Would you please be seated? In the Old Testament, one of the clearest portraits of the Messiah is in the prophecy of Isaiah, where he speaks about the servant of the Lord. At the latter half of Isaiah's prophecy, he speaks about the Messiah as the one who would be the servant of the Lord, and he has servant songs. There's a cluster of passages that help us to know what Messiah will be like called the servant songs. One of the most well-known servant songs is Isaiah 53, where we read about the suffering servant. and how He was wounded for our transgressions, and how He was crushed for our iniquities. And the chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. And we see that beautiful picture of the Messiah in the writings of Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born. But one of the other servant songs, Isaiah 42, speaks of the Lord's servant like this. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen and whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him and he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. that line about the servant of the Lord not breaking the bruised reed, or not snuffing out the faintly burning wick, really highlights the gentleness and faithfulness of Messiah. And the Apostle Paul is very much aware of this passage about the Messiah, and the Gospel according to Matthew, it's directly applied to Jesus. But we know that this is not just a description of the Messiah, but it's a description of what should be true of all those who are united by faith to the Messiah. What is true of the Lord's servant is also true of those of us who believe into Christ, that is into union with him. We too are servants of the Lord. We spoke last Lord's Day about how we long for the day where we will hear from Christ, well done, good and faithful servant. If you're truly saved by the grace of God and if you truly have the Holy Spirit living within you and you truly are born from above, you long to hear those words, the day when you will stand before Christ and he will say, well done, good and faithful servant. And so Paul is trying to inculcate in Timothy a desire to be the Lord's servant. To not just imitate Christ, that is true, but also to be reminded that He is in union with this Christ, who is a faithful servant. In fact, the faithful servant who is Christ is living through Timothy, and He is ministering to the people of God through Timothy. And Timothy is but an instrument in the hands of this faithful servant, the Messiah. to be a blessing to the people of God. And what Paul is concerned about here as he talks about the Lord's servant is clarifying for Timothy and for us what it means to be a faithful servant. And so he's giving him these imperatives, these commands that flesh out what it means to be a faithful servant of Jesus. What it meant for Timothy, but also what it means for us. and our callings and what God would have us to do. He gives us a string of imperatives in verse 42, in verse 22, he says, flee. He's used that verb before, flee. And then he has another word, he says, pursue, also in verse 22. And then later on in this passage he talks about teaching. And so he's emphasizing what the Lord's servant is supposed to do. There are things he's supposed to flee. There are things that he's supposed to pursue. And there's a certain way he's supposed to go about teaching, especially his opponents. We know that earlier on in this passage, he spoke about false teachers, that Timothy was going to have opponents, those who were opposed to his message, those who undermined his authority as a young minister. And Paul has been telling him how to interact with those people as a faithful servant of Christ. And so let's look at how he unpacks this. in terms of what it means to be the Lord's servant. What does it mean practically to be a servant of the Lord as Christ is the ultimate servant of the Lord and we are servants in and through our union with Him? First of all, let's look at that word flee in verse 22. He says, flee youthful passions. Now that word flee, as I said a moment ago, is not the first time Paul uses that word. It seems to be one of Paul's favorite words when he talks about his exhortations to godly living. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, he said flee sexual immorality. That as Christians, we're supposed to run away, run in the opposite direction of sexual immorality, which is defined biblically as any kind of sexual activity outside of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman. And so we're supposed to run away from all thoughts and words and deeds related to sexual immorality, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the Apostle Paul spoke about idolatry. He said, flee idolatry. In the Greco-Roman world there in Corinth, they were tempted with the syncretism and blending Christianity with the idolatry of the Roman world. And so Paul warns the Corinthians to flee, run away from any form of syncretism, run away from any form of idolatry. We saw in 1 Timothy chapter 6, he said, flee these things, which in context meant the love of money. The love of money, which is a root of all kinds of evil, and so godliness means running away from covetousness, running away from the way of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Run away from these things, for whoever loves these things, the love of the Father is not in him. And the world and its desires are passing away, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. And here he speaks specifically about fleeing youthful passions. The language that's used in the original most likely doesn't primarily refer to what might immediately come to mind. What immediately comes to mind when I read that is lust. Young people and their lustful thoughts and things like that. But actually in the original it's not primarily talking about Lust, though we certainly should