The Great Gain of Godliness

Intro

In our journey through Paul’s first letter to Timothy, we’re coming towards the end. Only a few weeks left.

In today's passage, Paul once again loops back to one of the main themes of the letter, the importance of good doctrine, (that is, good teaching) and the danger of false teachers.

We know that “doctrine” sometimes gets a bad rap. Even just saying the word “doctrine” can trigger a defense mechanism for some of us.

Doctrine can divide, it can be used as a sledgehammer when it is better used as a scalpel. Bad doctrine can get embeded in churches and lead them away from Jesus. Doctrine can be used by a passionate young man to alienate all his friends and family. But, the answer to a bad use of doctrine is not to get rid of it, because...

Doctrine is essential to true faith.

Someone may say “I just love Jesus, that’s all I need. Doctrine just divides”

Well, lets test this out. Which Jesus do you love? Why do you love him? What has he done for you? What makes your Jesus different from the Jesus that the Muslims call a prophet?

You see, to answer any of these questions you must know truths about the Christian faith, you must consult the Bible, you must have DOCTRINE!

Doctrine is teaching. And You must know good teaching in order to be a faithful follower of Jesus.

You can’t just ditch doctrine because some people have misused it, you need to use it well. You need it in order to have a healthy church and a true faith!

If you eat something bad that makes you sick, do you turn around and say “Oh well, I guess I better not eat anymore.”? No! You say “I should eat good food that won’t make me sick, and look out for the bad stuff.” We turn from what is bad toward what is good.

We as a church need to...

reject bad doctrine, and receive good doctrine,

ignore poor teaching, and hear good teaching,

Silence false teachers, and honour faithful teachers,

It is not because we are “too academic”, not because we have “too much head knowledge” not because we are “divisive” or “arrogant,” It is because we want the true Gospel that brings salvation and because we don’t want to be deceived by the doctrine of demons!

Look through history, look around the world, look even around the pulpits of our own town. There is demonic doctrine that has spewed forth and deceived, if it were possible, even the elect of God. Thousands and thousands and millions of people have been led astray from a true faith and been captured by myths, half-truths and false gospels. There is real tangible danger, and we ought not be apologetic about defending sound doctrine when we have seen so many people fall before.

Our passage will warn us once more about false teachers and their fruit, and, it will also connect this to the importance of contentment as opposed to greed. It is interesting that greed and false teaching went hand in hand in Timothy’s day, and it is not unusual in our own day. But we’ll get to that

Our passage basically has two halves, so there are two main sections, and I have three questions to look at in each section.

Two sections, three questions in each.

1. False Teaching & Greed

v3-5

So our first section focuses on false teachers.

The verse number in the bible are not part of the original text, we added them to help us find the individual parts of the Bible. Usually the verses correspond helpfully to one thought or sentence, but sometimes you get weird things like in 6:2 where the last part of verse 2 should really be either it’s own verse or part of v3. Anyway, our passage is starting halfway through v2. Lets read v2-3:

1 Timothy 6:2–3 (ESV)

Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,

This is Paul giving a young church leader specific instructions about what to teach. He can’t just talk about whatever is on his mind, or whatever the most popular topics are, he has to teach how to do church well, and faithfully teach what Jesus says.

He has to urge - not just gently encourage, or come alongside, or mince his words to make them more palatable. Gospel teacher have to, with wisdom, say how it is and not pull punches for the sake of not offending people. Because we are sinners, and we naturally try to cover up our sin, we will shy away from hearing the hard things. The thing is, there are many teachers who will say what we ant them to say, they will say it in the way we want them to say it, and so it is easy to go find teachers who feed our own preferences and our own pre-conceived ideas.

Paul calls Timothy to fight for truth, to teach and urge, to command, to exhort. And I can see it now, in Ephesus there’s a conversation on the street corner “That Timothy, he’s a nice guy and all, but does he have to be so hard-nosed on this stuff? Every time I go to church it feels like I’m being told off. I just wish I could feel more comfortable at church but the atmosphere just feels a bit confining. I know holiness is important, but aren’t there other ways of thinking about these things? Can’t he be more practical and less dogmatic?”

The friend replies, “Oh yes I know what you mean, that’s why I’ve been going to this house church on the other side of town, and it’s just so accepting of who I am as a person. I feel like I can be myself more, and the teaching is just so uplifting. The teacher, he’s a pretty big deal, he’s taught all over Greece, so we’re pretty glad that he decided to come here. Timothy won’t let him preach in at the Ephesus church so he’s had to start his own congregation. He expects us to give alot of money, but it’s worth it you know to have such a good teacher who just gets me, and who is doing God’s work.”

