That this teaching that was happening
in Ephesus, that this error, that these divisions that were
taking place because of it were necessary, but then also that
God has authority over them and they're easily reconciled. That's
the beauty of the Christian walk. I want you to hear this this
morning. As I said last week, we often come with glad tidings
and joyful commands, but we are not glad and we are not joyful. We put on airs, we put on the
show. It's like in jazz school and
music school, when we had concerts, when we practiced, we wore what
we wanted. T-shirts, flip flops, jeans, bandanas, ball caps. But when we performed, we had
to look like penguins. We had to wear the tux, we had
a certain color tie, and a certain color cummerbund, or a vest,
or whatever. And when we were singing, have
you ever seen a quartet in overalls? Maybe, I don't know, maybe in
the West Virginia. But, you know, not in music school. You wear the regalia. And so
we put on the show. Now, Grandmother Tippins used
to get upset and I'd be rolling out with my horn and have my
tuxedo on and she was so concerned that I was falling into darkness. And she'd stand at the door and
she'd say, don't you forget about Elvis. I was three when Elvis died.
I mean, you know, I don't remember him at all. Well, you know what
happens when you play in them juke joints. She thought that
the theater was a juke joint, because that's all she knew.
She thought I was in some big band somewhere at a speakeasy,
and the ATF were busting up crates or something. I don't know. I
don't know what she thought. But she never really could grasp
the fact that when I put on that tuxedo, I wasn't juking. I was actually performing Bach
or whatever it might be that the wind ensemble might be doing.
But we do that. we put on the show. We put on
the show in our vocabulary, we put on our show in our speech.
And my voice is a little raspy this morning because, I don't
know, I thought we washed the pollen away, but I guess not.
But we put on the show in our grammar. I mean, my dialect changes
depending on who I'm standing around. Have any of you noticed
that? It's incredible. It's called
an empathetic ear. It's what makes me good to hear
certain pitches and tones and music. Helps you play in tune
and sing in tune, but it also makes you seem a little odd when
you're hanging around all the really country folks. And nobody
else can understand you, but you can understand them and they
can understand you. It's almost like speaking different
languages in the same tongue. But we do it subconsciously.
We do it indirectly. We are following a pattern set
before us from birth that someone, without even speaking words,
has established for us. And we follow it and we just
go with it. And then we take that pattern and we walk and
we live and we act. I like to give the riddle that
I'm the oldest of five sons, my mom and dad have three boys,
and I'm an only child. Now you can figure that out if
you want. All three true statements. But my father's other sons and
I, we stand alike. We cross our hands alike. We
mash our teeth alike. And when we're upset, we get
on our toes alike. No one sat us down and said,
all right, son, now, when you become a man, do this, do this,
and do this. We just do it because it's imposed
upon us through the observation of our lives. Now, for those
of you who know the science of that, we know what that falls
into, but in reality, our Christian faith is the same. Our understanding
of scripture is the same. And so there is a necessity for
the shepherds of the flock to remind the church of these things,
just like the apostles reminded the elders of the first church
so that they could also remind the church. And when we get over
into chapter three, we're going to see some things about qualifications. When we get into 2 Timothy, we're
gonna see some things about the calling to the ministry. When
we get over into chapter three of 2 Timothy, we're gonna see
something about the sufficiency of scripture. But if we just
wait until we get there, then we're gonna miss the point, see,
because we're supposed to read these things, oops, we're supposed
to read these letters in their fullness. as we sit together
each day. They're supposed to be absorbed
in their completeness, not a verse. We're not supposed to come and
get verse 12 today. We're supposed to come and think
about verse 12 in the oversight of the elders of the church as
we have already absorbed the whole letter, both letters, and
we have an understanding of what they're teaching because we've
read them already. You can't learn the Bible a verse
at a time. You can expound upon it, you
can expand your understanding, but you have to read it. Recipes
can't be dealt with one line a day. You'll never get the pot
fixed and finished. You'll never get the meal done. There's some interesting stuff
that we need to look at here. Now, Paul says these things to
this young elder so that this young elder would lead the people
of Christ effectively, successfully, prosperously. And Paul says,
look at verse 8, now we know that the law is good. And we've examined that, not
thoroughly, but sufficiently within this context. If one uses
it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down
for the just, but for the lawless, for the disobedient, for the
sinner, for the ungodly, for the unholy and the profane. And
then Paul establishes an example for every one of the Ten Commandments
in this little sentence. And then he closes it out, and
this is where we were last week. He says, and whatever else is
contrary, the second part of verse 10, to sound teaching. I'm going to emphasize sound
teaching a lot this morning as it relates to the next expression
of Paul. in accordance with the gospel,
the good report, of the revelation of who God is, the glory of God,
who is blessed, with which I have been entrusted as a steward to
teach to you. So Paul's concern was to reestablish
a foundation of gospel truth. not to spend his time dealing
with error, not to ridiculously anathematize, and that means
to curse, to curse, only God can curse, not to curse those who are in
error, those who are divisive, but to reconcile them to the
gospel. all doing so in obedience to
the Lord's commands through his apostles to be intimate and in
covenant commitment with one another. We seem to understand
this. Now, there are exceptions to
what I'm about to say, but we seem to understand this idea
of covenant promise and intimacy when it comes to our children.
