A Great House - Week 2

Second Timothy, Chapter two. Second Timothy, Chapter two, starting in

verse twenty. This is the passage of Christia that I've

asked you to read every week while we're in this series.

The Great House. It reads like this, but in a

great house they're not only vessels of gold and silver,

but also of wood and clay, some for honor and

some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter,

he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful

for the Master, prepared for every good work. Flee also

youthful nus, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those

who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but

be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility,

correcting those who are in opposition. If God perhaps will

grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth,

and that they may come to their senses and escape

the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by

him to do his will, let's pray, Father, I thank

you for your mercy and your grace. Lord, I thank

you for what you're doing in your people. And I

pray that this morning you I that you open our

ears to hear and our hearts to receive what you

would say. Lord, that you would invest deeply in our lives,

and that we not hear words, but there be an impartation,

because I believe you have given me a word that

goes to the very foundation of our society. Lord, I

love you, and I thank you in Jesus's name. Amen.

You know, this whole concept of honor is a strange

thing in today's culture. Honor is not something that that

is often spoken of. We spoke, we speak of honor

as if it is a virtue for for those that

are fallen, that served in some capacity, some civil service,

that that that there is a that there's honor to

be bestowed. But this whole concept of honor is something

that's very scriptural, and the lack of honor and the

erosion of honor has also led us to the place

in society where we are now. We have lost what

it means to honor somehow during this age, this uh,

this pursuit of knowledge that we're in we have always strived,

or we are now striving, to always find the next

new thing, the next bit of information, that most powerful

revelation that's out there somewhere, rather than trusting the way

things have always been. I want to assure you that

this pursuit of knowledge and the way we live and

the way we receive and communicate information is a very

short lived thing. The life of it is not what

we think it is. It's hard for us to imagine

that life is any different. You know, when I look

at my life and I look at I can't remember

what it was like not having children. I can't remember

what that was like. I mean, I know there was

a time when I didn't I wasn't born with kids, right,

I mean manly, but not that manly, right. I mean,

you know there was a day where I didn't have

but I don't remember what that life was like. I

certainly don't remember what life was like without Angie. I

don't remember those things. Those things were there, but it's

just the normal. And today we have become so saturated

with this pursuit of knowledge and information that we don't

remember that just a few short years ago, our source

of information was the tribes in which we lived and dwelt,

those tight knit communities that were the source of our

information and our understanding that started often in the family

and came from extended families beyond that, And it was

in those things that we built knowledge upon knowledge upon

knowledge upon knowledge. But based on those those central pillars

of godliness, even if we lived in what looked like

ungodly homes, there were these threads of righteousness in every

single decision and every single family that existed, because there

is just something natural about God's principles that they're there,

even when we don't understand their God's principles, they're there,

and those things are the honor. And when we look

at things like parenthood and family structure, there is honor

to be given to those things. Not the actions, not

the manifestations of our lives, but those principles that are taught,

those principles of work ethic, those principles of humanity, those

principles of kindness, those principles of sympathy, those principles are

the things that we honor, and we honor them because

of those central threads of righteousness that used to exist

and run through each of our tribal communities. And when

I say tribal community, that's not a misappropriation of what

I'm trying to say. I mean those like minded gatherings

of people. And somehow in the very recent past, in

this modern error, we think that that gaining or or

coming together with like minded people, it's been villainized and demonized,

and we think that's a bad thing. That we now

call it echo chambers, that we create, these echo chambers

that we only hear our own ideas. But it was

just a short while ago that that's the way we

all grew. But now we think that's a bad thing

because what society tells us. But it's this erosion of honor,

of holding those central threads as things that are sacred

to be exalted, that we come gone from the entity

that we see in the world today. That we have

gone from these these tight knit groups where we expand

on these principles and we make society better inside our

tribal communities, to now we look around and we have

these ideas that are so far from normal and so

