Church sidebar, and so we will
be coming back to that periodically over the next year, Trey and
I both. But now, since we are where we
are in some of the points, it's good to continue in Paul's writing
to Timothy. Thus, by design, Paul's writing
to the elders of the church. I want to reemphasize a couple
of things just generally. I want to talk about why I preach. Why I preach. And this could
be an hour of opining, but I'll keep it to a minute. I preach
because I cannot do it, cannot not do it. I preach because I
have no other thing that drives me. I have a lot of things that
can drive me, but they drive me to a wall, and that wall is
preaching. But I preach because it is the call of God as an imperative,
the call of God as an inescapable burden. But I also need you to
understand that preaching and teaching, as I said last week,
are synonymous. Preaching, though it may be public,
It is really for the church. It's for the saints. Doing the
work of an evangelist includes reminding us, as the body of
Christ, the gospel, the good story of Christ. The reality
that God will and has effectually justified in the death of Jesus
Christ through the forgiveness of sins, his people, and in time
he will give them faith to believe it. This is beautiful. and sovereign, and I preach that. The cross, what Paul would say,
I only preach the cross and Him crucified. Unless I preach anything
else and waste my life, that's what I want. There's so many
words to say, there's so many things that we must teach, but
that is the central message and the call of the true gospel believer. The call to preach is the call
of the true gospel elder. But preaching and teaching also
includes the full counsel of God's word. And as we've seen
it, I've said already probably 15 times since we've been in
Timothy. I don't even know what week this is if we were to talk
about how many sermons we've already done. But there is a
very clear distinction in scripture that the faith, as we'll see
this morning, is absolutely the teaching. The word doctrine means
teachings, okay? So the teachings about who Christ
is and what He accomplished for His people in redemption, which
is the revelation and the culmination, the reality, the end-time reality
of what God promised Adam and Eve. Through the seed of the
woman, His seed, His anointed one. that He would send. You
notice that. God did not use marital relations
to bring about Jesus Christ. The one that He would send into
the world to crush the head of the serpent. That means to destroy
sin, to destroy death, to destroy the chaos of rebellion and unbelief. This is the gospel of free and
sovereign grace. It is not about what we do to
respond to the gospel or how we can argue to make people believe
the gospel. It is about what God has done
and finished is the gospel. And then we proclaim it through
preaching. And then as the church, the second part of this distinction
is that we learn to live according to the gospel of grace together.
If we deny either of those two instructions, we deny the faith,
as I'll show you this morning. We deny the faith. Do not listen
to the people who say, well, I've got my gospel right, but
I refuse this, that, this, and I'm not doing this, and I'm not
gonna obey that, and I'm not gonna submit to this person.
Sorry, doesn't work. And I have several dogmatic statements
today that some people may internalize. I wanna be sensitive to that.
I pray none of you will internalize it. I don't know of anybody who
will, I don't have a name in my head, but I know that just
by the nature of some comments that I've received over the last
few months, that some of us internalize certain things because as the
shoe fits, you see what I'm saying? And some of the worst compliments
I've ever had in preaching is at the end of the service, oh,
pastor, you stomped my foot good today. Well, I wasn't trying
to stomp your feet. That's not a compliment for me.
I'm trying to increase your joy. If God the Spirit stomps your
feet through some dogmatic assertion that I make, let it be. Don't
blame me for it. Because I'm not sitting here
all week going, how can I get this across? Yes. I mean, I'm
a fighter with my fists as a hobby, but I'm not a fighter with my
mouth to the church. I don't fight on social media
with the gospel and with the word of God. We proclaim God
fights. So I don't have to worry about
that. So why I preach is to teach and
remind the church of the gospel is to do the work of evangelism
in my life and in your life and in the life of the community
around me so that they may hear the gospel. But on the Lord's
Day, the other part of why I preach as we intersperse gospel reminders
throughout the text is that we learn to live gospel lives. Now, there's a lot of people
who are like, amen, it's time to live gospel lives. But what
they think I'm saying is to put burdens on people, to take away
their joy, to take away their pleasures, to promote asceticism,
to promote gnosticism, to promote all sorts of other isms, sisms,
and kisms, and destroy the very fabric of the blessings of life
that God has given us with each other. And I know most of us
can say, oh, I remember a time when I was there. Or some of
us may say this morning, you know what, I'm there right now.
I don't do this and I don't do that and I don't do this. You
know the old joke in middle school where the guy would be bragging
about how he's such a godly person and he doesn't do this and he
doesn't do that and he doesn't smoke and he doesn't dance and
he doesn't date women. And then he goes, oh gosh, I
left my cigarettes in the bar. And it's sort of a joke, it's
a terrible punchline. But that's the hypocrisy. We
may have all sorts of things that we think are good and profitable
in the context of what we don't do, but the example of that in
the Bible is what? The one that says, I don't do
all these things, and Jesus says that that man was not justified. That man was condemned. But the
man who said, I am a sinner, satisfy your wrath for me, that's
what he says, propitiate for me. Oh a sinner, oh God, that
man is the justified man because that's what the language of someone
who has been given grace sounds like. Not you need to get your
life together like mine. No true spiritually led believer. Now that doesn't mean believers
don't say that, but when we're not led by the Spirit, we're
led by what? By the flesh. So I preach for myself to make
sure that my journey in the faith is sound and it's not so I have
a lot of work to do during the week. A lot of work. I have a lot of work to do Saturday
just to get my heart right sometimes. just to find the ability to pray. You ever been there? You know,
when things are perfect, we sort of pray on a whim. We pray at
breakfast, we pray at lunch, we pray in the car, we pray everything's
great. Oh, Lord, it's good, all day, you know, this is good,
all right, amen. But when our emotions, when our mind, when
our bodies, when relationships, when external things, when rejection
comes, whatever it might be, we can find it so difficult to
pray that our prayers or God help me, I cannot pray. And sometimes, I say it could
be a coin toss. I don't know how often, because I don't keep
a journal of that, how often that there is always something
that's going to destroy me emotionally or mentally or have the potential
for that destruction. Saturday or Sunday morning. Why? Because that is what the
enemy does. So I preach because I know that
the teaching For myself and the teaching for you, the church,
is not just my calling, but it's my blessing. Because if I were
not called to this work, I would not be in the word. And that is one reason that I
knew that I was called to this work, is because I couldn't stay
out of the word. Getting reprimanded at work, getting reprimanded
at school, getting reprimanded everywhere that I've been. You
can't tell your Bible around here, it's a bad image. It's just one little part. So
my journey in the Bible, and then our journey together in
the scripture, I preach for that reason. I teach for that reason.
