Negative connotation depending
on how you receive it or how it's said honestly So what it's
like who cares? But there's another way in which
we could and probably should understand that is if This microphone
is not grounded and I wouldn't really hurt Let's just say that
the floor wasn't something was wrong and there was electricity
running through the building wasn't grounded and somebody goes So
what? They literally might be saying, so what's the consequence? What does that mean? What happens
now? Why is that important? Because if you step on it, it's
going to buzz you, and not in a good way. It's going to burn
you. It's going to electrocute you.
And we learn a lot of things theologically, beloved, and I'll
tell you, there's nothing wrong with learning things theologically.
It's part of the Christian experience. When we read the Bible, we learn
things theologically. We think about them, we ponder
them, we meditate on them, we contemplate what they mean and
what difference it makes. But beloved, there's never a
time when the Bible was ever meant to just be understood theologically
in that academically we approach God is sovereign, that okay,
good. Next, God is light, okay, next. God is love, all right, good.
Because without any implications of these things, they're really
worthless knowledge. Now we can argue, you know, God
in and of himself is worthy to be praised as the scripture teaches,
but that in and of itself is also an implication of God's
worthiness. If we're here today to worship
God, we are worshiping because we are ascribing and proclaiming
the worth that belongs to him. I want you to think about that
for a second. That's what worship is. Worship is about not us feeling
good about God or feeling good around God's people. Worship
is about ascribing, proclaiming, telling God that we recognize
and affirm His worth. Not that we have to, but it does
something for us. So when the scripture says that
God alone is holy, God alone is worthy, God alone is almighty,
There is a question to be asked, and that question is, so what? Now what? What difference does
that make? Why is that important? See, the
inquisition of our minds, when we inquire further and decide
that we're going to think about the application of what is taught
to us in scripture when it's just theological. And for those
of us who are students and have any kind of formal understanding
of theology, it's theology proper, the theology of God, the study
of God proper, God himself as a being, as an essence. And where
do we get our knowledge? We get our knowledge from the
Bible, not from Tippins. We get our knowledge not from
the books that have been written, but we get our knowledge from
the Bible that has been given. Because the Bible alone is the
source of revelation. No other place is the source
of revelation. So if anything is said concerning God that's
revealed in the Bible, it's secondary. James is saying something that's
true according to the Bible, but the Bible is its source.
I'm not the source. And so we test what we hear in
light of what we read simply in the context of scripture.
And I say not just in the context overall of all 66 books, but
in the context of the place where we think we find such things.
And beloved, we, as we talked last week, are stewards. And
of course, Timothy was an elder in Ephesus, Paul was an apostle,
and Paul wrote this letter with an elder in mind. So this letter
speaks to me very clearly. as does Titus and 2 Timothy. And then it also should speak
to you so that you may also understand what it is elders are, what it
is that they're responsible for, and then how you and I are supposed
to relate to one another concerning this great big party we have
every time we get together called the assembly. What's it for? So what? Because here's what's
happened in our culture. And there's always a necessary
need for reform, if I can use the term, where we find ourselves
doing and being and thinking in a certain way that's so far
outside of scripture that we need to just reel it in a little
bit. We need to reel it in a little bit. Now I'm not saying we reel
it in a little bit when we got heresies abounding. I'm talking about in how we understand,
apply, and live scripture. we get outside the boundaries.
And we find that sometimes, you know, what we're doing is disruptive
to that which scripture calls us to do. For example, one of
the things that we are strong on in our fellowship, and will
always be, is that we're not going to develop programs and
opportunities for ministry to where we have to assimilate people
into them through interests. Now if you do that in your life,
that's perfect. I've played more billiards with
young people in the world and in the church than I've taught
Bible studies. I've shot at the range billions
of dollars worth of things, you know, and some of you are laughing,
but I mean, that's what it would cost in today's economy. I mean, you
think, that's a joke. Nobody laughs like, oh man, he's
bankrupt. Billions of dollars of bullets.
There's a lot of things, we've done martial arts, some of us,
for a little season. Some of us have had Bible studies. Some of us have had theology
classes. Some of us have had things that we enjoy doing that
we do together. And as we are together, no matter
what brings us together as God's people, Christ is the center
of it all. We find ourselves at the range
talking about scripture and then going, oh, we came out here to
shoot, we need to shoot. We find ourselves at whatever, dealing with the
things of Christ and helping one another in the way of life.
Those are natural outcomes of intimacy. But beloved, they're
not to be programmed, they're not to be put in place, and now
we gotta find somebody to do it. If God has called us to something,
we will do it. We will do it. And then when
God has come in, how would you like to know that we had a ministry,
an outreach ministry for martial arts? You ever seen something
like that before? I don't want to talk about the nonsense of
such a thing in the sense that that would be evangelism. Come
over here, let me break your leg and tell you about Jesus.
I mean, you know, that's not sort of the way it goes, but
I mean, imagine if we had that as an instrument and that was,
Something that the church depended upon, and then I decided, or
the Lord decided, I could no longer do it. Which one of you
will do it? Or we had a Greek class, and
one of you are a Greek scholar, and you understand it, not only
in the original text, but also the grammar and everything, and
you're teaching a class, and there's nobody else that can
teach the class, and then there's 100 people coming to the class
every Wednesday, And then you get laryngitis and you decide
you gotta retire and you cannot teach anymore or you die. Is
the church supposed to find another Greek scholar to fill the class?
