Avoid Worldly And Empty Chatter #1

This morning, we're going to be moving on in 2 Timothy 2 into verses 14 to 21. In these verses, Paul deals with the issue of Christian speech and how it relates or connects to God's Word. If I were to ask you the question, what sort of language or speech should Christians avoid, I expect that many of us could give an answer. We would say things like, we should avoid blasphemy, and we should avoid gossip. or slander or lying. We should avoid filthier or silly talk or coarse jesting. So we find that the Bible has actually quite a bit to say about how Christians ought to speak, what they ought to speak about, and when they speak, how they should speak. And so there are many things that we have to be aware of, and there are very particular things that the Bible commands us to avoid. The title of the sermons for this section is from our passage, Avoid worldly and empty chatter. And so over the next couple of weeks, we're going to be studying what worldly and empty chatter is. We're also going to be looking at examples of men who failed in this area. And we're going to see the consequences of their failure so that we don't take lightly the consequence of the way that we speak and the things that we give our attention and our mind and our energy to. This morning, we're going to be focusing on the first two verses, 14 and 15 of our passage. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord?

This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. Remind them of these things and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness. and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some. Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal. The Lord knows who are his, and everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness. Now in a large house, are there not gold and silver vessels?

but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself of these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Now, it may not seem like this whole passage has to do with the way Christians ought to speak, but I hope over the next couple of weeks you'll come to see that it is. But the central theme of this passage is embodied in the title, Avoid Worldly and Empty Chatter, in verse 16. We're going to be focusing, as I said this morning, on verses 14 and 15. I want to talk to you a little bit, sort of setting the stage for this. Sort of telling you what my premises are, what my assumptions are coming into this text. I assume that you know and agree that Christians ought not to speak like the world. We ought not to sound.

like everybody else when we talk. And if I pressed you and said, okay, good, what should the differences be? I think things like cursing would come up. We say, well, Christians shouldn't curse. Fair enough, true enough. And we mentioned the things that we talked about earlier. Well, we shouldn't lie or slander or gossip. But Paul goes further here and he says something else. He says, That we ought to avoid worldly and empty chatter. In verse 14, that we ought not to wrangle about words. Now that's hard to nail to the wall. If I say, you should not wrangle about words. Do you know what I mean? More than me, do you know what Paul means? Well, he defines it later. This passage is progressive in its nature.

He builds on itself. And so he starts saying we ought not to wrangle about words and he tells us why. And then he says avoid worldly and empty chatter because it leads to ungodliness. And he gives an example of men who've done this and the consequences that have come to him. And then at the end it says if anyone cleanses himself from these things, the worldly and empty chatter, if any Christian learns how to speak like a Christian and to avoid things that they shouldn't concern themselves with, they will become useful to God. In the beginning, he talks about wrangling about words being a useless endeavor. In the end, he says, if you learn not to do that, you will then have become useful. And so I want you to start, as we view this passage as a whole, thinking that your fruitfulness and your usefulness to God hinges very much on the things that you say and the things that you give your attention to. And the reason that this is so important to us is that in our day, everybody,

wants to talk about everything. Everybody has an opinion. I said in our Sunday school class, we were talking about children, and if they ask questions you don't know the answer to. And I had to say, because we need to hear, you should tell your children, I don't know. And that's significant in our day because we all fancy ourselves experts about everything that comes across our plate. We know about it all, or at least we think we do. And much of what we think we know We ought to keep our mouths shut about. And so this is sort of the theme and the thing we're going to keep coming back to is, what should you as a Christian talk about? And how should you talk about it? What's intermixed in this passage, though, is that this is not primarily an instruction to the people. This is an instruction to the pastor, to Timothy. Paul's talking to Timothy, and he's not saying, tell all the people these things. Only, he's saying, you need to be especially aware of this.

