2 Timothy chapter 2. And it's a blessing to see those kids and to see them healthy. We've went through so much time where one family was out, then this family, and everybody's back and glad to have you. And we have rolling up our sleeves to get busy for the Lord. Amen. And as I mentioned this morning, our theme is one of looking within to correct the things that God wants to touch our hearts with on the inside. And so we look at 2 Timothy chapter 2, And we'll read again verses 19 through 21 and make some notes then about the second half of this message. But it says here in verse 19, nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. And then he says, but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but of wood and of earth or clay. and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore will purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. What a guidepost, what a treasure, what a joy to come into the place where we deliver your word, and what an awesome responsibility. I thank you for the children who just sang, the potential of what they can accomplish with the children of this church in the next generation, doing, we pray, better than we have done, having better preparation and going out to serve you. And so, Lord, also, thank you for the message this time together, what you want to accomplish tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So in a household of God, we talked about verse 19 this morning about God's expectation. And we go on tonight to the example. Point number two is the example. But in this great house, there are not only vessels of gold and of silver. So we cherish those vessels, which are rather ornate. I mentioned this morning that I value myself as being just a plain old vessel of the Lord. I tell everybody I'm a cops kid from Cleveland because what that means to me is that I am I am cut out of a part of the group of people in our country that really worked, and we went to work. I went to work at a very young age and had to go through a lot, not a lot, but some hardships, some hardships, and to be used of God. I don't come to you like from a family with a pedigree of, great accomplishments. I come through a family of plain old people. Plain people, that's what we are. And that's because that's what God loves to use. Somebody who doesn't think we're anything, but God is everything. And so I kind of characterize myself as some kind of wooden vessel. A vessel of wood or of earth. I find that God is pleased to use those who know their dependency upon the Lord instead of depending upon their own talents, amen. God expects us, though, by this example that is brought out by verse 19, that the Lord knoweth them that are his, and he says, let everyone that name it the name of Christ depart from iniquity. He says, now let me tell you an example. So here is the example. That in a house there are vessels. There are some that are silver, some that are gold. You value those. You might even put those on display, you know that? I didn't have a lot of things like that, but I remember that back in the 80s, when I was younger, growing up, I was a teenager in the 80s, we had a pastor that would come around and he was also doing glass blowing, and he would preach and use it as an illustration. Well, somewhere in there I had bought a little glass, one of his things that he had a table that he was selling some of his products. I bought something and I kept it in my room along with a couple other smaller things that were given to me by my grandfather, my grandmother, and so forth. Those things you cherish, but what do you use them for? Well, if you would have gone there and looked at that time, a lot of these things I didn't have because they broke or because I went to Bible college and didn't have those things carried with me. And then a lot of the things we had like that when we went to Belize, those were the first things that were easy to get rid of, right? But if you'd have gone to those little jars or little things, you'd open it up and there'd be various, like, I don't know, little bit of change in there. Little things that I had collected, like little mementos, but nothing serious. In other words, things that are on display are often of very little use. What God likes to use is like the wooden and earthen vessels. He likes people to say, pastor, I may be nothing special, but I want to be God's. Now that's the kind of Christian God will use. There are other people who maybe are made of silver and of gold. In this illustration, we could say multiple talents, but I will tell you again that most of the time, most of the time talent is wasted because of pride. It is hard to find a real talented individual who walks with God and gives all the glory to God and therefore talent is big and God's ability to use them is big. It would be wonderful if every golden vessel that God has was able to be used to its fullest potential. But chances are that God reaches down to the very old clay of this earth. He forms a man and a woman. He puts a team together this way. And friends, a lot of times, He's able to do more with that kind of person than He can with an abundance of those who have talent. Because they know they're nothing. The only value we have is in Jesus Christ. And by doing that, I want you to get the idea that we are not talking about, when we say vessels of honor, we're not talking about God making you into something so that you can shine. That's a popular idea in Christianity. Christianity can be summarized in what God can do for me. In