February 2, 2020

2 Timothy 2:20-26: A Vessel for Honorable Use

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Series: 2 Timothy: Faithful to the End Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:20–26

2 Timothy 2:20-26: A Vessel for Honorable Use

Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 2. If you’re using one of the Bibles we provide, that’s on page 834. We’ve been working our way through Paul’s second letter to Timothy passage by passage, and today we find ourselves in 2 Timothy 2:20-26. 2 Timothy 2:20-26: 20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. 22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. This passage that I just read tells us how we can make our lives count for something—how we can make an impact on the people around us that will echo through the corridors of eternity. And yes, you really can make that kind of an impact with your life. Now maybe you’ve never really thought much of yourself or your own abilities or talents. I mean, there are people who are way more talented than you or me, right? Surely they’d be the ones who’d make an impact like that. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, I remember reading a news story about the latest class of graduates from NASA’s astronaut training program. Over 18,000 people applied for this program, yet only 13 were selected. One of them was a man named Jonny Kim. And get this: Jonny Kim started out in the Navy, where he enlisted as just a regular seaman. However, he eventually became a Navy SEAL and served in that capacity on more than 100 combat operations spanning two different deployments and, in the process, earned both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. Then Kim decided that he wanted to become a doctor. So after graduating with a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Diego, he enrolled in Harvard Medical School and graduated with his doctorate of medicine from Harvard in 2016. Then one year into his residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital, he learned that he had been selected from that enormous pool of 18,000 applicants to become a NASA astronaut. So I’m reading about this guy and I’m basically thinking to myself, “Is there anything that Jonny Kim can’t do?” The news article also included comments from a senator—Senator Ted Cruz—who observed that Kim could kill you and then bring you back to life and do it all in space. And that’s really not far from the truth. I mean, this guy’s resume is just ridiculous. 

And perhaps you’re thinking that that’s the kind of person who really makes a difference and that the rest of us are just average people who can expect to accomplish average things. But listen to me: I have some really good news for you this morning. God can do amazing things through you. In fact, when you think about it from an eternal perspective, you can have an even greater impact than any Navy SEAL or Harvard-educated doctor or astronaut—or all three—who isn’t a Christian. And as we see in our main passage of Scripture this morning, the key to making that kind of an impact is something that almost nobody would expect unless they’re familiar with the Bible. It’s your character—godly character. The great nineteenth-century preacher Charles Spurgeon said it like this: “It’s not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.” Along those same lines, John MacArthur writes that “example is the most powerful rhetoric.” And that’s likewise what we find taught quite clearly in 2 Timothy 2:20-26. So I’d like to spend the rest of our time this morning just walking through that passage. 

First, look with me again at verses 20-21: 20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. One popular paraphrase of the Bible renders these verses like this: “In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets—some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage. Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.”

And here’s what I find interesting about this passage. Paul doesn’t say that there are some vessels for honorable use and others for dishonorable use and that you can’t change which kind of vessel you are. It’s not as if God has assigned you to be a certain kind of vessel and you can’t do anything about it or just have to be content with it. According to Paul here, you actually get to choose which kind of vessel you are. Again, verse 21: “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” So the way you can be that vessel for honorable use and be used by God in a powerful way to make an impact on the people around you is to “cleanse [your]self from what is dishonorable.” To put it another way, fruitful ministry begins with godly character. That’s the main idea of this passage. Fruitful ministry begins with godly character.

You know, if someone came to you one day and offered to share with you the secret to being used by God in a mighty way, wouldn’t you want to hear what they had to say? And let’s say it was someone with a lot of credibility—someone who had really been used by God to do remarkable things such as…Billy Graham, let’s say. If Billy Graham, before he died, walked up to you and was like, “Hey, come here. I want to tell you the secret to being used by God in amazing ways,” wouldn’t you get excited about that and be ever so eager to hear what he was going to tell you? Well, here in 2 Timothy, we have the Apostle Paul—who, by the way, was the greatest and most consequential missionary ever in the history of the church—telling us the secret to being used by God. And according to Paul, the number one requirement for being used by God is godly character. Fruitful ministry begins with godly character.  

And by the way, when I talk about “ministry,” I’m not just talking about the kind of ministry we would typically associate with a pastor or itinerant preacher or cross-cultural missionary. I’m not just talking about full-time, vocational ministry. I’m talking about the kind of meaningful ministry that God calls every single Christian to engage in. Because the Bible’s very clear that even if you never enter full-time, vocational ministry, you’re still called to engage in ministry to others in a very deliberate and meaningful way. You may remember that a few weeks ago, I shared with you Ephesians 4:11-12, where Paul writes, 11 And he [Jesus] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. So Jesus has given leaders as a gift to the church not to do all of the work of ministry themselves but rather to do what? “To equip the saints for the work of ministry.” In other words, it’s primarily your job to reach the lost with the gospel and help one another grow to spiritual maturity. I and the other elders are simply here to encourage you and equip you to do that. Now, obviously, we want to lead by our own personal example in evangelism and discipleship, but understand that our primary responsibly according to Ephesians 4, is to equip you all for the work of ministry rather than do all of the ministry ourselves. I mean, there’s a reason why every Christian is indwelt with the Holy Spirit. God gave you his Holy Spirit in part because he expects you to engage in ministry activities that require the Holy Spirit. And if you want to be fruitful in those ministry activities, we see back in our main passage that personal holiness and godliness are absolutely essential. Fruitful ministry begins with godly character.

