22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.
24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
Introduction
You heard about the lady who married four times. She married a banker, an actor, a preacher, and a mortician in that order. And they asked her why. She said, “I married one for the money, two for the show, three to make ready, and four to go.”
Preachers do help you to get ready to go. And hopefully, they help you to get ready to stay. They teach you not just how to die, but also how to live. And that is what the apostle Paul is doing in the passage we have before us today. He gives us what I call four rules of life. You know that Timothy was a preacher. And what Paul wrote here was primarily to preachers. But since the Holy Spirit not only inspired it, but chose to preserve it for us, there is bound to be a message for every believer in what he has to say.
Let me give you those rules and then expound on them. The first one is found in verse 22 where he says very simply, “Flee youthful lusts.” And the rule of life is that you are to avoid youthful passions.
The second rule is in the second half of that verse. Having said, “flee youthful lusts” Paul then says, “but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” We are not only to avoid youthful passions, we are to strive to live right.
The third rule is stay out of senseless controversies. And that is found in verse 23, “But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.” They don’t do anything but stir up controversy. So avoid youthful passions, strive to live right, stay out of senseless controversy.
The fourth rule is in verses 24-26: “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” That is people who do things that cause their own destruction. “If God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”
And the rule of life in those verses is this: “You are to be positive in your approach to life. Avoid youthful passions, strive to live right, stay out of senseless controversies, and then be positive in your whole approach to life.”
I want us to look at those four rules to see what God has to say to you and to me in them.
1. Avoid youthful passions. Paul begins by saying that we are to avoid youthful passions. And he expresses that truth in the very first sentence of verse 22 when he says, “Flee also youthful lusts.”
That word lusts literally means “cravings or passionate desires.” And there have been two interpretations of that verse of scripture down through the years. There have been those who have said that Paul clearly was referring to the passions of the flesh, to sinful indulgences in the body when he said to Timothy, “You are to flee youthful lusts.” It may very well be that that is what Paul is talking about. Because in the preceding passage he has talked about the importance of purity of life. Perhaps you remember that he said, “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Timothy 2:20-21).
Paul was saying in those verses that a Christian achieves his highest honor and he finds his greatest joy in being useful in the kingdom of God. And the one prerequisite for usefulness is that our lives be clean. It may very well be in keeping with that teaching that he moves right on to say to Timothy, “Timothy, you flee youthful lusts. You stay away from those passions, from those fleshly and sensual desires that so characterize young people. Stay away from them.”
If that be so, then Paul is giving to us in that statement a formula for dealing with temptation. And in that word flee you have a suggestion for how to deal with temptation. Now if you want to know how not to deal with temptation you need to study the life of Simon Peter. His life is a remarkable account of how to fail, how not to deal with temptation. You remember that Jesus when met with the disciples in the Upper Room he announced, “One of you will betray me.” And Simon in his bold and arrogant way said, “Lord, these other men may betray you, but I will be faithful unto you even unto death.”
And in his arrogance and in his overconfidence and in his self-assurance he failed to take into account the power of Satan. That’s how not to deal with temptation, to become overconfident with it. Later on that evening they went into the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus went deeper into the garden to pray, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). As he went deeper into the garden he left those disciples outside with the admonition, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38). They didn’t watch. They didn’t pray. They went to sleep. That’s how to not deal with temptation. Don’t take it seriously. Don’t watch. Don’t pray and you become susceptible to the temptation of Satan.
If that weren’t enough to teach Simon a lesson, when Jesus was arrested and carried to the courtyard of the high priest Caiaphas to go through the mockery of a trial Simon followed along behind. And as Jesus was being tried and as Simon watched the proceedings he stood around the campfire of the enemy warming his hands by the fires of the enemy. Someone came to him and said, “Aren’t you one of his followers?” He denied it. They came to him the second time and a third time and every time he denied it. And as he denied it he fulfilled the prophecy of Jesus, “Ye shall deny me three times,” and he failed and he yielded to temptation simply because he got too close to the enemy’s campfire. He should have heeded the admonition of scripture. We are to abstain from the very appearance of evil.
If you want to know how not to deal with temptation, look at the arrogance, look at the lack of prayer, look at the flirtation of Simon Peter with temptation and you will see how a man can easily fall into sin.
If you want to know how to deal with it, then heed the admonition of the apostle Paul when he says to Timothy, “Flee youthful lusts.” There is a time to fight and there is a time of flight in spiritual warfare. And we need to take Joseph of the Old Testament as our example as to how to deal with temptation. You remember that Joseph was the manager of the household of the captain of Pharaoh’s guard and that captain was gone a great deal on state affairs. While he was away dealing with governmental affairs, his wife envisioned affairs of her own and she approached Joseph. And at first he resisted with words. And when she made that second approach Joseph broke and ran. He knew he couldn’t stay there and stay pure. That same kind of advice comes centuries later from the lips of the apostle Paul as he says to Timothy and to you and me, that the best and most effective way, the surest ways to deal with temptation, is when it comes to run as far from it as fast as you can. “Flee youthful lusts.”
