Let us read together from 2 Timothy 2.
We are continuing an extended series on generations. Because these messages are months apart, I—and probably all of us—forget some of what has been said before. But we may vaguely remember that these talks have concerned the different age groups in the house of God.
The church is the family of God. This is His place and His way. His heart is from generation to generation. He designed human beings to have different age groups on purpose. Even before the fall of man, we were destined to be different ages. Adam and Eve would have children who were different ages than they were, and their children would have children of different ages. This is the Lord’s heart.
In the church, there is also a way that we relate to one another. These are some of the things we have been discussing, and we want to continue with them.
I want to read from 2 Timothy 2:19-22:
Yet the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor.
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.
But flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
Let us pray together.
Lord, we entrust this time into Your hands. We seek Your face, and we desire this morning also to pursue You together—to be in this together and to be part of the family of God in our experience. We desire to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire of You in Your temple.
Lord, we come to You together and pray that You would bless this time of fellowship with Your presence among us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
As I was saying, the family of God is different. We are all a little unique. One thing we have discussed is that we relate to one another knowing that we are in different age groups.
In 1 Timothy 5, Paul says that when Timothy exhorts an older brother, he should exhort him as he would his father. That is different from the way he would address his own peer. There is a respect related to age. This has to do with how we relate to one another and how we make it easier to receive from one another.
When Timothy relates to a younger brother, he relates to him as a peer. If you are a little older than someone, you try simply to see them in Christ and not even notice their age. But if you know that a person could physically be your father, you give him the same respect, care, gentleness, and way of speaking that you would give your father.
It is an easier way to fellowship. The more we do this, the more we discover that, as we know each other in Christ, age is no longer noticed in the midst of fellowship and in the sharing of Christ.
We came to the point of discussing how one generation leads the way and another generation, younger or coming into the truth and reality, catches it from the former. The picture of a baton race or relay race came up.
This is actually found in 2 Timothy 2:2:
And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
Here we have the picture of a relay race, or the passing on of a torch as in the Olympics. One person hands the torch or baton to another.
Timothy had received from the apostle Paul the testimony Paul was carrying—the way of life and the ministry in which he served. Timothy had been with Paul in this. He caught it and gained it for himself. Now the exhortation was: pass this on to another. Pass it on so that the testimony will continue beyond your years.
If the Lord delays, Timothy too would pass away. Though he was young Timothy here, he fell asleep, just as the apostle Paul died. Paul says not only to pass it on to others, but to pass it on to those who will pass it on to others.
There are four groups in this passage: Paul passes to Timothy; Timothy passes to others; and those others pass it on to still others. There is this whole relay of passing on and passing on.
There is a time when you are coming into this experience and catching what the apostle Paul has. Timothy was taken from his local assembly, where he was already serving and loving the Lord, and became a companion of the apostle Paul.
At first, Timothy was probably not running at the same speed as Paul. At first he helped Paul in regular ways, according to the measure he had. But gradually, as they prayed together, Paul could say:
I have no man likeminded, who will care truly for your state.
For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.
But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child serveth a father, so he served with me in furtherance of the gospel.
—Philippians 2:20-22
They shared prayer together regularly, and Timothy gained some hold on the torch of the testimony. He gained something of the Lord’s heart.
Through experience after experience, Timothy learned the ways of the Lord as he served alongside Paul. Paul was running full speed, carrying the torch of the testimony, and Timothy was swept up into that and caught up to his speed.
At a certain point, especially in the setting of 1 Timothy, they were running at the same speed, holding the torch of the testimony together. Timothy was left in Ephesus to meet certain needs, while Paul had to go on. Timothy was well equipped.
Paul had shared with Timothy the reminders and details necessary for the saints to know how they ought to conduct themselves in the house of God. Normally, Paul would lay hands on elders and establish elders in a new testimony or church gathering. But Timothy had served with Paul for years and was well able at that point.
Through all that time of running the race together, Timothy was thoroughly trained. The good deposit was in him. He was able, through his own walk with the Lord and his character, to recognize those who ought to serve.