And so we're going to start by, in verse 14, where he says, remind them of these things. And we're not going to talk about you for a second. We're going to talk about guys who stand in my position. It's especially important, especially important that pastors be mindful of what they talk about and what they say. And Paul tells them at the very beginning, remind them of these things. And that's by way of saying, this is what you're to speak about. This ought to be what's most important to you. This is your area of expertise. This is your whole job to remind them of these things. Well, what are these things? Well, we could say it's not worldly and empty chatter. It's not arguing about words. But what is it positively that Timothy is supposed to be reminding us of?

In a nutshell, the gospel. It's my job and a pastor's job always to be bringing to bear on your minds your responsibilities and your obligations to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our job. And so when you meet with a pastor or you listen to a pastor or you hear or read what he says, you should hear regularly him saying, because you're a Christian, because you're a Christian, because God has said, We need to do these things. We need to care about this other stuff. As a Christian, as an example, Afghanistan's gone on this last week. I'm sure we all have opinions about it and about our president and the way he's handled it. What should we as Christians be saying about it? Precious little that I've read has been what I think should be said about it. What I think Christians ought to be saying about that is, Of course God would give our strength and our military might to our enemies when we kill, for decades, millions and millions of children in our land. Of course he should give our strength to our oppressors. What good do we have, what business do we have leading the world when we kill over a million of our own every year? And what good are we at being appalled that we have military servicemen and women

dying, and never speak of the slaughter that just goes on day after day after day? Should we grieve and should we point, should there be something said about the people who've, the military servicemen and the civilians that have died over this last week? Sure, yes. But shouldn't we as Christians have something more to say than that because we're Christians? Yes, and always. That's what you want pastors to remind you of. That's their job. Remind them of these things. This is your specialty. This is the scope of your work, pastor. You speak to them and remind them that they're Christians and that they always, every day, in whatever circumstance they find themselves, they must think and speak and act like Christians. That's his job. That's a pastor's job.

That's what you should want from the men who keep watch over your souls or whoever has your ear. You should want them to be encouraging you to act like a Christian, which is to say not to win the popularity contest. There's lots of things you could say about any topic you want, and that's a hot-button issue in our society right now, and you could win popularity points. And you could say, oh, he knows the score. He knows what's going on. She understands the nuance and the way things should be. In our day and age, you have to be especially aware of the way that you speak and the way that you act because everybody's listening. Everybody can hear. Right now, there's a video camera. I have no idea who's watching what I'm saying. And they can watch it tomorrow or next week, and then a sermon goes up on our website and they can listen to it in five years. Everybody has the ability to listen, and so shouldn't we then be mindful of the things that we say since it's all recorded for us?

And for everyone to hear. Remind them of these things. We need reminding. We need reminding. We don't like we're being reminded. You think when you're at home, when you tell your children, honey, don't forget to do your chores. I know. And then what is likely to happen? They forget. And then you come back to them and you say, honey, your chores. And they say, I know, I know, I know. And you say, no, no, no. Stop saying I know because you didn't know. You didn't remember. I'm telling you again because you didn't remember. And it's imperative that you remember. And not just that you remember, but that you do it and that you do it well. If we understand being able to speak to our children this way and being able to train them up to do the things that they're supposed to do because they're our children, shouldn't we expect then that God would give us men to do the same thing to keep watch over our souls, to tell us,

Remember these things. You are a Christian. You must behave like one. You must act like one. And when the person says, well, that's going to get me in trouble, you say, okay, it's going to get you in trouble. Then we need to work on what to do when you get in trouble. We need reminding. We need reminding. And we ought to always keep watch over our hearts for the grumbling and complaining that we see in our children. Here he goes again. He's going to tell me what I already know. Instead of grumbling and complaining when we're reminded of the things we already know, we ought to give thanks to God that he's given us a church and appointed some men whose whole job is to remind us of the things we already know. When you come to church, you shouldn't expect to have your mind filled with things you've never heard before. You should come to church expecting to be reminded and stirred up and encouraged and exhorted and rebuked to do the things that you know you should have done.

