Defending the Truth (Part 2)

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

When I say the word “defense,” what comes to mind? Do you think about sports? If so, you might think about basketball and start to think about concepts like man-to-man or zone coverage. If football pops into your mind, you might think about positions like the defensive line or the secondary. Maybe your mind doesn’t go to sports, so you thought about a person accused of a crime who has to mount a defense in the courtroom. If so, then defense means an attorney who tries to demonstrate that the prosecution doesn’t have a case against the defendant. Maybe you like to debate and to you defense means arguing for the validity of a viewpoint. The idea of defense shows up in many areas of life.

St. Bernard—I’m referring to a monk from the 12th century and not a dog breed—St. Bernard was known for his love of retirement and study. He loved to spend his time pursuing learning and piety in his monk cell, his small room in his monastery. Yet, throughout his life he ventured out of his cell many times to deal with issues within the church of his day. Frequently he was faced by his accusers who said that “a monk ought to confine himself to his cloister.” St. Bernard would respond to this by answering that a monk was a soldier of Christ, as were other Christians as well, and ought to defend the truth.

Involvement:

You see, defense is a responsibility that we have as Christians; an action that we are to undertake. We ought to defend the truth. Being a defender of truth is a function we must perform.

Context:

Last week we started looking at Paul’s first letter to Timothy. Paul wrote this letter to his young co-worker who he had left behind to sort out a number of problems that had developed in the church in Ephesus in the years after Paul had help found it during his missionary journeys. These were problems that jeopardized the ministry focus of that important early church. Since we too risk losing our ministry focus, we can learn much from Paul’s letter to Timothy.

The initial problem that we identified in this letter was that of false teaching. As we began looking at the first 11 verses last week, we saw that, like Timothy, We have been called by God to defend His truth. This was the main idea located in these verses. We have been called by God to defend His truth.

This was the overall idea, but we also discussed last week that being a truth defender has two aspects—there is the character required for a person to be a truth defender and there are functions or actions required by the truth defender. Last week we looked at the character required by a truth defender. We learned that a truth defender must have a foundation of faith, a courage for conflict, an emphasis on essentials, and a loyalty to love. Those must be the components of his character.

Preview:

As we prepare to look at the second aspect, the actions required by a truth defender, let’s go ahead and read these verses again tonight so that they are fresh in our minds…<read 1 Tim 1:1-11>.

We have been called by God to defend His truth.

So, what do we have to do in order to defend God’s truth? What actions must we undertake? In these verses that Paul wrote to Timothy we can identify five actions that must be taken in order for us to defend God’s truth. I would even suggest that there is some logical sequence to these actions.

Transition from introduction to body:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. The first action that a truth defender must undertake is that he must…

BODY:

I. Identify false teachings

In verse 3 Paul mentions “strange doctrines.” The word that he used in this verse was probably a word created by Paul to express this idea; it is only used 2X in the NT and both occurrences are in this letter.

Illustration

It isn’t that hard to coin a new word. All you have to do is put two words together in a context that makes it clear what you are saying, and you have, in essence, coined a new word. Most of the #-hashtags found on social media are created this way. For example, one of hashtags trending on Twitter as I was preparing this sermon was the word #NationalDonutDay. It was written as a single word to create the hashtag. Still, I am sure that we all readily know that it is three words put together to express a single thought…and none of us have trouble understanding the idea that word expresses.

That is what Paul does here. He puts together the Greek words for “other” and the word for “teach doctrine” to create a word that means to teach a other doctrine. There is no problem understanding what he means. He is telling Timothy to identify teachings that don’t match up the original doctrine that was taught—to identify other doctrines. Of course, since the original doctrine that was taught was the truth of God’s revelation given through the apostle himself, any other doctrine must be a false doctrine. Timothy had to be able to identify it as such if he is to be a truth defender.

Application

We must be able to do the same. We must be able to identify false teaching. In fact, identification of false teaching must be the first thing that we do if we are going to function as a truth defender. Of course, in order to be able to identify what is false we must know what is true. In fact, the most effective way to prepare ourselves so that we are able to identify false teachings is to become experts on the truth. The ways in which the truth of this Book can be twisted and corrupted are endless…there is no way that we can learn all the false teachings that exist—just the time you become an expert on one cult’s teaching, another one pops up. We can’t learn all the false teachings, but we can learn the truth so thoroughly that when something doesn’t match it, we know it immediately.

Illustration

We have probably all undertaken the task before to identify the six things that are different between two pictures. These picture challenges usually involve minor adjustments to a picture that are carefully designed to blend in. Still, when you look at the pictures long enough, you can find the differences.

Well, that is what we are to do with teachings that we are presented with. We are to look at it carefully enough so that if there is a subtle difference in what is being presented and what is in this book, we can identify it. We examine the teaching to determine if it is “other teaching.”

Transition:

A truth defender must identify false teaching. That is our first action because We have been called by God to defend His truth. Identify false teaching.

