Fan Into Flame // 2 Timothy 2:8-26 - Nick Serban IV

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  There's 2 action verbs that should matter to us as believers.The- these, these 2 words really need to matter to us in our walk with the Lord.It's growth and maturity.Somebody say growth Growth and maturity Maturity Paul is encouraging Pastor Timothy to pastor the congregation and pastor his church in Ephesus in a way that they will continue to grow.And it's not just, like, numerical growth, and let's add more bodies to, to this body and to this church, but it's about maturity, and it's about depth in your walk with the Lord, and that's what we wanna hit on today.Who wants to go deeper with God today?Yeah.Somebody.I need y'all to preach at me just as I'm preaching at you, okay?'Cause I don't want a big and shallow church.right.I don't wanna be a part of a big and shallow movement.We want some depth.We need to have this attitude that I always have room to grow.How many of you know you got room to grow?Come on.Yeah.There are deeper places of worship and encounter with God.There's greater revelation, greater teaching, greater lessons for you to grow in.And this text today, again, it's very encouraging.It's cur- encouraging us to go deeper, but it's also correcting.Last week, we r- remember, we, we kinda hit the beginning of 2 Timothy, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ.Be strengthened by Jesus.You know, be an athlete.Be a soldier.Be a farmer.During communion, we touched on 2 Timothy 2:8-13, and I'm gonna jump down to verse 14 today.So if you're there, tell me you're there.Yeah, there we go.Somebody's there.Remember Jesus is risen from the dead.Remember to keep him first and foremost in your heart and in your mind.Be willing to suffer for the sake of the gospel.If we've died with him, we're gonna live with him.We're gonna reign with him if we will endure.And then he tells Timothy, "You need to talk to the church."And it says this in, in verse 14, just the first half of it.He says, "Remind them of these things, and charge them before God."Charge is kind of a tough word.It's like compel them, oblige them, demand of them, watch them before God.And then at the beginning it says, "Remind them."Why do we need to be reminded?Because we often forget.There's a lot of different moments in scripture where it says, "Remember, remember.Be reminded.Be reminded."Why?Because we tend to forget the most important things that we ought to be walking in and ought to be doing.It's, it's very similar to my bedtime routine with my children.I've got 4 amazing kids, 2 girls, 2 boys.They're awesome.But every night, the bedtime routine is the same.We, we put on our PJs, we brush our teeth, we go to bed, we pray, and then go to sleep.Hallelujah.But for some reason, every single night, my children turn into these demented little animals with short-term memory loss, and they, they forget who they are, and they forget where they are, and they start having existential crises about their water cups.I know y'all know what I'm talking about.Yeah.Come on.And so they have to be reminded.They have to be reminded, "Hey, you gotta brush your teeth.Hey, you gotta put on your PJs," every single night, even though it's the same routine.We as a church, as a people, need to be reminded.Some of you may say as we're reading this, "Well, I've heard this before."Can I remind you today to not just be a hearer of the Word, but to be the doer of the Word today?Yeah.So here we go.The second half of verse 14 here, it says, "Remember, remind- be reminded: Charge the church not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers."Church, your words matter.How you say things matters.Who you say it to matters.What you choose to shut up about matters.Amen.There's a negative impact on people that you're complaining or yammering to.There's a negative impact.It may not hurt you to flap your gums, but it could hurt someone else.I'm gonna hit this here in a second.I'll hit it, I'm gonna hit it real hard.Y'all are gonna love it.But then I love it, it says, verse 15, it says, "Do your best to present yourself to God."This is, this is where we can get kinda hairy, but just let's just be clean-shaven here for a moment.All right?Remind them, remind the church, I'm reminding you today, reminding myself today, that your pastor is not going to present you to God.Your spouse is not gonna present you to God.Your children are not gonna present you to God.Your friends, a jury of your peers, will not present you before God.Who will?You will.Amen.You and I are presenting ourselves before God.No one else is going to come into your home and do an extreme home makeover and fix everything in your walk with the Lord.right.It comes down to us.It's personal responsibility.We take this on as believers, and the question is, are we doing our best?Remember, it says, "Do your best to present yourself to God."And I, and I, and I wanted to tell a whole story about, like, my kids, you know."I'm doing my best," and it's like, "No, you're not even trying."You know how that is.Like, we say we're doing our best, but we're really not putting in the effort.If we, if we were really doing our best, if we really felt like this was a life or death move, it would look a lot different.Can anybody attest