Defending the Truth (Part 1)

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

Last Monday was Memorial Day. I mentioned it last Sunday in our AM service and prayed specifically for families who had lost loved ones in the service of our country. We have great freedom, but we must remember that our freedom was purchased at great expense and defending has often also required the ultimate sacrifice from many service men and women.

In 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Peter Collier to mark Memorial Day. It contained a number of incredible stories of heroic actions during the defense of country.

For example, in World War II there is the story of Jack Lucas: Big for his age at 14, Jack Lucas begged his mother to help him enlist after Pearl Harbor. She collaborated in lying about his age in return for his promise to someday finish school. After training at Parris Island, he was sent to Honolulu. When his unit boarded a troop ship for Iwo Jima, Mr. Lucas was ordered to remain behind for guard duty. He stowed away to be with his friends and, discovered two days out at sea, convinced his commanding officer to put him in a combat unit rather than the brig. He had just turned 17 when he hit the beach, and a day later he was fighting in a Japanese trench when he saw two grenades land near his comrades. He threw himself onto the grenades and absorbed the explosion. Later a medic, assuming he was dead, was about to take his dog tag when he saw Mr. Lucas’s finger twitch. After months of treatment and recovery, he returned to school as he’d promised his mother, a ninth-grader wearing a Medal of Honor around his neck.

Skip forward a couple of decades and we come to Vietnam: After a five-hour gunfight, Cmdr. Tom Norris, already a legend thanks to his part in a harrowing rescue mission for a downed pilot (later dramatized in the movie, BAT-21), stayed behind to provide covering fire while the three others headed to rendezvous with the boat sent to extract them. At the water’s edge, one of the men, Mike Thornton, looked back and saw Tom Norris get hit. As the enemy moved in, he ran back through heavy fire and killed two North Vietnamese standing over Norris’s body. He lifted the officer, barely alive with a shattered skull, and carried him to the water and then swam out to sea where they were picked up two hours later.

Involvement:

Stories such at these abound from every war that is part of our country’s history; heroics go hand-in-hand with defending our freedom. As we will see tonight, though, we are all called to defend something even more valuable than our country’s freedom; we are called to defend the truth as God has revealed it in His word to His church.

Context:

Before we begin looking at our passage from Paul’s first letter to Timothy, let me give you a brief bit of background. From our discussion last Wednesday night, I know that many of you know that Timothy was one Paul’s co-workers during his various journeys. After the three highly successful missionary trips recorded in the book of Acts, Paul was imprisoned; Acts ends with Paul in prison in Rome. Our letter to Timothy apparently comes after all of this as Paul is now out of prison. From what we can gather, Paul has been traveling around visiting some of the various churches between Rome and Judea.

Paul apparently found several problems in the church in Ephesus, so he left young Timothy there to help set the church strait. If you recall from the book of Acts, Ephesus was a major metropolitan center on the Asian Peninsula—what we now call the country of Turkey. Problems in this church would impact the entire region and possibly churches everywhere. For that reason, it was important to Paul that he leave someone there to deal with the issues before they became completely crippling to the ministry…Timothy was that man.

The letter we are going to look at in this series contains Paul’s advice to Timothy. Looking at it closely, though, we can see that Paul expected this letter to be read before the church. So, this letter also serves as notice to the church that young Timothy holds the authority of the apostle when he acts; they are to listen to him as if Paul himself was speaking.

This letter is beneficial for us to look as well. The issues that this church faced were causing it to lose its ministry focus. They need correction and Timothy was tasked with providing that correction. We can learn much from the situation in Ephesus that will help us maintain our ministry focus as well, which is why I entitled this series, “Maintaining a Focused Ministry.”

Preview:

As we start looking at this letter this evening, we will see that right from the get-go, Paul calls on Timothy to defend the truth of God’s revelation. It is clear that that is not going to be an easy task, but it is vital. We too, must be prepared to undertake this vital task because the problems that Timothy faced in the church of Ephesus have arisen over and over again through the centuries. Satan doesn’t have a whole lot of tricks that he uses, but he is persistent; he keeps throwing the same ones at the church over and over again. The lesson that we need to learn as we look at our verses this evening is that We have been called by God to defend His truth. We have been called by God to defend His truth.

