regarding Paul's instruction
to the elder and then to subsequent elders throughout history regarding false teaching. I want to remind us that the
pulpit is for the glory of Christ. The assembly is for the glory
of Christ. The covenants are for the glory
of Christ. Worship is for the glory of Christ.
It is to reveal His revelation that has been given to us to
Him. To show the manifold wisdom of God, as Paul would teach the
church of Ephesus, that even to the rulers and the principalities
of the darkness, that's the devil and his minions, that Christ
is victorious. Beloved, but we all want something
different. In every aspect of our lives, that that is an intangible
thing that sometimes the flesh just grows weary of holding on
to. To say that that's not the case
is to deny the very existence that we live. We are frail and
feeble sinners. And we are weak. And there are
times when we don't know how we're going to make it through
the next day. And just when we are standing strong and depending
upon the Lord, somebody else will come along and try to tear
that down. Some other circumstance will
come along and trip us on our face. Some other issue will change,
some other thing will cause us to stumble, and then we will
begin this crazy cycle of doubt, frustration, fear, anger. Well, beloved, in all of these
things, our Heavenly Father is the same. In all of these changes,
our Lord is powerful. We believe by testimony that
God is sovereign. But sometimes by the mere fact
that we don't hold fast in times of stress shows that we really
cannot hold by faith the way we ought to. And so that we come
to this impasse, we say, are we faithful? I want to be faithful
to the Lord. I want to be faithful to God's
people. I want to be faithful to the call. I want to be faithful
to that which God has given me. But yet our attention and our
focus is on everything that the world has set down. And when
I say that, it's easy for the Christians in the room to go,
well, I'm not worldly. I'm not loving and lusting after
the world. I'm not seeking it. And maybe so in comparison to
other people in the world. But the very nature that we have
to cut our grass and weed our gardens shows that we have a
tether to the fallenness of this world. The very fact that we
have to drip faucets when it turns 25. The very fact that we have to
deal with things, work, sickness. Beloved, we live in a fallen
world. We are tangibly in this place right now. We are experiencing
equally all sorts of stress and joys and good times and bad times,
good thoughts and bad thoughts, which I would argue if it were,
if it fit the occasion, a majority of our trauma comes from That's
how we think and what we think about and where we put our time.
But beloved, we are in the world. But because of the promises of
God and His Word, we have been taught that we are not of the
world. That we have now been snatched
out of the clutches of death and we've been brought in by
force and by great power into the presence of Christ. And we've
come to a place and a position before the Heavenly Father, the
Judge of Righteousness, the Judge of Justice, whereby He cannot
judge us wicked. For He has placed that judgment
upon the Righteous One, His Son, so we are off the hook. We've
been promised life. Jesus Christ is a substitute
taking on human flesh in its fullness, in its trueness. He
wasn't partly man and partly divine. He wasn't, you know,
a little bit human with a little bit of God in Him. He was truly,
truly, in all ways, fully human. And simultaneously, never ceased
to be the Divine High One. through whom all things exist. And when He died, He settled
the record. When He died, He set straight the crooked. When He died, death was defeated. The grave has no holes. And a lot of people say, well,
that's a really neat fairy tale. That's what the world believes.
That's what a lot of evangelical Christians and other types of
cults believe. It's just a good story from which
we can learn some hope. It's not a story from which we
learn hope. It is the story of our hope.
It's not about learning hope. It's about knowing hope. It's
about understanding by the divine work of God the Holy Spirit through
the written words, simple things that which the natural man cannot
apprehend nor can he rest in. But Jesus Christ proved that
He was perfect. He proved that He was God in
humanity because He rose from the dead. He rose from the dead
in the power of God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He
took His own life and laid it down and He took His life and
He rose it up again because He is not guilty. He did not pay
for His own wickedness. For Jesus Christ is and always
shall be impeccable. Without sin, without the ability
to sin, it is not possible for He is God. And beloved, that is the nature
of what we need to focus on. That is the essence of where
our minds must always be. That is why we come here on a
weekly basis by the instruction of the Lord so that we may gather
together to be taught and reminded of this good report about what
our God has done on our behalf to give us eternal life. through Jesus Christ, His Son.
And then, therefore, also because of these truths, we learn to
live in this messed up world. We learn to rest in this stressful
place. We learn to hold fast with all
the noise, to focus and listen very myopically and very difficultly
to the voice of our shepherd. Everybody I know who claims to
be in the faith says they listen to the voice of their shepherd.
I know the voice of my shepherd. Yet those same people will say
that God's given them permission and peace to act contrary to
his teaching. Or those same people will say
that they have peace in their spirit and their discernment
has given them the power and the authority to take that which
the Bible says they don't have. So what voice are they hearing?
It's the voice of their father, the devil. That's not my quote, that's Jesus. And He's always, He says these
harsh things, Jesus says these harsh things not to the sinful
of the world, not to the people acting like knuckleheads and
living in debauchery. He says these things of those
who live in righteousness, who claim to speak with discernment. Beloved, even the children of God, those
born of Christ, born of the Spirit, born of the Word, we too can
be tempted to fall into sin and into our flesh and think we are
doing the will of God. How do we test to see? By hearing
the simple instructions, the simple instructions of what God's
Word teaches us on how we should live according to the gospel. And anyone, any man who claims
to be a minister of Christ, who would say to you, those things
aren't important, is a minister of Satan. Do not hear anyone tell you that
the instruction of the apostles are not effectually a promise
of Christ to his people. Sure, you can live alone and
by yourself and in rebellion and hard hearted and and distinctly,
uniquely, uberly spiritual, and think that you are doing good,
but you are miserable when we fall into that place, when we
go into the inner parts of our own holy of holies, thinking
that we, me, myself, and my God is all I need. Oh, beloved, we
have missed the point. We have ignored 90% of the New
Testament in its completeness. Thus, we have heard Jesus say,
I am your life, and then everything outside of his mouth is wah,
wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, or how the peanuts heard adults.