to that today?Again, uh, it, it, it's funny becauseNo, I'm not gonna say that.I'm just gonna back up.Here we go.This is where growth to maturity starts to hit for us, 'cause there are areas in your walk with God that your flesh does not want to step into.Right?Yeah.Oh, boy.And part of maturity is being willing to do it regardless.Growth and maturity- Yeah.it'sGrowth and maturity, it's taking responsibility for your own words, your own actions, your own attitudes.It says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved," this is good, "a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."This is whereAgain, this is where it's gonna get heavy.How many of you wanna be able to stand before God and not have any shame or condemnation or guilt?Yeah.And who's responsible for that?We are.We are.Present yourself with no need to be ashamed.If there's no need to be ashamed, it must mean we are walking in a way where there's no guilt, there's no sin, there's no engaging with the temptation.There's no reason for us to be ashamed, because we are walking in the way of Christ.We are walking according to scripture.We're holding the truth of His word and moving in it.Again, these are reminders, and it's all circling around the word of truth.If you don't know the word of God and the way to walk in, then, like, of course there's no reason to be ashamed.There may even be no reason for you to feel conviction, because we don't know what is right and what is wrong.And so it says, "Remind them.Remind the church.Charge them."Like, put it on a Spotify shuffle repeat constantly.This is why we talked about this last week.When you'll read scripture 4 times or more a week, it begins to change you, because that repetition is, it, it's the mother of all learning.The more I'm putting the word of God into my life, the more it begins to change me.Yes.And so remind them, charge them, and ask these questions: Are you living according to the word of God?Are your words aligning with the word of God?Are you living from a place of repentance and not shame?There's a difference.His kindness leads us to repentance, but the accuser points the finger and leads us to a place of guilt and shame.Yes.Is Jesus at the center of your life so that you remain blameless before God?And I, and I'm saying that this is heavy because what happens so often in the church is we take these talks and these scriptures, and we start to hang it over our heads as this religious, "You gotta act right.You gotta live this way, and if you're not, you're going to hell."Yeah.But this is a, a mandate and a guide for us to begin to step into.If we're gonna walk in maturity and actually grow into who Christ saved us to be, then there's some responsibility that we have to take.Like, here's what's great.You're already saved if, when you call Jesus Christ your Lord.Right.When you believe in your heart that He is Lord, you are saved.But now there's some sanctification and some growth that needs to take place.Come on.Yeah.Now you need to become who Jesus saved you to be, and this is, this is the challenge for us.And, and again, if we take this on as some religious, like, you gotta do this, you're not gonna have any fun in the Kingdom of God.And serving Jesus is a lot of fun.Anybody who says that the Bible is boring is a boring person.Have you read this thing?But could you imagine for one second, like, I, I just wanna go back to this.Do your best to present your own self to God as a person approved by Him.There's a lot in that.Could you imagine standing before God and Him going, "I approve of that in your life.""I approve of the words that are coming out of your mouth.Your words, your tone, your attitude.I approve of how you're handling your money that God has entrusted you with.I approve of how you're treating your coworkers, your friends, your spouse, your children.I approve of how you lived your life today."Again, not in a religious way, but if you had a performance review with Jesus at the end of every single day, would he approve of that life and that day?Again, it's not about performance.We sang about it.But when we can start to have this, this mindset and this challenge, it begins to shift the decisions that we make throughout the day.Would God approve of this?Would God approve of these words that I'm using?Would God approve of the decisions that I'm making?And it begins to, to take our, our life and our day, and instead of circling around God, in this avoiding him, I, I gotta hide myself, I gotta do this stuff in secret.Now it's, it's truly putting Jesus at the center, and us stepping in with him and going, "Everything in my life is going to revolve around you, and I'm not just gonna circle around the mountain."Was that too heavy?Was that too deep?Could you imagine that every day of your life, God doing a performance review of your day?'Cause how many of us know, going back to the words we use and the quarreling, Christians are notorious for fighting over doctrines and theological practices.We're notorious for beating down people with the word of God.Like we say it's the sword of the Spirit, but we love to stab other people with it.Right.And because man does this, we assume that God will do the same thing.We assume that God is going to use his word to stab us, rather than to put it in our hand