In 1 Timothy, we see a good setting—a nearly ideal setting. The church is, for the most part, as it ought to be. There are elders, deacons, the Holy Spirit’s order, and care for widows. Paul is able to write many details.
We used the picture of David sharing with Solomon concerning the house of God. David could share detail after detail: room after room, materials, measurements, and the pattern for the temple. This is the kind of thing you can do when everything is glorious and as it ought to be.
As we run the race together, whatever maturity the Lord has brought us into—in our personal walk, testimony, and the practice of the church—must be shared. We cannot assume that everyone understands.
Even if someone serves in what seems like a minor ministry, or is simply part of the regular gatherings of the church, it is helpful to explain these things. A second generation may intuitively know what feels right and wrong, but it is still helpful for the details to be made clear.
Even with Timothy, after his years of travel and service with Paul, Paul spells out details concerning conduct in the house of God—especially order and government in the church. He speaks about the character needed in an elder, elders worthy of double honor, financial care, and the widows’ list. These things are carefully established.
But what happens when things fall apart? What happens when all the details have been given, yet the ways of learning how to act and behave collapse?
This is what has happened by the time we get to 2 Timothy. Paul says that all Asia has turned away from him. He is in prison again—but this is not the prison at the end of Acts, where he rented his own dwelling and could receive visitors.
This is the prison where he is about to die. It is dark, damp, and cold. He tells Timothy, “Give diligence to come shortly unto me,” and, “The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest.” He says, “Do thy diligence to come before winter.”
Paul knows his time is short. He says:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
—2 Timothy 4:7
This is the baton race again. Paul had run with Timothy and brought him along. They had shared the torch together, and now Paul was beginning to let go of the testimony in the sense of entrusting it to Timothy’s continuing service.
Yet Paul himself did not let go of the torch until he died. He ran all the way. There is no thought of saying, “Now you can do this, and I will simply retire.” It cannot happen like that.
I saw a baton race recently where the pass was sloppy. The person receiving the baton missed it, and they looked foolish as they fell to the ground and picked it up. There are rules in a relay race: the baton must be passed in a certain place. They had to run back to the proper spot and pass it again. By the time they got things together, everyone else had nearly finished the race.
This happens in the church sometimes. Someone says, “Okay, now you can do this. I’ll let you do this.” It may be with good intention: “I want to make room for someone else to serve.”
But when you can share something together for a time—when you can look eye to eye, heart to heart, and catch the heart behind it—it is a different experience.
We can say that if someone dies, the ministry will continue because someone else knows how to do it. But it is not the same. Consider the simple ministry of a door greeter. We may not have an official door-greeter team among us, but it is a loving ministry when someone opens the door, smiles, and receives someone with joy.
A person can be trained to open the door and say the right words. But that is not quite it unless they catch the heart behind it. Behind the scenes, that person may be praying for the saints. When someone arrives, there is a twinkle in their eye because they have been praying for them.
There is something of the testimony of Christ that must happen. If you merely maintain the outward form, it can be trained easily, but the baton has been dropped. The outward activity may look right, but the expression of Christ has been lost.
In the normal setting, the Lord mixes with our encouragement and establishes the next generation. David shared many details with Solomon, but Solomon needed to see that the ark was the most essential thing in the temple of God.
David had known this from his youth. In Psalm 23, he declares, “The Lord is my shepherd,” but he ends with, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” His heart overflowed from knowing the Lord as Shepherd into care for the Lord’s house.
In Psalm 27, David expresses this same desire:
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
—Psalm 27:4
In David’s day there was no temple with the ark inside. The tabernacle of Moses had been emptied of the ark for much of David’s life, from the days when Samuel was young. It had become a tabernacle of outward form.
When David became king, he brought the ark and set it in the tent of David. He had the experience of the house of the Lord. For David, it was obvious that any temple must have the ark at its center. The whole point of the temple was the ark—the presence and testimony of God.
David asked, in effect, “Why should I live in an amazing house while the Lord has only a tent?” Yet he would not put the ark back into the old, dried-up wineskin of the tabernacle of Moses. He knew the people serving there might not even want the ark back. They had feared it since the days of Saul.