Murmur, murmur, murmur. How our children hear us. Did
you hear me? Yeah, what did I say? I don't
know. Thank God our justification does not rest in our hearing.
Thank God even our faith does not rest in our faithfulness.
But it rests in the power of God divine. And He gives us the
resting of our souls, which is faith. To not just know the details
of the facts of the propositions of the historical narrative of
the Bible, any cat, rat, and mouse can learn if they can hear
it and understand the language. But faith is a rest in the soul.
Faith is a resolve given by God, not just to know and to agree
with the truth of the revelation of the gospel of grace, sovereign
and free, but faith is a place of contentment. How can we be content? What has
my mind got to do? What does the Bible teach us?
Our mind must focus on the very one that the Word of God points
to, the Christ, His finished work, His person, His effectual
and eternal grace and love toward His people whom He has saved
in His obedience to the Father who is the justifier of His people. What does that mean? Declares
them right. And then we've heard John's instruction,
right? We've heard Paul's instruction. We've heard Peter's instruction.
We've read James' instruction. We've read all these things.
We've looked at the Bible for years and years and years. But
we have pieced it apart and we have indoctrinated ourselves
to consider the Bible as it is printed with verses and chapters
and themes and subjects. And it's not written that way.
God has not revealed himself that way. There is instruction
from A to Z. And it is full, and it is free,
and it is given to the people of Christ. Beloved, the discipline
of being in the Word of God every day, alone with the Bible, no
study notes, no this, is a requirement for our joy in this God, as the
people would say, God-forsaken world. But it's not a God-forsaken
world. For the elect of this world are
not forsaken by their Father. No matter how hard it is. Beloved,
it's going to get hard sometimes. And our joy cannot be tethered
to the conditions of this world. For if it is, and often it is,
when it is, y'all know what you go through. And then the mind
just follows suit, doesn't it? And when the mind follows suit,
the soul follows suit. And there's never a day when
there's not somebody really ready to help throw you down further.
There's always the encouraging word. that steps on you. It doesn't
pick you up. It doesn't, like Moses, hold
his hands up. That's an encourager. Well, you know, you're not standing
in the right way. You're not looking in the right
direction. If you, if you, if you... See, the encouragers don't
tell us what we're doing wrong and show us the missteps. The
encouragers show us where we should be going. because they're
walking ahead of us saying, follow me. Listen to what I say. Listen
to what I'm teaching. Look where I'm going. Look where
I've been. It's been a tough one. I don't know where to go. Well, look, I made it through.
God gave me the wisdom because I followed after Christ. And
now you can follow after me. It's like a minefield. Who do
you want to follow? The ADD dog, he can smell him. How about the man who put him
down? How about the guy who's got the map? So we don't follow
Christ in this world, we want to follow after Christ. We need
to hear from him. We need to hear from him and
in hearing from him and learning deeply by the spirit together
collectively as a family in covenant. we will be given discernment. Have you ever picked up a drink
that wasn't yours by accident? And in your mind, you were drinking
Cherry Coke, maybe. Any Cherry Coke drinkers in here,
you know? Okay, one. All right. Or maybe it was orange
juice. Or maybe it was water. And it
wasn't. But the first sip, it is what
you thought it was. And you swallow it and you go,
that's not my drink. You don't spit it out. You drink
the first sip because it tastes that which you expected it. And then you're horrified. Like
that day I picked up that two week old coffee and thought I
was going to die. I could barely preach that morning.
It's terrible. I think I went home and drank
some bleach or something. I don't know. It's obviously
Bad, but I'm still here. Beloved, how do we know that
what we just sipped is not what we should be drinking? Because
we're familiar with what we've been drinking. How do we know
when that which is not of Christ is being taught to us? Because
we're familiar with what has been taught to us. We're familiar
with Christ. How do we know if something is or is not biblical
in its counsel? Because we have been in the word
enough to know what it is. Like a young sister told me just
last night that said, she said, Daddy, I have a great weight lifted
off of me when I consider God's mercy in saving me versus what
the world tells our children. Do this, do that, walk this,
walk that, be this, be that, just sit still. Just sit still. Last week in Timothy we heard
these words. Let's hear them again this morning.
Verse 3 of chapter 1. 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 teaching, nor to devote themselves
to funny ideas and weird historical things, which promote speculations
rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim
of our charge is love, and that issues from a pure heart and
a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving
from these three things, have wandered away into worthless,
empty discussion. desiring to be teachers of the
word without understanding either what they are saying or the things
about which they are confidently asserting. Now you notice your
translation didn't sound like mine, but I wanted to emphasize
the meaning and the purpose behind Paul's writing. Now we've already
gone through some of this. We've talked about mercy and
that it is an intimate expression of love and kindness Helping
those in need. It is not merciful to fuss at
a guy who's sick because he ate too much food. Well, you know
why you're sick? Because you ate that bad food.
You know that because you didn't do like that. You ever heard
that? You ever been the recipient of that? You know you ate the wrong stuff.
You're sick. You know you didn't do what you
should be doing because you're benefiting from the consequences.
The last thing you need to do is hear it again. That's not mercy. Mercy is, I'm
sorry. I really do hate that you're
going through this. I wish I could help. Here's some
bismuth. Here's some whatever other kind
of chalk or drug you take to help your stomach. I told you so. That's not mercy. That's in a way self-righteous. That's not how we do things.