and allow us to use it as a weapon against all temptation.And so many times we as- we avoid spending time with him because we feel like we're just gonna get discouraged because we're not measuring up.We go to bed in fear that we did, you know, one thing wrong today and, and therefore I might be going to hell.I'm sorry, but that- that's fear-mongering.That's- that's- that's religion at the highest level.This is not a condemning performance review, but it's a reminder to us to come back to Jesus.Did I live my life in a way that you approve of?One of my first jobs, um, I worked as a video editor for a football company.It was really fun.And, uh, I got brought in for my first performance review, and I've never had one before.I was like 19 years old at the time.I was nervous as a cat.Like, I'm just like, you know, every- everyone in my life, you know, whenever they say, "I need to talk with you," it doesn't mean something good.Okay?I was nervous, and I, and I sit down with the HR lady.She was very sweet, and she's gotI don't know if this was to intimidate me, but she had one of those thick folders, and starts opening it up, and I'm like, "What is in there?"You know, "What, what did I do wrong?"And she's going through all the things, and she said, "You're crushing it.You're killing it.In fact, we don't, we, we, we are running out of work for you to do because you're working so quickly and doing it so well."I was just like, "Okay."You know, this is a different kind of performance review.She's like, "We're gonna give you a raise," and I'm like, "Come on, somebody," like, "Let's go."Could it be that the performance review with the Lord, if you would get closer to him, is actually a, a place to encourage you?Comeon.Instead of to, to weigh you down and hit you down, he's like, "You're gonna get a raise today."Yeah."I've got blessing for your life right now, if you'll come closer to me.I"This isn't a discouraging moment."Hey, you've improved a lot in this last year.You've grown a lot in this, in this, in these moments of encounter."The closer that we get to him, the easier it is to hear the direction, and the more amazing it is to experience his blessing.Like I'm telling you, some of y'all, God has blessing on the way, but he's waiting for you to actually step into the HR office.Who wants a performance review today?Anybody?And this isn't like a prosperity gospel thing, don't, don't, don't get me wrong here.But man, there's, there's so much more to encountering God than just us feeling bad about ourselves- Rightand us trying to get better.There's some deep, beautiful things that he wants to reveal to you that'll begin to instill joy, that'll begin to pour peace into your heart and into your life, if you'll just come close to him.Do we want that as a church?Remember that he's our source of strength, not our source of discouragement.He's calling us to live worthy.He's calling us to walk worthy.And, and all of that requires a grace from God that is only found when we live in Christ.And it starts with this one phrase.Ready?This is it.Write this down in your notes.Jesus, I need you.Jesus, I need you.I can't do this on my own.And this seems so counterintuitive to our culture, but I really wanna encourage you to live differently than the world around you.Remember, this is a letter to Timothy in Ephesus.It's a modernized, paganistic, self-centered culture, and this is a very new faith for the majority of these people there.This is a new belief system for them to follow, and before they were worshiping all these different pagan gods and- Constantly discouraged by not measuring up to all these gods, and sacrificing and doing all this stuff, and, and the culture around them, the Greeks and the Romans, they loved to argue about everything.They basically invented democracy from arguing so much, giving everything and everyone a voice.They loved debating.They loved being heard.And Paul's saying, "Don't get sucked into the culture.Don't allow yourself to mirror what's happening around you, but begin to live set apart."Again, Christians are known for debating a lot of these different topics.In fact, Christianity is the most divided, denominationally, religion on the planet, because we keep clapping at each other trying to be right.We keep clapping at each other trying to say, "Oh no, this movement's better.My church is better.My Bible study's better.Are you King James?I'm ESV."Like, fight me, you know?And can I just tell you honestly as a pastor, I'm working on this personally.I struggle in this area quite a bit, because my heart breaks for people who have allowed culture to dictate their faith.Yeah.Yeah.Where faith, again, it looks like a mirror rather than a doorway into heaven.Yeah.What do I feel like Jesus should be doing?Where we're more focused on self-help, self-improvement, and self-health, rather than focusing on what matters in faith, the Word of God and His Spirit.R.T.Kendall said this, and, and I saw it on a video this last week.He said, "We need to be a church that is full of the Word of God and full of the Holy Spirit."And he said, "There's this great divorce that has taken place within the church, where we've got churches over here that are all in the spirit and they're really weird."They're rolling on the ground, and they're