We have been looking at serving His house. We shared a little about His house, and last time we looked at 1 Timothy to see service in His house. Today, we will look in 2 Timothy to see the servant in His house.
Let us read a few verses in 1 Timothy 3, and then we will read in 2 Timothy.
I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long.
But in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and support of the truth.By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
was vindicated in the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.
The house of God.
And then, in 2 Timothy, let us read this morning the whole second chapter, just to get a feel for the situation as Paul is writing to Timothy.
You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.
The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.
Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal; but the word of God is not imprisoned.
For this reason, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.
It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him;
If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
Avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place; and they upset the faith of some.
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.”
Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor.
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.Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. 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, they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
Lord, we come to You. We hear these exhortations. Help us to put them in context. Help us to be Your servants.
Lord, we know in this day, in these last days, still by Your amazing grace, You raise up vessels of honor. We pray, even in this audience this morning, that You will do Your work of making useful, serviceable brothers and sisters in Your house.
Lord, we pray, minister to us by Thy living presence through the Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
We tried to show—we began showing last time—and I realize there are some people here for the first time hearing me, and the young people were not here last time I shared. But last time I stayed pretty much in 1 Timothy, showing service in the house of God.
What a beautiful picture it is: the house of God as established by the apostles, laying Jesus Christ as a foundation and built up in His love. This living house—for do not forget, it is a family—it is a living house. It is, in fact, the very skin around which Jesus lives here on this earth.
The Lord Jesus is tabernacled among us in this day when there is a house of God. We saw Paul’s definition in 1 Timothy 3. He called the house of God three things, in regard to three things.
First, it is the church of the living God, because the reality of the house of God is that you can sense the Lord’s presence when you go into the house.
If you remember the Book of Acts in those early days, when people just touched the house of God, fear fell upon people. As for the house of God itself, there was great grace upon the people. There was a sense of unity, of giving and sharing all things. The Lord did awesome things in their midst by His very presence.
This is the house of God. It is the church of the living God. You touch His reality and His presence when you go into the house of God.
Second, you sense that pillar and support of the truth. You go into the house of God, and you can see the truth and hear the truth: the truth centered around Christ as our Redeemer, our Savior, and our Lord.
What a beautiful truth. This truth stands as such a testimony in the real house of God that anything not of the Lord has a hard time getting in. It stands, as it were, as a pillar before the door of the house of God, even as that pillar in the garden of Eden stood preventing anyone who tried to come in in a wrong sort of way.
If you come into the house of God, you will be exposed by the truth of God.
Third, wonderfully, the saints who live in the house of God do not claim that they are living by their own life, but they live by the mystery of godliness.
For myself, I remember I was only a Christian for one year when another one of these sneaky brothers of mine in the church I was in handed me a little book. It was called The Mystery of Godliness by Major Ian Thomas. I said, “Hmm, this is from some kind of guy in the army.”
I read that book. It was the first time I clearly heard that Christ is in me, my life, the hope of glory. What a wonderful book, and what a wonderful thing to live in the house of God by His life.
We confess this mystery of godliness. How is it that we live? Do we brag and say, “Well, I became a Christian, and ever since then I have been just about perfect”? No. In the house of God, we say, “It is not I, but Christ that lives in me.”
This house of God is so precious because the lives of the saints know this abiding presence of His life, and His presence is upon us when we gather together, two or three. This house is such a beautiful and living house that it is able to train servants in the house.
In 1 Timothy, we see that Timothy is still a young man, but he has already been given responsibility. He is, as it were, one of Paul’s co-workers. He is there in Ephesus, setting things in order.
He is telling the church, “Now, let us do this orderly. Your household must be in order, and the leaders must be in order. The whole house of God needs to be ordered properly.” Paul gave Timothy this task of ministering order, as it were, in the house of God.
What a beautiful place. In fact, concerning the ability of this house of God to raise servants of God, we have Timothy’s own life as evidence.
Paul, on his first missionary journey with Barnabas, traveled through the churches of Galatia, preaching the gospel. As he returned through those same churches of Galatia six months later, he found men who had already found order in their lives, who had been ordered by the Lord Jesus Christ, who were living by His grace. Paul and Barnabas appointed them as elders in these newfound churches.
Then Paul and Barnabas went back to Antioch for a period of time and went down to Jerusalem over a controversy. By the time Paul went on his second missionary journey, perhaps as much as five years had elapsed. He began by going back through those Galatian churches.
As he went through, he found a young man. Actually, he went to the church in Lystra, and the brothers said, “Have you heard about Timothy?” He went to Iconium, and the brothers said, “Have you seen Timothy?” Paul said, “Well, do I know Timothy?”
We do not know if Timothy was converted on Paul’s first trip, or subsequently through the preaching of the gospel, or simply by seeing the Lord in His house, because the Lord is very present in His house.