actuality, this verse is talking about what God can use your life to do. We only have so many days, so many years, And we use those years up, and many people use those years in service for something predominantly for the world, and the Lord says, hey, your focus should be on putting something away for your eternal rewards in heaven, to serve God, to look at what you do for a living as what you do to be able to do what you want to do, to serve the Lord and love Him and raise your family. It is important for us to have a proper view of self. As far as value goes, every one of you are created equal in value. God never looks at one soul and says, okay, that soul, boy, that one is more important or valuable than that one over there. There is no such thing in the category of God. In fact, as he went all the way from, he took Philip from a revival going on in Samaria in Acts chapter eight, and sent him all the way down to a desert place for one Ethiopian eunuch, one man, because God values one soul. And he valued your soul so much that he died for you. If you wonder what God's view of you is, that He looks at His own Son, I have two sons, and you can't have them. I'm just being honest. I don't think I would give my sons to you to die for you. It's likely the ones that I care about here, I'm just saying because it's hard to be honest about it, I would likely die for you before I'd let you have my son die for you. Do you understand that? That's the natural position of a father. Don't take that wrong. It's just that some of you, I don't know you. So I'm just being honest, okay? Transparent. But I would likely die for somebody before I'd let you have my son. But God loved you enough, he values you to say, that one right there. And then he woos you to the gospel. The work of God to bring the gospel message to you wherever God found you. And then we're rebellious and we don't listen the first time. I had to hear the gospel maybe 500 times before I ever received Christ as my savior. And so you think of all that God did for you, what he says, he said, I see value in you. So the proper view of self is not to look at yourself as pride or look at God or Christianity as the process of God making you into something he can put on display. Because it's not about us. I preach a message out of Exodus chapter two sometimes. Maybe I'll preach it, but since I'm using it as an illustration, it'll be a while, so I'll put it off. But the idea is that Moses, when he was born, they hid him for three months, but then he must have cried too much. And they put them in an arc of bulrushes. And they took that arc and they bent those bulrushes. I mean, bulrush is an ugly plant. It grows up there. It's like a reed that grows by the side of the river. And they take that and they wet those and they bend them into whatever shape they want, a basket. And then they took it and covered it in pitch, inside and out, or it would just leak. And then the child of promise, there's a lot of similarities between Moses and the promise of Jesus, and the deliverer, he's called the deliverer, was placed inside this ark of bulrushes and it did the job. But when it was done, what did you do with the ark? Nothing, it was discarded. When it was finished, it was done. And we're kind of that way. We look at God in a rebellious way and say, I want my plant. I want to be in a bulrush that grows. And I want to bring my ugly flower and point it toward the sky and put my roots down deep into the soil that's moist by that overflowing Nile River. And God says, hey, you know what? Instead, I want to cut you out. Cut you down. And then I want to put you through the process of working your life and soaking you until I can bend your life. And we say, oh no, I'm supposed to be straight. I don't want the work of God. And sometimes it's through trials and through difficulties that the Lord bends your life. And then he makes you to work together with others in a congregation, see. and you have to be stuck here together, and you say, man, I don't really want to be next to this one. Too bad. It's God's will for your life. And so together, though, you put together this, what forms into a basket, and the temptation is to say, look at us now, except that they take that pitch. and totally cover to be of value. You must have the Spirit of God covering every part of your life if you're ever going to be used of God. We've got to have the Spirit of God covering inside and outside of our congregation if we're ever going to be used to God. And then we carry the name, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Child of Promise. And for a time in this world, wherever long God gives us, we're there to bear His name to a heathen nation and say that God, the Deliverer, is inside of me, and He needs to be known to the world. And when it's done, we're just left there to be rejoicing with Jesus in heaven. We did our job. It's not about you and me. It's about the one that we carry, and it's Jesus Christ. And so when we look at this, we're not talking about having your vessels so that you can be something, but rather in humility saying, God, I'm nothing. I'm just a piece of wood. I'm just formed out of clay, as the picture shows. I'm formed out of something that they had to get out of the earth if you're silver or gold and you have talent or whatever you want to ascribe that to, and they had to extract you from the ore and purify you and then form you in some manner. in order that you might realize that you are valuable to God, but value humility is value at