first letter to Timothy and continue
there as we learn from the Lord in
his word. I want to read the first chapter
so that we have all of the context in our minds and ears this morning. 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 in Christ Jesus our Lord. 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. 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. 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 mothers and fathers and
murderers, 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. I thank
Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because
He judged me fateful, appointing me to His service, though formerly
I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I
received mercy, because I'd acted ignorantly in unbelief and the
grace of our Lord overflowed from me with the faith and love
that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and
deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of who I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this
reason. that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display his
perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe
in him for eternal life. To the king of ages, immortal,
invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This charge I entrust to
you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously
made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,
holding the faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this,
some have made a shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus
and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may
learn not to blaspheme." There's still so much. I don't know how
long I'll be here. I really don't. I thought it
would be a simple moving right along type thing. So we see and
are reminded of the tone of the letter, the occasion of the letter,
what Paul's intentions are, what he's hoping to accomplish. And
what was really happening there is that there were these two
men who were upsetting the faith of some. And their motives were
speculative. Their motives were so that other
people would agree with them. Their motives were to get people
engaged in such a way that they would walk alongside them and
their point of view in an attempt to steer the church to look and
act and think and feel in a way that Paul had not instructed
them. Now this sounds disastrous and it was as it is today in
our present circumstances. our present life and throughout
all of church history. This type of thing has happened
over and over again and it will continue to happen until the
Lord of Glory condemns all those who do not belong to Him and
establishes life eternal with Him for all those for whom He
died. When we think about the stress
that Paul must have been under the persecution, the malicious
maligning and gossip and slander and then Timothy being Paul's
protege and his youth as we'll see as we continue to look through
these letters. Imagine what they would have gone through had they
had social media in the first century. The sin that lies deep within
the souls of men. is on display continually. And the wickedness of it is that
it's on display in the name of Christ. Paul would have had a Facebook
page had he had social media. Paul would have had a Twitter
handle full, full, full. Paul would have been followed
in his podcast and his YouTube and everything else. The books
that Paul would have published through Amazon would have broken
down the servers and people would have flocked to him. And his
ministry would be one of what? I mean, look at this. I was a
blasphemer. I was a persecutor. I was an
insolent opponent. Of whom? Of Christ. At the beginning
of our service this morning, we read the conversion of Paul. We saw in the scripture where
Paul was going through every town, listening and asking and
inquiring, do you know this man? Do you know that man? Do you
know these people? And digging and persecuting and having the
authority by the law. to seize them, to arrest them,
to separate them, to put them in prison and have them executed
for their crimes of following Christ. And even when Paul was saved
by the grace of God that overwhelmed him. We'll read that in a minute. God Himself, Christ, speaks to
Ananias. What does Ananias say to God? Certainly not this man. Yes,
I have heard. He's destroying us. He's hurting
us. And Christ says to Ananias, I am going to have him know how
much he must suffer for my name's sake, that he might be the apostle
to the Gentiles and to the people and to the children and to the
kings of Israel. So when Paul writes this letter,
he is not irate, indignant. He is not murderous at heart.
He does not want to show Alexander and Hymenaeus his divine eye
of absolute authority and superiority. He wants them to change. He wants them to change that
they would not devote themselves to these things and that they
would not teach these things. And when that took place, he
would have rejoiced because there would be great unity. And Paul looks at these two men
as he sees himself. Therein lies the problem of misunderstanding
the gospel. When we misunderstand the gospel,
our testimony is often humanistic. When we misunderstand, we also
misapply the gospel. And when we misapply the gospel,
we don't love people. We don't submit to the scripture.