No, the ministry's over. That connecting point is over. But you know what never ceases
in the context of the body of Christ is the mandated assembly
of the saints once a week on the first day of the week. The mandated assembly. For the
last two years, we have been in unprecedented waters as a
country, unprecedented waters as a culture, unprecedented waters
in our own hearts and minds, and we've never thought these
things before, seen these things before, experienced these things
before, contemplated these things before, and so everything that
we know as normative, we have had to what? We have had to rearrange
it and change it. We've had to change the way we
connect with each other. We've had to change the way we
contact each other. We've had to change the way we reach out
to one another. We've had to change the way we serve one another.
And now that though we're not through with it, we've learned
to adapt and now we're coming to the place where people aren't.
You know, people aren't as uptight about things as they were, and
so my life is coming back to a more normal pattern. I'm actually
able to meet with people and talk with people and schedule.
I had a full schedule last week. It was amazing and tiring at
the same time, but it was very fulfilling to talk to this person,
talk to this person, talk to this person, get it all there,
because people are now going, we're gonna have to just keep
moving. We thought we were in a short time holding pattern,
but we're not. This is the permanent holding
pattern called life. But beloved, we are going to
have to ask ourselves, where's the constant? If we're learning
things about the Lord and we're learning things about the truth
of scripture, where is the constant? And the constant is in the body,
in the assembly, and there's no other constant. There's no
other promise, there's no other opportunity, because not all
of us will ever like everything the others do all the time. So if we have to have other things,
if we have to have affinities and interests in order to have
intimacy, we've missed the point of the gospel, right? Why are
we commanded to get together on Sunday morning? Because it
is for our joy, it is for our instruction, it is for our correction,
it is for our training to do the work of the ministry. As
you look around this room and you see the other faces here,
these are real lives, real souls who have been saved by the grace
and the mercy of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And they
depend upon you, and you depend upon them. And your best ministry,
your best ministry for one another is to pray for one another by
name, specifically. And even if you never become
besties, beloved, your siblings purchased by the blood of Christ.
And God has promised us together when we come together until we
hear the word, we are to be stewards of this word. We're to take what
is not ours and to take care of it. And then we're to take
care of one another. And we're to look after each
other's interests, not just our own, but each other's interests. And that's not the busy body
mindset that so many people have. I'm gonna dig my nose into somebody
else's sin or lives so that I can find something wrong. It's how
can I serve you? And we all have callings, and
we all have gifts, and we all have special talents, and we
all have intimate ways in which we express ourselves that are
unique to us. And God has established His church
to be put together as He determined for the sake of the up-building
of each member therein. And without that understanding,
beloved, this teaching, standing here every week and teaching,
it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have... So what that
we come to church? So what that we gather together?
This is why we do it. It's not for us to get a theological
lecture. It's not for us to go home and take notes and go, okay,
I can add that to my category of knowledge and feel good about
it at my dinner table by myself in my recliner. No, it's about
preparing us to do the work of the ministry. I mean, has anybody
in here ever been in need of ministry and the body of Christ
was there? Was the whole church there? Was
every single person there? No. That's annoying. Man, I broke
my leg. I need some help washing the
dishes and a hundred people show up to wash six cups and a plate. Thanks for tearing up my lawn
like a bunch of goats getting out. I mean, you know, we don't
want to make a mess of things, but when one comes, when one
person ministers to another, the body itself has ministered. When one of us is together with
the other, Christ is with us. And that's the point. So when
we hear this stuff and when we learn these things, nobody is
being charged in the congregation today to deal with false teachers. Not one human being under the
sound of my voice that's sitting in these chairs is being charged
to deal with false teachers except the elders of this church. Paul didn't tell Timothy to get
the church to do the things he told him to do. Paul told Timothy
to teach other men to be elders, to do the things he taught the
elders to do. Because we've got bigger things
to do, more important things to do. You know, my father's
retired from law enforcement after like 43 years. And the one thing that I guarantee,
if you were standing here and could attest to this, I promise
you, one of the most aggravating aspects of that job is when he
was doing his job at a crime scene and a civilian came in
and tried to do it better. What, Jeremy, you can, yeah,
there you go. So we've got a lot of Leo in
here. I mean, you know, get behind the tape, please. Please, before I lock you up. Maybe pastors need the power
of a rest. Make it easier, wouldn't it? That's it, time out. God has called us, and the reason we do it, the
so what, the why, is so that we can grow together. Why is that important? So what?
Why do we need to grow together? to the praise of his Lord's grace.