God's disposal. Value at God's disposal. Not value to be worship of self, but value at God's disposal. This is what we find in this house. That there's vessels, and you have vessels. You have vessels to drink out of, right? You have vessels to eat off of. You have vessels that are good for cooking with. You have vessels that are decorative. You have things that you put in a vessel that you might have something that's a treasure and you put it in there. And you might even have some that are on display. We might have some that we use to store chemicals, right? You have ones you use to work in the yard, a trash barrel, right? or a wheelbarrow, right? I mean, you have all sorts of vessels, and when we are at the disposal of God, when we are at the disposal of God, God can do something with the humblest of vessels, or He can use a vessel of great talent. He longs to get His work finished. He longs to have you accomplish His will for your life. Like in chapter 4, where Paul is able to say, I have fought a good fight, I finished my course, I have kept the faith. But in this great house, there are all sorts of vessels. Vessels of gold and silver, and some of wood and of earth. You say, what kind of vessel am I? It doesn't matter. What matters is what you do with that vessel. So for many years, I ran the senior citizens ministry in Indiana at the church where Debbie's dad had started there at Fairhaven. It was my responsibility, and I loved it, I enjoyed it, to oversee the senior citizens that were in the church, but we also used it as an outreach. So every Wednesday, we would meet at 11 o'clock. We had bus routes. four or five buses of people that go out and pick people up, the vans, and, you know, we'd have anywhere from 60 to 100 just senior citizens, retired folks, and we would have a great time together. But, you know, that means that I'm in their houses making visits, and I did. I went over to their houses and saw people and made visits on a regular basis, and at the time, we were running the Spanish ministry, remember? And then I had a bus route, and then I also was in charge of the junior high teen department. And so we wore a lot of hats. And so I had a lot of visits to make. And so I would sometimes try to take a teenager with me from the youth group to go to my bus route, and I could visit a Spanish senior citizen. I got everybody covered in one visit. And we tried to kind of do stuff like that. But I remember going into one senior citizen's house, and you know, I would never ever want them to know this happened. But they are getting to the age where they want to do something nice for the assistant pastor that's coming over, but they don't see too well anymore. And so they said, pastor, I didn't drink coffee, so they gave me some water, I drink coffee now, amen, I became a Baptist, for real. But anyway, they brought me out this, I don't remember what it was, a juice or something, but when she brought it out, she set the cup there, and I looked in the cup, and it had, I don't know what it was. It was like visibly crusted supper from last night. pasted all over the inside and then over at the top of the rim. She just couldn't see it. It was a nice cup, right? It was fine. It just needed to be thoroughly scrubbed. And so she, with great delight, she couldn't see it. She was sort of coming around and put it on the little tables, a little round table in a very small apartment. And she set it there and then poured the juice in it. What were you thinking if you were in that situation? Say, Pastor, what did you do? Dear Lord, help me. And I guzzled it down. What would you do? I can't offend those people. I mean, that juice was probably her best that she had, a widow woman there in Gary, Indiana. and I didn't catch any diseases, okay? In most cases, you're gonna be just fine in those situations. I could tell you more stories about that, but I wanna get to my point. We have a natural reaction to filth. We do, and I believe it's God-given, something that's God-given. However, have you ever been camping? and you have your little utensils, and you have your bowl, and you have a spoon and a fork, and you know it's gonna be yours, and you try to clean it, but not all the way. It's not gonna get clean. you're camping, but it's yours. And so you're like, what? You take the fork and you put it in your mouth, you lick off the rest of the food, and then you might reach down with your napkin and wipe it off, and then what? Then you stick it back in the bowl for the next meal. Is it clean? Not really, but it's my spit, right? Just frankly, it's my filth, right? And nobody else, just me, but what would you think if you came to our house and I offered you some food and then the fork wasn't Oh, it's not clean, and I picked it up, put it in my mouth, cleaned it off, and said, what did you do? I'm just trying to make an illustration. Now, we have a natural way to look like, whoa, we're not going to do that. Debbie and I were in a house, not a house, but a tent, a gear in the country of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. And there they milk their horses. and then they sit the milk out to curdle. Yeah, do you understand what I mean? And it's one of their nicest things. So we went over to this lady's house to eat, and her daughter had been at the Bible college, and so Debbie and I are sitting there, and she brings us this warm glass of horse milk that looks like it had cottage cheese mixed in it. That's how I'm gonna describe it. Now, my wife has a hard time with those kind of