I mean, think about anyone who’s really good at a certain skill or trade. Let’s take a carpenter, for example. A carpenter who’s good at what he does takes care of his tools, right? He keeps them sharp and lubricated and in good condition so that he can do the work he’s paid to do. Or think about a famous painter—someone who paints artistically. Don’t you think a famous painter would take good care of his paintbrushes and keep them in pristine condition? I remember hearing one time that the famous painter Michelangelo insisted on making his own brushes. He understood the importance of having the very best tools for the work he did. And it’s the same way with ministry. God ordinarily uses the godliest people to accomplish the most significant things. Now, notice I didn’t say the most talented people but rather the godliest people. Those are the people God usually uses to do the most significant things. God, in a manner of speaking, is on the lookout for the best tools and the best vessels available to him. And according to Paul, we can be one of those vessels if we simply get serious about cleansing ourselves from everything that’s dishonorable. 

The ancient church father Gregory said it like this: “The hand that means to make another clean must not itself be dirty.” Isn’t that a wonderfully simple way of putting it? “The hand that means to make another clean must not itself be dirty.” And it’s important for us to understand that being clean begins with having a clean heart. In the words of Paul, it’s only when God’s cleansed us on the inside that we’re able to cleanse ourselves from what’s dishonorable on the outside. You see, the Bible teaches that our deepest problem isn’t the way we live or the decisions we make. Rather, it’s our heart. We have a heart that’s thoroughly polluted with sin and set in rebellion against God. And the only thing that can fix our wayward heart is the cleansing power of the gospel. 

God describes this cleansing in Ezekiel 36:25-26. He says, 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So before we even think about making ourselves useful to God for ministry, we first need God to do what he says here and sprinkle clean water on us and cleanse us from all of our idols. We need him to give us a new heart and a new spirit, removing our heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh. And the way God does that is through the gospel. The gospel is the message of Jesus coming to this earth as a human being and making atonement for our sins through his death on the cross. That means Jesus took on himself the punishment we deserved and there by satisfied God the Father’s justice and appeased his righteous wrath against sin. Essentially, Jesus suffered hell on the cross so that we wouldn’t have to suffer hell in hell. Then after that, Jesus resurrected from the dead so that he’s now able to save everyone who puts their trust in him. That involves renouncing our sinful way of life and looking to him and him alone for forgiveness and cleansing. And it’s only when our hearts are cleansed in that way that we’re able to do what Paul talks about in 2 Timothy 2:21 and cleanse ourselves from the things in our lives that are dishonorable. 

And that’s what we have to be very diligent and very serious about doing if we want to be used by God in ministry. We can’t expect God to use us if we’re not that vessel fit for honorable use. Now it is true that, sometimes, God works in surprising ways through people who aren’t very godly. For example, he sometimes uses pastors who are carrying on a secret extramarital affair to reach hundreds or even thousands of people with the gospel. Or sometimes he uses sermons that are actually terrible sermons and that deviate from Scripture in all sorts of ways to draw people to himself. My wife Becky has a friend who was actually converted through a Benny Hinn sermon that she heard on TV. Benny Hinn quoted a Bible verse and she went and looked it up and ended up being saved through that verse. Now, thankfully, she did eventually come to see that Benny Hinn isn’t really the kind of teacher you want to be listening to, but God nevertheless used Benny Hinn to save this woman. However, as Charles Spurgeon insightfully observes, we can’t take these kinds of unique and sovereign acts of God and use them as a rule for our action. God can, in his sovereignty, do as he sees fit, but we have to take our cues from his instructions in the Bible and from his more ordinary ways of working. And the way God ordinarily works is to adapt means to ends. That means we’ll almost always accomplish the most when we’re in the best spiritual condition. Kind of like an axe. If you’ve ever split wood by hand, you know that a sharp axe will accomplish a lot more than a dull one. And it’s the same way spiritually. We’ll almost always accomplish the most when we’re in the best spiritual condition—and any exceptions God makes in his sovereignty simply draw our attention to the rule. So don’t expect your fruitfulness to exceed your godliness. 

And to be honest, I’m not sure this is something we’ve fully understood in the modern American church. Listen to this quote from E. M. Bounds, which is perhaps even more applicable today than it was in the late 1800’s when he wrote it: “We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure [the] enlargement [of] the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men…..What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy [Spirit] can use….” So are you striving to become that kind of man or that kind of woman—the kind of man or woman that God uses? Listen to me: you can want to make an impact all you want and think positive thoughts and dream big dreams, but at the end of the day, you can’t give what you don’t have. You can’t give what you don’t have. “The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.”