That's what you should expect when you come. That's what reminders are. We need reminders because we forget. And more importantly, we need reminders because we have a will in us that doesn't want to do what we should do. You ever get told to do something and you go, we're just going to see if that one slides and if they follow up. You need reminders. How helpful is it when you have a boss or a teacher or someone who doesn't let your stuff slide, who doesn't let you that, that, that. that part of your will that says, we'll see if you mean it, grow within you. When they come back and they say, did you do the thing? Did you do the thing? I said to do the thing. Did you do the thing? But in our day, we don't want reminders. We don't want people toying around with our will and telling us that we ought to do things that we don't want to do. And if we are willing to be told these sorts of things, we want to be told those sorts of things by the people that we want to be told by on our terms.

And so we might listen to a podcast or we might listen to someone online or we might read a book who we've decided we're willing to let present choices and present information and present actions for us to do. And we'll be the arbiter and the judge of that. But which one of us wants somebody that we know and see and live among come to us and say, you are still not doing what you ought to do. None of us want it. We won't abide it. And in our society, we're told that we shouldn't have to. I want you to get the picture here. When he says solemnly charge them in the presence of God, this is like Paul getting out the big guns, okay? There are times when Paul says, me. But when he says, the presence of God, what he's saying to you is, Timothy, say to them, remind them that the things that they say and the things that they do and all of their life is being recorded by the eye of their Father in heaven. It's all being taken into account. It's all being remembered. And that there's coming a day when they're going to stand before their God and they're going to give an account. They're going to go through, they're going to sit Monday morning and they're going to go through the real of the game and they're going to see all of the failures.

Remind them of that. That as they think that they're wise and as they want to argue and as they want to fight and as they want to wander away from the Lord, remind them that someday they're going to stand before him. Tell them now, God is witness. Do not wrangle about words. So what is wrangling about words? Well, think of it this way. There are things that go on in your life that you may not be able to describe, but you recognize them. For instance, dinner. Okay? If sometimes you wonder what's for dinner, and before you even get to the kitchen, you smell it, and you go, I know what's for dinner. It's taco night, or it's pizza night, or hey, she baked your cookies, or whatever it is. Your nose tells you, right? There's an indication of what's going on. Well, Paul gives us two indicators of wrangling about words. The first is that he says it's useless. Okay? I think young men especially.

like to talk to hear their own voice because they think they've got something to say that's worthwhile and profitable. And so they go on and on and on and on and they talk. And at the end of it, you say, what's the sum of your thought? What do you think action do you think should be taken as a result of everything you've said and all that you think? And oftentimes, there's precious little. You should think I'm great, right, John? I said all those things so that you'd be impressed by me. But someone who actually is useful and is a man of substance is not impressed by fluff. I had a friend one time, he came to grad school, an English major, and he fancied himself a good writer. Now, he got into grad school as a writer. English is his thing. And he's writing, and he thinks, oh, I use big words, and oh, they're so sophisticated and everything. And he goes and meets with his professor. You know what his professor said? He says, I think you use big words because you don't have...

Very many original thoughts. Now, do you think he was pleased? No. That's not the sort of thing anybody would like to be told, right? If you think, well, this is what I'm good at. You know, you raise up to your full height and say, look at me. And some professor says, you know, I don't think you're very good at this. You've gotten to grad-level work, and I don't think you know how to write. I think you write to hear your own self speak. To impress yourself and the foolish people who might read you. But I'm here to tell you, you're no good at it. And you need to learn to write if you want to make it in this program. Useless. Didn't you have English teachers tell you there were words that you were not allowed to use? Things, stuff. Those are the ones I remember. Don't ever use the word things. Don't ever use the word stuff. It doesn't mean anything. So how do you know if you're wrangling about words? Well, first, is it useless? Is this conversation useless? What is it you're arguing about?

