Made Useful
2 Timothy 2:20-21
Let’s say that you and I had a special dinner planned at our house. Amy is cooking (so it will be good) and we’ve been planning for months for the time together. You get ready and arrive at the stated time. You’re on time, not late. You ring the bell, and I come and answer the door, welcome you in and ask you to have a seat at the table.
Amy’s prepared a great meal, but I serve you the trashcan. At your spot, I bring the trash and dump it, then put your dinner in the can and say – eat up. Wouldn’t you feel welcomed?
Not at all! You’d probably hate me, or at least question my sanity. That’s no way to treat a guest or to honor someone, but sadly, isn’t that how we often honor God?
We’ve talked about leadership the past several weeks, and David shared for 2 weeks on the life of Jeremiah. There is a thread of connection between Jeremiah and leaders and that is this: they made themselves useful to God.
There is a difference between being useful to God, and used by God.
Read 2 Timothy 2:20-21.
Leaders clean house. We value, as a church, God, His word, worship, and desire to be leaders. We desire to be people who are sensitive to God and His leading so that we can be thermostats, people who make change around us.
God can use anyone to do His will, but calls us to be made useful to Him – there is a difference.
I. God can use anyone
a. The Bible is full of people who God used, but weren’t exactly models of the faith. If you want a lot of examples in one place, read through the book of Judges. Samson, one of the heroes of Judges, was a womanizer, adulterer, and full of passionate lust (and the inability to recognize an obvious trap laid for him). Yet God used him. We’re left wondering, though, when he died a martyr in captivity, what his life could have been – not so much what it was.
b. In the time of the exodus, God used Pharaoh, and the Bible tells us that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 10:1). God can use anybody at anytime to accomplish His will. He can use believers and non-believers alike.
i. I can invite anyone one at anytime to my house, but if I serve them trash what good have I done.
c. Abraham, the father of all who would be justified by faith, started out as a polytheist – he believed in many Gods. A difference is that in his life, as god used him, he made himself more useful to God.
d. Peter in the New Testament provides an example as well. His life is in and out; he has glimpses of greatness, and then shrinks back in doubt and unbelief. Peter told Christ he would walk with Him all the way to prison and the grave; but when the time came he ran. There was still fear in Him, doubt that held Him back. After the resurrection Christ dealt with Peter and Peter made Himself useful to God.
e. But you have been called to a different standard, believer. The Bible makes it clear that God expects you to be useful to Him, and you should expect Him to use you. But how do you make yourself useful?
II. Being made useful (Cleaning house)
a. Read 2 Tim. 2:20-21 again.
b. The trashcan serves a purpose. The kids diaper pail serves a purpose. Our three outdoor trashcans serve a purpose, but I don’t use the lids to serve dinner. Paul is making out an illustration: in your life, as in your home, there are things that are good, and things that are bad. In your life, to be made useful to God, we need to clean house – we need to get rid of the stuff in our lives that keeps us “dirty” that holds us back from being totally useful to God.
c. The Bible calls this stuff sin. It straps us down to this world and holds us back. Sin suppresses freedom.
i. The letter to the Hebrews puts it this way: “let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus” Heb. 12:1-2.
ii. This is just after a long passage of scripture declaring the heroes of faith who cleaned house and were used by God to accomplish His purpose. The encouragement is for us to do the same.
d. Sin that so easily entangles. Thursday morning, having heard that this tropical storm was coming our way, I knew I needed to take care of our gutters. They were plugged up. It’s amazing to look at our yard, all those trees with little leaves. You can think one leaf won’t hurt anything. But a whole bunch of leaves will ruin the whole gutter, causing it to overflow, and then you’ve got leakage by the foundation – and that’s not good.
i. Sin is the same way. We may look around and think, one little sin won’t hurt, and it won’t hurt anyone. So what if I’m callous toward my neighbor. What can one little hit do? What can one movie that I shouldn’t watch, what can that really do to me, and I can close my eyes during all the bad parts anyway?
1. Have you ever examined your thinking after watching a movie – usually it’s half in the real world and half in Hollywood world?
2. One little sin leads to another. Wherever there is one leaf, there is more. No doubt about it. One sin leads to another. It’s like lays potato chips – you can’t eat just one. Before you know it the gutter of your life will be plugged, the storms of life will come and you’ll wake up one day and discover your foundation is destroyed. That’s a hefty price for a momentary thrill.
ii. Throw it off.
e. But how do we cleanse house? Paul gives Timothy some clear instructions. It always seems that way with sin – as much as we want to make a grey area between wrong and right, wrong is wrong and right is right.
f. Read 2 Tim. 2:15-16, 19b, 22-23. Avoid this, pursue that. A friend of mine will be celebrating 50 years of marriage this coming year. I asked him – what are you going to be doing to celebrate. He said nothing. I thought, hmmm…. You can do better than that – he said, “Why should you celebrate a milestone that is expected. We’re just doing what is right. We obeyed, you’re supposed to stay married and that’s what we did.” He’s an older guy, and with spiritual clarity and insight he brought a lot into focus with those words: pursue what is right.
g. In your relationships, work for the best of the other person: what is trustworthy, honorable, noble, excellent, and praiseworthy. A common question daters ask is “How far is too far?” What can we do physically and still be okay? That’s a legalistic question that misses the heart of what God wants for us to be useful to Him. Let’s reset the question to this: “What can I do in my relationships to promote the best, what is true, noble, honorable that will help me and them to love God more?” That’s the question we need to ask, the concern then moves from am I sinning to “am I worshipping.” That’s what it means to cast of sin, and cleans house. You don’t let sin in and you clear it out where it is. If you have a drinking problem, don’t get near alcohol. If you have a commitment problem, begin by keeping your word. If you have a gossip problem, start focusing on the Truth and not rumor. Cast sin aside, clean house.
The Message is a paraphrase of the Bible. I don’t really recommend it for in depth study, but for a devotional read it can grab your attention. I’d like to close by reading Romans 6. In this chapter Paul talks about sin and freedom. Leaders, be free. Christians, live free!
1 -3So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
3 -5That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.
6 -11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.
12 -14That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.
What Is True Freedom?
15 -18So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
19I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
20 -21As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
22 -23But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
What are you working for? Pray.