far from founded on anything that there's more than two

genders that exist in the world. I just want each

one of you to think go back to your great

grandparents and think about having a conversation with your great

grandparents about there being more than two genders. Think about

having that with your grandparents, that that there are that

that's something that that Oh, no, we've been wrong for

since creation. We've been wrong. And those things are easy

to see when we look at things that are that

far abstract. But we got there somehow, Come on, somebody,

we got there because we lost this concept of honor

and holding those things up that are worthy to be

held up in the pursuit of what's next, in the

pursuit of knowledge and this next manifestation of whatever it

looks like. We've lost the concept of of togetherness and

the foundations of information and principles that we should be

filled with and stand upon. In Matthew chapter seven, verse thirteen,

it says, enter by the narrow gate. Now, I want

you to contextualize this against the backdrop of society. Enter

by the narrow gate. For whyde is the gate, and

broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there

are many who go in by it. Because narrow is

the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life,

and there are few who find it when we have

spread the gate so wide that everything is acceptable and

that nothing is sacred, and that nothing is honorable anymore,

that we can look at those things which are obviously honorable,

but allow people to call those things dishonorable. That those

fundamentals of life that have always been those things that

not only have we heard that are true, but that

we feel deep down on the inside are true. I

mean that deep down on the inside. It's not about information,

but there's something at the soulish level. There's something at

the mind, the way in the mind, the will, the emotions,

something that lives down in that part of us that

when we hear something and it just feels right, that

somehow we're afraid to embrace those things that are right

because other people say that those thoughts and those traditions

are dishonorable to society. We have lost the concept of honor.

And it starts when the enemy uses fraction and disinformation

and families and we begin to look at actions rather

than character. We start looking at fairness rather than scripture.

We start looking for happiness rather than resting and joy.

We start looking for Listen. One of the most life

changing things I've heard. It wasn't even someone. I don't

even know if the guy's a Christian. I was just

listening to something and this is what he said. He

said aging. I know I don't say things playing sometimes,

so let me explain what I mean. It's a common

word aging getting older. Come on, somebody. Aging is the

aggressive pursuit of comfort. And I thought, oh my gosh.

When I heard that, I was like, whoa, that's that's me.

I got listen. I own a recliner. Now that it's

like big enough for the whole church to sit in.

It's like that wide. It don't have it doesn't touch

me on either side. I got room from my laptop.

My hat can go there, my phone can go there.

It's got a cup holder. The feet come up, the

thing goes back. I mean show you said there you whoa.

And it was like that was like how many years

did I ask for? I mean for years and everybody

be like ha ha ha. I had this toddler chair, right.

I mean, it was like, you know, I'll be sitting there.

I looked like I was in a strait jacket. And

it was like my vision in life was to have

this recliner because I want comfort, and comfort's not the enemy,

but it's also not the answer. Because see, there's there's

nothing honorable about wanting to push aside the hard things.

What's honorable is embracing the hard things. It's looking at

our lives. And you know, this morning, when I pulled

up my notes, I made the decision to I made

the decision to preach yesterday because everybody was like, no,

take the day off, man, your dad passed away, take

the day off. Take the day off. You know, when

dad retired, he had never taken one vacation day, and

he was under the old accumulation method in the school system,

and he had over fourteen months of personal and sick

time accumulated. The man could have taken vacation for over

a year. And I thought, if he didn't take a

day off, why would I take a day off. I

don't ever take a day off. Why would I take

today off? Come on, somebody, you know? And it's that

work ethic. That's one of those honorable things now where

they're dishonorable thing. Yes, there are things that I don't copy,

but I also don't let the things that we're probably

not right erase the honor of the position of fatherhood.

I don't let the honorable pursuits erase anything this dishonorable

when I look at someone, because the dishonorable also makes

them humanity. And when we separate those two things, we

can hold the position and honor. We can hold the

people in honor and understand that it's not the action,

it's the person. And those threads of righteousness that run

between things that we're supposed to use as the basis

of our information and our knowledge and expand on things

so that we end up with great, powerful things for humanity,

not strange things like there's more than two genders. We

can't reel that back and find that tide to honor anywhere.