You know, there are times I hear married couples and they argue about the details of a story. That is a perfect example of a useless, a useless argument, okay? Did it happen three years ago? Did it happen five years ago? Did this part happen first or did that part happen first? Does it matter? Do the people who are listening have to listen, have to endure your guys bickering because you guys are, you just are committed to useless arguments? Is that what everyone has to put up with? Shouldn't someone tell them, hey guys, it doesn't matter. Maybe you've gotten into an argument with your spouse and it's just the two of you alone and you're just trying to work out, no, no, no, this is what happened when we went on that trip. And you get in a fight. You literally fight about this stuff. Useless. This is stupid. But we don't just do it in our marriages. We do this all over the place. We get nitpicky. We want to correct things. Straighten things out. To what end? To what end? Before you open your mouth, you should think,

What do I want? What am I contributing positively to this discussion? Because if I'm just saying what he said, well then just say what he said and leave it at that. But if you have something to say, you should consider before you say it, how am I moving the ball forward? Anything you say, anything you should do should have a purpose or a point. We would understand this playing in a game. Whether it's soccer or football or whatever, or baseball, everything that happens, every play that's run is meant to make progress toward the goal, score points. And so the same should be true in our speech as Christians. The things we say should move the ball forward. Otherwise, we're just wasting our time and the time of the people around us. And we don't have anything worthwhile to say.

It's a hard thing to learn, I'll tell you, having started to learn it myself and not actually being very good at it. It's a hard thing to say because you'll realize when you get this idea in your head that you should be helpful in the things you say, when you start talking and people stop and they listen and you talk and they just kind of look at you like, and no one responds to what you said, and the conversation just, it's like we all took a time out for you to talk and then the conversation got back moving again. It's a really humbling thing. That is so good for us. How else will we learn to be useful to Jesus Christ other than to submit ourselves to saying dumb stuff and realizing that was stupid? How much more helpful is it when we help one another, expedite that process by saying, here's an idea. When you tell a story, have a point. It makes it so much more enjoyable for the hearers. Right? Do you guys know what I'm quoting? Some of you do. About half of you do, probably. Huh? What'd you say?

No, I don't think so. I thought it was planes, trains, and automobiles. Yeah, it's planes, trains, and automobiles. Brothers and sisters, you have to avoid useless speech. That is wrangling about words. Just shut your mouth. And you think, well, people think if I don't have anything to say. I said, they'll think more highly of you if you at least know when to be quiet. That's the truth. You don't have to be the center of attention. You don't have to be contributing. You don't have to be saying anything, especially if you don't have anything to say. Learn how to have something to say and then say it. That's the first marker. Useless. Not aimed at producing any sort of action or consequence. The second is that it leads to the ruin of the hearers. When Steve Martin in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles says, Here's an idea. It'll make it so much more enjoyable for the person listening. He's encapsulating this very thing.

When you have to listen to a pointless conversation, it's miserable. It's miserable. I said earlier, have you ever listened to a married couple argue about the details of a fight? It's just, are they done yet? It makes you not want to talk to them because you're like, is this what you guys do all the time? Like, is this what your dinner tape? Like, yuck. I wish one of you would just be quiet. Let the other one be wrong. Don't spend all your capital on this. It leads to the ruin of the hearers. This is what useless fights cause. The people who have to endure useless arguments, have to listen to this, are ruined in at least two ways. The first is that they see the futility, as I've just mentioned. They see the futility of the situation. And what they learn is that arguing doesn't have a point. They're just like, that's stupid. People just should be quiet and not worry about what other people think or say. Because I don't like listening to people argue.

And many people in our day don't have a stomach to fight or to argue or to defend. Many Christians don't because they've been inundated with arguments that are a waste of time. And they've never engaged in something that is of consequence and seen an argument that has real implications. And so they just go, nah, it doesn't matter. How many Christians today, when God's word is under attack, they go, nah, it doesn't matter. It'll be okay. No big deal. No big deal, huh? No consequences. And at some point they realize, wait, no, I don't like where this train's going. And you say, yep. But you thought for too long there was no big deal because they've been ruined by listening to arguments. They're a waste of time. It's worth noting that there are things Christians ought to fight about, really ought to argue about and stand for and be unrelenting. But how are you to know what those are if all you ever hear and read is on Facebook or Twitter?

