Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from the book of
First Timothy. The apostle Paul wrote two letters
to a young preacher, a student of his, named Timothy. And this
is the first letter. And in chapter one is where I'm
going to go. And the title of the message
is Godly Edifying. And I took that title from verse
four of 1 Timothy chapter one, where the apostle wrote in 1
Timothy one and verse four, neither give heed to fables, endless
genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying, which
is in faith. Godly edifying. And that's what
I wanna talk to you about today. In preaching the word of God,
preaching the gospel and its particulars, its implications,
the issues that spring forth from the gospel, the good news
of salvation, how God saves sinners by his free, sovereign, effectual
grace based upon the glorious person, and the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ who is God-man, God manifest
in the flesh, and the work that he accomplished as the surety,
the substitute, the redeemer, and the preserver of his people
by his obedience unto death on the cross, shedding his blood
as a complete payment for all the sins of all of his sheep.
not everyone without exception, but all of his sheep, God's elect,
the church, he gave himself for the church, redeemed with his
precious blood, establishing the very righteousness of God,
which is the entire merit of his obedience unto death. which
God the Father has imputed, charged, accounted to all of his people
and from whence they have life from the dead. And so that's
the good news of how God saves sinners, how he blesses and keeps
and preserves us under glory by his grace through the Lord
Jesus Christ. The preaching of that message
and all of the issues that go along with it, the obedience
of faith and all that, in doing that, every preacher ought to
have four goals in mind. And the first goal that we ought
to have in mind is to glorify God. That's number one. I want to preach the truth. about who God is and what God
has done, is doing, and will do according to the Word of God,
not according to man's thoughts or opinions or ideas. But I want to preach to you that
which represents and reveals God the way that He is. I don't want to lie on God. I
don't want to misrepresent Him. And we can talk about his attributes,
all the attributes of God and how they are all consistently
brought together and revealed in the way that God saves sinners
through Christ. How God is both a just God and
a savior, just and justified. That's the issue of the gospel
there. How can a holy and right, this is where the problem of
our natural state is presented. God is holy, but we're not holy,
we're sinful. And sin separates us from God. So the question comes, how can
a holy and just and righteous God remain true to himself, honor
himself, which is what he does, and still save sinners like me. In mercy and grace, how can that
happen? That question was posed in the
book of Job several times. How can a man be just with God,
be right with God? And so in so doing, Whatever
our answer is to that, number one, it must be biblical and
it must glorify God. It must exalt every attribute
of His nature. And that's why the Bible tells
us, for example, that the whole reason that God created this
universe, this world, The whole reason he put man and woman here
on earth is to glorify himself. And he will not share his glory
with another. He's jealous over his glory.
And the reason is, is because God is the only one who deserves
that glory. Man does not deserve any glory. The Bible says, let he who glorieth
glory in this, that he knows the Lord as God reveals himself. So that's number one, the goal
of preaching the gospel, the word of God, to glorify God. Number two is to exalt the Lord
Jesus Christ in the glory of His person and the power and
success of His finished work on the cross, His obedience unto
death, His bearer, His resurrection. You see, now those two go together.
The only way that we can glorify God is by understanding, looking
to, resting in, believing in salvation that God freely and
fully provides in the glorious person and the finished work
of Christ. It is through Christ in the glory
of His person and in the power and success of His finished work
that God reveals His own glory. The Bible says in Colossians
chapter two, that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, and you are complete in him. The Bible speaks in 2
Corinthians chapter four, I believe it's verse six, of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And his face meaning his person
and his work that which identifies him. You cannot glorify God apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing and understanding, believing
and resting in Christ. Sinners who seek acceptance with
God based on their works deny God, deny His glory, because
His glory shines forth in its fullness in salvation by His
grace through Christ. So number one, to glorify God. Number two, to exalt Christ in
the glory of His person and in the power of His finished work.
The third goal of preaching is the salvation of sinners. Every
message ought to be aimed at showing sinners how God saves
sinners and commanding them to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
to be saved. And what we're doing in that
is what the Bible relates it this way. We're seeking Christ's
sheep. We're seeking God's elect. We
preach to anybody who will listen. and we preach that which glorifies
God and exalts Christ and shows sinners the only way of salvation
by His grace, the narrow way that leads to life, not the broad
way that leads to destruction, not a false gospel, but the true
gospel by which the Holy Spirit has sent forth from the Father
and the Son calls sinners, God's elect, Christ's sheep out of
the world and into the Kingdom of God and we tell sinners how
God saves sinners and we tell sinners this salvation is for
anyone who wants it. Anybody who wants it can have
it and will have it The problem is, is that we're so sinful and
depraved by nature, having fallen in Adam, into a state of sin
and death and depravity, none of us by nature, as we are naturally
born, none of us by nature want it, want salvation, God's way. By nature, we want it our own
way, a way that gives us room to glory and boast, as if we
make the difference between saved and lost, and not God alone through
Christ alone. So understand that. I desire,
when I preach to you, I desire to see sinners saved from their
sins. But I do know that nobody out
there wants salvation God's way until God changes their hearts. And that's what the new birth
is all about. That's why Christ said you must be born again or
you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.
