not just blessing his people, but also cursing and judging those who do not keep covenant. Also, if you look down chapter two, verses 16, through 19, there also is a context of judgment. And Paul uses the kind of language where he’s talking about the rebellion of Korah, verse 19, but God’s firm foundation stands bearing this seal, The Lord knows who are his and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. That’s a citation from Numbers chapter 16, or at least a paraphrase or an illusion. And the idea number 16, is after core rebelled against Moses, God directed Moses to separate himself and to separate Israel from Cora and his company, because God was about terrain judgment on Quora, and his company and the ground opens up and swallows up core in his company, and Moses and Israel are to separate themselves from this. I think our text avoid such people is the clear application of verse 19 of chapter two the idea of separating from those whom God will judge avoid such people, deliver them over to Satan, purge the evil person from among you. In judgment, God has always separated the dishonorable and the unrighteous from his presence, the presence where he lives in community with His people, He created Adam and Eve to dwell in His presence, God and man fellowshipping together, living in Holy Communion. And when Adam and Eve rebelled, what did God do? He separated Adam and Eve, so to speak, and separated himself and exiled Adam and Eve from the place of his presence, for blessing and for joy. And they were outside the presence of God and receive the curses, but God wasn’t done was he. And so he gave a promise that a child would be born in through the seat of the woman, salvation would come, and God’s people will be brought back to him. But Israel failed in fulfilling that promise. So Israel, too, was exiled. God separated himself from the presence of the unrighteous Israelites. But the prophets look forward to a time where there will be one who would come that would reunite God’s people and call all God’s people back to Himself. And Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy that tells us, Jesus is the answer to the exile. Jesus is the son of Abraham. Jesus is the Son of David. Jesus is the answer to the exile. So the genealogy goes from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation and from the deportation to Jesus. So how did Jesus bring his people back to Himself? Jesus brought us back to himself by being exiled himself. Paul tells the Corinthians in second Corinthians chapter five, verse 21, for our sake, God made Him Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And so on the cross, Jesus cried out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? And he cried that so we would never have to. And so in Christ, God is separates himself from sin, forsaking the sun in his humanity, as he takes sin upon himself, and he unites us, in fellowship with the Father in order to bring us to the place of God’s presence. You see, we are chapter three verses one through nine, aren’t we? We are the ones that are lovers of self, haters of parents were the ones that are boastful and arrogant. And it is God in Christ who has rescued us, who lovingly and patiently pursued us to bring us to Himself. And in his son, he brings us to himself, that we would be in the presence of God for all eternity. That’s why the promise of the Spirit is a downpayment. The promise of God dwelling in us by the Spirit as a down payment, because the promise the mother of all promises is that we will dwell with God.

And the Holy Spirit with us is God present with us as a taste of the future, when we will be with God, and He will be with us and we will dwell with Him, the only reason that we can pursue righteousness is because Jesus is our righteousness. If you’re here, and you’re not a Christian, let me just help you understand that there is a day of judgment coming. And in that day of judgment, Jesus will come and he will separate the sheep from the goats, He will separate the righteous from the unrighteous. And the judgment will be based upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and what you did with him, to turn away from your sin, quit trusting in yourself, and turn to Christ and trust in Christ alone for your righteousness, pursue the righteousness that is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’re here, and three, one through nine describes you, but you call yourself a Christian, and you look there, and the Holy Spirit is convicting you. Wow, you know what? That sounds a lot like me. To you, I would appeal repent, confess your sin, turn away. Perhaps you may need to go to someone and confess your sin, confess your treatment of them. Confess your opposition, perhaps to the pastors or the elders of the church or to leadership or to a Sunday school teacher, perhaps you need to confess your sin against another brother or sister in Christ, because you have seen that you are more like this more like the world and less like heaven. The good news is that through Christ we receive the forgiveness of God, we are cleanse from all unrighteousness. And so the reason that we can pursue cleansing the reason that Paul can say, Timothy cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable is because we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and he has washed all our sin away. And we keep going to that fountain of the blood of Jesus Christ, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness because our Father in heaven through His Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit is merciful. He is slow to anger, he is abounding in mercy and grace, praise be to this god. This is our God. In God’s house in his house, there are vessels for honorable use in vessels for dishonorable use. Paul has been distinguishing between these two vessels. In chapter one verses 15 through 18, posted all who are to Asia, including fidelity intermod janiece abandon me, but omnicef harus didn’t, and chapter two verses 14 through 19, Hymenaeus and Philetus. They got into false teaching, they pursued immaturity, but Timothy is to pursue maturity he’s to flee immaturity, and he’s pursue righteousness and faith and love and patience in chapter four verses 10 and 11. Diem is in love with this world deserted Paul, but Luke alone was with Paul and chapter four verses 17 through 18. All who deserted Paul and his first defense, Paul brings to light but Jesus stood with him. You understand what Paul has been doing? There are two kinds of vessels in God’s house. Honorable vessels usable to God dishonorable vessels not usable to God. Paul urges Timothy to be a useful vessel, a useful servant and approved serving in God’s house by separating himself from dishonorable ways from false teaching, trying to win over his opponents to repentance and the knowledge of the truth by gentleness. First and foremost, may God grant us the grace to grow up in Christ, leaving immature ways behind. May God grant us the grace to deal gently with our opponents, that God may grant them repentance. May God grant us the grace to discern when it is time to continue pursuing and when when it becomes time to avoid such people. Because the time will come. You see, there are only two outcomes for these vessels in God’s house. There’s judgment for the unrighteous unfaithful dishonorable recalcitrant, unusable vessels. And there is a good reward for the righteous, faithful, honorable, usable vessels. Let me just close with a word to pastors. Can I just leave us brother pastors with with some words of encouragement and words of promises from Second Timothy, my brother pastors, don’t lose heart. Be encouraged. Listen to these promises from Second Timothy. God has given us a spirit not a fear, but of power and love and self control, chapter one, verse seven. We can endure whatever suffering we’re called to, for the gospel, by the power of God chapter one, verse eight. We know whom we have believed and are convinced that he is able to guard until that day, what has been entrusted to us chapter one, verse 12. And by the Holy Spirit, we’re able to guard the good deposit that has been entrusted to us, chapter one, verse 1314. And we are to be strengthened, not in our own power, but in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, chapter two, verse one, aren’t those glorious promises? Let me just exhort all of us. Fight, the good fight of faith. run the race with endurance, and you will receive the crown of righteousness with a look which the Lord the righteous judge will award on that day to all to all who have loved his appearance. Encourage one another with these promises. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we are overwhelmed by your grace and by Your mercy. Father, we confess our weakness, we confess our lack of discernment. We rest in the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. We cling to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we confess father, there are days when we look more like chapter three verses one through nine then like your Son, Jesus Christ, Father, we confess our sin we can First, our own rebellion, root out rebellion from our hearts continue to mold us into changes and to transform us from one degree of glory to another into the image of Jesus Christ and strengthen us by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would fight the fight of faith that we would run the race with endurance that is set before us. That we might receive the crown of righteousness that awaits to all who are longing for the appearance of Jesus Christ. It’s in his name we pray, Amen.