The Sanctified Life | 2 Timothy 2:20-26 | Pastor Bob Erbig

Well, good morning, NBC.

Welcome back to another week in our series, Passing the Faith.

We're looking at Paul's second letter to Timothy.

If you're just joining us, this is the sixth message in our series.

Please join me today in 2 Timothy 2, verses 20 to 26.

2 Timothy 2:20–26

2 Timothy 2, 20 to 26.

And I know that baseball season just started, but it feels like football season outside.

So I'm wondering, do I have any football fans out there today?

All right, a couple.

Well, last week I was in Kansas City and I took a moment to drive past the Kansas City Chiefs Stadium.

This is Arrowhead or Giha or whatever they're calling it nowadays.

I did not see Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, or Taylor Swift, but the area was cool nonetheless.

Now, football stadiums, if you can see here, are just enormous.

They accommodate well over 50,000 fans, and there is a disparity between the number of players on the field and the number of spectators in the stands.

It's huge.

Now I want you to notice that the players are the ones who work hard, they train, they get dirty during the game.

It is the fans who show up once a week, they eat some overpriced concessions, and they have loud opinions the next day.

The fans don't get dirty, but they still take it personally when their team loses, sometimes going into a deep depression.

The spectator is the person who doesn't play the game but regularly calls the sports talk radio shows like Colin Cowherd to offer their opinions on management decisions because clearly the coach did not know what they were doing.

In fact, an entire hobby has been created for these fans.

Fantasy football.

Any fantasy football people out there?

Yeah, well, it's just that, it's a fantasy.

You don't physically train, you don't get dirty, but you get equally animated over your team.

In fact, I've known people who put money into this hobby, who spend hours on the computer for it and have big opinions over their fantasy teams.

Now, in between the services, somebody told me we're starting an NBC fantasy football team, so that's fine.

But here's the kicker.

Many people who play fantasy football or attend the sporting event have never actually played the game.

Now, does that principle apply to any other area of life, including your spiritual life?

Do you know people who have opinions about your family or your school or your organization, but they're not really invested?

Now, sadly, that can be the case with the church.

There are people that don't have skin in the game, but the question is this who can God use to build his kingdom?

If we're all just opinions and no commitment, that's a barrier to God using us.

Now, many people will attend a church often for years and they have no trouble sharing their opinions about how it can improve.

But many of those same people will never take the step of growing spiritually and becoming meaningfully engaged in the life of the church body.

So, like the football stadium, there's a lot of spectators cheering and booing, but only a few people who are getting dirty on the field.

Behind the scenes, people are making draft picks, they're on the computer, but never saying, put me in, coach.

Now that's the spectators, but let's also talk about the athletes.

Sometimes there's players, there's athletes who are careless.

They're engaged, but they can become reckless with their life.

They don't take their role in the body seriously, and they can damage the team.

Consider, as an example, Tiger Woods.

Oh, he's been in the news again recently.

He is involved in yet another car crash in Florida, arrested for another DUI, suspected DUI, and he's announced he's stepping away from golf to focus on his health.

Now he doesn't play a team sport, but his reckless choices are harming his effectiveness.

Tiger Woods may be talented, but if you played a team, but if he played a team sport, would you want him on your team?

Through the scriptures, we see that God saves and redeems imperfect people, but Jesus also calls people to leave everything and follow him.

And our personal holiness, our personal sanctification affects our community.

Are we becoming people whom God can use to build his kingdom?

Or are we not taking our faith seriously?

Now I would submit that God calls all of us to a third category, that of aspiring spiritual athletes, sold out to Jesus Christ.

And that's what Paul is teaching in today's passage.

If we want to be used by God, we need to take spiritual training seriously.

And if we're not starting right now, we need to always be ready, kind of like a backup quarterback, to step up when an opportunity arises.

So which category do you fit in?

Are you a spectator?

Are you a careless player, or are you an aspiring athlete?

Take a moment to assess yourself as we begin.

Who does God use to build his kingdom?

Is your engagement in the life of the church real, reckless, or a fantasy?

That's the topic that Paul is addressing in 2 Timothy 2, 20 to 26.

Now, last week, Pastor Dave spoke about the uh the topic of church unity.

Uh, this week I want to talk about engagement with the church.

That if we're to be a church that passes on the faith to the next generation, we need fewer spectators and more spiritual athletes in the game.

So here is the key question: how do we move from the stadium to the field?

Athletes must commit and train.