How do you ever learn what's worth fighting for if that's what you consume? What should we do if someone wants to use our church to have two women get married? What am I supposed to do? You all sit in your chairs and go, that's not right. I say, okay, well, what should we do about it and how should we do it? And what are we going to do when we get sued? There's a concept. an argument of consequence that we could have that has real implications for us. And the answer is not, it's not that big of a deal. No, it is a big deal. And we could multiply examples of the sorts of things that Christians ought to be willing to fight about and say, no, no, no. And when they're told, that's not kind and that's not loving, that's not inclusive, that's oppressive, that's not culturally, you know, appropriately sensitive.

Christians ought not to just crawl back into their holes and go, oh, sorry, got whopped in the head, I guess I'm wrong. We have to work hard to be able to discern what's worthwhile and what's not so that we're not ruined. There's another way that the hearers are ruined, and I think this is a worse way. It's that people get confused when they listen to stupid arguments. They thought they knew something, and then they hear two people arguing about it, and then they go, wait a minute, and they're convinced of something that's wrong. They're confused. Their faith is shaken and undermined as a result of it. We'll go into it in further weeks to come, but Paul gives us an example of that with Hymenaeus and Philetus. What did they do? They said that the resurrection had already happened, and what did it do? It upset the faith of some. And so we have to look square in the eye of the fact that the things we talk about, the people who hear us and listen to us, even if it's only in your home and they're your children, you may ruin your children by the things that you fight about in front of them.

and that they hear, because all of a sudden they're confused. They were sure mommy and daddy loved each other until they heard that argument, and then they went, oh, I'm not so sure. So much of what Satan does today in the church, and it's a sad thing in our day, the church is filled with men whose goal is to unsettle people's faith. Any talk of deconstructing your faith as an example, it's an out-in-the-open movement. that's aimed at ruining the hearers. And they say, it's our purpose. It's what we're here for. It's what Satan did when he came into the garden and spoke to Eve and said, did God really say? And later on in the Psalms, and does God really know? Does he see and does he really know? Because of the fall, that thought resides in all of our hearts. And we're doing battle with it. We're forever trying to tear that weed out. And when we engage in fruitless discussion, wrangling about words, arguing. We're pouring fertilizer on that weed seed. Not just in ourselves, but in the people around us. And so we need to be very careful. And so Christians ought to be known by their speech and what they say and what they do and what they care about. We talk about the things we care about. And the more exercised we get, the more serious we are, the more intense our desire is. Whether we're hooping and hollering in excitement or whether we're hooping and hollering in anger.

Proverbs 21.23 says, He who guards his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles, and I would add to it the souls of others. Be mindful of what you say. Many times, better for you to keep your mouth shut or to say less. So how do you learn to avoid these sorts of arguments, wrangling about words? Paul goes on and he says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed accurately handling the word of truth. It's true in our lives that when we see something that's dangerous or something that we ought to avoid, simply being told, don't do that, is not all the Bible has to say to us. It goes on and says, don't do that, instead do this. So what are you supposed to do? If you're to avoid worldly and empty chatter, if you're not to wrangle about words, what are you supposed to do? Diligently present yourself approved to God, accurately handling the word of truth.

In essence, what Paul's saying is not remove yourself from society and don't have anything to say. What he's saying is be absorbed in the word of God such that when you have something to say, it isn't useless. It is helpful. It is meaningful, even if it's difficult. And so instead of trying to find profit in fruitless discussions, we should be students of God's word, seeking to understand it. Now, here's the problem. We have crises of faith and we have questions that arise and we need answers. We want them right now. But when it comes to learning the mind and the counsel and the character of God, we get precious few immediate answers. Our answers come over time. Have you had difficulty in your life? Hardship, some sort of suffering, unforeseen thing? And you take years to figure out how and why God did what he did. And you'll only ever come to an answer of it.