Paul is telling Timothy how to do things. And Paul is telling
Timothy that he is merciful because God was merciful with him. And
Paul is writing to Timothy with a lot of burden. But I don't
think with any frustration. I don't think with any anger.
And I don't think with any fear. Merciful, warm, compassionate,
tender, affection, help in a time of need, comfort in a time of
misery. There's a word for that we call
in the Christian circles, we call it ministry. Ministry is
always mercy, merciful, it's always caring. You know one of
the main reasons people don't like to come to assembly in our
culture when asked why they hesitate? because they don't want to be
told how bad that they're doing in the Christian faith. They
don't want to be told that the reason they are where they are
is because of the decisions that they've made. They don't want
to be told that their hope and everything they've hung their
hope on, which is the finished work of Christ, is probably not
theirs to claim because of certain aspects of the way they live
or think. And that's nonsense. And beloved,
if the elders of the Church of Grace Truth have learned anything,
we've learned not to give ear to that nonsense. Because we
can't change it. And beloved, I'm asking you not
to give ear to that nonsense. Don't let the people in your
life destroy the finished work of Christ in your heart. They
can't take you away from Him, but they can destroy your joy.
And they'll claim to be doing God's business while doing so.
That's what was happening. This is contextual. This is what's
going on in Ephesus. People are destroying the joy
of Christ. So they are undoing the intimacy
of Christ with his people in the name of purity, boldness,
knowledge, confidence. It's ridiculous. But Paul wasn't upset. He wasn't
trying to stress Timothy out. Timothy was already stressed
out. He's an elder for crying out loud. He was already having
stomach problems. That's why Paul tells him to
drink wine. Not Concord grape juice. Wine. Because he was having physical
ailments because of his spiritual burdens. And moreover, he was
having problems because people were a problem. And that's what
we are, beloved. I remember a long time ago, a
short-term mentor in my life. He's just a really interesting
man. He said to me, he says, good news, James, is that you're
gonna get to work with some people. And the bad news is, is that
you're gonna get to work with some people. It's both sides. All or none,
baby. This intimacy, this mercy is
the fruit of the spirit. When we, as instructed, are focusing
on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, you see how we conflate
eternal life and justification and all the finished work of
redemption, which is God's doings. with sometimes and the hope of
that eternal life, with living in the world and doing that which
is instructed of us. Sometimes people confuse the
two. Sometimes people say, well, I know that I'm in Christ because
I'm doing all the good stuff. Some people go, well, I know
that I have eternal life because I've joined the church, or I
did this, or I followed the rules of the so-called evangelism strategy
or whatever. I know, but this is not regeneration. It's not regeneration to choose
to be saved. It's not regeneration to decide
to follow Christ. It's not regeneration to have
a desire to go to heaven. It's regeneration when you are
sitting and resting by the power of God and the absurdity of the
finished work of Jesus Who is God in the flesh who paid for
your sins and rose from the dead to prove it? Resting. And ultimately intimacy and mercy
and all of these things are supernatural. Birth from the truth of God's
love toward His people. The spirit of peace through Jesus
Christ is all of grace. It's all of grace. That means
grace that is sovereign and free is that it cannot be earned and
God is in control of how it operates. That's what sovereignty means.
God decides who and who doesn't receive His mercy. God decides
who and who is not born again. God, the Holy Spirit, decides
who will and who will not submit to His teaching. God decides
who will grow at certain days and ways. God will decide the
measure of faith that each one of us receive as His children.
God will decide how His mercy operates. And when we are in need of mercy,
it is because we are in need of grace. And that's one of the
things that I sort of left off. I spent so much time talking
about this. But Paul, in verse three, let's
just do a little reminder very quickly. Paul, in verse three,
when he says, as I urge you in Macedonia, when I was going to
Macedonia, to stay there in Ephesus so that you could charge certain
persons not to teach some different teaching. What teaching? Anything
different than what he taught them. And the cool thing about
that is we don't have to speculate, we don't have to assume. We can
go, we can look at Romans, we can look at Galatians, we can
look at Ephesians, we can look at Colossians, we can look at
the Pauline letters, we can look at the pastoral letters, we can
look at the prison letters, we can see what Paul taught because
he recapitulated it over and over and over again. And the
cool thing about it is when we read John's writing, John and Paul
are at the same page. When we read James, James and
Paul are at the same page. Now some people disagree with
that, but they don't understand how to read the Bible. They don't
understand how to listen, because they're piecemealing themes out
of a letter rather than reading the letter, you see. Don't trust the oversight of
someone who can outline a Bible book for you. Trust the oversight
of someone who understands the essence of what's being taught.
by the work of God. And so, he's saying, listen,
I need you to do this, I need you to stay there. This is showing
us, not by direct instruction, though it's already given in
direct instruction, this is showing us that there are occasions,
and God is sovereign in these occasions, when the opinions
of our philosophical thinking often collide with the natural,
well, with the supernatural, but direct and very clear teaching
of Scripture. Some people would argue, well,
that's your interpretation, that's your, no, listen, beloved, there's
not a bunch of interpretations. This is a microphone, the brand
is sure, and it's turned on right now. What is to interpret? Did
I even have to tell you that it was turned on? No, because
you can hear it. So the same thing is true when Paul is writing
to Timothy and he's telling him he needs him as an elder to stay
in Ephesus so that he can put in order what remains. Same thing
he told Titus. so that he could appoint elders
in every location so that there's oversight of God's people in
the instruction of the letters that they're going to be writing
and sending, the instruction of those letters that explain
the Old Testament writings to them. You can't start in Genesis,
because when you do, when you get to Matthew, you've got to
be converted out of Judaism. You see? You've got to have the gospel
before you understand the history. And so these elders are God's
only means of oversight of the people of God whatsoever in any
point in any historical place that is biblical. That's why plurality is a command. You must have more elders so
that there is not any room for failing. Because when there's one person
watching over the camp and that person goes to sleep, everybody
dies. You see? He's told Timothy, you stay here.