There are exceptions. There are some people that I
know who have kicked their kids out, who have tried to adopt
them out, who have left them on doorsteps. And I'm not gonna
make judgment on that, because I'm not in their head. I don't
know what they're going through. I don't know what horror that they're
experiencing. I mean, I know that there's some
closeness sometimes to a child and to the spawn of evil, but
then I'm their father. So, I mean, you know, we have
to realize We have to realize we can't make judgment, but in
a general sense, most people, no matter how horrible their
children are, they don't throw them out. I think the youngest any of my
children decided they were going to leave on their own was four. Now, my neighbor has a young
kid, haven't met this kid yet, but he's probably around that
age and he was rolling down the street with his three wheeler
and a rolling bag the other day. And I thought, yeah, he's running
off. Sure enough, another neighbor went out and he's like, I'm not
staying here and I can't take this place, you know? And I'm
like, golly, to be five or four and to think you could just walk
out the door, you know? That's what they do. but we don't
throw our children away. No matter how bad they act, they're
still our children. Yes, we create boundaries, we
create natural and, you know, choice consequences. We deal
with discipline, which means correction. The point of discipline
is to correct the behavior or the attitude of the mindset.
It's not to punish. It's not punishment. Discipline and punishment
are completely different things. They don't sit in the same category.
Now, someone would argue that, I think I could argue better.
Let's try it. I'm willing to have a nice discussion.
Correction. We want to teach. So the idea
of correction in discipline is to teach what is right, to disavow
or dissuade what is wrong, to change the behavior from this
to this, just like you would a dog. I've always been told
if you can train a dog, you can train a child. It's true. People spend more time on their
pets and their birds than they do their children. And no wonder
they don't listen. Because the dog is more beloved
than the son. And that's a joke. Don't take offense. Because we
know we love our animals. They're going to be with us when
the children run off with their bags. To that end, though, we don't
disown our children. Even if they run away, they're
still our children. Even if they go to the courts
and they emancipate themselves through some process, they are
still, in every real way, our children, even if the letter
of the law says otherwise. Why don't we look at marriage
that way? Why don't we look at friendships that way? Why don't
we look at the gospel that way? Why don't we look at the sovereignty
of God that way? Because we just can't. We can
regurgitate the, we can regurgitate what we say we believe is true,
but when it comes down to it, we're all struggling to hold
fast to what the Bible would tell us is the prescription for
joy. And then we do what we've been
taught to do that we don't know that we've been taught to do,
and we're back to square one. We're just following the patterns
of this world. See, when you hear Paul say that in Ephesians
chapter two, don't we often, always, as Bible-believing Christians,
we believe the patterns of this world are thus that evil, wicked
stuff. No, it's also the way we think. It's also understanding
that we are, in most every way, A slave, a slave to another person's
ideals, a slave to history, a slave to our own natural consequences
of the actions and the decisions we've made. We push this button
and this pops out, but we don't think anything further than that.
Some people might charge me with being philosophical this morning,
of which I am. Also psychological, but I will
tell you that it's extremely biblical and contextual. Because what caused this division
in the Church of Ephesus? People devoted themselves to
thinking about myths. People were thinking too much
about genealogies. People were trying to make comparisons
and contrasts and distinctions to the point where they could
feel that they were pure and understood it so well. And then
those who gained knowledge and they had zeal but not wisdom
were puffed up. They became the thumpers, making
it known very clearly who they were and what they knew and that
they were right. And then some of them were very
persuasive because a lot of times it doesn't take good logic to
persuade someone. It just takes zeal. It takes
a little charisma. It takes a little tear. And we
call that salesmanship. It's a show. It's like putting
on a tux. We're all victims in that sense, and we're all perpetuators
of such crimes. Some people call it manipulation,
but if it's in the context of good marketing, it's sales. Some people call it deception,
but if it's in the context of good investigation, it's called
prowess. Some people call it sneakiness.
But in the right context, it has wisdom. And beloved, there's no black
and white in those things. We must seek wisdom. We must
learn. Do you know that God will teach
us through his word, the Holy Spirit will grant us understanding,
but you know what he will not do? He will not grant us understanding
when we go to the word with understanding. He will not teach us anything
when we go to the Word as experts. He will not show us Himself in
any real sense when we go knowing what we're already going to find.
Now, I want you to hear what I'm saying and not what I'm not
saying. I'm saying that it doesn't mean that we're completely ignorant
every time we open the Bible. But sometimes we go to prove
our point rather than go and let God teach us His. And so
we need to always be willing and able to realize that I myself
have gotten all tied up in endless genealogies. I have also been
debating things that aren't necessarily helpful. I have preached things,
probably most likely, yes, from this pulpit that probably were
ill-mannered or ill-appointed in their timing. or maybe just
from my little, you know, it's not the 20 minutes that matters,
it's the two seconds. It's not the lifelong intimacy
that we have together with grandma, it's that one time she slapped
us, you see. That's what we remember. Those
things have a lasting impact and sometimes pastors can slap
the church and not even know it. I know I've felt slapped,
have you felt slapped? But then we go back to what Paul
is teaching. We know how to use the word of
God. We know how to rightly handle the word. And the primary thing
that we start with is knowing that we must humbly come to the
scriptures with everything that God has taught us, with all of
the study that we have, and know that God is not going to wake
us up tomorrow morning and have given us knowledge in our sleep.