This evening I was planning to look at the first section of this letter, but as I was preparing this sermon, I realized that it will really take me two weeks to cover it…thus the “Part 1” addition to the sermon title. There are two aspects to the task of defending God’s truth that comes out in these verses. Tonight, we are going to look at several of the characteristics that a defender of the truth must have. Next week, Lord willing, we will look at some of the tasks that a defender of the truth must undertake.

Even, though it will take us two weeks to cover these verses fully, I would like to go ahead and read the entire section as we begin…<read 1 Tim 1:1–11>

The characteristics of a defender and the tasks of a defender, both aspects are here in the first verses of this letter. Tonight, we are going to focus on the characteristics of a defender, one who defends the truth revealed by God in His word. As I said, Timothy has been left behind to deal with the issues in the church at Ephesus and that begins with defending the truth against those who were apparently undercutting it with false teaching. Yet for Timothy to defend that truth, he needed to be a certain type of person; he needed to possess certain characteristics. In these verses that I just read, we can see four of them.

Transition from introduction to body:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. The first thing that a defender of truth must have is a…

BODY:

I. Foundation of Faith

A foundation of faith is the most fundamental characteristic that a person must have in order to be able to effectively defend the truth. Verse 2 informs us that Timothy had this characteristic—Paul says that he was “my true child in the faith.” What Paul apparently means by this expression is that God called Timothy to salvation when Paul shared the gospel message with him. Paul could consider Timothy his spiritual child because he had been the human agency involved in his spiritual life. It is this spiritual life that became the foundational element of Timothy’s character. He would not be able todefend the truth if he had not experienced the truth personally through faith—faith in Jesus Christ as Savior.

Illustration

Like a large percentage of current homeowners, apparently, we have a small home-improvement project underway in our house; I have heard several times that home improvement projects are hugely increased as a result of all the stay-at-home orders. People are sitting around and staring at the things that they don’t like in their house. In our case, we are redoing a shower by ripping out the construction grade, pop-in kit, expanding the size, and installing tiles; a project that we have talked about since we moved into the house. Unlike a lot of current homeowners, though, I am not doing the project entirely myself, we are hiring a tile guy to install the tile. Anyway, he was telling me that the first thing he will install a shower pan. This shower pan forms the foundation of the water defense system in the shower. We will never see it once the project is finished as it will sit under a couple inches of concrete which will then be covered by tiles. Between the tiles, grout, and cement, water will likely never reach the pan; but it is there to defend us against a leak.

In a similar fashion, faith is the foundation of the defense of truth. As we see in verse two, with faith comes grace, mercy, and peace. Grace is undeserved divine favor; God gives blessings that we do not deserve because of our faith in His Son. Mercy is the flip side to grace, the divine withholding of consequences we do deserve. God gives daily mercy when we fail because we are forgiven through faith in His Son. And peace—a positive harmony with God that comes as result of the reconciliation experienced by faith in Jesus Christ.

Application

Do you have the foundation of faith in your life? You cannot defend God’s truth without it. In fact, why would you? Why would you defend something that you don’t believe in? Do you have the foundation of faith? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? Notice, in verse 2 Paul clearly puts God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord on the same plain; they both bestow the divine blessings of grace, mercy, and peace. Do you know Jesus? Do you have the foundation of faith?

Transition:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. The first requirement for a truth defender is a foundation of faith. To that must be added a second characteristic,…

II. Courage for Conflict

In verse three, Paul uses a fairly strong term when he says, “I urged you.” This was not a passive suggestion, this was an earnest, heart-felt encouragement to take a certain action.