screaming, "Fire," and pushing people over in the altars.And then you've got this church over here with no life whatsoever, but they know the Word of God.And R.T.Kendall said, "Revival is gonna take place when the family comes back together."Yeah.When we're all in the spirit and we're all in the Word.We need to stop dividing over stupid things and start uniting over the things that matter.We need the Word of God, and we need the Holy Spirit in the church.We shouldn't be disagreeing on these things.Right.But we wanna divide on stupid stuff.I've got a list of stupid stuff.Y'all ready to laugh?Like how old is the Earth?Is the Earth flat?I don't care.I don't care, 'cause it doesn't change-my relationship with the Lord.Were there Nephilim and fallen angels on the Earth?Are they still here today?Is the President a Nephilim, you know?Like, who cares?Right.My faith is not based in the Book of Enoch.on.If I don't pray in tongues, am I going to heaven?It got really quiet in the room.The Bible doesn't say that, so why is that even a question?Right.I pray in tongues every day, so did Paul.It's from the Holy Spirit.And here's the thing, it has changed my life.I would love for everyone to speak in tongues.It is not a requirement to go into heaven.Come on.The better question is this.Let me just hit you and, and smack you a little bit.Am I living a life in Christ that requires and needs the Holy Spirit to manifest in my life?Like, we wanna talk about tongues, but what about great faith, and discernment, and prophecy, and words of knowledge and wisdom?And let me just challenge you today.If you're not living a faith that's believing for the impossible, then you don't need the power of God who does the impossible.Amen.That's why it's possible to have Christ, go to heaven, and not have the Holy Spirit manifesting in your life, because your faith is based on what you think is possible rather than needing the God of the impossible.Do you still love the pastor today?Here we go.Here's another one.Should women be in ministry?Let's argue about it.I can make convincing arguments both ways.But the truth is this, we have a shortage of men preaching the gospel around the world.Right.And my wife can preach circles around most of these guys.Amen.Try and stop her.My daughters know the Bible better than some of the men in this church.Amen.Thank you, JBQ, Junior Bible Quiz.Woo-hoo.And I'm not gonna stop my daughters from sharing the gospel and discipling people because somebody made a good argument.Right.How do we baptize?Do we dunk them?Do we sprinkle them?DoCan we baptize babies, you know?We're not gonna fight over this stuff.When's the return of Christ?Well, you know the signs of the time.Fox News says Russia is Gog and Magog, and all the communism and Islam are aligning.Like, I do not care.Because it's going to hurt people when we stand on these second-tier issues, rather than preaching the first-tier issues.Right.Rather than talking about what matters and what's gonna build the kingdom of God.Are we living according to scripture?Because the Bible is truth.Uh-huh.And we need to stop trying to change the word of God.Jesus is our Lord.We live in Christ.He died for our sins, and he was raised from the dead to save us from hell.Yeah.We must be born again.You can live a spirit-filled and spirit-led life.Listen, we have the grace and the power of God through devotion and the Holy Spirit to hear him and to tear down strongholds, walk in healing, walk worthy, and advance the gospel.These are the things that are gonna get you into heaven.These are the things that are gonna bring you close to the Lord, and all this other stuff is just gonna make you really annoying on the way to heaven.You ever met somebodyI've said this before from the platform.You ever met somebody, and be like, "I cannot wait to hang out with you in heaven"?Yeah.But right now, you're, you- you're messing with my faith.Listen, I would rather spend my energy presenting myself in approval to God than fighting with people about who's right about these things.Amen.We need to guard our mouths against gossip and tearing people down and ridiculing people.Like many of us, we've got a whole, like, paragraph of things that we don't like about this president or that leader or that pastor or that church, and we can just sound off on all those different things.But what good is that actually doing?Many times it's those opinions that turn other people off from Jesus.Yeah.Notice the text says it hurts others when we quarrel.It hurts others when we, when we're not united on the, the important things.It may not bother you to have those opinions, but verbalizing them might hurt or offend an entire room full of people- Yeahand turn them away from Christ, and it's just not worth it.Why?Because our life is to be lived in approval by God.Paul says, again, "Do your best.Do your best to present your own self to God as one approved."What if, what if that statement alone was my goal?To do my best and present my life approved before God.Would it change what you watch?Would it change how you date?Could it change how you treat your kids, and howWould it change your work life?If you did your best to present your own self, take on your responsibility for your actions and your words, I believe it could change everything.This is the, you