Elders are to look after the church and one of their roles
is to make sure that people in the congregation and people from
without the congregation are not being inundated with different
types of thinking. and being inundated with different
types of teaching. So if it's taught in scripture, specifically,
it's free game. But even then, there is discernment
and wisdom of knowing what is beneficial and when it is beneficial
to teach to the church. And that requires intimacy. Anybody can put a list of preaching
things together and sit out and record themselves on the internet
in three-minute sound bites and say, look, there's my pastor.
He's not looking at you. He doesn't know you. And because
he doesn't know you, he can't help you in walking. And not everybody has that privilege,
beloved. Not everybody. I mean, look around this room.
We've got over half of our congregation not here today, but yet we're
full. Not everybody has this privilege.
Don't take it for granted. What privilege is it? That when
all this is over, we have love for one another and we can help
each other. We can help each other in life. We can walk together in the faith.
We can take the Lord's table and be reminded of not just what
the gospel is and its efficacy, but we can be reminded of its
intention here on earth. in the picture of the body of
Christ in the church. The assembly. Notice the church
is the assembly. That means locally in the same
place. So don't teach different things.
Remember Paul is tactful and patient. He said there are certain
individuals, there are probably dozens and dozens and dozens
of individuals that are in this. Two specifically he actually
calls out. Hymenaeus and Alexander. Remember? Why does he call them out? Because
they have come to the place where they're actually no longer with
the body. That means they have been ostracized
because of their unwillingness to stop insisting on their own
way, which is unloving. And they led many astray who
have stirred turmoil. Let me remind you something.
Suspicion is not of God. Fear is not of God. Worry is
not of God. How do I know? Because the Bible
tells me so. Don't take my word for it. Anxiety is a sin. I live in a constant state of
sin. Let's not pretend, let's not
get sympathy because we have emotional or mental things going
on. Of course we should be sympathetic,
I'm not saying that, but let James Tippmann say it how it
is. I live in sin because of anxiety, because of concern. That's beyond burden that I take
to the Lord in prayer. That's beyond oversight on things
that I have the ability and the privilege and the responsibility
to put in order through the teaching and careful instruction. That's
me worrying about how I am going to handle and manage certain
things that I have no power to manage. That's not of the Lord. That's of my flesh. That is of
the enemy. But what do the spiritual, what
do the self-righteous call it? That's discernment. No, it's
not. It's sin. And if a lack of sin, if a growing
in righteousness, if I'm becoming more like Jesus, where is my
anxiety gonna stop? Well, I thought it had been tackled
until 2020. And I thought, oh, we made it
through that. 2021 said, whatever, boy. In 2022, It's just like, okay. Are you with me? It's not of the Lord. It's not
of the Lord when people are suspicious. It's not of the Lord when people
are always in a place of thinking that there's some undercurrent
of some wickedness going on. Especially in the church. The
person who has enough time to contemplate the motives and the
attitudes of other people, the reason that they are like that
is because they're not getting what they want. That's what Alexander and Hymenaeus,
that's the problem. They weren't getting what they
wanted. What they wanted is people to agree with them. And they
were changing something. They thought they knew what they
were doing because they'd been reading the Bible for 5, 10,
20 years. the Old Testament. And you know they hadn't. They've
only been reading it for a few years, maybe eight to nine. But they were wannabe teachers.
They're unskilled in scripture and they're ignorant of what
is required concerning instructing others in the faith. But yet
it seems to me that a lot of times what happens in our lives
is that we believe, and I've had this Superman complex too,
if I can just get a few minutes with somebody I can encourage
them to walk in joy. You know what
that's actually saying? I got the power over these people,
let me fix it. Let's just call it what it is.
I don't know what that old song back in the 90s, I got the power,
I don't even know what it's from, it's probably something bad I
shouldn't even have made reference to. Either way, that's how we feel, isn't
it? Maybe that was He-Man, I don't
know. I have no idea, all that junk in my head. I look forward
to the day when God rattles all that stuff out and I don't have
to, it doesn't pop in there anymore. Paul's desire was to put it all
back in order and to reconcile these two men and all the people
that they had fussed up with and made a fuss with, all those
people, to be back in peaceful unity under the gospel of grace.
So this suggests two things by implication. One is that God
teaches elders to be patient and long-suffering. Paul even says it, patiently
endure evil. Patience and long-suffering with
any interruption of the unity of the faith for all who stay
and remain in the body. I'm going to say that again.
is teaching the elders of the church to have long-suffering
and patience when they have any problems in the church with all
circumstances, according to the writings that they give us, and be patient with anyone who
remains in the body and with the church. Because when people... What is
church discipline? What's one of the benefits of
it? It helps the offender realize there's a consequence. We don't
consign them to unbelief and to hell, because that's God's
business. We treat them as if they're not
in the faith so that they, because they are in the faith, will be
turned by the Spirit of God to want to be back with God's people.
But you know what most of them do? Well, they weren't God's
people. So I left. The Bible says not to do that. Most everybody I know through
the years when they get into the situation, especially, you
know, the marriage or friendship or relationship at work or, you
know, besties, you know what besties are. I just thank God
for these people. I just thank God for these people.
