Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. And
if you'd like to follow along in the message, as I preach the
message this morning, I'm going to be preaching from the book
of 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 1. This is one of the letters or
the epistles of the Apostle Paul. This one to a young evangelist
whom Paul was a mentor and a teacher of the gospel, this man named
Timothy. And Timothy was on Paul's missionary
journeys as he went through the Gentile world at that time. Timothy
was with him and at one point he came to the church at Ephesus. You know, Paul also wrote a letter
to the church at Ephesus called Ephesians. Well, when he was
coming through Ephesus, he left Timothy at Ephesus to teach those
people, to help them, to be a support to them. And then later on, Paul
was arrested. You know the story, or many of
you do if you've read the Bible. And he ended up in Rome, and
he was kept a prisoner. He was kept in a house. He wasn't
in a jail cell with chains and all that, even though he called
them his bonds. He couldn't go, come and go as
he pleased, but people were allowed to come and go to him, so they
sent, brought letters, and Paul sent out letters. And the ones
that he wrote while he was incarcerated or kept as a prisoner of Rome,
they're called his prison epistles, and this is one of them. Well,
in this first chapter, Paul makes a statement that I want to capitalize
on in a few messages. And the title of this message,
and then I don't know how many messages I'll preach on this,
but this will be part one. I've got several things I want
to tell you about this. The title of this message is
Using the Law Lawfully. Using the Law Lawfully. That's the law of God. Did you
know that there is an unlawful way to use, or you might say
abuse, the law of God? And there is, and we're gonna
talk about it. Now to start off with, I wanna
just read the first verses here leading up to what Paul is saying,
and I'll make some comments. And that's why I wanted to take
a few messages here, because I really want us to study and
to understand by revelation from God, what it means to use the
law lawfully. And we'll talk about that in
just a moment. But let's look at 1 Timothy chapter 1. Let's
go to verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
and understand an apostle is one who was brought to faith
and gifted directly by the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul called himself
as one born out of due time. He did not travel with Christ
during the three and a half years of Christ's earthly ministry
as Peter and James and John and the rest of the other eleven,
the eleven did. But Paul got his message. He
was called to faith. He was born again by the Spirit,
called to faith in Christ, under the direct preaching of a revelation
from Christ, and it began on the Damascus Road, as recorded
in the book of Acts, when Paul was brought down into the dust. And you remember how Christ spoke
to him and brought him later to hear the gospel, which he
had heard before. But it says, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus
Christ, which is our hope. Our hope. Who is our hope? Christ
is the hope. And that word hope does not mean
wishful thinking. That word hope means a certain
assured expectation of salvation and all of its blessings that
come to a sinner by God's grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is based upon His blood, His death, His cross, which is
His righteousness to keep the law. And that's important now
if we're going to understand this thing of using the law lawfully. Christ kept the law for his people. He stood as the representative
of his people. He stood as the surety of his
people. Now, you remember what a surety
is? A surety is one who becomes responsible, accountable for
the debt of another. When God gave His people, chose
His people before the foundation of the world, and gave them to
Christ before the world ever began, what did He do? He appointed Christ to be the
surety of His people. Which means this, that the debt,
their sin debt, you know, they owed a debt to God's law. That's what sin is. Sin is transgression
of the law. And so, God's people whom He
chose before the foundation of the world, they owed a debt to
God's law and justice, but that debt was put upon Christ. That's
called imputation. Sin imputed to Christ. That's
the debt of sin charged to Him. And so Christ who agreed to do
this because of his love for his father and for his people,
his sheep, his church, he came to earth and took upon himself
the likeness of sinful flesh. He was human. He's God in human
flesh but without sin. And he kept the law. And he kept
it unto death. Now why was it necessary for
him to die? Because the law curses those
to whom sin is imputed, the payment for sin is death. You may quote it all the time,
Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death. So that's why he had to die in
the place of his people. He's the surety and substitute
of his people. Now, in doing all that, accomplishing
