The Church & The Created Order (1 Timothy 2:8-15)

1 Timothy 2:8-15

The Church & The Created Order

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Intro

Encanto Movie: all but one in the family had received a magical gift to help. And the one is seen as the disappointment, when in fact her love and care for the family was a better representation of the gift than all the rest.

Text Set-up

For the last 2 weeks we have been working our way through Paul’s first letter to Timothy who has been left in Ephesus to help guard the church from false teaching and helping the church be a church fit for purpose by striving for godliness. And part of this call to wage the good warfare of faith for godliness included praying for all people for God desired for all people to be saved. But going through the motions of prayer and worship in this way is not enough. For the way in which we conduct ourselves in the church matters for the sake of the gospel going forth into the world.

And therefore, for the next little bit we are going to open up God’s word in 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and see what it is the pages of the Bible has to say to us on how to conduct ourselves to be truly fit for purpose in making the glory of God known to the ends of the earth as we share the gospel.

Main Point

The various roles for men and women in the church matter, because the church is the outpost of the Kingdom of God and reflects the restoring of all things to God’s very good creation.

Points

Carrying ourselves with godliness (2:8-10)

Structuring ourselves in God’s good order (2:11-15)

Point #1: The call to godliness for all (2:8-10)

The way in which we conduct ourselves as Christians has a great effect on the watching world. If as Christians we are living life no different from the world, the world notices. If as Christians we are at odds with one another, the world notices. If as Christians, we are vile and wicked, the world notices. And as the world notices these things, our gospel proclamation becomes tainted and hindered in how it goes forth. For when the world sees these things in the church, the people who are supposed to belong to God, they begin to want little or nothing at all to do with our religion. For they see it as nothing more than a traditional practice and a place full of hypocrites. This is what the world sees as they look into many churches even now in our day and time. When the church walks in the ways of the world, the church fails to be fit for purpose in being a light to the world. Hence why Paul’s instructions for the Ephesian Church is as crucial for us today at Central City Baptist Church as it was nearly 2,000 years ago. We are to be a church, a people marked by holiness, by godliness. This by no means is a call to perfection. For the church is not a place of people who are perfectly put together, we are to be a gathered people though who have been made new in Christ Jesus. And therefore, we are called to walk in godliness, both as men and women in light of what Christ has already done for us.

Men and a call to holy hands

First, let’s look at the instructions for men within the church to walk in godliness. The continuation here flows from the call for the church to pray for all people. And as they do so, the men are told to pray lifting holy hands. Now, this call to pray lifting holy hands is not to be misunderstood here. The call for us to pray in godliness has nothing to do with whether we do or don’t have our hands lifted. The posture of prayer of old was the expectation to have hands lifted up. But whether hands are lifted or not, the focus of the charge to us as men in the church is a call to have holy hands. To be pure, to be walking in godliness when we come to pray together.

For the danger is for us to come to the corporate worship gathering of the church with unholy hands and proceed to worship God out of hypocrisy. For this is just what was going on in Isaiah’s day and why we read the following from Isaiah 1:15:

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

The lifting of hands matters not, the means of how we walk and live is what matters. As the church gathers, the men within it are to ensure that as we gather we are coming with clean hands and pure hearts. The following two verses there in Isaiah 1, adds this: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.

But when we come in this manner of anger and quarrelsomeness, we are failing to live out the unity of our faith as a people with one God and one Mediator. In doing so, we bite and devour one another. But for what purpose? Because we allow our passions to rise up causing us to take our eyes off of Christ. For does not James speak of us here when this takes place when he writes in James 4:1-3:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Our anger and our quarrels flow out of the desire within us instead of our love for God! Do these not a majority of the time have nothing to do with the fidelity of the gospel? But our own opinions and preferences? And each time these fits of anger and quarrels brew up, does it not cause us to walk in unholiness and derail us from the mission of God?

Instead of focusing on evangelism and missions we are having to put out fires because of these silly quarrels. The mission of making Christ known to the ends of the earth is bigger than each of us. It is bigger than our own petty opinions and preferences of carpet, stained glass windows, staying with the latest trends of culture, or music preferences. We must set our eyes on Christ and him alone so that we can make much of him in our gathering, and that overflow into the rest of our weekly activities. Holy hands being lifted matters for the sake of advancing the kingdom of God.

Brothers, let us lift up holy hands then to the LORD that are united together in our one faith and one baptism (Ephesians 4). Let us lift our holy hands in laboring to love and care for one another by building one another up in the faith instead of tearing down. Let us labor together for the mission of God to make much of the glory of God to the ends of the earth. And let us men be at the very front of this mission in both leading our families and within the church. For this is God’s good order from the very good beginning and shall be within the church, the outpost for the advancement of his kingdom in which all things are being made new again!