We don't live in silent service to one another, but we make known
our thoughts. We accuse. We write our own narratives. We believe a lie. And then we
get as many as can be obtained through whatever means to come
around and do the same with us. For then when others are walking
in our beliefs, we feel justified. Was that not Paul? Did Paul not
spend his entire days before his conversion, longing to see
purity in the household of God, longing to see doctrine firmly
planted in the right place. Could you imagine the tenacity
of Paul? Could you imagine someone who
calls themselves according to the law of obedience, perfect
to the Philippians? According to the law, he says,
I was blameless. In other words, there was no
man breathing on the planet who could bring a charge against
Paul. For what Paul was doing was out of burden and concern
for righteousness. The problem is Paul did not know
righteousness if it had slapped him in the face. And in order
for him to know it, it had to slap him in the face. So when we read Timothy, when
we read this letter, we cannot divorce the reality that Paul
sees himself in these men. That's why he says it. The point
of this introduction is not to establish this strong, tactical,
soldier-like, war-minded heroism against this uncanny, unholy,
satanic false teaching. He wants to remind Timothy that
he was just like them. He was just like them. And that what God can do is greater
than any man could ever perform. God's prescription in scripture
for his work and his people to correct error and to reveal sin
and to bring to salvation and all the things related to his
sovereign grace are his to do. But beloved, I imagine there
were many committees in First Ephesus. I imagine there were
some meetings in First Ephesus. I imagine there was some camel
calms. Hey, watch out! And Paul told them all to shut
down and to serve. See, this is a letter to an elder
and the elder is instructed what to instruct the people. When pastors, elders, much different
than preachers, preachers are not shepherds. Anybody can blah,
blah, blah, blah, regurgitate, okay? Anybody can teach. There
is a giftedness to it to some degree. Paul was not gifted in
teaching, he was not. Matter of fact, he probably could
not even speak a sentence clearly for he expresses himself in such
a way that I did not sometimes come and speak plausibly. So
when I sound like a buffoon, I'm thinking maybe I'm sort of
like Paul, which happens often. And Paul was a shepherd and an
apostle, and he taught the shepherds of the church to shepherd the
people. We herald righteousness by preaching
the gospel. And the scriptures, as they give
the gospel, we remind the church of the foundation of grace. That
we are saved by grace and the gift of faith is ours to hold
and to experience. That it points to the finished
work of Christ and we are at peace with God and we are clothed
with a righteousness that is not our own because of what God
did to crush His Son. And yet, what does Paul tell
Timothy to tell the people? Do not rebuke an older man, young
man. Don't you dare say a word to
a man older than you. Don't you dare tell anybody anything
about him that could damage his character, reputation. How dare
you, you pathetic man. You see, don't ever rebuke anyone
who's older than you. Isn't that crazy? Well, there goes my Facebook
page. Deactivate Twitter. You know, one of the most ungodly
things that exists in the world today is when people like me
think that God's called me to make my entire ministry on what
is not right. How good is that? It's like the
old gag I heard many years ago, and I thought it was so clever
and funny, never could find it again. They wanna get you to
watch the rest of the news, so they put the weather at the end,
right? 90 commercials, 10 minutes worth of news. And I saw this
broadcast, and it was a gag, it was a joke, but basically,
you know, this guy sitting there, tonight at six, blah, blah, blah,
or special alert, you could be eating something for dinner that
could kill you. You might be eating it right now. So you said
eight, I mean. And we live in that fear and
that anxiety of what is not true. Let me tell you something, beloved.
Anytime we are operating in any spiritual way of living out the
gospel and it comes from fear, anxiety or horror or terror,
it is of Satan. It is demonic. Ephesians 6, tell
us it is not against flesh and blood, but it is against the
principalities and the powers of darkness that Christ has crushed
and overcome. Call that which God calls what
God calls it. And so Paul is not fighting against
Alexander and Hymenaeus. He's fighting against the enemy
who is already lost. So you know what Paul's spirit
was? I'm good. I'm at peace. You know, even when we're upset
or angry, we can be at peace. How do we know we're at peace?
Because we respond in faith. We respond in letting and informing
our emotions that God is sovereign and that he will work this out,
not in my way or through me, but in his purposes and timing.
And it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't have to be knuckleheads
who are tearing the church apart in Ephesus. It doesn't have to
be an elder that's too young to be a pastor. Who doesn't really have the chops
to know how to do it, so Paul had to teach him how to do it.
It doesn't have to be. You know, it could be your work.
It could be your marriage. It could be your own mind and
the way you think it could be your health. It could be whatever
it might be. It could be the loss of a loved one. It could
be all these things. But rest assured, beloved, that God is sovereign over it
all. God is sovereign. And that doxology that Paul gives
to the king of ages, What king is over the king of ages? No
king at all. So what king should we fear?
The king of ages. And what does the king of ages
say about fearing him? Fear not, for I am with you.
The psalmist would even say, your rod and your staff comfort
me. And you lead me. Not shove me, not throw me, not
kick me. You lead me. into green pastures and by the
still water, this tranquility, this peacefulness that the God
of grace gives and grants his people. But our flesh is at war.
The enemy is always snarling and he always uses others in
the midst of us and even ourselves to put us in great fear and anxiety. There is never a time when a
child of God should fear anything or anyone or any circumstance,
yet we do. There's never a time where we
should be suspicious of people and wondering, God's going to
get me if I don't do something about it. No, He is not. And
because of that, I know when that is the place that that person
does not know, nor does he or she understand, nor can they
apply the gospel of free and sovereign grace. You see? But yet we're all going to fall
into that. What? So how do we overcome those things?
When our flesh rams up against God's sovereignty, the Word of
God comforts us. The people of God have been prescribed
to be together that we may equip and minister to each other. To
meet one another's needs in such a way that the world looks on
and says, this is odd. This doesn't make sense. How
are you at peace? It surpasses all understanding. Remember, we talked about that
text last week. So Paul's intentions were reconciliation. Paul's intentions were unity.