Solomon had to catch this directly from the Lord. We may share with one another, but the Lord must personally meet every individual. You cannot catch the torch of the testimony unless you receive it from the Lord Himself.
This is the most important part. You must have personal prayer with Him. Like Solomon, you may begin somewhat confused, offering worship in the wrong place. But as Solomon received from David’s instruction, asked for wisdom, and encountered the Lord, he came to understand: “I need to go back to the ark.” He caught the essence.
This is what has happened in 2 Timothy. The outward form of the church has been crushed. The elders, deacons, and widows’ list have all been torn to shreds. The saints have gone their own ways. What are you going to do now?
People turned from Paul because, as the Romans persecuted him, they also pursued those following the same way. It was a hard time. It was the time the Lord Jesus spoke of in Matthew 13, when the kingdom of the heavens would become too large and corruption would enter.
Now there is a great house, with different kinds of vessels. In 1 Timothy, Paul writes so that believers may know how to conduct themselves in the house of God, “which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”
That is the normal experience of the church. But by the end of Paul’s days, things had changed. The prophecies concerning departure began to be fulfilled.
In 2 Peter 2, Peter speaks of believers turning away from the testimony that Jesus is Lord. This is apostasy. It is not shocking when unbelievers turn away, but when believers do so, something significant has changed.
Jude writes about the same matter, saying that it has now happened among them. By the time John writes his letters, he speaks to Gaius of an assembly that would not receive his letter or those whom he sent. Someone desired the first place.
It is difficult even to imagine: the apostle John, who had walked with the Lord Jesus, could write to a church and not be received. This is the beginning of outward Christianity without Christ.
At the beginning of the first century, these changes were already taking place. By our time, it is especially obvious that things are not as they ought to be. When we read the Scriptures, the church does not always look like what we see around us now—not merely in details, but in the pure reality of the Lord’s presence and the experience of beholding His beauty.
The majority of Christian experience in general has become too large. It is beyond the house of God; it has become a great house.
Paul therefore brings everything down from the details to the most essential. If everything falls apart, if you have to begin again, here is the essence of the torch of the testimony. If all the glitter falls from the torch, here is the fire that makes it a real torch. Here is what truly counts.
Paul says, “Yet the firm foundation of God standeth.” This “yet” includes all the falling apart and all the problems.
Earlier in the chapter, Paul writes:
Faithful is the saying:
For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him:
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him:
If we shall deny Him, He also will deny us:
If we are faithless, He abideth faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.
—2 Timothy 2:11-13
In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul had already spoken of the firm foundation. Christ is the foundation that cannot be moved. But he warned believers to take care how they build, because the materials would be tested by fire at the judgment seat of Christ.
Some would receive a reward, while others would suffer loss. Yet the believer himself would be saved, “yet so as through fire.” A born-again believer may build with the wrong materials on the right foundation of Christ, and his works may be burned up.
By the time of 2 Timothy, the house had become desolate. Some were unfaithful, but the Lord remained faithful. The firm foundation of the Lord still stood.
We were reading with the youth from John 2, where zeal for the Lord’s house consumed the Lord Jesus. He drove out the money changers and removed corruption from the temple. But later, in Matthew 23, He weeps, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” and says, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
Earlier, the temple had been called God’s house, a house of prayer. But something changed. As Jesus approached the cross, it was no longer spoken of as God’s house but as “your house”—a desolate house.
It is similar with 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. In the first letter, the house of God is the pillar and ground of truth. In the second letter, there is a great house.
The firm foundation bears this seal:
The Lord knoweth them that are His: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.
—2 Timothy 2:19
This should remind us of Matthew 7:
Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name cast out demons, and by Thy name do many mighty works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.
—Matthew 7:21-23
Compare these passages. In 2 Timothy 2:19, “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” In Matthew 7, He says, “I never knew you.” Those in Matthew 7 are workers of lawlessness.
The issue is not simply that they are corrupt or sinful people. The issue is that they have no Lord over their actions. It is not wrong to cast out demons or to prophesy in the Lord’s name. The problem is doing works with no Christ involved.
The iniquity is the iniquity of the sanctuary. It is the iniquity of the house of God. All the outward things are happening, but the ark is absent. The presence of the Lord is missing. The testimony is gone.