We must take time to study in order to be approved to teach. That is why pastors must make
their living with the gospel, because if I'm just doing everything
else and then coming in here on a two hour wind, it's gonna
be worthless for you. And I'm gonna become the haughty
but humble expert that doesn't need to study. You see, that's
sad. And we have to pay attention.
We have to pay attention. And there are some things that
I can get out of the text because I got a lot of tools, you know?
Got a lot of resources. Mechanics start out with a couple
of wrenches, couple of tools, and by the time they've worked
40 years, they've got a warehouse full. I've got a warehouse full
of tools. Some of them I'll never use again.
Some of them I've never even taken out of the wrapper. But
they're there. What tools are you using? Are
you going back to the original tools? Are you going back to
the foundation? I'm not talking about the Greek. I'm talking
about are you using the word of God as the foundation of your
faith? Are you testing everything I say and do and ask of you by
the scripture? If it is reasonable, if it is
taught, and if it is good for the building up and the love
of the church, it is something that God himself then has required
of us. No, if we don't do it, He doesn't
disown us. If we disobey the commands of
Christ, He goes, well, you were my son, now you're not. Because
it's not about us coming to Him, it's about Him dying for us.
And it's about the Spirit of God causing us to rest in that
promise and the power therein. That's faith. And then all then,
the life we live together, is God's prescription for us to
be intimate, that we may know what is good and lovely and eternal,
and we work to that end, not looking after our own interest
only, but also the interest of one another. Not as we saw in
2 Corinthians 12 at the opening of our service this morning,
where Paul says, I don't wanna boast because you'll think more
of me than you ought to, but you should judge me and think
of me only by how I act in my life, and how I teach with my
mouth." That's what he said. So know what I've said to you
and see how I act. And what does he mean by how
I act? How I treat people. How I treat people. And that's
the problem. The problem in Ephesus is not
that people were confused or wrong or came up with some incredible
idea they saw on sand tube or wherever it was that they found
this information. But because they were causing
harm to people's conscience. They were dividing over the argument
rather than the truth. You see? And it happens to us
all. It happens to us in our homes.
It happens to us in our jobs. It happens to us in many ways. I'm counseling another couple
that's preparing to be married. And I start out in my first few
times with a new couple, and I always ask this question, why
do you think your marriage will beat the statistics that one
and two end in divorce? And if they're young, they'll
say, you know, we're going to have the Lord at the center.
It doesn't matter. The Lord at the center? What
does that even mean? That sounds right. The Lord at
the center. It is right. But what does it
mean? Because Christian marriages, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote,
and non-Christian marriages have the same rate of success, completely. The same rate. As a matter of
fact, if you really start looking, evangelicals have a higher divorce
rate than anybody. So now, why is your marriage
going to be? You know what I found? is that
even people who would deny the gospel when they learn about
covenant intimacy and they learn to forgive one another. See,
you don't have to be a Christian to understand forgiveness. But you are not a child of God
until you understand His. All right, let me put that back.
Because you are a child of God, you will understand His. I don't
want to make it a condition. But it is. Even unbelievers, when they understand
forgiveness and forbearing and thinking of the other more than
they think of themselves, it becomes successful. And what's
the success? That it stays together. Not that
it's always happy. And that's with any relationship.
And so here we have Paul saying he's been entrusted with the
gospel of glory of the blessed God and his occasion here to
teach this and his audience is an elder only and the context
is that there were these people who were part of the body, these
beloved brothers who were stirring up a bunch of mess and causing
the church to be at odds with one another and his intention
was to bring the church back together, not to harm anybody,
not to make anybody look bad, but to bring everybody under
the precious sovereignty of Christ. And the ones who leave, as we
see in John's writing and other places where Paul writes to the
Corinthians, those are the ones who are excommunicated because
they won't stop that behavior. Realize you cannot be excommunicated
because you think differently, or you have a different of opinion,
or you have even a skewed theology. Because thinking something is
different than making people divide over it. I think a lot of things. My philosophy
and my poetry database, self-poetry, is a ghastly mix. Not ghastly, but ghastly mix. Might be ghastly as well if it
leaked out. But it's a ghastly mix of weird, strange, anecdotal,
mix of falsehood and truths. My propositions and the outcomes
of the way I think, sometimes, I mean, I have been quiet on
stuff for six or seven years before I shared it with anybody,
and then when I share it, and they look at me like I'm, I don't
know, like my head turned around backwards and exchanged it for
my butt, I just sort of keep it to myself. But what if I was insistent?
See, that's the occasion. So therein, what I just explained
to you is the context of Paul's letter to Timothy. That's the occasion. That's the
context. The context always determines the meaning. And it always determines
our understanding. The letters of the New Testament
are not for us to get exhaustive understanding on a topic. Matter
of fact, there is no way possible that any human being alive can
have exhaustive knowledge of any biblical thing when God himself
is eternal. However, we can exhaust our understanding
and we can expressly deal with everything that we know and continue
to learn. But what does Paul's next word,
look at me trying to scroll up in my Bible, that was weird. Goodness gracious, and I was
a Luddite a month ago, you know? That's funny, I literally went
up, I said, I can't see the bottom of this. Sorry, I gotta get my thoughts
again. Oh, Paul, what does he say? He doesn't come back and
then start to lambast and stress out over these things. He's seeking
reconciliation. And the next thing out of his
mouth, look at verse 12. I thank him. I thank him who has given
me strength. Who is him? The one who has given
him strength. Who was that? The Lord Jesus Christ and the
Father, God, our Savior, Christ Jesus, our hope. Mercy, grace,
peace, this God. I thank Him who has given me
strength. Who is this? Christ Jesus our Lord. What are you thanking? What's
this strength? Because He judged me faithful. He appointed me
to His service. Let's stop there. So this is
Paul's response. This is Paul's response. This
is Paul's personal expression of what's going on in Ephesus.