However, Timothy was not only saved, but there was something in Timothy. He had learned the Lord in the house. Think of that. There were no apostles there. Maybe somebody traveled through occasionally, but basically they were on their own.
The life of the Lord Jesus not only built up the church in Lystra—which is probably where Timothy came from, though perhaps Derbe—but in any case, all the churches were being built by the life of God. Even servants were beginning to be raised up, like Timothy, by the life of God.
Here was a young man who learned the mystery of godliness. He was a godly man. Not only that, he showed that he had certain gifts. When the brothers pointed him out to Paul, and Paul observed him, it was not long before they laid hands on him, sensing he had some special responsibility.
They gave him a special one: “Timothy, carry Paul’s bags.”
Timothy left after being circumcised for the sake of the Jews they would visit subsequently, and Timothy headed out carrying Paul’s baggage. What a great ministry—helping Paul out, and, of course, learning more about the Lord as he watched Paul, a Christ-filled man, preaching the gospel and suffering hardship.
This is how Timothy learned. Would you not like to see servants trained by being in such a house, so full of life, so full of light, so full of His presence? You can learn the Lord in such a house.
Then to be instructed by such a man of God as Paul—this was not the kind of training where Paul said, “Now, I want you to cut one point off your sermon, because we all know it is three points and a poem, and you had four. Cut one.”
No, it was not that kind of training. It was, “Watch.” Then, after a while, it was, “Go ahead. Try.”
You can imagine one day Paul is out there in the square preaching the gospel, and he gets a little hoarse. He says, “Okay, Tim, take over.” Timothy says, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. The ferocious Paul, the great gospel preacher, has been preaching in the market. Now Tim gets up there—hello, everybody.”
But something was stirred in him. He had some gift, and by the grace of God he preached the gospel, and some people got saved.
On that second journey, it was not long until Paul saw the Macedonian vision and went over into Greece and Macedonia. Going on to Athens, he left Timothy behind and said, “Timothy, take care of some of this stuff in Berea.” What? This is amazing. The life of the Lord trains the servants. This is the way it should be.
When Paul writes 2 Timothy, he is now in jail, about to be martyred. Perhaps four or five years after he wrote 1 Timothy, and perhaps eight years after he had originally been in Ephesus building the church, there has been a great change.
Paul has experienced during his imprisonment that many of his co-workers had abandoned him. You know, when things get tough in prison, they abandoned Paul like rats on a sinking ship and left him alone, except for Luke, as he testified.
When things get hard, people go back home, like Peter did when he went back fishing after Jesus had died. So many of the servants had, well, gone back here and there, leaving Paul alone in jail.
Paul had this clear sense within him that his hour of death, his martyrdom, was soon approaching, and he wrote this last letter. He had already received reports from Ephesus and the other churches in Asia Minor.
By this time, Timothy was probably going through this church for a season and that church for a season, overseeing things and helping with the development of the church. But the church had lost some of the vitality of the house of God and had become a large house, as we read in 2 Timothy 2:20.
Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor.
It was a large house. That does not necessarily mean that the church had grown in size, although probably that happened. This is a picture of the church as a whole.
“Now, Timothy, I want you to be aware of something. You are dealing with a large house. There are some vessels of honor there—praise God—gold vessels, silver vessels, tried by the Lord, trained by the Lord, given to the Lord. But there are some vessels of dishonor there too. Heads up, Timothy. Things are a lot different now.”
In this house, I am sure you have been where there has been great blessing, but there are also great problems. There is some heresy. Truth is not standing as a pillar as it once stood in this large house.
There are actually many truths being shared, some saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and various gangrene heresies, because the truth does not stand clear anymore. Things have changed.
The word of God is sometimes spoken, but there is also much confusion in this large house. And in the large house, the life of the Lord—so present within individual believers and in the sense of His presence there—is no longer there.
Now how can the servant be trained without that life?
Let us read a few verses to get an idea of some of the compromise and some of the problems that have now become part of this large house. In 2 Timothy 3, beginning with verse 1:
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God;
holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.
Avoid such men as these.
Brothers and sisters, he is talking about Christians in the house.
The house no longer has the cross for the door. This is a complete listing of self-life. Every sort of expression of self now exists in the large church: self-ambition, self-profit, self-expression, selfishness—self over God.
If the cross is not the door of the house of God, you have a large, confusing house. Thank God, still with precious vessels, but also filled with this kind of carnality. Christ crucified is no longer the message and the truth of the house.
The testimony of the large house even becomes a stumbling block to people receiving Christ. This is a picture of the church today—the whole church scene. It is full of self. It is compromised.
If that list is not the contemporary list of problems and situations being dealt with in the church today, then I do not know what is. So many books written in so-called Christianity today are self-books.
