We Walk By Faith Part 8
Shipwrecked Faith Part 1
Scriptures: 1 Timothy 1:18-20; Romans 10:17; 2 Timothy 2:16-18; 4:14-15
Introduction:
This message will close out my current series on faith. As you recall, in this series I have explained that faith is an unquestioning belief and that there are steps we must take in order to “build” or establish our own individual faith. Just as there are things we must do to strengthen our faith, there are also things we can do to destroy that same faith that we have worked so hard to establish. This message will focus on shipwrecked faith and this morning I will cover what it means to have shipwrecked faith. Next week I will close the series with what to do if your faith or the faith of someone you know has been shipwrecked.
Let’s start with something we discussed last week during Bible Study. Turn to 1 Timothy 1:18-20. It reads: This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwrecked in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.” (1 Timothy 1:18-20)
Focus on the first part of verse nineteen. Paul makes the following statement to Timothy “keeping faith and a good conscience….” What Paul was telling Timothy was to guard or protect his faith while maintaining a clear conscience. It is important that we understand that our faith can shift if we’re not proactively taking steps to protect it. To protect something means to shield from danger, to guard or to defend. Each of these words carry a different connotation as it relates to protection. There is so much that comes against our faith that there are times when we must shield it; guard it (as in carefully watching over it); or actually defend it. In each situation the sole purpose is to protect that which is within you. I want us to think about this as we get into the heart of the message as it relates to being shipwrecked.
Before I go any further, I want to remind you of what Bro. Anthony told us last week. He said that there is “a” way and there is “the” way. “A” way offers options but “The” way is the only way. We need to think in these terms if we are to protect our faith. We must let the word of God be our source for our faith – “The Way!”
I. Shipwrecked
So before I go any further, I want to review what it means to be shipwrecked. I have never been on a cruise but I have a very good idea of what it means to be shipwrecked and that idea is not a very pleasant thought.
Let me share with you my earliest knowledge of what it meant to be shipwrecked. When I was growing up, one of my absolute favorite TV series was “Gilligan’s Island”. I would hurry home from school to watch it. For those of you unfamiliar with this series, the show was about seven individuals who were shipwrecked on a deserted island. They were shipwrecked because their small charter boat came upon a storm that was too great for it. The waves from the storm tossed the ship to and fro until it was wrecked on the deserted island. In the very first episode when the storm clouds came on the horizon, the captain realized what was happening and tried to do the right thing. But because the storm was too great for them the ship was wrecked. I think of this show because so many times in our lives we see a “spiritual” storm coming but we are not able to get out of its way. The storm that they went through was more than their small ship could handle. Sometimes as we are trying to strengthen our faith, we will go through storms that shake us to our core. Some of the worse storms that I have gone through spiritually had to do with Christian leaders whose actions did not match their confession and I was left with a choice. As you are aware, when Christian leaders fall it causes the faith of those who have their faith in them to shift. This is why our faith must be grounded in the word of God versus any individual. Let’s continue on with another example of a ship wreck. If you have never seen the show “Gilligan’s Island” then I am sure you’re either seen or heard about the mighty ship Titanic.
The Titanic launched on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. It was sailing from England to New York. It was the best, most luxurious ship that was ever made at the time. Some believed that it was unsinkable but we know that to be false. Four days into the journey it hit an iceberg. The ship sank killing 1,517 individuals. With all of it modern advances, how did this ship hit an iceberg? Once it hit the iceberg, why were there so many lives lost? Well here is some information that you might not be aware of: the ship only carried enough life boats for half the passengers on board. Maybe this was because that was the standard of the time or maybe it was because of the belief that it could not be sunk. The second part to this answer as to why so many lives were lost has to do with two men ignoring the warning of the iceberg. Another ship had sent a wireless message letting the Titanic crew know that an iceberg was in its path but the two individuals who received the message did not give it much attention since that was not their “job”. Many people died because of these two fatal errors. But if we were to consider the two fatal errors of the Titanic and translate that to our shipwrecked faith, there would be some similarities. For example, there are many Christians who think they have so much “spirituality” that they are untouchable (do not need life boats since the ship is unsinkable). They do not see the problem that is lying beneath the surface because they have their heads so far up in the clouds and are ignoring the danger signs around them. Then there are many Christians who see what is happening around them, but they ignore the warning signs. They know something is not right about a situation, but they take the mentality “someone else will handle it”. When everything hits the fan, their faith is shattered just like “someone else’s” faith.
When Paul used the term “shipwreck” in 1 Timothy 1:19, he was being very specific as to what Hymenaeus and Alexander had done with their faith. The word shipwreck comes from two Greek words; one meaning “ship” and the other “to break”. The picture that Paul is painting here is something that is broken and can be found floating on the water away from the ship. Unless the ship can be repaired, more and more pieces of it will break away until the ship itself is left in pieces or sinks. This is the picture that Paul paints about their shipwrecked faith. To put this simply, shipwrecked faith is when our faith slowly drifts away or is separated from its primary source, God and His word. It is not faith that cannot be repaired; it is faith that is broken and/or fragmented.