know, the focus of our entire church, Philippians 1:27, that whatever happens, only live your life in a manner that is worthy of the gospel.Worthy of is axios.This is why we, we shifted the, the focus of our church, because we want to live worthy.We want to be worthy before the Lord.And again, we can play this game of like, "I'm unworthy," you know, and, and let the accuser have the louder voice.But when we begin to find Christ as our source, we begin to walk in worthiness.Part of maturing and growing in faith is that we're constantly thinking about these things.Go- Man, does this please God?Is how I handled this pleasing to the Lord?Where I don't just think I'm right all the time.Does my prayer life or lack of prayer life please God?Does my dependence on scripture please the Lord?Does my tithing record please God?Does my serving the church please God?Do my words and actions please God?Is there anything going on in your life that would keep you from being able to see the approval of God in your life?How do we know these things?We read scripture.We learn his ways.2 Timothy 2:16 says, "Avoid irreverent babble."That word irreverent means not revering God."For it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.And that talk, their talk will spread like gangrene.Among them are Himi- Hi- Hymenaeus and Philetus."Those both sound like diseases to me.Words that don't show that you are in awe and reverence of the Lord.Well, babble comes out of your, our mouths just like carelessly and casually.Ephesians even says this: "Don't let any coarse joking or crude humor or profanity come out of your mouth."Also lying and gossip and drama about people.Why?What's the consequence?It's not hurting anybody, at least I don't think it is.Scripture tells us here, it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.And this is, this is where the language is really important because Paul likens this to gangrene.That kind of speaking, those words will spread like gangrene.Has anyone ever seen gangrene?We've got a picture.Can we pull it up really quick?No, I'm just kidding.That'd be nasty.But here's where, here's where it gets deep, right?Follow me here.Gangrene is an infection in the body that results in losing something.Yeah.If you get gangrene in your foot, that foot is coming off.You get gangrene in your leg, that leg is coming off.In your arm, that arm is coming off.And so when he likens this to gangreneOh, this is so good.If you're gossiping, if you've got irreverent babble, if you're speaking in a way that is not an approval to the Lord, it may hurt people to the point that they may even lose their faith.Yeah.That they're gonna be cut off.That how we act and how we present ourselves as followers of Christ has an effect on people to the point where it could cause them to cut off themselves from the Lord.And Jesus even said this in Matthew 18.He said, "It's better for you to tie a stone around your neck and throw yourself into a lake than cause other believers to stumble."And so think about the things that you put online, 'cause people will lose their faith from the, in the comments section.People are losing their jobs, they're losing their families over saying really stupid things.And then of course, he name drops these, these 2 gossips, the, the diseased ones, Hymenaeus and Philetus.And it says this i- in 2:18, "They have swerved from the truth saying that the resurrection has already happened.They, and they are upsetting the faith of some."They have swerved from the truth.So if you start talking about stuff that's not biblical, or you start, like, dividing things and twisting scripture to fit your own preferences, it's gonna upset some people, and it may even cut some people off in the faith.So what is all that to say?We have to be careful with the words that we're using.We have to be careful with how we're speaking.But here's what I love, in verse 19, it says, "But God's firm foundation stands," amen?"Bearing this seal: The Lord knows those who are His.And let everyone whose na- who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity."I need to read that again because I read it bad."But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: The Lord knows those who are His.And let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity."So God's saying, "Let's not get this, like, twisted up here."You can say whatever you want, but God is not going to change what He says.Amen.Yeah.And this is like, this is a terrible reference, but I just, it just makes so much sense to me, okay?When I read this verse, I, I, I saw Will Smith smacking Chris Hart at the Oscars.Yeah.Saying, "Take my wife's name out of your mouth," right?Bad reference?'Cause hear me today, when we start invoking the name of God, but we're not actually living for Him, and we're not running from iniquity, we might as well take His name out of our mouth.Yeah.Right?And this is what he's saying here in this moment.If you're gonna use the name of God, if you're gonna call yourself a Christian, you better be living for Him, or take His name out of your mouth.This is where we have responsibility here.This is called maturity.This is called growing.This is called us saying, "You know what?I'm gonnaI'm actually gonna live this way, not just think about it or talk about it."If you