Paul's intentions were that the elders wage the good warfare
by teaching and instructing both positive and negative doctrine.
To correct, to rebuke, to train. What are some other things that
the church is told to do? You regard the older man as you
would your father. And didn't you regard your younger
men as you would your brother? Older women as mothers, younger
women as sisters, in all purity. You know, as a father, as parents,
for those of you who are parents, you have had a season in your
life where your children were almost grown. You know what that
means? Almost grown. They're grown. They look in the
mirror, and they're like, man, I'm grown. And then they come
out, and they try to assert that grown-ness. And you remind them
very quickly, they ain't grown. Why? Go to your room. Give me
your phone. If you was grown, you wouldn't have a room here,
and that would be your phone. You see what I mean? You ain't
grown? You got a mustache? That don't mean nothing. I know
some boys shaving at 12. It don't mean nothing. And sometimes
they tell you what you're doing wrong. Don't you love that? Don't
you love when a kid tells you how to parent? Well, you know,
a good parent, or if this, mm-hmm, I wish I had had like a, a permanent
hover camera following me around. It'd be very incriminating. It
would be awful, disastrous. But there's some good spots in
there I would love to have recorded. How I responded to some of that
knuckleheadedness through the years. It would just be, it would
be great to see it again, you know? It'd make good, I'd have
a good YouTube channel. But they try to tell ya. I'm
trying to tell you how it is. And there's not necessarily the
language, not necessarily the words that come out of their
mouths, but it's the attitude within their heart that's the
problem, right? Well, I know better than this
guy. God's shown me more than this
guy. I'm smarter than this guy. I
know better, better than this guy. I'm living a better life
than this guy. to be humble. Hey, what are you... And you get become Socrates,
right? For those of you who understand the Socratic method. You're just
asking questions, you know. Drive-by questions. It's called
the punch in the back of the head. It's a rebuke by default. So the letter here tells the
elders what to tell the church. Honor widows, those who are truly
widows. Those who truly can't take care
of themselves. And so on and so forth. There's
a lot of things. Let all who are under a yoke
as bond servants regard their masters as worthy of all honor.
I mean, that's strong, isn't it? That is completely not woke,
whatever that means today. It means a lot to a lot of people,
and I'm not making fun of that. We need to wake up and see some
stuff, right? We need to wake up and see the
scripture. We need to wake up and understand how to read it.
And that's my job. That's the elders job. Dave Barnes, Jesse Bates, James
Tippins. The men who in agreement in all
things do what is best for this church, according to the scripture. Urge these things. Urge these things. Urge these
things, Paul will tell Timothy. Tell these believers to lay down
their opinions. Tell these believers to lay down
their false teachings. Tell these believers to lay down
all the divisions. Tell these believers to listen
to what I've told you to tell them, and if they don't, warn
them again sharply. And if they don't, obey the prescription
of my letter, have nothing else to do with them until they do.
You see? Have you ever had a friend tell
you to get lost? I have. Right to my face. And it was hard. And then I realized
how important what I was talking about was to him. I'm not You're
hurting my feelings and what you're trying to do is ugly.
And that's, I was thinking about that this past week. I'm gonna
start saying that to people. What you're doing is ugly, it's mean.
Because see, we can hide behind sin, right? That's sinful. Oh, you know, I got the grace
of God. We move right into Romans eight. When I tell you you're ugly,
oh gosh, that's an affront. Because we'd rather sin against
God who's gracious than be ugly or mean or hateful. But being ugly, mean and hateful
is a sin against God. And anyone who doesn't teach you how you
ought to live the gospel together is not a gospel minister. But anyone who binds you to obedience
in order for you to be in heaven is also not a gospel minister.
There's no good news in any of it, see. Paul was Alexander. Paul was Hymenaeus. Hymenaeus. Hymenaeus. However
you want to say that. I don't know where to put the
accent. That's who he was. And the emphasis he puts here
is that there is a God who sent his son to save sinners of which
he was the foremost. And when we see the teaching
of Paul in this text, and then we look at the narrative that
Dr. Luke wrote concerning Paul. And we see like, you know, the
sermon of Timothy, right? Timothy was a slave of Christ,
a servant to the people of Christ, because there was a lot of administrative
things to do in the body of Christ. And the elders are not supposed
to do those things. The deacons, those who hold the
office of deacon, are supposed to oversee those things. And
that's something that we're learning very clearly through trial and
error. So we're remedying that. picking back up where we were
from two years ago to remedy that, to install deacons in our
fellowship. Stephen was a deacon, and Stephen
was a humble man, and Stephen didn't speak out against anybody,
and Stephen did the work that God had called him to, and Stephen
was considered a righteous person in his life. and they couldn't
stand it because he followed the prescription of the apostles
and he did what was right according to the teachings of Jesus. And
they, people, the Pharisees, knew that if they could upset
the apple cart by getting rid of some guys like Stephen, they'd
be making some ground. The blowhards are never a problem
in following Christ. Think about that for a second. The bolsterous guys that are
always jawing. The women who are always aggravated. The men who are always sinister.