things. I actually think she's normal, okay? But here you are in one of those stories, like you're a missionary visiting people, and what are you going to do? It's the best thing she has. What are you going to do? Well, we have this little thing we do. I have mind over matter. Dear Lord, help me. And guzzle it all down. And then when the lady is not looking, we switch glasses and I guzzle down the second one. You learn to pray that way. All I'm saying is there are things with regard to cleanliness and food choices. And God says, hey, there are things in your life that I'm repulsed by. And it's iniquity, it's sin. So if we go to the next verse, it says, if any man purge himself from these, and just borrow from a point that the word purging there It is connected to the same Old Testament reference of being ceremonially unclean. In other words, it would use the same reference as if you took, at that time, a piece of the unclean animal and ate it, or you had leprosy, and then your leprous sores, the pus was running out on top of something, and the Bible says that whatever you sit on, where that was touching, that what you sat on that chair is unclean. Leprosy is a really good picture of this. And God is looking at your life as a vessel in this illustration saying there are certain things that just repulse the heart of God. And God says it's sin in your heart. And we come to God and we say, but God, I want to be used of you. I want you to be pleased with me. God, help me and use me. raise my kids, have a good family, win souls. And it's very much like offering God a cup covered with the uncleanness, if you want a picture, of the overflowing sores of a leprous person that has covered it and it's unclean. God says, all your righteousnesses, before you save all, it's all like filthy rags. He's referring to those kind of things. Uncleanness. And for us to look at God and say, God, here is the best that I have. What we imagine is like we put on a nice suit. God says, I don't really care about the suit. I'm looking at the filth in your heart. And whether you're a silver vessel, or a gold vessel, or you're clay, like what's being formed in the picture there, or if you're just a wooden vessel, it wouldn't matter what kind of vessel you are, all of that, covered in filth, is repulsive to the heart of God. And this is the illustration that God is using. Let them depart from iniquity, God says. Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Okay? God gets to define what that iniquity is, and he's talking about being holy as I am holy, so he's calling you to an absolute holiness. So that every sin, every proud look, lying tongue, every wrong thought, every selfishness, everything that is a contaminant in your heart, God says, that is not acceptable in my sight. Even though if we drew the lines and said, I'm gonna define it, we would say, hey, I'm fine. As long as we're comfortable, I'm fine. As long as I can say, well, you know, I don't hurt anybody and I do a few things for God, then we say, oh, I'm fine. And God says, it's not fine. It's not okay. Biblically, God is looking at it like it's some kind of very, very impure vessel, and God says, I'm not going to use you. He's not like a missionary. He doesn't drink of it. He's sick of it. He's sick of the failings of Christians who then look at sin and say, well, God will forgive me, so I'll go sin again. And God will forgive you, yes. But He forgives the repentant heart. He does not forgive the heart of a presumptuous person who then just says, well, Lord, sorry, forgive me for that. I did it again. You say, you mean God doesn't forgive me? When you're ready to repent, but repentance has the intention, God, I've wronged you, I've done wrong, not to me and not to society, not just to my family, but I have wronged God, and by your grace, I'll never do it again. When that heart is, when that attitude is inside of your heart, that's when you can confess it to the Lord. You're agreeing with God about the sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just. He will forgive you every time, but you must confess, and the word confess means to say the same thing, to agree with God about our sin. And we walk around taking God for granted, like, oh, I can go and whatever, you know, go and do this sin. It's okay for me to be involved. The fact is, I kind of like it, and God will forgive me. That's presumption. presumptuous sins. The Bible says if you hide your sins, you'll not prosper. He that covered the sin will not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh it shall find mercy. God is very specific about this. So it's not okay to hide sin. We're not talking about sins that people can see. We're talking about what God can see. So this vessel is being presented to God, and it's like, and I don't wanna make that dear lady, she's probably passed away, I don't know by now, because this was in the 90s I'm talking about, and she was in her 80s, so she'd be over 100 now. So probably, in this case, I don't want her to ever feel bad, because in that case, it was the best she had and she couldn't see, right? But could you imagine your life being that repulsive to God? Then you're starting to see what it means to be a dishonorable vessel. So first, if you go down to verse 21 then, if a man therefore purged himself from these, first there needs to be a preparation. I mentioned the word purge, it means to cleanse from impurity, frequently in the figurative sense of cleansing from evil, guilt, idolatrous worship, and sin. In the Old Testament, the