What does he say? Now listen, we've got Galatians. Paul's first
letter, we know what Paul says there, but he's pleading with
a loved people, a beloved born-again people who he said has been bewitched
because they have taken circumcision. Those people were not accursed.
There's nothing you can do to your body that will separate
you eternally from Christ. Because if you are His, I mean,
and you might think, well, that, you know, he's talking about
circumcision. And that's the only context of
Galatians. But what it does is it points to a bigger thing.
So where are we in the 80s? You know, in the 1980s, I remember
growing up and the only people that had tattoos were what? Mass murderers. I mean, that's
what we were taught indirectly, right? Oh, you don't want a tattoo?
You don't want to identify with that? Well, in the Bible, do
not mark your bodies. Don't mark your body, son. You
know? It's not permanent, okay? Does it have to be permanent?
I mean, you see the arguments? So we take the context and we
throw it away, and then we create a pretext, and we create an entire
theology about having to control people, and then indirectly we
get the entire world to follow our pattern. And then we have
evangelicalism, ta-da, in its fourth iteration. It's not the
fourth generation, but it's the fourth iteration. Neo-evangelical,
post-evangelical, post-modern evangelical, and so on and so
forth. I'd hate to be a philosopher today. I'd have to walk around
like nine volumes of dictionaries with three volumes of blank paper. And so here we have Paul, in
the context, his response is he's thanking God for his power. Okay, he's thanking God for his
power. He's saying that anything that is contrary to sound teaching,
we need to not let it happen. Elder Timothy. Young Elder Timothy. That's an oxymoron, right? You
know that. Young man, old man, Timothy. The young one older. Don't let it happen. Charge these
people, teach them, instruct them not to think this way and
not to teach these things so that we can have unity. Oh, I
thank God who has given me strength in Christ Jesus, our Lord, because
he judged me faithful. He judged me faithful and appointed
me to his service. Now see, all of us there could
stop and say, yeah, I want to be faithful. Then God will appoint
me to his service. That's not how it works for Paul. Paul was not a faithful servant.
He thought he was. Paul actually was exactly like
the people he's writing about now. He was the one who with
all authority and absolute 100% accuracy in its exegetical prowess,
he came to the table of being the poster child of Jewish authority. The poster
child of Jewish piety. These are Paul's words, not mine.
He says to the Philippians, blameless. The Jew of Jews, Benjamin, circumcised,
named after the king of Israel, Saul, Saulus. That's Paul's name. He's appointed to the service
because the Lord judged me faithful, yet he was not faithful. Look
at verse 13. Though formerly I was a blasphemer. You see, when God shows us our
self-righteousness, we see it. How do we see it? Does God say,
Tippins, look at your self-righteousness. Look at this and look at that
and look at all these things you're thinking. No, because
He'd be constantly saying, look. He'd be constantly like walking
a child when you're learning to walk. Now watch out for snakes.
Now watch out for glass. And we're in the crib. Always
mind your manners. Good boy, you took a step, yay.
Don't want to wear out, sit down. You don't want a hamstring pull.
I mean, this is constant overbearing worry about what's next and what
could happen and what could possibly go wrong. This isn't how God
establishes his revelation to his people, nor is it how he
teaches his people. He teaches us himself. And he
taught Paul not about all the wrong things he did just like
Jesus in John chapter 4 when he's talking with the woman of
Sychar and he explains to her the gospel over and over again
in which she is well versed. She knew it. And then supernaturally, he reveals
himself to her and the spirit of God granted her faith to trust
in the promises of God through the Messiah. And she goes back
and says some amazing phrase when she runs back after formally
avoiding the people of town because of her wickedness and her fleshliness
and her sinfulness, because she didn't want to be ridiculed. She goes back to town and she
says, y'all come see. I mean, if she's a southern girl,
she'd be like, y'all come see now. I've met a man that told
me every bad thing I've ever done. I think he's the Christ. Y'all
come see. But Jesus didn't tell her that,
did he? Jesus showed her grace. Jesus showed her what salvation
was truly Him. And all of a sudden it was like,
all the things she'd been trying to do, all the things she'd been
arguing for, not all of them, but the ones that were fresh
in her mind. We're not supposed to dig out all the old things.
God, by His mercy, has caused me to forget so much. Where I
used to forget nothing, now I forget everything and it's beautiful. And I'm saying that sincerely.
That was my biggest stress after a very difficult time emotionally
and mentally. I said, I can't think anymore. I can't remember.
And now I'm like, I don't need to. What I need is right before
me. And now is what's most important. He was a blasphemer. He was a
persecutor of the children of God. How would we treat Paul
today? Not the Apostle Paul, but one
of the 70. How would we treat him as a Sanhedrin
member? I know what we'd do. We'd create
a website, paulthepickle.com. Sourpuss of teachers. wicked slayer of the innocent
children of God, the reprobate of reprobates. And that's what
we do, right? And then some people would like,
no, Paul's an expert. He's got a PhD from Claxton Seminary. That's about what it's worth,
right? He's done all this. He's written
700 books. I feel bad for him. Write books. You know I'm just
joking. I'm not anti-book. But that's what we would do.