So in 1 Timothy chapter 4, starting in verse 1, Paul begins to instruct
Timothy in these things. He's already said that the church
is the beauty of Christ, the portray of the gospel. That we are the buttress of the
truth. And that Jesus as he was revealed,
as he served, as he died, as he rose from the dead, as he
ascended, as he gave the commission to the apostles, now we as the
church continue that image that is the glory of God to display
who he is. And so we do what we do, not
because it's what we're supposed to do, which is a good enough
reason, but we do what we do is because it's what is most
beneficial to us. God's promises are perfect and
always. It is so. That's what amen means.
Amen is the Greek there. It means it is finished. It is
done. It is so. It is true. That's why we see
the variation sometimes in the script where Jesus would say
amen, amen. I'm telling you it is true. It
is true. I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling the truth.
It is so. It is so. Verily, verily, if you've got an older Bible. And Paul is now saying, that there are things that are
taking place in the church, he begins to explain some of the
stuff that he's already done in his introduction. Chapter
4, verse 1, listen to the words, read along with me. Now, right
now, today, the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times,
later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves
to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. through the insincerity
of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and
require abstinence from foods that God created to be received
with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For
everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected
if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made perfect, it is
set apart, it is made holy by the word of God and by prayer. I want to read verse six. And
verse 7, but I won't talk about them today. If you put these
things before the brothers, dear Elder Timothy, you will be a
good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of
faith and of the good doctrine that you have obeyed. Have nothing
to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself
for godliness. That, along with James 3.1, is
some of the hardest words for a man like me to stomach. Because
oh my goodness, what have I trained myself to do in this world? I've
trained myself to learn language. I've trained myself to memorize
ideas. I have trained myself to argue
logically. I have trained myself in histories
unmeasurably. I've trained myself in music
and 11 different instruments, five different genres. I've trained
myself in three fighting styles. training myself in three different
areas of photography. And the list goes on. Hobbies
and interests and everything. And it's just like it's so funny
because I haven't done this in a while. Let me revisit it. And
the next thing you know, I'm all back in it. Is anything wrong
with those things? No, because Paul will say there's
some training bodily that's good fitness. Health, nutrition, these
things are important, but they're not ultimate. None of our hobbies
and interests are ultimate, but yet God uses all of them for
joy. and all of them as a way of connecting with other people
in the world, that we might have gospel intimacy outside the assembly. That the assembly is the instruction
house and the worship time for us to be able to go into the
world now and live together. But what we find is that we spend
most of our time training ourselves to defend the faith, like I talked
about last week, in a manner that's unbiblical at the cost
of what we are told to do. I have no example that comes
that would sound reasonable. But here, there is a mess in
Ephesus. And the primary reality is that
there are people who are teaching who are seen as teachers by other
people. So I would say they're probably
other elders or elders in training who are teaching nonsense and
wrong things about Christ, the gospel, and most importantly,
They're teaching people to affect their lives accordingly. It's one thing to think about
something cognitively or rationally or argumentatively. It's another
thing when we make assertions and we stand on positions of
those thoughts that change the very way we relate to the world
around us. That's good, but it can be dangerous. And when unqualified
teachers introduce unbiblical ideas that create unnecessary
behaviors in the name of spirituality, that is a cult mindset. And it could be, you've got to
have these words, you've got to have this type of handwashing. And listen, don't we want that?
Don't we want the list? Don't we want instead of maps
in the back? We don't care what the maps look like back then.
Wouldn't we rather just have a list of all the things of how
we should do everything? Don't we want the simple explanation? Men, comb your hair this way.
Women, comb your hair this way. Put on the shoes like this, don't
wear this color, don't wear that color. But that's not the point. The Bible is not given instruction
for that purpose. The Bible, when it talks about
those things, oftentimes are not prescriptive in the details. It's prescriptive in its application,
generally, theologically. Remember that the beautiful church,
as I've already said this morning, reflects the nature and the glory
of her Savior in what she believes and what we believe as true concerning
Him and then how we behave for the sake of Him. So now Paul
is telling Timothy what's really upset him is not necessarily
the teaching that can be overcome very clearly and corrected by
the written word. That's not found in the Bible,
and you are making a mountain out of a sentence that's out
of context. That's nonsense. Be quiet. Yes, sir. I'll obey
that in the name of the Son. But when people start changing
their behavior, it's a whole different story, isn't it? When
people stop coming to church because of their conscience, it's a whole different thing,
isn't it? When people stop loving one another physically, intimately,
ministerially. I mean, think about that for
a second. What if you just decided tomorrow never to feed your children
again because they made you mad? I bet they'd fall in line after
about three days or start stealing food. Or you're just upset with the
government and you're just not going to pay your taxes. Okay. You know, there's a lot of things
that we can do in our behavior because of our belief system.