I just thank God. God sent you to me. Oh, Lord has taught me
so much. Oh, you have been such a blessing to my life. And then
all of a sudden, I wish God had never met me. Let me meet you.
Well, which is it? Does God get the glory for all
the praise that you've given, or were you lying? See, that's
the discernment that we trust in our own flesh. Praise God
for it? Oh, and when it's not exactly
how we want it, this is accursed. Well, if it's from God, it's
not accursed. The only accursed thing God gives us is His Son. You've changed what you've been
taught. And there are people who have changed what you've
been taught, Timothy, and they're swerving from the truth, and
I need you to take care of it, okay? So not only does Paul say,
and this is what we picked up last week, not only does Paul
say, I want you to charge them to stop doing it, I want you
to charge them in a way of instruction, see. Because how do you change
people's mind about something? You teach them. You talk, you
listen, and you teach. From what position do we teach?
From the Word of God. That way it has supreme authority.
is the highest of all authorities. The scripture is the highest
of all authorities concerning God's revelation and God's instruction.
So the apostles then are the highest of authorities on earth
and they've written down their letters to the elders which were
the authorities over the local church. And so now the elders
of the church if they're not teaching according to this verse
by verse by verse by verse by verse instruction of the letters
then they're not teaching God's instruction. And when someone else comes along
and has different ideas, then what does the Bible teach the
elders to do? Teach them differently. For how long? As long as they're
willing to sit still and be taught. A man who's not teachable is
worthless as a teacher. A man who will not submit to
the very simple things of scripture cannot be trusted to teach anyone
about it. And beloved, this is hard. It's
hard, isn't it? It's hard not to be the superhero and to invest
ourselves in the lives of others, thinking we're going to make
that difference. in our own understanding and philosophy and interaction
rather than investing ourselves in the lives of others simply
teaching the Bible in a way that is profitable so that God Himself
by the Spirit will change them. Who gets the glory in the second
way? The Lord does. Who gets the glory in the first
way? We do, inadvertently. And then we say, I thank you
God that you use me. I don't want to be like the Pharisees. So we've got to change the way
people think. Verse 4, do not devote themselves, teach them
not to devote themselves, charge them, caution them, warn them,
teach them not to devote themselves. What does it charge? You teach
to myths and endless genealogies. I made mention of this last week
that you could go and you could look about the internet and other
places and you can find all sorts of historical records concerning
Jewish writings and theological things and positions. And it's
a lot of mythology. It's a lot of mysticism. It's
a lot of stuff. And we don't have to get into
that because it's not profitable. But everybody's interested. Oh,
tell us something. You know? Give us a story. I could tell
you a story about reincarnation, you know? Oh, that's interesting.
But what does it do? It detracts us from the focus
of what the Scripture actually teaches. So we don't need to
waste away what is profitable and spending time worrying about
what is worthless. I will retranslate this in a
way that we can understand it. Charge them to stop teaching
things differently and charge them not to devote their time
and their mind and their thinking to humanism, history, and philosophy. Now how can I do that? Because
that's what the point, that's where these things lie. And we could
go to the church, we could go to the letter to Colossians and
we could see Paul talking about the exact same thing from a different
point of view. Not Jewish, but Gnostic. It's always some new
knowledge to get. Well even if the knowledge is
theological in its root, it can still be Gnosticism. It can still
be a higher understanding. It can still be a deeper thing
that the average Joe or Jane can't get. But beloved, if the
average Joe or Jane can't get it reading it from the Bible,
I suggest that it's not profitable for the elders to teach. And
I would say that if it's not able to be brought out from the
Scripture by the Spirit of God, that it's not in there. Are you hearing what I'm saying? If we can't give our youth the
scripture, and they come back in six months with all these
things, all these interests, all these ideologies, then we
probably shouldn't be teaching it to them. Because the remedy
and the prescription and the command, according to Paul to
the elders of the church, is to entrust others with what? with the gospel, with the writings
of the prophets and the apostles. And each generation is responsible
for continuing that effort so that, why is it so important?