Illustration

Think of a basketball game and imagine that you are one of the players. The game is nearly over, only a few seconds left. Your team is ahead by the basket that has just been scored, but the other team will have the ball. Of course, your coach calls time-out. The game hinges on the actions of the next few seconds. What kinds of things will he be saying in the huddle? Don’t foul the guy bringing up the ball but play tight defense. Don’t let the other team drive the hoop. Force them to take a low-percentage, last-second, outside shot. He will be giving these types of instructions, but what tone will he be using? Will it sound like he is engaged in a philosophical discussion when he speaks? No! There will be an earnest intensity to his words. There will be a call to action in what he says. He will be “urging”—the idea of this word--urging you to reach deep and perform at your highest ability no matter how tired you are.

Paul had urged Timothy to remain at Ephesus after he left; but why? We see the answer in the last part of the verse, “so that [he] may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines.” “So that” indicates the reason underlying Paul’s decision to urge Timothy to stay. There were men who needed instruction.

“Instruction” is probably not the most effective translation for the term Paul uses. The ESV and NKJV uses the word “charge” while the NIV has “command.” Both translations are better in my opinion. The old KJV may have the best translation, though, when it says “that thou mightiest charge some…” I like that translation “mightiest charge.” The word that Paul uses comes from a military background. It is a word that means “to strictly order” something or someone, and usually involved a public rebuke from one who has authority.

Illustration

Think of a drill sergeant during basic training dressing down a private for showing up to roll call with his uniform disheveled. The private is going to be get a strong rebuke, but it will be before the entire squad so that the all will learn a lesson from the infraction.

That is the idea being presented here. There are some men teaching things that are wrong—false doctrines. We will get into that more next week, but from the outset Paul is telling Timothy that his duty will be to dress them down and set things into proper order. This means that Timothy must be willing to confront these men. He must have sufficient courage to engage in open conflict over these matters. Defending the truth will require it.

Application

This is a key requirement that we must think about. Many of us tend to shy away from conflict. We don’t like to engage in confrontation with others. About the only time that we do is if someone is keeping us from doing what we want to do. How often are we willing to engage in conflict over matters of truth, especially biblical truth that is totally unpopular today. It takes courage to wade into those kinds of conflicts. It takes courage to look someone in the eye and set things straight. Note, this is not posting from a blog or on Facebook your opinion. It is not adding anonymous comments to someone else’s post. It is not even adding comments under your own name to someone who you only know virtually through social media. This is looking someone in the eye within the context of the local church and dealing with wrong doctrine. This is the courage to put relationships on the line for the sake of truth because the truth of God is the most important. Do you have courage for conflict?

Transition:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. The second characteristic of a truth defender is that he or she must have courage for conflict.

A third necessary component in the makeup of a truth defender is that a truth defender must place the…

III. Emphasis on Essentials

We see this emphasis in the Ephesian context when Timothy is told to not pay attention to “myths and endless genealogies.” Most likely, from what we will see throughout the rest of this letter, these are references to various Jewish legends and stories that had developed. Paul clearly calls them “mere speculation.” “Myths” were various non-biblical legends that the Jews had collected through the years and added to their cultural history in collections called the Talmud. As we know from the last couple weeks of our Genesis series, the OT has several genealogies. Over the centuries, many of these genealogies had been amplified in their non-biblical writings to include additional names and entire stories about biblical names that were found in them.

Illustration

We could think of these stories a bit like the familiar story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and then being confronted by his father over the act. There certainly was a George Washington in our country’s history and he had a father. There were also cherry trees on the family plantation. As to whether young George ever chopped any of them down and then confessed when confronted by his father, though, that I something that we have to place in the category of myth or legend.

To understand Paul’s point here, we should remember that the church in Ephesus was made up almost entirely of Gentile believers. Yet, the only Bible that they had at this time was the OT. It was very appealing to take some of these stories which allegorized principles from the OT and use them to make the Bible seem to mean more to the new believers…apparently there were people doing exactly that.

Paul tells young Timothy, though, to stay away from those discussions. It is not even worth entering into the debate because it does not further the “administration of God which is by faith.” In other words, it does not help move the gospel message of the church forward. These discussions are not essential; a defender of the truth must emphasize the essentials.