There are those who say that Paul might not be talking about sensual desires or fleshly appetites here. He rather might be talking about just those characteristics of young people that cause them to be impatient. Always in a hurry, never able to wait for what they want. Those characteristics that make young people always fascinated by the new, and believe that if something is old, if something has been around a long time, it can’t possibly be very good, including ideas and values and principles. It is that characteristic of young people that makes them think that they know everything there is to know. You know a child is never smarter than between the years of 14 and 16. I mean they know more then than they will ever know again for the rest of their life. From then on, it is downhill.
Mark Twain said that when he was 14, his father was so ignorant that he could hardly stand to be around the old man. By the time he got to be 21 he was amazed by how much his father had learned in seven years.
Young people do learn as they grow older how little they knew back when they were in their early teens. But back then they thought they knew everything. They know how they ought to dress. They know where they ought to be able to go. They know whom they ought to be able to associate with. They know everything. And you can’t tell them much of anything. And because they have that sense of superior knowledge, they want to argue about everything. They will argue at the drop of a hat. They will argue when you are thinking about dropping a hat. They just like to argue because they feel like they know all the answers, that truth was born with them and it will die with them.
I like the story of the young man who was hailed before the traffic court. The judge had had a long difficult day trying cases and this young man was pleading his innocence. He had obviously been going too fast in a restricted zone but he had some good reasons for that. And he began to talk about the road conditions and the traffic flow and as he pled his innocence he said, “Judge, I would even be willing to take a lie detector test.” And the judge said to him, “Son, I am the lie detector.”
Kids grow up thinking that they are the detectors of all truth. And it may very well be that Paul is saying to Timothy, “Timothy, those characteristics of young people to be impulsive, to be impatient, to always be seeking after the novel, to think that you know everything and want to argue with everybody about everything, you need to run away from that. If you are going to be effective in God’s service, then you need to flee youthful lusts.”
Take any interpretation that you want of that verse. It all boils down to the same basic truth and that is that you are to avoid youthful passions in life. That’s one of the way to live better and one of the ways to die better.
2. Strive to do what’s right. There is a second rule of life and it is this, “We are to strive to do right.”
On the negative side you are to flee from youthful lusts. But the Bible never emphasizes the negative to the exclusion of the positive. So Paul turns very quickly to say, “Now you are to follow after righteousness, faith, love, and peace.” That word follow is one of Paul’s favorite words. It literally means “to pursue.” And while you run away from temptation, you are to run after the virtues of the Christian life.
Righteousness means right standing with God and with man. It carries with it a moral quality. We are to live morally upright before God and before our fellow man. We are to pursue that. We are to seek after that. We are to seek after faith, which means fidelity. Faithfulness, true to God’s revealed truth. Instead of always arguing and quibbling about the insignificant, trivial things of life, you be faithful and true to God’s word.
And you pursue love. Now that word love has reference to the love of God that can be reproduced in your life through the Holy Spirit. And when the love of God is reproduced in your life or in my life through the Holy Spirit, then we become, like Jesus Christ, willing to make any sacrifice necessary for the well-being of the people we love.
A lot of people have trouble loving others. They are always in an argument. They are always in contention. They are always harboring resentments and bitterness. And they have a hard time understanding the kind of love that God had in that he was willing to give his very own Son for us. I am here to tell you that if you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and allow God to do so, God will reproduce his love in you through the Holy Spirit. If you will yield your life to him, you can and you ought to become a more loving person than you are. God will enable you to become that kind of person.
If you are not growing in your love of other people, in your acceptance of other people, in your concern for other people, then it is because you are not allowing God through the Holy Spirit to do the kind of work in your life that he wants to do. Cut loose, let him go. Let him begin to work in your life, be responsive to him, and he will make you a loving person.
You are to pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace. Now that word peace suggests to us the absence of confusion and turmoil and it has reference to our relationship to God, our relationship to our fellow man, our relationship to the church, and our relationship to ourselves. The absence of confusion and turmoil.
There is confusion and turmoil everywhere in our world. International confusion and turmoil. Economic confusion and turmoil. Domestically in the home, confusion and turmoil. Ecclesiastically in the church, confusion and turmoil. But let me tell you that the greatest confusion and the greatest turmoil in our world today is not international turmoil, nor economic turmoil, nor domestic turmoil, nor ecclesiastical turmoil, it is personal turmoil. There are people who have no peace, no joy, no contentment in their hearts and lives and it is because they are not pursuing those things, allowing God to give them love to also give them his peace. If your life is in constant confusion and turmoil, friend, it does not have to stay that way. God who can reproduce his love for you, can also give you peace in your heart. In the midst of all the other turmoil that is around you, God can give you peace in your heart. And he is saying to us that we are to avoid these youthful passions and we are to pursue a Godly life.