Because that's the remedy for false teaching, is teaching truth. And then church discipline is
the remedy for those who refuse to submit to and obey the commands
of the apostles given to the church of Christ. No matter what
justification, disobedience is disobedience. I was hungry. I
stole the money. You go into prison where you
can have free food. It's not a justification. And so elders are to examine
and to teach those who put their minds on all these other teachings
and continually are settled. And it's why when people are
so passionate about dealing with certain aspects of doctrine,
that it causes a red flag to go up in some of our minds. Because
we're thinking, you know, we're in John, let's see what Jesus
is teaching in John 17. Let's see what the Bible would
tell us. Let's study to show ourselves
approved as elders and teachers of the Word of God. And yes,
let's use proper theological terms and define things in our
own language. This is progression of thought
and things, but we're not progressing in our thought concerning the
revelation of God because the Word of God is already done in
English. We don't have to sit around and think and contemplate
too deeply to know what the word among means. What does the verb is really
mean? What is an is? Why? Why must the elders do this? Because they are stewards. They
are stewards. The stewardship from God, verse
four, that is from God, that is by faith. Because what does
all this stuff do? What happens when we permit people
to ruin their lives by becoming so enthralled in all these different
things historically or philosophically? Brothers and sisters, I can talk
for years about these things. I love it. I love it. It is great. I spent most of
my childhood, if I had free time, staring into the sky thinking
about all these things, thinking I had come up with incredible
ideas only to find later in university that someone else a thousand
years ago thought of it too. There's nothing new under the
sun. The simplicity of grace, the simplicity of the gospel
is where we start and end. No matter how amazingly imaginative
or thought-provoking things may take us, let us rest in the simplicity
of it all. Because God hasn't called everyone
nor gifted everyone to be philosophical, nor has He gifted everyone to
be able to deal with things mathematically, or deal with things historically,
or deal with things traditionally, or understand application. But
together, we are all coming from the same source, and that is
the living and immortal and eternal Scripture, who is the Word of
God. So we are to be concerned more
about that which is stewardship from God that is by faith rather
than speculation. See that, verse 4? Promoting
speculation versus what? That that is the stewardship
from God that is by faith. What is the stewardship from
God here in that context? That which God has revealed,
which the apostles have written down. That's it. And then inside this
writing that were given to Paul by Christ and by God the Spirit,
now has been given to Timothy, now has been written to all the
churches of history, now we have here. So now I get to be a steward
of Paul's stewardship, which is the gospel, and then I get
to be a steward of the body of Christ, which is you and me. And part of keeping that stewardship
in check is that we do not sway into these other things. One evidence of the fact that
people won't listen to the scriptures when they hear a man like me
say that straight out of context here, straight out of the context,
not out of context, straight from the context, contextually. I caught it. Thank you. Everybody
went, All right, now what was I saying? Oh, is that they will
begin to, instead of receiving what God has written, they will
begin to say, oh, yeah, but, oh, he's talking about, oh, trying
to skirt the issue. That's exactly what Satan did
in the garden. And beloved, when we find ourselves there, let's
call it what it is. We're skirting the issue, we're
doing that, we're doing that. No, we're being obedient and
submissive to the peace of God. we're being obedient, we're living
by faith, we're being stewards of that which God has given us.
Beloved, it is impossible, let me tell you this right now, it
is impossible for me as a man, as a father, as a parent, and
now as a grandfather, I mean, it is impossible for me, it's
impossible for me to be Christ-like in my thinking in every aspect
of my life. Because I put order in things
that is not Christ-like. I put things in order sometimes
in ways that are not Christ-like. And how are they not Christ-like?
I'm not slinging fits and burning down lives. But I'm insistent
and somewhat arrogant in my thinking. Not outwardly. Not all the time. And I'm thinking, if these children Sometimes you've got to do what
you've got to do for you. You know, is that Christ speaking
there? Is that Christ speaking? No. But yet, how many fathers
are not going to tell that to their children when their children
are being run over by the world? You've just got to stand up. Don't take this anymore. Let's
be honest. And you know what? I'm just going
to confess to you, I'm not going to change that. Because the alternative of giving
my children both Christ's attitude in the gospel and teaching, and
for those of you who don't have children, you may judge me on
this, but one day I can say, told you so, no. And there's
a joke there. But I will still tell them about
Christ, but I will also still tell them to make stands. Take these people out of your
life because they're not healthy for you. Don't do this. You don't owe these things to
anyone. Have you told your children that?
You've got teenagers, I know you have. And adults, we've had the same
situation, haven't we? But what does the Bible say? We bear one
another's burdens. We pray for each other. We sacrifice
ourselves for the sake of the other's joy. Oh my gosh. What
am I gonna do? I'm in this weird, dissected
tornado. It's not, it's just like, like
this, not going around, it's sort of back and to, and I've
got Christ in the gospel and the mind of Christ over here
who knew he was God, though that was not something he took for
granted or credit for, boasted in, but made himself obedient
unto slavery, like a slave, a death on a cross, like a criminal. That's what I was trying to say. What do you do? The stewardship
that is from God, that is by faith. So, on things pertaining
to the body of Christ and things pertaining to given instruction,
we need to make sure that we often and always make sure we
distinguish between what we think and what the Word of God says. And call it clearly. And oftentimes when we see others,
who always gets the attention in the stores? You got five kids,
you got 10 kids, you got 14 kids, doesn't matter. Who gets the
attention? The ones that stand in line quietly? You don't even
know they're there. You don't stand there all the
time going, I just can't shop because I'm watching Johnny just
walk so perfectly and quietly. Now you're going, I can't shop
because Bob won't shut up. Put that down. Don't say that.
Quit. Put that away. You can't drink that. That's
rat poison. Stop. Don't pull her hair. Where did you get that?
How long have you been running that toilet? Never mind. I see
it down the aisle. That's the kid that gets attention. You're
driving down the road and everything's good? You don't think to yourself,
I mean, the frequency of these tires, operating at efficiency,
well, yes I do, okay. So, I mean, this, because that's
my standard, you see? And when anything changes, mmm,
that's what I wanna hear, and it's mmm, something's wrong. What's that clicking? It's the
clicking, it's the squeaking. Sealant fan. If they're not balanced,
they're coming down. And they're going in the trash.
None of that junk. None of that clinking against
the thing. I'm not doing it. I'm going to tear it out, throw
it away. I'm going to buy a brand new one. I taped pennies up one
time when we were first married, you know, before the internet.
What you got to do, your neighbor, what you got to do is you take
pennies, have that sucker on high, it was running good, and
then one night in the middle of the night, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, I mean, you know.
See how easy it is? That gets attention. Even the
stories get attention. We get attention. We give attention
to that which is problematic, which is loud, which is bolstered,
which stomps its feet, which gives its own. And what happens
when we're doing that constantly? The other who are right where
they should be are neglected. And the quietest and most submissive
child says to you one day, I wish you'd given attention to me. I had a youth tell me that when
we first moved to California, he came out and visited with
us for about three weeks. And he said that all that time
that, you know, we were at Bible studies and things and almost
80% of the time, these Bible studies were derailed by the
people who were constantly unwilling to do what the scripture was
being taught, what was teaching them. They railroaded it all
for the rest of us. Now, that's part of Gospel living,
isn't it? False teachers is part of gospel
living. Problems are part of gospel living.