In spiritual language, we must grow in our sanctification, becoming more like Jesus.

And in our passage, Paul discusses the sanctified life of a Christian and outlines three concrete steps we can begin to take.

And I'll voice them in a rather pithy way.

Number one, you gotta take a bath.

Number two, you gotta run the race.

And then third, you gotta teach the truth.

So let's pray and then we'll look at each of those.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for my friends who are here this morning, for those that are listening online or maybe later on to this message.

I pray that you would open up the scriptures to us today.

And Lord, may we be humble enough to open our ears and our hearts to hear what you are speaking to us.

Lord, may you may you motivate us, may you draw us closer to yourself that we may more effectively build your kingdom and spread the gospel.

We ask that in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, hopefully, uh all of you bathed relatively recently.

Um, but if somebody starts inching away from you during the message, uh you might want to ask somebody you love for an opinion.

Now, I'm speaking spiritually, of course, and so is Paul.

Why do we need a spiritual bath?

Paul starts with an illustration in chapter 2, verse 20.

He says, This, now, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.

Now notice that Paul establishes a contrast immediately.

He speaks of gold and silver, wood and clay, honorable, dishonorable actions.

The phrase a great house conveys the idea of wealth, or other translations literally say a wealthy home.

The term was often used as a metaphor to describe a palace because the king lived there.

Now, spiritually speaking, this phrase functions as a metaphor for God's household, the church.

Did you know that you, as a Christian, have been blessed with a wealth of spiritual blessings in Christ?

You are wealthy, my friends.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul talks about our inheritance now that we are in the family of God.

The spirit of the King of kings resides inside you if you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ.

Well, Paul now moves into this vessel illustration, or another translation uses the word utensil.

In other words, in this great house there are there are vessels, there are utensils, instruments, tools, maybe a better word, that can be used by the king to accomplish his purposes in his kingdom.

Now the image also points to the social reality of Timothy's day because a great house would have ample space to accommodate a large number of similarly wealthy people.

But notice that Paul says this house includes these utensils, these vessels, uh, these tools of varying social strata.

You have gold and silver and wood and clay.

In that cultural context, this communicates the gamut of economic realities.

And the key lesson is this don't be a tool.

Now, before we move on, what is an example of a dishonorable tool?

I mean, that word dishonorable is in there.

What does that mean?

Well, let me just let me illustrate it this way.

Consider artificial intelligence, one of the most powerful new tools that's been developed in our generation.

This same technology can be used by a doctor to detect cancer earlier than the human eye could, to develop new medicines, to translate scripture into languages that have never had the Bible.

That can be a vessel of gold.

But that same exact technology, that same model, that same code is being used to generate child exploitation material, to create deep fake videos that destroy reputations, to flood the internet with misinformation.

Same tool, completely dishonorable use.

And that is Paul's point.

The problem isn't whether you are present in the great house of God, the problem is what you're being used for.

Are you being used for honorable purposes, to build up the body, to advance the gospel, to love your neighbor?

Or have you become a vessel of dishonor, present, functional, but aimed at something that can be shameful?

Now, Paul's final metaphor turns the expectations on their head.

This wide range of people could be living lives of honor or dishonor.

This language indicates that some in the church may not be living honorable lives.

Specifically, Paul is pointing out the difference between himself, Timothy, and the false teachers he's been harping on so often in his letters.

His ministry is with honor, theirs is without honor.

Or put another way, Paul and Timothy are on the field giving it their all.

The false teachers are the opinionated people in the stands preaching a fantasy gospel.

So I'll ask again: who can God use to build his kingdom?

Oh, these questions and application dovetail nicely with Pastor Dave's message from last week, because people with opinions and no skin in the game are the ones that often cause division.

They are in the game only for themselves.

By contrast, it's the players on the field who must work together to accomplish the mission.

If the offensive line doesn't block their opponents, well, the quarterback goes down and is out of the game and is hitting the shower rather early.

But how do we live honorable lives?

Paul continues in verse 21.

He says, Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

Now, did you notice the therefore?

What's it therefore?

It points to the game plan for getting out of the stands and onto the field.

See, when an athlete practices or plays in the game, they go hard.

They sweat.

Has anyone, does anybody have an athlete or is an athlete in their family?

Right?

Any athletes out there?

Okay, a few.

A few.

Well, um, what does the laundry or gym bag smell like of an athlete?

Not something you want to take a whiff of.

