1 Timothy 1:1-11 - Proper Teaching in the Church

Pray

Father, than you for the opportunity to preach your Word and to sit under the preaching of your Word this morning.

I know that this is a weighty task, and I know that I am not able to do this without your power, without your guidance and help and ability to reach and change the hearts of your children.

So, Father, please use my simple words about your powerful Word to work a miracle in each of our hearts this morning through your Spirit.

We want to be transformed into the likeness of your Son, Jesus.

We want to live and love like him.

And we want our church to be purified for him like a bride.

I pray that you would do this work among us this morning.

It’s in Jesus’ powerful name I pray all of this. Amen.

Intro

We are starting a new series this morning going through 1 Timothy.

And the reason I decided to go through 1 Timothy is because this letter is all about proper church leadership, and we’re in the process of establishing healthy leadership here at GBC.

We’re establishing a plurality of elders and deacons and making sure the elders and deacons are each functioning the way Jesus intended for his Church.

Paul described the qualifications for elders and deacons later on in 1 Timothy, and one of the main differences is that elders must be able to teach, but deacons don’t have any qualification for teaching because their role has nothing to do with teaching.

Paul begins his letter about proper leadership in the church with a typical salutation, and then launches right into the topic of teaching in the church.

This is an important topic because if we aren’t careful, we might allow wrong teaching in the church from improper teachers to influence our thinking and behavior away from Christ.

Teaching from those who seem to be experts in their field, but who aren’t backed by Jesus’ authority.

Teaching about all kinds of things from psychology to what kinds of clothing are appropriate or inappropriate to wear, all the way to how we should vote.

But none of that teaching is focused on Jesus’ person and work, none of it even hinting at the gospel.

And even if that teaching is biblical, it often separates God’s Law from the gospel not seeing how they are inextricably interwoven in God’s Word.

This kind of teaching, this wrong teaching, has and will continue to tear… the Church… apart… if we don’t address it and guard against it.

And because of that, Jesus has shown us in this letter from the Apostle Paul to his spiritual protege, Timothy, how proper teaching, leading, and shepherding in the church ought to look.

And proper teaching in the church is what’s in view right here at the beginning of this letter.

We can see in our passage this morning in 1 Timothy 1:1-11 how we need to be careful and diligent to make sure our teachers are teaching properly, and we can see three different aspects of that proper teaching. 

Proper teaching in the church is backed by Jesus’ authority, focused on Jesus’ person and work, and founded both on Jesus’ Law and his gospel.

So, let’s dive into the introduction to the letter to see how all of this is backed by Jesus’ authority in verses 1 and 2.

1 Timothy 1:1–2 ESV

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy, my true child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

We can see here, even in this introduction to the letter, that proper teaching by proper church leaders is…

Backed by Jesus’ Authority (1-2)

Because this is the introduction for the entire letter, I’m going to spend some time explaining how this sets the stage for the rest of this letter, not only for the beginning of it.

This introduction highlights Jesus’ authority as the basis for Paul’s authoritative commands and explanations in this letter, and that same authority passed down to Timothy to make sure that these things he wrote about are done in the Church.

Right at the outset of this introduction Paul calls himself “an apostle of Christ Jesus.”

An apostle is like an ambassador, someone sent with the authority of another to do and say what the one who sent him commands.

In this sense, Jesus is an apostle of God the Father sent to earth to do the Father’s will in the Father’s authority.

And Jesus’ disciples became apostles when he sent them to do his will in his authority.

Which, by the way, is the same will and authority as God the Father.

Jesus said in John 20:21 “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.””

Well, Paul was not one of Jesus’ disciples, but in Acts chapter 9 he was converted to follow Jesus by Jesus himself and sent to be Jesus’ representative.

Acts 9:15 “But the Lord said to him (Ananias), “Go, for he (Paul) is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.”

Paul described his commissioning as an apostle of Jesus Christ in Galatians 1:15–17 “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.”

Paul also says in our passage in 1 Timothy that he has written this letter “by the command of God the Father and Jesus.”

It’s unclear whether this was an audible command or more like being compelled to write because of his concern for the gospel and Jesus’ church.

Regardless, these words are God’s words.

Paul would explain in a subsequent letter, in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Paul’s letters, including 1 Timothy, are all considered Scripture, God’s Word, breathed out by God himself through the pen and personality of Paul.