But there's always a payout. There's always a cost. And the
cost of false teaching is always contrived and controlled behavior
in the church that devastates intimacy, it destroys ministry. Some of the context of what we
dealt with in the pandemic, it's gonna be two weeks, it's gonna
be two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. It's like the pandemic
was, a plumber coming to the house just two years later hasn't
made it but it's always going to be two weeks. And then our
beliefs in that begin to affect our ability to be intimate as
a people. Not only in churches and congregations but in workplaces
and in relationships and families. And so what we believe affects
how we act and how we act cannot be contrary to what's instructed
simply in the Bible. Simply. It just cannot be. And I'm talking to believers
who are born of the Spirit, who have been given the gift of faith
to believe not in just the gospel, but also the totality of God's
sufficient word to teach us everything we need for life and godliness. Now the Spirit is saying, let's
go through this one phrase at a time. Now the Spirit is saying,
Paul, is a master because of the Spirit. He's a smart man
too, but because of God the Spirit leading his mind to these words,
they are without contradiction and they are so perfect in their
arguments that it causes us, if we are careful readers and
slow, causes us to see what Paul is saying. Now, OK, right now
in the reading of Timothy. Paul is saying the spirit is
saying right now, what does that mean? I mean, as I write this
sentence, the spirit of God is telling you this. For all scripture is breathed
out by God. And it's useful and it's profitable. I mean, think about that for
a second. All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for the training
in righteousness that the man of God, that the elder of God
may be complete. He has everything he needs. He
may be equipped. He needs no other tools for every
good work that he's called to. Oh, how often does my unbelief
take me to sidebars when the word of God is plenty? Trey and I had a conversation
Thursday, and in interacting with Trey and investing in his
wisdom as he's becoming an elder soon, it's interesting because
he made mention of some of my sidebars. He said, sometimes
your sidebar is just like way out there. I've always been that
way. But it's funny because in the
last four or five weeks, some of you have come to me and said,
oh, pastor, I like what you said, boom, and it had nothing to do
with the sermon, it was just one of those sidebars. A five second soundbite became
the emphasis of the preaching, so. It had nothing to do with
it. Yeah, I don't like Taco Bell
either, pastor, good sermon. We can't escape it. It's what
we do as human beings. It's part of our personalities
that bleed over into our lives and every point of every relationship
that we have. But Paul is saying that the scripture
is that what he's writing right here is what the Spirit is saying. Now Paul was not, he was not
one of these guys that just spoke crazily about what God has told
me. The apostles were spoken to by God the Spirit. We are,
too, in the context of illumination, but not revelation. What's the
difference? Illumination is the lights come
on when we're reading that which is revealed. Revelation is the
written word of the apostles. Illumination is as we're reading
it with our language in our mind, with our voicing, a light goes
on and goes, hey, I understand this. I see this. I can apply
this. I grasp this. Wow, I believe
this. Awesome. That's illumination. The Spirit
of God speaks to us through the writing and illuminates to us
His purposes and His instruction and His power because we have
been born as His people. Born again. So the Spirit is
saying. The Spirit is saying. Like in
Acts 20, Paul talks about how the Spirit told him what? I think
that's where it is. That he didn't know what was
going to happen, but he did know that because the Spirit of God
had told him, he was going to suffer and be imprisoned again. Now
that's not something I want to wake up to. Good morning, Lord.
Good morning, James. You're going to jail. I'd be like Jonah. I'd be on
the first boat to Mexico. Oh, a Mexican jail. Ah, didn't
realize that. How dumb am I? Well, if that's
where you want to be in jail, go ahead, son. Wherever you are,
my word stands. And if I want you back in Florida,
I'll swallow you up and bring you. We can't escape that which
God is saying. You can't escape what the scripture
is saying, what the spirit is saying. Timothy, you can't escape
it. The spirit is saying right now that in later times, and
you know what that actually means right now, later times are I
have to be careful with my language because if I use words that mean
what I'm saying, people take them incorrectly. But in the
dispensation, in the time period of Christ and the church, which
is where we have been living since the incarnation, that's the later times. This
is the last epoch of human history until glorification of the world
and the saints. He's saying right now, in these
later times, some. Not all, some. He didn't even
say many. We're not going to build an entire
theological history or possibility of these words. But he's saying
some will depart from the faith. Some will depart from the faith.
See, Paul now is dealing with apostasy, and he uses that phrase
from the faith in an objective sense. The faith, what it entails. A lot of times when we hear the
faith, we only think about theological positions. Paul doesn't have
that in mind when he uses that. We went to Jude last week. We
understand that it is a part of it. What theological positions? Theological positions as written
in the full context of any letter in the New Testament and only
in the New Testament. Beloved, we are New Testament
creatures. The Old Testament is a shadow
and a mystery, and the New Testament shows us what it means. So as
I've said for almost 20 years, I don't know, I can't say the
whole time I've been in ministry, so let's just say for the last
two decades, I know that I've been saying this, is that apostolic
authority trumps Old Testament theology. What about Nehemiah? What about,
okay, what about Paul? What does Jesus say and what
does Paul say and John say and Matthew say and James say and
Peter say about what is written in Nehemiah? It's not two different things
to learn. It's not an application of rebuilding the walls miracle.
No, it's about Christ. How do we know? Jesus makes it
clear in the New Testament. The apostles are clearly taught
of God. Some will depart the faith."