flee lustful passions. Jesus says if you look at another woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery already with her in your heart. We know that is certainly something we are called to flee. But rather what's spoken of here are those passions that kind of inherit in youthfulness. Most likely the idea here is of impulsiveness, being impetuous, rash. Young people tend to feel a certain way and immediately act on that feeling and not go back and then go back and reflect on it later. As you grow older and you gain more wisdom and experience, you learn more to restrain and keep your passions at check. Not perfectly, of course, but you have had more experience in your life of being burned by acting on your first impulse. As you get older, you've done that enough. You've burned yourself, if you will. But with youthfulness, there's a tendency to be immediately impulsive. Some commentators also say maybe it has to do here with anger. Sometimes people tend to mellow out as they get older, but when you're younger, you don't have the ability to restrain your anger like you will hopefully as you mature with age. And so just acting out of impulse, acting the way that you feel, allowing your circumstances to dictate your immediate response to a situation. And he's saying, run away from that. Of course, Timothy was a young man, and so these youthful passions would have come naturally to him. Perhaps a certain way of responding to false teachers, perhaps with too much aggression, perhaps with too much anger, too much heat. And so Paul is telling him to restrain yourself and to flee these, the way that you would immediately be inclined to respond to these people like Hymenaeus and Philetus who denied the resurrection in the previous passage, denied the future resurrection. And so there needs to be a restraint and there needs to be a running away from those things. We think about the picture of fleeing that comes up in the Old Testament, remember Joseph? Joseph when Potiphar's wife was pursuing him and she laid hold on him and said, lie with me. And what did Joseph do? He ran away. He fled. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against the Lord? Now that was sexual sin, but we recognize that should be our attitude towards all sin, even sin that feels natural, even sin that feels instinctive. We live in a culture today that basically teaches self-actualization, that the primary purpose of your life is to be true to yourself. This is where you get all of this talk about authenticity and just trying to be your true you and be the best you you can be, if you will. The Bible teaches self-denial. Jesus said, if you must be my disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. John Calvin in his commentary on that passage said, the first step in Christian discipleship is self-renunciation. We had to be crucified with Christ, we have to die to ourself, we have to die to the way that seems natural. It seemed natural for Timothy as a young man to be led by youthful passions. What felt right, what felt instinctive was not right, and had to be crucified with Christ, and had to be laid aside and run away from. We recognize this. At times, we've got to be careful, especially young men. And I think I still qualify, even though I'm 42, and I know that time is ticking. Young men have to be careful that we don't allow our passions to control the decisions that we make and the things that we say. Sometimes something might feel right, an explosive passion of anger might feel like boldness. It's not boldness, it's brashness. Something might feel right, it might feel like zeal for the Lord, but it's actually not, and so we have to be careful. And we have to restrain ourselves, and we have to actually be faithful to the Lord as a servant of the Lord and run away from what might feel right in the moment. I think you'll find as you grow as a young man, as you grow further up into maturity, there will be things that you thought that you said earlier on in life that were the right thing to say, and you look back and you say, that was rather rash. I was too bombastic, or that was harsh, and I thought I was being a man, or I thought I was being bold, or I thought I was being zealous, and actually it was something that I shouldn't have said the way that I said it. I know that in my own life I've said that. I've said things in preaching that I shouldn't have said it that way. I've said things in teaching. I've said things in my home before to my wife and kids that I think, well, I really thought I was right, but the way that I said it was all wrong. And the right thing said in the wrong way can be the wrong thing. Truth spoken unseasonably and such things. And so we have to flee these things, run away, even though it might seem natural is what Paul is getting Timothy to see there. Secondly, you notice how he uses the word pursuit. It's not enough just to run away, the Apostle Paul's doctrine of sanctification, the way that he works it out in his letters, is always putting off and putting on. It's always dying and rising, dying with Christ and our union with Him, and rising to walk in newness of life. There are things that you put off and there are things that you pursue. And here, essentially, I would just summarize the list that he gives as he's saying, pursue godliness. Or you might say, pursue virtue. All of these things are the things that we should be pursuing in our sanctification. You remember what that word sanctification means, it means the process of becoming holy. There is a sense in which when our union with Christ, we are holy, there's a definitive sense in which that is true, but also we're becoming holy, we're becoming more of what we are by the grace of God. We're dying more and more to our sin, and we're living more and more into righteousness, and we're actually being renewed in our nature and our whole