But it’s interesting to me how Paul designates God the Father and Jesus as the ones who have commanded him to write this letter.

Paul’s designation of God the Father as “our savior,” is interesting.

Paul gives God the Father this designation a few other times, but this really highlights God the Father’s authority in our salvation.

It was God the Father whose will and plan was enacted to save us.

Jesus prayed in John 17:1–2 “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”

God the Father gave his Son, Jesus the authority to enact his salvation plan.

It was God the Father who loved the world such that he gave his only Son to save it.

Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

God the Father is our savior because he sent his Son, Jesus to save us.

And Jesus is also called our Savior in a lot of different places in the New Testament because of his saving work on the cross.

But here in our passage in 1 Timothy, Paul called Jesus “our hope.”

He’s not negating Jesus’ work in our salvation, but he’s considering Jesus’ authority and role in eternity as the source and foundation of our hope.

Because God the Father saved us through Jesus’ work on the cross, now we find our hope in Jesus’ authority and sovereign rule in eternity and our eternal life with him in his loving and infinitely satisfying presence.

Jesus is our hope.

And our hope in him affects how we live right now.

In verse 2 of our passage, we see that Paul wrote this letter to Timothy who he called, “my true child in the faith.”

Just a little bit of background about Timothy.

He was from a city called Derbe in an area called Lystra which is in modern day Turkey.

His father was a Greek and his mother was Jewish.

He was taught the Old Testament Scriptures from childhood by his mother and grandmother.

But one day Paul came through his home town and Timothy, as a young man, heard the gospel and believed and was baptized and began following Paul in a sort of mentorship.

Timothy accompanied Paul for quite a few years and became a sort of apostolic delegate of the apostle.

Timothy sent by Paul who was sent by Jesus who was sent by God the Father.

This letter comes to Timothy while he is acting as that apostolic delegate at the church in Ephesus, where he would eventually become an elder and also eventually be martyred there for his faith.

So, a lot of shared experiences and shared emotions are bound up in this little designation of “my true child in the faith.”

Paul cares about Timothy a lot because of their shared faith and Paul’s emotional and spiritual investment into Timothy to perpetuate the advancement of God’s kingdom through the Church armed with the gospel.

That’s really what the last line of verse 2 is about, the gospel.

It’s the themes that permeate every subject throughout this letter because it’s the themes that permeate Paul’s life and Paul and Timothy’s relationship.

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Remember, Paul already brought up God the Father and Jesus as the source of our salvation and the source of our hope respectively.

This grace, mercy, and peace are all about the gospel of our salvation and hope in Christ according to God the Father’s sovereign plan.

And the rest of this letter is all about how God’s grace, mercy, and peace should affect our behavior in the Church as taught, exemplified, and shepherded by proper leaders in the local church.

How the gospel is taught by proper leaders, how it’s on display in the lives of proper leaders, and how it’s conveyed in the loving and caring actions of proper leaders to the rest of the church.

So, we saw in this introduction how proper teaching, and really everything that a proper leader in the church is and does, is backed by Jesus’ authority rather than their own expertise, and how God’s grace, mercy, and peace ought to be reflected in everything the leaders in the local church teach and do.

Next we’re going dig into the focus of teaching in the church and how it isn’t anything other than Jesus in verses 3-7.

1 Timothy 1:3–4 ESV

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

1 Timothy 1:5–7 ESV

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

We can see here, Paul’s argument about the focus of teaching, that proper teaching in the church is…

Focused on Jesus’ Person and Work (3-7)

Verse 3 gives us some geographical and time context for when and where Paul wrote this letter.

Paul urged Timothy to remain at Ephesus while he went to Macedonia.

Ephesus is on the western edge of modern day Turkey and Macedonia is the north-eastern area of modern day Greece where Philipi and Thessalonica and Berea were located.

Some scholars take issue with the fact that no where in the book of Acts do we see Paul going to Macedonia while Timothy is left in Ephesus.

I don’t think it’s an issue because Luke didn’t write all of Paul’s comings and goings, so the absence of these circumstances in Acts is irrelevant.

There are some time gaps in Luke’s account that this could fit into, but also, it’s widely understood that Paul was released from his imprisonment at the end of Acts and he had quite a few more years of ministry before he was imprisoned in Rome a second time which ended in his death.

