1 Tim 1:8-17 | The Right Law used Rightly
Notes
Transcript
TENSION NEEDING REDEMPTION:
TENSION NEEDING REDEMPTION:
Our temptation is to dismiss or add to the law of God to help it line up with our definition of good and bad
CENTRAL TRUTH EXPRESSED (MAIN POINT):
CENTRAL TRUTH EXPRESSED (MAIN POINT):
God’s law is truly good and ultimately leads us to Jesus
GOD'S HEART REVEALED:
GOD'S HEART REVEALED:
That we would love Him and love one another well
OUR RIGHT RESPONSE:
OUR RIGHT RESPONSE:
Meditate on His law
1 | How have I experienced the tension?
1 | How have I experienced the tension?
I am sure we have all heard the idiom “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”
We normally take it to mean that when two things are connected (one is good and the other is bad) don’t throw out both together.
For example, if your car’s oil change light comes on, it might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater to immediately pull over get out of the car and leave it there and walk home.
Or if you have one co-worker who says a sarcastic comment to you it might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater to walk into your managers office and quit on the spot.
Or if any of you have ever coded before, it might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you are have a few lines of few bugs in the program to wipe your memory files and start from scratch.
But in the original German roots from the 1500s it actually had two potential applications… one was throwing out the bathwater and the baby. The other was throwing out the baby and leaving the dirty bathwater.
I remember for the first year of Abi’s life poopy bathwater could happen fairly quickly.
We would have a little bath tub in the kitchen and I would have a game or a show on the tv. And I would be holding her and washing her and all would be well… just to look down and see a poop bath.
That is when I discovered if you don’t want to have a poopy bath, don’t have a baby.
In a lot of ways this has been the experience of many with what we know as God’s law, his wisdom, teaching, commands, and desires stated in the Scriptures.
Last week we talked about how divine biblical love is filled with both grace and truth.
To reduce, alter, or add to God’s law is to ultimately minimize law.
Unfortunately each of us have within us the opportunity to instead define good and bad on our own terms… and so we do those things… minimizing the law, minimizing the Gospel, and minimizing the effects of divine biblical love in our lives.
We both misuse the law and have it misused against us and those we care about and throw the baby out with the bathwater…
Seeing the poopy water and assuming no baby is a better option.
2 | How have you experienced this tension?
2 | How have you experienced this tension?
But what if the law is actually good, helpful, and important?
What if God’s unchanging truth is meant to bring about flourishing.
What if when we reduce, alter or add to God’s law we don’t make things better but actually just an entirely new problem to the mix?
3 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?
3 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?
Paul’s encouragement to his disciple Timothy was to bring correction to false teachers who had rooted deeply in the church in Ephesus.
They were living out of arrogant ignorance. Adding to the law. Adding to the Gospel and instead crafting a new gospel all together.
They had lost the aim of love. And Paul’s desire is that Timothy would bring both grace and truth into their lives out of a heart for divine biblical love to be demonstrated to them.
Paul is going to now turn his attention to the concept of the law offering a biblical understanding of what the law is for and why followers of Jesus should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
He starts with a run on sentence that is fairly loaded.
Read 1 Timothy 1:8-9
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers,
Vs. 8 -9
So Paul suggests that the law is in fact GOOD. Growing up I just thought about God’s law being like a perpetual buzz kill. He didn’t want me or you to enjoy our life on this planet.
I experienced others (and eventually realized I was doing the same thing) who used God’s commands as a means to beat up on others to feel better and righteous about ourselves.
Baby and poopy bathwater… chuck out the law!
Paul is suggesting that God’s wisdom, desires, commands are ACTUALLY GOOD.
Why?
Because God is good. If God is good then what he declares is good is actually good.
In the biblical account of creation this was literally God’s whole thing… creation and affirmation. You exist. You are good.
If you don’t believe God is good it is going to be really hard to believe that His law is good. If you don’t believe his law is ultimately good it is going to be really hard to maintain a belief that God is good.
So the law is good.
IF ONE USES IT LAWFULLY.
In accordance with the law or in the proper way.