say, "I name Jesus as the Lord of my life," then you are responsible for fleeing from sin.Your pastor's not responsible.The elders of the church are not responsible.You yourself.Is it hard?Yeah.It's really hard.Is it worth it?It's so worth it.Don't let your life cause others to stumble in their walk with the Lord.I know, I know it's a lot, but your words matter.Use your words to build others up, not tear them down.Share the gospel.Speak life.I think it was Thumper that said in the Bambi movie, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."Here's what I love about that.Proverbs tells us that even a fool is considered wise when he doesn't speak.Maybe we need to just shut up.Yeah.Sometimes saying nothing is the smartest thing that you can say.And then there's a shift that Paul makes that's just so powerful, where God wants to use His people.How many of you know God wants to use you?Yeah.How many of you like being used by people?Yeah, ha- hands went up, then went down.Right?Nobody likes being used.But there's something powerful about being used by God.Check this out, verse 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 and some for dishonorable."How many of you maybe still have, like, nice plates in your house from, like, 10 years ago?Or, like, maybe when you got married, you still have, like, the wedding china that you got.Somebody in the house?Anybody?But, like, but you don't ever eat off of that.You eat off the Frisbee plate, right?You eat out of the plastic.There's a vessel of honor and a vessel of dishonor.Just a great example.You sit on a chair in your kitchen to eat, right?And then you sit on a chair in your bathroom to get rid of the food you just ate.Think about it.One chair is for honorable use, and the other for dishonorable use.And guess what?You need both chairs in your house.Amen.Somebody said amen.This is where it gets real for a second.Verse 21, it says, "Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy."Lord, let us be set apart.I love this, "Useful to the master."When you become honorable, when you cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable in your life, that is when you become useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.So again, he's using this analogy to say to this church, "There's people that are living honorably, but there's also people that are living dishonorably.And if you'll cleanse yourself from the dishonorable, you'll become a vessel for honorable use."Who's responsible for cleansing you?You.And through that, you'll be set apart as holy.You'll be useful to God in the church.God wants to use His people.Notice the reoccurring focus of being useful in all these different passages.Again, in the opening passage, we're charged to do our best, to present ourselves to God as approved workers.We're working.We're building.We're growing the kingdom.We're not just a Christian that's approved by God, but we're approved to do good works.But somebody who's doing work for God and from God with God's approval on our lives.How many of you want to be useful for God?I know I had you raise your hands before, but I, I hope every hand in the, in the place can go up on this, that we wanna be useful to God.But how many of us go to church every week saying, "God, serve me.God, amaze me.I wanna use you, God, to make my life better"?And again, part of the growing and the maturity is that we will grow into being useful for God instead of just using God.And I've been in church long enough to know most Christians will not be useful to God, because they refuse to be used by God.They wanna live a dishonorable lifestyle, but then go and talk about Jesus.If you're the unusable exception, and you think you're the exception to this rule, then I just have to challenge you, you are living a different pattern than Jesus.If you think, "Ah, God, God doesn't wanna use me," or, "I'm not in a place in my life in healing," or, "I'm, I've got all these things that disqualify me in this season," it's really just a bunch of excuses that we make, right?And in all that, we're, we're actually not living in the same pattern as Jesus.Because Jesus, He went to the temple every single week.He went and taught in the temple.He opened the scroll, and he used his gifts of teaching.He laid hands on people, and he prayed for people.He fed people.He served people.He literally said in Matthew 20:28, "I didn't come to be served but to serve."And so if we're going to become like Christ, then we need to be s- willing to serve, that we need to be willing to be used by God.And that doesn't mean that you need to serve on a serve team here in this church on Sunday morning.Are you willing to serve God in your day-to-day life?Again, churches are full of Christians who want the encounter with God, and they wanna use God to make themselves feel better, but they themselves don't want to be used.I, I've talked to pastors here in the area in some really super Spirit-filled churches, and God is moving, and it's amazing, but the biggest problem that they have is everybody wants to get their revelation and their encounter and their moment, but nobody actually wants to share the gospel and serve.Grow me.Lord, make me better.Lord, show me my purpose and my plan.Is it not God's purpose?Is it not God's plan?Because when we say it's