It’s entirely possible that after his first stint in Roman prison, he went back to Macedonia and encouraged Timothy to remain in Ephesus and not join him.

But the reason Paul went to Macedonia this time is the very same reason he encouraged Timothy to stay in Ephesus.

The churches were not doing well because they had wrong teaching from bad teachers who didn’t live according to the gospel and didn’t shepherd Jesus’ church according to his standards.

And the first issue to tackle in this letter is that wrong teaching.

Wrong teaching needs to be corrected to proper teaching.

And as we already saw, that teaching needs to be backed by Jesus’ authority and focused on his grace, and mercy, and peace in the gospel.

There were certain persons in the church at Ephesus who were teaching against the gospel, they were teaching a different doctrine.

Paul warned the Ephesian elders that this would happen in Acts 20:29–30 he said, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

They were being distracted and derailed by focusing on myths, and endless genealogies.

I think those myths were likely Greek mythology, focusing on how to blend Christianity with the prominent Greek mythology of the day, specifically the worship of the Greek goddess Artemis who had a massive temple and following in Ephesus.

This is known as syncretism, and we’ve seen it in our culture, too especially with the concept of evolution and the age of the earth.

This is a distraction and our teaching in the church should not be focused on how to integrate popular secular beliefs with Christianity.

Our teaching in the church should be entirely focused on Jesus.

Now, those endless genealogies were from the pendulum swing to syncretism, focusing on the physical lineage of Jews.

This is part of a movement at the time called the Judaizers, those who insisted on bringing every law and tradition from the old covenant into the new.

They thought that salvation was not solely based on faith in Jesus, but also influenced by how pure one’s lineage was back to the patriarchs.

So, they spent so much time poring over genealogies like 23 and me to see what percentage of Israelite they all had in their ancestry as if that percentage had any bearing on how likely they were to be saved.

Again, this is a distraction and our teaching in the church should not be focused on our physical lineage, but our faith in Jesus because our faith in him is all that matters to be saved.

Our teaching should be entirely focused on Jesus and our faith in him.

Everything else, mythological syncretism, endless genealogies from the Judaizers, all of it promotes speculation rather than God’s plan of salvation by grace through faith in Christ according to Scripture and to God’s glory alone.

Speculation isn’t necessarily bad unless all you think about is speculation.

What-if’s are never as beneficial in our thinking or our behavior as the solid facts of the gospel and God’s plan of salvation.

So, Paul encouraged Timothy to stay in Ephesus so that he would charge certain people to stop their wrong teaching.

That charge is an authoritative command, but it’s not intended to shame or condemn or hate on those teachers.

Rather it’s intended to bring them to repentance as they turn back to love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

The aim of that charge, the goal of that authoritative command to stop wrong teaching is love.

To turn them back to love and to promote love among those in the church that hear and follow the teaching of their leaders in the church.

The love he’s talking about is produced from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

All things that God gives us through his Holy Spirit in the new covenant.

The gospel is the message of God’s love in the new covenant which produces a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

And those gracious gifts from God result in our love for him and our love for each other.

But these wrong teachers deviated from the gospel, they focused on other things, mythologies and genealogies, and not on Christ.

They deviated from the most worthy topic, the gospel, to worthless discussions that never produce in us what God wants.

Paul is going to narrow in on a particular failing of these wrong teachers in their teaching.

All of them sought to argue their case for mixing mythology with Christianity or physical lineage with the new covenant by appealing to God’s Law.

They all desired to be teachers of the Law but they were terrible at it because they didn’t really understand God’s Law and they didn’t even really understand what they were trying to prove from God’s Law.

There is no place in God’s Law for syncretism because he is holy and his Law calls all of us to be holy as he is holy.

There is also no place in God’s Law for foisting physical lineage onto the new covenant since even before God gave us his Law he had already justified Abraham by his faith and not his lineage or anything else.

They confidently asserted nonsense, but Jesus wants teachers in his Church to confidently assert him, who he is and what he’s done.

And as we’ll see in the next section, we need to do this by properly teaching both his Law and the gospel message.

So, we saw how all of the teaching and ministry of leaders in the church is backed by Jesus’ authority.