word meaning dealt with what was ceremonially unclean, unclean animals, unclean actions, infections, et cetera. To purge meant to wipe out all of the sin. to cleanse it thoroughly. Not even cleansing it like, you know, I'm not really, I'm not really positive that dishwashers do a great job. My wife knows this. If I have to do the dishes, I like to scrub them by hand. Okay, I just feel that way. Dishwashers are good because they get really hot, so they're sanitary, right? But I feel like I'm more confident with my dish. Maybe I'm getting a little eccentric like that, maybe, I don't know. Okay, but you know, we're not talking about just getting it to satisfy our level of acceptance. We're talking about a purging that would bring it to God's acceptance, to the level that God is watching and wanting from your life. Now we're gonna talk about three things that bring that, but in just mentioning those, But I want you to identify your life and say, Lord, I've got these sins that I seem to repeat all the time. That's what I'm talking about. We gotta get that out. Lord, there must be some things that I do that don't please you and I need to change. That's what I'm talking about. And then I'm talking about anything that if we're honest before God, that we say, God, examine my heart and show me. Do you know I've never been to God that way when I'm serious with God? Lord, show me. I've never come up empty. He's always shown me something that needs to be worked on. But I think it's important that you first look at the fact that you are part of this. It doesn't say if you'll let God purge your life. What does it say? If any man purge himself from these. Now this morning I talked about the means of becoming pure. The sanctification process is definitely God working in you. Philippians chapter number two, verse number 12, or verse 12 and 13, it says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, right? And then the next verse says it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. To escape responsibility for the condition of our heart is to be irresponsible with the word of God. To say, well, God, please make me something. No. God, let me respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit and let me be at God's disposal with every breath and with every strength, with every ounce of my power and that God would meet me in some kind of fashion because the purging takes you and it takes God working in you. So not only do we have people that are by our wills, we are aborting the process of sanctification. I don't want God to touch me. What are you unwilling to change? But not only that, but we have to come to the place where, as Hebrews chapter 12, it says, I think in verse number four, you have not yet striven unto blood, resisted unto blood, striving against sin. Has anybody been so contemplative against sin that you've actually burst blood vessels? God says you have not resisted unto blood striving against sin. He's saying there comes a point in your heart where you have to be determined, I want to be what God wants me to be and it doesn't matter what the cost. And instead of playing with sin behind the curtains of the eyes of other people, we come before the eyes of God who says that we are naked and open before the eyes of whom we have to do in Hebrews chapter 4 and say, God sees everything and I want to be clean. We can't play around with God anymore. This theme is not about being comfortable, it's about being It's about saying, I'm not gonna any longer play games with God. I'm gonna be honest with God about me. I'm not gonna take blame the society. I'm not gonna blame my past life or the effects of something that happened to you when you were younger. Listen, what I'm talking about is that I take responsibility and I don't ignore the sin that's in my own heart. Will you with an honest heart look at God and say, God, show me this sin. It's mine. I've got to get rid of the filth because I want to be a vessel unto honor. It is a preparation time. If you looked, I don't want to go there because of time, but 1 John 1, verse 6 through 9 talks about the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you. How do you become purged? Well, we have to come to Him at His terms. You can't get saved by your own terms. You come to God on His terms. So to be forgiven and purged must come to God on His terms. He talks about fellowship. If we really walk in this, His blood cleanses. It's a continuous process, one of those condurative tenses that mean God is working on me. As I draw closer to Him, He's working. I draw closer, He's working. And the purifying allows you to be closer. Remember, the pure in heart, they shall see God. not the ones who are hiding sin, but the pure in heart, but you ask God for that help, and then you resist unto sin, unto blood striving against sin, and we work at this, and work at this with the cooperation of God, but it begins by taking responsibility for what you have in your heart, and for bending your will to the work of the Holy Spirit. The other part is the word of God. The word of God is, is a cleansing agent. John 15 verse three, now are you clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Psalm chapter 119, what is it, verse number nine? It says there, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. It's an amazing thing, but God wants to wash you with the Bible. And some of you need to take a bath. You ever been around somebody who doesn't? and God is the one who can see it, but sometimes a spiritual-minded person can