This is the New Testament teaching concerning the work and the person
of the Son of God and His instruction to them. Psalm means that those
who are part of us. Paul is not talking about people
over in another town. Paul's not talking about the
rumor on Sandbook that everybody's passing around. So stupid. That everybody's passing
around about, you know, this knucklehead down the road that's
teaching something wrong at the local pub, or at the local cult,
or some world religion center. Paul's talking about people who
are in the congregations of Ephesus, who have been embraced, who have
been led to be, who have been taught to be leaders, who are
teaching, have a platform, a position where people are listening to
what they say. They, some of these, some of us, if you will,
but he doesn't use us because us is always intimate, right? Some that seem to be a part of
us will depart from the faith. to those who are part of the
local church. Those not part of the local church are not our
concern nor our business. Those not part of our local church
are not our primary concern nor our business. They will depart. That means
that they once claimed to hold to the truth, but they leave
it to depart. If I depart the grocery store,
it's not when I leave my house. It's when I leave the grocery
store. So departing the faith means
having once said that they believed the faith. A true believer can
consider this. A few things you need to have
in mind. A true believer can consider this. A true believer
can consider false doctrine. A true believer can consider
a well-made argument. I've seen it my whole life. Paul
said, a brother sent me some Galatians 420 where Paul talks
about being perplexed by these people. He's just baffled. He's
like banging his head going, what is going on? And I responded
to this guy, I said, that's my life every single day. I'm always
perplexed by somebody who has walked so far to just walk away
to some oddity. And we call them back and they're
like, nah, I'm done with that. Lie, contextual, entire book
of Romans, I got this new thing. Okay. It's like knowing the closing
line of Soyant Green in Keep On Eatin'. It's ridiculous. That movie horrified me. I think
I was 11 when I watched it. A true believer can be led astray
into false doctrine, false teaching. It's easy. How? By well-meaning teachers, by
dummies like me who opine too much rather than stick to the
text, by silly observation, by mental brain work. by Googling too much. That's
really oxymoronic now that I think about that. A true believer can agree with
error. Someone told me a couple of years
ago that a true spirit-filled believer will automatically and
always see an error. That's not true if they haven't
studied it. We're not apostles. We're not walking around with
divine knowledge and a divine eye of knowing everything that
comes through. And just because we hear language,
you know, we speak a redneck English around here. We're bubblicious when it comes
to talking. And I don't even know what that
means. It just sounded funny. And so when someone uses a word
that I may really understand well, that person may not even
know what they're talking about. So it doesn't hurt my feelings
to ask questions, and it doesn't hurt my feelings to get the wrong
answers from somebody, because I know what sovereignty is. And
I know that God is saying, some will depart the faith. How do
we know if someone's departed the faith? Well, a believer can
agree with error. A believer, though, will never
remain in error. Now see, here comes the real
divine prophets. Well, because you said that yesterday,
you were not born of God until today, until you repented of
that word. But I didn't even know the word existed until the
day before. I had no idea the gospel was
a theological thesaurus we had to memorize. I had no idea that
the litmus test of the efficacy of the death of Jesus was when
he stood there and said, it is finished. There was like a medical,
like the end of a medicine commercial. And the following qualifications
are. You must know this and this and
this and this and all the justification. No, no. And forget those people
who insist on those things. Please let them go. It's like
a rabid dog that's trying to get off the leash. Let it go. Don't try to hold that. And people who are stuck in the
cul-de-sac mentality of fighting and fighting and fighting, they
have no peace. Beloved, let us not fight in
ourselves. Some people, what's the point
I'm making, some people will depart. And we have to be okay
in God's sovereignty. But those who are our brothers
and sisters, they will not remain entangled in error in their understanding,
because the Bible, through the leadership of patient, kind,
gentle, and human elders, will bring them back to the truth.
That's a very interesting proposition. I can see where you come from,
and listeners can see where people come from, and they can agree
that that's an incredible idea. However, not, yeah, but, however,
the Bible teaches this. Let's talk about the differences
and the distinction. See, that's how you deal with
distinctions. And when somebody stomps their foot on their distinctions
and then throws a fit, you know what? Now we're gonna correct
not just what you're saying, now we're gonna correct your
behavior. You're pitching a fit in the grocery store, because
you want this cookie. See, I'm the type of guy that'll
just buy the cookie and throw it away, or eat it myself in
front of the kids. Okay, I'll get the cookie, get
out of the car. That's petty, but it works. If you want your
children to hate you. Daddy ate my cookie when I was
five. I need therapy. That's trauma. See that sidebar?
But those who depart deny the gospel ultimately. They end up
denying the gospel in part. Just because people diverge in
the journey doesn't mean that they're apostate. Apostate meaning
leaving the faith. If something you have never considered
is required in order for God to grant faith in him, then that
thing that you have not considered is the power of God, not God. If you don't think God can regenerate
your three-year-old through the hearing of the Word of God, as
he wishes, because they can't cognitively apprehend a theological
system that we have developed out of the manifold writing in
the New Testament, then I don't know any other thing to tell
you is that there's never, now, no sacrifice for your sins. You
see? So don't be upset when you come
to discover, oh my gosh, I have believed some crazy stuff, or
look at how I'm living. I am telling my children they
cannot eat bread because bread is of the devil. I'm not saying
bread's not of the devil, but I'm praying over it and I'm eating
it. It's not the purpose of this. And they're leaving the faith,
the revelation of the New Testament teaching concerning the person
and the work of Christ, the totality of information required to be
called a believer as at least one teaching, right? I mean,
what does it require? How much gospel stuff do you
need to know in order to be counted as born again? I'm gonna tell you right now, there's not a person that I know
alive today who can even give me every implication of what it
means to be justified. There's not a person alive today
that I know in real life. Now, there may be somebody alive
that I don't know, so I'm prefacing that, you see, that I know personally
who can expressly show the gospel in its entirety in one letter
or in one area of a letter. Every gospel truth that's found
in the New Testament is not found in one place. It's found all
over. And the letters to the Romans
and the letters to the Ephesians and the letters to the Corinthians,
these were not written evangelistically in any sense. These were written
correctively and to be encouragement to the saints who had already
learned the gospel that was preached from the Old Testament prophets
to the revelation of Christ who came into the world and died
and rose from the dead. Why did he do that? That's why
I believe having a series on what faith is, is important. The totality of teaching that
resides in the New Testament is immeasurable, beloved. The
faith, the gospel, the faith consists of many things and no
teachings of the faith are going to be found in one place in scripture.