Dichotomies, this tornado, is part of gospel living. This is
the promise of God. Listen, beloved, this is the
gift of God for His people because it teaches us stuff. What is
the word for teaching and growing and maturing? Be it a three-year-old, when
you teach him that he can't throw toilet paper in the Walmart,
and he can't pour Kool-Aid in the purse, he hates you. Why am I always in trouble? Because
you're horrible. I mean, you know, that's not
the answer, but you know what I mean. You're horrible. You're not horrible. You haven't
learned. So they stay at home, we watch
them grow, and then we think to ourselves years later, man,
the toilet paper and the juice in the purse would have been
cakewalk. You tell your 25 year old, why
don't you wanna just throw some toilet paper around in the Kmart?
I mean, they're gone. Walmart? Stewardship from God, that is
by faith. Remember, we're at peace by grace. We've received
mercy and tenderness, and now we have the mind of Christ in
our dealings with each other. The elders have to have the mind
of Christ in their dealings with one another. And beloved, the Word of God
demands dogma. But God's people can't be dogmatic.
It is dogma by definition. It's not up for discussion. But patience wins. Kindness wins. Mercy. Where do
you get all this, pastor? You're just making stuff up.
Look at verse 5. The aim of our charge is love. You see, all the people in the
world who have not experienced children in all stages of life
and don't understand that sometimes being harsh is not the answer. You know, when your kids are
all young, all I needed was hickory. Just show it to them. And when
they hid that, a little tiny leather strap. We call it the
tab because I cut it off a rubber floor mat in the van in Arizona
on the highway. That's all you need. Just lay
that right up there on the dash. Four by two. That's all. Just
a little rectangle. They'd start it up, and I'd just
raise it up in the rear of your mirror, lay it on the dash. Silence. It's like they all died. And
then when they get a little older, you raise it up. What are you
going to do with that? Oh! You see? It doesn't work anymore. And then it disappears, so you
have to cut another one. It changes how you handle individuals
is in respect to your mercy and tenderness with them. Not everybody
can be treated identically in the way and the manner in which
we approach them. And no one in the family of Christ
should ever be yelled at. Or called names. Or judged. or fear being in the presence
of the saints because they don't measure up. Have we all felt
that way? And you know what's funny? We
sometimes still feel that way, but yet we're not even experiencing
it. We're just so gun-shy based on what we've experienced in
the past. Some would say, well, where is Christ and all that?
It is the picture of Christ and His mercy and His tenderness. Our aim, verse 5, the aim of
our charge is love. This is love that issues from
a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere
faith. So the nature of false teachers
and their errors, their theological division, is to show God's faithfulness
in unifying His people through the instruments of mercy. Let
me say that again. When all of this stuff comes,
we think, oh, where's God? He's right there. That's the
point. When life shakes us up, it is a gift. Now it is an opportunity for
God to be proven faithful if we just counterintuitively breathe
in the gospel and sit still, what does the psalmist say, and
know that He is God. Wizard of Oz was an amazing thing
that could grant wishes and great power, but all he was was a projection
of a little busy old man pushing buttons and pulling levers and
blowing whistles and pushing and puffing smoke. Remember that
TV show, not the book, the TV show, it's about the economy
if you didn't know that. That's what we do. This is the
average Christian pushing levers, and smoke, and buttons, and wheels,
and turning, and doing, and we're making it all happen for the
sake of the glory of God. But the Lord says, nah, I'm just
going to let you flap your arms, flap your way. You're not going
anywhere. You're not going to fly anywhere. Just keep going. One day, you'll see. I'm going to take all these buttons
away. I'm going to take all these levers away. I'm going to take
all these controls away because the people of God are not in
control. We're not in control. We're not
in control in our debates. We're not in control in our discussions.
We're not in control in our projects, in our jobs, in our lives. God
has purposed all these things. It is a gift. So we know that
when these things take place, the mercy of Christ and the gospel
is the centerpiece of it all, so that when we see it resolved
by doing that which God has called us to in peace, mercifully, what
happens? A majority of the church in Ephesus
came back in line. And peace was restored. And everybody didn't say, remember
that time when Paul had to send Timothy and Timothy came in,
praise God, praise Timothy, He did it. No, Timothy followed
the instruction of Paul. And God did what he was going
to do. Divine love. The nature or the reason and
the whole experience of false teachers and division and all
these things, no matter what it might be, is to show God faithful
and unifying his people through the instruments of mercy, his
people. through the elders of the flock, those who oversee
this mercy, who do what they're told, not what they deem necessary. This is divine love. John says,
anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is
love. There's a lot of people that know about God, but don't
know Him. There's a lot of people that know some truths about Him,
but haven't learned the other things. A lot of people understand
the gospel in a cognitive way, but they've not yet learned the
nature of their Lord. And the church, when they understand
the love of God, because God is love, are not troubled, they're
not fearful, they're not judgmental, they're not hateful. Christ's
are everything. So, from that, we have a pure
heart. A heart that's been made and
called pure by Christ. Christ is the purest of hearts.
From that we have a good conscience. We know that what we do and how
we act and how we speak and how we relate to each other in the
faith, we know that it is right because we are following the
prescription of what God's Word has taught us. That's the way
to have a good conscience in our actions. But moreover, we
also have a good conscience to know that even when we don't
get it right, it doesn't change God's love for us, nor does it
change our place before Him in eternity. Why do we conflate
those two so much? Because that's what the flesh
does. It wants to be in control. And from a sincere faith, a sincere
faith is still. A sincere faith works according
to the instruction of Scripture. A sincere faith rests. And a sincere faith competes
and runs. A lot of things to think about
there. The truth of Christ is given to His people by faith.