And then there would be forums and groups and messages and things
and television shows and everywhere you look, apologists. You know
what an apologist does? Stands in the context of Scripture
and exposits the truth of Christ. I know a few people who are true
apologists and I know a thousand. I won't exaggerate. I know a
thousand who aren't, but take the title. Paul would be despised and he
would be hated, but you know what wouldn't happen for Paul
in today's Christianity? He would never be evangelized. He'd be avoided. Oh, the same thing would happen
to him as the apostle too. Paul was a blasphemer. He was
a persecutor. Paul went door to door with swords,
with a little tiny little army, town to town, looking for the
apostles, looking for the 11 plus Matthias. And had no idea he would be number
13. He was zealous and he was brilliant. Paul was one of the greatest
philosophers that ever stood on two feet. And I believe that if Paul argued
against you in the court of the Sanhedrin, you would die. You
wouldn't beat him. Move over Johnny Cochran, it's
the Apostle Paul. And only the older folks in the
room got that. I was a persecutor and an insolent
opponent. But I received mercy. I received mercy. And this is
where we're going to focus the next 15 minutes. I received mercy. And I don't like what Paul writes
here, but I know the context in which he writes it. But for
us, we like to pull this line out and make an entire theology
behind it. But this is not Paul's intention.
Listen to it. But I received mercy because
I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. His emphasis is not on his ignorance
and unbelief. His emphasis is on the very next
phrase, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the
faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. Now I could keep
talking. And if we're thinking, well,
what is this grace? What is this mercy? What is this faith and
love of Christ? The saying is trustworthy, verse
15, and deserving of full embrace, full acceptance, full adoption,
full confidence that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Point number one of the grace
of God. Point number two. in Paul's experience
and knowledge of whom I am the foremost. So I can make confident assertions
about the hypothetical reality of how Paul would be treated
here because of the expression of what Paul is revealed to be
before Christ snatched him out of darkness and blinded his physical
eyes by giving him spiritual sight. and he no longer looked
at where he'd been or what he did, but as he grew over these
30, 40 years in ministry, over the first decade before he ever
preached his first, ever went on a missionary journey, in isolation,
learning, relearning that which he was an expert in, he never
looked back and tethered anything of his old life to Christ. But
Christ came in like a divine weed eater and just chopped the
top off and Paul was snatched up and the roots of all of those
dead works were left to decay in the ground. Paul is the foremost sinner. It's not hyperbole or Over expressive
humility, it's a reality for Paul. He killed the very elect
of God by his own command. Had them torn from one another,
had children sold into slavery. Because he hated the way of Christ. But he loved God the Father with
all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength. But what does Jesus
say? Paul never loved God at all.
Because he never loved the ones that belonged to him. Sound teaching is expressed here. Now, I'm gonna walk into some
things that are very personal for us. And I pray that what
you hear this morning is guided by the mysteries of God's spirit,
because as a body, as a family, we have to handle what comes
our way according to the scripture. And I've already talked about
these things, but this morning, I want to express a clear contextual
reality. about what we need to be focused
on most of all. Paul says that he was entrusted
with sound doctrine and that the elders of the church, Timothy,
you are to call people and to charge them to cease acting or
speaking or teaching in any way that is contrary to sound doctrine
and beloved All of us in this room have experienced that, haven't
we? Either it's been a direct conversation or something that
we've heard from the pulpit or something we've read in our own
word, our own copy of the scriptures that has caused us to go, okay,
I need to stop doing that. Like memes that are mocking unbelief, you
know, stuff like that. And I'm not gonna give a list
of things, but we've talked about those over the last few years. I like
some of them. We laugh. I've got a comedy sketch
that I was doing in my mind the other day of how we don't laugh
at what's funny anymore. We laugh at misery. And the reason
we find things funny is because we're mean. And then we laugh at that because
I can't help myself, right? Because we're so conditioned,
back to when I started, we're so conditioned to know what's
funny. we join in and don't even know
it. So what is contrary to sound
teaching is what is contrary to what is sound and true and
right and Paul's intention is to correct this. And sound teaching
corrects and overcomes error. Sound teaching destroys man's
philosophy and sets the record straight. Not in dogma and overlording
and expressive passion, but in calmness and logic and reasoning
and expressing tenderly that which is taught according to
the scripture. Sound teaching is a gift of God. See, he says
there, I thank Him who has given me strength and judged me faithful,
appointed me to his service. I am an apostle of Christ Jesus
by the command of God and by the mercy and the grace and the
peace and the love of God our Savior. And this is a gift of
God. We go to Paul's writing to the
Ephesians and he tells that God has given gifts to the church.
And all of us are a gift to someone, to one another. We all have roles,
but not all of us are going to be teachers. Not every man in
this church is going to be able to teach the Word of God. But I have to. And the elders
of the church have to. We have no choice. Beloved, I
have tried to leave the ministry for 23 years and I've only been
active in the ministry for 22 years. I can't. I've tried. I want to
sometimes. Desperately. Why? Because I just
want to live for myself like a selfish fool sometimes, you
know? Don't you? if I could just turn them off,
you know? It's all great when everything's
great, but sometimes, I just wanna break. You know what? We
gotta take those little breaks. We gotta escape like Jesus. We
don't have to work 164 hours a week, Tippins. We have to teach. And when we
are called to teach, it is a gift to the church. Matter of fact,
it is a precious gift, and it's strange for me to say that because
it sounds self-serving, but beloved, I'm telling you now, if I could
give it up, I would, but I can't because I love you too much.