Familiarity with the New Testament writings over and over and over
and over again is required to rightly handle the scripture
and to rightly build a theology of what the gospel is. but the
root of the gospel is the story of God promising redemption through
his son and everything that entails. That everything that entails
is a passage, excuse me, is an experience and a journey as the
local church as we continue to grow and read. That's why I emphasize
over and over again about reading the scripture. And last week
I overemphasized in a jesting way that the Reader's Bible is
God's divine revelation to the church, but it's not. Just listening
back to my sermon, I'm going, that's way over the top. Any
scripture that you want to read, I just like to play jokes on
the 17-pound study Bibles. Read the Bible, whatever edition
you have, just read it. Read it. So leaving the faith
does not mean found in error. That leaves room for correction.
You're not out of the faith, now in the faith. Oh, you weren't
really in the faith because you're out of the faith again. That's
nonsense, that's schizophrenia, and it's not okay. That's discipleship. Those who insist on knowing the
mind and the heart of God concerning his people because of their fleshly
apprehensions or purities, according to Paul, are what? He says that
they left the faith, departed the faith, by devoting themselves,
and I'll talk about that in a second, to deceitful spirits and the
teaching of demons. Verse two, through the insincerity of liars,
whose consciences are seared. So the ones who insist on these
things are propagating lies and those who propagate lies are
liars. And they do not know the truth because they do not love
their brothers and sisters. This is what John is clear on in his
first epistle. Jesus says the very same thing.
When I find myself triggered and dogmatically irritated, then
I know that I'm immature. And I know that I'm sitting in
a position of unbelief. Have I been there? Oh, more times
than I ever want to count. And if I did count, I'd lie and
say I didn't. How many times have you ever been up? A few
times. That's like somebody saying, you got a box of ammo? You got
any ammo? I got a box or two. Have you ever had any donuts?
One or two. I don't want to admit that I'm
a freak. I don't want to admit that I'm a really dumb, irritating,
Paranoid guy? But I stand on this dogmatically,
that those who continue to insist on these things, on knowing the
hearts and minds of God, according to what His people are and are
not able to misunderstand, are liars. And I stand on this and
I entreat anyone to consider another way, I really do. in
context, in the simple instruction, first and foremost, of living
together as the church, then if what you say and what you
think you should do doesn't contradict that, then it can be considered. If it contradicts that, then
we're not even going to have a conversation. If a person is filled with the
Spirit of God, they will hear the voice of Christ, they will
hear the New Testament teaching, they will listen to Paul, and
they will listen to the elders who give reasonable instruction
and application of Paul's writing. I mean, reasonable instruction.
Let's just say I tell you, you can't wear Nikes anymore. You
go, whatever. That's ridiculous. No matter
what, that's unbiblical. But if I tell you to stop putting
your Nikes in the rear end of your neighbor because it's causing
strife, then I can tell you to take the Nikes off. You see what
I'm saying? The person filled with the Spirit
will hear the voice of Jesus when we teach them, no matter, no
matter the instruction. Those who refuse the instruction
are to be avoided by formal discipline of the body, not personal disconnection.
James Tippins doesn't have a right to discipline anybody out of
his life. The church has to be in agreement on these things. And when we treat someone as
an unbeliever, had a conversation about this with a brother this
week, It should be better understood as one who denies the faith because
of the way they live, the way they sin, or what they believe.
We should treat that person as an enemy of the gospel, an enemy
of the cross, because of how they're doing. Therefore, the
relationship we have with those who abandon the faith through
the process of church discipline is one of avoidance and removal
of all intimacy in ministry. We have no obligation until they
return in sorrow and seek unity in Christ. We hear the scripture
say, treat them as an unbeliever. They have no place for us. They
have no place for them at our table. It's not talking about,
we're not to impose. We've got to share the gospel.
We're not to impose that. We've got to love our neighbor.
No, this person is apostate. until they come back repenting,
we have no obligation to them. Why? Because that is where we
will spend our time. We will spend our time with people
who want to constantly prove themselves correct and prove
themselves a victim rather than spend our time with people who
are unified in the faith and the gospel. It's like we have a wayward child,
and all we do is cater to the wayward child. We spend all of
our money on the wayward child. We come in every day, all we
do is feed and send uneaten food to the wayward child, and everybody
else in the household is starving. Beloved, I've been guilty of
that same thing. But it says the faith. They will
depart from the faith. And we preached and taught about
the faith so much, it would be absurd to associate any idea
that this church or its leaders have not defined the gospel clearly. When I'm talking about a specific
point and getting very myopic on a particular detail, like
if I do an essay on mitochondria, am I effectively dismissing any
other part of the structure? And for those of you who go,
what is he talking about? Great, it doesn't matter. If I deal with the idea, or I
sit there and talk about the observation of time, and I deal
with some aspect of relativity, Am I skipping the fact that we
live in this area, in this era? Am I ignoring what light is doing?
