Heresies 1: Sound Doctrine & False Teaching

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Titus 2:1, 1 Timothy 1:3-7

N:

Opening

DON’T FORGET THE BUMPER!

Good morning and Happy New Year! I am Bill Connors, senior pastor here at Eastern Hills, and I’m excited that we are here to worship Jesus together, whether you are joining us online or if you’re here in person this morning. I’m looking forward to the time when things with the pandemic calm down some more, and we are able to expand more of our ministry opportunities, such in person Sunday morning Bible studies.

I do want to remind everyone here in the building this morning that it is intentional that we call this service our “Family Worship” service: we believe that it is a beautiful and edifying thing when a family can worship the Lord together, and that there is much for children to learn by being with their parents in worship. Therefore, we WELCOME children into this service, and we’re glad that they are here. Even babies. If you have a tiny one with you this morning, we understand that little ones make noise, and we see that as the sound of life. I’m so glad that we are able to worship together like this, and it’s a blessing to get to do so with you.

I need to let you all know that Terri Allen, sister-in-law of Lynne Lamar and a longtime member of Eastern Hills, went home to be with the Lord on New Year’s Day. I’ll be meeting with her daughter TJ tomorrow to discuss plans for a memorial service, and if it will be before next Sunday, we will let the church family know by OneCall and Text-In-Church.

Before we begin looking at the study series that we’re starting this morning, I wanted to give you an update on where we are on our Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goal. Remember that the Lottie Moon Christmas offering accounts for 50% of the support that our IMB missionaries receive during the year. Our goal this year is $26,000. Can I get a drumroll? With still five Sundays to go in our focus on this important offering, we have received $28,738! Thank you, church! We have smashed our goal, and we still have time to pray and give. Thank you for being a part of how God is working around the world through the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. And I also want to take a moment to thank you for all of the ways that you have given this past year. Not only did we make our budget this last year, but you gave generously and sacrificially, and we met and exceeded EVERY SINGLE special offering goal in 2020. And I know that many in different parts of the country have given this year to both our special offerings and to the ministry of EHBC, and I want to thank you for your generosity as well.

On that great note, we are starting a new series that will take us through the month of January: Heresies. Let’s open with our focal passages this morning, and then I’ll give some background on why we are looking at this topic right now:

Titus 2:1 CSB

1 But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching.

1 Timothy 1:3–7 CSB

3 As I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine 4 or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan, which operates by faith. 5 Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and turned aside to fruitless discussion. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, although they don’t understand what they are saying or what they are insisting on.

PRAY including for Lynne and family, and thanking God for His gracious provision to EHBC financially.

Series Opener

Illustration

When I was in the fourth grade, I had a red bike. I rode that bike all the time. It was a great mode of transportation, and for a 9 year old, it brought me great freedom. However, it wasn’t always the safest mode of transportation, and I had my fair share of bumps, bruises, and scrapes. Very few of those times that I crashed my bike stand out particularly in my mind. One that does was one time when I was riding my bike home (I think from school) I was riding alongside my best friend, who had a yellow bike with a banana seat and the ape-hanger handlebars… super cool bike.

Anyway, my street curved a little to the left as you went from the end of the street toward my house. And I was riding along, not really fast, talking with my friend, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, and my bike was continuing down the road for a few more feet before it rolled into the ditch on the side of the street. The problem: I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was going, and as the road curved to the left, I didn’t. I veered just close enough to the side of the road, and I hit a mailbox that made me immediately stop, while my bike attempted to continue the journey home without me. It was like something out of a Looney Tunes episode. I’ll explain why I open with this in a moment.

Series Explanation

So why are we doing a topical study on heresies? In January each year since 2011 the American Bible Society and the Barna Group have done an annual study called the “State of the Bible.” This year because of the pandemic, they did the study twice: once in January, and then again in June. I saw the results shortly after starting our study of Amos, and there was a statistic that surprised me a little: that among those who are considered “Bible engaged” or “Bible centered,” engagement in the Scriptures actually went DOWN during the first six months of the year. We collectively became less likely to read the Bible and apply it to our lives during the pandemic, even though the other two groups: “Bible disengaged” and “Bible neutral” started to engage with slightly more regularity.

As I processed and prayed on that information, I very much felt that the community aspect of Scripture engagement was a part of what was missing. That’s when we started reading the Bible together as a church family. I don’t know how many of you have been keeping up with it, but since then, everyone who has participated has read through Psalm 119, the Gospels of Matthew and John, the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Romans, and we’re almost done with Genesis. Then we will continue on to 1 and 2 Corinthians.