This is an iPad, it’s proper use is varied… you can use it for preaching, watching movies, playing games, and much more!
An improper use of an iPad is to walk down the street and chuck it at peoples heads.
Remember he is writing to Timothy specifically regarding false teachers who have been using the law unlawfully, they have not been using it in it’s proper use. They have been misusing the law out of arrogant ignorance.
1 Timothy 1:9 (ESV): understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane
⁃ just (those with a right relationship with other people)
To be just is to do right for other people, the trouble is humans are never consistently just.
The law is for the lawless and disobedient (opposite of just)
⁃ ungodly (those who don’t have a right relationship with God)
⁃ unholy and profane (those who can’t be in God’s presence)
This is Leviticus language. In the book of Leviticus the theme is holiness. To be set apart from the brokenness and drawn in near to God’s presence.
So how is the law good?
The law reveals God’s justice… that he has the ability to not only define good and bad but take what was is broken and make it right.
Now Paul is going to drill down deeper with a list of different categories of individuals each specifically mentioned throughout the Bible and specifically riffing off of the book of Leviticus to show examples of people who are living apart from the aim of love. They are not in right relationship with God or other people.
Read 1 Timothy 1:9-10
understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,
Here is Paul writing to his disciple Timothy about some difficult and some are quite controversial realities in our world, as some of them were in his own.
I would imagine in each generation since there have been specific patterns in this list that are more sensitive based on the cultural context.
For example, I imagine “enslaver” would have been a sinful pattern that many during the transatlantic African slave trade would have preferred to be left off this list.
In our culture today, the two biggest would be Paul listing homosexuality as well as sexual immorality.
I realize how that lands in our cultural context.
Paul was not singling out one sinful pattern in this list but a great diversity of realities that were consistently called sinful in the Scriptures and specifically not only affected yourself but the way you lived in relationship with others
Paul was not blasting this on a blog for the world to call out their culture or ours, he wrote this to his disciple Timothy so that he could shepherd a church of followers of Jesus
The consistent goal for a follower of Jesus is for each of us throughout the centuries to submit our understanding of what is good and bad to God and what He reveals within the Scriptures over whatever our hearts and minds desire or the hearts and minds of our culture desires.
His point in listing these was to show how wide sweeping God’s justice is which is why he says “and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine”
Almost like if you think you come away from this list clean?
Nope! You are by nature subject to God’s justice.
So with all this in mind, this is not the passage to drill down into this list and miss Paul’s intent in this passage.
Even more, we have no desire as a church to call out any reality and label it a super sin. But we realize that issues of human sexuality are at the forefront of this cultural moment so we are currently working on ways for us as a church to be equipped for how to wisely and lovingly walk in this cultural moment on this topic. With that, we are hoping to have some equipping spaces for this in the months ahead.
I mention that so that we wouldn’t get distracted by this list away from Paul’s point.
God’s justice is beyond our sense of justice.
The law gives us clarity on God’s justice, which is actually a good thing!
It is a good thing that God cares about justice. That God doesn’t shrug his shoulders at evil and say “you do you.” I can’t imagine anyone would say that would be a good thing in the realm of human trafficking or people murdering their parents, right?
It is good that God defines good and evil on his turn, even when it disagrees with my definition.
In real life, villains don’t walk around saying “here is my evil plan!” In real life villains believe and justify their plans to become good in their own eyes.
Apart from Jesus, Paul, Timothy, you and I are no better than they are!
I can either say I know better than him or I can assume he knows better than I do.
So the law is good because it reveals God’s justice.
The law reveals our desperate need to be saved
It shows how desperate our position is for a savior.
If we believe we are mostly good. Floating on any given day 70-90% good then we completely miss WHY the Gospel is good news.
This is what the law helps us with.
It shows us our need.
Nobody who is honest with themself looks at what God defines as good and bad and thinks yeah I am looking pretty good!
At best we think we look better than someone else.
But the reality is that if you got 3% on a test you don’t really have bragging rights on the person who got 1% on the test, right?
God is not grading on a curve.
We need God more than we know. In fact, the more we discover God’s grace in Jesus the more we discover how much we need him.