No, I'm just focusing on a specific detail. When I talk about faith
and when I talk about a specific detail of faith, which I could
probably, I think I've got 17 different aspects of faith and
what it is and what it does and how it works. So the series is
getting bigger, I'm gonna try to break it down. It doesn't
mean we're ignoring something. It would be absurd to say that
we as a church or as elders have not been clear about what the
gospel is. And we won't answer those claims either. And you
shouldn't answer those claims. Paul wasn't interested in the
claims of the gospel with these false teachers. He was interested
in them being submissive to the instruction and the commands
given to them by him, thus the Spirit of God. And then when
everybody's unified in the gospel, in the same seat. The teaching
of Scripture does its work. I can't tell you the number of
nights that I've been out through the years. Meetings and meetings
and meetings and meetings and meetings. And meetings were always
driven to the principal, to the person who had the biggest problem. The person who had to get the
solution right then. And everybody else is dragged
along. When really the meeting that God calls for, for resolving
all issues, is this one. Now there's time for counsel,
there's time for intimate settings to discuss things that are personal
in your life. Absolutely. With each other, with me, with
other leaders, with other brothers and sisters. But when it comes
to the church at large, think, man, this is it. We can deal
with it right here. We submit to the New Testament
scriptures as God's final revelation, superior to the Old Testament
revelation, but as God's final revelation on matters of the
church. And we do not confuse historical theology as revelatory
to the church in any sense whatsoever. It doesn't matter. I love to
learn what other people look at and how they see certain things
concerning the scripture. But it is anthropological for
me. It is not spiritual. I love it
because nobody's going to change my mind because I have this and
I've got a hundred copies of this in four languages and some
that I just worship because they're so old. I've got my great-great-great-grandfather's
Bible, his daddy, his mama, my great-grandparents. It's just,
I look at it and go, look at that. The house sets on fire. I'll probably grab that, leave
my money. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Oh, I forgot the money.
Not that I have any, but there it is. So if anyone around you continues
to insist on word usage or systematized outlines that are required for
salvation, know that as a Pelagian doctrine. What is Pelagian? It
means of the sea, but it's the nickname that the guy had, Pelagius.
who basically thought that men were bestowed some type of spiritual
grace to where they then could figure all this stuff out on
their own and they could come to conclusions that could establish their own
righteousness and works and obedience and faith and all this other
kind of stuff. We call a lot of that Arminianism today, which
is another historical theological position. But it's really all
the same thing. Lucifer, standing there, looking
at himself, going, you know what, I've come up with a really, really
good idea, the fact that I'm as beautiful as God is, not realizing
He was a reflection of His Creator, but He was not, in essence, His
Creator. He did not share the same substance, He just looked
like it. Like the church, we're not God, we're not Christ, but
we are the body of Christ. We reflect Him, but we're not
Him. How dare us? And Lucifer thought in his mind,
I should stand up there. I should share the glory. Ultimately,
we know what he really wanted because everybody else around
him was going, dude, you see how good you look? God's getting
a little old. He'd be around forever. You could
be a better face for heaven. I'm making jokes. But in essence,
that's exactly what happened. God threw him out in judgment.
And then in the temple of the garden where God created his
people and set them with the promise of eternal life, his
intention was that this Lucifer would come in and then offer
something incredible. Offer something internal. If you do this, if you have this,
if you understand this, if you go here, oh, God's hiding something
from you. Oh, it's never changed. It's
never changed. And that's what it means to first
leave the faith. When we leave the context, we
leave the context of the word of God into pretext and we start
to decide in our minds other ideas. We live on the wave of
inference rather than the depths of solidarity. We leave the faith. We're not
apostate until we abandon it. Paul's saying these apostates
have left the faith not because they've denied certain portions
of an essential teaching or any essential portion of redemption
revelation, but because they insist on other ideas and philosophies
in addition to the grace alone of God that is the effectual
hope of redemption in Christ. By devoting themselves to deceitful
spirits and teachings of demons. Through which, in sincerity of
liars, the teachers who propagated it, whose consciences are seared,
and then verse 3 talks about what they're doing. So let's
talk about devoting themselves. What does it mean to devote themselves?
What in the world? Well, when you hear about devoting
themselves in the context of Scripture, what comes to mind?
Acts 2, right? They devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching. Every day, the breaking of bread, and to
prayer, and to fellowship. And then we see this deceitful
spirits. They devoted themselves to deceitful
spirits. What does it mean to be devoted?
That means it is their drive. Any platform they have, they
want to deal with this. They want to talk about this.
And they'll say, oh, it's not that essential. Right? No, it's
about conscience. Oh, it's just an issue. It's
just my personal ideas. But yet in their heart, they
want to. And sometimes they're not aware
of it. Why? Because their consciences are seared. I have little feeling in my hands
when it comes to pain. Because I have punched and fought
and done so much in my hands, they're desensitized. My nose,
not desensitized. So we can become desensitized.
That's what it means to have a seared conscience. We start
thinking about our thinking more than we are exposing ourselves
to the whole of scripture to the point that we're not able
to realize that we're no longer listening to the Spirit of Christ
through the Bible, but we are enveloping the Bible into our
own ideas. Did God really say you would
die? Devoting themselves to this is
their constant drive. They're not maniacal. We're not
talking about cults and wicked worldview leaders. We're talking
about saints in the body of Christ who have left the faith because
of this practice. Deceitful spirits are in contrast
of the Spirit of God that is now saying. You see what Paul's
doing here? He's brilliant. God is brilliant. The Spirit says that this is
not me. The Spirit says that this practice
is not me. The Spirit says, and we don't
have to go here to figure out what He's talking about. We see
it. Galatians, we see what the Spirit does. We see what the
Spirit is, who He is in Romans chapter 8. We see in all the
teaching of Ephesians and other places, we see the Spirit of
God doing things and the fruit of the Spirit of God is evident.
So anything that is not of the Spirit of God evidently is not
of the Spirit of God. Therefore it is of the Spirit
of the enemy which we call according to the words used by Paul and
by Jesus, we call it demonic. AKA of the devil, AKA satanic. And man is that not a t-shirt
from fundamentalism. That's of the devil. Amen. I mean, you know, that's usually
all you had to say. And back in the 40s and 50s, electricity's
of the devil. Amen. Not going to have it in
my church. Piano's of the devil. I mean, you didn't even have
to argue. You just had to say it. Let's get rid of piano. Uncovered heads and ladies of
the devil. Well, here's some napkins to
cover your heads. That's not what Paul's doing.