all that, finishing that work, redeeming his people, paying
the sin debt in full, he worked out the perfect righteousness
of the law that is imputed to his people. So that if you're
a believer, a true believer now, not just saying you're a believer,
not talking about walking an aisle, getting baptized, joining
the church, all that. There are certain things that
have their place, you see, but I'm getting to the kernel truth
of the gospel here now. And it's not what you do. It's
not what I do, but it's what Christ has already done. You
see, the true gospel is the proclamation, not of sinner do this, sinner
do that. It's the proclamation of what
Christ has already done, a finished work. It's finished. Well, everyone
who truly believes Christ, believes the gospel, trusts Christ, stands
before holy God, righteous in His sight, based on what? Because of what? Because they
believed? No. Believing is just the evidence
of their righteousness before God. Because they repented? No. Did they believe? Did they
repent? Yes, by the power of God they
did. All of that is evidence of their standing before God
in Christ. They stand before God righteous
based upon His finished work, the merit, the value of His finished
work imputed to them, charged to them. You see that? That's
substitution, His suretyship. He's our mediator. Now I said
all that in that one verse because I want to show you that's the
hope that Paul's talking about. I quote that song all the time
on this program. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, But wholly lean on Jesus' name, On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand." There's a verse
in the hymn, Nothing But the Blood. You might be familiar
with that. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood
of Jesus. And what it says in one of those
verses, it says, This is all my hope and peace, nothing but
the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness. So when Paul speaks of this hope,
that's what he's talking about. So he establishes the foundation
of fellowship and ministry between himself and Timothy. Paul, verse
1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of
God our Savior Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. Our hope. Verse 2, he says unto Timothy,
that's who he's writing to, my own son in the faith. Paul was
the instrument. Now God is the only father. And
all who are saved are children of God. But Paul looked at Timothy
like a father would look upon a son. And what he's saying here
is that Timothy, he said, I count you my son in the faith. Paul
was the instrument that God used to bring Timothy into the ministry
and to guide him. So unto Timothy, my own son in
the faith, grace, that's undeserved blessing, salvation, mercy, That's
God in Christ and peace, peace with God through Christ from
God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. That's where grace,
mercy and peace come from. And so verse three he says, as
I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, remember he left
him at the church at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia that
thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Now, the doctrine, what is doctrine? It's teaching. Somebody says,
well, we don't emphasize doctrine. Well, what do you emphasize? What do you say when you get
up and preach or teach out of the Bible? You've got to emphasize
doctrine. Doctrine is teaching. What is
doctrine? Well, whenever Christ taught
his disciples, what did he teach them? doctrine. Somebody said
doctrine divides. Well, it sure does. And why not? There is true doctrine and there
is false doctrine. It ought to divide. The reason
that we're not publicly affiliated with any particular denomination
is I don't know any denomination that teaches this doctrine. as
a denomination now. You understand what I'm saying?
There are other churches where this truth is preached, and I
thank God for them. They're sister churches. They're
fellow laborers in the ministry. But the big denominations have
gone astray. And the thing about it is, doctrine
is everything. It's the word of God. That's
what it is. It's truth, if it's true doctrine. Now, there is false doctrine.
You remember Christ warned the disciples about the leaven of
the scribes and the Pharisees? It was their doctrine, their
false doctrine. And so the doctrine he's talking
about is the doctrine that I described in this hope that true believers
have. And he said, you charge him,
don't teach any other doctrine. Verse four, first Timothy one,
neither give heed, neither listen to fables. and endless genealogies,
which minister questions, rather than godly edifying, which is
in faith. So do. Now listen to what he's
saying there. Fables. You know, when you think
of a fable, you might think of something like children's stories,
like Aesop's fables. But that's not what Paul's talking
about here. The fables he's talking about
are the words and stories and ideas and philosophies and thoughts
of men that are outside of and even oppose the Word of God.