If you've been diligent learning how to accurately handle the word of truth, if you want to know what's fruitless and a waste of time and what's beneficial, be diligent to present yourself as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. Be students of the word. If you're a Christian, the very least, the very, very least you can do is be a student of God's word and to learn who he is and what he says. And not just on your own. But at church, there's a danger here that we say, well, we have the Bible. We can learn what God says, and we can do it all by ourselves. But nowhere in Scripture do you find that God says, I've given you my word. Now just go and read it by yourself. In the beginning, he tells Timothy, remind them of these things. Charge them of these things. We find the boundaries of our life, what's right and wrong, what's pleasing to God, only in his word. You do not find these sorts of things primarily in your feelings. I'd say they're probably a big danger to you.

Feelings are something God's given to us, but man, in our day, there's no governors on them anymore. It's as though you can't tell somebody that their feeling is wrong. And so our feelings, all of our feelings, not just the feelings of those emotional women, but all of our feelings have run amok. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman. What is a workman? He's not a sprinter. He's not a talker. He's a worker. And you only get that title. after having been faithful and building a reputation over time, it's a commendation. If you say someone, he's a diligent man, he's faithful in all things, that's not praise that you come by in a couple of weeks or a couple of months. It's the sort of thing that you come by after years, years of labor. It's easy for us to work real hard for short amounts of time.

To serve God really hard for a couple of days or maybe weeks. Maybe even a couple of months. Maybe you've got a goal. Maybe you want to get married. Get real holy before we get married. That's what I've observed. Men and women, they're very, very godly when they're single. Why? Well, you say because they're lying. I say because they want to get married. And they know that, like, I better shape up or I'm not going to get a woman. We get very holy for a time. And then my whole work in... In premarital counseling, I always tell them, I said, my job is to introduce you to the real person you're marrying. I just want you to know those things exist over there so that when it comes out in marriage, you're not completely blindsided by how much of a sinner they are. You're really holy. Short sprints. Hard work. Godly. Read my Bible. Pray. Be pure. Work hard. Get married. All of a sudden, it's like, man, where did all those weeds come from? They've been there. He's just been running the mower over them every three days. So you didn't see him.

That's not what Paul's talking about here. That's not a workman. Some men will say, I'm really hardworking. I can get a lot done. I work hard. Guess what? It's not for you to determine whether you work hard. It's never for you to determine that you're a hard worker. It's for other people to observe that you're a hard worker. And so the man who walks around and says, I'm a hard worker and I always get my stuff done. I say, maybe when people are watching, maybe for a short time, or maybe because you're selfish and you love money. Let other people praise you and not your own lips.

Go to work, be humble, sacrifice, be diligent, as Paul says here, in your pursuit of godliness, and it will become evident over time. Peter gives an extended diagnosis of, explanation of this sort of diligence in pursuit of godliness in 2 Peter 1. I'm going to read to you from verses 5 to 11. He says, now for this very reason, applying all diligence, which is, the way this is structured is, applying all diligence, then he's going to list all the things you have to be diligent in. And then he's going to explain the consequence of it. Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, which you understand would be the result of diligence, not sprinting and not talking,

If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless. Where have we heard that word before? They will render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing of you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be abundantly supplied to you. So if you're sitting here and you think, you know, my mouth runs more than it should, and the things that come out of it are not what should come out of it, be diligent. Humble yourself and be diligent to present yourself to God as a workman who understands his word.

Who handles it properly. These are the pursuits that mark the life of a Christian. These are the things that will inform what you should say, when you should say it, and how you should say it. Which is to say, there's no short answer. There's no shortcut to obeying these things. To do the work of avoiding worldly and empty chatter is not something you go, I'm going to figure this out in the next two weeks and then I'm going to have it figured out. No. No, you won't. You have to work at this. And it's worth noting that the more diligent you are in this area, the more strange you will become to the world. You do realize that the more godly you become, the more you stick out like a sore thumb. So do you have a principle of avoiding sticking out? Do you want to fit in? Do you want smooth sailing with unbelievers? Isn't it funny that Paul says, when he talks about the workman, he says, present yourself approved to God as a workman.