But as I continued to pray and reflect on this truth, 2020’s data from an additional annual study called “The State of Theology” by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research was released. This study examines what people understand about Scripture and important theological questions. Putting those two things together, I realized that one thing we need to spend some time on, in addition to reading our Bibles, is remembering the critical theological truths that are foundational to our faith. Issues that the early church had to deal with in the first few centuries, and why getting those issues right is absolutely vital to our walk, our understanding of the church, and to our hope in the Gospel. Questions that if we get them wrong, we will likely get just about everything else wrong as well. These are questions of heresy and orthodoxy. Orthodoxy literally means “right thinking,” and in the church, its contrast is heresy.

But the question then arises: what is a heresy? Jeffrey Lamp defines heresy as:

“aberrant doctrine or opinion arising within the Church...that diverts believers from the true gospel toward doctrine that erodes the foundations of the faith, leads to ungodly living, and destroys unity in the Church.”

Heresies are ways of thinking that turn people away from the hope of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, away from a biblical faith, away from holy living, and ultimately away from what the Church is supposed to be. In short, heresies come from unbiblical worldviews arising within the Church which damage the Church. Those who teach heresies are called “heretics.”

Heresies are not modern inventions. Even the very early church had heresy to deal with. Consider Galatians 1:6-7:

Galatians 1:6–7 CSB

6 I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

They were already being led astray from the truth of the Gospel of Christ and hope that it brings and toward the idea of having to earn their salvation, as if they ever could earn it. And this was arising from people who claimed to belong to Jesus, just like they did.

So this morning, we will begin to consider how the Church can guard against heresy, and then for the next four Sundays, some particular heresies that have arisen in the Church, and how they are addressed in Scripture.

So what does this have to do with me hitting a mailbox with my bike when I was 9? Simple. Had I just taken a moment every few seconds to look at where my trajectory was taking me, I would have seen my error visibly before I discovered it physically. And had I done that, I could have made corrections before I got completely derailed. Likewise, it is good for the Church to take a moment, look up from what we’re doing, and make sure that the critical things that we say that we hold to are still actually what we are holding onto. We should look up, examine our beliefs, and make sure that they still line up with what the Bible teaches and what the Church has historically affirmed.

Before we move on much further this morning, I need to give one further piece of explanation about what we are going to be considering in this series. The heresies that we will look at each week will be regarding what nearly all followers of Christ would consider to be “first order” or “absolute” doctrines of the church: 1) The deity and humanity of Jesus Christ; 2) The doctrine of sin and salvation by grace through faith; 3) the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and His role; and 4) the authority of the Word of God.

These are doctrinal pillars that are structural to the Christian faith. If we reject the biblical position on these foundational points, that rejection will almost certainly lead us away from Christianity itself. These are issues that are the basics of Christian belief, and it is critical that we teach them correctly:

1: The importance of sound doctrine

Consider sound doctrine to be the road in my biking illustration. If we do not stand on sound doctrine, we run the risk of running into a spiritual mailbox.

I suppose that this point speaks first to me, to the other pastors, to the leaders, to the teachers in the church. If we are going to shepherd this family of believers well, we must hold to the basics of the faith and teach those basics to the rest of the body. In the first of our focal verses for this morning’s message, Paul challenges the pastor Titus as follows in verse 1 of chapter 2:

Titus 2:1 CSB

1 But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching.

We who are leaders in the church body have a responsibility to proclaim those things that are consistent with sound teaching. My role, and I strive to hold to it each week when I preach, is to bring sound teaching to the body, so that the body may be built up and encouraged to live lives that bring honor to Jesus, and that give true, accurate testimony to all that God has done in Christ by His grace because of His love for His creation.

This is the primary purpose for my role as pastor in the church family, according to Ephesians 4:

Ephesians 4:11–14 CSB

11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. 14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

Leaders in the church are to equip the saints (that’s you) for the work of ministry, so that we can be all that we are meant to be as a body, a family, a church. Being all that we are meant to be as a church involves us having good theology and doctrine, so that we won’t be “little children, tossed… and blown around by every wind of teaching.” And this will necessarily involve us teaching and preaching, because the only remedy for bad theology is good theology.

I’ll be honest: This is an intimidating position to be in, and one that should never be taken lightly. Consider what James said about those who teach:

James 3:1 CSB

1 Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.