We can keep going. So what? Because he's worthy
of all praise. So what? And then we're right
back to the gospel, aren't we? So the stewardship includes the
word of God, the ministry of the church, the handling of obedience
and understanding the commands of Christ, which is also known
the doctrine of Christ. The teaching of Christ includes
the commandments of Christ? Oh, goodness, y'all. We have
divided God into a pagan deity. We have divided our Lord and
Savior into paganism by parsing him out into different things. That if we put them all together
as a block, we have a God, and we take them apart, we have separate
things. That's so silly. But we're to be stewards. Let's
read again starting at verse 3 all the way down through verse
11. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at
Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach
any different doctrine, nor to devote their time to myths and
endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the
stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge
is love, that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and
a sincere faith. Certain persons, though, by swerving
from these three things have wandered into worthless discussion,
talking about nothing, desiring to be teachers of the law, without
understanding either what they're saying or the things about which
they make confident assertions. Now, we know that the law is
good if one uses it lawfully, Understand this, that the law
is not laid down for the just, but it's laid down for the lawless
and the disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for
the unholy and profane, for those who strike their mothers and
hit their fathers and murder others, for the sexually immoral,
for men who practice homosexuality, for enslavers, for liars, for
perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. in accordance with the gospel
of glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted."
See, Paul automatically assumes a level of stewardship here.
He's always writing, I have been entrusted. Now he's going to
tell Timothy, you have been entrusted with a good deposit. With a good
deposit. When we have a Sometimes the
banks or some of the businesses around here on certain days will
have a police officer come and escort them to a deposit location. I guess the banks don't do it.
The banks are receiving the deposits, but you know what I mean. And
so why do they do that? Because you've got all these
other people's money, and you're driving around exposed. You're entrusted with a deposit
that's not yours, and you have to do something with it. You
have to get it to this other location. The gospel's no different. The
gospel is the story and the revelation of God himself and the redemption
of his people through his son Jesus Christ, who is the eternal
God of heaven, the creator of all things. And Paul would tell
Timothy later, you've been entrusted. with the gospel, this good deposit,
now I am entrusting you to teach it to other men who are reliable,
who will grow in their understanding to look after the church of Christ
in this same way. So really the ministry of the
gospel is a ministry of stewardship from start to finish. None of
it is ours. Our faith is not our own, the
love of God is not something that we grasp and take and put
in our pocket. We have our own faith, of course,
but you know what I'm saying. It's not from our own flesh. It's
something that's granted to us. Repentance, the change of mind,
the understanding of the Word of God. This is not something
we've accomplished. This is something God has given.
So it's a gift and it's something that we need to realize that
the name of Christ and the purposes of Christ and the gospel of Christ
is a gift. And it is something that carries
His name and His glory upon it. So we are stewards of this. It's
not my redemption. I didn't redeem you and now I
can tell you all about the redemption that I have. I can't make you
believe. It's not mine to use that way. We're stewards. Paul is a steward. I've been entrusted with the
gospel. He'll say over there in verse 18, this charge, I entrust
to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies
previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good
warfare. Now see, I don't like Paul's
use of word there because Paul had no idea that warfare would
be a common household word in 2022. and that warfare would
not mean like some of you brothers who have served and sisters who
have served in war you understand what warfare is but for some
of us warfare is just a really hard day and then we want to become soldiers
and want to become tactical in our approach to Christian living
there's no room for that no room for that at all to be shooting people. We're
not to be, and I mean, I'm not talking about literally. I'm
talking about just spiritually. We're not to be hurting people.
We're not to be exposing things. We're not at war. In a physical
sense, we're at war. What does Paul say in Ephesians
6? In a spiritual realm. You may wage a good warfare.
Holding, how do you do that? Verse 19 tells us very quickly,
and I'll get here in a couple of weeks, I promise. Holding
faith and a good conscience. See, it goes right back to where
he is over in verse four and five. Holding a sincere faith
and a good conscience. How do you do this? How do you
wage warfare? By those two things. It's the devil's wickedness to
make much of false teaching. by telling everybody about the
false teaching, pointing everybody to the false teaching, showing
everybody the details of false teaching. It's blasphemous, it's
wrong, and the church of Jesus Christ should not be in the practice
of it. Nowhere in the scripture is the believer entrusted with
that job. And the elders of the church
are entrusted with that job, and they only have one way in which
they handle it, and that is to teach the truth, and to charge
those who don't teach the truth to stop, so that they may rejoice
in the unity of the faith. No more implications, no more
distinctions, no more approaching, no more speculation, no more
assumptions, no more murder, no more gossip. But when we get
through with these letters, it's gonna be something. It's gonna be something, because
we're gonna have a clarity of what it means to really start
to see what obedience in the life of the believer is. And
people who won't teach obedience to the New Testament teaching
are blasphemous. I'm gonna say that word two or
three more times today in specific detail. Don't listen to a preacher of
grace who doesn't also teach you to do what the apostles tell
the church to do. because he's not doing what God
commanded the elders to do. We cannot live this way. We are
stewards. We are stewards of the word,
we're stewards of one another, we're stewards of righteousness. Now think about
that for a minute. Some here, it talks about being
teachers. So I'm a steward of God's word.
Have I ever said it wrongly? You betcha. Have I ever made
grave mistakes? I probably couldn't count them
all if they were pointed out to me. And before it's all said and
done, I'm going to make many more. Why? Because I think. I think. I'm a thinker. I ponder. I think. I make statements. I build propositions
in my mind. And I say, therefore, this. And
if this is true, then so what? OK, this is why. And I deal with
all these things hours upon hours upon hours upon hours. When I
say hours, that's not an exaggeration. Hours every week. I can guarantee
you that at least 30 hours of my mind every single week are
dealing with propositions. I've gotten into the habit now
of using a tablet rather than napkins and scrap because years
ago, at the end of the week, my pockets were full of trash,
but it was actually notes. And then I started using the
little notebook. So the little notebook things are good. Robin
bought me a few years ago this notebook that the pages are magnetic.