But then he says, who does not need to be ashamed? Why does he say, who does not need to be ashamed? Except that we are all inclined to be ashamed of godliness. Jesus warns us about as much. If you're ashamed of me and my words, when I come in my glory, I'll be ashamed of you. Aren't we all at least tempted to be ashamed and to say, well, if I do that, then what will they say or what will they do? Or maybe you say, I know how I'll fix that shame. I'll just... barrel in there and bowl them over. Because that's the Christian way to handle it. If you've served God and been diligent in your study of him, you will stand out and there is no reason for you to be ashamed of standing out. Not any. It should be no surprise to us that godliness is an aroma of death to those who are perishing. But it's an encouragement and an aroma of life to those who are being saved. And so while you'll stand out to some,

You'll be loved by others. When should we be ashamed? We should be ashamed when we speak when we ought to keep quiet. That's when we should be ashamed. When we talk as though we have something to say, but our words reveal that we don't. We should be ashamed when we sin against our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then we should be ashamed. But our pursuit of godliness should never be the occasion of shame. He ends verse 15 by saying to Timothy that he ought to accurately handle the word of truth. That's his job. As a minister, your job is to accurately handle the word of truth. There are a couple of jobs, if I wasn't a pastor, that I think I would enjoy. One of them, though I don't think it probably pays very well, is to be a butcher. I actually think it would be interesting and neat to spend my whole day cutting up animals. Now some of you might go, ugh.

Others of you might be like, yeah. I didn't say it to evoke either one of those responses, but simply to say that if I were to ask you what kind of steak you like, you could tell me. And it's quite possible that if you go to a bad butcher, he'll ruin your steak because he doesn't know how to cut it, right? I've cleaned enough deer, for instance, to know that they have a gland on the inside of their hind leg near the bone. It doesn't make the meat taste good. It's just, you wouldn't know it to look at it. It doesn't have a sticky note on it that says, cut me out. But it doesn't taste good, and it fouls the meat around it if you don't cut it out. And so I know that when you cook a leg, you cook the meat, you want to cut that thing out. That's what it would be to accurately handle that piece of meat, right? If I were to cut you a ribeye steak, you love it. A half inch thick? Who wants to eat that?

Any of you guys who like steak, you want a half inch thick ribeye? What's going to happen to it? Dan's going to cook it on the grill and it's going to burn. And it's going to be tough as shoe leather. Great steak, tough. Because the butcher didn't cut it thick enough to be enjoyable. And so if we would value our butchers properly cutting our meat, how much more so should we value a pastor who accurately handles the word of truth? Who cuts it and divides it and applies it? accurately. That's what Paul encourages Timothy and all of their pastors to do. They need to know where to cut, how to cut. If we were to take this into another realm and I were to ask you, if you have to go have surgery, what do you want from the surgeon? In a word, accuracy. Don't cut things that shouldn't be cut. Don't cut more than needs to be cut. And put it back together well. That's the top of my list. And so if we want our butchers to cut our meat well,

I mean, we want our surgeons to work on us with great care. Shouldn't we value the care of our souls more and want those who keep watch over our souls to be men who accurately handle the word of truth, not men who rip at it and tear at it or who leave it aside altogether and come to church and don't even talk about the Bible? Much of evangelical Christianity today doesn't deal with the Bible. And so we should tell our friends and we should tell our neighbors, And the people that we love and that we interact with in the day. If you're going to go to a church, here's what you want. You want someone who teaches you the Bible. I read a book years ago. I've told you guys about this before. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched. And all it is is a big case study, a survey, of when people came into churches, unbelievers, and became Christians, what was the most important thing to them? It wasn't the music. It wasn't the dress. It wasn't the children's programs. It wasn't the building.