notice, wow, that guy needs to take a bath. Sometimes you need to be purged in a way that you're not just reading like half a chapter or chapter, but you just let God, in some kind of vacation day, just let God have as much time as he wants. If I have to, I'll read the entire Bible, but I'll let God speak to me, and you'll read just to be clean. You need to just take a bath in the Bible. The other issue is prayer, because we ask God, search me. These are God's avenues to the purging process. But it's not gonna start until we're prepared. Secondly, not only preparation, but notice the product, the product, and then we have a purpose. But the product, if you look at verse number 20 again, I'm sorry, 21, if a man therefore purge himself from these, if you'll do this, then you're going to become a vessel unto honor. And there's our theme for this year. A vessel unto honor. So until we do this, we're not vessels unto honor. We could say, well, I know God loves me. We're not talking about the love of God. That is an eternal. The Lord loved us when we were yet sinners. His love is not depending on our conduct, praise God. I had a precious girl that grew up in our youth group, messed up her life, and she wanted to get back in touch with us. And she wrote me a text and said, Pastor, I would understand if you don't want to have anything to do with my life because I've messed up my life. And I wrote her right back and said, our love for you wasn't depending on you. It wasn't depending on your conduct. We loved you then, we loved you when you were in sin, and we love you now that you're repentant. And we've had a great relationship. She communicates a lot with Debbie. It is a purging. The joy of it is that God will purge. Can she be clean? Yes. Can you be clean? Yes. Now, I don't want to get into it. In the previous book, it talks about qualifications for pastors and deacons. The qualifications don't change. Right? But if you've messed up your life, God says, I want you to go from a place of dirt, where I found you, to a place of purity, because God is the purger. You wonder, can you be clean? The devil wants to remind you of your sins. Well, you'll never be used of God because you've done this and this and this. He'll remind you of those. He'll bring them to your mind. He's the accuser of the brethren. And the Bible says when he talks about that in Revelation 12, he says they overcame him by the word of their testimony and by the blood of the lamb. You can be clean. You can have your purity back. Praise God. God doesn't leave you in a state of despair. He brings you from that state, if you'll follow him, to a great state of purity and peace with God. And then he gives you this, what he says. He says, the product is not only a vessel unto honor, but he says, I want to use you. Now, look what he says. He said, sanctified. Now, that means set apart. Okay, there's, you are set, it's a process that, God wants, if it's neglected, it'll lead to dishonor, but the process, if you want to put it in your mind, the word saint and holy and sanctification, or sanctify, are all connected together. Hagias, hagioi, hagiasmus, okay? They're all connected together. It would be similar to saying the pure ones purify purification. God wants to change you. He wants you to be acceptable in his sight. And he says, and every Christian should be thinking right now, you should be thinking, how can I become honorable to God? You should be longing for it. It ought to be something after a while that says, man, I want to get down to that altar. I want God to do this for me. I don't want it to just be down the aisle. I'm not talking about just becoming a fanatic. I'm talking about something very real where God takes all of your mistakes, he puts them on the blood of Christ and he says, now they're gone and now you are pure. You are acceptable in my sight. You see, it's not a faith that just leaves you in despair. It's a faith that leads you from despair to a God in a relationship that is so loving and so full of peace and joy and happiness that nothing in this world could ever compare. and you're not going to get there any other way. True biblical mourning over sin and repentance leads to a relationship that is almost gone in our kind of Christianity and our culture today. And I'm daring you to get it back. I'm daring a small church to say, I'm going to believe the promises of God, and no matter what the price is, I'm going to come and I'm going to lay it on the altar and I'm going to say, God, I want that purging in my life. No matter what it costs me, I want that kind of lifestyle. Amen. And then he says in here, and sanctified and meet for the master's use. Not meet for the vessel's own comfort. Our culture has blinded the eyes of Christianity because they say the whole point of living is to be more comfortable. And I'm a comfort person. Right, I just am. It's a weakness that I have. I like my easy chair. I like throwing my feet up. You know, I'll be 50 this year, and you know, some parts of me hurt. And I like to put my feet up. I think that resonates with some of you. And I like to be comfortable. I like a certain type, you know, when I was younger, I didn't care what pillow I had, or even if I had a pillow. Now I gotta have my, Not that one. This is not a commercial. But I like a Tempur-Pedic pillow, not just a Tempur-Pedic bed. Why? Because I wake up with my neck hurting. Don't you ever do that? But we are so consumed with comfort. How can I be more? And the vessel, once you become... God doesn't say, so you could