You see, the foundation of faith is not your ideas, your opinions,
your stories, even your experiences. The foundation of faith is the
Word of God. The Bible says in Romans 10 and
verse 17 that faith comes by hearing. Hearing what? Hearing by the Word of God. And that's what we emphasize
at Eager Avenue Grace Church and Reign of Grace Ministries.
We're studying the Word of God. You know, people today, you know,
they think of like a Sunday school or something is where everybody
gets together and you read a scripture and then everybody goes around
and gives their opinion. That's not what Bible study is. Bible study is looking at the
word of God prayerfully, praying that God will reveal himself
to us and studying it within its context. What does that word
fable mean? It's a false idea. Don't give heed, don't listen
to these fables, he says. Endless genealogies. Now, why
would genealogies even be important? You know, everybody loves to
know, well, where do we come from? You know, what percentage
of my blood is English or German or whatever and all that? Well,
that's okay. I mean, for curiosity's sake.
But genealogy has absolutely nothing to do with a right relationship
with God. And that's what he's talking
about. Now this kind of gives you a little bit of a clue as
to something of the fables and the false doctrine that was coming
in. And it may have been, and I think we're gonna see that
it will be the case, that he's talking about false Jewish Christians. false Christians who were Jewish. Now, why is that? Because the
genealogy, the unbelieving Jews. Now, Paul was a Jew, all right? And all the apostles were Jews. And it's not putting down Jews
because the Jewish nation was used of God greatly under the
old covenant. And it's through that nation,
according to the flesh, that the Lord came and we thank God
for them. That's not the issue. But an
unbelieving Jew often invoked his genealogy as being a basis
for a right relationship with God. For example, when Christ
was confronting the Jewish unbelieving Pharisees about Abraham, for
example, in John 8, What was one of their answers to him?
They said, we are Abraham's seed. That's our genealogy. See, we
come from Abraham. We're born of the flesh in Abraham.
And Christ told him, he said, well, that'll do you no good
as far as salvation goes. It doesn't matter who your daddy
and granddaddy and great granddaddy was, whether they were full-blooded
Jew or whether they weren't. The Apostle Paul, when he was
describing his experience of salvation, he made this claim
before he saw the glory of God in Christ. He said, I was a Hebrew
of Hebrews. He said, I was of the tribe of
Benjamin. See, that was my genealogy, an
honored tribe. But then when he said, when I
saw my sinfulness and saw the glory of Christ and His righteousness,
Philippians chapter three is where this is recorded. He said,
I counted all but loss. It means nothing. The fact that
I would be a full-blooded Hebrew means nothing in light of who
Christ is and what salvation is by His blood and His righteousness
alone. So don't give in to these, don't
listen to these. He said, what they do is they
minister questions. And that's what happens. Whenever
you go out of the word of God, against the word of God, you
gender more questions than you do answers. Now my friend, I
don't have all the answers for all the questions, nobody does.
But I do know this. Whatever it takes for a sinner
to come to a knowledge of in order to have a right relationship
with God, it's in this book right here. It's in the gospel wherein
this hope is revealed. And it'll answer your questions.
And he says, rather than God, verse four, 1 Timothy 1.4, rather
than godly edifying, edifying means to build up, not to tear
down. Edified, which is in faith, which
is in the word of God. That's what that means. So do. Now look at verse five. First
Timothy 1.5. Now the end of the commandment
is charity or love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience
and of faith unfeigned. First he says the end of the
commandment. What commandment is he speaking
of? Well, he's talking about the gospel commandment. If you
want to call it a law. Now we're talking about using
the law lawfully. What is a law? Well, it's a commandment. Usually when people today think
about the law, they think about either the constitution of the
United States, or if they're talking about religion, they
think about the 10 commandments. And those were laws. And what
is the law? What is the commandment? It's
the word of God. God is not in the habit of making
suggestions to us. He lays down the law. When God
created man and put him in the garden, he put him under the
law, that is, the law of commandment. And it's summarized in Genesis
chapter two, when God showed Adam, he said, now of all the
trees of the garden, you may eat, but of that tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, you may not eat. And in the day that
you eat thereof, you will die. The penalty of sin, death. Now,
you say, well, that's the only law God gave him. Well, everything
God says is law. And this is the thing, you see,
Adam was under that law to obey it. that tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. You know what it was? It was
a symbol, and I believe there was a literal tree and all of
that, but it symbolized something greater than the physical. It
symbolized God's sovereign prerogative to set the standard of what's
right and what's wrong, what's righteous and what's sinful,
what's lawful and what is unlawful. Only God has that right. And that's what he's saying.