Application

Friends, we need to remember that. It is very tempting to engage in esoteric debates. It can make us feel really intelligent to sit around and talk about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. We can have long arguments over which English translation of the Bible is the best. There are endless things that can distract us to seemingly endless degrees…and if you doubt that, all you need to do to convince yourself is try engaging in an online debate over one of these kinds of topics. But if we want to really be truth defenders, we must place the emphasis on the essentials.

So how will we know what is and is not essential? After all, all truth is important; I firmly believe that. So what is essential. What is essential is that which moves the gospel message forward, both by bringing it into the lives of unbelievers and by having it lived out in its various ramifications in the lives of believers. The word of God applied in peoples’ lives is essential.

Right now, there are a lot of believers distracted, I will dare say, by matters surrounding the various government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. I am sure there are things that each one of us agrees with and there are things that each one of us disagrees with regarding the various executive orders and suggested guidelines that have been given in response to the pandemic. I also know that when we compare those agreements and disagreements there many differences in opinions among those of us listening tonight. I am not going to say that these are unimportant matters…I think the safety of public health and the security of civil liberties are both very important topics and the various government responses directly affect both topics. What I am saying, though, is that they are NOT…let me say that again strongly…NOT essential discussions for “the administration of God which is by faith.” If we allow ourselves to become consumed and distracted by these issues, we will not be effective defenders of the truth. A truth defender must have an emphasis on essentials—that which is essential to God’s work in people’s lives through His word.

Transition:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. A truth defender must place the emphasis on essentials.

Lastly, a fourth characteristic of a truth defender is…

IV. Loyalty to Love

Verse 5 is so important in this context. The reason that Timothy was to stay behind and work on the various issues in the church was so that love would be produced in the people of the church. As one commentator stated, “The goal of preaching, teaching, and warning men is to present the gospel of God’s grace in Christ so as to call forth a response of faith and love.” That love aspect must not be lost. In fact, Paul uses the parallel word here for “instruction” as he used in verse 3 for “instruct.” The goal of Timothy’s military-style rebuke is that he might produce love in the lives of other men and women in this church in Ephesus.

Love, of course, only comes from a “pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” It can not be faked. It cannot be worked up through self-effort. It can only be generated by the transforming work of the Spirit in the lives of believers through the application of the Word.

Application

I would dare say that this is last component is the most vital characteristic that a truth defender must possess. A defender of truth will fail if there is not a loyalty to love. Love is what empowers all the actions that must be undertaken in the defense of truth.

Illustration

Think about those heroic stories of soldiers that I mentioned at the beginning. What would cause a 17-year-old man-boy to jump on two grenades? What would cause another man to run into a hail of bullets to save a man that could have already been dead. In both cases, the only answer that can explain such actions is love for their fellow-soldiers.

Application

So then, what can possibly drive you and I to take on the difficult, unpopular, and potentially relationally-destructive tasks of defending the truth as God has revealed it in His word. It must be the same thing—love. And genuine love will seek to reproduce itself in others. We will do what is necessary to generate love for God in the lives of others. We will risk all for that one single purpose. This kind of love will not make us timid or cowardly. This kind of love will embolden us to be real defenders of truth.

Next week, Lord willing, we will look at some of the types of actions required by defenders of truth. This week, though, we must understand that we will not be able to undertake any of those actions properly unless our first and foremost loyalty is to love—love from a pure hear and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Transition from body to conclusion:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. A truth defender must have loyalty to love.

CONCLUSION

We have been called by God to defend His truth. From a spiritual standpoint, we may be called to throw ourselves onto heretical grenades. We may have to run into a hail of spiritual bullets. We may be called to do all sorts of courageous actions in order to defend God’s truth.

This week, though, we have seen that a person who will be able to serve as a truth defender must have four characteristics: He or she must have: 1) a Foundation of Faith, 2) Courage for Conflict, 3) an Emphasis on Essentials, and 4) a loyalty to love. Four requirements of character that must be found in a truth defender.

Application

Of course, a truth defender is what we each must strive to be, since, as we have seen tonight, We have been called by God to defend His truth. Let’s pray that God develops these necessary characteristics in each of us, for His glory.

We have been called by God to defend His truth. We have been called by God to defend His truth.