And we just saw how all of the teaching in the church needs to be focused on Jesus, focused on his person and work, who he is and what he’s done to save us and give us a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith so that we will be compelled to behave in love toward God and love toward each other.

Next we’re going to see exactly how proper teaching in the church emphasizes how the Old Testament Law and the New Testament gospel go hand in hand in verses 8-11.

1 Timothy 1:8–9 ESV

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,

1 Timothy 1:10–11 ESV

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.

We can see here a third aspect of proper teaching in the church, that it’s…

Founded on Jesus’ Law and the Gospel (8-11)

Verse 8 here seems like kind of an obvious statement.

The Law is good if it’s used rightly.

God’s Law is a tool that can be used for good or for evil.

Satan used God’s Law for evil to tempt Jesus in the wilderness by twisting it to make it say what God never intended for it to say.

Many people use God’s Law in a way that he never intended for it to be used.

Even the laws of the land can be used to do evil.

Corrupt lawyers use the law of the land to persuade juries to wrongly convict innocent people and wrongly acquit guilty people all the time.

That doesn’t make the law evil.

The point is that when God’s Law is used the way God intended, then it is good because it’s used for his good purposes.

And these wrong teachers were using it in an evil way to try and justify worldly sin or straight racism.

Verses 9 and 10 are an example of how the Law ought to be used, what God intended his Law to be used for.

The Law is not laid down for the just.

God never intended for his Law to be used to boost our religious pride or self-reliance.

If you are doing what God’s Law says to do or not do, then his Law was not meant for you.

But here’s the secret, none of us perfectly does what God’s law says.

None of us are just.

And if you think you are, then you haven’t really understood the perfect standard God’s Law has set for you.

All of us ought to look at God’s Law and see how we have broken it.

God’s Law is laid down for those who don’t do what he says to do or not do in it.

It’s interesting to me that this list in verses 9 and 10 follow pretty closely with the ten commandments.

The first six things are all adjectives describing the characteristics of those who ignore God’s Law.

Lawless and disobedient, ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane.

These correspond to the first four commandments.

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image… You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,”

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,”

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy….For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Those who put other gods before the sovereign God of all creation, those who bow down and worship the creation rather than the creator, those who don’t care about honoring God’s name, those who don’t care about honoring how God created everything…

Those are the people who do not care one bit what God has said in his Law, and they will intentionally go against God’s Law simply because they don’t like that he had the audacity to tell them how to live their life.

Again, this is where we all are apart from Christ, so, don’t look at this list and see what you aren’t, look at it to see what you are without Jesus changing your life.

The next eight things are all nouns that describe the kinds of actions that go against God’s Law.

Those who strike their parents, murderers, sexually immoral and homosexual, enslavers, liars and perjurers, and anything else contrary to sound doctrine.

These correspond strikingly with the last six commandments.

Honor your parents.

Don’t murder.

Don’t commit adultery.

Don’t bear false witness.

Don’t steal.

Don’t covet.

Once again, read this list and understand that this describes you to one degree or another.

None of us have perfectly honored our parents, probably we haven’t murdered anyone, many of us haven’t committed adultery, but probably all of us have lied, some of us may have stolen things, and all of us have coveted what someone else has.

In the sermon on the mount in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus drew our attention to the heart behind a couple of these laws rather than simply the words themselves.

Interestingly, they are the two that most of us have probably never done.

In Matthew 5:21-26 he addressed the command to not murder, and the heart behind that law is anger.

If you are angry with your brother you’ve committed murder in your heart.

In Matthew 5:27-32 he addressed the command to not commit adultery, and the heart behind that law is lust.

If you lust after someone for physical intimacy you’ve committed adultery in your heart, and if you divorce and remarry you cause both you and your spouse to commit adultery.

So, all of us have broken all of the ten commandments to one degree or another in our heart.

When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in Matthew chapter 22 verses 35 through 40 he answered by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.

Matthew 22:37–40 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””

The first 4 commandments are the specific laws that come from the heart attitude of loving God with everything your are.

And the last 6 commandments are the specific laws that come from the heart attitude of loving your neighbor as yourself.

Those who don’t love God are the lawless, disobedient, ungodly, unholy, and profane sinners listed in 1 Timothy 1:9.