It is hard to know what to say. There is so much confusion there. The fact of the matter is, it is a stumbling block to non-Christians to see the church.
When they see it on television, some of it is the worst display of carnality. Or they see it in its worldliness, out there building some huge monument to somebody or something. The world is not impressed.
I remember going on my first trip to India, deep into the interior of Tamil Nadu. After a Land Rover ride way out somewhere with medical missionaries, I preached the gospel. The people listened with rapt attention.
I preached the gospel with an interpreter, of course. Afterwards, somebody came up to me and said, “You know what? What you shared about Jesus is so wonderful. I had never heard this before.”
Then they said, “But we could not become Christians because of the church that is here in our village.” They had actually made slaves out of people to work in the place and had a terrible reputation.
You find this in so many places. I had a fellow seminary student who wanted to go into foreign missions. He went on a missions trip to look at a particular station in Brazil that he was thinking of joining. He came back and left the ministry.
After a while, I asked him, “What happened?” He said, “I went down there, and this missionary had a huge plantation. He was making huge amounts of money. He had his own private plane. He lived a life of luxury. He had slaves employed—that was his church members—working in the fields for free.”
He said, “I asked him, ‘What is this? What is this?’” The missionary said, “Ah, the Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and I know how to milk them.”
If we want to start giving examples, this thing could never end.
But I will give you just one more. One time, I used to hold a series of meetings on Tuesday nights in the village where I lived on Long Island. It was a little gospel meeting. Every Tuesday night, we hired an auditorium. We never filled the auditorium, but we hired it.
One night, I invited a rabbi I played tennis with to come and speak on what was wrong with the Christian church. In turn, I spoke on what was wrong with the Jewish faith, from our perspectives.
I gave him the right to go first. He was very bold to take this. He stood up—he was a chaplain in the army—and said he had always wondered about Christians because our gospel is a gospel of love, yet we are so divided.
“Your love is not true,” he said.
What I had to say about Judaism could hardly compare with that. What a stumbling block the large house is.
I do not know; we have gotten used to this. We have gotten a little hardened about the whole thing. But when you consider the number of assemblies that call themselves the church, even in a city like Richmond, when we should all be one, you realize what a stumbling block is involved.
A large house—its condition is compromised. This is not surprising to a student of the Word of God. When you study the Word of God, you see that in this present age the mysteries of the kingdom are at work.
When Jesus spoke in Matthew 13 on the mysteries of the kingdom, we can see operations taking place that tend to corrupt the kingdom work of this present age.
When you read those parables in Matthew 13, you see that Jesus, first of all, is faithful to sow the seed. He sows the gospel. People get saved. The seed is sown in the kingdom. He sends out servants to sow, and so on.
But when He has finished sowing the seed, some of that seed begins to grow but becomes overtaken. What started as a mustard seed—the faith—grows into this huge tree because of man’s corruption, because man builds kingdoms.
What started as a living house becomes a huge tree. In Daniel 2, we see that the tree is a type of Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom. This is what a tree indicates in Matthew 13.
It is not God’s will that the church be this huge gangly tree where evil birds can nest. That is not God’s plan, but this is the mystery of the kingdom. Somehow man gets his hand on it. The church becomes political. It becomes a power thing, and you go—whoa.
I saw a few nights ago on Fox News—I confess, I watch it quite a bit—a Catholic historian talking quite unabashedly about the fact that, as the pope was severely declining, there was behind-the-scenes politics among men seeking to become the next pope.
They were handing out gifts and promising things to various cardinals if they were elected pope. He spoke about an Italian man who was the heir apparent, but also a man from Africa and a whole third-world movement trying to take over and claim the papacy. There was a whole thing going on back there.
This is not the house of God. But there is just as much politics in a single unaffiliated church. This kind of corruption makes the large house a compromise.
Jesus also shares in the mystery that even that which began as a loaf has had leaven—the leaven of human flesh—sneaked into it. Eventually the loaf, this testimony, this thing that is growing, is corrupted. It is inevitable.
Not only that, but according to the mysteries, God sows servants of the kingdom into the world, and Satan sows tares—servants of his—into the same place. Satan even has an effect on this large house in the end. He has sown in many antichrists who have gone out from among us.
The large house is in a compromised condition, as you clearly can see, and it is borne out by the history of the church. Some people take the seven churches in Revelation as the progressive declension of the church down through history. It is basically the same story.
But do not forget that Jesus shared two more mysteries, only with His disciples behind closed doors. He said, “Now let Me tell you another mystery about the kingdom. It is like treasure hidden in the field.”
Many people think this is talking about Jesus as the treasure we have found, but Jesus is talking about the treasure He has found. This answers the question: “Jesus, why do You keep sowing if everything gets corrupted by man’s fiddling?”
He says, “What do I do? What is My reaction? Keep on sowing. Keep on sowing.”
