Please turn with me to 2 Timothy 2 - today we’re starting at verse 14.

This morning as we’re looking at The Character of a Committed  Christian - thinking about what it takes to keep going - to be consistent in our walk with God - to go the distance with Jesus - this morning we’re going to look at the foundation our lives are built on.

2 Timothy  2 - verse 14:  Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.

Paul writes, Remind them - “them” being the faithful men we looked at last Sunday - “them” being the believers in the church - remind them of this - “this” meaning what Paul is about to write.

Remind them and solemnly charge them - a charge is an oath - a solemn declaration - get them to agree earnestly - solemnly - from the depth of who they are - in the presence of God - Almighty God being the witness of what they’re declaring.

Here’s his point.  This is really really serious.  What I’m about to write is very crucial bottom line important and we all need to agree on this.  Here it is:  Remind them not to wrangle about words.

Say this with me, “Don’t wrangle over words.”  “Don’t wrangle over words.”

To “wrangle about words” is the Greek verb “logomacheo”  Two words put together - logos - word - and mahomai - meaning to fight.  Word Wars.  Going to war over words.

There’s a church I know of - true story - the congregation was tearing in two over the calling of a senior pastor.  One congregation - two factions.  Each one claiming to be more spiritual than the other.  One faction had called a pastor.  The other faction had called another pastor.  Two factions - two pastors - one church.  They couldn’t agree on who was suppose to be the pastor - which pastor had the more acceptable perspective on God’s word.. Words like liberal and fundamental and modernist and inerrancy were flying back and forth as accusations.

The last congregational meeting where both sides were present in the same room at the same time ended by one leader in the church punching out another leader in the church.  They did church planting by splitting into two congregations.  The division created - the animosity that was created - went on for at least 50 years.  For over 50 years one church refused to fellowship with the other.  The division was never healed.

Earlier we shared communion together.  Back when the reformation was getting started there was a major controversy over Jesus’ words, “This is My body.”  The Lutherans understood that those words were to be taken literally - that the bread actually becomes the physical body of Jesus.  The Swiss Christians understood that those words were symbolic “this represents My body.”  There was a heated argument over the meaning of those words - an argument that went on and on and on and was damaging the Reformation.

Count von Zwingli - the leader of the Swiss group - came with a delegation to Germany - to meet with Martin Luther - to somehow heal the rift.  When Luther walked into the room - where the meeting was to take place - Luther went to the table - there in the room - took a piece of chalk - and wrote across the table the Latin words “Hoc est corpus Meum” - “This is My body.”  That was his position.  Period.

Any time any one from the Swiss side tried to enter into a discussion Luther would quote those words “Hoc est corpus Meum.”  They never settled the controversy.  The effects of that rift are still felt today. (1)

Paul is writing about word battles within the church - over issues like eschatology - pre-trib verses post-trib - sprinkling verses dunking - the perseverance of the saints verses free will - what kind of decorations are appropriate - music - instruments - and on and on.  It is amazing how many things Christians have discovered to divide over.

To divide over words - Paul writes - is useless.  There’s no profitable value in it.  It leads to the ruin of the hearers.  The word for “ruin” - in Greek is “catastrophe” - in English:  catastrophe.  What a disaster division is for the Church.  And oh how Satan must love it when he can get God’s people to tear themselves up - to go to war over words.

Verse 15 - instead of word wars - in contrast - Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

AWANA stands for what?  Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed.  Verse 15 is the theme verse for AWANA.  Timothy was one of the original AWANA leaders.  Led the Sparkies back in Ephesus.

To be diligent literally means to be eager.  We’re to be eagerly seeking God’s approval - not man’s approval.  But who’s approval?  God’s.

Notice two things - seeking the approval of God.  First, we’re to be workman who are not ashamed.  Say that with me, “We’re to be workman who are not ashamed.”

It takes a minimum of 15 hours to prepare a sermon.  There are no short–cuts to sermon preparation.  It takes a study of the vocabulary - in at least two languages - sometimes three - sometimes four.  Studying through the meanings of those words and how they’re used in Scripture.