Women and a call to good works

Now sisters, let us turn our attention to you. For while the men are called to godliness by the lifting of holy hands, sisters, you are called to godliness in modesty and self-control. You are to ensure that your good works are there to give testimony to your redeemed life in Christ.

There in verse 9, we see likewise in relation to the men and their calling to godliness in the midst of the gathering. Sisters, as we gather together, the charge for you is to adorn yourselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control.

Now, when we hear this word modesty, we think most often in our culture to avoid provocative and revealing clothing. Those tight clothes, those crop tops, and above all as Baptists, no bikinis for the girls. And while modest clothing should be the aim for every sister in Christ, there is more here than just this. Notice the clarifications Paul gives here, he says, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire.

The call to modesty begins first and foremost on the excess of attire in which one is wearing. For in the calling to modesty, it seems to me to be more aimed at those who would show themselves off as wealthy with their gold and jewels and fancy hair and costly clothing. There have been many women who come into the church with no shoulders showing, in full length dresses who are dressed more immodestly than the sister who struggles to hide her figure in the clothes she wears. For they are more immodest in the elaborate show of their wealth and in drawing attention to themselves through the boasting of their wealth. It is this that Paul points out to the Ephesian church, and would have us know today. There is much ungodliness in the heart that would draw attention to themselves through their own wealth or pointing out the flaws and wickedness of every other without considering their own heart. It is this wicked heart that is to be condemned. For are not these much like the leaders Jesus condemned regarding how they prayed? For he said in Matthew 6:5, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Sisters, if this heart is given to any of you, repent now, for the call to modesty is a call to not have the braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire be what adorns you. Oh dear sisters, see that the assembled gathering of the church is not for you to draw attention to yourself through your dress and appearance. By no means is this the path to godliness. No, the path to godliness and what is proper for women is to be dressed in what is proper and to be covered in good works.

Sister, if attention is to be turned to you, let it be because your dear sisters see Christ in you as you encourage them by pointing them back to Jesus as they struggle through anxiety and depression. If attention is to be turned to you, let it be because church members notice how you willingly give of yourself to help others study the word of God and grow as a disciple of Jesus. Dear sisters, if attention is to be turned to you within the church, let it be as you are known as a rich source of encouragement, encouraging all around you. If attention is to be turned to you, let it be because of the way in which you meet real needs within our church and community. Being clothed in these is to be clothed in godliness, not that of costly apparel.

Dear sisters in Christ, seek this which is proper. For in so doing, the mission of God is advanced as the church is built up in its love and care of one another. And as the church is built up, it is then able to focus on the mission of God in making much of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

Brothers and sisters, we are both called to walk in godliness as we gather together as the body of Christ, the assembled people of God. For how we gather has a direct correlation to God’s mission in making himself known to all people. If we gather in ungodliness, then we will sow rotten seed and be hindered from the task of making disciples. But if we will learn to walk in godliness out of our love for Christ, then we will remain more focused on the task at hand, making disciples of all nations as we tell them about our glorious savior, King Jesus!

Point #2: Structuring ourselves in God’s good order (2:11-15)

But now, we must turn our attention to the subject of women and the call to learn quietly in the church. And this is where we turn in our second point, structuring ourselves in God’s good order.

First note what is said here in verse 11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. How easy we get distracted with that call to quietness and submissiveness we miss the most radical part mentioned. In a culture where women were not encouraged to learn, women are not only invited to learn, but expected to learn as disciples of Jesus. In the Christian faith, women are not some second tier citizens. They are deeply valued by Jesus and they are called to learn what it means to follow their King! So what then does it mean for women to learn quietly with all submissiveness?

Let’s first start with what it doesn’t mean. Dear sisters, this call to submissiveness is not a call to submit yourselves to every man in the church.Your call here to learn quietly in submissiveness is the call really of every church member to submit yourselves to the teaching of the shepherds, pastors, elders. 1 Peter 5:5 says, Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothes yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Therefore, a woman is to learn quietly in this kind of submissiveness to the teaching of the undershepherd as he follows the Great Shepherd himself. But what is meant to learn quietly? Paul adds there in verse 12, saying, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. This call to not exercise authority over a man and to remain quiet is a call not to desire or usurp oneself to the role of an elder, elder, pastor, overseer, all of which are interchangeable terms. For this role is reserved for that of godly men alone. For it is godly men who are to shepherd the whole of the church and to teach the word of God to the whole of the congregation. It is godly men who are called to this task of guiding the sheep. Why do we ask? It is almost as if Paul expected the arising of this question.