I’m not going to stand up here and claim that my theology and doctrine is 100% perfect. No one’s is, because we all still wrestle with the fallen nature of our flesh. But I am called to humbly share with you all the truth of God’s Word responsibly, accurately, and as led by the Spirit, and to strive to live my life in such a way as I do not disqualify myself from doing so. Paul said to his young protege Timothy:

1 Timothy 4:16 CSB

16 Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

So the leaders in the church are to live out the doctrine that they believe. They are to strive to be circumspect, humble, and consistent, understanding that none of us are perfect. While it might be easy then for us to sort of put all of the responsibility for the theology of the church squarely in the laps of those we have called as our “leaders,” this goes against our individual mandate and mission to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded us (Matthew 28:19-20).

No, we are all called to “contend” for our faith, according to Jude 3:

Jude 3 CSB

3 Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.

In the State of Theology study that I mentioned earlier, Statement #26 was, “Learning about theology is for pastors and scholars only.” Respondents were allowed one of five responses: Strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, not sure, somewhat agree, or strongly disagree. 75% of the population polled disagreed with that statement, 2/3 of them strongly. Theology is for all of us. We all need to think: To engage with our minds in order to “contend” for our faith.

Again, this comes down to the basics: the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Do we know the message of the Gospel? Do we believe the message of the Gospel? What is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

It’s that God, who made everything, created us to be in a relationship with Him. We, however, have gone our own way, rejecting His invitation to walk with Him. This is an act of rebellion called sin. This sin separates us from God, because He is completely sinless and perfect, and because of our sin, we aren’t—so God cannot simply overlook our sin, and we cannot do enough good to tip the scales in our favor, because only perfect is good enough. So what we cannot do, God did—He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to live a perfectly sinless life in our place, and then to die the death that our sins deserve, so that through His paying the penalty for our sins, He made a way for our relationship with God to be restored. And He defeated death, so that everyone who trusts in what Jesus did to save them will also receive eternal life through His Spirit—a new life of hope and peace with God now, and the confidence of living in God’s presence forever, not consigned to hell for eternal punishment.

Without sound doctrine, it’s nearly impossible for us to stand on any authority in order to “contend” for our faith. All of us need to be engaged in thinking through our faith, to make certain that the things we are thinking are in line with what Scripture teaches, and to proclaim the message of the Gospel to those who need to hear it.

Sometimes this will mean standing against a false teaching that arises within the church. This is why we had the great Church Councils in the fourth and fifth centuries: to settle questions of dangerous teachings creeping into the church. Oddly enough, heretics actually served the church in a way: their incorrect attempts to state truth forced the church to actually state it and define the boundaries of good theology, because again the only remedy for bad theology is good theology.

But bad theology must be addressed, because it can be extremely dangerous if left unchecked.

2: The danger of false teaching

When I turned onto my street on that day that I crashed my bike, do you think that getting clotheslined by a mailbox was my intention? Of course not. Do you think that I took aim at a mailbox when I first turned, and then just kept going straight? No. I thought I was going the right way, and it wasn’t until I crashed that I knew I wasn’t. This is often what false teaching has been: a person in the church taught some new idea about Christ (such as that He wasn’t really human), or about salvation (that we could earn it or deserve it somehow), or about the Holy Spirit (that He is not actually God). And then the leaders in the church said, “That doesn’t sound quite right. We all need to think this out more fully.”

For us where we are now, I said those three things, and some of you might be shocked that there was a time that that had to be discussed and thought through. It’s because the early church DID think through it and discuss it that makes it so certain and simple in your mind today!

When Paul wrote to Timothy in our other focal passage for this morning, he was addressing a mythological teaching that was creeping into the church regarding Hebrew genealogies, which led people away from the Gospel of God’s grace and back to the idea of salvation by works:

1 Timothy 1:3–7 CSB

3 As I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine 4 or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These promote empty speculations rather than God’s plan, which operates by faith. 5 Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and turned aside to fruitless discussion. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, although they don’t understand what they are saying or what they are insisting on.

Paul would later address the motivation behind these false teachers at the end of his little letter to Timothy:

1 Timothy 6:3–5 CSB

3 If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing, but has an unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments over words. From these come envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, 5 and constant disagreement among people whose minds are depraved and deprived of the truth, who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain.

And Titus was dealing with the same kind of incorrect thinking as shown in the verses that are immediately before chapter 2:

Titus 1:15–16 CSB

15 To the pure, everything is pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; in fact, both their mind and conscience are defiled. 16 They claim to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

The danger with false teaching is two-fold: it is a danger to the learner, and a danger to the teacher.