man after the image of God. And it's a process, and it requires the pursuit of the things that are pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. And so Paul's constantly laying out these virtues for Timothy and for us, so we would be reminded of what things we should really be pursuing. If someone were to evaluate our lives and they were to ask, what are you really pursuing? What are you really going after? What are you really striving to achieve? Would this list characterize? The way that we live our lives. He speaks of righteousness, that is, conformity to the moral law of God. He speaks of faith, that is, personally trusting in the Lord. That is, trusting in Him, taking Him at His word, you might say. He speaks of love. We know that we love Him because He first loved us, and love is the fulfilling of the law. When we love the Lord, we fulfill the commandments of the Lord. If we love Him, we keep His commandments. There is a peace that we enjoy as we are living in that wellness of being, as we walk in the path of holiness. This is godliness. And he says, run after this, chase these things. And all of these things are found in Jesus Christ. But notice this pursuit is not a mere individual pursuit. Look what he says. end of the verse there in verse 22, he says, we're pursuing these things along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. We pursue holiness, not as hermits off in a cave somewhere. We pursue holiness not just by our own efforts of self-improvement, trying to grow through our own personal practices, but holiness is pursued in the context of Christian community and of fellowship. It is with those who are also calling on the Lord from a pure heart. The book of Proverbs tells us in Proverbs 13 that he who walks with the wise becomes wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm. We're also told in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 33 that don't be deceived, bad company corrupts good character. If we're really pursuing godliness, if we're really pursuing the Lord, we want to be surrounded by other brothers and sisters who are also calling on Him from a pure heart. in our conversations with one another, we should be asking about our walk with the Lord. We should be encouraging one another about things that we've read in the Word. We should be asking one another to pray for us to overcome sin, to pursue holiness. We should be stirring up one another to love and good deeds. We need one another. We need the church. We know that the church is the place where our faith is grown. the body of Christ. And we're not to forsake the assembly of ourselves together, but along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart, we are supposed to be serving the Lord. I once heard a man give the illustration, I think it's a pretty common illustration, you've probably heard it before. There's a charcoal fire in a grill and the man takes a coal and he removes it from the rest of the coals, and what happens to the coal that is removed? It loses its heat. It loses its ability to do the thing that the coal is supposed to do, to burn and to emit heat. And so we recognize when we're removed from the society of the faithful, when we're removed from the life of the church, our love and our faith and our hope, they become cold. And so we need one another. Timothy needs the church. He needs community. He needs fellowship. He is not to pursue these things in isolation. The Lord's servant serves the Lord in the context of the body of Christ. And then notice, to summarize this other part of the passage, we've said he tells them to flee, he tells them to pursue, and then let's take the word teach. He tells him as the Lord's servant, he's going to need to teach the people of God and even teach his opponents in the form of correction, the truth of God. As we've seen before, Paul tells Timothy here that teaching needs to be focused. Don't get off on side issues, you might say. In verse 23 he says, don't get involved in foolish, ignorant controversies. You know they breed quarrels. We spoke about this last time, remember in verse 14 he said, don't quarrel about words. Not everything is a hill to die on. Not everything is a major doctrine. Not everything is of the essence of the faith. There are some things that good Christians can disagree about. are just speculations, they're apart from the written word, and no doubt Christians are going to disagree about. Don't get caught up in those things, and don't have a quarrelsome personality where you're always nitpicking everything someone else says, and trying to find where they're not crossing their theological T's or dotting their theological I's. Purity of doctrine is important when it comes to the core essence of the faith, but there are things that are going to get you off track, and so Timothy needs to know how to stay on track, and so do we. Don't we know that we can get off on things that are not really worth our consideration? Sometimes we can become obsessed with an idea, or we can follow a train of thought, chase a rabbit, if you will, and then realize, does this really matter? And we need to be brought back. We need to be brought back to Christ. We need to be brought back to the sum and substance of our faith, who is Jesus and all the riches we have in Jesus. And so he's telling him once again, don't get distracted. Notice also, he's not just telling him to teach with focus. He's also telling him to teach with kindness. Look what it says in verse 24. It says, and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone. Now we are supposed to be kind to everyone because everybody is made in the image of God. To paraphrase from C.S. Lewis, you've never met a mere mortal. Those whom God has created, even though fallen, the sin did not destroy the divine image, but people have dignity and value and worth because they're created in