Someone has said, "You can never win in the game of life if you
don't know where the goal posts are." You can't win in any game if
you don't have a goal. Great men in every walk of life have been
those with a goal, and a determination to reach it. It is difficult to be
determined if you are not certain where you are going, and so the
end must come before the means. The goal must be established, and
then comes the best means for reaching that end. I remember a
successful businessman who spoke to the students at Bethel one day,
and he said that the very first rule in being successful is to set a goal
and then strive to reach it. Studies show that the one thing they all
had in common as America's most successful men was the ability to
set a goal and pursue it. This principle applies to the spiritual realm
as well.
Matthew Henry, the well-known Bible commentator, was not
successful in producing the works he did because he was uniquely
gifted. It was because he was a man who set goals and persisted in
using every means necessary to reach them. He set out in 1692 to
deliver a series of lectures on the questions on the Bible. He began
with God's question to Adam, "Where art thou?" Twenty years
later he finished the series on the last question in Revelation. When
he set a goal he persisted to the end.
Paul wanted Timothy to be this kind of a pastor, and he wanted
the leaders and teachers of Ephesus to be like this as well.
Therefore, he writes to Timothy and tells him to put an end to the
nonsense of Christians getting all wrapped up in fables and
genealogies. He urges them to make love the primary goal of their
ministry. He then gives the three means necessary to arrive at this
goal. They are a pure heart, a good conscience, and a genuine faith.
Verse 5 in the RSV reads, "Whereas the aim of our charge is love..."
Phillips has it, "The ultimate aim of the Christian ministry, after all,
is to produce the love which springs from a pure heart, a good
conscience and a genuine faith."
Paul is giving a standard by which we can measure the success
of our ministry. Whatever else we have done, if we have not aided
men to move closer to the goal we have failed. The end is love, and if
teaching and preaching does not make Christians more loving it is
an ineffective means, for it is not doing what God intended it to do.
If all the lessons and sermons you hear, and all the books and papers
you read do not increase your love, then they are all for nothing, for
that which does not move toward the primary goal is of no true
Christian value. If your Bible knowledge only makes you clever in
winning arguments, but does not increase your ability to love the
unlovable, you are making no progress at all. The end is love says
Paul. The goal of the Christian life is to be a channel through which
the love of God can flow.
Paul took very seriously the exalting of love to the supreme place
in the Christian life. In all of his letters it is the supreme goal, for to
be filled with agape love is to be filled with Christ. To love and to be
Christ like are synonymous. In Gal. 5:14 Paul writes, "The whole
law is fulfilled in one word, you shall love your neighbor as
yourself." The Old Testament is not to be used as a source of
material for speculation, but as a source of material to be fulfilled by
love. Alexander Maclaren, the famous English Baptist preacher,
wrote, "The Apostle here lays down the broad principle that God
has spoken, not in order to make acute theologians, or to provide
material for controversy, but in order to help us love."
The number of persons won to Christ by argument and
condemnation is from small to non-existent, but the number one
through love is legion. No wonder Paul said that knowledge,
eloquence and sacrifice are nothing without love. None of these
things can open a man's heart to Christ. Love alone is the key to the
human heart, and so it is the goal of the church's ministry in the
lives of its members. Our lack is not power, but love. Paul said you
can have all kinds of power and still be nothing without love. Love
is the key factor in every situation.
Paul was the greatest theologian of all time, but his goal was not
to be a great theologian, but rather, to be a channel of God's love.
He wrote to the Corinthians that the love of Christ constrains us.
That was the power that drove Paul on and on with the Gospel. It
was not some craving for controversy, or desire for adventure, but it
was for the end of love that he was motivated. He then gives 3
means by which we are to reach that end of love. If we develop these
three things we will be progressing toward the goal of love. Not any
love will do, for it must be a love, which issues from these three
things.