Those who don’t love their neighbor as themselves are those who strike their parents, murderers, sexually immoral, homosexual, enslavers, liars, and perjurers who live contrary to sound doctrine listed in 1 Timothy 1:9-10.

The Law was laid down to show us all that we are sinners, not to show the righteous that they are righteous because no one is.

Now verse 11 in our passage is kind of odd because it’s a prepositional phrase, and it’s not really clear at first what part of the sentence this phrase is attached to.

What in this sentence is described as being “in accordance with the gospel?”

At first glance, it looks like it’s describing the sound doctrine from verse 10 since that’s the closest thing this phrase could be attached to.

If that’s the case then it’s saying the Law was laid down for those who live contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel.

But that separates sound doctrine from the gospel as if the gospel is something other than sound doctrine.

So, it can’t be that.

It could also be attached to “whatever else,” describing how sinners live as “according to the gospel.”

If that’s the case, though, it would end up describing the gospel as contrary to sound doctrine, and saying that living in sin is living according to the gospel.

That is completely contrary to the rest of the Bible.

So, it also can’t be that.

I think it’s best to view verses 9 and 10 as a side comment about why God gave us his Law in the first place, and verse 11 picks back up with the idea from verse 8 describing how to properly use the Law.

If we skip over the aside in verses 9 and 10, and just read verse 8 skipping down to 11 it makes a whole lot of sense.

1 Timothy 1:8 “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully,”

1 Timothy 1:11 “in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.”

The lawful, right, God-intended way to use his Law is in accordance with the gospel.

The Law shows us that we are sinners, the gospel shows us how we can be saved.

If we only focus on the Law we become either fatalistic or self-righteous.

We either think that we can’t be saved, and that we’re stuck being sinners so we should just live in that sin…

Or we think that we’re good enough to save ourselves, and that every one else should follow God’s Law just like us because we’ve got it all together.

The Law with no gospel produces both legalism and lawlessness.

And that is not using the Law lawfully because it’s not using it in accordance with the gospel.

If we focus on the gospel without bringing up the Law it’s empty because the goodness of the good news is that we are saved, and the Law shows us why we need to be saved, what we are saved from.

And if we don’t understand what we’ve been saved from then our salvation, the gospel, is meaningless.

We’ve got to use both Jesus’ Law and the gospel together for both of them to be used the way he intended for us to use them.

He intended for us to use his Law and the gospel to bring sinners to repentance, to bring people to faith in Christ, to bring people from spiritual death to spiritual life.

And we can only do that if we use both!

Paul describes the gospel as “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.”

He does this because the good news of our salvation through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus is a message that gives God all the glory for his goodness and sovereignty, and it’s a message that describes how happy, how blessed God is when we put our faith in Jesus to be saved by him.

And to bring this point full circle, Paul says that he’s been entrusted with the gospel, sent by Jesus as an Apostle to bring this good news of salvation to the world, specifically to the Gentiles, as we saw back in Acts chapter 9.

Paul has been authoritatively entrusted with the gospel which he used in association with the Law to bring people to Christ.

And we’ve been entrusted with that mission as well.

So, as you talk with your family and friends and acquaintances about Jesus, don’t forget the Law, but don’t stop there.

We all need to know and be reminded of our need for a savior.

And we all need to know and be reminded that we have a savior in Jesus.

He’s God who became human and died in our place and rose from the dead three days later all so that you could be forgiven and saved from the just penalty for your sin and given eternal life to live in God’s family, in God’s loving and infinitely satisfying presence forever.

And all you need to do to be saved is put your faith in Jesus and submit to him as Lord of your life.

Conclusion

So, we saw how proper teaching in the Church is backed by Jesus’ authority as Paul was sent in Jesus’ authority with the gospel and God’s Law.

And we’re also sent by Jesus into the world with his gospel and his Law.

We also saw how proper teaching in the Church is focused on Jesus’ person and work, the gospel.

And when we get sidetracked by anything, either adding in worldliness or hyper-fixating on details and physical aspects of God’s Word, and not focusing on the gospel, we don’t grow, we’re stuck in worthless discussions that don’t profit anyone.

And we saw how proper teaching in the Church is founded on Jesus’ Law and the gospel working together.

We’ve got to use both or we’ll fall into legalistic self-righteousness, or fatalistic lawlessness, or empty and blind and pointless spirituality.