the likeness of God. And we're supposed to treat them with respect. We're supposed to love them. John Calvin has an interesting passage in the Institutes of the Christian Religion where he talks about loving someone who is unlovely, and his point is essentially, we look to the image of God in them. Even though that image might be suppressed, even though it might be spoiled with sin, look to the fact that they are created by God and love them. Kindness does matter. We have to be careful here. We have correctly, I believe at times, pushed back on the so-called be nice gospel. It is true that niceness in and of itself can get in the way of faithfulness, a certain understanding of niceness. And we need to be careful about that. But we also need to remember that God does call us to be kind. He does call us to love people who are made in his image. He does call us to look past defects. He does call us to see something good. and our fellow image bearers and to treat them with dignity and respect, not to be quarrelsome. but rather to give a kind statement to the truth. Don't allow, certainly don't allow a certain interpretation of winsomeness to cover that up. We've said that before, but let's make sure we don't fall into the other ditch of justifying being brash and harsh and just plain mean in the service of the truth, but rather kindness matters. And so he says we're to teach with kindness. He also notice here talks about that we are to teach with skillfulness. You could say in verse 24 he says the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone able to teach. Able to teach has to do with the skill, it's similar to the qualifications we saw for overseers in 1 Timothy chapter 3, that overseers are supposed to be apt to teach. There's a skill in teaching, and pastors like Timothy, of course, should cultivate their skill in explaining and applying the Word of God, but also all of us have a responsibility to teach the Word to others in some context. The word that we study and we meditate upon and we take in should be shared with others and we should cultivate the ability to do that in a God-glorifying way. Notice also he speaks here about teaching with others. Patience, look what it says in verse 24. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil. Isn't that an interesting phrase? We almost push back against it when we first read it. Patiently enduring evil, how about aggressively fighting the evil? Or what about combating evil? There are times there are similar phrases used. But here, patiently enduring it, suffering along through it, there's a patience that we are called to as servants of the Lord. We're not supposed to expect everyone we're ministering to to get it all at once. But we have to allow the Lord to work. Obviously He's free to work in His sovereignty as He sees fit, but we must trust Him to work and be patient as He is working and not expect others to immediately change their doctrines and morals just because we said one thing that is true. That's not the way it worked with us. When we think about your own spiritual life, when you think about how the Lord has grown you, don't expect everyone to know what you know, what it took you 10 years or 15 years or 20 years to learn. But we're supposed to be patient, and Timothy as a faithful servant is supposed to wait on the Lord and the Lord's work in the hearts of those who are under his care. But then notice also In terms of capping this passage off here, he talks about teaching with hopefulness. Look what he says in terms of the hopefulness with which the servant of the Lord teaches. He says, correcting his opponents with gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. Why be so patient? Why be so kind? Why be so gentle, he says. Jesus is a gentle Savior. He doesn't break the bruised reed. He doesn't snuff out the faintly burning wick. We should be that way because that is what Christ is. We should be that way because that is what God commands us to be. But we should also be that way because God is the one who can change hearts. We can be hopeful because God can grant, as a gift of His grace, repentance that leads to a knowledge of the truth. We cannot argue someone into the Kingdom of God. We cannot forcefully, coercively make someone repent. The only power that a minister of the Word has is a moral power, it is a persuasive power. And when blessed by the Spirit, there can be great effectiveness, but without the work of a sovereign God granting repentance, no one repents. The hearts are diamond hard, as the prophet Jeremiah said, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Without the work of the Lord on the hearts of men and women, boys and girls, our efforts are in vain, no matter what we say or how well we say it. But yet God, even with Timothy's fiercest opponents, God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses. They may wake up and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. That means there is hope even for those who are under the snare of the devil, who are captured by the devil to do his will. They can come to their senses. Think about that language and how it's reminiscent of the prodigal son. who went into the far country to spend his, his inheritance on pleasure and prostitutes and parties. And then one day he came to his senses, he realized that he could go home. And that's what we should pray for those who are, who are opponents to the gospel, for those who are, were opponents to Timothy, are opponents in our day today, that God would grant them repentance. that God would wake them up to their folly and how they're actually in the snare of the devil. Notice gentleness here doesn't mean we don't call a spade a spade. Here Paul is saying these people are ensnared by the devil and they're captured by him to do his will. So he calls that what it needs to be called, but he also says, but we have hope that God may perhaps grant them repentance after being captured by the devil to do His will. I wonder if one of the reasons the Apostle Paul knew that God could do that is because Paul remembered his own past, how he thought he was so right. Jesus was a false prophet. and those who were followers of the way were enemies of the God of Israel, and he violently tried to persecute the followers of Christ. And he was convinced that he was a follower of the law, that he was blameless with regard to the law. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, and he'd been circumcised on the eighth day, and he was proud of Paul. And yet he recognized that all of that time in his self-righteousness, and all of that time in his persecution of the church and of Christians, he was dead wrong. He was in the darkness of his sin, he was blinded by the devil, and he was headed for the wrath of God. And what changed was not Paul all of a sudden one day just waking up and saying, I think I will turn around. I think one day, or maybe some Christian said to him and persuaded him that he should change. No, there was nothing like that. God in His sovereign mercy and in His sovereign grace and power and loving kindness invaded Paul's life, and Jesus appeared to him, the light of the world, and said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me and brought him out of the darkness into the everlasting light of Christ? That's where the hope is found in what God can do. So when we think today about the enemies of the church, and there are enemies of the church, I'm convinced there are whole political parties devoted to being opposed to the church and to the gospel. There are powerful people who hate Christ. There are makers of culture who love their sin, and yes, who are enslaved to Satan himself. There are people who hate Christians. They hate the gospel. But we do not respond with evil for evil. We do not respond in kind, but rather with patience and love and kindness. We boldly proclaim the truth. but we hope that God would take some of these who are the hostile enemies of the church and bring them to repentance. I've never known anybody, maybe it's happened before, but I've never known anybody who said, you know, I came to repentance because a Christian was mean to me and ugly and abusive and coercive. I have heard someone say, they told me things I didn't want to hear. They told them with patience. They told me them with kindness. They told me them with love, and I didn't like it. And it pierced me, and it drove me to my knees in repentance. Loved ones, if we are to be the servant of the Lord, we must be like Christ. We must be in union with Christ, who didn't break the bruised reed or snuff out the faintly burning wick, who, yes, was bold and who was strong and who was courageous and declaring the truth of God as we know we should be as well. But even in his boldest moments, he was never brash or mean-spirited or ugly. but rather he was giving the words that the Holy Spirit uses as his means to bring others to their repentance unto life. May that happen in our culture today and those who are the enemies of Christ, enemies of all that is pure and all that is holy and all that is right. But maybe God has some even among them who are his people. That He's chosen before the beginning of time for whom Christ shed the blood of the everlasting covenant, those who will be called by the Spirit of God to repentance and faith. It's not in our power to change hearts. It is in our power to be faithful and to proclaim the Word with boldness and love. But only God can grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth. And there is great hope, because repentance is not a mere work of man. It is a work that God enables man to do by his sovereign power, and so we have confidence not in ourselves, not in the strength of our arguments, not in our persuasive tactics, but in what God is able to do, like what he did in Paul, what he did in Timothy, what he's done in you and me, he can still do today. By the grace of God, may we be faithful servants, whether you're a mother or a father, Grandfather, grandmother, you're a Sunday school teacher, you're mentoring someone even outside the context of this church. Maybe you're just a good friend to someone. Are we faithful servants? Are we running away from the things that would make, that would hinder our service to Christ? Are we pursuing godliness along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart? And are we teaching others with kindness and humility and avoiding quarrels, quarrelsomeness? with a hopeful, confident expectation in the God who is enthroned in the heavens and who can take out hearts of stone and make them hearts of flesh through the power of Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. It is indeed trustworthy and true in everything it teaches. It cuts all of us, myself included. It shows us areas of our lives where we do not measure up to the portrait you've given of what faithfulness looks like. And so, Lord, we pray that you would convict us, convict us of areas where we've sinned, convict us of areas where we have not lived as faithful servants of Christ. And not only, Lord, would you convict us, but would you assure us of pardon through Jesus' precious blood, and would you grant us the gift of repentance so that we can walk in a new way, and so that we can embody all the virtues that you have set before us this morning. We want to be faithful. We want to be faithful in the callings that You've placed upon our lives, and we ask that You would grant us the help of the Holy Spirit to do that. We know that in and of ourselves we are weak. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. But we know that with the power of Your grace, we can do the things that You've called us to do for Your glory. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.