“Jesus, why are You doing this? Why are You being so gracious, so faithful, so merciful? Why do You keep sowing in this corrupted situation? Why do You keep blessing? Why do You keep helping?”
He says, “I have a secret. I have found the treasure—a special people—and I am digging them out of the ground right now. They are a treasure to Me.”
“And let Me tell you another thing. You know who I am? I am a pearl merchant, and I have found just the one I want. I am selling all My stuff. I am availing all My resources, because here is the secret: even while all that corruption is going on, it is producing a pearl—My pearl, what I am waiting for.”
There is good news in the mysteries of the kingdom as well. The Lord keeps on sowing. He has an end in mind.
Behind the mystery of the large house, which we see around us today, many saints become discouraged and say, “Well, what is the use?” But the fact of the matter is, brothers and sisters, technically speaking, we are not in an age of the house of God. We are in the age of the large house.
We all live under the influence of the large house. If you want to put it in Revelation terms, we are all in the Laodicean age.
The sovereign Lord knew this. This did not catch Him by surprise. The corruption, the problems, and the compromise did not surprise the Lord.
Our sovereign Lord, in His wisdom, has a reaction to it all. As I said, first of all, He keeps sowing. I will list three reactions, and then we will go on and look at the servant in this house.
The first thing the Lord does in reaction to corruption and decline is, by His mercy, He sends revival. He raises up men who touch the hearts of people. They repent, and there is revival. The church experiences some refreshing, even the presence of the Lord, for a season.
But the house is built on a shabby foundation. Revivals last for a certain period of time and then dissipate. The condition of the large house is shown for us in type in the Old Testament in the days of the judges.
They did not have a king, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The life of the children of Israel went up and down like a roller coaster: sometimes worshiping God, sometimes worshiping idols, sometimes high, sometimes low.
Every time they got low, the people cried out. What did God do? He raised up a revivalist. A judge was raised up, delivered the people, and set them free. They got excited, worshiped the Lord, and forsook the idols.
Then the judge passed away, and they went back down again. They had no foundation because they had no king. Everybody did what was right in his own eyes because there was no cross.
God’s purpose was for a kingdom with a king on the throne, where the situation could be stabilized. But as long as there was nothing, it was just up and down, and the Lord had mercy.
Today, in the large house, the Lord is really merciful. When people really cry out, He answers them. Thank God for revivals. You hear about reviving in a country—suddenly there is a flash fire in a certain country, thousands of people get saved, and the church comes back into some testimony of reality.
The people confess their sins. They try to live a life of godliness. But they do not understand the foundations. They think they can rebuild on shaky foundations, and sooner or later it all ebbs away.
How does God react? He keeps sending revival. He keeps sending revival. If you need revival, call out to the Lord. He is merciful.
The second thing He does is call out a remnant to stand as a testimony of this house of God. This house is in the heavens and cannot be touched by man’s hands. It is pure. It is full of the glory of Christ.
He chooses a remnant of people and tells them to gather together, to be a testimony to the house of God, to stand on a true foundation, for Jesus, holding fast to the Head, Jesus Christ; to have first love for Jesus; and to be willing to sacrifice all.
It is a very costly thing, but some people try to gather this way and say, “We want to be a testimony that Jesus is the Lord of His house, and that the house is the house of the living God.”
They take this stand of testimony. Now, they can never be the house of God as in the old days, because how can they be the house of God? Let us say, for the sake of argument, that we began an assembly in Manhattan where I live.
Let us say there were thirty-five people gathering together, saying, “Lord, we want to testify to the house of God.” This is a reality before the Lord. But we could not say, “We are now the house of God.”
Why? Because there are thousands of other Christians in Manhattan who are not gathering with us. You cannot be the house of God until we are one together. But we can testify to it.
I know what I say here is controversial, and I am willing to take the criticism. But I think we should realize this: in the large house, the Lord is very merciful. When people call out to Him, He blesses them, revives them, and helps them.
But do not take His mercy as an indication that He is satisfied with a large house. Do not say that He winks at divisions or winks at human ambition. The Lord is merciful, but He has a desire.
Brothers and sisters, again we find in the Book of Acts that Saul and Barnabas and the other men at Antioch were ministering to the Lord. They were fasting and praying and ministering to the Lord.
They probably worshiped Him and came before Him. There were probably concerns in the church at Antioch that they wanted to ask the Lord about. But among all the other ministrations to the Lord, surely something came forward in their time together. They said, “Lord, what do You want?”
The Lord said, “I want to send out Saul and Barnabas to build the house of God in other places.”
I challenge everybody here, especially those who are in the large house: ask the Lord what He wants. See if He is satisfied with things. The fact of the matter is, to be honest with you, I cannot think of an assembly I know that could not do with a healthy repentance right now.