That's why he told the disciples, blessed are your ears for they
hear, blessed are your eyes for they see. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them,
they're spiritually discerned. But those who are called in the
power of God through the preaching of the gospel and the power of
the Spirit, the gospel becomes the power of God unto salvation. To every one that believeth,
Jew or Gentile, doesn't matter, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the
just shall live by faith. Now the fourth goal gets to my
subject today. Not only do we want to glorify
God, we want to exalt Christ, we want to see sinners saved.
We can't save them now, but we're instruments of preaching the
gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation for those
whom God chose before the world began and gave to Christ. And
Christ said, they'll come to me. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. The fourth goal is the edification
of God's people. And that's what Paul's talking
about here. Let's look at our passage here, 1 Timothy chapter
1. It says in verse 1, Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior
and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope, Christ is my hope. Christ is our Savior, our hope,
the assurance of salvation. And he's writing this, verse
two, unto Timothy, my own son in the faith. Paul looked at
Timothy as being his own son. That's the relationship they
had. Paul was the old apostle. who'd been through so much. Timothy
was the young evangelist and he became a pastor too. He spent
several years in Ephesians, Ephesus, speaking to the Ephesians, teaching
them. And he says, grace, mercy, and
peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. This is
Paul's usual salutation. It's all what he's telling them,
what I'm gonna tell you from now on in this letter. In this
epistle, it's all based upon the grace of our God, his mercy
towards us, and the peace which comes to us through Christ. Peace with God. God reconciled
to his people, his people reconciled to God. And he says in verse
three, as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, that's
where Paul had taken Timothy, to Ephesus. to be a help to the
believers in the Ephesian church. And he left him there. And he said, I'm telling you
to stay there. Verse three, when I went into
Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no
other doctrine. Now, what we're gonna see here
is this teaching no other doctrine. has to do with teaching nothing
but the word of God, the truth of God, mainly the gospel of
God. And so if anyone came into the
church or anyone within the church began to teach other doctrines
that are contrary to the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of his
person, the doctrine of his finished work, the doctrines of faith
and repentance and obedience and perseverance. Anybody who
came in teaching those things that are contrary, that is just
like in the churches of Galatia, they brought in other gospels,
which were not another, false gospels, false gospels of salvation
by works, the works and the wills of men, Salvation conditioned
in some way at some stage to some degree on sinners and not
on Christ alone. Salvation that man could accomplish
through his own personal goodness or determination. False gospels,
don't teach them. Timothy, don't allow others to
come into the church at Ephesus and teach these other doctrines
which are false. Deadly. Heresies. So teach no
other doctrine. And look at verse four. He says,
neither give heed to fables. And you know what a fable is.
You know, we grew up learning Aesop's fables. Well, what he's
talking about here is things which lead sinners to believe
a lie. That's what the fable is. He's
not talking about animal stories here like Aesop. But anything
that someone would teach that would lead you or me or inside
us to believe a lie, believe something that's not true about
God, not true about ourselves, not true about Christ and salvation. So don't give heed to fables
and don't give heed to endless genealogies. Now, why are genealogies
important? You know, a lot of people, they
really think that salvation comes genealogically. The Jews were
big on that. One of their main reasons for
claiming to be true children of God was their genealogy as
connected back to Abraham. We be Abraham's seed, they would
say. And Christ told them in John
chapter eight, He said, well, I know you're Abraham's seed
physically, but you give no evidence of being Abraham's seed spiritually. Believers, true believers, sinners
saved by grace, those who stand before God, washed in the blood
of Christ, clothed in His righteousness imputed, and given the gift of
faith, have a spiritual relationship to Abraham, whether you be a
Jew or a Gentile. And that means this, Abraham
is your brother. Now, sometimes Abraham is called
the father of the faithful. Well, we know Abraham is not
the holy father, that's God. Don't ever call any man on earth
father in a spiritual sense. Catholic priests, the Pope, they're
not fathers in a spiritual sense. Paul told Timothy, he said, I
consider you my son in the faith. He's not talking about that he
was the one who brought about Timothy's salvation. Only God
the father can do that. You understand. But Abraham is
the father of the faithful in the sense that he is a supreme
example of how God justifies the ungodly. You can read about
that in Romans chapter four. But he's not the spiritual progenitor
of Timothy or anybody. Abraham was a sinner saved by
grace. But he's used in the Bible as a supreme example, prime example,
of how God saves sinners according to the promise. And the promise
that God gave to Abraham was to send Christ, the Messiah,
into the world to establish the only righteousness whereby God
could justify the ungodly. So don't get into these endless
genealogies, he said, which minister questions. In other words, they
just raise questions in your mind. but they don't settle any
issues, they don't answer any questions. And he says, rather
than godly edifying, which is in faith, so do. Now godly edifying
has to do with teaching the word of God by which God's children
who have been born again, who are justified by the grace of
God in Christ, That means they are forgiven of all of their
sins on a just ground, which is the blood of Christ. And it
means they have been declared righteous in God's sight on a
just ground, which is the imputed righteousness of Christ. So they
have a right standing with God. And it also is referring to those
who have been born again by the Spirit. See, even those who are
justified before God start out in this world in a state of ungodliness,
depravity, unbelief. But at some point in time, God
sends the Spirit to bring them under the gospel and give them
life from the dead, spiritual life. They must be born again.