They're really not the problem. The enemy doesn't want them out
of the way. That's the ones he uses. Brothers and sisters, he uses
us like that. But that humble servant that does nothing but
stand for truth by serving. and loving people and guiding
them and teaching them with all patience. You know, if you teach
the scripture and you have any authority over the church and
telling them what they must do, you must be qualified to do so
according to Christ. And so, that qualification comes with
gentleness and patience and long-suffering. Endure evil with all patience.
That's hard to do, beloved. It is not within me. When Paul
says here that I thank Christ for my strength, he's saying
Christ is the only strength he has. And so when Stephen, man,
he preached the whole gospel from creation to the point to
where they stood, and then he says something to this crowd,
he says, you stiff-necked, uncircumcised, in hardened ears, you always
resist the Holy Spirit. You know what's crazy? Everybody
wants to be a Stephen. But you know when he said that?
By the sovereignty of God that he may have his head bashed open
with a rock. And his brain spilled out. And I'm sorry to be graphic,
but that's what stoning is. It's not pelting people that
go, ow, ooh, ooh, neosporin. No, he died. He was murdered. Because when you do what the
Lord calls us to, sometimes people murder you. And if it's not by
rocks, it's by words. If it's not on the street, it's
on social media. And they're always evil in their practice,
even if they are made righteous by grace. As your fathers did, so do you.
Which one of you, the prophets, did your fathers not persecute?
Stephen asks. And they killed those who announced
before them the coming of the righteous one, whom you've now
betrayed and whom you've now murdered. You who receive the
law is delivered by angels and did not keep it. And they could
not stand it. So they closed their ears and
yelled so they could not hear anything against what was being
done and threw rocks. Rocks. And I don't think we should call
them rocks in South Georgia. Rocks in South Georgia are what
you skip across the lake or the pond. Rocks are what you throw
at a dog if you don't want it to chase you. These are rocks.
These are rocks that took muscle to pick up. 10 pounds, 15 pounds,
20 pounds, 30 pounds. And then they threw them on top
of him. And you understand stoning is that when the rocks were through
being thrown, there was nothing but a pile of rocks like a gravestone
and that's where you stayed. That's why they drug you outside
the city. Because if anybody took you out
from under those rocks and buried you properly, they too would
be dragged out and stoned. Church division, you better believe
it. Yet there were people. He looked up and he says, I see
Jesus Christ. I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand
of the Majesty on high. And they killed him where he
sat. And then some unknown people made much to do about Stephen's
death, took his body, carried it through the streets, lamenting
loudly. and buried, never to be heard from again. We don't even know their names. They weren't long enough to be
tagged, they didn't live long enough to be tagged. In chapter 8 of Acts it says,
and then Saul approved of this execution and there arose On
that day, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem,
and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.
They had to run for their lives, except the apostles. Devout men
buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul
was ravaging the church and entering house to house, dragging by the
head, dragging by the arm, dragging by the feet, men and women, and
committed them to prison. People, before they picked up
their stones to follow suit to kill Stephen, they laid their
garments at the feet of Saul to show legally that what they
were doing was authorized by the Sanhedrin. And now this man is telling the
elders of Christ's church how to operate, how to deal with
conflict. Why? Why? Because the minute that we think
we have what someone else doesn't have, and the minute that we
think we are the great licensed persecutor of God's people or
the protector of God's people in any prescription outside of
what Paul and James and Peter and those have written to us,
we make ourselves to be God. And beloved, there's no hope
in that. There's no peace in that. And so the only hope we
have in any of it is the hope that we've been given by grace,
sovereign and free. Listen to this. I received mercy. The latter part of verse 13 of
1 Timothy 1. I received mercy. And we've talked
about grace. We've talked about grace being
greater than the anxiety of our circumstances. We've talked about
grace being effectual unto salvation. Now we see that Paul never forgot. He never misapplied the gospel
because he knew who he was. But when he was what he was,
he couldn't see what he was. Now I want you to hear that for
a second. Let me say that again. When he was what he was, a blasphemer,
a persecutor, a hater, he couldn't see what he was at that time.
But when the grace of God came, what did he see? Paul had the
law, but he couldn't see his sin. Paul had the truth in the
prophets, but he couldn't see the Savior. There's an outline
there. Let me come up with another one. Paul knew it. But he says, because I acted
ignorantly in unbelief. That's what unbelief is, ignorance
of righteousness. Unbelief is ignorance of grace.