And he's written that in the conscience of men. There is a
right and a wrong. Who sets it? You? Me? The church? No. God does. One of the strongest indictments
that God brings against sinful man is when he makes this statement,
for example, in the book of Judges, and he makes it in other forms
in other places, that everybody does that which is right in their
own eyes. That's bad. That's depravity. And we know that's happening
today. People say, well, for example, if it's love, it can't
be wrong. Well, that's not right. You see,
that's an abuse of the law. Well, the end of the commandment,
whatever God commands, and here he's talking about the gospel.
That's the gospel commandment. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. Now it's not just believing in
any way you think of him, but as he's presented in the Bible.
He says the goal, when he says the end of the commandment, he
means it's goal. Whenever the gospel is preached,
the goal of that commandment, to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, is to bring a sinner to love God, to love Christ,
out of a pure heart. A pure heart? Well, didn't Christ
say in Matthew chapter 5, blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God. What is a pure heart? Well, a
pure heart is a purged, cleansed heart. What is the heart? It's the mind. It's the affections. It's the will. It's the desires. It's the inner man. It's the
conscience. Well, the Bible says that by nature our hearts are
deceptive. deceitful, desperately wicked
above all things. There's none righteous, there's
none good. How can I have a pure heart? The pure heart is the
heart, the mind, the affections, the will, the conscience that
is cleansed from the guilt and condemnation of sin by the Holy
Spirit applying to us in knowledge, doctrine, the blood of Christ. We sing it, what can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood. That's
the pure heart. Doesn't mean that you no longer
sin or no longer have sinful thoughts and desires. You have
a struggle with the flesh and the spirit if you're a believer.
But the only relief that you can get from the guilt and the
defilement and the condemnation of sin is by looking to Christ. out of a pure heart. That's what
he's talking about, a purged heart. The only thing, I'm gonna
tell you something, my works cannot cleanse me from sin. My tears of repentance cannot
cleanse me from sin. My efforts and promises and intentions
to do better cannot cleanse me from sin. Joining a church, giving
a tithe, Being baptized cannot cleanse me from sin. There's
not but one thing that can cleanse me from sin. The blood of Christ. His righteousness alone. That's it. And so he says that's
the end of the commandment, love. And that's what brings out the
love of God's people to him. He says a good conscience, that's
a cleansed conscience. And a faith unfeigned, unmixed. In other words, it's a faith
that looks singly to Christ and nowhere else for salvation. Now
I'm a sinner saved by the grace of God. And I have no hope of
being right with God except through Christ and His righteousness
alone. That's faith unfamed. Look at
verse six. He says, he says, don't listen to anything else.
And he says, from which some having, having swerved have turned
aside unto vain jangling. They've gotten off of Christ,
they've gotten off of truth, they've gotten off of the gospel,
that single message, and it's called vain jangling. That means
worthless talk. And I'm afraid that that is all
too common in so many churches that call themselves Christian
today. Verse seven, now look, here's the key. Desiring to be
teachers of the law. They want to be teachers of the
law, understanding neither what they say nor wherever they affirm.
They don't know what they say or what they, they're not, they
don't know what they're talking about. That's what that means.
Verse eight, but we know that the law is good if a man use
it lawfully. Now next week I'm going to start
there and I'm going to show you the main way in which the law
is abused, but other ways too. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia, 31707. contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.