On the other side of this coin, there are those who gather together humbly to be a testimony of the house of God. Somewhere the Lord gives them some small modicum of success, and they get proud. They think they are it.
But here is the issue regarding that testimony. If such a gathering of God’s people, trying to recover God’s house and testimony, leaves its first love, there is no testimony.
If they stop holding fast to the Head, there is no testimony. If they do not continue to lay down their lives and have the Lord deal with them by the cross, there is no testimony there.
In one sense, such a community is worse off than the large house because they have a delusion that they are something they are not. There is nothing worse than Philadelphia becoming Sardis.
Saints who love the Lord and keep His word can gain a reputation and then begin doing things sloppily rather than orderly. Godliness ceases to be part of His house. People’s garments become spotted and stained with unrighteousness. That cannot be the testimony of the house of God.
The testimony of the house of God is this: “Whose house you are, if you hold fast the confession firm unto the end.” There is no fellowship or group immune from losing its lampstand. In this day, it should sober us all.
The third thing the Lord does in His sovereign wisdom is not only revive His people and recover a testimony, but use the difficult situations in the large house to produce vessels of honor.
Only God can take difficult situations and make good come out of them. If you were a servant in the house of God, it would be much more wonderful. You could learn the Lord by His very presence.
But now here you are, a servant like Timothy, and he has to serve God in this large house. First of all, he does not have that presence there—that self-correcting presence.
Have you been in the house of God and sensed His presence in such a way that it is self-correcting in your life? You say, “Oh, I am glad I did not say that.” Thank God for His light when it is in the assembly.
But when you are in a large house, a person can do just about anything he wants, as long as it is entertaining. How can God produce vessels of honor, gold and silver vessels, in such an atmosphere of compromise?
Here is how He does it. It is no secret: by grace.
Let us look in 2 Timothy 2. There is grace shown to us in verse 1:
You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Paul is speaking specifically to Timothy. “Timothy, I know God is making you serviceable. I know God has made you a chosen vessel. Now, Timothy, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
Not to be technical for a moment, but this actually says in the Greek, because it is middle voice—not active, not passive, but middle—literally: “Timothy, my son, strengthen yourself in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
There is a little difference there, if you notice. Of course, you serve by the grace of God, and grace is freely given. But Paul is talking to Timothy about the kind of maturity that not only realizes all is done by the grace of God, but steps out halfway and takes hold of the grace of God.
He does not just wait for grace, as it were, to pour out completely on him. “You strengthen yourself in the grace.” It is there for you, but you must take it. That is a sign of somebody becoming a mature servant of God.
They do not just wait around for some kind of impulse completely from heaven. They sense the grace of God there, take it by faith, and strengthen themselves in that grace.
Young people, I want to take a little moment to speak about something here—a little side issue. He is talking about exercising your will and taking the grace of God.
Today, in our circles, with the recovery of worship—and what I consider wonderful worship—many of the songs people are writing today are wonderful songs. But there is something wrong if we do not take a fuller view.
The worship songs being written today are intensely emotional: “Oh Lord, I am desperate for You.” But if you do not exercise your will, that song means nothing.
If you are truly desperate for the Lord, I can tell. You are in the Word. You are on your knees. You are spending an hour when you come home from school just seeking the Lord in His will. That is somebody desperate.
But I have a feeling Christians are going to this little emotional place. They worship God and tell Him, “Oh, I give You everything. You are everything to me. I cannot exist without You.” Then they come out and remain passive.
Without the exercise of being strong in the grace, take hold of the things you have been given. You must make a choice. It is not all just floating on you and you pick it up by osmosis.
You sit there and go, “Oh, oh.” Or, more likely now, “Jesus, Jesus,” and somehow grace comes down through your hands. You do not study the Bible. You are overwhelmed by the Bible. No. You have a choice.
His grace is there, but you must take it. That is how you become a servant of God.
“Timothy, my son, there used to be grace for you,” Paul says. “Timothy, when you got up in the morning and were too lazy to read the Word, I said, ‘Timothy, come on over here. Let us read the Word together.’”
“Now, Timothy, I am about to die. I want to see servants who are able to take hold of the grace of God on their own.” It is a step of maturity. Timothy, step into it.
Here is what it is like, Timothy. I will give you four examples of what I mean when I say, “Take hold of the grace of God.” You are to pass the torch of what I have shared with you on to other people.
The first illustration in verse 2 is like a relay race, where you pass the torch on. Here there are four passings.
“Timothy, you have sat there and received teaching from me. You have heard the truth. You have taken down notes. It is in your heart. It is in your mind. Now, Timothy, you have received that grace. Take hold of the grace to pass it along.”
“You take the torch, because Timothy, I am dying. I am out of here. I am going soon. You take my torch and pass it on to faithful men—not just anybody. You find faithful men as I found you. You pass that torch on to them, and they will pass it on to others.”
