Faithful to the Word, Part 1

All right, good morning. It's good to see you all. Hope you all fared the cold weather well. I'm glad you're here. I welcome you and welcome everybody watching online. I want to invite you to stand with us. We'll pray and we'll get started.

Lord, we just thank you for the day. God, we thank you, Lord, for warmer temperatures. God, we praise you. So, God, we thank you for an opportunity, Lord, to come and spend time in your word, Lord, and lift a joyful noise to you, God. God, we're just so glad to be here. Lord, we just want to glorify you this morning. We ask your blessing upon this time, Lord. Help

us to position our hearts rightly before you, God. Help us to sit anything, Lord, that is just distracting us aside this morning so that we can focus on you, Lord, so that you can minister to us, Lord, God, and that we can lift. With praise to your holy name. Father, we love you and we praise you in your precious and holy name. Amen. You guys can go ahead and have a seat if you like.

We just give you praise, Lord, and we know that in you, Lord, there is... Never fail my days. I've been held in your... Until I lay my head, I will... Sing of your goodness, oh, God. Lord Jesus, we'll sing, oh, God. We'll sing, yes, oh, God. Oh, Lord God, we just thank you for how good you are to us, Lord God. You're always faithful and good. We just thank you and we praise you, Lord. You've been so good and kind. Just one more time.

You've been so, so... We'll sing, we'll sing of your... My day... And only you for the sun to... My sleep... The truth and the lies... Teach me to abide... My song... Teach us to abide in you, Lord, our source of life, one who gives us each day and gives us our next breath, Lord. Lord, how can we ever think that we can make it without you, Lord God? And forgive us, Lord, if we've ever thought that, Lord, if we live like that.

If we think anything is of our own ability, Lord God, forgive us, Lord. Lord, you are, you are the one that we need to be plugged into constantly, Lord God. We need you every minute of every day, Lord God. Help us to abide. And man, with me for this last one. Peace of God is reached from me. I am safe on the solid ground. What is my salvation's fault?

The ink will help me scale these walls.

The dark... Of his rising sun. The Lord is my salvation. God, we give you praise. My debt, our debt, is paid. And the victory is already won, Lord. Lord God, we praise you for what you've done and for what you're doing, Lord. We praise you for who you are. We praise you for how much you love us. We praise you for how good you are, Lord. For how awesome and mighty you are.

Lord God, we praise... We praise you, and we thank you. And this morning, as Pastor Ryan comes, Lord, I just pray that you would speak mightily through him.

Overflow this place with your Holy Spirit. Lord, do a mighty work in our lives, Lord. Lord, I want us to leave here, Lord, this morning, talking about what you've done. I want to leave the same. I want to leave this place on fire for you this morning, Father. We love you. God, and we praise you, and we thank you in Jesus' name. All God's people said, let's have some fellowship.

Good.

Good morning.

If you could begin to locate your seats. Grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to get going here.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. I'm glad that you have joined us this morning. A few things to take note of in your bulletin. As always, the stuff on the left-hand side. Hopefully, we won't have any snowmageddons this week. It looks like a beautiful week. Everything should be able to happen like it's supposed to this week. Over in the middle section of your bulletin, they did have to put off the first of the grief share meetings.

Because of the weather last week, so that'll be picking up this Tuesday. Also, a reminder that the new Experiencing God's Women's Study starts March the 3rd. It looks like there's still maybe three or four slots open for any of you ladies that might be interested in that. And they also had to move, the Hope Worship Team had to move that worship night to this coming Thursday, the 27th.

Still at venue 208, still at 7 o'clock. So if you have a chance to make it to that, it'll be a great time of worshiping together as a community. And then one thing that is not in your bulletin, because we failed to get it in there in time, we are going to do a second annual Night of Fun March Madness fundraiser on March the 15th, like we did last year. I don't know all the details yet, because Jan is putting that together, but I think we're going to try to assemble a couple of basketball teams, probably have some food there, probably be some sort of a feed to get in to watch whatever amazing basketball teams that we're going to watch play,

and we're going to have a little bit of a party ball and eat some food and raise some money for not only Agape Fruits, but also for the youth group trip that's going to be going to Young Christians Weekend over in Silver Dollar City in about a month or so. So that's coming up. Mark your calendar for that. And then just a reminder, our memory verse for the month is down there at the bottom.

And if you're interested in it, we have a reading plan on the back flap of the bulletin as we read through the word, hopefully together as the body. Those are the things that are going on. If you would, make sure that your mobile device is silenced. And for our response, we're going to be reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 23. Psalm 23, looking at the New American Standard for this part, just so that hopefully we can all sound the same.

If you need a copy, there should be one in a row around you. And as you are turning to Psalm 23, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's word.