And this is why Paul tells Timothy in the next paragraph of our main passage to pursue godliness. Look at verses 22-26: 22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. Now these are instructions that Paul gives to Timothy as the young leader of the church in Ephesus. However, it’s really not hard to see how they apply to every Christian. Paul first tells Timothy to “flee youthful passions.” And if we look at the context here, we see that this phrase “youthful passions” includes not just sexual passions—as I think a lot of people assume at first glance—but rather any sinful desires that are often characteristic of youth such as a tendency to get involved in needless quarrels. That’s why you’ll notice that in the very next verse, Paul tells Timothy to “have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.” He then says in the subsequent verses that “the Lord’s servant”—which is a reference to Timothy as a Christian leader—“the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.” Then, with regard to those who are trying to undermine Timothy’s ministry in subtle or perhaps not-so-subtle ways, Paul says to correct them with gentleness and that “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

So we see here that God isn’t the only one who wants to use people to do his work. Satan also is on the lookout for people he can use for his own evil ends. And listen: the more godly and useful we are to God, the more Satan desires to capture us for his own will, as verse 26 says. Again, to quote Spurgeon: “Satan will get within you and trip up your heels before you are aware; he will…cheat you of your faith or innocency, and you shall not know that you have lost it; nay, he will make you believe it is multiplied or increased when it is lost. You shall see neither hook nor line, much less the subtle angler himself, while he is offering you his bait. And his baits shall be so fitted to your temper and disposition, that he will be sure to find advantages within you, and make your own principles and inclinations to betray you; and whenever he ruins you, he will make you the instrument of your own ruin.” Brothers and sisters, Satan is crafty. He’s slick. And he wants nothing more than to trip you up and take you out of the game spiritually so that you’re useless to God. So get your game face on and don’t let him do that. Don’t let Satan hinder you from being used by God. So ask yourself this morning, what sin is there in your life that you need to stop coddling and stop tolerating and put to death this very day? What’s hindering you from being used by God? 

You know, a few weeks ago, I talked about the joy of being used by God to make a difference in the lives of others. Back in 2 Timothy 2:6, Paul stated that “It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.” Back in ancient times, agricultural workers were often paid, at least in part, with a share of the crops they harvested. And likewise, in our ministry to others, there’s tremendous blessing to be found in enjoying the fruit of your labor in ministry. There’s tremendous blessing in watching young Christians grow toward spiritual maturity, tremendous blessing in seeing skeptics give their lives to Jesus, and tremendous blessing in seeing marriages saved and relationships reconciled and entire families transformed through the gospel. Honestly, guys, why would you want to do anything else with your life? What can compare to seeing God work through you in the lives of other people? 

That’s what I want for my life. I want to make an impact on others—and not just a modest impact but an impact, as I said at the beginning, that will echo through the corridors of eternity. You know, John Stott observes that there’s something inherently inappropriate about having small ambitions for God. If God really is as glorious as we say he is, we ought to have enormous ambitions for him. I mean, how could we ever be content with God acquiring just a little more glory or a little more honor? No, once we embrace the fact that God is King and see how worthy and wonderful he is, we should long to see him crowned with the glory and honor he deserves—and we should adopt the kind of ambitions for our lives that will make that longing a reality. So I don’t know about you, but I want to make my life count for something. When I’m old and in a nursing home and perhaps not even able to get out of bed, I want to be able to look back on my life and say to myself “I’m glad I did” rather than “I wish I had.”

And like we’ve been talking about for the past several weeks, the way you can have that kind of an impact—an impact that will echo through the corridors of eternity—is, quite simply, to make disciples who make disciples. Imagine what would happen if you helped just one person grow to spiritual maturity and become a disciple-maker themselves every three years. It could be a non-Christian that you lead to Jesus and then disciple or even a younger Christian that you simply disciple. Just one person every three years. At the end of three years, there would be two of you. Then at the end of six years, if you taught that person well and they made a disciple of their own, there would be four of you. Then at the end of nine years, there would be eight of you. And then, to fast-forward a bit, the truly amazing thing is that if you kept doing that for thirty years, there would be 1,024 disciples of Jesus who are what they are because of your ministry. How incredible would that be? Now maybe you’re thinking to yourself right now, “Yeah right, that’s never going to happen.” But why not? Like, what’s stopping you from making just one disciple every three years that you train to make more disciples? Now I recognize that not everyone here has 30 years left to live and that not every disciple we make will go on to make other disciples—despite the values we try to instill in them. But hopefully this chart nevertheless gives you a glimpse of the kind of impact you can have for God’s Kingdom if you’ll simply devote your life to making disciples for Jesus, even one at a time. 

And as we see back in our main passage, it all begins with cleansing yourself from everything that’s dishonorable. Fruitful ministry begins with godly character.

other sermons in this series

Apr 19

2020

Mar 15

2020

2 Timothy 4:6-8: Finishing Well

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Scripture: 2 Timothy 4:6–8 Series: 2 Timothy: Faithful to the End

Mar 8

2020