1 Timothy 1 -Staying on Track
9/21/08
Turn with me this morning to the book of 1 Timothy. Timothy in towards the end of the New Testament, in the second half of the Bible. We are going to spend a few weeks looking at this book, for it is a book that has a lot to say to us in our culture today. Timothy is on of the books called the pastoral epistles, because they give instructions to young pastors. But really it is a book that is for each one of us to know how we should live and conduct ourselves in a culture that increasingly is turning away from following God.
To refresh our memory about this book, I am going to read the first chapter today.
Read chapter 1 - pray.
Remember that when we write letters, we put our greetings at the end of the letter. In the NT times, they told right up front who the letter was from. So, here in verse 1, we see this is a letter from Paul, the apostle. Let’s refresh our minds quickly who Paul was. Paul, formerly called Saul, was a brilliant Jewish Rabbi, who was also a Roman Citizen by birth -- he probably had a Jewish mother and Roman father. He was so zealous to serve God that he went from town to town gathering up Christians and killing them. But one day God opened his eyes, showed him the truth, and he became one of the leaders of the early church. That’s why he is called an apostle -- one sent on a mission -- Paul knew clearly that God had a special plan for his life, just as God has a plan for your life and mine. Paul traveled extensively throughout lower asia, at that time called Asia Minor, the areas we know today as Turkey and Greece, and he preached the gospel, started churches, and established leadership in the churches.
About 15 years before this book was written, Paul met a young man named Timothy. He was brought up in a religious home (2 Tim 1:5), and had a Gentile father (Acts 16:1) and a Jewish mother. His mother (Eunice) and his grandmother Lois had taught him the holy scriptures since childhood (2 Tim 3:15). Paul had shared the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus the promised Messiah, and Paul had personally led him to faith in Christ. That is why he calls him his own son in the faith (1 Tim 1:2). He becomes so devoted to following Christ that his local church leaders affirm his giftedness for ministry and commend him to Paul. Paul begins a mentoring relationship with Timothy, and Timothy travels with Paul about 15 years. During one of their trips together, Paul leaves Timothy in the town of Ephesus to set things in order there, and that is where we find Timothy as he receives this letter.
Ephesus would not have been the easiest place to pastor a church. The city was devoted to the worship of Diana, a goddess of sexuality and fertility. There was rampant prostitution and sex traffic in the town. Paul had started the church there, but as he left it years before, he had warned the elders of the church there that false teachers would seek to gain an inroad into the church (Acts 20:30). Paul sends Timothy to Ephesus to straighten out the problems in the church there.
Timothy, though, is a young man and sometimes people in the church did not follow his leadership and give him the respect he deserved (1 Tim. 4:12). Timothy was timid and shy (2 Tim 1:6). He sometimes was sickly, or at least was so troubled by the problems in the church that his stomach bothered him (1 Tim 5:23). The tension in the church had him to the point of giving up.
That’s easy to happen in the church, especially for pastors. People manage to say such encouraging things to you. You prepare diligently for the sermon, and on the way out people say things like, “Pastor, you always manage to find something to say to fill up the time, don’t you.” Or, I don’t care what everyone else says, I like your sermons. Or Pastor, did you realize that there are 243 panes of glass in the sanctuary windows. Or Pastor, if I had know you were going to be this good today, I would have invited a neighbor to come. Or my favorite, as the pastor was leaving the church, an old lady came to say her farewells. The pastor tried to cheer her up, and said, Mrs. Johnson, I’m sure that the next pastor will be so much better, and smarter, and caring than me. Mrs. Johnson frowned and said, That’s what they say every time, and it’s never true!
Timothy had had it at Ephesus, he was ready to quit. But Paul gives him a letter to encourage him to keep on going. He writes a letter to remind how the local church should be managed, to encourage Timothy.
In an overview of the book, we might use this outline:
1 - We must preach truthfully
2 - We must pray fervently
3 - We must live diligently
4 - We must persevere constantly
5 - We must relate properly and personally
6 - We must pursue righteousness endlessly
Or put another way, The church’s doctrine, worship, leadership, moral behavior, social responsibilities, and attitude toward possessions.
To put chapter 1 into a modern setting, consider if Paul had written this:
Dear Timothy, it sounds like you’ve got some troublemakers there at ECC (Ephesus Community Church) - They sound like a bunch of crooked lawyers . . . talking a bunch of legalistic jargon. They want people to think they know it all -- but they actually know nothing about the gospel of grace.
