connecting

Pressing Forward with the Gospel:
"Flee Youthful Passions"
Phil Schaefer
July 27, 2008

Key Scripture – 2 Timothy 2:22

Introduction: As a teenager and young man, before I came to know the Lord, I was trying to lead a good life, but I found that I was failing more often than I was succeeding. As a result, I got so frustrated with myself that I remember saying to myself,” I give up. I can’t be good enough.” As I was exploring and trying to figure out what life was about, I came across the teaching of Existentialism in a religion class. It gave me a way of shaping what I believed so that I could be more moral according to something that was doable. Basically, my new philosophy was as long as I’m not hurting anyone, it’s o.k. to do whatever I want to do. Using this philosophy, I found it a lot easier to deceive, bend the truth, take things that weren’t mine and to fee my lusts.
The problem was, this new standard, while it served to remove my guilt, was turning me into a lying, stealing, immoral person. So, far from being free from sin, I became a slave to sin. I became full of excuses, justifications, and denial of my sin. I tried to flee youthful passions but I found that they were faster than me. I couldn’t out run them so I chose to run with them. Bad decision. But at the time I just wanted to get relief from all the pressures of trying to be good. I’m convinced that it was only by the Lord’s protection over me that I was not put in any prison, not fired from any jobs, not kicked out of school, or any number of other things that could’ve happened to me.
I came to realize later in life that my failure in fleeing youthful passions was because I was only running from a negative. That’s all I had, to run away from bad things. I was trying to live the law— “Thou Shalt Not”- it was all about the NOTS. I was trying to Not do the Nots. Basically, I was trying to outrun evil but evil would always outrun me That got really frustrating and I got really tired of it. I got to the point where I said, “ It’s not worth trying to be good. It’s just too hard.” This left me pretty defeated and discouraged, and feeling like a failure. I was feeling like it was impossible to be good.
So for 5 or 6 years I quit running. I lowered the standard for anything that might have been a standard before, and I made peace with sin. While it seemed to remove my shame, in reality, I became much less of a person.

1. 2 Timothy 2:22 “ So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord from a pure heart.”
Youthful passions, the evil desires of youth, or youthful lusts is not just a reference to sex, though it is that, too. It is a reference to all the things that can inflame a person’s flesh, particularly when we are young. When we are younger, we have a fairly healthy amount of flesh that we have to contend with. They can go on with us into later life, but typically as we go on later in life, we will have other issues to deal with. But while we are young we have these issues that we have to contend with that are called youthful lusts, youthful passions or desires that are evil.
Paul is writing to Timothy here and Timothy is about 37- 42 years old, according to scholars. He is not a teenager, not 20 years old, yet Paul is writing to him in both letters saying,” Flee youthful passion.” What he is saying, in context, is “ Ever be fleeing, just as you always endeavored to flee these kinds of things.” He was not actually implying that Timothy was actually stumbling and falling into these sins. Timothy had some maturity. He was walking in righteousness, but he needed that reminder. The Apostle Paul, a seasoned man of God knew that he was going to be with the Lord soon. He would have been 25-30 years older than Timothy. He said, “Timothy, make sure that you continue to flee, just as you’ve always been fleeing. Be ever fleeing the passions of youth.

Youthful passions are about money, sex, and status. They’re about possessions, pleasures and power.
If you are a guy, it’s about the wrestling to give into sex. It is about the pursuing of sex, having sex on the mind as though you are diseased with it. Rather than fleeing, you’re going toward it. It is feeding your own sexual appetite.
It’s the desire to be somebody important. It’s to feed your pride so that you can be accomplished in some way.
It’s to make money or to be lazy and indifferent, to be irresponsible and to live off of others.
It is all or either/and of these things that we are called to flee.

For young women:

It’s the desire to look the cutest. To dress provocatively, to want to tease the guys.
It is the desire to want a guy with money so you can live easy, and shop ‘til you drop.
It’s to want to have a baby just so you can be loved.
It’s to read trashy novels so that you can get your heart all worked up into a junky, romantic, trashy, genre way of living because your husband isn’t romantic with you.
Feeding youthful passions is about letting our identity and security come from these things. These all feed our passions, but in the end, there is no peace, no joy, and no satisfaction.