How beautiful, beautiful stuff. So there's never so much junk
in there. But we do, we think, we think
about these things, we come to the conclusions that we come
to, and then we start to lay them out and we go, oh, now this
looks right, this looks right. And then we say things. But the teacher that's mature
waits. He doesn't get into the pulpit
and posit his theories or his theological expressions because
he came to those conclusions Thursday. That's what I've done. I've done that before and I'll
probably do it again. Get real excited about something.
And then all of a sudden come to find out that the way that
was said actually is disputed according to the text. What does
that mean about that teacher? That means he made a mistake. And what are we supposed to do
about it? Inquire, hmm, what you said, did you mean this? And you know what a lot of times
it is? It's an issue of clarity, but sometimes it's an issue of
error, of flat heresy, a divided opinion, an untruth. Maybe it's just an historical
thing that we've always held to that we really have never
contemplated what it means today in 2022. And some of us have
had those conversations over the last few years. But we grow
in our stewardship. We grow by telling ourselves,
okay, these are great epiphanies. But God is not in the business
of giving epiphanies. God is in the business of securing
that which he has already revealed. And so when I have my epiphanies,
I have to chart it out through the text. Is what I just said
in my head contextual? And when I say contextual, it
has to be contextual. Not a verse here, verse here,
a word here, a phrase here, a grammatical construction over here. It has
to be in a teaching. Yes, we'll get to some of these
ideas of inferences and things. We can make good assertions and
confident assertions on things that the scripture teaches, such
as the Trinity. We've come up with that term,
one in three. One God, there's only one God
and he has revealed himself in three distinct persons. There's
not three distinct gods walking around the cosmos. It's one God,
he's revealed himself in three persons. So what? So what? That's the
way God revealed Himself. So we need to understand that
the Father and the Son and the Spirit are not each other, but
they are God. Fully, each of them. Collectively,
God. You see? And when we start trying
to express that in general terms or try to make it simple, we
actually teach heresies. And I'm guilty of it. I have
found soundbites that went, these are people getting all upset
about nothing. If they heard that, that would have been it
right there. That would have been it. That's a good one. That's a good
one. Let's wait till that one comes
up. So there is a time for that, but until we are sound in our
understanding of what the Bible actually reveals, what's the
point? What's the point of knowing about the triune God? We can thank God, our Father,
through His Son, Jesus Christ, by the Spirit who shows us the
truth. This is our God who saved us.
We can worship. We can understand. We can relate
to our God according to the scripture. And we can share him with others
according to the scripture. We don't have to explain it all.
We just need to share it. We are stewards of a story that's
not ours to change. We're stewards of a good report
that's already been determined before there ever was anything
to see it. This aim, this charge, this teachers. People want to teach. We are
all evangelists. We are all apologists. We will
defend that which we hold to and we will share that which
we love the most. That's why when we see people
sharing every false teaching under the sun, it's what they
love. They don't love Christ, they love
the falsehoods. They love the knowledge of knowing
the difference. And if that's not Gnosticism,
I don't know. And if you don't know what that means, it doesn't
matter. Beloved, we need to get to the simplicity of grace. God
reveals himself and our faith is as little children. Little children. I mean, I could
tell a story right now that could engage every child in this room
and they would believe it. And it could be completely fabricated.
Why? Because I stand in the visual
representation of authority, so it must be true. When God
teaches us about His redemption through His Son Jesus Christ
for His people, our faith that He grants is childlike. We rest
in it. Teachers. People want to be teachers. And some teachers are biblically
qualified. How do we know what biblical
qualification? We can go over to chapter 3 and
we can go to Titus and we can look and we can also see other
places in the Pauline epistles where people were disqualified,
even in the book of Acts. And they were quickly restored
or they were quickly removed. Some are biblically qualified.
If a person is not biblically qualified, they should not be
teaching the scripture. That doesn't mean you don't share
that. There's a difference, isn't there? If I share the scripture
that I read, and I share the scripture that I study, and I
share it with you, and then you can share with me, but if I hold
you accountable to what I share as that which must be lived out,
or discipline arises for the unity of the church, then I am
teaching you. I've taken the position of an
overseer, and not everybody's qualified to be an overseer.
As a matter of fact, not everybody's called. While we don't want 100
people washing our dishes, we don't want 100 people teaching
at the same time. Some are personally qualified,
like these guys. Hymenas and Alexander. They're
personally qualified. They've been studying. They knew.
They've come to some conclusions. They've changed some things.
John had some problems, too. Now, it's not that we're just
talking about doctrinal issues. We're talking about behavioral
issues. Well, you know what? We don't have to listen to that. We don't
have to obey that. We don't have to obey the devil
when he preaches the truth. No, we obey the Lord. Balaam's mule spoke the truth. If God's word is spoken out of
the mouth of a cat, we are subject to it, despite the cat. Doesn't matter, the cat's just
a servant. I'm just a servant, I'm just a slave. To proclaim
the context of this scripture and be held accountable for it,
not to you, to God. I could be preaching in pretense
and no one here would know. By the mercy of the Lord, I pray
that he doesn't let me do that. Some are personally qualified in their
own mind, in their own right. They're disqualified. It's not
good. They do not get and understand
what they're teaching. They do not understand the damage
of what they're teaching. They do not understand the implications.
