Jesus Came to Save Sinners (1 Timothy 1)

1 Timothy 1

Sunday, January 2, 2022

Jesus Came to Save Sinners

Intro

“A process foul is any perceived breach of trust or decorum in the delivery of the message that distracts from the substance of the message.” -David French article. This is what false teaching does.

1 Timothy Intro

1 Timothy is an epistle, that is a letter written from the Apostle Paul to his young protege Timothy to encourage him and strengthen him in his work with the Ephesian Church. Paul had previously given strong warnings to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:25-35 which we read earlier in the service, to pay close attention to fierce wolves creeping in their midst. That was estimated to have been around the mid to late 50 A.D. And roughly 5 to 10 years later now, Paul is writing this letter to Timothy in having to send warnings to the Ephesian Church once more that indeed these false teachers have found their way into the church and are causing havoc in leading people astray.

The primary issue that governs the whole thing is a church that is fit for purpose." -William Taylor on 1 Timothy

Main Point: A church fit for purpose is a church that teaches sound doctrine rooted in the gospel of Jesus.

Points

The charge to wage the good warfare (1:3-11)

The trustworthy message of the gospel (1:12-17)

The charge to wage the good warfare (1:18-20)

Point #1: The aim of our charge (1:3-11)

As with all of Paul’s letters, he has a standard greeting to open his letter in the first two verses. He introduces himself and who it is he is writing to. In this particular greeting, it is helpful to note two things. One, that Paul introduces himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. Paul here emphasizes that he writes this letter as one who has been commanded to be an apostle, his authority and position is one acknowledged by and given to him by God himself. The second is how he describes Timothy in this introduction, my true child in the faith. As this letter is further read and as we examine it, the question that will be unfolded throughout is what does it mean to be a child of the faith and live it out. Paul makes his purpose of the letter clearly revealed in 1 Timothy 3:14-15 which says: I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Paul aims to encourage Timothy in his work to stand firm and live a godly life in the midst of his opponents. For Timothy, as most in the role of an elder, a pastor, has a difficult task at hand. In fact, in verses 3-4, Paul reminds Timothy of the purpose of his stay in Ephesus. The purpose? It says there…

Timothy is to charge these certain false teachers not to teach any different doctrine or give themselves to these silly myths and endless genealogies of speculation. He is to charge them to hold to Sound Doctrine and to be good stewards in handling God’s word.

To help us understand this term, sound doctrine, let’s look at Bobby Jamieson’s definition from his book, Sound Doctrine written in the 9 Marks Series. He writes, ““Sound doctrine is a summary of the Bible’s teaching that is both faithful to the Bible and useful for life. Doctrine should not consist of imposing our ideas on the Bible. Rather, it should be nothing more or less than a summary of what the Bible says on a topic.”

Sound Doctrine is vital for the church in that in sound doctrine we sum of what the Bible says, not our own thoughts, opinions, preferences. And Sound Doctrine is essential for a church that desires to be fit for purpose. For without sound doctrine, there is a wandering into vain discussions as stated there in verse 6. Sound Doctrine, that is sound teaching of God’s word is not aimless and wandering, it is fixed on God and his given word.

What are these myths and endless genealogies thought coming about in Ephesus? Apparently within the Ephesian Church, there were teachers who would focus on the genealogies found in the Old Testament and begin to focus on these genealogies and discuss myths of various ones in these accounts. Kent Hughes in his commentary gives some insight writing, ““The Old Testament is full of genealogies that made perfect fodder for ‘Jewish myths’—the fanciful allegorical creation of stories about the people in the genealogies…Thus there were ample allegorical models for the Ephesian elders turned Christian rabbis to imitate…They wanted to go beyond the ‘simple’ exegesis of Paul, and by giving people and events allegorical meaning, simple stories would reveal fantastic truths. They did not set out to abandon the gospel doctrine that salvation is by faith alone, but in fact their progressive accretions smothered the gospel”

When we abandon the faithful exegesis, that is the unfolding of what the text is actually saying, we will become aimless and wandering in our teaching. In fact, Paul uses the language of swerving there in verse 6. And this is exactly what these false teachers were doing in Ephesus. They were wandering aimlessly in their vain discussions as they promoted their speculations. The fierce wolves that the Ephesian elders were warned would come in Acts 20 have now come. They are speaking twisted things and trying to draw others away from the sound teaching they had received in the gospel message, either intentionally or with carelessness.

And in so teaching with this wandering and aimless method, they are smothering the gospel. They are missing the entire point of the Christian teaching, which we will turn to as the whole of our 2nd point momentarily. But why are they wandering? Why are they missing the mark? Why are they wandering into these vain discussions and myths?

Look at verse 7 with me. It says…

While they desired to be teachers of the law, they didn’t understand the very law they desired to teach. They made confident assertions, but they were wrongly grounded in myths and speculations rather than confident assertions grounded in the gospel of Jesus which Paul had brought to them in the first place. In essence, they are aiming to create a new teaching that goes beyond what Jesus taught, beyond what the Old Testament writings taught. And in so doing, they fail to rightly handle the word of God and begin adding and subtracting from it. John Stott put it this way, “Christian preachers are to be neither inventors of new doctrines nor editors who delete old doctrines. Rather, they are to be stewards, faithfully handling out scriptural truths to God’s household. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.”