It is the smell of commitment and sacrifice.

But they also need to take a bath.

Or a shower, if you like.

You don't want that smell in the bag to linger too long.

And the same is true in our spiritual life.

Just because we are Christians does not mean we don't sin.

It does not mean that there are no selfish, uh, there are there are no areas of selfishness and pride that need to be stripped away in our life.

Our spiritual muscles need to grow.

For the Christian, ongoing confession and repentance are crucial for growth as a spiritual athlete.

It's not optional.

So when Paul asserts that you must cleanse yourself from what is dishonorable, this is the principle.

It refers both to conduct and doctrine.

And that's an important application to make.

Paul tells us elsewhere that we have to watch our life and our doctrine closely.

That means that our ability to make an impact for the kingdom is not limited to what we believe, it is intrinsically tied to how we live.

So ask yourself, church, does your life match your message?

If you live in such a way that dishonors God before a watching world, the impact of the message may be compromised.

Likewise, if you preach a false gospel, you also cause harm.

So don't be a stinky Christian.

Take a bath.

Now let's come back to the image of the backup quarterback for just a moment.

They don't always play the game, but they always have to be ready.

But how do we get ready for the good work that God has for us?

Well, that final clause in the section shows us how to do that.

We must cleanse ourselves.

And there's tension in that statement.

Because you might say, well, doesn't God do the cleansing?

Doesn't he do the saving?

Absolutely.

But also how we live matters.

There is an ongoing work of cleansing that we call sanctification in theological terms.

And I would suggest that the way we prepare for the good work God has for us is that we need to take a bath constantly by confessing our sin and repenting of our sin.

This is what it means to pursue a sanctified life.

You grow, becoming clean as you constantly shed the sinful behaviors of your old life.

Some Christians make the mistake that thinking that praying a salvation prayer or walking an aisle are the end of their Christian life, that the rest doesn't matter.

And it's not, it's actually the beginning of your Christian life.

And so confession and repentance must be a daily practice.

Consider the words of King David in Psalm 139, where he writes, Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Now that's a prayer that we should pray every day when we wake up and every night before we go to sleep.

Because as we do, we will more deliberately avoid sinful behavior and trust in Christ for our salvation and repent when we fall short.

Christian, you must return to the cross daily.

If we do, Paul says, God can use us to build his kingdom.

He says, the master of the house, that's Jesus, will set you apart as holy and put you to work.

But you have to be ready.

So do you see why living a sanctified life is important?

When the Holy Spirit is working in your heart, it's just a matter of time before you get on the field.

So ask yourself: Am I ready for the good work?

Am I living a life where God can use me?

Friends, I've seen too many people who call themselves Christians over the years get derailed by life choices.

So in college, maybe they they party too much and they make choices they regret.

They get involved in a romantic relationship and take their eyes off Jesus.

That happens so often.

Career advancement took precedence over their family and their spiritual life, and they turned to alcohol.

Friends, in those situations, you might believe all the right things, but your life stinks and you need a bath.

For God to use you, you need to be ready for the work.

Give him your whole heart today.

Take a bath and let the Spirit do His sanctifying work in your life.

Because once your heart is cleansed, you're ready to run the race.

That's point number two.

Run the race.

Now you might be saying that sounds like a counterintuitive path, Pastor Bob.

Why would I take a bath before I run the race?

Although I guess some people do.

Again, confession and repentance are daily activities, and so is the race.

When you're following Jesus, you need to run every day after him.

Because when you take time off, your spiritual muscles atrophy and you need to build them back up.

Last week, the Artemis II astronauts came back from a 10-day mission, and I know Pastor Dave mentioned them as well.

But I want to point out that 10 days in space takes a toll on the body.

Without gravity, your muscles weaken because there is no resistance.

So what they did on this trip was they put they put them through a training regimen during the mission to make sure that when they came back to Earth, their muscles would still be strong to resist the gravity.

And the same is true in our spiritual walk.

If you're just kind of floating along in your spiritual life, when the trials come, you might collapse under the gravity of them.

In verse 22, Paul offers now a training program, a training regimen to get us from the stadium to the field.

He writes, So flee, flee, youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, along with those who call on the Lord from pure heart.

Now notice there's two action words here: there's flee and pursue.

The Greek word for flee is fugo.

It means to get away from that as fast as you can.

Run as fast as you can away from that.

It's actually one of my favorite Greek words to say.

Fugo.

See, it's really fun.

Fugo.