There are four people in that race. Timothy, you have a vital connection. You have it straight from my mouth—words you heard in the witness and presence of many people. Take that thing and pass it on.
Young people, the things you have heard and put in your book, pass them on. Take that grace. You have received it. It is in the bank. It is in your mind. It is in your heart. Are you just going to create a library of notes?
Take hold of the grace. Be a runner in the race.
“Suffer hardship as a soldier, Timothy.” It takes grace to suffer hardship.
Listen to what Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:6-8:
For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.
What is he saying? “Timothy, I know I am in prison now, and you are starting to become afraid of what future persecutions may hold. You are beginning to bury your gift.”
“No, Timothy. Take hold of grace. Suffer hardship as a good soldier. Kindle the gift you have in you. Accept your calling. Step out and join me in suffering for the sake of the gospel.”
Brothers and sisters, if you will serve God, you will suffer. But if you set your mind to suffer, three-quarters of the suffering goes right then.
Take hold of grace, Timothy. Do not hide and cower in the corner and say, “Oh, Paul is gone now. I do not know what to do.” You have received a gift. Stir it up. You have received a calling. Fulfill your calling. Serve. Suffer. Preach the gospel. Be faithful.
Look how Paul puts it in 2 Timothy 4:1-2:
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
preach the word;
be ready in season and out of season;
reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
The time is coming when nobody will listen to you.
If you are going to be a soldier, you have to take grace. Every one of us is over-blessed with prosperity and blessings. Every one of us has too much money and too many things—well, there are a few exceptions here, but I do not know who you are.
You have all those blessings. Do not get entangled in that stuff. A good soldier does not carry around a fifty-inch TV screen. You cannot carry that with you to Iraq. You have to have one of those little watch TVs.
I mean, man cannot be without television today. Do not get encumbered by all the things you have. Do not ever let that make you say no to the Lord.
The Lord calls you to obey Him, to go somewhere, to do something. You are a soldier in the army. It is not time to sit back. Do not get entangled by those things, because here is your desire if you are a good servant of God by the grace of God: “I want to please Jesus, my General. Dear Jesus, my General, help me.”
We all tend toward the world. “Lord, take anything out. Just tear my knuckles off anything that is going to keep me from serving You.” It takes grace to be a good soldier. Bear hardship. Take up the cross.
Such an old phrase: “If you want to follow Me, take up the cross.” Oh, how we need that. There are so many self-indulgent people in the house of God. They go over to that emotional corner of how much they love Jesus, but their will is not exercised to take hold of the grace of God and be obedient in the house of God.
That is what it takes to be a servant: grace.
Then he says, here is an amazing thing: an athlete who runs, who goes to the Olympics, needs the grace of self-discipline.
I say grace-discipline, because a runner has to get up every morning, whether it is hot or cold, snow or rain, and run six miles. Otherwise, there is no hope of getting into the Olympics. He is disciplined. It takes tremendous discipline.
But the fact of the matter is, it is not self-discipline. It is grace-discipline.
I marvel at people who have real discipline. We even have a sister here this morning who is an amazing piano player, but she has to practice hours and hours a day. Would that not get old? Except by the grace of God.
Anybody who is disciplined in athletics, or in any real discipline, gets up in the morning and says, “Ah, man, I do not want to go through this. I have so many pains. I took the Advil. I am still sore.”
But they know that once they get out and start chugging a little bit, the endorphins—or whatever—start kicking in. Then they say, “Hey, this is why I was born.”
But you have to take hold of that grace. When you come to the Word of God in the morning, people say, “Oh, I cannot even read this morning. My eyes are blurry.” Well, stand up, put a magnifying lens on, turn on the lights, and start to read. Then the Lord can take over.
By His grace, you become disciplined in the Word of God. To be a runner in the race, you have to be grace-disciplined.
I do not like the term self-discipline, because some people are self-disciplined. I live in New York City, and the New York Times is about seven hundred pages thick. Everybody goes out Sunday morning in my neighborhood, gets the New York Times, and carries it home—usually two people have to carry it.
They sit with their coffee and read the whole thing: the advertisements, the obituaries, the want ads, everything. Then, if somebody is a Christian, they say, “Well, I should read my Bible,” and they open their Bible.
That is because it takes God’s grace-discipline in your life to exercise yourself unto godliness. If you think you can do it by your own strength, you will see how miserably you have failed.
The enemy will try to soften you up and distract you, but discipline yourself unto godliness. That means take hold of the life within you to do what you are supposed to do.
If you are going to be an athlete, you have to do it by the rules. There are no shortcuts in service. You have to run the whole course.
Take hold of the grace like a farmer does. Oh, farmers. When I was in school training for the ministry, I was a pastor in a rural area. I saw these farmers, and many of them worked all day at the Cummins Engine factory, then came back at night and worked until three o’clock in the morning.