Well, Timothy, I could teach them a thing or two about grace. You know my past - I was more legalistic, arrogant, and violent than those guys at ECC could think bout being. It took the grace of God to change me. And that’s what it will take to change them too.
So command them to stop their false teaching. That’s why I left you with the church at Ephesus. I know you can do it! Speak up for the gospel of grace. Fight legalism with the love and truth. And above all, hold fast to your faith!
This is what we’re looking at here in 1 Timothy 1. We’ve already seen the address: from Paul, the apostle, to Timothy. And Paul reminds Timothy in the address that God is a God of HOPE. That’s what Timothy needed -- hope. That’s what each of us need when Satan tries to get us to be discouraged and defeated: hope.
It can be easy to lose hope in our daily lives. We try to do our best, but we don’t get ahead in our jobs. Sometimes we even lose ground. You try to be a faithful witness to your neighbors and co-workers, but we don’t see any change. We come to church and we see the church the same as it has been. We struggle getting committed workers, making budget and paying the bills, and we wonder if it wouldn’t be easier just to give up and go somewhere else. But remember, that God is a God of hope. We have a confident expectation of who our God is and that He is at work in our lives and our church. And so we continue on faithfully. Let’s look this morning at 1 Timothy 1, and see the charge Paul gives to Timothy. Look with me in verse 3.
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work--which is by faith. The first reminder to Timothy, that we need to be reminded of here in Owosso in 2008 is this:
1. Teach Sound Doctrine - Be sure that the church does not drift away into false teaching. When Paul says in verse 3 to “command” - this is the idea of passing on orders from a superior officer. It was a military term. The General gives orders to the Corporal who gives orders to the Sergeant who gives orders to the Privates. The commands are passed on down the line.
When you come to church and hear the word of God taught, it should never be a question of whether or not I came up with an idea. My role is just to pass on and to clarify and explain what God has already declared to by our orders. Far too many people try to change the word of God and avoid following what it says. Timothy’s charge was to get the false teachers to get back to the gospel and truth of the word of God.
Paul warns Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 - Preach the word. . . for the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations.
The reality is that many so-called Christians don’t like truth as much as they like to hear things that give them warm fuzzy feeling s inside. They like new ideas. They like the sensational. Normally when someone comes up with a new idea about the Bible it is normally false teaching or something that they just didn’t realize was old. But we like to focus on things which even if true would not be that important.
I remember when I was in college, a certain group of friends from my church back home used to love to argue about who the sons of God were in Genesis 6 - were they angels or demons or humans. We dream up crazy biblical interpretations because they sound sensational. I got an email the other week about an archaeologist who claimed to find the chariots of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Could that be true? It could, but the archaeologist who found this 1, has a history of false discoveries, 2, never brought any proof to reputable archaeologists, and 3) showed a picture of the chariot wheels on the chariot -- but scripture says in Ex. 14:25 that God knocked the wheels off of the chariots.
Paul told Timothy he had a job to do: teach sound doctrine and stop false teaching. We often don’t like doctrine because it is boring. Few people want to study the attributes of God and the consequences of sin: we like studying how to be a better father, how to love our spouse better, how to succeed financially - but to do all those, we need a foundation of truth.
It you were building a new house, you would never think of starting with bay windows and vinyl siding. Any house that will last needs to start with a foundation. Then you build beams on the foundation. The last thing to be added is the decoration. But we have many who want lives focused on the decoration. We don’t want to be holy, but we just want God to give us anything we pray for.
Look at verse 4 to see the false teaching in Timothy’s day: false teaching, myths, endless genealogies. Down in verse 7, Paul alludes to the fact that they were using the law wrongly. We don’t know exactly what the false teachings were at Ephesus, but we know a general idea because of what we see in other places.
When Paul started the church at Ephesus, their faith in Jesus Christ brought Jew and Gentile together in harmony. But now the false teachings were dividing them. Many of the Greeks taught a heresy called Gnosticism - from the word for knowledge. They taught that there was a secret knowledge and that that enlightenment would bring you special blessing. They were a secret group, sort of like the Freemasons. There’s a group that hasn’t been real popular in recent years like this: the Rosicrucians. They current popular fad of gnosticism is called Kaballah - it’s a blend of Judaism and mysticism and secrets and rituals. It’s all the fad with celebrities like Madonna.