Unbelief is ignorance of the gospel. Unbelief is ignorance. Now, it's not the same thing
as saying that I have a weak faith or that I'm having a moment
of unbelief that is God gonna get me through this? See, God
hasn't promised to always fix our circumstances, has he? But
God has always promised to get us through them, even if it's
death. Stephen got the grand prize. He trusted the Lord in
the midst of great trial. And he received exactly what
God had promised him. A rock to the head and eternal
life. And the grace of the Lord overflowed
from me with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus.
See, God's grace overflowed in Paul and he has so much faith. He has faith to believe in the
faithfulness of Jesus. He has the love of God that takes
away all fears. And the very next thing he says,
the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom
I am the foremost." Now I want you to think about this a second.
This is the closing argument for his outline for this entire
letter. He is saying, listen, what we
want for Alexander and Hymenaeus is for God's grace to overwhelm
them. that they may be, one, either
brought back to the truth and get away from this sin, or two,
be born again to the truth. Jesus came in to save sinners. So why would Paul not be a great
candidate for salvation? You see, that's the trouble,
isn't it, in our culture. That's the trouble. We put so
much emphasis on salvation experiences, time and date of conversion.
And I know some of you understand that and know that. I know some
of you have had really hard lives or been in a place where you
knew you were deep in sin, but sometimes those testimonies are,
God changed my life. He took me out of drunkenness
to soberness. Okay, great. Give the Lord credit for bringing
you into that, but that's not eternal life. Being sober is
not being born again. I know a lot of regenerate people
who are drunks. You see. And anyone who says,
well, they're not born again, they don't know the gospel either
in that moment. They're not applying it correctly.
So we have to be taught the implications of the gospel. We have to be
instructed. And we're not going to know that which we haven't
been taught. And we're not going to know that which we haven't
studied. God, this Holy Spirit, does not, through closed Bibles,
teach anybody anything at all. We're not Gnostics, there's no
divine spark. There's no extra special hidden
movement of the Holy Spirit that we go to bed dumb and wake up
smart. Go to bed ignorant, wake up with
knowledge. It doesn't work like that. Even we who, musicians
wise, that can look at a piece of music and then wake up with
it memorized, we still had to have the source. You see, you
have to look at it. Even geniuses who can memorize
everything, they have to see the source. Beloved, the same
is true for the gospel. would have said he was in the
gospel. He was waiting for Messiah. He
did say that. That's the point. That was his
role. But yet he couldn't see the Messiah standing in front
of him. Why? Because as Jesus tells us in John 3, it is not
of man to see. It is not of man to live. It is not in man to choose to
believe. Believing isn't a choice of man. Believing is a gift of God. Because
anytime we can logically break down something by which we can
see if it's worthy of belief, we have done that on our own
and then we want to give credit for it. Thank you God, I'm not
like that guy who knows not this doctrine. Well, guess what? The one who says, oh God, propitiate
for me. That's the one who's been born
of God, not the one who has it. Or who says they have it. Self-righteousness comes in many
forms. Paul was a self-righteous person.
Then God took him out of darkness, blinded his eyes, gave him spiritual
sight, and set him on a trajectory to suffer as no man has ever
suffered for several reasons. One, because through suffering
comes great reward. Secondly, because through suffering
comes great humility. And finally, through suffering,
we see the power of God only in Paul's life. And there's probably
a lot more that I could think of if I had an hour. And that just comes from what
Paul said. I delight in my suffering. I fill up what is lacking in
the suffering of Christ for your sake, that is for the church, you know. Why would God save Saul? Because
only God could save Saul. Saul is an elect person. Saul
is one that God has foreknown before the foundation of the
world. Saul is one for whom Christ died and he hated Christ. And Christ came to save sinners. A testimony of grace is one that
says Christ has saved me. This Christ. What Christ? This
Christ. What gospel message? This message. This truth. This is the truth. And when Paul was born again,
it baffled the world. It baffled the world of the way,
right? I mean, do you ever really trust a guy that tried to kill
your family? I know I was trying to kill you and all, but we good,
right? I got Jesus now. We good? No, we ain't good. Get
out of my yard. I mean, I'm sorry. And Ananias
wasn't going to be like that either. None of the others were
going to be like that. So Jesus had to give Ananias a vision. Because unless Jesus pops up
in here and tells me to trust certain people, we're not going
to trust them. Who? The guy tried to kill me
and my family. He killed my grandparents and all my dogs. And he arrested
all my neighbors. I don't believe this guy. I think
this is another conniving way. He ain't blind. Throw a rock
at him. I mean, can you see the test? I guess he is. Jesus had to bring it to pass.