And there's nothing else that I can do. And every time I try,
God tears my body apart. Every time. Every time I try
to do something just to ease the burden God just says, you
want something else to do? Well, just go sit on your butt
for a month. There you go. That's correction. Your child
is sticking his hand in the fire, and you lead them to safety.
You want to do something that's not healthy, not good, against
what the Lord desires? He's just going to redirect us
over here to what he's doing. Sound teaching redirects the
church, beloved. I want you to hear this. Our
duty to come together and assemble is not so we can get a sermon.
You can listen to this online. I don't ever have to show up.
People don't even know who I am can listen to this and go, yeah,
that's good information. Yeah, let me take notes on that.
Good information. But to apply it to our lives,
to be shepherded under it is a different story. So know that
I love you, beloved. And I pray that you love one
another. Sound teaching is a gift of God.
Sound teaching, as I've already said, is a responsibility of
stewardship. It's not our call. It's God's call. It's God's appointment. It's God's appointment for you
to be in the faith, to be in this body, to endure, to suffer,
and to rejoice. Sound teaching, to be a teacher,
is a divine calling. It's not something man just decides.
You know what? I want to be an apologist. I
want to be an evangelist. I think I'm just going to do that. There
are too many of these people out here. And their platform is not,
first and foremost, to deal with the simple instructions of grace
and then the simple lifestyle of grace, but to deal with everything
that they deem is not exactly the way it should be. And beloved, we're all guilty.
This past week, I was reminded by the Lord just how much rage
and anger and absolute hate rests in my conscience. And I don't
know where that stuff is in the spiritual sense, philosophically.
with my soul, my heart, my gut, my bowels, my pinky toe. I don't
know where it rests, but when it comes out, when it rises up,
I felt 20. And somebody accosted me on Wednesday. I think it was Wednesday. I think
I went blank for two days. No, I did not sin in my anger.
No, I did not express myself in a rude way. No, I did not
beat anybody to a bloody pulp. I did not pull a gun. I did not
stick my dog on them. I did not call down fire from
heaven. I did not act like a ridiculous idiot. Oh, but I wanted to. And I felt it. I felt it at the
tips of my fingers. Man, you know what I'm talking
about. I mean, just thinking when all
the years, when, you know, 19 years of close quarter combat training,
and you're too old to even pick up a bag of sugar because of
your arthritis in your elbow, but you think you could Bruce
Lee yourself right through a crowd. Because you just feel it right
there. That's how I felt. And I was furious. Because not
only did they accost me, they scared other people and they
bullied them. And that's where I draw the line. That's my thing.
That's my trigger. When I feel other people are
bullied, it really burns me. And so I was enraged. I didn't
even speed home. I drove slow. I was like, Lord,
help me, Jesus. Thank God the door was locked
and I couldn't get inside of where that man was standing.
Because I just wanted to talk to him, you know? I just wanted
to talk. Can we talk for a minute? Come
on, I want to reason with you. He wasn't going to have it. And
there it was. I felt 20. Not in that I was
excited and fit and, you know, and energetic. It's that I wanted
to hurt somebody. And Paul's going to tell Timothy,
you know, it's a desired task. If one seeks to be an overseer,
he must not be. He must be of overapproach, I
mean, you can't bring a charge against him. He must be faithful
to his wife, must be sober minded, he must be self-controlled. To see my love for you by the
mercies of God keeps me in check sometimes. Respectable, hospitable,
able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome,
not a lover of money, so on and so forth. Why? Because we have
an interest in God's purposes and we don't have time for that.
And what good does it mean to come in here and love on you
and then hate my neighbor and destroy somebody else and to
talk bad about this and to be known as the guy? Don't make
James mad, he'll pop you one. It's not out of my character,
it's just outside my discipline. Do you know forgiveness is a
discipline? It's not an experience, it's not a divine poof. And then, you know, I don't ever
think about that. No, think about it. You've forgiven somebody?
Yeah, man, I forgave that year. Let them come knock on your door.
What is this guy ringing my doorbell for? I know good and well He
is not coming over here to ask me a favor when He did what He
did. That's not forgiveness. So where does forgiveness come?