We can't. We can't reel a lot of these things

back to the place where there are those righteous pursuits

because we have abandoned honor for knowledge. We've abanned an

honor for just wanting to be right. And I want

you to know that ninety percent of the time, if

it feels new, it's wrong. That if you think you

have found something brand new that no one has ever

seen before, it's probably wrong. If you see something in

scripture that you think has never been seen before one

hundred percent of the time, it's wrong. Honor is the

foundation that holds us and props us up inside our

tribal communities so that we can grow and expand, and

our communities, our gathering of like mindedness, was never created

by God to do everything together. Our communities, our shared beliefs,

and our like mindedness connect with other groups of like

mindedness and other groups of like mindedness until we create

a community, a body that supports one another and can

give sustenance and can give life to each other. So

don't think that because you surround yourself with a community

of people that think like you, that somehow you're invaluable

to society. You're showing honor to those threads of righteousness

that you hold dear, and your ideas expand from there.

In Proverbs chapter four, it's oh, let me change glasses.

In Proverbs chapter four, hear my children the instruction the

instruction of a father, and give attention to no understanding,

For I give you good doctrine. Do not forsake my law.

Let me just stop right there. Everybody look at me.

Everybody look at me. I want to I want to

tell you something right now that listen, you can send

the emails to me on this one. Okay, you don't

have to send them to to Clay or Clay at

seastone or get you said Steve at seastone dot TV.

And I have people ask me this all the time.

You know, should I should I? Should I indoctrinate my children? Yes? Yes,

you should indoctrinate your children. What does that mean? You

should tell your children what's right and what's wrong. You

should tell them right and you should tell them wrong.

You should tell them the processes to come up with

what is right and the process that that takes to

come up with what is wrong. You need to teach

them those things. You need to teach them sound good doctrine,

because the world is not going to teach them anything.

The world is gonna say everything goes and there is

no truth whatever you think is truth, and the lack

of truth leads to death. So yes, you need In Proverbs,

he says, listen, you've got my doctrine. I give you

good doctrine. Do not forsake it. When I was my

father's son, tender and the only one in the sight

of my mother, he also taught me and said to me,

let your heart, retain my words, keep my commands, and live,

get wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. Wisdom comes

perverted when knowledge is perverted. When we don't have truth

as the basis of knowledge, we will not have truth

as the basis of wisdom. That if our wisdom is

based on erroneous information, that will not apply in the

real world and will not bring us back to a

place of truth. He also taught me and said to me,

let your heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live,

get wisdom, get understanding. Do not forget nor turn away

from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her,

and she will preserve you. Love her and she will

keep you. Number seven I mean verse seven. Wisdom is

the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom, and in all you're getting,

get understanding. How do we expect society to get understanding

if we're not giving explanation? How can someone get understanding

if they don't have a basis of honor and those

threads of righteousness that are woven through their communities and

their support structures. There is no way to get understanding

for something that is not understandable. There's no way to

get understanding for something that has no basis in truth,

because it can mold in shape and become whatever the

enemy wants it to be. But everything we as believers

believe is founded in the truth of the Gospel of

Jesus Christ, and everything should point from there and to there.

Whether we're dealing with other believers or whether we're dealing

with the lost, our doctrine remains the same. And we

honor humanity because Jesus died for humanity. Listen, doesn't matter

how ornery and mean spirited our parents are. We honor

them because God set up the institution of parenthood and childhood,

and we better line up and start honoring our parents

because it is the first commandment, with promise that we

would live long and prosperous lives. Now let me just point,

let me just let me look at that scripture last week.

They didn't hear me. Come, so Clay, I'm ready for

the band to come. Well know what happened is sometimes,

you know, I usually do it pretty well in transition,

but I did it in the middle of a thought

last time, and I don't know how. You know, you know,

sometimes I don't do it right. I was in formed

last week, I didn't do it right, So this week

I did it right. We have these we have these moments.