You gotta flee and pursue.

They're fundamentally connected.

Paul is telling us to flee, to get away from our vices and pursue the virtuous life that God calls us to.

But you can't just run away.

We need to replace those bad things with better things.

Let me let me give you an example, what I mean.

Has anybody tried a strict elimination diet?

Okay?

Now, if you have, you know that often it ends in failure.

Why?

Maybe you cut out the carbs and the sugar, and for the first two weeks, your willpower just carries you along.

It brings you over, but then, then the cravings they return.

They hit you.

And they're powerful.

You can say amen if you know what I'm talking about.

They call with intensity.

They say, It's just a chip.

It's just a cookie.

And before you know it, an entire sleeve of Oreo cookies is gone.

Poof.

Who knows where they went?

Your wife, your spouse asks you, where are the cookies?

I want one.

And you say, Well, the dog ate them.

You see, deprivation without replacement is not sustainable.

You need something better, food with nutrients that that takes away the craving.

So, what do you need to flee right now?

Maybe you check social media first thing in the morning and you need to replace that with Bible reading.

Maybe you're a critical person and you need to replace those critical words with encouraging ones.

Maybe you need to replace anxiety with more prayer.

Replace bad things with better things.

Now, what does Paul say we are to flee?

Specifically, youthful passions.

It can also be translated as lusts.

Now, when I say lust, most will assume I'm talking about unholy sexual desires.

And while it's certainly the word certainly does encompass that, the semantic range is wider.

Now I'm not going to spend much time on any time on the sexual piece because, fair warning, uh next week, Pastor Dave, that's his job, he's gonna get up here and do an entire sermon on this verse right here, focusing on pornography and sexual temptation.

So we'll pray for Pastor Dave.

But parents, fair disclaimer, use the kids' ministry next week, April the 26th.

But youthful passions also speaks to a broad range of sinful or lustful longings.

Paul uses this word in his famous vice list of Galatians 5, 19 to 21, the works of the flesh.

And he includes both sensual and mental sins such as greed and exceeding desire for controversy and so forth.

In the context of 2 Timothy 2, though, this statement follows verses 14 to 19.

Where Paul addresses, as we learned last week, division in the church.

So the passion he's referencing here most certainly includes unbridled quarreling, which is as deadly as unbridled lust.

You see, in our youth, and those of you that are young out there, you're passionate.

We talk about passion and God's calling and all those good things.

We have energy, right?

When we're young, some of you out there say, Man, I wish I was young again and I had energy.

But we have a lot of opinions at that stage of life that haven't been tempered.

We have a tendency to fight about things that don't really matter.

So, as a follow-up from last week, I will ask, are you somebody who loves to fight and cause controversy?

Paul is speaking to you here.

And he's saying you don't need to stir the pot from a fleshly desire, from a youthful passion.

Instead, what should you pursue?

He says, pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace.

So if you look at that list and ask, Am I pursuing these virtues?

What would your answer be?

Am I pursuing them in my family, in my marriage, at work, at church?

And if you're not, you gotta ask the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, you gotta help me pursue these virtues.

Because a quarrelsome spirit can easily slow down your ability to run the race.

Now, this final clause in the verse also points to a communal aspect of the pursuit.

So you should pursue these virtues with others, it says, who desire a pure heart before the Lord.

You're not running the race alone.

You're not supposed to run the race alone.

But if you give in to youthful passions and you have this quarrelsome spirit, people are gonna abandon you.

Now, what is it, what does running together look like?

Well, let me let me give you an illustration.

Recently, I've noticed initiatives among parents to delay giving their child a smartphone.

One of them is called the Wait Until Eighth Pledge.

It's a national movement that encourages parents to commit together to delay giving their child a smartphone until at least eighth grade.

At least.

Now, parents are concerned rightly that children, especially younger ones, will be exposed to harmful social pressure and damaging content on the internet before they are old enough to be discerning.

So as a community, people are encouraging everyone to wait.

Now, why?

You say, why?

That seems so stodgy, right?

Because you can choose not to give your child a phone individually, but if their best friend has one or their group of friends have has one, they're still gonna be exposed.

See, the point is the only way it works is if the community runs together.

And Paul is applying the same principle here that unless the entire community of faith is running towards these virtues together, one person's youthful passions can slow everybody down.

That's what the writer of Hebrews was talking about in chapter 12, about the cloud of witnesses and running together, throwing off everything that hinders.