They don't understand the so what. And they think that right
teaching, accurate information on a certain doctrinal position
is more important than the other instructions of scripture. That's
nonsense. It's nonsense. In 2001, I told some men this,
that I sinned before God and the body in the pulpit for seven
straight weeks. Every week I sinned. And I knew
it, and I kept on doing it. Why? Because I was preaching
exactly what the scripture was saying. And I had no doctrinal
error that I know of, even now, at the time. But the heart in
which I taught it, and the manner in which I applied it, and the
anger through which I spoke it, was sin. So even the right doctrine
in the wrong way at the wrong time is not Okay, elders have
to have the discriminating wisdom, that's called discernment by
the way, discriminating wisdom of knowing when and how to approach
certain things in the context of the local assembly for the
sake of the unity of the whole and most importantly, most importantly,
most importantly for the joy of the body at large, for their
peace and comfort. So people that don't know what
they're talking about, they're not qualified teachers, when they teach and
they hold people to listen to them, they're abusing their conclusions.
They afford no grace to the hearers who don't want to listen. They
do not desire reconciliation. They have a law, they have a
knowledge of law. But in their deeds and in their
behavior, they know nothing. and make judgments concerning
their understanding that is not from faith. It's speculation. It's assumption. Shepherds of
the flock must be stewards of the flock, must be stewards of
righteousness, must be stewards of the Word of God and must follow
the careful instructions given in Scripture and nothing more.
Whatever is given in Scripture, the shepherds of the church should
follow that instruction. So Timothy, I want you to charge
these persons who are doing these things and teaching these things
this way. I want you to charge them to
stop and I want you to charge them to change their thinking,
to repent. That's what it means, to change the way they think
and to stop. And how are you going to do that?
Tell them to stop and then teach them the truth. Correct them.
Correction is teaching the truth. When people refuse the truth,
either in doctrine or in behavior, they are to be charged again
for disobeying the word. And when they don't want to listen
to Christ or the apostles, they're to be treated as an unbeliever. See, church discipline happens
every day in our fellowship. Some of you are doing it and
don't even know. Loving correction, intimate correction, that's what
discipline means, for the betterment of the person. If we eat healthy,
that's discipline. If we work out, that's discipline.
If we read and gain knowledge, that's discipline. If someone
helps us through sin or through a hard time, that's discipline.
If someone corrects us because they love us, that's discipline.
Discipline happens every single day in our congregation. And
99% of the time, I don't even know about it. And then months or years down
the road, you know, me and so-and-so, I'll be talking to somebody,
and they'll say, yeah, me and so-and-so, man, we had a little spat outside
in the parking lot. We were at the huddle house,
and it got a little heated. But we loved each other, and
we worked through it, and everything's good. I'm like, well, praise
the Lord. And that's how mature Christians
deal with it. And when reconciliation doesn't
happen, relationships move on. Why? Because we're not bound
to carry disobedient people in our lives. As much as I love my children,
they're not going to run a narcotics operation out of my basement.
I don't have a basement, but I did in Virginia. And that happened. So what did I do with that young
man? I put him in the penitentiary. Where is he today? Serving 20
years. Hardest thing I ever did. Not gonna happen. Because you're
not gonna bring my whole household down for your $500 a week. See, the culture, the norms,
the actions, the history sometimes has dictated so much of what
we say and how we live that I think it has invaded, and I hate to
use the word invaded, but it has invaded the thinking of how
we approach the scripture. See, we're stewards of righteousness,
the very glory of God displayed, written down, commanded, and
then also lived out. We are stewards of righteousness.
So when we want to teach without understanding You ever met a
teacher that didn't have understanding? Are they usually the ones to
tell you they don't know what they're talking about? No, they make
what? Confident assertions. So every wrong teacher will be
confidently assertive. Now, that doesn't mean everyone
who's confidently assertive is a wrong teacher. All triples are triples,
but not all triples are triples. I mean, you know, that kind of
stuff. We're never gonna get the false
teachers, those who are living and teaching wrongly, to say,
you know what, I'm just confident in this, but I might be wrong.
That's not confident. They know they're right, they
know they're honoring God, they know that they are called by
God to do what they're doing, but they aren't. How do we know?
The same way James Tiffins knows when he daydreams about a whole
bunch of stuff that could be good theology, when he opens
the Bible and he tests it and he goes, man, that would have
been a good book. You ever come up with a thought
and you thought, the world needs to hear this, gotta write a book. I got a dozen of those ideas,
you know, just in the last two years. There's already a book been written
and I need to tend to that one. If my commentary and writing
is necessary for the understanding of scripture, then something's
wrong with the Bible. It doesn't mean that you can't write a book,
please do, but not me. It would be a railroad accident. We're stewards of righteousness,
and we are to live it out. What is this righteousness? Well,
the scripture talks about righteousness, doesn't it? The scripture talks
about righteousness, and righteousness is rightness. Rightness is goodness,
goodness is separateness. You know what the word holy means?
The word holy means different than everything else. There's
an elementary school definition of the word holy. So if God is
holy, that means he's different than everything else. He's apart
from it, he's separate. He didn't separate himself, he
is separate from everything else. So much so that he actually created
everything else that is. He established it, purposed it.