We have these moments where where we discover a revelation

about what we have always believed a deeper way of

understanding and communicating those things. In culture, we see it

in Christ's teachings that when Jesus taught, he used the

visible things around people that he taught in parable those

life application stories. And what that doesn't look like in

today's society is that we just simply tell somebody they're wrong,

because because the thing that has been missing, the thing

that has suffered through this erosion of honor, is deep

connected relationship. Because where there's honor, there's connected relationship. I

love Gary Ostein because he has always honored me, and

I have always honored him. My wife and I are

inseparable because I honor her and she honors me. Honor

brings connectivity at a level that most people never experience.

Honor honor. A great house is filled with vessels of honor.

Children honor your parents. Parents honor your children. Here's the thing.

There's a reward for children honoring their parents, but parents,

we should just know to do it. We should just

know to honor our children. There's no special reward given

for honor in that direction, because we've already received the

honor in the other direction. Church, our lives bull down

through the decisions and the connections we make in life

and the honor we showed up people. In Second Timothy,

chapter two, starting in verse one, it says, you, therefore,

my son, relationship, connection, honor, be strong in the grace

that is in Christ Jesus. And here is here is

the formula for solving every problem in the world. Listen,

look at me, everybody. Every problem in the world is

solved in this passage of scripture, every one of them.

Problem with nuclear weapons, the problem with what, hunger, what this?

This is it? Remember, relationship is the basis in which

he says this. He calls him son, and the things

that you've heard from me among many witnesses. Commit these

to faithful men who will be able to teach others.

Also that those righteous threads that we see doing life

together in relationship go find some other people and build

relationships with them, and once they've proven honor, release them

to go and do that with others. Also, until we

have brought people to the table rather than shouting through

a microphone from a podium. We come together around kitchen

tables around the world, and we come back to the

place of honoring one another in spite of our differences.

Come on somebody until people see Jesus in us shining

soul bright, that those righteous threads draw people through the difference.

And under the blood of Jesus Church. We live in

the greatest time on earth, because in order for reconciliation

to happen, there has to be division, and we live

in the greatest time of division ever in the history

of the planet. And you have been given the ministry

of reconciliation. You have the words of reconciliation. Find ways

to honor people, and it will bring connection so that

you can speak truth. And when you spreak truth, Jesus

shows up and there's a grace collision that happens in

people's lives. Everybody's stand with me. Father, I ask you

to move right now in the hearts of your people. Lord,

I pray that that you reveal to us places where

we have it shown honor, where we've been dishonorable, and

forgive us of those things. Lord, I pray that you

birth in every person, the ability to discern those threads

of righteousness that are woven into every single person on earth,

that you allow us to see them and show honor

to those things, that it would be that it would

bring connection to humanity. Lord, I love you, and I

thank you for everything you are in all that we

can be in you. Thank you. Jesus. Listen, if you're

here today and you'd say, my life is not honored

the Lord, my life is not honored the Lord the

way that it should. But today I want to bring

my life in alignment and I want to show honor

to Jesus. I've lived in rebellion and I've looked past

things I know that I should have done, But today

I want to. I want to line those things up

and bring honor to my relationship with Jesus. Or if

you're here and you say, hey, you know there are

people that I haven't shown honor to, that I've been

dishonorable to. Lord, I want you to help me make

those things right. If either one of those things is true,

I'm gonna count to three. I say, hey, I want

to I want to bring my life back into honor

with Jesus. I want you to help me repair the

relationships I've damaged by not showing honor. I want you

to step out and make you way in the front.

Our prayer team is gonna come and beat you right here.

H only count of three, one, two, three, Step out

and come. Don't matter where you are, what you're dealing with.

But you just feel like you are not showing honor

to the Lord. Thank you, Jesus, Thank you, Jesus. Pastoral,

lay the altars open.