People may say, “Lord, Lord,” but Jesus is not actually Lord in their testimony. In Revelation 12, the overcomers have the word of their testimony, but that word matches the testimony of their lives. If they say that Jesus is Lord, then their lives are in the reality of that confession.
Almost no Christian would say that they are not trying to gather in the Lord’s name. But we can experience gatherings where someone else is in charge. Christ is not quite Head over the body. We may say His name, but we do not experience that He has gathered us or that He leads the gathering.
Paul says to withdraw from that. The firm foundation still stands. Even if all you see is things falling apart, people building with their own materials, and works done outside the Lord’s leading, the Lord has not changed. The testimony remains, and the flame is still there.
Paul continues:
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor.
—2 Timothy 2:20
It is a shame that he must speak of vessels unto dishonor. In Romans 9, a vessel unto dishonor refers to an unbeliever, such as Pharaoh—a vessel characterized by a stubborn heart of unbelief.
But in this setting, the sad thing is that dishonorable vessels have come among believers and entered the house. The walls have expanded to include things that were not meant to be there.
Consider the house of God in the Old Testament—the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, or the rebuilt temple. It was small. The furniture was precise and valuable, but there was not much of it. There was no room for all the toys and extra furniture that make a house cluttered.
But now it is a large house, with many toys and much extra furniture that needs to be removed. The vessels of honor are gold and silver; the vessels of dishonor are wood and earth.
This brings us again to 1 Corinthians 3, where Paul speaks of gold and silver as materials that withstand the fire, while wood, hay, and stubble are burned. There he addresses personal responsibility in serving the Lord and being among His people.
Wood is not inherently evil. In Scripture, wood often represents humanity. The problem is that the wood is not overlaid with gold. In the Lord’s house, wood is overlaid with gold. Human nature is joined with God’s nature.
Our Lord Jesus came in flesh and dwelt among us. He was truly human, yet the glory of God was there. It was wood overlaid with gold.
When we come into church life merely bringing humanity without God—when we try simply to be good humans or good Christians—we miss what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian is to be with Christ.
We may try to return to the Garden of Eden and be merely good people, but as Christians we have taken of the tree of life. This is a new experience. It is not merely about being a good wooden vessel or a good human being. It is about fulfilling our destiny by walking with the life of God.
We fully act as humans, but we act as humans walking with the Lord. The same applies to earthen vessels.
Usually, we think of the earthen vessel positively because Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 that we have this treasure in earthen vessels. But he speaks there of broken vessels through which the treasure of Christ shines.
In the great house, however, there are earthen vessels in and of themselves. You do not see the treasure within them. This does not necessarily mean they are unsaved; it means that there is only earth—only flesh, only what is of the ground.
Adam’s name relates to earth. He was formed from clay and dust. The earthen vessel especially represents the body. When we are a little broken in our bodies and serving the Lord, the treasure may come out. But if what we represent is merely our body, then we are upside down as human beings.
We are spirit, soul, and body—not body, soul, and spirit. By the time of the flood in Genesis 6, man had become flesh. Whatever the body felt like doing, man did. The soul followed the body.
This carnality leads into worldliness. The earthen vessel becomes filled not with the treasure of Christ but with the treasures of this world. This is why the temptations of the world first come to the body: the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh.
Satan tempted the Lord Jesus by saying, “Command that these stones become bread,” because He was hungry after fasting. Worldliness creeps in when people are merely body, soul, and spirit, rather than being spiritually connected to the Lord Jesus and led by the Spirit.
This is the situation in which we presently find ourselves as Christians, if we look at believers throughout the world. It does not mean that every local setting must become a great house. The call is to have the experience of the house of God.
We all have had our part in the failure. We have all built with wrong materials. We all have something to repent of. We all have wood that needs to be overlaid with the life of God and earthen vessels that need to be broken.
Paul says:
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.
—2 Timothy 2:21
The first call in taking hold of the torch of the testimony is simply not to continue in what is wrong. It may sound foolishly simple, but the call is there: do not do it.