God had to bring it to pass. This mercy that God has given
Saul is a testimony to God's grace. You see, it's one of the
greatest pictures of conversion that's ever been recorded. Yes, we're all haters of God.
Yes, we're all haters of grace. Yes, but we're not persecuting
God's people. And did you know the way the
first century Christians weren't out there trying to deal, nobody
was out there propagating what Paul was all about and what the
Sanhedrin were all about and where they, they weren't tenacious. I'm telling you, Phineism, for
those of you who know history, has destroyed evangelism. The evangelical church, I don't
think, has had evangelism correct since its inception. And I don't want to get on that.
But I think we need to understand that God is the evangelist. God is the evangelist. His word
is the evangel. The good news, the good report,
the story of goodness. His word contains then the intricate
parts and the myopic details of a specific Savior, this God-man
who took on flesh and who became like the creation to save a particular
people for himself by sacrificing himself to be the penalty and
the payment of law-breaking. So that God's wrath is finished,
it's satisfied. God has no more wrath for the
sinners for whom Christ died. It's been poured out and it's
finished. Every little drop is gone. We took a hair dryer and
we blew the cup out. It's dry. There's no more wrath
for those who are in Christ. None. And we know that, and Paul
is emphasizing that. And he's not saying that these
men, and especially he doesn't even name the other people who
are tagged up in this. We don't do that, beloved. This
is the fifth time I've said that in this teaching. But He does
name the men to the elders of the church that He Himself has
excommunicated from the ministry. To teach them not to blaspheme. So back to this mercy. Why in
the world, this grace, why? To show Jesus Christ, to show
as the foremost sinner that Jesus Christ might display his perfect
patience. His perfect patience. Why would
he do that? As an example to those who were
to believe in him for eternal life. You think about Paul's
testimony. It's a testimony of grace. It's not a testimony of
I was wrong, I didn't understand, I was ignorant but I was still
in Eternal life, Paul never said
that. Well, back when I was a Russellite, you know, I was still in Christ. No, you weren't. Well, back when
I, you know, did the two-step shuffle and did the turn around
into hokey pokey and raised my left hand and said, yes, I want
life, that wasn't eternal life. We care more about the fact that
how long we've been saved than rather than we are sometimes,
right? And then the Hymenaeus and the
Alexanders and the people like them sometimes care more about
who is saved and trying to prove it than they care about the gospel
anyway. So it's a double-edged sword.
We're all going to fall into these traps because the culture
inundates us. So we can come in here today
and we can spend an hour emphasizing the gospel, which is the grace
of God for salvation to save sinners, of which Paul is the
foremost. And we can find kinship and unity in that and celebrate
that with one another. And then one day when some of
you come up and say, you know what? Today I see the gospel clearly
and I've never seen it before. I rest in Christ. Because it's not the presets
that we can lay out in an outline that you say, yep, check, check,
check, I think all these are true and I know these are all
true. That isn't salvation. That isn't regeneration. And
I'm sorry that the Reformed tradition has butchered that for so many
hundreds of years. It's not salvation. For those
of you who know Presbyterian history. In the early 20th century. I'm
sorry. Having a checklist of things
you say are true is no different than checking, do you want to
accept Jesus into your heart? Yes. I'm fine. Well, where is your hope? See, God the Holy Spirit puts
a hope in us, puts a faith in us, puts a rest in us, puts an
assurance in us that isn't always solid, is it? It's like when
the wind was blowing the other day, me and Brother Tom out there.
I was feeling a little nervous. He was on the roof, I was on
the scaffold. I'm going, this thing seems a little more shaky
than it used to be. I wasn't sure of my footing. Sometimes
we don't feel sure of our footing in the gospel. And the last thing
we need is someone undoing the power of God in our lives by
trying to weed through all the nuanced things that they particularly
feel is necessary in order for them to consider you a believer. But there are some essentials.
And one of those essentials is that it is not by the will of
man. It is not by the decision of man. It is not a choice we
make. It is not an aha epiphany. Regeneration is not an aha epiphany.
The grace of God does not give us an epiphany. We get an epiphany
when we're in the shower. We get an epiphany when we read
a good book. We get an epiphany when we study and we philosophize,
we seek out the truth and we look and we think. Let's just
learn that that means thinking to seek out what we know. But Paul says the grace of God
overflowed for me, the love of God, the power of God unto salvation,
that the spirit of God stopped me in my tracks. And everything
that I thought I knew about grace and the gospel and everything
that I thought I was in Christ was manifest to be dead works. Dead works. And we give up all of that, don't
we? What does Paul say? Everything
that I had, I counted as lost. Everything that I was, I counted
as lost. Because that is what the grace
of God does. And so that those who saw me coming down the road
and went, we're gonna die, they got a message of life from Paul
instead of death. They got a message not of the
letter that kills, The irony behind that is he had a letter
from the Sanhedrin. He had a letter from the Jerusalem
Guard to give him authority to arrest people. Amazing. Just like the letter of Moses,
the letter of the law is for the wicked. It is for the destruction
of those who are sinners. It is for those who are sinners
to know that they are going to die because they are guilty. The gospel says the guilty live. Grace says justice is paid. The opposite of grace is justice.