So God is not just separate, separate. He's separate, separate,
separate. He's apart, apart, apart. He's set apart, set apart,
set apart. He's so different that He's unique in and of Himself.
And that's why the scripture says, He says, I alone am God
and there is no other. There is no other God but Me. That means there is no other
highest of all things but I. See, God is not His name and
it's not His title. It's what He is, the highest
of all things. There's only one richest person
in the world. In the last few weeks, it's not
the Facebook guy. Because, I mean, you could have people that are
tied, but I bet if you look down deep, there's probably a few
cents difference. There's only one highest. And only one God. Only one holiness. Only one righteousness. The Bible says that righteousness,
in and of itself, is a display of God. Not only is it a display
of His essence. See, God's holiness is an intrinsic
display of His worthiness. Because He is so set apart, He's
so different. How are we to approach something
so different? Through Jesus Christ, who is also God, who is also
set apart, who is also holy because He is God. You see, we've got
to be careful with our Trinitarian explanations. And so righteousness
is God. It's God's revelation, God alone
in redemption, the actions of God, the knowledge of God, the
wisdom of God, all the things that the Bible teach concerning
Him. This is righteousness. And then God himself teach through
the apostles certain ways in which the Bible believing children
are supposed to go, okay, God, you've saved us, so what? Now
what? To the praise of your glorious
grace. How do we praise your glorious grace? By loving one another
in word and deed, and sacrificing ourselves for the sake of one
another and looking after not just our own interests, but the
interests of others. And that also is righteousness. But what does that righteousness
do? It points back to the true righteousness
of God. There's a reason Paul says that
we might become the righteousness of God. That's what we are becoming,
not in a progressive way, but in a promise, in a powerful way. God is granting
the promise. He granted the promise of righteousness.
We can't be righteous. We can't work out righteousness
to a certain degree to where now all the evil and the sin
that we've ever been or committed or ever will commit will be bottom
heavy. and it'll flip and righteousness
will be the standard. It doesn't work that way. It's not a scale.
You violate the law which was written so that you may know
that you're a violator. Written that it may punish the
violator. Why? Because that's righteousness. It's wicked for
a man to work and not get paid. So we get paid what we work,
we get paid for what we are owed, and that payment is death. Because
we are not righteous. The word sin by definition means
to not be as God is. Think about that. Technically,
well I mean maybe in a literal, missing the target. What's the
target? God himself. Are we God himself? No. Have we been made to be like
God Himself? No. We are declared to be as
God is in righteousness because Jesus Christ in His righteousness,
even in His humanity, has done the work of redemption, satisfied
the wrath of the Father in righteousness. Romans 3, the righteousness of
God is displayed in the law and the prophets. It's a shadow. But the true righteousness of
God is seen in the death of Jesus Christ, his son, who he put forth
as a satisfaction of his wrath to be received by faith, that
he may be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus
Christ. So we're stewards of righteousness
when we're stewards of the gospel. We're stewards of righteousness
when we're stewards of the story. We're stewards of righteousness
when we're stewards of God's redemption of the word. And we're
stewards of righteousness because we are the righteousness of God
in Christ. The aim of our charge is love. How? It is instructed as teaching,
as doctrine to us. This is doctrine. A pure heart,
a good conscience, a sincere faith. James says that love... James says that if we don't have
love, that our faith is dead. He says that. Every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father
of lights. When there's no variation or shadow due to change of his
own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we
should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Every person,
brothers, beloved of God, this is James writing in chapter 1
verse 19. Let every person be quick to
hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does
not produce the righteousness of God. It does not display it. Yet God's anger displays His
righteousness, and His anger was poured out on Jesus Christ,
the righteous. And there is no anger to be poured
out and wrath to be poured out upon His people because of it. Therefore, put away all filthiness,
put away rampant wickedness, and receive the meekness, the
implanted Word of God, which is able to save your souls. Doers
of the Word, be, not hearers alone. For if you are, you deceive
yourself. If anyone's a hearer and not
a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face
in the mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away and at
once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the
perfect law, the law of grace, the law of freedom, the law of
liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a
doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." See, there's a
reward, which is our joy in this life. There's a reward, which
is our intimacy. There's a reward, which is our
steadfastness that God grants us through trials when we are
subject to the doctrine of Christ in the application of life. And most of us fail in this.
Praise the Lord, it has nothing to do with our redemption. Praise
God that if we are just the most cantankerous complainer in the
world and we hate the very left foot that we walk with, that
only Christ alone is our righteousness. But we are misery walking on
two legs. And we know what that's like.
We've all been there. Some of us may be there this
morning. And the reason that our joy is not complete is because
we don't have the mind of Christ in living, which is ours in Him. Philippians. So James says that, you know,
faith without love is just dead faith. Peter says to have love
or your faith is unfruitful and ineffective. Second Peter chapter
one, his divine power has granted us all things that pertain to
life and Godliness through the knowledge of him, a sincere faith
who called us into his own glory and excellence. sovereign grace, by which he
has granted us to us his precious and very great promises, eternal
life, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine
nature, glorification, the promise of eternality, having escaped
from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire,
the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus. For this very reason that you
have been saved by sovereign and free grace, make every effort
to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,
and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness,
and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly
love, and brotherly love with love. For if these qualities are yours
and are growing, They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful
or worthless in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. See,
we can be born again and be worthless. We can be born again and be wicked. We can be born again and live
in sin. Because we're not listening.