It wasn't how friendly everyone was, what they cared most about. Top of their list, clear preaching, clear definitive statements about what the Bible said. That's what converted them. That's it. They were willing to give on lots of other things. If they said, if I'm going to go to church, I want to know what these Christians believe. So you don't ever want to follow or listen to men who brush aside the word. Now there's a danger here. How do you know when, you know, how do you mesh together as a pastor accurately handling the word of truth with not wrangling about words? Some pastors like to fight about every little nuance of theology. I was reading Charles Spurgeon on this text, and he says, you know, there are men, brethren in our town in London, who spend their lives arguing about how God's agency, you know, how the relationship between God's agency and his sovereignty mesh with our free will. He says, but what I know is that that man who's wondering that has a soul that needs to be saved, and that's what I'm here for. You can go talk to them about that later. I'm here to talk to you about your soul. That was his concern. And that was how he sorted out how to negotiate the tension between wrangling about words and trying to sort out these theological things with handling the truth properly.

What good do we do if we explain the intricacies of God's sovereignty and man's free will, but we never call anyone to repentance? We will have done their soul zero good, and we'll have ushered them into hell. Being a pastor is difficult, at least in one way. You want people to like you as a pastor? I want you all to like me. I'm acutely aware of when I say things, who might be like, when I say it. And I have to deal with that temptation. Because it'd be easier, you know, there's part of me that would be more comfortable always saying things that it's like people go, thank you, that was so nice. But sometimes some of you like go past the door and you don't even make eye contact and I wonder, I'm like, what did I say? What did I do? Did I offend them? Did I, you know, you wonder these things. And so as I stand up and as I preach using myself as an example, the pressure is always on me to whether or not I'm going to, whether it's going to be a glancing blow or whether it's going to be a direct hit. How am I going to say it?

How am I going to nuance it? Are you going to say, I think he was talking about me, and I go, I was. Everyone else might not know that, but you know it. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Anyone who you're going to listen to, anyone that the people you know, if they need a pastor, you want them to listen to somebody who accurately handles the word of truth, who will tell them the truth. personal, to their own detriment. John the Baptist lost his head because he spoke the truth to his own detriment. It's not proper for you to have your brother's wife. And so you don't want a pastor. You don't want to feed from men who teach from their own words and their own sensibilities as opposed to what God said. You don't want a preacher who preaches and teaches what's popular or what's acceptable, what your itching ears want to hear.

I remember a few weeks ago I was preaching, and I don't remember what it was about specifically, but generally. I remember I was preaching. I was watching Dan. And I was saying, you have to work hard. And, of course, you know, if I say that to Dan, Dan goes, mm-hmm, because that's what Dan is. He's a hard worker. And then I said, but you have to be willing. I don't remember what exactly I said. You have to be willing for it to be wasted labor. And you were just really depressed. His whole countenance went, ugh. Like I can work really hard and it's not going to get me what I want. I have to rely on God and I'm watching him and it's like, yeah. You don't want someone who's just going to tell you what you want them to tell you. You want them to tell you the things you already know, the Bible says. But you don't want them to scratch your ears. So what are the applications here? Two quickly. First, be very careful and mindful about the things you say.

Careful not to waste your time and your energy in fruitless conversations that are destructive to yourself and to other people, whether that's in your home or in your workplace or on social media. Be very careful of what you say. If you're going to say something, it should be helpful. It should be profitable. It should be moving the ball forward. And second, be diligent in your pursuit of holiness as a lifetime of work. I'm not recommending to you an intensive. course of study. I'm recommending to you a lifetime of diligent study. And if you're ever inclined to think, I know that. You know the way that we say that to our parents? I know that. Don't we all say that to God as well? I know that. I've read that before. I've heard that before. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. You don't know as much as you think you know. And the things that you do know, you don't do as well as you should. This is true of all of us.

And so be diligent in your pursuit of godliness so that you will be presented to God as a workman who's not ashamed of Jesus Christ, who's learned through years of study to accurately handle the word of truth. One day you're going to stand before God and you'll give an account for how you've spent your life and what you've pursued, what you've given your attention to and what you've left to the side, what profit you've produced with the gifts and talents he's given you. You want to have something to show on that day. So be diligent in your pursuit of godliness from now until he calls you home. Let's pray.