The False teachers have wrongly used the law and the understanding of it. And For they have missed the aim that is given to teachers of the word of God. For as written in verse 5, the charge of the aim of Christian teaching is love that issues, that is comes, from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. This love is to be both a love for God and a love for others. For in making this aim clear, the difference between false teaching and right teaching is to be clearly distinguished. The false teachers will miss the aim of teaching from the love of God and love of others for their own vain discussions and wandering into myths. The true teacher of the law will be one who both loves God and others, and his faith will be evident in this. This being why Paul grounds this charge of love with the following three statements, saying that it is from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. One commentator says, “The sum of the law is this, that are may worship God with true faith and a pure conscience, and that we may love one another. Whosoever turns aside from this corrupts the law of God by twisting it to a different purpose.”

It is essential for us to see the purpose of this charge, whether we desire to be a teacher of the Word or a Faithful Member of the local church. For if we fail to see the purpose of the Church and her gathering is this charge of love that issues or comes from these three things, then we too will slowly begin to wonder and miss what it is we are called to do when we gather and will not be fit for purpose in the world to bring glory to God. For this call to Sound Doctrine is essential in building up the church, God’s redeemed people in Jesus, in instructing them and helping them conform more to the image of Jesus. It is not to be about speculations and myths, and all sorts of other vain discussions. It is to be about the gospel and how it both saves those who have yet to believe and which continues to transform those already in Jesus to grow more in godliness.

For this is why Paul corrects the understanding of the law there in verses 8-10, then grounding it there in the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted in verse 11. The law is good, it is right to be used. But it must be used lawfully. And it is used lawfully as seen there in verse 9, not when it is used for the just but the lawless and disobedient. When it is used 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, perfjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. When the law is used in this way it is good and lawful.

In other words, the law is to be used to show us sin. For that is the root of what Paul is getting at here. The law is a mirror that is held up in which we are to see our true self. This is the same idea we learn from Proverbs 27:19 which says, “As in water, face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man.”

The law shows us our need in the gospel of the glory of the blessed God. The law shows us our own brokenness and sinfulness. The law is not to be examined though for myths and tracing genealogies to create these vain discussions. The law is not to be used as a means to justify ourselves or measure ourselves against others. The law is to show us our own sin and to call us to repent and turn to Jesus!

For when the law is used rightly, then and only then can our aim be met. Where love issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. The love for God and others is to flow from these three traits, which we will unfold in order:

A pure heart matches what Jesus taught as one of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the pure in heart. The idea of a pure heart though is also found in Psalm 24:5 which says, He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. A pure heart is one that is devoted to the truth of God’s word and loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. A pure heart comes through our faith in Jesus.

A good conscience is that of one’s inner awareness of the quality of one’s actions. In 2 Corinthians 1:12, Paul writes, For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. Therefore, from that, we see that a good conscience is mindful of not only it’s actions within, but it’s actions in light of the whole as well.

A sincere faith is a faith without hypocrisy, a faith that is really there and visible. A faith that is not being a show or a facade. It is genuine and visible to others and rooted in the heart.

The three of these are the foundations in which show evidence of a life transformed by the gospel. From these, flow a love for both God and others. And when the teaching is focused on these, rightly using the law, it builds up the church and grounds her in a right understanding of who God is and what it means to follow him.

Doctrine matters, it is vital that we examine doctrine carefully and make sure our theology, that is our thoughts about God and his ways flow from the pages of the Bible. Anything less or anything more than that begins to take the from of a different doctrine, straying from the sound doctrine in which we have in Christ Jesus.

So, Central City Baptist Church, if we are to be fit for purpose, we must continue to guard sound doctrine in all that we do. Sound Doctrine must be present in the whole of our Sunday gatherings, the whole of our Bible Studies, the whole of our church life, the whole of our family life, and the whole of our individual lives. For it is by holding to the word of God and using the law in a lawful manner will we make an impact in bringing glory to God. Anything else will leave us unfit for service and glory to the LORD, for it will fail to hold to the aim of the teaching of the word to draw us nearer to the LORD in godliness, we too will swerve. But to help us do that, we must turn our attention to our second point, which is the very focus of the gospel in which we hold dearly. It is in that trustworthy message of the gospel we learn that Jesus came to save sinners. So turn your attention with me to verses 12-17 for our 2nd point.

Point #2: The trustworthy message of the gospel (1:12-17)

Paul’s thanksgiving for grace

Judged me faithful (despite past)

The grace overflowed (v.14)

The trustworthy message of the gospel (v.15)

Trustworthy- deserving of full acceptance

When we turn from sound doctrine, then we essentially say this isn’t enough. That we don’t fully accept this, we need more.

Jesus came to save sinners

Even those who feel unworthy

Salvation is for his glory (v.16b-17)

Point #3: The warning to wage good warfare (1:18-20)

Timothy, the true child of faith

Timothy must continue to wage the good warfare by holding to faith and a good conscience.

So must we..

Those who have shipwrecked their faith

They rejected sound doctrine

The consequence of rejecting is that their faith is shipwrecked

Conclusion…