This torch of the testimony has been borne by many believers without their even knowing it. This practice of pursuing the Lord together is caught by many Christians beyond our awareness, because this is the present movement of the Holy Spirit in every believer.
You only fail to go this way when you quiet His voice. The call is among us. It is built into the church by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit and the bride saying, “Come.”
Sometimes we cannot quite explain it, but we know something is not right. There is a desire within us. It may even get you into trouble, depending on where you are in Christianity and what you say or do, but you have the inward sense: “I do not want to do that.”
When I discovered in Galatians that divisions in the church are carnal, it seemed obvious afterward. But I was raised amid division and thought it was simply part of the body of Christ. I was taught that one denomination was the arm, another the foot, and so on.
Then I read the Scriptures and found that it is not like that. It creates another kind of body. In 1 Corinthians 1 and 1 Corinthians 3, following Paul, Apollos, Peter, or even saying, “I follow Christ,” as a basis for separation is called carnal.
When I saw that, I had no torch of testimony in my hand and no idea what I was doing. But secretly, without my realizing it, the Holy Spirit within was saying, “Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord.”
There is a call: if you name the name of the Lord, withdraw from iniquity. You hear this call of the testimony even when you cannot explain it. You discover that something is not quite right, that this practice is not honorable, and you pull away from it.
You say, “I do not know what I am doing, but I cannot name another name besides the name of the Lord. I want to be one with all believers. I do not want to regard this as my special part of the body of Christ.”
The purity Paul speaks of is singleness for the Lord being Lord. If you name the name of the Lord, He must actually be your Lord.
I remember speaking with the pastor who was training me. I told him, “I just cannot be part of a denomination,” and I shared the Scriptures with him. I had no idea that I could gather with believers in pursuit of the Lord and simply gather in His name. I did not think it was possible.
He said, “All you can do is start another division. All you can do is start another name, and you are simply going to have your own church.”
I said, “I do not know what I can do, but I am not going to do that. If everyone is stealing, I am going to stop stealing. If everyone is lying, I am going to stop lying. I see that this thing is not right, and at least in my own life I can stop it.”
If taking your name off a denomination means that you can no longer fellowship with certain believers, that may be the price you pay if you are going to say, “Jesus is my Lord.” If you take hold of the torch of testimony and refuse to be a member of anything except the real heavenly church, you may lose something precious and wonderful.
Sometimes that is the price. But it must start in the individual. Each of us must gain this part of the torch, until the flame burns within us and purifies every other thing.
The Lord goes through the furniture of our inner house and says, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” His zeal comes through, and He tears apart everything within us that is not saying Jesus is Lord—whatever is of the world, whatever is worldly merchandising, whatever is mixed.
This is worth it.
If you have purified yourself from these things, you become a vessel of honor.
None of us can say that we are anything but wooden vessels—mere humans. But by God’s grace, He is with us, and there is gold upon the wood.
None of us can claim to be anything beyond an earthen vessel. But the Lord breaks the earthen vessel and shines the treasure of Christ within. We are not merely earthen vessels; He has put His deposit within us.
Not I, but Christ in me, is a treasure to the Lord.
You become a vessel of honor, set apart for the Lord’s purpose. First, you purify yourself from these things by saying, “Jesus is Lord. I give myself to the Lord in this specific matter.” Then the Lord does something: He sanctifies you and sets you apart.
You are in His house. You become part of His purposeful furniture. Nothing in the temple had no purpose—whether incense representing prayer, bread, light, or sacrifice. Everything had a purpose.
You become useful in the Master’s hands simply because you set yourself apart to Him. What He seeks in His house is Christ. He is looking for Himself.
When we say, “Jesus is my Lord,” the flame is there, and then we can run. We have taken hold of the testimony to run with.
This is the Lord’s present prayer for every one of us. If you can catch the Lord’s heart across all generations, you see that He desires us to finish our course well.
He wants to see men and women, like the apostle Paul, able to say, “I have finished my race. I go to rest. I have completed my time.” If the Lord delays and there is no rapture, He desires us to finish while holding the torch of the testimony—useful in the Master’s hands, set apart, and pleasing to Him.
But He is praying not only for those who have been carrying the torch. He is praying that each of us would become useful to carry it. It is not merely that you understand; it is that you are a useful vessel.