The cross chart
The law reveals to us both God’s holiness and our sinfulness.
Not so we can beat ourselves up a bunch, but so that we realize our desperation and cling to Jesus like nobody’s business!
The law reveals God’s divine ideal for our flourishing
As we meditate on the law it allows our hearts, minds, and imaginations to be reoriented around how God has said humanity is meant to flourish.
Our understanding of life and living becomes altered as we learn to understand what he desires.
Jesus meets us where we are, but he loves us too much to leave us there!
Paul makes a connection between lawful living (ethics) and sound doctrine (belief)
Belief and practice are intricately intertwined. What we believe helps literally rewire the synapses in our brains that as journey with Jesus the way we live and love becomes more and more like Jesus!
The law helps us to learn what that means and looks like.
Read 1 Timothy 1:11
in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
Do you see what these false teachers were doing that was so unfortunate?
They were polluting the waters and in doing so giving God’s truth a bad reputation.
Read 1 Timothy 1:12-16
I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
Paul thought he was living in accordance with the law (arrogant ignorance) but God revealed that he was actually his enemy (justice), in a desperate position (need), and was restored to flourish in life and ministry
In other words, I was just like these false teachers and all those who willfully and ignorantly rebel against God’s desires… But I have discovered better in Jesus!
He has just pointed out a bunch of people who are not living out loving relationship with God or people. And apparently he is the worst of the bunch!
I once read an article by someone who was railing against Paul for this stuff… he was a persecutor, a murderer, he doesn’t deserve grace!
Feels a bit over the top and silly when the guy has been dead for nearly 2,000 years.
But this is exactly what any of us can be tempted toward thinking of ourselves or others.
They have gone beyond the reach of grace.
I have gone beyond the reach of grace.
They are too bad.
I am too bad.
If you ever believe you are the worst, remember Paul.
Paul says HE is the foremost.
And look what Paul has received!
Mercy and grace beyond measure.
Paul is saying he was chosen not in spite of his sin, but because of it! To show that if Paul could be redeemed and restored then anyone else is fair game for Jesus.
Jesus came for the same people the law is for. Not the just.
But the persecutors… the opponents of God
In fact I have a list of the type of people that Jesus came to redeem and restore…
Read 1 Timothy 1:8-11
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
The law really is good… it reveals that God is just. We need Him desperately more than we know. And when we meet Jesus we are given new life and new strength to live a life defined by God’s wisdom where we hear his voice and follow it’s leading.
So that in our lives Jesus gets all the praise the honor and the glory.
Read 1 Timothy 1:17
To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
It is like Paul is so excited at the grace he has received that he breaks out in poetry of praise!
Poetry is words put to feeling.
Paul is not just expressing concepts, he is so enamored by Jesus. So grateful for God’s mercy in his life it leads him to deep praise and joy!
When Jonathan Edwards was a youth, he was wrestling with the supremacy of God over all things. He didn’t like the thought. It was abhorrent to him. Then he read this verse...
“As I read the words, there came into my soul, … a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. … I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven; and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever!” - Johnny Edwards
4 | How can the Gospel bring resolution to this tension in your life?
4 | How can the Gospel bring resolution to this tension in your life?
This is our God. He is fully good and fully great.
He is just, loving, kind, and strong.
He is a really good King. A really good Dad. A really good God.
Paul wrote this letter to Timothy to remind the church in Ephesus of how desperately they need to cling to love… marked by grace and truth that they can be drawn near to Jesus and keep the aim of love with a pure conscience.
I realize that for many of us we have experienced others and if you are anything like me, yourself, misuse the law of God. Altering it to match our beliefs rather than the other way around.
But if you leave knowing nothing else, know this… We can trust what God defines as good because He is truly good.
5 | What would the world see if the church embraced this resolution?
5 | What would the world see if the church embraced this resolution?
What if this is how we represented Jesus to the world? Not just as individuals bent of proving our rightness, or correcting their unbiblical beliefs. But as followers of Jesus living out what it means to love God and love people in the midst of a broken world?
Where we are able to respond in grace and truth to a watching world because we hold on to our true aim of love?