At that moment, the discipline is there. You serve Him. You
love Him. You pray for Him. You don't hold
it against Him. But it's not going to go away,
guys. Our flesh may get older, but it's not going to get more
holy. It's not going to be more righteous. But it can act it. It can live it. until God says,
yeah, let me show you what you got. God gives this divine calling. The apostles, the pastors, the
deacons are those who are in charge, the prophets, you know,
and now we have the overseers and the servants, the office
of overseer, the office of servant, and then everybody else who learns
and shares accordingly. But this calling requires sound
teaching in accordance with the truth, trusting the sovereignty
of God in all of it. Sound teaching includes the full
counsel of God, His glory and redemption and His guidance in
our relationships with one another. Sound teaching is a part of,
listen very carefully, is a part of God's grace effected to Paul
and now to those who are called to teach according to Paul's
instruction. Christ called the apostles, the
apostles inform and what? evaluate and confirm those who
are called to teach. And in the church, reading like
Bereans, testing that, go, okay, this man not only has the gift,
but does have the call, and all of these things are in place,
we affirm. Not based on our desire and standard
of what the job description is, but on God's desire, on God's
revealed description. Verse 14, and the grace of our
Lord overflowed for me. I wish I just read that text
and talked about it. So this will be a two-parter. Overflowed for me. With the faith
and love that are in Christ Jesus. Grace. Hadis. Hadis. Some people may say charis,
because that's how it's spelled. And we've talked about grace
a lot over the last year, haven't we? We've learned a lot about
grace. We've learned a lot of things
contextually about grace. The grace of our Lord, the grace
of our God, the grace of God, God's grace, the New Testament,
as I've said before, it reserves possessively. You know what possessive
means? This is James's microphone. This
is Mike's Bible. This is, you know, this is Nora's
tablet, you know. That belongs to them. That's
not true. You might say, leave them in my Bible. Possessive. So when the Bible
uses the term for grace, possessive to God, it is always, 100% of
the time, effectual grace unto salvation to the elect, or God's
effectual continuing power in the lives of the elect. I want
you to hear that. This grace. So biblically, when
referring to God and His grace, this grace reflects the eternal
essence of God. It reflects the essence of God
in salvation. This is just a repeat. I've said this stuff before.
And it's not common to all humanity. But like I said a couple of years
ago, well actually a little over a year ago, that sometimes we
use systemized ways and terms to express ourselves and how
we understand or categorize certain things concerning theology. And for the most part, they're
benign. They really are. It doesn't matter. But we've
had some stingers, haven't we, through the years? Like, let's
see. My brain just went dead again.
And I didn't try to scroll up. We've had some stingers. There
we are. Sanctification. What's the word mean? It mean
a lot of things. Progressive sanctification. Oh,
does that mean we're getting better? What does the Bible say? The Bible has a manifold usage
of the term. It talks about it in two specific
ways. One specifically, it talks about how we are to set apart
our lives and our mouths and our hands and our eyes for the
sake of God's name. to the Thessalonians. Put away
things that are not according to sound doctrine. Set yourself
apart. But ultimately, in the spiritual
sense, we see what Paul says. We are sanctified in Christ.
It is a finished work. It is something that God has done.
Brother Trey, a couple of years ago, preached out of that. And
he says, you know, that God takes us out of darkness and puts us
in Christ. This is God separating us, giving
us to the Son. This is an eternal thing that
God has decreed to do. And it is something that God
does in time, in the context of his relationship with his
people, when he grants us faith to trust in what he's done for
us. And so we are sanctified, we
are set apart, we are holy only in Jesus Christ. But there's
several of those. Grace is another one. Grace is
a term that is, as we talked about last week, like love and
joy and glory. Grace is another one of those
terms that Paul uses very explicitly and myopically. And in the 19th,
20th century, Presbyterians got into a spat and they came up
with this debate that divided them into three denominations.
And it was on the issue of what we would call grace in a common
way, common grace or universal grace or providence, long-suffering,
patience, et cetera. And it wasn't that God isn't
providential to all humanity or long-suffering or patient
or sometimes exhibiting some type of kindness and that he
doesn't starve the reprobate. As a matter of fact, I would
say that sometimes God starves his people and then fattens up the reprobate.
But we don't know because we don't know who they are. But
Solomon would bemoan that issue, right? Why do the unjust just
sit around and get richer and fuller and fabulous? I've got
it all and I still can't find what they've got. What's going
on? So what does he do? But this argument has become
so entangled with historical division. that we need to recognize
that God overflowing His grace has to do with Him saving His
people and sustaining His people. So while sometimes terms can
be manifold in their usage, both in the New and Old Testament,
when it comes to God possessively having grace, it is explicitly
used in a way that the term grace and God's grace is not common
at all. It's not universal in any way.
And though I may mean something different, I'm confusing something
that the Bible will explicitly teach against. So what do we
call that? What do we call? How about what the Bible calls
it? Kindness. See? And this is a philosophical
argument, but it has a contextual answer. And the contextual answer
is that history has played with the ideas of God and the gospel,
but the Bible alone is the final authority on what is what should
be taught concerning these things. History can walk alongside us
and we can learn and glean, but sometimes, beloved, there are
many words which are not appropriate in my vernacular that were appropriate,
for those of you who ever read Luther, in his day. You don't
want your pastor talking like Martin Luther. If you've never experienced that,
just go look it up. I know you're gonna do it anyway.
You'll be aghast. A man of God talking like that?
Well, that's debatable. The point is, he was in the position
of preaching the gospel or the word or seminary and he had a
very foul mouth. But we don't do that today. Or, you know, just like through
the history where certain terms would be derogatory, would be
racist. Certain expressions that may
be commonplace when I graduated high school amongst all people,
but now we've learned, hey, that's not what we mean anymore. This
word carries a greater weight. We're not gonna use it anymore.
So the same thing is true for the things that we learn historically
in our theology. Christ did not die to save all
men. We are saved by grace. Christ's
death was not a hypothetical event, but a promised and prophesied
productive catalyst to bring salvation for all for whom it
was intended. Jesus Christ died on the cross
and He said it is finished because the sins of His people, those
to whom the Father would give Him, I think that was right, those who
the Father would give Him, will be justified by His death. They
will believe, they will see, and they will rest. This is grace.
And history's played with these things and it's concerning to
me. But context rules over all words. Words in and of themselves are
not heresies. People who use certain phrases and words are
not heretics. The word heretic literally means divided opinion.