If you are not useful, it does not matter how much you understand. If you cannot function in the house of God in the way of Christ, if you cannot shine the light of Christ, then merely knowing how things work is displeasing to the Lord.
I believe that the Lord knows us by name and prays that each one would be a serviceable vessel. He may not be praying as much that you accomplish five specific tasks as that you become a useful vessel. When you are useful, the tasks are accomplished.
The Lord’s tasks in His house are always an overflow of Christ. As soon as you become a usable vessel, you may not even realize that the Lord is using you to impart Christ, build Christ, and bring the presence of the Lord into the house of God.
This is why the most important thing is that the torch of testimony burns within. The experience that Jesus is Lord must become real. You may look at other Christians and wonder why something that appears acceptable is not acceptable for you. But you obey the still, small voice deep within that says, “It is not okay for you. You come and follow Me.”
“What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” There is an absolute path of following Him. Jesus is your Lord. You take the step, He sets you apart, and step by step you become more useful in His hands.
Then comes the next instruction:
But flee youthful lusts.
—2 Timothy 2:22
Normally, when we read this, we think of Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife and leaving his coat behind. There are certainly many kinds of lusts from which to flee.
But in this context—considering the house of God, the great house, Timothy’s zeal for the Lord’s house, and his absolute testimony that Jesus is Lord—what is the youthful lust?
Timothy was younger than Paul, though not extremely young. The youthful lust is the desire, in the strength of youth, to make everything right.
Imagine a family meeting or brothers’ meeting where there is discussion about how things are going in the church. Something comes up that is an earthen vessel without Christ, or wood without gold. You are zealous for the Lord’s house. How do you respond?
If you are young, or young in the Lord, you may see your parents doing something wrong and become angry. You tell them how wrong they are. You lose gentleness and respect. You cannot hear much because you know you are right.
There is a youthfulness in understanding. There is a strength in knowing how things ought to be that can damage the gathering of the Lord’s people.
Now consider an older person—a battle-worn, wounded veteran who is limping, and something is going wrong. Such a person may have enough patience and grace to receive a few more wounds while gently sharing, “This is probably not the right way.”
Later in this chapter, Paul says to teach and correct those who are wrong, but not to get trapped in disputes. Do not make every matter a major argument. In the great house, some will simply go that way.
The youthful lust from which we must flee is the desire to take the great house and make it the Lord’s house again—to go into the temple with a whip, destroy everything wrong, and crush every work of man in Christianity.
Even if we could take over Christianity and reduce it to its proper size, it would still not become the Lord’s house. The Lord’s house is now hidden within the larger house.
In youthful zeal, we may think we can fix it. I pleaded with the Lord, “Let me fix my denomination. I know how it should be. Let me fix it.” But the answer was, “You cannot. You have to flee. You have to withdraw from iniquity.”
If we flee youthful lusts, then we can do something else. If we do not flee them, we will never discover the Lord’s present way in His house.
You may know how to conduct yourself in God’s house, but if you go from place to place with a whip, saying, “This is not God’s house,” overturning tables and condemning everyone, you will not fulfill the Lord’s call in this time.
This time is different. We are looking for something.
Paul says:
Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
—2 Timothy 2:22
There are others whom you will discover—others who call upon the Lord from a pure heart.
You pursue righteousness personally. You pursue Christ and walk in righteousness, doing righteous works. You pursue faith and live by faith rather than lawlessness and dead works. You live out of love for the Lord, constrained by the love of Christ. You run your race in first love.
You also have peace with God. You walk as spirit, soul, and body. But the element of the house of God must still happen. You must find another and another. There are others. You are not alone.
You are not like Elijah, saying, “I only am left.” There are thousands reserved. You simply need to find them.
You cannot find them while zealously trying to fix everything. But if you look more carefully, you will see Christ here and quiet Christ there. You will find someone who seems to want fellowship too.
Then you begin to fellowship, and together you pursue something larger than individual righteousness. You pursue the righteous works of the church—the righteous acts of the saints, which clothe the bride so that she makes herself ready.
You gather in His name. By faith, you pray together and bring what is in heaven down, because where two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst.