For he adds there in verses 13…For Adam was formed first, then Eve. The appeal of Paul here on why women are to learn quietly in all submissiveness has nothing to do with seeking male hierarchy for hierarchy's sake. His appeal for women to learn quietly goes to the very good beginning in which God had created the world. He appeals to the church to be structured following this good order, that Adam was created first and therefore it is males who are to be charged to lead both their homes and the church. For this was God’s design, and it was deemed good.

Too often the appeal against male headship is looked at in light of the evils that we see under the sun. Abuse takes place, and male headship is cried out against. Male headship is thought to oppress women. And while in certain situations these things sadly do take place. But we must see that this was not so in the beginning, God created man and it was good, and then he created Eve as a helper to Adam to come alongside him in the work. But from the very good beginning it was Adam who was to lead his family. It was Adam who was to be the spiritual leader. It was Adam who was to carry out the charges of God, for it was Adam, not Eve who was given the command to not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was not Eve, for she had not yet been taken from Adam’s rib.

But if the appeal of creation was to lack, Paul goes one step further, he turns to the moment of the fall, and the ploy of Satan there in verse 14 by adding: and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.

In the fall, creation was overturned from its very good beginning. For Satan did not go and tempt Adam, he went after Eve and tempted her. Satan despised God’s very good creation and went to the woman and lured her to overthrow God and become her own God. And lest the men think in Adam they are innocent, as the woman was deceived by the serpent, man too sinned in failing to lead or stand against the serpent and the woman in denying to take the fruit. He rejected obeying God in following the woman in the overthrowing of God’s good design. For this is the very heart of sin, to overthrow what God has deemed good and just.

And sin has had a great effect on the world in which we live. It has overturned life to death, walking with God to fleeing from God. And if it had not been for God’s mercy and grace in pursuing after his creation, sin would destroy the world itself. But thanks be to God for his grace to us in Jesus Christ. For in Christ, all is being returned to its good and right order. Jesus in his earthly ministry overturned sickness and death. And death itself has already been defeated by Jesus rising from the grave 3 days after. And in his return all will be made new, being returned to its former glory where there is no more sadness and sorrow.

Even now though, while we wait for the fullness of the coming kingdom of God, the local church is the outpost that advances the kingdom of God, that is his rule and decree. Therefore in this outpost called the local church, the church is to be ordered in a way that reflects God’s good design in creation and his rule. So he has decreed that it is to be man who leads in the church, not woman. For at the very heart of it is not to diminish our sisters in Christ, but to point to God’s goodness, to his order, and to his glory.

So sisters, the role of leading the church as elders is left to qualified men as we will look at more next week. But for you, there is much to learn as you grow as disciples of Christ. There is the great duty and responsibility that you have towards one another in teaching one another. For while it is said that a woman should learn quietly and not usurp authority over a man, this has the role of shepherding, eldership in the church. For does not Paul tell Titus in Titus 2:3-5:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Women are so called still to teach other women the ways of Christ. For one means of doing this should be the Sunday School hour in which we take one another deeper into the pages of Scripture and learn what it means to walk in godliness in following King Jesus. This is one reason it is crucial for ages within the church to be blended to carry this out. Anything less than that is failing to see the role women are to play in one another’s lives in the means of the church. You who are more mature in the faith, pass on the richness of the faith to others, that they too may teach others. It is too fitting for women to be teaching children and helping point these little hearts to Jesus and what it means to follow Christ. This is good and proper. The call to learn quietly isn’t a call to never teach, but not to the office of elder, of shepherd, or pastor. For again, a woman is not to usurp authority in this way over a man in the local church.

But one final thing before we close this morning, while it indeed was the woman who was deceived and not Adam. We must see the driving force for all of this in God’s grace to us in salvation in Jesus. For Paul gives hope to the deceived there in verse 15: Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

Paul is not saying that if women give birth to children, they will be saved. For that would not be salvation alone through Christ alone which Paul himself champions in arguing. Here it is a call to recognize God’s good order and the need for us to recognize that good order and continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control by walking accordingly.

For salvation has come in Jesus to all who will come to him and take up their cross and follow him. And as disciples of Christ, we need to die to our own preferences and pursue godly living in our individual lives and as a corporate body of believers who are truly to be one body in one faith under one God and one Mediator.

Therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, let us ensure that we are striving to keep God’s order within the church as she is the outpost to advance the Kingdom of God to the world. If we deny God’s good order and design for his church, then we will not be fit to bear witness to the world on the goodness of God. For we ourselves will be denying it as we gather.

Let’s pray…