But grace does not exist without justice. Maybe not the opposite,
but one of the antithesis. Because grace exists because
justice is satisfied. Christ displays his perfect patience. So in this way, Paul is telling
Timothy, you got to be patient with these people that Alexander
and Hymenaeus have hurt, with these people that have been disheveled,
these people who have been torn apart, these people whose emotions
are on the edge of horror and terror. Be patient. Because that's
the application of the gospel, right? If God is patient with
us, and at the opportune time when He chooses, brings us to
life to see His grace, are we not also to be patient with others
and pray that God would show them grace? And then that doxology that we
looked at last week. The king of ages, immortal, invisible,
and the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
This is why the gospel is a gospel of grace, sovereign and free.
God will administer it where he sees fit, for he is the ruler
over it all. And it is free in that he has
established every necessary payment for its disbursement. It is free. and you can't ask
for it, you can't find it under a rock, you can't dig it out
of the ocean, you can't dance and clean yourself up, you can
only be given grace. By definition, you can be given
grace, and the grace of God is the power of God unto salvation
for his people. And when it comes to us, beloved, it's just like
it was with Paul. It's just like it was with Paul.
Just like the woman from Sychar. Just like Nicodemus, though we
didn't get the record of that, did we? We just saw the gospel
preaching of Jesus. And the Holy Spirit, somewhere,
as he saw fit, gave Nicodemus sight. The question then is, what is
your testimony? Is our testimony a testimony
of this A bunch of stuff that we've done and we've discovered
and we've come up with and we've established and that we've known
and that we've learned. Or as our testimony, oh God has
given me mercy. A sinner. And you know there's no response
to that question, is there? It's just an evaluation. And
so some of us in the room today, we're like the Galatians. We've
learned the gospel. We've been taught the gospel
and through the gospel, the right gospel. You don't come to faith
through a lie and then say you're born again. That's obvious, folks. You come to faith by the truth,
according to the truth, and the truth of God's grace taught to
you and instructed to you in the context of the words of Christ.
Without the words of Christ, no one will believe. Because
what are you gonna believe? Whatever we think of. So we believe
the truth, and just like in Galatia, then some other people came in
and said, well, well, well, I don't think you are. I don't think
you're good enough. I don't think you're following
it correctly. I don't think you're, and it's everywhere. It's a new
legalism, it's a new self-righteousness, and it's under the guise sometimes
of sovereign grace, and it comes in unawares, and it upsets the
apple cart, and it captures weakness and weak people. And it captures people who are
prone to anger and frustration. It captures people who are extremely
anxious. And it upsets us all. And then
we rebel against the Father's prescription to be in fellowship
with one another and to submit to one another in service and
to submit to one another in Christ. Because our feelings have overcome
the power of God. But the question then, like the
Galatians. Some of us may be like the Galatians.
Somebody has come along and upset our focus. And we're considering
circumcision. We're considering these things.
We're considering those things. And those people are wrong. They
shouldn't do that. And as long as I breathe, I'll
do my best to protect this body from that kind of stuff. And then there's the others who
May very well not be in the faith. May lay down at night and go,
well, you know, in vacation Bible school, I checked the card and
I'm good. That big sign on the way to borough,
ABC, you know. There's a lot of people gonna
think they're saved because they recited that sign. And I've heard
it, I've heard it in the last month. I did those things, James. Why
am I still suffering? In my soul, I can't be good enough.
You said it. You said it. Now, hear the promise
of God to His people. The good news of Jesus, that
because the law is given to show you, you cannot be good enough.
And when you cannot see that, you have not been made alive.
Your only hope is the mercy of God. It's like the air is poked out
of you. I almost shudder to even share
personal things anymore from this pulpit. Because the heinousness
of self-righteous people. Beloved, don't be fearful. They hated Christ. We can't hate
others. And the very one who hated Christ
the most, God loved. God loved him and brought him
to faith. Now think about that. Does that
not change how we confess the gospel? Does that not change
how we look at others when they hurt us or upset us? Does that
not change knowing that we are or do we not see ourselves as
the sinners that we are? And even more distinctly, the
centers that we were in unbelief or self-righteousness or false
religion. Or Baptist or Methodist or reformed or whatever it might
be, whatever moniker that we or tag or label that we hung
around our neck to make us feel confident, if it's not the grace
of God in Christ, it's not the right tag. And that's not something that
we hang, it's the things that God hangs upon us. The Luke 13
or 15, the prodigal son, the father puts the name on the son
and clothes the son and celebrates the son. And that's not something that
really relates to us because it is specifically dealing with
lost Israel and their hatred of Gentiles. That's the point
of that teaching, so we don't want to impose what it's not
teaching. But the Father gives grace. The Father saves his people.