So here's the challenge for you this week.

Regarding the smartphone, if you've got a child in elementary or middle school, you can look up this Wait Until Eighth Pledge and talk with some people about it.

Because unless the community is doing things together, as Paul describes, people running in the same direction, pursuing the same Jesus, holding the line together, it's easily gonna fall apart, not just with smartphones, but with so many other things.

And if you don't have kids at home, the question is still the same.

Who are you running with?

Because according to Paul, it's not optional, it's the point.

So before we move on, it's worth asking, how do you cultivate a pure heart if you're running together with people that do this?

How do you cultivate that?

How do you do this individually and as a church community?

Well, if you remember in the Beatitudes, Jesus Himself said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall what?

They shall see God, right?

Purity is cleansing language, and it's rooted in baptism.

When you go under the water, you are symbolically dying to your sin and you're being raised to new life.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit and the finished work of Christ on the cross, you are clean.

Not because of your work, but because of Jesus' work.

Now, at the end of our service today, hang around because we have a baptism.

That every time somebody gets in the tank, what they're saying is, I want to be clean.

I want to follow Jesus with my whole life.

This is my declaration that I want to do that.

I'm dying to my sin and trusting Jesus to raise me from the dead, make me alive.

I'm confessing that I'm trusting him for that.

And if you've not been baptized, we would love to help you take that next step.

Stop by the Welcome Center to receive a packet for more information.

Cultivating a pursuit requires a decision to run after Jesus every day.

Trust him.

Because the closer you get to him, the desire for things displeasing to him fades away.

And just don't run alone.

You need to get in a running group who will cheer you on, who will pray for you, who will read scripture with you.

And when you run hard together and the spiritual sweat is strip just dripping off your brow, they're the ones who are gonna tell you to take a bath.

So how do we move from the stadium to the field?

Take a bath, run the race, and then as you train, the final step will just become natural every day.

You gotta now teach the truth.

Teach the truth.

Again, Paul tells us watch our life and our doctrine closely.

That if you don't desire to run after Jesus in your life, you're not gonna care about doctrine.

You're probably gonna twist it to suit your own needs.

But if you are running after Jesus from a pure heart, the truth of the gospel will flow from your speech.

Look at how Paul continues in verse 23.

He says, Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.

You know that they breed quarrels.

Now this verse connects back to those youthful passions in verse 22.

That Paul has told Timothy, flee, youthful passion, run after virtue.

But now he outlines the implications of living for the sake of youthful passions.

Again, the word it encompasses that sexual temptation, but this verse makes it clear that it extends to this infighting Paul has been warning against.

These passions breed quarrels.

Now, some in the church are interested in foolish controversies, controversies that lead to Christians fighting amongst themselves and getting distracted from God's mission.

Now, in Timothy's day, the church was arguing over topics that had little spiritual benefit.

They only led to social destruction.

Paul says, have nothing to do with them.

He continues by offering Timothy instruction.

Look at verse 24.

He says, And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everybody, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

Now notice again, Paul says, God, God may grant them repentance.

You are not responsible for the result, you are responsible for being faithful.

The harvest belongs to God.

But it's in the midst of the infighting and division that Paul looks at Timothy, at the leader, and says, Timothy, you must lead by example.

Don't start unnecessary problems.

Instead, do something countercultural.

Be kind.

Do you know how hard it is to be kind to your enemies?

See, when somebody comes at you swinging their fists or wagging their tongue, what's your first reaction?

Do you want to give that person a big hug and tell them you love them?

Probably not.

The flesh, it wants to duck and swing back, right?

Your words become reactive and harsh rather than loving.

By a show of hands, how many have reacted ever in a harsh and unloving way at some point in your life?

Yeah, just about everybody.

And the rest of you, well, I'll pray the Spirit will convict you.

Now here's the thing.

If you always react this way and you never grow, you're never going to move from the stadium to the field in the Christian life.

The reason people stay in the stands is that they don't want to do the hard, heart work of growing in community, of being corrected and humbling themselves before the Lord.

From a worldly perspective, it's much easier to stay up in the stands and offer your unfiltered opinion and say the heck with those people.

But notice that Paul tells Timothy that if you're going to have an impact, if you're going to display the life of Christ and be a servant, you have to be what?

You have to be kind.

You have to be kind.

And you say, even to the people I don't like?

Yeah.

Even to the people you don't like.

Because if you're not, they're not going to listen to your teaching.

You have to patiently endure evil, he says.

