Usefulness

The Problem of Uselessness

Can you smell that? There was this terrible smell coming from my car. I'd been driving around for days, and it was slowly getting worse. I checked the back seat—nothing there. Checked the boot—nothing there. Checked under the bonnet. Ah, there's the problem.

My mates had wired a fish to the exhaust manifold of my car. So every time I drove around it would heat up and it would cook the fish. And every time I stopped it would cool down, and the fish would slowly start to decay. And it would heat up again and cook and slow down. And by the end of it, it stunk. It was useless.

Life is full of useful things and useless things. It's a funny story, but no one likes feeling useless. Worse is to be told you're useless. No one likes that feeling.

How can you be useful to God? That's the question I want us to think about for a couple of minutes. And I want to really express my appreciation for those who are brave enough to come and stand up here and talk about how God might have used them.

Time, Talents, and Treasures

How can you be useful to God? It's a good question, isn't it?

I meet with a couple of young guys at lunch on Tuesdays. It's creatively named our "Tuesday at lunch" group. I said to them, "If I had to ask you about usefulness, what would you say?". The wisdom of Liam and Mitch—they said it's about your time, your talents, and your treasures. I thought it was so good, I actually wrote it on my phone.

1. Time

Some of us have much time and some of us have little time. When you're a university student, you have lots of discretionary time. It's very flexible, your life. You got stuff to do, but you have a lot of discretionary time.

I know of a young woman who was a psych student at university. She leads youth group on a Friday night. She mentors a teenage girl one morning a week in the city. She's part of a church plant on Sunday morning where she often leads church. She's involved in the ministry at her campus and her university. She's got lots of time. She doesn't have much treasure. She's got a lot of time but not a lot of treasure. That's the lot of being a student.

When you're a young professional, you have a fair bit of treasure. In fact, you probably have more treasure than any other time in your life, especially if you don't have children. But you don't have much time because you're busy in the early stages of your career and it's quite demanding. So it's the opposite. You've got plenty of treasure but not lots of time.

2. Talents

What about talents? Often we think of the more striking talents because we talk about a talented person as someone who stands out and has got all these abilities. We might talk about the gifted speaker or the extreme extrovert. But what about the less noticeable talents that people can have?

Often we think of talents as the things you do. But what if talents were more like the person you are? You might think to yourself, "I'm a very shy and a very quiet person. I am not really that sort of person that people are attracted to, the extrovert. I can't really be useful to God". But those qualities are really important. You see, you're probably the person I want to talk to at a party because I find sometimes the other people just a little bit too exhausting sometimes. And so your qualities are really, really important.

Sometimes we might think we have a talent for something, but we don't have a talent for it. In that case, it's really good for people to come up to us and say, "Maybe that's not the best way you could be spending your time better". Sometimes we don't have a talent, but we could learn to develop it just by giving it a bit of time. You might think you don't have a skill, but have you really had a crack at doing it?

A Practical Invitation

Just a little practical insight here: on the website, the members section of the website. If you go to that—if you have the login details for the members section of the website—you can go to a form that I've put up there. I've got Joan to put up. And if you want to know what it looks like, there are some yellow hard copies at the back. We try and color code everything here. So it's a yellow copy.

The question is, "How can I be useful to God?" and it's deliberately open-ended. It's not like check a box: "I can do this, I can do this". It's deliberately open-ended because I want you to think about what could be, what might be.

We're inviting you to prayerfully consider how God might use you in new ways. And I'm mostly focusing on around this community on a Sunday and various groups and things like that. I've said here you might write something simple like joining the Bible reading roster, or something new and personal like offering to cook a meal for someone, or helping with an English language group, or joining an Alpha course team, or whatever. Write freely. This is your space to share. So it's almost like journaling around how I could be useful. And then share it with me.

That's really good that I know the sort of things you're interested in, just to save chaos. So I'm going to try and take the things you share with me and order it.

The other thing I would say is: don't do it right away, but do it. So don't go and write it now—reflect on it for a while. But when you reflect on it, don't forget to do it, because it's really useful to do.

Maybe you could ask yourself this question: "How can I make a difference in helping people to know Jesus and to grow with him? How can I use my time, my talents, my treasures?".

The Biblical Illustration

Listen to what the Bible is saying in the Bible passage that was read to us today. It's on page 1178 of the Red Bibles. I'm just going to focus on verses 20 and 21 mostly. And it goes like this:

"In a large house...".

By 'large house' in the ancient world, we mean like a stately home. It's not just a big house; it's a house with lots of people in it.

"...there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some are for noble purposes," literally for honor.

They're like the expensive articles. Maybe think the best dinner wear that you get out for your guests.

"And some for ignoble.".

That's a weird word, isn't it? Ignoble. It means dishonorable. Noble: honorable. Ignoble: dishonorable. Think the rubbish receptacles. Think about decaying matter. Your mind might even go to the chamber pot, if you know what that refers to.

And he's saying:

"If a person cleanses themselves from the latter [the ignoble], they'll be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the master and prepared to do any good work.".