The Father is the one who put Christ on the cross to be the
satisfaction of his right. The Father is the one who sends
the Spirit to make you alive. The Father sends the Word into
the world. The Father, God Almighty. Christ, the Son, God Almighty. God, the Spirit, the Almighty. is the beginning and the end
of salvation. And Jesus will only save sinners. He cannot save people who are
not utterly lost. Because if there's anything else
in our lives that we hold to, any toehold that we have, any
net under us that is not Christ alone. It's not just a crutch. It's a death sentence. So think
about these things, beloved. Now here's Paul. He's saying,
I'm the example. So treat and entreat these who
are doing like I am and fussing and doing. And there are times,
we see in the Corinthians, there are times when the elders have
to do difficult things and the church has to do difficult things
for unrepentant sin, unchanged sin, the mind that refuses to
relent. That's what the word means. But
there's a process in all of that. And so Paul's process to Timothy
is to make sure that everyone knows what is required. And you
know what he's going to say next? He's going to entreat Timothy
and entrust Timothy to understand that there are people in the
church of Christ who make a shipwreck of their faith because they fall
away, not apostatize, not prove themselves unconverted, but fall
away. into certain sins, into certain thinking, into certain
ideas and we are to bring them close. We are to encourage and
to teach and to correct and sometimes to rebuke as the scripture gives
us instruction all the while holding fast by faith to the
grace of God who has saved us. And then we're to pray. You know what happens when we
act and speak and try to manipulate other people in our lives to
come alongside our ideas and understanding of things? We don't
trust the Lord. But when we pray, we let Him
have it. Which is sovereign? Our actions
or the Lord's? So beloved, as we finish up today
and as we think about these practical things, it can be very flustering. Because
we can come to say, oh, wow, I'm a mess. I'm not doing it
right. Amen. We all tell the truth when we
say that. And then we can all tell the truth and be settled
in our spirit to know that Christ has saved us. His perfection is ours. His obedience
is ours. His righteousness is ours. His
death is ours. His life is ours. His glory,
listen to this, is ours. For as He is, we also will be. We will share in the glory of
Christ. Why? Not because of how faithful we
are, not because of how good we've been, not because of how
transformative the gospel has been to us, but only because
Christ in His mercy gave Himself for us. So we rest therein, and
that is our only hope. That is the testimony of grace.
And it should inform every word, thought, and deed that flows
through us. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for the opportunity to hear and to think. Father, you've written
your word that we might only not learn, but also think. So
help me think and help the church think. And Father, we ask that you put
a stop to the nonsense in our world. If it be your will, in
whatever pocket or circle or corner, that you'd put a stop
to the sinfulness of your people. That you would bring us to a
place of hope and confidence and grace and to apply the gospel
in our lives by submitting to you. trusting in you to serve your
purposes for all of these things. And Lord, even when things aren't
going our way and we find ourselves in the midst of things, Father,
help us to then realize we can just rest. And Father, there will be people
who in this world will hear things about wars and politics and finances
and people and celebrities. and all sorts of stuff and we
find ourselves inundated with just a bunch of nonsense that
doesn't matter. Even though people's lives are
important, even though circumstances are important. Father, you have
ordained it and you have forbidden your people to be called up in
all of this paranoia, all of this anxiety, all of this stress. And the more we eat, the worse
it is. And then we cry out to you to help us. But Father, we
sit down at the table of grace and we push it aside and we devour
the world. Lord, keep us from our love of
the world. And when our heart condemns us,
Lord, you promise that you're greater than our heart. So bring
us back to your word. Show us the gospel. Help us to
forgive one another. Help us to be reconciling to
each other as we're able, as long as it is up to us. And that
when we offer an invitation for reconciliation, Lord, and someone
bites our hand, that is not our fault. We are to shake the dust
off our sandals and continue to move, knowing that you are
sovereign in all these circumstances. Father, help us to share our
needs with each other. Hiding and being silent and being
hurt is not of Your Spirit. But confessing our sins, confessing
our needs, expressing our concerns and understanding in a safe place
to know no one will be condemned for it. But Lord, we often condemn
ourselves because of the way we act and the way we judge. So give us the grace, as you
have saved us by it, to continue in it, one day at a time. And we thank you for your mighty
work of salvation through the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
In his name we pray, amen.