have a fun time. That's not the point. The point is to become uncomfortable. To realize that every day in this short life that we live, this is for the Lord Himself. And when we see Him, this is what we bring Him to offer Him as our service and return of the great love that He gave to us. And say, God, I love You. Here's my crown that You gave me. I'm casting it at Your feet. Thou art worthy! Right? Revelation chapter four, you know that. But some Christians are gonna be like, thou art worthy. You see, there are tears in heaven that Jesus has to wipe away, and no doubt, he says that right after, one time, right after the judgment of all the lost as they're standing before God at the great white throne judgment. And I think we're gonna be crying over the people that we lost. Because I'm not a Calvinist, amen. But I think that in there we're gonna also have tears over what we should have done, could have done, wish we did, but we're more interested in our comfort than in really getting revival. And we have a responsibility, and I'd really like to put it upon a group of people, like this is the church, the people. You gotta come and get everything God wants you to have and not miss anything. Meet for the master's own use. Not to be comfortable yourself, but to be at his disposal. Well, Pastor, if I did that, He might send my children to other islands of the world or other continents to serve Him. Hey, that's right. Sign up for United and buy some miles. Go make some visits. This is not about us having our family all around us. I've never held my children back. They want to go serve the Lord, go. Follow God, not Dad. Amen. We set them out, the Bible says, like arrows, they go out to do something, and they're for the Lord and not for me. Whatever God's will is for their lives is what we want them to do. And if God calls, I used to preach this, and it could be true one day, that God would put my kids, one on each of a continent, wherever God would want them to be, as long as they stay faithful to Jesus and preach the gospel. And then when we see Jesus, we're gonna put our arms around each other, cry a little bit, rejoice. We're gonna say, why were we so worried about this life? I wish I'd have done more. I wish I'd have lived more for Jesus. And then lastly, if I could direct your attention to the last point, the preparation, the product, and look at the purpose. And prepared unto every good work. God wants to use us, but we do not belong to ourselves. After all, all we are is the vessel. Can the pot that's being formed look up to the potter and say, why have you made me this way? Isn't it supposed to be that the hands of the potter, who knows all things, can have the right to put the pressure on you anywhere in your heart, in your life? Isn't He supposed to own that piece of clay that we call our bodies and our heart, our soul? Didn't He purchase it with His own blood and buy us away from sin back to Himself? So not only did He create us, but He purchased us. Doesn't He own us? How else can we seek after only a mundane Christianity? Why would we be satisfied with this? Why not set a revival on fire that could change a community, reach a world, but most of all, purify our dirty hearts? It begins right there. So my heart, what the Lord laid on my heart, like I told you about August time, Vessels of honor, unto honor. My heart is that each attender, every member of Mountain Valley Baptist Church would become a vessel unto honor. And you can, whether you're wood or gold, whether you're a great vessel or a little vessel, but that you would become a vessel unto honor. willing to be exactly what God wants you to be. Not what you want to be, but what God wants you to be. Not my expectation, but God's. And even if you have something to say here tonight, I would entertain this. Can anybody here, I'll put my glasses on so I can see your hands. Can anybody in this congregation find fault with that kind of goal? Can you find fault, now I'm talking about something that's gonna make you very, very uncomfortable. Can you find any biblical fault with a goal that says it's time to really give our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you, sorry, will you be willing to become what God wants you to become? Most people do not. Most people don't want to change. Most people don't come to church to change. Most people don't really want to hear the truth. All they really want to know, they want confirmation that what they've been believing is true. They want the confirmation that what you are doing in this life is pleasing to God. You want somebody at a pastor's position to come by and say, hey, you're doing great. But if you're not, and the Bible talks about this purging, then that makes the pastor a liar. And there's a lot of lying going on in our Christianity. I want my life, I want your life to be what God wanted it to be. And if there's no significant change in 2024, then I can confidently say, that you have failed in your sanctification. You're really living in vain. When you come down to it, our comfort, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would bring your conviction of your Holy Spirit upon our hearts and lead us as a congregation to be pleasing in your sight. I pray that there would be some, maybe all, who have a desire, a burden, a yearning to say, I want that purging. I want what God's best in my life, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. Deal with us in this invitation, and we'll thank you for it. Please stand at your seats, your heads bowed,