A second action must normally follow that first action, a truth defender must…

II. Identify false teachers

In verse 3 Paul warns Timothy of “certain men,” the men teaching the “strange doctrines.” In verse 6 he refers to “some men” who have strayed from the proper things as they wanted, according to verse 7, “to be teachers of the Law.” We probably should remember that Paul had warned the leaders of this very church—the church of Ephesus—back in Acts 20:17–35 to be on guard for “salvage wolves” that would come from within their own numbers. Apparently, they had not been on enough guard because now there is a problem with men in the church teaching false doctrines. They are, teaching in the church “even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.” In other words, they present themselves as knowledgeable authorities—in this case in was regarding the Mosaic Law—but they had no clue; they were teaching false doctrines.

Application

We need to remember that false teaching normally comes with a human wrapper—false teaching requires a false teacher to espouse it. We need to identify false teachers along with false teaching. We cannot give someone a pass just because we like the person overall. False teaching comes from the minds and lips of false teachers. It comes from people who what to teach but they are teaching about things that they know nothing about. The internet and social media is full of such people. That is a sad reality, but we cannot allow such teachers to go unidentified within the church. We need to identify false teachers within the church.

Transition:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. We must identify false teachers.

And what comes next? Well, a truth defender must…

III. Confront false teachings

It is not enough, of course, to only identify false teaching. That is a necessary first step, but then that false teaching must be confronted and truth must be taught.

That the situation here in Ephesus. From verses 8-10 is seems that there was some false teaching surrounding the Mosaic Law. Paul doesn’t mention what exactly was being taught incorrectly, but we can gather from what he does say that the various aspects of the Law were being applied to believers. The teaching failed to recognize both the purpose of the Law and the fact that Christ had fulfilled the Law. Paul is careful to note that the Law itself was “good,” as he says in verse 8. It rightly described God’s righteous expectations of men and thus became a way in which mankind’s unrighteousness could be demonstrated. It gave an unsparing view of evil which spoke loudly to the sinner. In fact, the list that Paul gives in verses 9 and 10 seem to follow the 10 commandments, identifying those who would clearly be blatant violators of each commandment. The Law demonstrated in clear terms that they were sinners.

The problem was that within the church there was apparently teaching underfoot that was applying the OT Law to righteous believers, possibly trying to motivate behavior through guilt. But the Law was never meant to be a motive for right action, it was a measure of wrong action. Timothy had to confront this teaching, or the believers would miss the glory of God’s grace in Christ.

Application

Frankly, the need to confront this type of teaching remains an ongoing challenge for the church. Far too often rules are plucked out of the OT and used as baseball bats to try to beat right action out of believers by constantly pointing. The problem is, that whenever we come at things from a rule-based…law-based perspective, that is…we cut out the heart of the gospel message of grace. We cannot become sin-free through learning all the laws God has given. We cannot become sin-free by creating a list of rules that we try to force others to live by. That is like taking the OT Law while missing the fulfillment that Christ brought in the New. That is false teaching that must be confronted. We must confront such false teaching with the truth that we are declared sin-free by God’s grace in Jesus Christ. At the same time, the chains of sin that bound us to sinful behavior have been broken y God’s grace. In grace, God has given us His Spirit to enable us to resist the siren call of sin in grace. Yes, the OT law is good; it rightly defines sin. Victory over sin, though, comes through grace, not guilt.

Of course, we rightly can expand on Paul’s teaching to realize that we must confront any false teaching, not just false teaching regarding the OT Law. In any form it comes, as truth defenders we have a duty to confront it.

Transition:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. We must confront false teaching. Of course, to do that we must also…

IV. Confront false teachers

As I said earlier, false teaching comes with a human wrapper. Last week I we saw that one of the characteristics of a truth defender was courage for confrontation. Well…the courage must be put into action as we will need to actually confront the false teachers.

Illustration

Now, let me just pause for a moment and make a comment about the so-called discernment ministries that we are surrounded by today. You may not know what I am talking about when I use that term, but it refers to people who spend their lives on the internet calling out false teachers. The problem is that a lot of the time these discernment ministry people fall under the category themselves of people who “do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.” One of things that gets my blood pressure going is when I see these people—false teachers themselves, being endlessly reposted on social media by people who should be able to identify them as false teachers of false teachings.

Still, this is not what Paul is addressing here. He is referring to people within the church. The world is too big to worry about all the foolishness created by God-haters outside the church; our concern as truth defenders is within the church. Verse 3 makes it clear that Timothy is to directly confront the false teachers in Ephesus. Under the authority of the Apostle Paul, he is to rebuke them to their face and tell them to stop teaching their false doctrine.

Illustration

Of course, Paul gave the classic example of such action when he confronted the Apostle Peter in Galatians…remember when we looked at that early last year in our Sunday morning series through that book. In that case Peter was indirectly teaching false doctrine through his actions of going along with those who were teaching that circumcision was required along with faith. Peter wasn’t teaching this himself, but his acceptance of those who did gave implicit agreement. What did Paul do? In Gal 2:11 Paul writes that he opposed Peter to his face. I have no doubt that if he was willing to publicly confront Peter, then he surely confronted those who were also teaching the false doctrine if they failed to get the message.