And so the only time that becomes divided is when we insist upon
these things in a way that hurts others. But context rules over grammar.
Context rules over ideas. Context rules over politics and
nationalism and worldviews. And the intention of the text
is clear. And the Bible is clear. The grace and the mercy of God,
the love of God for His people is expressed in the context of
false teaching in such a way that it overflows to Paul. See, we believe, here's a historical
tidbit, We believe that grace is the power of God unto salvation.
That grace is an expression of God doing something effectually. It's not substance. It's not
a thing. God doesn't have a pocket full
of grace. Like an old uncle handing you
a piece of peppermint from 1930. Pulls out all your teeth. No,
God's not blowing grace around and hoping it lands on somebody.
He's not. It's who he is. And when he reveals himself in
scripture in relation to that term. He's saving his people. So this is the biblical understanding.
There's no general sense where the context of Scripture will
allow grace to be understood outside of the effectual and
particular redemption of His people when it's ascribed to
Him. And because it is a historical division, I think it's important
for us as a church to lay aside that phrase, to lay aside that
term. Just like I didn't think I could
get, I didn't think I had a button to push anymore. I found out
earlier I did. And I think God did it to show
me that sometimes just what I'm
saying now can push our buttons. Because I don't like feeling
wrong. But I love the peace that comes
from knowing that I'm doing what is loving. and what is good and
what is profitable. So the biblical understanding
of God's grace is not common grace at all, and we disavow
any idea that would permit that to be profitable. I could tell you the history
of the debate, which I've just recently learned over the last
few months, but we know that historically the Church of Rome,
what? The Church of Rome departed from the grace of God. And out
of that grace alone, what happened? Out of that came the Protestant
protesting, the protest, the Reformation. We're fighting against
it, we're standing. I say fighting, it means something
different now. We're standing on the solidarity
of Scripture. Who did it? The clergy. So here
we are today on the other side of that. And all we have to do
is just dip our toe in the water sometimes and we can fall right
back into the same thing with a different name, with a different
idea, with a different focus. It's the same thing and it boils
down to not focusing on that which is contextually driven
according to the profitability of God's name, but rather what
best suits us. So the grace of God is not His
patience, it's not His providence. Those terms have names. So let
us be patient and run the race of grace, not the race to save
face. Patience, forbearance, food,
etc. They're reported in the Bible,
but they're not called God's grace. But what is called God's
grace is His saving, effectual love for His people. And although
we as human beings are good to categorize things, We're not
mal-intented for doing so. The struggle has come to a boil. So not only are we going to stand
in intimacy and not accuse one another of being heretics, we're
also going to stand in intimacy and not insist upon our own way
in the use of certain terms that are really not contextual. As these problems existed in
the first churches, they will always exist in history. The
beauty of it is that, as we've seen here, I thank Him who has
given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me
faithful, appointing me to His service. Though I was formerly
a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received
mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And I know I've
gone long, beloved, just bear with me. Paul thought he was doing what
was right. And the only thing that could
change it was the grace of God to show you the truth. And this isn't just in word.
Paul's body, when he died, bore the evidences of this suffering.
No man but Christ has suffered the wrath of God and been raised
to life. But Paul has suffered as Christ
has suffered in a small way. But Paul has suffered like no
man has ever suffered for the sake of the gospel of grace,
free and sovereign. So if the saying is trustworthy
and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came to the
world to save sinners, beloved, then we should embrace that in
a way that gives us joy. And as we
take this table this morning, as we taste these things with
our mouths and remember that the outcome of the Lord's table
in the first century was that the church had to get together
every week. And because of the suffering,
some of them did not even have food to eat or a place to stay.
So they would bring food and prepare food and everyone would
eat their fill. And at the end of the meal, children
and adults, young and old, rich and poor, the elders would take
a few scraps and would say, let's remember the death of Jesus and
what it did. Let's remember God's grace, sovereign
and free. Let's remember the blood of Christ that saved us
from our sins. Jesus died. By grace, you have
been saved. Through faith, which is not of
your own doing, but is the gift of God. So as we prepare our
hearts for this small remembrance, let us remember that it is God's
grace that set us together. It is God's grace that set us
apart. It is God's grace that has saved us, and this is the
gospel. And we'll finish this expression
next week as we move into understanding this charge that Paul's getting
to. But as we take this table today,
let us not think of ourselves, but let us think of each other.
and remember that Christ did not just die for me, but he died
for us. Let's be united. We thank you,
Father, for your love, for your mercy, for your grace. Father, we've labored long in
this introduction to this text, and Lord, I confess that sometimes
I feel as though I'm taking too long, but Lord, I pray that you
would give me the timing and the peace to know what is good
for us. And as we continue to learn the heartbeat of what Paul
is writing here by your spirit, that we will adopt it and apply
it to our own lives. Father, we we love one another
because you have loved us. We love you because you have
loved us. So help us, help us to be a loving people. Help us
to be a people that are not overly concerned with our own ideas,
our own well-being, but are equally concerned with one another. And
I thank you for growing us, Father. I am always fearful of not being
able to grow and to learn. And so, Lord, I just thank you
for your loving correction, your discipline, your affection for
us. And as we take this table to remember who you are and what
you've done for your people, let us remember that we are your
people. And we thank you for this amazing
truth in Jesus Christ. Amen.