my plan, then we start to change the narrative of what God is trying to use you in.And so here's my question.If you refuse to be usable, are you a useful person to God?Paul charges every one of us to being a useful vessel.Again, dishonorable vessels and honorable vessels.And so the question again is, does God look at you and say, "I approve of their usefulness"?Or does he say, "Hey, why, why aren't you using the gifts that I gave you?"'Cause every single one of you has ministry in you.And it's not just serving on a platform or serving in a church, but you've got gifts and talents and skills in you to advance the Kingdom of God.Every one of you are a 10 in some area.And notice again the personal responsibility that we carry to make ourselves useful.You and I have a responsibility to clean up our lives and to submit our own selves fully to God.And if there's something in the way of us being set apart unto God, then do the hard thing and get it sorted out.Do the hard thing.Don't just cry about it in the altar.But, but, but true repentance and metanoia repentance is you get up from that place, and you begin to move in action in the opposite direction of where you were going before.And this is, this has been a challenge even for me because, like, I'm a big crybaby.When I experience the presence of God, it's just, "Ah," it's all that.And I can feel really, really good after encounters with God and then go back to doing what I was doing before.And I can hear the Holy Spirit go, "Did that feel good?Good.Are you gonna change?"No.If there's anything in your life that would disqualify you from serving God, if there's sin in your life or an unwillingness in your heart, or you think that maybe you're unworthy or unusable, it's your choice.It's our choice.Maybe stop waiting on God to give you a sign, and take this as a sign to step into the deep waters and mature in Christ.And I know this, this sounds like correction and discipline and all the things, but I love this verse, Hebrews 12:6, "God disciplines those He loves."You are loved today.I am loved today because God wants to correct us and discipline us and grow us.And maybe we just need to say, "Thank you, God, for loving me.Thank you, God, for giving me one more day to obey you."We're growing, and we're maturing in our faith, and we have to be matureable Christians.We have to be teachable.We have to be humble enough to handle the correction.We have to have a heart to grow.We have to have a heart to change, a heart to improve, a heart to mature.Paul finishes up, and he just starts doubling down on all this stuff.So let meAre y'all with me?Can you just say, "I can take this."I can take this.I, I'm, this is me.I'm speaking about I can take this, God.Verse 22, "So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart."I love this.Because it's not just you on your own, but it says, "Along with those who call on the Lord."We get to do this together.Again, culture wants to make this very individualized, but majority of scripture is spoken to an audience, a community, a group.It's not about your plan and your purpose, it's about what is God's plan for all of us together.Again, this is why we have small groups on Wednesday nights.This is why we disciple one another, and we're iron sharpening iron, because all of us together can run and flee from youthful passions and pursue righteousness together.That flee i- flee is an urgent word.It means run as hard as you can.It's not casual, and it's not carrying it into the next season.And then pursue, pursuing righteousness, it's to chase.Chase after righteousness.Chase after faith, and love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord.Let me just tell you, some of us just need to light a little bit of a fire underneath us.We need to start getting this within our spirit and recognize, like, this matters right now.I said this during our, our prayer time before the service, like, we're seeing massive amounts of growth within the church across this nation.It's incredible.But here's the thing, we're not slowing down.Because what's also happening is we're seeing massive amounts of spiritual warfare.Can I just hit you with something?One of, one of my good friends, he pastors a church up in Nashville, and a couple of weeks ago, they caught a witch on their property chanting and, and doing all this, like, seance stuff over the church building.The enemy is real, y'all.Yeah.He's not just a figment of our imagination in a book.But just as God uses his people to do his work, the enemy is using people to do his work.Yes.And so if we don't get serious about thisI mean, we're gonna read it in the next chapter in, in, in sec- or in second Timothy chapter 3, about the ways of this world and how things are shifting.Things are shifting to a place to where if we don't step up and start to actually live this out, we're gonna be counted among those that drift and fall from God before he returns.Amen.Again, we grow together.We flee youthful passions.What are those things?What are, what are those things?It's everything in our flesh, right?When kids are like, "I don't wanna go to school.I don't feel like going to school," parents, what do we say?"I don't care what you feel."That's maturity.I don't care if you feel this way, it's not right.I don't care if you don't