Application

Our duty is to make sure that false teaching is not accepted within our church. That means that we must confront the people who are false teachers. Now, let me just say that we should begin with an assumption that the person is simply mistaken in their understanding of Scripture…that he or she is not intending to be a false teacher. So, our initial confrontation should be gentle as to a brother or sister in Christ. If, however, the teacher refuses to turn from their false teaching, there can be no quarter given, we must continue to confront the false teacher. We may even have to bring the full weight of church discipline to bear. We cannot allow false teaching to get a foothold in our church.

I mentioned that my blood pressure goes up at much of the foolishness I see floating around on social media. For the most part, though, I let it pass by. When I do push back is when I see wrong teaching begin to capture the thoughts of someone within this church. I push back stronger whenever I see anyone within the church begin to promote wrong teaching. And I thank God that so far, in all my years as your pastor that is as far as anything has ever gone because the false teacher has proven to be teachable.

What I want you to realize, though, is that this duty is not limited to me as your pastor. The one time I have personally seen the confrontation of false teaching go further than initial direct confrontation was many years ago when I was a deacon. There was one situation when we had to move up the process of church discipline while confronting a false teacher, a member who was unwilling to agree that the grossly corrupted version of the gospel as promoted by the Jehovah Witnesses was eternally damning rather than saving. What that situation drove home to me is that we all share the duty of confronting false teachers because we are all members of the church and as such, as we will see later in this letter, share the job of being truth defenders.

Transition:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. That means that, as a truth defender we must confront false teachers.

So far, we have looked at four actions that we must undertake as truth defenders; actions that have a logical sequence: we must identify false teaching which leads to identify false teachers. We must confront false teaching which leads to confronting false teachers. These four actions are all necessary for us to defend God’s truth; we dare not shirk our duty.

There if a fifth and final action, though, that shows itself in the final verse of our passage; an action that must be undertaken in parallel with all of the other actions we have looked at tonight. A truth defender must…

V. Cherish the gospel

Paul points out at the beginning of verse 11 that the Mosaic Law is in conformity with the gospel as long as it is understood properly, as that which demonstrates sinners who need the gospel. What I want us to see, though, is how Paul thinks about the gospel. It is “the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” In other words, God has displayed His glory through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel message manifests God’s full glory; it reveals it. As Paul stated a few years earlier in his letter to this same church…Eph 3:10, the gospel displays the manifold—or multivarigated—wisdom of God as it creates the church. The gospel is glorious.

We must also notice, though, that Paul says “the glorious gospel…which I have been entrusted.” Entrusted. This precious, glorious thing—this gospel—this thing that manifests God’s full glory—this thing had been entrusted to Paul. You can sense from his words, words that carry overwhelmed awe in the great privilege that he has received, that he cherishes it.

Illustration

This past week, as many of you know because of the transparency of FaceBook, I celebrated my 31st wedding anniversary with Grace. I cherish Grace. In fact, I cherish her more now than I did the day we both said “I do” 31 years ago. No offense intended to anyone else listening tonight, but I think she is the most wonderful woman in the world, far surpassing all of you in my eyes. Over the past 31 years I have come to know her better and better and for that reason I cherish her more and more. And because I cherish her, I would do anything I can to defend her. I believe that I would willingly lay down my life for her. I cherish her.

Application

Friends, in order to be a truth defender, we must cherish the gospel in a similar fashion. The entrustment that Paul had been given by God of this glorious thing, this display of God’s glory, has been passed on to us—the church. Before we will be able to undertake all of the other actions that we have looked at this evening, we must first of all and continually cherish what we have been given.

So, how do we cherish the gospel? Cherishing the gospel is an active idea…we must learn what it is; what it means and what it does as it fully displays the glory of God. It is just like with my relationship with Grace; we must come to know it better and better. The more we come to know the glorious gospel of our blessed God, the more we will cherish it. The more we see understand that we have been entrusted with the care of this precious thing, the more we will cherish it. ? Do you cherish the gospel enough to defend it? Do you cherish the gospel enough to lay down your life for it? Spending time cherishing the gospel will motivate you to do all the other tasks required to defend it.

Transition from body to conclusion:

We have been called by God to defend His truth. A truth defender must cherish the gospel.

CONCLUSION

We have been called by God to defend His truth.

For the last two weeks, we have seen Paul call Timothy to defend the truth of God’s revelation for the sake of church. Timothy was to be a truth defender. In the twelfth century, as much as St. Bernard loved the seclusion of his monastic life, he left of his monk’s cell many times, setting his scholarly endeavors aside, because the truth of God’s revelation needed defending in his day. As a Christian he recognized that it was his duty to defend it against false teaching. St. Bernard was a truth defender. Nine centuries later, the truth is still in need of defenders, God’s revelation has been entrusted to the church for all of these centuries. That means that today, you and I, are the ones who must defend it. Will we be truth defenders?

We have been called by God to defend His truth.

Tonight, we have observed 5 things—actions or tasks if you will—that a truth defender must do. 1) A truth defender must identify false teachings. 2) A truth defender must identify false teachers. 3) A truth defender must confront false teachings. 4) A truth defender must confront false teachers. And 5) A truth defender must cherish the gospel.

We have been called by God to defend His truth.