In a large house, there are articles—pots, pans, knives, forks, gold, silver, wood, clay. Some are clean for noble purposes and some for ignoble purposes. Some are useful; some are useless in the master's service.

The old Apostle Paul, writing this (we understand it's the last letter he wrote from jail), is writing to Timothy, a young man, and he says, "Timothy, you got a choice. Do you want to be useful to God or not?".

Life is full of useless things, isn't it?

• Can anyone remember the Pet Rock? It doesn't need to be fed, walked, bathed, groomed. It won't die, won't become sick, won't be disobedient, but it doesn't do anything. It's completely useless.

• A couple of decades later, once computers came around, they came up with the USB Pet Rock. It plugs into the USB port of your computer and still does nothing.

• And then there was Diet Water. Low calorie water. Water doesn't have any calories in it, so you can't lower it below zero.

Useless things. How can I be useful to God? Does God really even need me at all?

Maybe you're tempted to think you're too old to be useful. Or maybe you feel like you're too young to be useful: "I need to study first and get qualified, and then in the future I'll be useful, but at the moment I'm not. I'm still in the process".

Paul says: "If a person cleanses himself from the latter, they'll be an instrument for noble purposes, made wholly useful to the master and prepared to do any good work. If a person cleanses themselves, they'll be a useful instrument".

The Process of Cleansing

How do you do that? How do you cleanse yourself?

It's important to say: this is not about being good enough for God or being acceptable to God. When Jesus died for us on the cross, the Bible says that He cleansed us from all unrighteousness. Jesus died for me. He is my savior. I need to turn to Him; I need to trust Him. And as far as God is concerned, I'm forgiven. He sees me as righteous. There is no barrier between God and I anymore. Not because of what I've done, but because of what Jesus has done. The Bible says, "I am whiter than snow because of that".

So how do I cleanse myself? No, not really a contradiction. Because there are many things—many less noble things—in my life that I need to, as it were, get rid of. I need to cleanse myself. Are there any things less than noble in your life that you need to cleanse yourself from? There are things in my life that I can be involved in that kind of tangle me up and pull me away from being useful to God. Let's get rid of those. That is his point.

What are the things that drag you away? Remember, it's not about being perfect. It's not about being good enough. It's about being useful. How can I get rid of things that are going to make me less than useful?

Paul gives Timothy context:

• In verse 19, he says, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.".

• In verse 22, he says, "flee the evil desires of youth".

What he says here in verse 23 is that the evil desires are foolish and stupid arguments. That's what he says to flee from.

I can remember once having an argument over handball: "You're out!" "No, I'm not!" "Yes, you are!". It reminds me of that Monty Python sketch where he goes into the room looking for an argument. He says, "It's not an argument." "Yes, it is!" "No, it isn't!" "It's just contradiction." "No, it isn't!" "Yes, it is!".

Here the stakes are much higher. Timothy is entrusted with this fledgling church in Ephesus (modern-day Turkey). He's facing a situation where people are walking away from the faith. False teaching is being spread. He says it's like gangrene. People will gather around teachers who will say what their itching ears want to hear.

And yet, Paul says to Timothy, "Don't get involved in silly arguments. You need to hold on to the truth, but you need to do it with a pure heart as well".

Orthodoxy and Orthocardia

You need to have a pure heart. You need to have, in Paul's words, a good conscience before God and before people in the way you conduct yourself.

I was reading Brian Rosner, former principal of Ridley College in Melbourne. He wrote a book, Known by God, where he talks about how you might find authenticity. And he talks about developing habits that anchor your life in Christ. He's given about eight of them:

1. Get baptized.

2. Attend family gatherings.

3. Read and hear the Bible.

4. Pray to our heavenly father.

5. Sing the faith.

6. Say the creed.

7. Take communion.

8. Live the gospel.

Develop right-heartedness.

In Paul's previous letter to Timothy, he put it this way: "Watch your life and your doctrine closely.". It's not just about being correct, but you've also got to watch your life as well. There is a watching world. People are going to watch you, Timothy. People are going to watch us as well.

You need orthodoxy (right doctrine). But you also need orthocardia (right-heartedness). To be useful to the master, to serve God with a clear conscience, you need right-heartedness.

Conclusion: Fill Up With the Good Stuff

And in verse 22, he says this, and I'm going to conclude here: "Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace.".

The good stuff. Fill yourself up with the good stuff. Righteousness, faith, love, peace.

If you swallow poison, they give you what's called a gastric lavage. They put a big rubber tube down your esophagus into your stomach. They pump down this charcoal sludge, and then they suck it all out again. It's revolting. But then what they do is they put you on a drip with all the good stuff in it. Fluids, electrolytes, nutrients, vitamins—all the good stuff. They don't just take out the bad stuff, but they put in the good stuff as well.

Paul is saying to Timothy, you can hang on to the poisons or you can get rid of them. And when you get rid of them, put in the good stuff. Righteousness—that's good. Faith—that's good. Love—that's good. Peace—that's good.

When I found that fish on my exhaust manifold, I could have eaten it, but it was useless, so I bought a pizza instead. We have a similar choice, don't we? Go for the good.

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