It’s easy as you can see, to construe the guy who’s doing the right thing, the faithful thing, the hard thing, as the bad guy. We deceive ourselves, using manipulative language to contrive loopholes to escape from the difficulty that comes with conforming us as sinners to the sound facts of godliness proclaimed in an unadulterated Gospel.

Timothy has to stick with the plain truth and run with it come hell or high water. It may make him unpopular, but it is better to stick with the Gospel of Life than to scratch our itching ears and shape the gospel message to suit us.

This is part of what false teachers do, they manipulate the message. Thing brings u to the first question:

a. What is False Teaching?

Heterodoxy - “Different Doctrine”

Does not agreed with Jesus’ sound (i.e. healthy) words

Does not Agree with Teaching accords with Godliness

If teaching does not promote righteousness, convict of sin, reveal Christ, then it is false teaching

If it assures you that your sin is really not sin after all, and God just loves you and you don’t need to worry about your way of life, it’s false teaching (antinomian)

If it demands that you must earn God’s love and work for a place in God’s family, or go back to the law in ways that undermine’s Christ’s work, then that’s false teaching (legalism)

If it takes plain truth of Jesus and twists it into falsehood (heresy)

Watch out for false teaching. Like never before you have open access to all manner of false teaching.

Only this week I stumbled across a video with an intelligent man talking confidently about the Bible, with. He had slick animations, great production value and good working knowledge of biblical languages, yet he used all of these things to promote “heterodoxy,” to teach something that flies in the face of what the Jesus plainly taught.

b. What is a False Teacher like?

1 Timothy 6:4 (ESV)

he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words...

Puffed Up with Conceit (flattering elevated opinion of oneself)

Doesn’t Understand - no wonder, because if they have not the HS then it will be impossible for them to understand divine relvation properly.

Craves controversy

Quarrels about words

Has it’s own word “logomachia”

Example: Complementarian, Calvinism

c. What does a False teacher produce?

You shall know a tree by it’s fruit

What should we expect false teachers to produce?

1 Timothy 6:4–5 (ESV)

...which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

Lets break down this list:

Envy - resentment because of what others have.

Dissension - Improper conflict

Slander (blasphemy)

Evil Suspicions

Constant Friction

Not the friction of truth & godliness against the flesh!

Depraved Minds

Deprived of Truth

Godliness for Gain

Either to earn God’s salvation

Pretense of godliness for respect and money

Section 2!

2. Godliness & Contentment

v6-10

There is true gain from true godliness.

Unlike the godliness of false teachers who are using it as a method to get wealthy, godliness should instead be paired with contentment. which leads us to ask?

a. How do Godliness & Contentment go together?

Godliness is should not be a means to self-gain.

Either by acting the part to get spiritual positions where one can extract wealth,

Or by acting Godly to become and respected person in business

Or any other things

But godliness in itself is good. We can use it for good or twist it to evil.

Godliness should be paired with contentment about our place in the world:

1 Timothy 6:6–7 ESV

But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.

When we pursue true Godliness, it includes contentment. Greed, coveteousness, envy and jealousy are all excluded.

We are content with what gives us, whether that be much or little.

Godliness is about being godly, and it can’t be paired with sin.

Paul points to the transience of “stuff” as a reason why it should not be a high priority for us.

If it was important we would be able to either bring it into the world or take it with us, and we cannot, so the very nature of creation should make this clear.

What is of highest importance will endure eternally.

Stuff is good, it is a gift from God, but it’s like the pen & notepad you get when you go to a seminar - it’s a nice token, but what was really important is the content of the seminar itself.

Instead of gaining “stuff” we should gain godliness with contentment.

b. What do we need to be content?

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1 Timothy 6:8 ESV

But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

Do you have food and clothing and a warm place to sleep tonight?

Then you have everything you need to be content.

We truly have way more than we need.

This is a huge issue for us. We have been chatecised all our lives to desire more and better stuff.

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We would do well to learn what Paul learned:

Philippians 4:11 (ESV)

...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

c. What is the danger of desiring to be wealthy?

1 Timothy 6:9–10 ESV

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

The desires will lead us astray

This is a matter of life & death - ruin and destruction

People will do all kinds of terrible things to get money and be wealthy

I can lead to damnation.

Mark 10:25 ESV

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

So What?

Be ready to be taught