To behold the beauty of the Lord in this way can happen only in His house. This is why David said that he wanted to dwell in the house of the Lord. It must be two or three gathered in His name.
Then His presence comes beyond His inward presence with me. His presence comes through the saints. I behold the beauty of the Lord in the saints, and it is glorious.
You pursue love together. 1 John asks, in effect, how can you say that you love God if you do not love your brother? It is easy to dismiss our brothers if we approach them with youthful lust and an inappropriate zeal for the house of God.
When Jesus returned to Jerusalem in Matthew 23, He did not go in again to fix everything. The tables may have been set up again, but He said, “Your house is left unto you desolate.” Then He gathered His disciples, and they went the way of the cross.
It is similar now. When you do not take that path of judgment, you find a brother and a sister and are able to love one another in the Lord. You gather and spend time together.
You pursue peace together from a pure heart. You have separated yourselves unto the Lord in singleness of heart.
Giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
—Ephesians 4:3
In the house of God, you learn to maintain peace with one another. It is not merely that you have peace with God and walk rightly yourself. You learn the experience of receiving one another because the Lord has received them.
As Romans 14 teaches, you learn how to live together when you do not see every matter in exactly the same way. You do not begin by demanding answers to every question: “Do you have all the teachings right? Do you have all the practices right?”
The question is: can we pursue the Lord together?
Can we run this race together? Can we remain peacefully in the bond of peace, hold the torch of the testimony, and go forward together?
You may find yourself in a group that once sought to do this, but which now seems to be becoming larger than that. Things may have crept in. The Lord’s call is not always simply to run away. Sometimes the call is to overcome.
Fellowship overwhelms death. Life swallows up death. The life of Christ in fellowship changes things. You enter gatherings and bring life, and things change.
Sometimes we find ourselves somewhere and have no idea who is pursuing the Lord. We may not know of a gathering that simply meets in the Lord’s name. We may not know where to go or where to gather.
But the Lord has His reserved believers. Sometimes you are somewhere because you moved for work, school, or some other circumstance. That is not sinful. You simply find yourself there.
You are not left alone.
You are not Elijah, thinking that you are the only prophet. He was wrong. There are believers everywhere; we need to find them.
You have Jesus as your Lord, and you will find someone else who has Jesus as their Lord. You can sit down together in fellowship.
If you are away at college or in some other situation and do not know where to go, can you find one other person with whom to fellowship? Then you can pursue the Lord together.
You may be surprised to discover that the experience of two or three simply gathering in the Lord’s name may count for far more in the house of God than a large experience elsewhere, where the Lord’s name is confused and the gathering is based on other things.
We are free to practice this wherever we are. We are not left without a way forward.
When you know this, it is hallelujah: we can gather with the saints, and we can pursue the Lord together.
I believe this call—the essence of the torch of the testimony—was given to Timothy. When it came down to it, the whole assembly in Ephesus might even have rejected Timothy. The letter does not say that directly, but they may not have listened to him.
But could he find some believers with whom to gather? Could they see one another in this way and pursue the Lord together?
Thank the Lord that we were able to gather in the Lord’s name this morning and break bread.
We are able to experience faith together, love together, righteousness together, and peace together. We are able to have a love feast at a meal and pursue the Lord together.
It is a precious thing to experience the house of God in the midst of this torn state of the church, where there is now a great house. This is the way forward.
If there is a final cry from the Lord to all of us, it is that we would all take hold of this torch of the testimony, run, and finish this way together.
This is what brings in the Lord’s return. This is the man-child in Revelation 12. This is the pursuit of Him together.
Let us pray together.
Lord, I thank You that You have set apart so many vessels—so many chosen vessels, so many serviceable vessels—in Your house, though we may not realize it.
Many times, Lord, we see the beauty of the Lord in Your people. We see the glory of the Lord in Your church.
I pray for all of us now, Lord, that this testimony which You have birthed in our hearts and implanted by the Spirit of God would burn as a flame within us. May all of us hold on to it, and may all of us run this way together.
May we gather simply in Your name and bear the torch of the testimony. In the name of Jesus, amen.