And by faith they are resting. And remember we spent four weeks
on peace and they are at peace. And they have received mercy.
This faith is confident assurance. And in that, we have a clean
conscience before the Lord. We're not hiding. We're not messing
up. We're not pouring stuff into
the purse and throwing things all around the store and pitching
a fit and then hiding from God like they did in the garden.
When God says through His Word, hey, that's enough, we say, oh,
thank you, Father. We're not running. We're not
trying to impose some picture of righteousness in our lives
to make God happy. He's happy with himself. He's
happy with the work of his son. And therefore, we who are found
in him make him happy. Isn't it funny to talk about
God being happy? And in the conscience, we are
resting in what? The promises as reported in Christ
Jesus. And these promises are firm and
they're fast. And I said last week, they have
full effect. And so we're not looking as sheep to find further
ways to divide and be separate from others. We are looking to
the only one who brings us together. And that is the righteousness
of Christ, the righteousness of God and Jesus Christ. So the
gospel is about God's love for his people and his ability in
his love to forgive them in Jesus Christ. So then God is in the
business, as I've said many times over, of salvation. And he does
with his love and his grace as he sees fit. And we are beneficiaries
of this mercy, so we should show it. But certain persons swerve
from this. Certain persons don't rest in
these three ways. Certain persons are not interested
in doing this. They've wandered into vain discussion.
Let's talk about it. Beloved, I'm going to say this
again. And we'll see it as we get through these letters. Talking
about anyone in a way that does not build them in the ears of
the hearer without them present is wicked. Listening to anyone who talks
of another in that way without that person present is wicked. Now what do we do? Just jab out
our ears. We can't unread or read an email
or a messenger or what have you. Beloved, don't ever think that
it is of Christ when that stuff happens. Oh, I've done it. Yes, we have. I've received it. Yes, we have. In every season
of life. Let us take note when we see
it. How do we know The truth from error. We focus on the truth.
So the discernment comes by the stewardship that is from faith,
from God through faith. We do not seek our own way. Because
we have confidence in God's power and his promises. Versus confidence in one's knowledge
or abilities. Beloved, we're always going to
have problems. And patient and loving correction,
because of the patience and love of God, is the elder's charge,
not for the sake of the weak or strong, but for the sake of
the name of Christ. Some people say, well, I don't
believe what you're saying, Pastor. Well, verse 6, verse 7, There are people
who desire to be teachers of the Word and they don't understand
what they're talking about because they neglect the stewardship
of God. They neglect the body. There's
nothing more wicked than individualism and there's nothing more grand
than a lot of people being individuals together. It's not okay. Go back to Genesis
3 and look at what happened in the garden. Here is intimacy
with God, merciful creator, standing in a place of right standing
with God, sinless, innocent. And the enemy comes in and says,
being together in God is sort of like a weak position. You
could be more. You could be like him. The aim of our charge is love.
from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith,
and we'll talk about those as we come in the next few weeks. At the end of it all, God ordains
the most evil of errors, and God does so for the sake of the
unity of His church. And beloved, the church, the
elect, will never be deceived by false teaching. The elect will never throw away
the gospel. The people of Galatia who lined
up for circumcision, those first few in the line, boy, they regretted
it. But they were never taken out of the hand of Christ. Romans
8 does not say nothing can separate you from the love of God except
that you were circumcised in Galatia. Except that you went back to
Moses. Nothing is said like that. It's nothing. Nothing. John says in his first epistle, I'm writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. I'm writing
to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning.
I'm writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the
evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the
beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and
the Word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil
one. Beloved, this is the love of God. a new and old commandment. And it's why we're here today.
It's why we assemble as we're instructed every single week
so that we may worship together and we may be reminded of one
another and we may be encouraged by one another. And from here,
all other needs are met. We don't do it through the back
end. That's the world's way. That's the seeker-sensitive way.
That's when you end up with a church full of unbelievers, rather than the believers trusting
in the promises of God and the provisions of God for this life
today, not just the life to come. So remember, this is why we come
together. And we take the Lord's table
to be reminded of the power and the efficacy of the gospel. The
blood of Christ shows that he died and shows that the weight
and the penalty of sin has been paid. So let's prepare our hearts
as one body to take this together. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for your undying love. And thank you, Lord, for small
moments of clarity. Lord, I pray that you would continue
to work all things according to your will and purpose. Work
all things according to your plan for our joy to be found
in Christ alone. Lord, for us to understand and
grow deeper in the gospel. Lord, for us to grow in our distinctions
of the gospel. Father, for us to see the truth
in such a rich way that we're able to discern when things that
are not true come along. And Father, most importantly,
Lord, help us to judge rightly and in peace and to follow the
instruction that you've given us through Paul to Timothy. Lord,
we are unworthy servants. And we say that sometimes because
it has become cliche, but Father, we are. And so I pray, Lord,
that you would not only continue to teach us that, but Lord, that
you would show us that through our trials and through our suffering,
that we would do all things without complaining, that we would never
sit down to contemplate your power with frustration, anxiety,
fear, and suspicion in our hearts. But Lord, that we would love
all of the beloved. We would love all those who profess
Christ. with the same tenderness and mercy and patience that you've
shown us. And so, Lord, we thank you for
this practical teaching that comes from a proper theology
of this free and sovereign grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.