And most of all, we're not listening to the commandment to love one
another. And we're all guilty of this. Whoever lacks these qualities
is nearsighted. They're not looking. He's so
nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was
cleansed from his former sins. So that way we know this is not
about evangelism. It's not about becoming a child
of God or being born as a child of God. The Spirit of God regenerates. That's how one is a child of
God, according to John 3. Whoever lacks these qualities
is so nearsighted that he's blind, having forgotten that he was
cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the
more diligent to confirm your calling and the election of Christ.
For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall." And we could go on and on and
on, but what does he say down in chapter 1 of 2 Peter, verse
16? He tells them to stir one another
up and to hold fast to this that he's been teaching and to do
what he's telling them to do. Obey the doctrine of Christ in
its application. And then he reaffirms the very
thing Paul's going to do with Timothy. He reaffirms the authority
by which they speak, and that is that we know these things
because we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known
to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we
were eyewitnesses to His majesty. For when he received honor and
glory from God the Father, and the voice was born by the Spirit
of the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am
well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven,
for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic
word more fully confirmed, to which you would do well to pay
attention as a lamp shining in a dark place. No prophecy of scripture comes
from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced
by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit. And then Peter starts to talk about
what? False prophets, who would teach the church teaching that's
not congruent with who Christ is and what he accomplished,
or teaching that's not congruent with Christ's commands to the
apostles of how the church should be. We don't get to pick. We can't obey the gospel and
disobey the commands. Because if we do, that's antinomianism.
But when we do, we're not lost. And when we do obey, it doesn't
assure our place before the Father. But it sure does keep our conscience
clear. It sure does establish a joy. So this is Peter, says that you're
fruitless. John says, and we don't have to go through 1 John
because we've already read it, but John says if you don't love, then
your faith is a lie. And we know that he's not saying you're lost,
he's saying you're lying. I love the Lord. No, you don't.
I know that God is love. No, you don't. How do we know
that you know that God is love? Because you love. And you obey
the commands in Scripture. All believers are being taught
the teaching of Christ, doctrine of Christ, that must be heeded. We will not find ourselves at
the judgment of God if we don't, but we will find ourselves outside
the community of faith. And of course, we can all go
find another community of faith that we can snow or lie to or whatever. There are many opportunities
of unbiblical communities. And we may very well be one if
we're not careful. These teachers, what have they
done? They swerved from this in the name of Christ. And teachers
that swerve away, they swerve around. You know how certain
people that don't know the gospel, they won't preach John 6? They'll preach half of John 15.
They'll just skip the whole chapter 9 of Romans. They'll never go
to the prophets, especially Malachi. They can't handle that. They
won't go to Ezekiel either, or they'll make an object lesson
out of it. The Walking Dead, here we go, series, 15 weeks. Bring your crossbows. I mean,
oh beloved, people who don't believe the authority of scripture
skip the therefores. People who don't believe the
authority of God's provision in and of and about the local
community of faith, the assembly, they skip those teachings because
they don't think they're relevant. And a majority of those people
who don't want that aren't in a local assembly anyway because
they want to hear interesting and sound, repetitive doctrinal
positions without the instruction. You can't be part of the local
assembly if you deny those things. So teachers who swerve from these
teachings in the name of Christ are just jokes. They're just
jokes. But they're the ones who would
say not to listen to this. Well, listen up, beloved. You
don't have to listen to me. There's nothing I can do about
it. But if you're going to live and love one another here, you'll
listen to Christ. James 3.1, not many of you should
become teachers, my brothers. For you know that we who teach
will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many, many
ways. We sin and fall. But if anyone does not stumble
in what he says, and this is hyperbole, if you will, he is
a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole
body. I mean, you think about it. Beloved,
you who are married and you who have children, children, I mean,
what's the number one catalyst to World War III in the home?
The mouth. I mean, sometimes how I looked
at my mom and rolled my eyes, it caused a little skirmish,
but for the most part, if I just shut up, took the correction,
Didn't take offense. It's funny that the Bible teaches
us to do those things, right? Don't take offense. I'm mad for
the name of Christ. No, you're not. You're selfish.
You're selfish and you're an infant. That's what we are. We're selfish and we're an infant
when we cannot resolve to just relax. And beloved, I'm talking
about myself, okay? I'm not pointing out, I don't
have a list of all the infants over here and I've got your name
on it and the childish behavior. I don't have a list in the back
of my Bible of where you fit. I don't know where you fit. I
assume most, if not all, of you are more mature than me in other
areas of life, in some areas of life, in all areas of life.