At plowing time, sowing time, cultivating time, or watering time, they were up all night. Then they went out to work. They were hardworking farmers.
It takes grace, especially if your crop died last year because of drought and the year before because of locusts. How on earth are you going to plant and work and work and work all year this year? By grace.
And because you expect the reward.
My wife and I used to love to go over to farmers’ houses because we were students and did not have much money. Whenever farmers sent cows off to be slaughtered, they kept the best cows for themselves.
When they pulled those steaks out of the freezer, we got number-one prime steak. Farmers keep back the best and send the rubbish off to market. You know that is true, as any farmer should rightly do.
By the grace of God, can you work? By the grace of God, can you wait for your reward? This is what Paul asks Timothy to do as he speaks about these matters of grace.
Take hold of that grace. It is a matter of your will, dear brothers and sisters. It is not just all a feely-good kind of thing. I find myself caught in something where I am in a season of loving Him. It is standing up and saying, “I know there is grace for me. I take hold of it now in Jesus’ name,” and then you do it.
There are some other areas we can look at here. You have the point; this is really all I need to say. But let us look at a few things that the servant of God chooses to do.
Here is the difference: a servant of God must learn by grace to choose to make the right decisions. How do you become godly? You make the right decisions. How do you learn to serve the Lord? You make the right decisions.
Here are just a few more decisions that need to be made in the life of an aspiring servant. Such a noble thing.
In 2 Timothy 2:22, here is one thing you need to choose if you want to be a servant of God: you have to choose who you are going to run with.
Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.
Brothers and sisters, may God be true and all of us liars. Sometimes Christians tell me, “Well, I am just stuck. I go to a school where there are no Christians.”
“I go to a college, a university of twenty-four thousand students. There are no Christians in my university. I work at a job. I tell you, there are no Christians on my job.”
Here is the truth: there are always those who call on the name of the Lord with a pure heart. Thank God, there are seven thousand. Everywhere there are those who love the Lord.
Who are you going to run with? The worldly crowd, the jet-setters, the handsome dudes, the good athletes, the big men on campus—is that who you are going to run with?
If you want to be a servant of God, run with those who pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, and who call on the Lord with a pure heart.
I must say, brothers and sisters, through the confusion of these last days, I get much encouragement when I see young people who somehow still have a pure heart. What a treasure.
Another thing that a servant of God needs to choose is to be diligent to study the Word of God. Ah, you knew that was coming, did you not?
But is it not interesting? In Timothy, we actually find two references to the necessity of being a good student of the Word of God—not a sloppy student, a careless student, or an occasional student.
In 2 Timothy 2:15:
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
Ah, that self-diligence—grace-diligence. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know what to tell you. When I came out of seminary, out of the large house, I did not know how to divide the Word of God at all. Matter of fact, they had torn it up. They gave me a salad shooter while I was in seminary, and I just put the Word in there.
Stuff would jump out. When I began to hear men who could rightly handle the word of truth, who spoke in context, I realized I had been the king of “ice and Jesus” when I first started speaking. That means I could take anything out of context.
I could preach to you on seven good things to do if you want to escape such a great salvation. Maybe you do not get that. Okay. That is completely taking the thing out of context.
But rightly handling the Word of God takes diligence, discipline, and understanding. It takes underlining, word references, and study. You have to go to the computer and look up some words.
You know what? Timothy had to do that with scrolls—not scrolling.
He had a search engine. It was called his elbows.
But you know what? It is all by grace. Do you know what he had been given by grace? Eunice and Lois. Praise God for that.
In 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Paul says:
You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them,
and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Praise God. When Timothy was a little boy, his mama Eunice used to read him the scrolls, and his grandmother Lois would also read him a verse or two. He grew up just breathing the Scriptures.
A servant, a noble servant, has the word of Christ richly dwelling within him.
I know that because we are dealing with Timothy, we are talking about a man preaching and ministering the Word. But this applies to anybody in the house of God who wants to be an effectual servant.
If you are visiting the sick, you need to be a student of the Word. If you are one who helps young Christians become grounded in the Bible, you need to know the Word. If you are a witness, you need to know the Word.
Every servant in the house of God needs to diligently study the Word of God. There is grace for you to do it. You have been given so much already.
I wish I could take you all in one huge chartered plane, take you over to Russia, dump you out on the streets, and let you talk about the things you know that you take for granted, because it is brand new to them.
When I stand there and teach in the Bible school in Russia, they sit there on pins and needles, writing things down as fast as they can. They have never heard the things you are falling asleep listening to.
Oh, how we need to be diligent in the Word of God. It is a choice you make. It is a choice you make. Do not say, “I will be diligent later.”
If you heard Lance yesterday afternoon, he was very funny. He kept talking about how people put things off until later. “Well, I am in high school with too much effort. When I go to college, I will have more time.” Yeah, right.