We’ve got to know that we need a savior, and we’ve got to know that Jesus is our savior.

We’ve got to focus on that message properly used with the Law, and we’ve got to understand that that message and God’s Law are authoritatively from God himself.

This isn’t a made up story, this isn’t my own expertise, this is God’s authoritative message focused on Jesus’ person and work to show us our need for a savior and how God has given us our perfect savior in his Son, Jesus so that we will believe in him and submit to him to be saved from sin and death.

Now, if you haven’t done that yet, then now is the time.

Please put your faith in Jesus as your savior and Lord.

Paul said in Romans 10:9 that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Pray

Father, thank you for saving us.

Thank you for giving us your Law so that we can know how you want us to live.

But you’ve also given us your Law so that we will know that none of us can live the way you want us to live without your power working in us.

And all of us deserve death for not living according to your Law.

Please help us remember this, but also to remember that you’ve saved us through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son, Jesus.

And now that we’re saved you’ve given us new hearts and put your Spirit in us so that we have your power working in us to live the way you want us to live.

Father, help us remember that this message is your authoritative message and not just someone’s opinion.

Help us stay focused on your authoritative message instead of getting sidetracked.

And help us remember to use your Law in association with your gospel to bring people to Christ, and to encourage each other in Christ.

Father, you’ve told us through your Word that this is the proper teaching you want in your Church.

So, please help me teach this way, and help us all have the discernment to make sure the teaching here at GBC is what you want.

We ask all of this in the glorious name of your Son, Jesus. Amen.

Communion

Well, it’s the first Sunday of the month, so we get to celebrate communion together.

If you’re visiting with us and you’re a baptized believer in good standing with your home church then you are welcome to join us.

As the bread and the cup are passed around, I’m going to take some time to connect this celebration with what we just looked at in 1 Timothy.

This celebration is all about the gospel, God’s grace, and mercy, and peace.

The authoritative message of who Jesus is and what he’s done to save us from sin and death.

Everything we’ve just been talking about from 1 Timothy 1:1-11.

The bread we’re going to eat together represents Jesus’ body broken for us, his self-sacrifice so that we could be forgiven as he took our place because he took on humanity, a human nature and a human body to be our substitute.

The cup we’re going to drink together represents Jesus’ blood shed for us, his purifying and covenant inaugurating blood poured out on the cross so that we could be brought into the new covenant and given a new heart and the Holy Spirit living inside of us helping us to live and love like Jesus.

This celebration understands that we all need a savior and that Jesus is our savior because of his perfectly sinless life given in his body broken and his blood shed for us.

God’s Law proves that we are sinners who deserve death, and the gospel proves God’s love for us to give his Son in our place so that we could be forgiven.

This celebration focuses our attention on the gospel, it makes sure we don’t get distracted, as often as we do this.

And it’s backed by Jesus’ authority.

He told us to remember his sacrifice like this, he told us to remember the gospel like this, it’s his idea, his command.

Paul explained Jesus’ institution of this communion celebration in 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, he said, “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

This is the gospel, God’s grace, and mercy, and peace.

This is God’s gracious gift, that he would give his Son so that we could have eternal life.

This is God’s mercy on display because none of us could save ourselves, so God put our punishment on his Son, so that we could be justly forgiven.

This is God’s peace pursued in our lives as our faith in Jesus as our Lord and savior reconciles us back to God.

And we get to remember this in celebration of our salvation and new life in Christ because of his body broken for us and his blood shed for us.

Pray

Father, thank you for all that you have given us through Jesus’ sacrifice.

Thank you for your grace, and your mercy, and your peace.

I pray that you would help us remember Jesus’ loving sacrifice for us every moment of every day.

Help us submit to your will, to do what you want us to do, to live the way you want us to live.

Help us focus on how much you have loved and given to us in the gospel.

And help us remember to connect your Law with your love for us in the gospel.

You knew that we could never live up to your Law, but instead of dismissing us or dismissing your Law, you gave us your Son to take our punishment for breaking your Law and you gave us your Holy Spirit to give us the ability to live the way you want us to live more and more as we grow in our ability to live and love like your Son, Jesus.

Father, thank you for this amazing gift.

And thank you for giving us this celebration to help us never forget how much you love us.

I pray all of this in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.