The most obvious danger with false teaching is to the learner. The one who learns a heresy and believes it first of all will take themselves on a wrong path: a path that leads them away from the hope of the Gospel, away from living a life that glorifies God, and away from the unity of the fellowship of the Church body. One doctrine that we hold to is that if a person is truly saved, then they will always be saved. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have their effectiveness and witness severely hampered or damaged because of a heretical belief:

1 Timothy 1:18–19 CSB

18 Timothy, my son, I am giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the good fight, 19 having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked their faith.

Second of all, those who believe in heresies will in all likelihood go on to teach those heresies as well, thus leading those who listen to them to a gospel that isn’t a gospel at all, and thus, has no power to save them. This is what was happening in the churches of Galatia. There’s a church saying, “What you save them with is what you save them to.” If you lead someone to faith in their own ability to save themselves, you haven’t saved them from anything or to anything, because they don’t have that ability, no matter how many hoops they jump through. So there’s a grave danger to the next generation.

But there is also the danger to the teacher themselves. The Bible says that God will not stand idly by and not bring judgment on those who attempt to pervert the Gospel by claiming to be true teachers and prophets, but who are not:

2 Peter 2:1 CSB

1 There were indeed false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves.

Jude 4 CSB

4 For some people, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

False teachers and prophets will come and attempt to deceive for their own worldly motives and gain. But the Bible tells us that destruction and judgment will come upon them because of their falsehood. Thus, if heresies are dangerous to both the learner the teacher, ultimately heresies are a grave danger to the integrity of the church, because the church isn’t a place or an event: it’s a people. If the people go astray, the church goes astray.

Our calling, church, is for us to be on our guard against those who would come and attempt to bring false teaching and promoting false doctrine:

Matthew 7:15–16 CSB

15 “Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravaging wolves. 16 You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes or figs from thistles?

The only remedy for bad theology is good theology. If we are going to be on our guard to avoid the dangers of false teaching, we’re going to have to know what we believe and why. That’s why we’re doing this series.

Closing

This discussion of heresy might seem trivial or irrelevant to your life in the real world in the midst of a pandemic. You might affirm our Statement of Faith (which you can find on our website under “What We Believe”), but maybe your life is completely different every day. Heresies aren’t different religions, but a mutation, a dilution, a modification of true Christian faith. They happen in the church. We need to make sure that we are looking up at where we are going theologically every once in a while so that we can know if we need to make any corrections to our beliefs and practices to reflect the truth of Scripture and our representation of Jesus as His people… to make sure we aren’t on our way to hitting a theological mailbox.

One truth that we are to hold as absolutely central is the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. Romans 10:9-10 says:

Romans 10:9–10 CSB

9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.

To confess that “Jesus is Lord,” is kind of shorthand for saying that we are saved when we stop being our own “lords”, trying to do things our own way, and we surrender to Jesus as our Lord, trusting in His finished work of living, dying, and rising again on our behalf so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life. This is the starting point of faith. If you have never surrendered your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, then I challenge you this morning to give up on trying to justify yourself, and trust in Jesus alone to save you. Surrender your life to Jesus right now, where you are, and be saved by His grace.

And if that’s you, we would love to be able to help you on this new journey of faith. If you’re in the room, when we dismiss, just stay in your seat and we will come find you when most folks have left. If you’re online, you can send me an email at [e-mail]. If you still have questions about Jesus and about salvation, that’s great! Same thing: if you’re here, stay in your seat. If you’re online, shoot me an email.

If you believe that God is leading you to be a part of this particular body of believers here at Eastern Hills and you live in or around Albuquerque, same thing: stay in your seat if you’re here, shoot me an email if you’re online, and we’ll set up a time to sit down, get to know each other more, go over our Statement of Faith, and answer any questions that you have about Eastern Hills.

As Donna comes for our time of reflection, use this time to look up for a moment and consider the trajectory of your own doctrine and practice. Do you need to make any corrections? You can also use this time to give online as God leads you, as an act of worship to Him.

PRAY

Reflection time

Closing Remarks

Bible reading plan: Almost done with Genesis, on Genesis 38 today. Get a new printable calendar for January from our What’s Happening page.

I hope you’ll plan on being here each week of our Heresies study.

Exit instructions, including giving offering in person at the doors on the way out.

Benediction:

Colossians 3:16–17 CSB

16 Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.