I want you to notice one last statement in that verse. It is a marvelous statement. It says you are to pursue all of these things, righteousness and faith and love and peace, with them who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. It is in the company of those who call upon God out of a pure heart that you must seek to live the right kind of life.
You cannot live the right kind of life by yourself. Separated from the fellowship of a church, on your own, you cannot possibly pursue righteousness and faith and love and peace. Those things grow only in the atmosphere and the fellowship of a Christian congregation. You see the church is the body of Christ and you can no more grow by yourself cut off from the body of Christ than my finger could grow if I cut it off from the rest of my body. If I cut my finger off, it never would grow, it never would be useful—it would just shrivel up and die. And you, apart from the fellowship of God’s people, will shrivel up and die.
I am talking to some people here in this congregation and on the radio and on television whose lives have shriveled up and died when they could be flourishing and growing to be like Jesus Christ and the reason why is that you have cut yourself off from the fellowship. Let me tell you, you cannot make it without us. If you think you can, then you think wrongly. The church can make it without you, but you can’t make it without us. Paul tells me that I am to seek after righteousness and faith and love and peace with those who call upon God of a pure heart.
3. Stay out of senseless controversies. The third rule is that I am to stay out of senseless controversies. Paul uses the word foolish, which is the Greek word that we get the word “moron” from. You are to stay out of stupid, senseless, moronic, meaningless questions and controversies. Most of the things that people argue about are trivial. They seldom ever matter. We like to get into arguments and debates about once saved, always saved. Nothing more ridiculous than that. Just make sure you are once saved and forget about it, okay? People like to argue about whether you ought to have pianos in the church or organs in the church. With all of the problems in the world today, could God possibly care if we have pianos in the church or not? Could anything be more ridiculous than that? We like to argue about open communion or closed communion. For heaven’s sake, let’s get everybody in communion with God that we can. People want to argue about whether Jesus is going to reign for 1,000 years or 10,000. What difference does it make? He is going to reign. Just make sure you are under his Lordship. Make sure you are in the kingdom. And if he wants to reign one year or 1,000 years, what difference does it make? And we spend our time quibbling over things that are silly and insignificant. When Constantinople fell to the Turks, inside the church the priests were debating how many angels could stand on top of a pin’s head.
And such silly quibbling and controversies have been the curse of the church. Stay out of it. That was Paul’s advice to Timothy. That’s my advice to you.
Some people delight to argue, to be in controversy. There are some people who feel like their spiritual gift is the gift of criticism. I want you to know that is not one of the spiritual gifts.
Sometimes we have controversies in churches and there are certain people to whom everyone comes with their complaints. Why is that? They know you will listen to them. They know they will get a sympathetic ear. Listen friend, if everybody brings you their garbage, it is because they know you are a garbage collector. Stay away from those senseless controversies that never build up anybody, that never strengthen anybody. Life is diminished that way. It is not enriched by that kind of thing.
4. Be positive. So, you avoid youthful passions. You strive to live right. You stay out of senseless controversies. And the fourth rule is that you be positive in your approach to life. In verse 24 Paul says very explicitly, “The servant of the Lord must not strive.” That is to say he is not to wrangle, he is not to be quarrelsome, he is not to be disputing in his spirit. It is to be the spirit of the Lord Jesus who loved and dealt with all people tenderly.
And then he spells out how we ought to be. He says you are to be gentle. You are to be apt to teach. You are to be meek in your dealings with other people. You are to be patient. You are to be forbearing with them. When you put it all together what he is saying is that rather than being combative and argumentative, you are to be very positive in your life. Standing for what is true, standing for what is right, standing for what is good, be positive in your approach to life. That’s the way to accomplish the most. That’s what Jesus did. He was a positive man who kept looking forward with God. You see the very purpose of teaching is not to win an argument, it is to win a person. And it is possible to win the argument and lose the person by your combative and overbearing and critical spirit. So in every aspect of life, take the positive approach. And when you do you will live and die a better person.
He says if you will do this, it may be that people shall be turned from their errors and from the entrapment of Satan and they shall come back to the truth and repent and be saved. And the whole work of our church and the kingdom of God is in the reclaiming of those who have been caught up in their own wrong thinking and wrong attitudes and thus the snare of the devil himself until they have lost the real joy and purpose of life.
It is our hope and prayer that by our spirit, our lives, and our attitude that everything we do and say shall cause people to turn and come back to God. No man has to stay the way he is. Once you have heard of Jesus Christ and know something of his power, then you are the person you choose to be. You do not have to stay the way you are. And we delight to preach that through Jesus a man can repent and he can change.
Remember the story of the prodigal son who went away from his father, wasted his life in riotous living, but in that far country he came to himself. When he came to himself he came back to God. He came back to his father. And when he came back home he found his father waiting with open arms saying, “Get everything ready to celebrate, my son was lost and he has been found. He was dead and he is alive.”
What happened to that boy can happen to you. For Jesus came that you might have life and have it abundantly.