It takes grappling with the passage - searching out its meaning - studying what others have written from their study.  To make sure how I’m understanding the passage isn’t pure heresy.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but my mind isn’t always firing on all thrusters.  I’ve got to be careful that what I think is really insightful isn’t really wrong. 

Preparation takes allowing the Holy Spirit to deal with my own heart over what’s been written.  How does it apply to me?  Each week - before I get up here - God takes me places I don’t always want to go.

Then I need to prayerfully work through how to share what I’ve been learning with all of you.  In a way that’ll help you stay awake and help you to understand what God - through His word - is teaching us.

Point being - to be a workman who understands and can apply God’s word in the way that meets God’s approval takes work - hard work.  So that the product of our study is nothing that we need to be ashamed of before God.  That applies to all of us - not just the pastor - not just in preparing a sermon.  All of us as we study God’s word.   

Then second - notice - seeking the approval of God - that we’re to accurately handle the word of truth.  Say that with me, “We’re to accurately handle the word of truth.”

Just northeast of Crater Lake - up in Oregon - highway 138 runs in a straight line east for 15 miles down to US 97.  Its one of those roads where a person could put the car on cruise control - jam the steering wheel in a fixed position - and take a nap.  15 miles of straight road that they cut through the trees.  The engineers just removed anything that would keep that road from being straight.  Have you seen roads like that?

“To accurately handle” literally means to cut straight.  The Greek word was used of farmers setting their eyes on a distant rock or tree and plowing straight furrows.  Accurately handling means coming to understand - and apply God’s word - without any perversion or distortion - wandering to left or the right.  A right down the line accurate understanding and presentation of God’s word.

There were two boll weevils that grew up in South Carolina.  One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor.  The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much.  The second one - the one that stayed in South Carolina, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils.

Truth - contrary to popular opinion - the truth of what life is all about and how we’re to live it - truth is not a matter of perspective.  Living by what seems to be the better of the choices before us.  What seems to make sense to us.  God’s word presents absolute truth.  So it needs to be handled accurately - with respect for it as the truth.

During our Sunday morning adult Bible study there are times when we find ourselves looking at Scripture from different perspectives - different understandings.  What’s enjoyable about our discussion is first the respect we have for God’s word - individuals who have worked hard to understand God’s word - how His truth is to be applied.

Then what’s enjoyable is - as siblings in Jesus - pursuing that truth together with the mutual desire to help each other to more fully understand God’s word and its application to our lives.  To sharpen each other.  To keep each other from deviation - from wandering off from sound exposition and study into error.  That kind of study is useful - profitable.  Its what receives God’s approval.

Verse 16 - But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will led to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene.

Pause and lets capture Paul’s image here.

Gangrene is the decay and death of tissue caused by infection in the blood or a lack of circulation.  It smells.  It looks horrible.  It spreads killing more tissue.  Its extremely difficult to treat.  Often resulting in amputation.  The medical community - back in Paul’s day - used this term “gangrene” to describe disease that ate flesh and spread quickly.  Its a vivid description of what happens in the church when we succumb to word wars.

“Worldly” means it comes out of the world.  Its profane - unholy - influenced by Satan.  “Empty chatter” means it has no value.

All that wrangling is just a bunch of people spouting off - arguing - stroking their egos - trying to sound knowledgeable about a bunch of religious stuff they have no clue about.

It only “leads to further ungodliness.”  It escalates.  It grows.  It leads more and more people farther away from God.  It spreads through the church like some horrible disease - spiritually maiming and killing as it goes..

Paul writes, “avoid worldly and empty chatter.”  Avoid it - literally go around it - purposefully cross to the other side of the street.  Don’t stroll by rubber necking.  “What’s that all about?”  Avoid it like the plague.  This stuff is dangerous - lethal.

Going on in verse 17:  Among them - among those who’ve been caught up in this disease - among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some.

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy - written about 4 years earlier - in 1 Timothy, Paul warns Timothy about Hymenaeus.  Paul described him as a man who was caught up in his own ego.  He’s desire was to be known and respected as a great teacher of God’s law.  What Hymenaeus was teaching had most of the right vocabulary and just enough truth to sound okay.  But it really was very far from the truth of God’s word. (1 Timothy 1:3-11,20)

Hymenaeus and others had spiritualized the Old Testament in much the same way that people today will claim that the Old Testament is a collection of stories - not actual people and events.  They said - there’s some historical accuracy.  But, we can’t take it literally.  The Old Testament is mainly myth - the spiritual aspirations of the Jews.