2. Romans 8:7—“ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot.”

It is important that we remember this point; our flesh will always be our flesh. Our carnal nature will always be our carnal nature. It can not be sanctified, this fallen part of us, the flesh, the not yet fully redeemed part of ourselves, this physical body that is for sure going to fall apart. These desires of my will that are not perfected, will always want to go in a certain way. We have these emotions that are always going to thrust themselves forward in our lives. We have these hormones that are God-given but are out of control beyond how God has set us up to live. We need to understand that the flesh will always be the flesh, all the days of your life. We need to understand that when our flesh gets aroused, whether you are 8 or 18 or 98, if your anger or passions, or temper are aroused, you need to realize, that’s my flesh. It will always be with me. I can feed it, I can run to it, I can nurture it, or I can flee from it.
We need to come to grips with the realization that “ I may have been a Christian 30 years, but I still have flesh that erupts and causes problems for me. I’m either going to feed that flesh or flee from it. But I’m no longer shocked that I’ve got that flesh. When we are younger we think “Someday I won’t have these problems.” But all of us have these problems with our flesh nature. At times we want to flee it, at other times we give in. When we get older we have other problems like irritability and impatience. We don’t think younger people know anything, forgetting that we were once young. The older you get, the more your flesh will promote fear. Fear about how will I be taken care of, how my health is going to go, etc. These are all issues of the flesh that we need to recognize and realize that we need to flee it, not feed it.
All of us get frustrated with our sins and failures. We gossip, tell half truths, we deceive our parents, we lie to look good, we lose patience with our children, we get jealous over others work or their success, or their talent. We lose hope because of our addictions. We decide we’re not going to look at another woman. Then our minds and imaginations kick in and make us want to give up. That’s exactly what the devil wants us to do: Give Up!

Illustration: Imagine a football game. The guy with the ball gets tackled and knocked down. What would you think if he said,” They knocked me down, I quit!” What if he got knocked down again and again and he said, “ They keep knocking me down. I don’t like it anymore, I quit!” What happens when a player goes down on the field, he’s injured, and everything stops. What do they do? They work to get him up! There is no sense in the game that once you get knocked down you should stay down. No sense that “He touched me and hurt my feelings. He pushed me too hard, he was mean to me, he spoke badly to me, he knocked me flat on my can. I’m not getting back up.” No, it’s a football game. When you get knocked down, you get back up. That’s the name of the game.
You understand that there are these things that will outrun you, and you need to flee from them. There will be times when they get the better of you, but you don’t just stay down and say, “I quit.” No, you get back up!
What would you do if we were playing K.U. in a basketball game, and we were down by just a few points and we decided to quit in the last few minutes to play the game without taking a time-out or without figuring out a strategy of how to score? What would you think of our team if in the last few minutes, the score was tied and we just gave up because they were 4 points ahead? What if we said,” You know what, you guys just go ahead and win.” The fans in the stands would be booing, not the enemy, but our team. If they quit before the game was over we would think, “No, you’re not supposed to quit!
Think about how many times you think about quitting. “I give up, I can’t take it anymore, it’s too much for me. I’m so frustrated with them, with you, with it.” You may not blame God, but it’s really about God dealing with you. You think, “I’ll quit because I’ll never get over this thing.” We wouldn’t allow it in a football game. Why would we think that this thing that has eternal value would be the thing we could say about, “ I give up, I can’t do it.”?
You are going to fall but you’ve got to get back up. You’re going to get worn down but you need to know, “I need to be refreshed.” Don’t quit! You will be tempted, even at times compromise, but you must always keep sin and the devil and your flesh as your enemies.

Don’t ever sign a treaty with your sin! Don’t ever say,” This thing has gotten the better of me for so long that I’m just going to make peace with it.” Don’t ever give a peace treaty to your anger, your impatience, to your lust, to your criticalness, to your gossiping, to your jealousy. Don’t ever sign a peace treaty and say,” Well that’s just the way I am, it’s been with me all these years.”