Paul is clearly exegeting not just even what would be affirmed
in the Old Testament, but what is affirmed in the gospel narratives
of the New Testament very clearly that when something is not of
the spiritual fruit of God the Spirit, it is of the spiritual
fruit of demons. And that doesn't, that's not
an opportunity for us to fear. There is no fear. These things
have no, these beings have no power over us. I don't have to
name it, claim it, grab it, bab it, call it, throw it, burn it,
live it. I don't have to do anything. I just know that my Savior crushed
their heads. In Colossae, I mean, I've had
this verse used against me just in my thinking before. There
are people who are adopting, devoting themselves to idea and
interest of demons that added to the redemptive work of Christ.
Galatia, the same thing. Conditions, philosophies, good
arguments, debates. It is demonic not to be at peace
with God's gospel, with God's power, with God's purposes, and
in the midst of God's people, even when somebody comes along
with some knuckle-headed idea and behavior. Because correction
is a clear way of testing their ears. It is fleshly when we hold to
these things. It is in contrast to being devoted
to the true spirit in his teaching to the apostles. John said the
same thing, 1 John 4, verse 6. He says we are, what, from God. We, the apostles, whoever knows
God listens to us. Now what if I said that about
myself? If you truly have the spirit of God, you'll listen
to what I've got to say. Y'all better jump up and call Phal
or wait for the punchline. But I can say, if you really
have the Spirit of God, you'll listen to what Paul is saying.
And you'll read it for yourself in context so that God may teach
you, don't take my word for it. Is that not been my mantra? That's
how I preach. Whoever listens to us, knows
God. Whoever is not from God does
not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error for those who do not listen to
the teaching that we wrote down. There's no exceptions to this.
Many people don't like me to say demonic. When they come to
me all fritzed up and triggered and upset and almost belligerent,
you know what? That's not of God. I'm basically
saying that's of the devil. And the cool thing about that
is that it's not all the devil. It's not the devil's fault because
the only thing that triggers me is that which my flesh really
wants to be triggered with. James talks about that, doesn't
he? Temptation? God doesn't tempt me at all,
but the enemy tempts me. The demons tempt me. They whisper. Nobody loves you. You work too
hard. I can't believe you let somebody
tell you that. Why do you have to suffer this
way? Yeah, why do I have to suffer this way? Gotcha! It's like an
angler. He knows what bait to put on
that hook. If you want catfish, mudfish, and all other bottom
suckers, just put a napkin on it. They'll eat it. But if you
want carp, if you want bass, if you want bream, there's a
certain type of look and flare and color and flash that has
to happen, certain types of movement. The enemy knows what to put on
the end of the hook and we bite it because it's what we want. We got a radio report right now,
there's $4 million that has fallen off the bridge at public fishing
lake in your the first was to know about it before they say
whoever finds it keeps it and is free cookies in the back of
the room to get to be very upset we drag a kick in the screen
and they don't care about that money
in the whole that we do well as time to go in and But I'm not going to change what
the Bible says. When it says demonic, I'm going to say demonic. When
it says it states that other spirits that lead and persuade,
just like the father of lives in the garden led the thinking
of Adam and Eve to go astray against the promises of God,
so these same demons continue to work in kind. Nothing has
changed. The changes in teaching and ideas
always lead then to some actions, to something in the mind or the
body that goes against the teaching of grace, sovereign and free.
And all unseasoned sheep will be misled at some times, so the
overseers must keep watch. Guide, instruct, insist, and
correct so that the teaching is paramount, that the care is
given. See, these liars seem genuine
because their consciences are seared, so they think they're
genuine. They seem as though they're always seeking to honor
the Lord and defend the church from error. They always seek
to assume and never learn to listen and be submissive. They
are misled. And here in Ephesus, they flesh
this out by purveying lies that are not mentioned, by the way,
except in the application and the behavior. And they don't
even know it. Paul says they're to be known
as liars because of the outward and inward requirements that
are now at stake and explained in verse 3. Let's look at verse
3. Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God
created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know
the truth. See, a seared conscience is not affected by the instruction
of reconciliation, is it? A seared conscience is not affected
by someone to say, be at peace, calm down, let's pray. A dear
brother just a couple of months ago was telling me about a really
just horrible thing going on in their church and some family
with another, blah, blah, blah. And the next thing you know,
it's just this turmoil and as pastors, I mean, it causes us to become
physically ill. And he's like, so he goes and
talks with one of his leadership and his leadership just looks
at him and said, let's just get down here and pray about it. And it made me feel
that big, because as he was telling me the story, I'm like, I mean,
you know, let's go. Lock the door. We're going to
deal with this in the name of Jesus with my sword at. No, let's
just pray. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
God is powerful. We don't pray about our relationships.
We don't pray about our finances. We don't pray about our problems,
you know, like we should. And we don't pray together enough
like we should. And a seared conscience isn't
affected by that. Let's just sit down and pray. Yeah, I'm
praying, but this isn't enough. Something else has got to be
done. Really? Gideon felt like that, too. He
was like, are you kidding me? How many men did I have? I could
have tore these people up. And they tore themselves up. A person with a seared conscience
would deny the Lord's requirement. by rebuking the ones who are
calling for submission and obedience. So the demons offer the ideas,
the lying flesh takes it and runs with it and thinks that
it's good. But we're not talking about obvious error in every
specific situation. These things are sneaky. These
things are subtle. And they must be by God's purposes. And in Ephesus, because this
teaching was taking place, I believe it was elders among the Ephesians
doing this stuff, starting this stuff. So all this error has
come to fruition and the evidence of those who have left the faith
now insist on changes of mind and behavior congruent with their
own consciences. We know this because, again, they refuse the
instruction here. Thus they do not believe in the
sovereignty of God's word. And there are many things I could
talk about, legalism, mysticism, asceticism. Asceticism is denying
physical pleasures for the sake of spirituality or purity or
holiness. This is nonsense. It's not okay. The Bible doesn't teach that.