Oh man, you say that is that is hard.

You see, your character is on full display, not when things are easy, but when you react to situations in which somebody is unfair to you.

When somebody tears you down in front of others with their words, and you patiently endure that evil and respond, and you correct that person in gentleness, that's showing something about your character.

Now you may say, Well, why would I even do this?

Why just not swing back?

It feels so good.

Well, in the last clause, Paul gives the reason.

He says it may lead them to repentance.

They may turn from their wicked ways and come back to Jesus or come to Jesus.

Friends, fighting for fighting's sake is not going to win hearts.

What does Paul tell us in Romans 2?

He says it is God's what?

God's kindness that leads us to what?

Repentance.

See, the reason we're not quarrelsome and the reason we endure evil is to see more people come to Jesus, is to see God's people turn back to him.

That's the positive side.

But it's also a warning that if you do not turn to Jesus, there are consequences.

There is judgment.

We need to teach the truth with our lives and our words because some people, some who we love dearly, are trapped.

They're caught.

Look at how Paul finishes in verse 26.

He says, And they may come to their senses and escape the what?

The snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

That's a sobering verse.

See, this reality should create a healthy fear in our lives.

But if you look at those verses, and I want you to think about right now, think about somebody in your life who embodies that situation here in verse 26.

Has someone you love been ensnared by the devil?

That could be right now, it could have been in the past.

What would it or did it take to bring them to their senses?

To wake them up?

I imagine that kindness and patience had something to do with it.

Again, this is a sobering verse.

It tells us the stakes of our life and doctrine.

You don't want to keep somebody from the Lord due to your selfish living.

And you don't want to keep somebody from the Lord because you are afraid to tell them the truth.

We wage spiritual warfare by boldly proclaiming the truth of the gospel and by patiently waiting for God to melt the hard heart of an individual we love and we care about.

He calls us to partner with him as he saves people by his grace.

And for Christians, living the sanctified life is part of that mission.

We represent Jesus to a watching world.

If we don't, who will?

The stakes are high.

Dead people need to come to life.

People enslaved to sin need to be set free.

And we cannot waste our time screaming our opinions from the stands.

We need to get on the field of battle for the glory of God.

Take a bath, run the race, teach the truth.

Why?

Because the stakes are high.

It is spiritual life or death.

I'm going to invite the worship team to come back on stage, and as they do, I want to return to the three groups of people we discussed at the beginning of this message.

Remember the image of the stadium for a moment.

At the beginning, I asked, who does God use to build his kingdom?

And the first category was spectators.

Now, maybe you're here today and you're a spectator because you're still skeptical about this whole Jesus thing.

And you say, you know, I'm here, I'm in the stands, I'm just going to watch for a bit to see how the game plays out.

I want to see how this church plays the game, right?

You want to see how the people on the field treat each other.

You want to see if Jesus actually makes a difference in our lives.

And I pray that this church, Millington Baptist Church, shows the love of Jesus through our words and actions, not just through our beliefs.

Now, others out there might be spectators because you're afraid to get on the field.

You've been in other churches, and getting on the field, it gets a little messy, right?

Your uniform might get dirty.

Somebody might commit a personal foul, and you're uncertain if others have your back.

Now, the second category was that of the careless athlete.

Oh, they may be talented, they may be really good at what they do, but they don't take their training seriously.

How they live their life has a serious impact on the community.

And if you're in that category, I would challenge you to recognize your importance and allow Jesus to grow you.

And then finally, of course, there is the aspiring athlete.

And this is where Paul calls all of us to be.

He calls us to get out of the stadium onto the field.

He wants us to follow Jesus with our whole heart.

He wants us to get our uniform a little dirty.

And friends, can I suggest today that getting your uniform dirty is part of following Jesus?

The church is not perfect, but it was God's idea.

The vessels in this great house are sinful and relationships are not always easy, but God calls us to live together as a family on mission, working out our salvation together with fear and trembling, confessing and repenting of our sins often and always asking for forgiveness and trusting God with our very lives.

Because the sanctified life is not easy, but it's worth it because it will bear much fruit for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Amen?

You pray for us.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for my friends who are here today.

Lord, I pray that you would teach us what it means to surrender to you, to give our whole lives to you, to not hold anything back, to grow in our sanctification, to be made more and more into the image of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Lord, remove those barriers, bring us conviction, and may you get the glory for it.

We give the rest of our time to you in Jesus' name.