feel like doing the things that God has called you to do, like, get your butt on the bus and do what you're supposed to do.Here's the thing, part of immaturity is the constant desire, and, and follow through, in doing what you feel.That's immaturity.What do I feel?Doesn't matter what we feel.What is God saying?Maturity includes saying no to your childish feelings to do what is right.Childish immaturity and youthful passions, it's all the works of the flesh.It's our sexual immorality.It's our mouth that's getting out of control.It's our greed.And again, I just wanna hit this home.Repentance is really painted out in this picture where we flee from the youthful passions and we pursue Christ.We run from where we were going before, and we run fully to him.I left the world, and I'm running to Christ.Verse 23, "Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.You know that they breed quarrels.And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone."That is hard, to be kind to everyone.Yeah.It's easy to be kind to you, 'cause I love you.But it's hard to be kind to people that are not so loving.So here's what's beautiful."Be kind to everyone.Able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness."I love this."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."Could it be that the life that you choose to live pursuing the righteousness of God would actually lead those who are in the services of the enemy to the throne?Be kind to everyone.Be able to teach God's word.Be patiently watching, p- patiently enduring evil.If we're going to grow in godly living, we have to flee from ungodly living.And this seems like a no-brainer statement, but I'm, again, I'm afraid many church-attending Christians, we wanna go to heaven, but we still wanna live our own life.And it's just not scripture.That's not the truth.We're called and commanded to leave ungodliness and pursue righteousness.Jesus said, "You can't serve 2 masters."You can't do what you wanna do and do what God wants you to do at the same time.Joshua said, "Choose every day who you are going to serve."Moses said, "The choice is clearly between life and death."It's a binary.Life and death, blessing and curses.If you're going to mature in your faith, it's about maturing in your decisions to pursue Christ every day.So what does that look like?I'm gonna listen to His word more and more.I'm gonna listen to Him speak to me.I'm gonna pray.I'm gonna seek His face.Am I maturing?Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 13.He says, "When I was a child, I thought and acted and reasoned like a child, and when I became a man, I put away childish things and I reasoned like a man."Some of us want the adulthood Christianity, but we still want the childish things.And I just wanna encourage you to consider, what are the things that need to go out of your life?John, can you come?I'm gonna wrap this up.Can you give me my coffee?I'm thirsty.You're good.I'm not gonna do it.Dude, this thing is nasty.There you go.Sometimes we wanna, we wanna drink the big boy drinks.This is coffee, by the way.good.Yeah.It'll stop my growth.But we still wanna use vessels, dishonorable vessels, where we're, we're living one way, but again, we're seeking after all of the revelation and all the growth, and, "Oh, God, you're so good.Grow me."But if we're not willing to put off these things, we look really childish in the process.And our immaturity gets put on display.And maybe this is a challenge to you today.Maybe this is why it can seem difficult to disciple people.Because we may be bringing in the, the good word and the, the good worship, and all these moments of encounter, but we haven't chosen to actually live our life in the way that we are following, say we're following.And, and y'all probably know this verse.In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again.You need milk, not solid food.Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.Righteousness, it's about how we live.It's about how we speak.It's about how we're walking.Does our private life and our personal life look like the hour and a half that we spend on Sunday morning?Does every single day look like walking in the ways of God, or does it look like we're just babies trying to drink coffee?'Cause it just feels out of place.It feels a little bit childish.It feels a little bit weird.And what's happened more and more is people are running from God because they see the church doing this.Amen.They see the church, you know, trying to get the goodness of God in their lives, but unwilling to change, and unwilling to grow, and unwilling to mature."Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."And so it all comes down to this.It's the personal responsibility question: Can you walk in maturity?Or are we gonna walk in immaturity pretending to live for God?Are we gonna lack righteousness, lack holiness, and begin drifting into a place where we're hurting others?We're saying, "You just gotta drink this coffee.You just gotta get this word.You just gotta listen to this podcast.You gotta"All these things, and then people are looking at us going, "But are you actually living it?"Can we move to solid food?Can we move to the coffee and put it in a, a Yeti?Come on, somebody.Give me that stainless steel.Would you stand with me today?