Added to this spiritualizing was the idea of getting back to the purity of the divine through our own efforts.

Imagine a pool of water smooth as glass.  Throw a small stone into the center of the pool and waves - rings - start moving outward - emanations - each one moving farther from the center.  The idea is that the center - where the rock hit - is pure - holy - without sin - the divine origin of all things.  We’re out here on the outermost ring - sinful - so far away from the divine that we can’t even see the beginning of the place where you can begin to see the beginning of the place where we could begin to glimpse the divine.  Somehow we have to get rid of sin which inhabits these bodies of ours and get back through those rings to the point of our spiritual origin. 

The technical name for this teaching is “gnosticism.”  Today we know it as elements of Eastern Mysticism - or the First Church of Christ, Scientist and a tremendous number of other places.  There are Gnostic churches around today that believe that Jesus was a Gnostic - that He taught an inner - spiritual - path to God.

Paul writes - in 1 Timothy 1:20 - that he had delivered Hymenaeus over to Satan so that Hymenaeus would be taught not to blaspheme.  Let him feel the warmth coming up from hell for a while - the consequences of his sin - and he may turn back to God.  Apparently that hadn’t done any good.  The gangrene was spreading.  Now, along with Hymenaeus was Philetus.

Paul writes that they’ve “gone astray.”  Literally, they’ve missed the target.  They’re not on target spiritually.  “They’ve upset the faith of some.”  The faith of others in the Church has been corrupted - diseased.  The gangrene is spreading further.

Specifically, what they were teaching was that the resurrection had already taken place.

Follow this.  Probably what they were saying was that when a person came to trust in Jesus right then we died to ourselves.  So, if we died then, we were also resurrected then - to new life - like when we come out of the waters of baptism.  Die to self - alive in Christ.  Sounds almost Biblical - doesn't it? 

What they said was that - that then and there - was the only resurrection - which only took place spiritually.  Because if the body is evil - then God certainly wouldn’t be concerned with resurrected bodies.  The body is a sinful prison we need to escape from while we’re getting back through all those emanations - those rings - on our way to the purity of the divine.

Jesus rose from the dead only in a spiritual sense.  So we only rise in a spiritual sense - which already took place when we came to faith.  

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 that the entirety of our faith as Christians rests on the historical reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Back up a few verses - in 2 Timothy 2 - verses 8 to 10 - Paul gives personal testimony that he encountered and knows personally the living - very much alive - bodily resurrected - Savior Jesus Christ.  The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as the Savior is the testimony of Scripture - from Genesis to Revelation.  There is no Christianity - no hope - no life - no salvation without it.

Are you with me?  If we take a little Scripture from over here and add a little Scripture from over there and mix in a little worldly philosophy and some of our own reasoning - skip all the hard word and accurate handling not being ashamed before God part - then we can make the Bible justify any belief or lifestyle we want to wrap our minds around and base our lives on.

In the Church - to discuss and debate doctrine in a way that we can build each other up is healthy.  In the Church - to discuss and debate doctrine when we’re not even on the same page spiritually is deadly.

Verse 19:  Nevertheless - regardless of what Hymenaeus and Philetus are teaching - in other words, Timothy don’t get all stressed out because of those two - nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal...

A seal literally is the mark left when the seal is stamped on the paper or in the wax.  Its what the seal declares.  The same word for seal was used of the seal put on the tomb of Jesus.  It basically declared, “Tamper with this seal and you’re dead meat.  You’re tampering with an official Roman Empire seal.”  In other words - in what Paul writes - God has put His seal on His truth and that seal needs to be respected.

Here’s what the seal says - verse 19 - “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.”

Both of those quotes come out of Numbers 16.  Back when the people of Israel were wandering around in the wilderness three men - Korah, Dathan, and Abiram - along with 250 other leaders of the people - they called an assembly and challenged Moses’ authority.  They asked the people, “Why are you following Moses?  He led us out of Egypt.  And we all appreciate that.  But what gives him the right to lead now?”  In other words, “We think we’d make better leaders.”