There are all kinds of mystic beliefs out there. Try Scientology - or Eckankar, the religious teaching that Oprah follows. I forget the name for what she calls it, but its old fashioned mysticism, repackaged and given a new name. The idea that we have the power in us to do and be whatever we choose.
The Jews took a different turn - they abused the law, and took the 10 commandments and twisted them. They made up genealogies of heroes and taught special tales that were not biblical.
When it comes to false teaching, we need to follow a few principles:
• Base doctrine on the literal statements of the Bible, not figurative portions - like Song of Solomon
• Base doctrine on the plain statements of the Bible, not obscure ones
• Base doctrine on the teaching passages, not the historical passages
• Base doctrine on all relevant passages, not just a verse or phrase
• Don’t base doctrine of speculations or guesses
• Emphasize what the scripture emphasizes
• Seek practical application of doctrine
And Paul reminds Timothy in verse 4 - these promote controversies. When false teaching and truth come together, they cannot co-exist. You might believe abortion is a woman’s choice, and the fetus is just a lump of tissue; I might believe it is a human and is murder - we can’t BOTH be right. You might believe that the Bible teaches we can love anyone we choose; I might believe that our sexual expression is bound by certain restrictions: we can’t BOTH be right. And in our culture today, there is this great emphasis on sensitivity training: that we need to all just learn to accept one another and get along.
I don’t ever need to accept Satan’s lies as truth! Even when it is politically incorrect, we need to stand up for what is right. The abortion issue is a great issue in the presidential discussions. Obama when asked his views, gave the politically soothing answer: many women have suffered and it’s beyond my pay grade to make that decision of when life begins. McCain, when asked when life begins, gave the simple answer, At Conception. Even when everyone goes against you at work or at school or in your neighborhood, never be afraid to stand up for the truth.
Paul writes in verse 5 - The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Paul reminds us how we stand for truth. First we make sure we have the right motive - a pure heart; next, make sure we are doing the right action - having a clear conscience because we are doing what we know is right. Then he says we have right belief - sincere faith, based upon the truth of God’s word. The word sincere, I’ve shared before, means without wax, judged by the light of the sun. We are authentic in what we believe; we don’t just say one thing and live another way. We truly believe what we say we believe.
To have sound teaching in the church, we need to search the word of God to find what it truly says, and then stand on that truth. In America today, 62 % of people polled say they have made a personal faith commitment to Jesus Christ; yet 65% say they have not been born again, and fewer than 50% believe the Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all it teaches.
If we are going to Teach Sound Doctrine, we need to study and know the word of God and stand for what it says. Teaching sound doctrine doesn’t mean that we will all see everything the same. There are principles in God’s word that using Christian liberty we may make different choices. Someone here might go mixed swimming and another might not. Someone here might drink alcohol, another may not. We can make different applications. But never can we allow disregard of God’s word. Anyone here who gets drunk is sinning. Anyone here who has sex outside of or beyond the marriage relationship is sinning. Anyone here who is lying or proud or covetous is sinning. We may apply God’s truth different, but we can never deny it or change it to suit our own needs.
Paul goes on in verse 6 to talk more about the false teaching: Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful - and he goes on to mention several sins.
There were those at Ephesus who were taking the OT law, and twisting it to serve their purposes. They were like the Pharisees, trying to find their righteousness before God by keeping the law the best that they could. But the 10 commandments never saved anyone. In fact, the only thing the 10 commandments and all the Old Testament laws did was to DAMN us. To show us our curse; that we are unfit to enter the presence of God.
Paul makes this clear in Romans 3:20 - For no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it. But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight--not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.
And Paul goes on to remind Timothy of his second task at Ephesus: Preach the Gospel. Far too often we get caught up in rabbit trails - we talk to our neighbor, and they ask a question about Cain & Abel and their wives and we get our focus off of the gospel. The OT law was never given to make us righteous, but to get us to see our sinfulness so we can see the need of the gospel, our need of salvation.
One of the best ways to share the gospel is to use the OT law. It’s fine to say that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. But how about using the 10 commandments some time. Ask people, did you ever tell a lie? Did you ever hate anyone? Did you ever have a lustful thought? If so, you are a lying murdering adulterer, and you need salvation.
Many people think they are “good enough” and don’t need salvation. Use the 10 commandments, and everyone sees how short we fall of God’s expectations.
We are going to end here today, and next week, we’ll go on to look more at the call to preach the gospel and to defend the faith. But in closing, let me remind you of the Good News that is the gospel: Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 - For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
** Explain salvation - offer invitation to accept Christ.