And beloved, you probably think the same of me. If we were all
to get together, we'd probably be shocked that we're all recipients
of grace and we're floating on by a thread. And that thread
is strong because it's the hand of Christ. A perfect man. Yet some will
tell things or instruct on spiritual matters, and they may be right
at times, yet they're not disciplined, and they don't lead and function
with patience the things that are taught from God and from
Christ, namely His tender sheep who scatter like the wind when
they're fearful. If we aren't careful as teachers, the one
who teaches the church must be careful, must be careful not
to cause the church to fear. I'm going to say that, and I
want you to hear it. It doesn't mean we ignore things or we don't
teach hard things or we don't get on to one another every now
and then because it's necessary, but we don't make the church
scared. For that's counter, not intuitive,
that's antichrist. Let's just call it what John
calls it. When we undermine the love of God for His people and
the power and the sufficiency of God's promises, and we place
all the outcomes of purity in the life of the people who think
they're at war and they want to fight and do things in the
flesh, then we are saying God is not sovereign. The Word of
God is not true. And we know better than He. Where
does that sound come from? The garden. 1 Corinthians 13. You know it.
Sincere faith, we know what love is. We've talked about sincere
faith. Let me just remind us of what we need to understand
in the context of sincere faith. Sincere faith rests, it's given
by God, by the grace, by the power of the love of God, in
the truth of Christ, effectual redemption for his people. Resting
faith. Sincere faith knows, by the way
of God himself, the spirit. According to the context of the
teaching of scripture, who he is. And beloved, we can be led
astray by well-meaning teachers. A sincere faith learns the whole
counsel of Christ and all the doctrines of Christ, not just
the theological ones, but the practical ones that speak volumes
about one's own understanding of the gospel and speak volumes
about one's own preparation for ministry. Sincere faith lives
out the truth that is learned according to the scripture. Sincere
faith understands that we are stewards and that the life that
we have is not our own, but it's been given to us according to
the command of Christ. We've been purchased. A sincere
faith is silent when it's threatened. A sincere faith is rested when
it's persecuted. A sincere faith listens and learns. James chapter one. at all times,
2 Peter chapter 3. A sincere faith has the mind
of Christ and rests in the sufficiency of His promises, not in the power
of our godly provision to be bold and expressive. A sincere faith does not make
concession with the truth, but it disavows error with patience
and in love. Any other doctrine It does not
stand for, but it stands against it by the truth of Scripture,
not the debate and the argument and the anger. Those with a sincere faith understand
the warning. The deception comes at times
and trips up the regenerate children of God. We do get tripped up
and God has ordained all that has come to pass And when we are not about the
business of serving and learning, then we can be tripped up. But
when we are serving and learning, and I'll be honest with you,
according to what I read in the Bible, we're doing well. We should watch out. We should
not be deceived. God is not mocked. All those
things that pop into our mind. We do not need to share our mind
and knowledge with the Antichrist. We do not need to express all
these revelations of the teachings of demons and all the cults and
everything that is going on, acting as if we tell everybody
about all these things, then we're saving them from the error.
No, we're actually teaching them the error. There are many people who are
experts, whole congregations who are experts of error and
heresy and cults, but they don't know the gospel at all. They
can recite it, but they can't live it. Nonsense. Nonsense. We don't have time
for that, beloved. God does not need us. He's fine by Himself.
He'll bring about His promises and His discipline when we disobey.
He will bring us back to the fruitfulness of our faith. He
will cause us gently, like a loving Father that He is, to see and
know the way. And sometimes people make the
bed that they lie in and they want somebody else to drag them
out of it. Beloved, that's not our call. That's not our call. Confident assertions. Oh, beloved, if we're to make
confident assertions about anything, let it be of grace. Let it be
of the finished work of Christ and all that He is and all that
He has done for us. Let our confident assertions
be clear that all that we are has been carried out by God and
that His promises are enough and they stand firm. God does
not need us to act outside what He's commanded us to do in His
scripture, but He needs us to trust Him, to trust Him. because he's shown himself to
be trustworthy. It's not even how strong our
faith is or how strong our resolve is or how bold we might think
we should be. It's about the boldness and the strength and
sincerity and the finished work of Jesus Christ, who is the faithful
one, so that even when we are faithless, he remains faithful.
He cannot deny us. Beloved, we cannot even have
the fear of our own reprobation is not enough to snatch us out
of the hand of Christ. Think about that. False teaching cannot snatch
you out of the hand of Christ. Divisions cannot snatch us out
of the hand of Christ. Nothing can snatch us out of the hand
of Christ. Because we've been purchased. He did not buy us
so that we could be refunded. There's no refund. We're stuck
with Him. And He's stuck with us. Let's
pray. Father, we thank You that You
came to save sinners, that You sent Your Son to save sinners.
And as we'll see as we continue to read this letter, Lord, that
all of us are sinners. Jesus came to die for the blasphemers
and the liars and the wicked. He did not come for the righteous.
And He does not stand with the self-righteous today. He stands
opposed to them. So Lord, humble us in all ways,
at all times, even when it feels impossible to stand, Lord, humble
us. Father, I pray that as we move
into this new season as a family, Lord, that we would be gentle
with one another and patient and not write each other off
just because even if we are not part of our fellowship anymore,
even if discipline has been exercised, Lord, let us not just write each
other off as reprobates. But father, to do the work of
an evangelist, to teach the truth and to rest knowing that you
will work it all out for your purposes and that nothing we
do or say, no argument we make is going to make a difference
because father, only your spirit blowing where it wishes will
cause your people to come to know the truth. So as we partake
of the Lord's table and as we make prayers for each other,
we thank you that you hear us. Guard our hearts in Christ. Amen.