Moses goes to God and asks Him what He should do.  God tells Moses to get the people back from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and their families and followers.  So Moses and the people take several - several - steps backwards.

Suddenly the ground under these men opens up - splits open.  They’re sucked down into the pit - to the depths of the earth - Korah, Dathan, Abiram - their families - their tents - everything they owned - whoosh - gone.  The earth slams shut over them.  Then fire comes down out of heaven and consumes the 250 men who were following after them.

God says, “Any questions?  None.  Good.  Well, let’s move on.” (Numbers 16:1-40)

Here’s what God declares:  I, God, will take care of those who are in rebellion against Me - the heretics - the one’s who lead others into sin.  That’s not your responsibility.  The Lord knows who His people are and who aren’t.

God’s people may struggle at times with sin.  That’s different.  Ultimately our hearts are seeking after God.  Our desire is to live God’s way - to follow after His word - His truth lived out in our lives.  God knows whose are His.  Our responsibility is not to wrangle but to be diligent - to live approved by God.

In thinking through what Paul writes and what it means to be a consistent Christian - going the distance with Jesus and not deviating off the straight road of God’s truth -  as we’re going that distance - think with me about what it means that the firm foundation of God stands.

Turn with me back to Matthew 7 - starting at verse 24.  These are familiar words of Jesus and extremely applicable to what Paul writes - well worth our time to be reminded of this morning.

Matthew 7:24 - Jesus is speaking:  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.  Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell - and great was its fall.”  (Matthew 7:24-27)

A friend I grew up with chose the homosexual lifestyle - a lifestyle which God’s word calls sin.  After a number of years he died of AIDS complications.  My friend could have made a different choice.  God gives each of us this freedom.  His choice, brought great pain to his parents and cost him his life.

By God’s grace, just before his death, he made the choice to turn from his gay lifestyle, to turn back to Jesus Christ, and to seek God’s healing in His life.  The choices he made before death brought healing in his relationship with his parents and most importantly - restoration and a return to his relationship with God.

As we go through life the effects of our choices and the choices that other people have made become more evident.  Maybe this is true of you also.  I’ve watched as my friends, people I’ve grown up with, family members, and others I’ve known, have literally destroyed their own lives, and the lives of others - simply by making wrong choices.  Have you seen that?

How many of us have seen people literally destroyed by the storms of life.  When the rain comes and the wind blows they realize too late that they have no sure foundation.  There is nothing stable for them to hold onto.

A while back I was at McDonalds - out here on Olive - and they charged me some ridiculously low price for a cup of coffee.  I asked, “Why is this so cheap?”  The girl said, “That’s the Senior Citizen price.”  That’s happened to me twice.

Some of you may think you’ve got a lot of time.  But, life goes by fast.  It accelerates as we get older.   Learn while you’re young - choose wisely.

It is tragic when someone comes to the end of their life and realizes that they’ve made the wrong choices.  Everything they have is worthless.  Their lives become empty and bitter.  Way too many seniors are trying to hold on to something from the past or to leave some legacy for the future.  But, all they know is emptiness.

Each of us made a choice to be here this morning.  We could have spent more time at breakfast, watched sports, or just rolled over and gone back to sleep.  Well, if you have kids that may not be an option.  Some choices are minor - what to wear, whether to have ketchup or mustard on our hamburger.   How many shots of caffeine are safe for human consumption.

Some choices are major and effect the entirety of our lives.  The most important choice is what to build our lives upon.  There are so many choices in this world, foundations upon which to build our lives - philosophies, religions, possibilities.  God narrows the choice to one - Jesus Christ - the truth of His words.

God will take care of the Hymenaeuses and the Philetuses and all they stand for.  Paul writes to Timothy - remind the faithful - and yourself - that all this boils down to the choice God offers you.  Which foundation will your life be built upon?  God’s, or some other?

That choice is before each one of us this morning.  Have you received Jesus as your Savior?  Is your life is being built-up upon His words and in obedience to God?

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1. Cited by Ray Stedman in his sermon “Avoiding Congregational Gangrene”