And one of those instructions is that they forbid marriage.
There was a time even in Reformation period, those several hundred
years there, where they would teach the church what? You don't
have to get married. You know, you're pure if you're
not married. You don't have to do this. You
don't have to do that. Virginity is not spiritual. Loneliness is not spiritual. Sexual abstinence is not purity
in the marriage or singleness or whatever, but yet all through
history we see that stuff. In fact, Paul would say that
being married keeps a lot of problems at bay and displays
a gospel picture of Christ and His church. See, a contrived
holiness, a contrived redemption, a contrived regeneration, a contrived
gospel is of the devil, just like being told not to have joy
or peace of mind. Forbidding marriage and food
is not of God. Forbidding what God has made
for our pleasure as his people is never evil, but it is evil
to teach, to abstain from what is good or spiritual because
it causes fear and it causes false holiness and it causes
false conscience. He said, forsake foods. Don't
don't eat foods. God created food to be received
with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. So
what foods? Well, we see what happened with
Peter, don't we? Paul went in there. You know, do this, Paul. I mean, I don't do this, Peter.
This is wrong. So were the apostles infallible,
sinless? No. But when they wrote by the
Spirit, they were infallible. So we're not to forsake foods
that God created. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't
strive to be healthy, because God did not create the fast food
cheeseburger. He created the beef and wheat. How we put it together and consume
it is our business. But even then, the greasy spoon
guy can be just as spiritually mature as the whole grain guy. Is it wise? Maybe not. But here
we don't abstain from things. What did he tell the Colossians?
Stop listening to these demons, to the teaching of demons that
tell you do not touch, do not taste, do not look. We know what
is good and profitable, but culture has dictated a lot of things
that have created a legalistic attitude that we think that we're
superior because we don't partake in certain things, or do certain
things, or wear certain things, or watch certain things, or read
certain things. When that which is clearly taught in scripture
is ignored to the inference of things that are more culturally
adept. I mean, what was it back in the
day? What was it a hundred years ago? Was it temperance? Well,
that was longer than that. I mean, it was not only against
the law, it was against the law because it was against God to
drink alcohol. Yet God's Word clearly not only
tells us we can drink alcohol, but instructs Timothy to drink
alcohol in moderation for specific reasons. And that is a matter
of conscience. Because in the same way food
is dangerous to our body, so is alcohol if it's done in abundance
and in the wrong time and in the wrong place. And we live
in a culture where both food and drink are idols and medicine
and escape. Though I've never been drunk,
I have surely been full beyond my ability because I just can't
taste that. I want to taste it all, you see?
But yet it's not a sin to eat. It's not a sin to eat pork. It's not a sin to eat pork. But
yet, there are certain religions who would say it is, I'm not
picking at you, but there are certain religions who would say that
it is sinful to eat pork, but if you don't want to eat pork,
don't eat pork. But don't say that I'm sinful because I eat
pork. It's not a sin to drink milk,
you see. Why does it matter? Why is this
the issue that Paul's all upset about? Because it's causing horror
and terror and spiritual sidewaysness, that's made a new word up, in
the church. And because of that, it is disrupting
the gospel life of the body. Now see, who would have ever
thought, did you hear about that church split? Yep, they couldn't
eat macaroni. Or as I've been told before by
a very sweet senior adult in her 90s, I don't call them deviled
eggs around here, Sonny. They're angeled eggs. You know,
that's fine. I'll call them angeled eggs for
you. But I mean, nobody's split a church over that. But we do. We split. We split.
We divide. And that's the issue. So then
Paul is going to tell Timothy, put these things before the people.
Put these things before the people. Teach them how to live and to
speak and to act and to love and to reconcile in addition
to continually reminding them of the gospel of Jesus Christ
who gave His life for them and satisfied God's wrath fully and
forever when He died. Once and for all, sanctifying
a people for Himself. Read the book of Hebrews. never
to have to pay for any sin again and nothing else ever will and
that's what faith knows that Christ has paid it all his righteousness
is mine his death is mine his resurrection is mine then we learn together all the
different things the Bible teaches us about this good news by the
Spirit of God so in all of that let's not burden ourselves with
things that the Bible doesn't give us the command to burden
ourselves with because of a tiny little pretext that we find so
important to an echo chamber minority that seems like the
world. My goodness. Doesn't it seem
like the world? When two people talk to you about
something. Well, everybody's talking about
this. two people? Oh, everybody in that car. Okay. Everybody in line with you, the
other two people in you, all of you, everybody. Everybody's
not talking about this. Beloved, we don't have to give
into these things. Let us not be despised, but to command and
teach the things that God's word has told us to do because it
holds value as we grow in godliness. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for your
gentleness and your patience. Lord, we pray that we would be
called to pray. We pray that we would be driven
to your word and that we would remember each other in our prayers.
And I thank you, Lord, for your peace that you give me, even
though I may approach this platform many weeks in turmoil. with fear,
not the healthy reverence of handling your word, but Lord,
fear of men. Fear of the unknown. Fear of
myself. So that as we grow together in
grace, knowing and securing the foundations of the gospel that
you have caused us to believe, we work through the differences
and the divergence As they invade us because of your sovereignty
and then you are glorified in our correction. You love us because. You love us. And you loved us
in the killing of Christ, which corrected our. Debt. And then you correct us
as your people, as you discipline us gracefully because we are
your children, you love us in that discipline. So thank you
for loving me. Thank you for loving. Your church,
thank you for loving. To help us to grow and to know.
What it means to live as a Christ follower in freedom without fear. Without loneliness. But they
are we are united in Christ. And that is really the point
of life. In His name we pray, amen.