Then you go to college: “Well, I cannot study the Word now. I just listen and absorb. You know, totally grace-dependent. I am still on welfare.” Then you get out, get married, and so on. It keeps going. You do not have time.
Until you take hold of the grace of God, you make time. It is a choice that you make.
Another thing you do is guard what you have received. This is something I do not know if we quite understand. The Lord can give us many wondrous things that we can lose through laziness, lack of diligence, or the enemy’s schemes.
In 2 Timothy 1:13-14, what is it that we need to guard?
Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
Older versions say, “the good deposit which has been entrusted to you.” I wonder if you can imagine what word we have fallen upon here. “Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in you,” it says literally in Greek, “the noble thing that has been entrusted to you.”
Kalós—the same word for noble, honorable. Guard those noble things.
Verse 13 is part of the context: the sound teaching you have received—guard that. The things the Lord has done in your life—guard that. The testimony where you know God showed up and He was real—guard that.
Otherwise, the enemy will take that right out of your mind, and you will say, “I do not know if God exists.” Surely He has done great things for you. Guard those things. They are part of that noble treasure you have.
The Holy Spirit, that anointing within, says, “Now wait a minute. You are about to spill. You are about to leak. You are getting involved in something that is going to leak out some of what I have worked into you.”
“There is a deposit. There is a measure of Myself that is in you. Do not leak that out by going into worldliness, going into laziness, or pursuing something that is not from Me.”
We can lose things. It is a terrible thing to see somebody who knew the Lord, tasted the Lord, tasted the things to come, and tasted the power of God in his own life, and then turned away.
Oh, what a tragedy. What a dead walking—a person without purpose, life, or meaning. They left the very noble part of their life.
Guard that through the Holy Spirit. A servant of God chooses to guard those things the Lord has given.
Paul says, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded He is able to keep that which I have committed.” Paul commits things unto the Lord for the Lord’s keeping.
Well, it is time to close. I want to exhort us before the Lord this morning to be a vessel of honor, a noble vessel, by the grace of God.
If the times are made difficult because of the large house, the grace is therefore more abundant. As Lance said yesterday, it is commensurate with the problems.
God gives us great grace and mercy. In the end, He gives us mercy.
Perhaps I can close by noting this. I am sure you noticed that Paul changed his salutation when writing to Timothy. When he writes to the churches, he always asks for the blessing of grace and peace.
But when he writes to Timothy, his fellow servant, he says, “Grace, mercy, and peace.”
Anyone who will be a servant of God will experience God’s unbelievable mercy, because you will fail. He will say, “Keep going.” You will make mistakes, and He will say, “Shake it off and go on.”
His mercy. Paul says it is by His mercy that we faint not. A servant of God receives such mercy.
What is the basis? How is it that you can take this grace, this unusual grace in these days? How can you be so full of grace that you could be this kind of person, this kind of faithful servant, this kind of vessel of honor?
Here it is: it is the mystery of godliness.
When you set yourself to serve the Lord, He is the One who does it. He is the One who wills it, and He is the One who performs it. He has chosen you as His vessel, and He gives you enabling grace to do the things you commit yourself to doing.
You must step forward and take the grace, and then He takes you and enables you to do what is impossible for man but possible with God.
The mystery of godliness is that you do by the grace of God, but it is not you; it is the grace of God in you. Something has captured you and is moving you along, but you are the one who has given yourself to that grace.
So the servant of God is made serviceable, useful to the Lord, adequate for every good work. Oh, may the Lord help us.
The Lord wants a church in glory. The Lord wants servants who are faithful, who in their own house and in their own lives manifest something of the presence of God. May the Lord help us.
In my early days, a number of years ago, I wrote a song. It was when I left the large house, actually. I left it feeling that God wanted the church to be one, and that the only way the church could ever be one was for me personally to be willing to die, and for everyone to be willing to die.
I do not usually sing much anymore, but I felt the Lord pressing me this morning to sing this song. I would like you just to listen to the words. It is simply a prayer that the house of God could be one again in all its glory.
Oh Lord, I see it now,
I see the church as one:
no walls, no barriers,
nothing in between.And the world can see
You have come.
Oh Lord, You know my heart,
and though I want Your perfect way,
the church in unity,
reflecting all Your beauty,
so the world can see
You have come.
You would think it would be such a simple thing
for saints to live together.
But every effort tried by man
has failed to make us one.Now I will have to die,
self be crucified.
I hear the trumpet sound,
and the angels sing
as the bride steps forward,
pure, clean,
longing for her Husband.And Jesus, Lord, You are the One.
So I guess I will simply have the fellowship
of those who bear the testimony
that Jesus Christ is Head of His church.
He is love.To whom else can I go?
You alone have the life that I need.