I want you to clearly see this with your mind. If you saw the 1997 movie “Titanic” one of the final scenes you see are people in the water hanging on to whatever they could to keep from drowning. Paul understood what happens when a ship is wrecked because he had first hand experience with one. In Acts chapter twenty-seven, it records what happened when Paul was shipwrecked because of a storm. If you read towards the end of the chapter, you’ll find that the ship broke apart and those who could not swim used pieces of the ship to float to land. If you can see this in your mind then you can also picture someone whose faith is shipwrecked and they are holding on for dear life to the little faith that they have left. This is the image I want you to visualize because there are many Christians in Churches today with shipwrecked faith, hanging on to something in an attempt to get back what they lost. Unless the piece we are hanging on to is reconnected with the primary vessel (God) our faith will never be restored.
There are many things that can influence our faith both positively and negatively but there are some very specific things that will shipwreck our faith. Before I close this morning I want to examine what Paul references in First Timothy chapter one.
II. How Our Faith Becomes Shipwrecked
What causes our faith to become shipwrecked? To answer this question I want to use a natural example and then transition to the example that Paul gave with Hymenaeus and Alexander.
If you have ever lost faith in someone then you have experienced shipwrecked faith in that particular example. Your faith was shipwrecked as it related to that individual because you were now in a place where you could not believe in them any longer. I have been in this position as a Pastor when members became offended with me and left the Church. The church had not changed, but their faith in me had and they felt they could no longer stay. In the natural we experience these all the time. We lose faith in friends, family, co-workers; bosses and even in our own abilities if the circumstances are right. What happens in these situations is that something goes wrong that shakes our faith. Our faith begins to crack and as time goes on the crack becomes greater and greater. It is sort of like a rock hitting your car window. First you see the small chip but as times goes on a crack appears from the chip and begins to spread across the window. When the crack gets large enough it can cause the whole window to shatter in the right circumstances. Likewise it is with our faith. When there is a small chip or crack, we have time to repair it. If we do not repair it, that crack will spread and ultimately shatter the rest of our faith. It does not happen overnight but is gradual as we continue to ignore the warning signs. When we ignore the alerts, we end up shipwrecking our faith. Let’s examine Hymenaeus and Alexander that Paul mentioned.
First Timothy 1:19 tells us what these two individuals did. Let’s read it again. “Keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.” These two men shipwrecked their faith by rejecting the truth. You must understand it was not that they did not believe; they changed their beliefs to suit them. Where once they were grounded in their faith believing the truth, they came to a point that the truth was no longer enough for them and they began to believe something else, something that was different and pleasing to the ears. Let go back to the beginning of this chapter as I want to give you a little more detail of what was taking place. Let’s begin reading at verse five of chapter one. “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. But some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussions, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they made confident assertions. (1 Timothy 1:5-7)
Paul records in Romans 10:17 “So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” If faith comes by hearing the word of Christ, then it stands to reason that when you stop hearing your faith begins to falter. Better yet, when you take what Christ has said and then come up with your own theory to believe, then your faith becomes shipwrecked. This is what Hymenaeus and Alexander (and others) did to shipwreck their faith. Turn to 2 Timothy 2:16-18. It reads “But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. 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.” Now turn over to 2 Timothy 4:14-15. It reads “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching.”
Do you see this? They began to believe a false doctrine, something different than what was taught to them. Not only did they begin to believe a false doctrine, they began to stand against Paul and teach others what they now believed. One of the teachings that Paul called out was them teaching that the resurrection (the final one for believers) had already take place. Through this teaching they were basically telling people that there was really nothing else to live or look forward to as it had already happened. This is similar to what is happening today with people starting to believe that hell does not exist as it is taught in the Scriptures. When these men began to teach others what they believed, Paul states that it “upset” the faith of those who were hearing it. What happened was that this new teaching caused those listening to doubt what they had previously been taught. When the doubt set in (the small chip in the windshield) it began to spread causing their faith to fail.
It is important that we understand that when we depart from God’s word we are opening our faith up to be shipwrecked. Think about it this way: if the captain followed all precautions and monitored all signs for storms, he is constantly in a state of preparedness should something happen. He (or she) is on alert always planning the “what if” just in case something happens. But if the captain is doing other things that are not a part of their job; if they are ignoring the warning signs of impending danger; and if they are operating with a mindset that they cannot be touched; this individual is headed towards danger and placing the lives of everyone on their ship at risk.
This same logic applies to Christians. We should be on guard for all dangers that will attack our faith. Those dangers will come from family and friends, co-workers, enemies, and even more so today, the pulpit. Yes you heard me correctly. Men and women standing in God’s pulpit are shipwrecking the faith of their members with teachings and traditions that are contrary to the word of God. I will never forget the story Rev. Fulks shared with us about a woman who lost her baby and her Pastor told her it was because she did not tithe. This is happening more and more in the Church. These are the things you must guard and protect your faith against.
If your faith has run aground, there is help. If you’re unsure if your faith is shipwrecked, there is help. Next week I will share with you how we can protect our faith and get our faith back on course if it is currently shipwrecked because of some situation your have found yourself in. Until next week, may God bless and keep you.