1. A PURE HEART.
Just as a pure fountain sends forth refreshing water to the
thirsty, so the pure in heart bring the refreshing attitude of love into
a world of hostility. Jesus said that the pure in heart shall see God,
and it follows that the pure heart which sees God will also see the
need of men to see God, and so long to express the love of God in
Christ that they may have the opportunity to do so. The more I read
about love in the New Testament the more I realize how little
Christians have moved toward this primary goal. Can it be because
we are really not pure in heart? Have we neglected the means to the
end to the point that we do not even recognize the nature of the kind
of love that is to possess us and constrain us as it did Paul?
The impure heart harbors lust and not love. It is a form of love,
which is selfish desire. Have we allowed agape love, which is the
selfless love of Christ, to be lost and replaced with the natural eros
love of desire? I think it is so, and so we cannot begin to reach
Christian maturity until we become pure in heart. We need to be
sanctified, and to learn those truths of God's Word that purify our
attitudes and actions. We need to escape the pull of the world in all
realms, and purify our hearts if we expect to reach the end of love,
which is our goal. A church which is not succeeding to aid its people
in attaining purity of heart is a church in danger of having a
meaningless ministry of no use to the cause of Christ.
2. A GOOD CONSCIENCE.
A bad conscience is the force behind much of Christian
un-loveliness. The Christian who condemns rather than loves is
often filled with guilt feelings. His conscience is bothered by his
own sin and failure to be what he knows God wants him to be. And
so rather than repent and receive forgiveness he lashes out in anger
to punish others who are more guilty than he, and he seeks in this
way to satisfy his own conscience. It is all futile however, and it only
leads to frustration and greater guilt.
If the Christian is ever going to love others as he ought, he has
got to love himself as he ought. He can never do this if he has a
conscience, which is always condemning him. A Christian that
dislikes and condemns himself cannot really love anybody.
Therefore, a good conscience is essential in the Christian life. A
good conscience is one that allows a Christian the freedom to love
himself, and to love his neighbor as himself. This means that the
doctrine of forgiveness of sin needs to be taught until all Christians
understand fully the ministry of Christ's present intercession on
their behalf.
Confession of sin, which played such a major role in the New
Testament must be understood by Christians today. The Christian
who does not know how to deal with his sin and his bad conscience is
greatly handicapped, and he is unable to move along the path to the
goal of love. A Christian who is always looking for scapegoats, and
always complaining and griping is a Christian with a bad
conscience, and he becomes a very poor channel for the love of
Christ to be expressed to others. Any ministry that aids believers in
maintaining a clear conscience is a ministry that is fruitful for
Christ.
3. A GENUINE OR SINCERE FAITH.
That is a faith that is not hypocritical. It is not simply a mask
over the real person. There is a certain insincere kind of faith,
which oozes piety all over on the surface, but it is only a shallow
cover up over an impure heart and a bad conscience. Christians
must be aware of the danger of a false faith, which is a faith built up
around words they have learned, but which has no basis in
experience. A sincere and honest faith will be practical and down to
earth. Those who wonder off into myths, and who take adventures
into the unknown seek to give the impression that this is a
demonstration of real faith, but it is not so. Fantasy is not faith. A
sincere faith brings forth love and a devotion to people, and not a
devotion to fables and systems.
Any teaching that helps a believer to shed his mask and to live
as he really is before God and man in simple trust is a kind of
teaching that will be blest, for genuine faith will lead to the end of
love. The implication of this advice to Timothy is that if a Christian
lacks love the reason is because of a defect in one of these 3 areas-his
heart, his conscience, or his faith.
In verse 6 Paul says that those teachers who have wondered
away from these 3 things, and who have lost their sense of direction
and goal, have ended up with an emphasis on what is vain.
Whenever Christians get into foolish discussions it is because they
have lost sight of their goal. The goal is love, and the means to that
end are a pure heart, a good conscience and genuine faith. We have
a clear goal and a clear revelation as to how to reach it. Our
perpetual duty as Christians is to keep this ever before us, for all of
our teaching, preaching and discussion is of no ultimate value unless
it moves us to reach the end, which is love.