4. Pursue righteousness --Paul says, ”Flee evil desires and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.” We are teaching on Pressing Forward Toward the Gospel. We’re teaching on what the gospel is and what it does for us. We’re wanting to impart to us that the gospel is something altogether positive, and it is practical in life. The gospel is a constant source of encouragement and hope to us.
I could give an entire message on “Fleeing Youthful Lusts” and still not give you the gospel. I can tell you to run from every manner of sin and temptation, and to never compromise, and you would never hear the gospel, though everything I said to you was true and convicting. “ Flee the evil desires of the flesh. “ is not the gospel. Running from something is not the gospel. Trying to do everything right is not the gospel. Just trying to get rid of everything negative in your life is not the gospel. It is important that we understand this if we’re going to live the life that we’re called to live.
So for me, as a young man, after 5-6 years trying to do flee these things, someone told me the gospel, and about peace and love. I knew it was what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get there. So he told me that the first thing I had to do was acknowledge that doing things on my own terms, with my own morality, was trying to play God, and that I could never be happy trying to be God. At first I felt insulted at the implication that I was playing God. I thought, “Who do you think you are?” Then he told me that I needed to come clean with my life and admit that in fact I was not following God but was following sin. I got insulted with that as well. Then he asked me if I really wanted to know what peace was, what joy was, what love was. I had to be honest with myself and admit that I didn’t have those things in my life. I had friends, I had fun, I had philosophy, but I didn’t have peace. Then he said the only way I could have peace, joy, life, and righteousness, was to turn to Jesus Christ; that Jesus was the only way to peace. So I took that first step, and for the first time in my life, I had an awareness of peace, of love, and of joy. I had the sense that I had made the very first right move of my life. I turned my heart to Jesus.
Up until then, I had tried to flee from things that would entrap me, but I wasn’t pursuing anything better that that. So when my friend told me, “No, don’t just try and fight that, but run to the one who can give you peace, love, joy and righteousness.” When I went after the Lord and said, “O.K. Lord, I want to know you, I want to pursue you.”, then He gave me that peace and love and joy and righteousness. And it never changes from that day until your final breath. We’re called to constantly be pursuing the Lord and who He is.
It wasn’t enough for me to flee from something. I needed to run to something, and that is the call of the gospel. When we are young and grow up in a church setting, we get enough to feel overwhelmed by things and to feel guilty about things.
I had a conversation this week with someone where we were talking about guilt. So, I was thinking about something I said many years ago. “We don’t ever want to motivate by guilt, but we want to motivate by grace. Because grace is the most important motivator that anyone can ever her.”
I can lay guilt on you week after week and you think, “That’s what it is all about, although I feel terribly guilty because I can never succeed or never quite get it right.”
But let me tell you this, It’s not the gospel! It doesn’t bring the glory to God that is to be His. It doesn’t go far enough.
There is this work that Jesus Christ did that is far superior to the fleeing of a thing. It is a running after, a pursuing of who He is and what He has done for us. When you’re really having that in front of your eyes, all the days of your life, you are seeing Him instead of constantly seeing the thing that is trying to chase you and knock you down.
If I use the football analogy… and the guy is running down the field and he’s got the ball, if he spends all his time running but looking over his shoulders, you know what is going to happen to him? The odds are far, far greater that they are going to catch up with him than if he says, “ I’m just going to get to that goal and nobody is going to catch me.”
It is having the something in front of him that he is pursuing with all of his might, that gets him the peace, love, righteousness, endurance, perseverance, and the hope. It’s not looking over your shoulder thinking, “ Oh, they’re chasing me, and they’re going to get me down.” Then you will go down.
The gospel means good news. It tells us that we no longer need to approach God with the constant reminder of our sinfulness. Rather, we approach God with the constant reminder of His abounding grace. Paul tells Timothy, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” If you’re not strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, you’re going to get bogged down in those things. He tells Timothy,” Ever be turning your attention to the Lord.”
Hebrews 4:16 “ Let us then with confidence (boldly) draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.”
The gospel tells us that the only effective way to run from youthful passion and lusts is to run toward righteousness, faith, love, peace, and to never sop running to that end.

1 Timothy 6:11- “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

The word in Greek is this, “Run after righteousness.” That is what the gospel is all about. It doesn’t matter how long you have been walking after the Lord. If you lose sight of the initial stuff that thrilled your heart and gave you peace, joy, hope, and love, and leave that place and say, “Now, I’m going to straighten myself out.” you’re going to miss it. The minute that I turned to the Lord and believed those things were mine, I need to do that this day, and everyday, and all the days of my life. You never leave that. You’re going to stumble, it’s going to mess with your mind. Your mind will say, “I’ve already gotten saved, now I need to fix myself up.” Yes, you flee those things, but it’s not just about fleeing. It’s all about pursuing who the Lord is.

5. How do we run after righteousness?

We have to learn how to receive.

Romans 5: 17 “ …Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 2: 8 “ for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Faith, grace and righteousness are a gift. You’ve got to receive it.
1 John 4:10 “ In this is love, not that w loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins.” We have to receive His love.
Romans 5:1 “ Therefore, since we’ve been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
All of these verses are telling us that righteousness is a gift, peace with God is a gift, and faith is a gift. All these things are gifts that we are meant to receive from God, and to continue to receive from God all the days of our life. You can’t do anything except that you’re first receiving from the Lord.
Matthew 6: 11 “ Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts.”
Illustration: I really like my wife’s cooking. I think she’s a great cook. The other day she asked me what I would like to eat, and I said,” Oh something simple like tuna noodle casserole.” But when she made it, it wasn’t just hamburger helper type of tuna noodle casserole. It was Deb’s Tuna Noodle Casserole! It was so good, that I said, “ I’m such a blessed man to get to eat my wife’s food.” I compliment her all the time because she’s such good cook. But what would it be like if she said, “Oh no, I’m not a good cook, don’t tell me that, it’s not good. I didn’t do anything.” If she doesn’t receive anything I say, should I stop saying it, not compliment her anymore, say forget you?
Who’s got the problem here? Is it me, complimenting her on these good things? Or is it her, in her inability to receive what I confer upon her?
So when the Lord says to you, “ You are the righteousness of mine in Christ, you are my much beloved child; when God says “I have peace with you and you have peace with me” and then you go, “Oh, no, no, no. That’s not how I feel. That’s not how I’m living it.” Who has the problem receiving it? It’s you. So when God continually keeps pouring out His compassion and mercy, but I don’t know how to receive these, I’m going to be stuck. We’ve got to learn how to receive from God first. That’s how we run after righteousness.