They must be given a new heart, the mind, the affections, the
will, a new conscience. And that's under the preaching
of the gospel applied to the conscious, which is the spiritual
application of that great knowledge of how God saved me and keeps
me by his grace through Christ. Brings me in submission to the
righteousness of Christ. And so he talks about, promote godly edifying, which
is in faith. That is, it's based on the word
of God and given to those who are looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of their faith. And what this edifying is, is
encouraging them, reassuring them, establishing them in the
faith, and enabling them to grow in grace and in knowledge of
Christ. That's what godly edifying is
all about. It doesn't confuse. It doesn't
gender more questions that we can't answer. You know, people
say, well, we'll just find out in the end. Well, there's some
things we'll find out in the end, but he's talking about preaching
those solid truths of the word of God, of how God saves sinners,
how God keeps us, how God motivates us by the Spirit through Christ
to obedience, to perseverance, to live lives that are godly
and honoring to Christ as disciples of Christ, to help others, to
teach others, to be a positive influence in the kingdom of God. That's godly edifying. Anything
else is deadly. And so we preach the gospel seeking
the edification of God's people. There's your four goals to glorify
God, exalt Christ, honor Him, to seek the salvation of sinners,
and to edify the people of God. I heard a preacher one time make
this statement, and he's talking about the Great Commission. Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Tell him he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He
that believeth not shall be damned. And of course, in that verse,
he's not saying that baptism, believer's baptism is necessary
for salvation, but it is a confession of that which has been brought
about by God. And he said that the church needs
to go out into the world and preach the gospel. Well, that's
true. And he made this statement. He said, we are not called to
be keepers of the aquarium. We're called to be fishers of
men. Well, we who believe the gospel,
the true church, we are called to be fishers of men. Preach
the gospel to the lost. Be evangelistic. That's what
it is. That's why we have this TV program
here at our church. That's why we're on the internet.
We have a website. We have preaching messages. That's
why we interact with other churches where the gospel is preached
around the world. And we promote that. We have
missionaries. All of that. Because we're to
be fishers of men. We're not to be a closed, secret
society. We're not a cult. We follow Christ. And He said, go ye in all the
world. But we are also to be keepers of the aquarium. Those
fish, you might say it this way, those fish which Christ by the
Spirit catches and brings into the fold, the aquarium, we're
to be godly edifiers of those who are in the aquarium. We're
to preach those things which establishes their hearts in the
faith of God's elect. And that is to cause them to
look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And he
says this, look at verse five. Now this is all in line with
godly edifying. He says, now the end of the commandment
is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and
of faith unfeigned. Now think about that. The end
of the commandment. Now he's not talking about the
Ten Commandments here, even though the moral platitudes, the moral
laws are always in force as far as believers who are to honor
God. We're to love God perfectly,
love our neighbors as ourselves. We fail now, but we're to try,
we're to make an effort realizing that none of our efforts make
us righteous. I should try my best to love
my neighbor as myself, even my worst enemies. But my friend,
I've got to tell you, I don't do that 100%. I don't do that
perfectly. and I have to constantly fight
my flesh, which wants vengeance and hatred and all of that. It's
a battle within. And that tells me this, my only
righteousness before God is the perfection of the law that can
only be found in Christ. Christ is my righteousness before
God. I ought to love God perfectly,
love my neighbors, myself, all of that. But he's talking about
this commandment here that he's given Timothy to stay there at
Ephesus, teach these people, don't teach any other doctrine,
and do those things which promote godly edifying, and the end of
that commandment, the fulfillment of it, the goal of it is love. Love God, love the neighbor,
love the truth. Love Christ's sheep, love Christ
and love his truth. You know, in 2 Thessalonians
2, he speaks of those who perish because they receive not the
love of the truth. But the goal of the commandments
of God is to bring sinners to love God and love Christ out
of a pure heart, that's a heart cleansed by the blood of Christ,
cleansed from the guilty conscience. And he says, and a good conscience
and a faith unfeigned. And we'll talk about that later.
But that's godly edifying that brings sinners to be established
in the faith, hearts established with grace, motivated by grace
and gratitude and love, and looking to Christ for all salvation.
I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.