We need to ever be calling upon the Lord.

“ Lord save me!” Peter cried as he was beginning to walk on water and started to sink. The disciples cried, “Lord, we’re perishing” as they were out in the boat in the middle of the storm. And the Lord stood up in the boat and He said, “Peace, be still.”
All the stories in the Bible are about God saving people. “All who call upon the Lord will be saved.” We pursue God by calling upon the Lord everyday, all the time, in every manner of opportunity in which we find ourselves. We call upon the Lord, “Lord, save me, help me, be with me. I look to you. You’re my rock. You’re my strength. You’re my hope, my goodness.”

Turn the attention of your mind to something else.

Rick Warren says, “Change the channel of your mind.” If you say, “ I need to stop overeating, I need to stop smoking, stop cussing” That’s all the Law. Telling yourself all day long, “I need to stop!”, when what you really need to do is to channel surf your mind to something good. That takes your mind off of those things. The longer that you dwell on what you shouldn’t do, the longer you’re going to feel like a failure in it. You need to channel your mind to find something good. It’s hard but you can do it! If you keep feeding it and watching that channel in your mind, you’re not going to fix it. The only thing you can do is get off that channel and get on to something good. If you dwell on those things, you will just sit in a cesspool.

Overcome evil with good.

Illustration: Sometimes when I’m out running, I can’t keep up with other people that I’m running with. I’m battling in my mind the whole time. “Just let them go, don’t even try to keep up.” My mind is doing this whole thing where if I quit doing this negative thinking like” they’re going to overtake me,. I can’t keep up with them,” an odd thing happens and they fall behind me. The more I tell myself, “I can’t” the harder it is to keep up. But the more I don’t even entertain that kind of thinking; time after time, I find myself pulling ahead.
There’s time when sin overtakes you. It’s about to pass you. But if you turn your attention to do anything good, to say anything good, to think something good, the temptation will fall behind you, It’s not very complicated. You just need to do it 1,000 times a day. When should I do this thing? Right in the middle of entertaining something rotten. When should I turn to the good? Right when I recognize—here’s my moment to do it. At any point in time that you think about it, do it!
Come boldly before His throne of grace. When you think, “Oh, now I’ve really blown it. I need to stay away from the Lord for at least a week, because I’ve really made a mess of my life.” Why would you do that? He loves you. He saves you. He bids you to come to him. Run to Him! Pursue joy and peace and love and righteousness. Just keep coming to Him. He is the only one who has got all the righteousness. He is my righteousness. He’s the only one that can give me hope. He is my hope. He is the only one that can love me the way I need to be loved so that I can love others.

Seek others who are seeking the same things.

2 Timothy 2:22 “…along with those who call upon the Lord with a pure heart.”
Don’t position yourself around people who will feed your offenses, your anger, your lusts, your gossip. Just say, “I love you, God bless you but I’m not hanging around you any longer.” You’ve just got to pull yourself away, because if you’re feeding that in them, and they’re feeding that in you, you’re not going toward pursuing righteousness, peace, goodness and faith. They will undermine your faith. You’ve got to position yourself around people and places where goodness can be practiced over and over again.

1 Timothy 6:11-16 “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness.
Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in His testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will display at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or ever can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Paul builds to this point. He keeps laying layer upon layer of what to go after. He says,” Go after God, the immortal, who dwells in light unapproachable. He’s the King of Kings, the Lord of lords. He is the only sovereign. He is over everything. To Him the glory belongs. Set your affections, set your directions on this course, and you’ll get there!

Discussion questions:

Have you ever tried to live by the law of “Thou Shalt Not”?

As a young person, what were some of the youthful passions that tended to entrap you most?

Why is it a life-long struggle to flee these things, even after years of being a Christian?

Have you ever been tempted to give up and “sign a peace treaty with your sin”?

Why is guilt an ineffective motivator against sin? Why is grace the most important motivator?

Name some practical ways that we can “flee youthful passions”.

What is our primary goal in fleeing from our sins? What are we running to?