I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 23, a psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And Father, we praise you for being our good shepherd. Lord, the one who takes such good care of us, leads us, guides us, restores us, and empowers us to live as you've called for us to live.

And so Father, as we jump into scripture this morning, I just ask that you as our good shepherd would lead us. Father, that our hearts would be attentive to your word. Your voice, that our ears would be sensitive to your words. And Father, that our hearts would be tender to the moving of your Holy Spirit. I just ask that you would move through this time as you see fit, in Jesus' name.

Amen. You may be seated. And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 1. 1 Timothy, chapter 1.

Last week, we started into the first of these pastoral epistles. We said that they were pastoral epistles not only because they were written to young pastors, Timothy, and then later we'll get to Titus. Not only were they written to young pastors, but they were written to talk about the way the church should function. They were to be read in the churches in the area so that as Paul, who was nearing the end of his life, could leave the legacy behind of what God had given to him.

So that the people would know how the church should operate. And so he gives them these instructions. And we said that really, we said that they were written to young pastors. And we said that really, there was a theme that fit the pastoral epistles. And I sort of stole the theme from Warren Wiersbe and his B series. But I also feel like it absolutely just fits these pastoral epistles.

And we stole the theme, be faithful. And so as we come to chapter 1, last week we, of course, saw the introduction. We saw the writer who was Paul, the recipient of this particular one who was Timothy. And, of course, he gave him a greeting. A greeting just a little bit different than he usually gives. He usually gives the greeting of grace and peace to you.

But he added, He added mercy because he knew that as a good pastor, he would have to have mercy for his flock and understand God's mercy for himself. He said, And so as we come into chapter 1, he's going to deal with the aspect of being faithful to the word. Being faithful to the word. As a matter of fact, I've entitled the message this morning, Faithful to the Word, Part 1.

And as he goes throughout the entire chapter, I'm going to lay out the three main points of the entire chapter. And then the three main points of today, okay? Now, if you can't get all these written down, that's okay. They'll all be up there eventually. So don't be like, oh, man, I missed all of it. Just follow what goes up there. We're going to look at the truth.

We're going to look at the gospel. And we're going to look at the good fight. That's chapter 1. This morning, we're going to look at the charge, the purpose, and the problem. And so let's start off in verse 3 of chapter 1. It says this, As I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus. So that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines,

nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering administration of God, which is by faith. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they don't understand either what they're saying or the matters about which they make such confident assertions. But we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane,

for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. And so he starts off by giving Timothy the charge, the charge of holding fast, being faithful to the truth of the word of God. He starts off by saying, As I urged you upon my departure, from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus. Remember, Paul had gotten out of that imprisonment that you read about at the end of the book of Acts.

And after he was released from that imprisonment, he started traveling again to some of the different churches that he had started. And he had left Timothy behind in Ephesus to pastor that church. And so as he's writing this letter to Timothy, who was pastoring the church of Ephesus, he gives him a charge. He says, I want you to remain there. Remain in Ephesus.

Now, you should ask yourself a question right now. Why does Paul have to tell him that he should remain at Ephesus? Because remaining at Ephesus was hard. When Paul left Ephesus the first time in Acts chapter 20, on his way to Jerusalem that would later land him in prison, he gave a teaching to the Ephesian elders, and he told them to beware of false doctrine, that there would be false teachers who would arise even from within the church who would give a different gospel, and that's exactly what had begun to take place in Ephesus.

It was almost prophetic on the part of Paul to say, this is coming for you guys. And so when he left Timothy at Ephesus, he did so for the purpose of reminding, encouraging, and restraining some of that false teaching that was going on. And so when he told Timothy to remain at Ephesus, he was telling him to continue to do a really hard thing. And I thought about this quite a bit this week.

I thought, isn't it just like this? It's like God to remind us to keep doing the hard thing. Keep doing the thing that we have a tendency to run from. In our culture today, and I want to say it's in our culture today, but I'm pretty sure it's in every culture of all times, we have a tendency to want to run from hard things, right? Like when something gets hard, we're like, well, that must not be God,

because if it was God, it'd be easy. Well, that's not true. Sometimes God sends us places where it's really hard, and he wants us to stay there. And he wants us to continue to do the hard thing. Now, you have to determine, is it God that's telling me to stay here, or is it my pride that's telling me to stay here? If it's God that's telling you to stay there,

he will confirm it both through Scripture and other people, which is what Paul's doing here for Timothy. When it's your pride, everybody else is like, seems like a bad idea to stay. But your pride is what's keeping you going. But oftentimes, what we need to be reminded of is, keep doing the hard thing. Keep going, even though it's really hard. I went through a period of time like this in my life.

I still go through it, but I've had to learn to stay when it's hard. And it was early on after Bible college, and I'd moved back to Kansas, and things weren't going like I was hoping that they were going to go. And I'd gotten a great job working at the Wrinkle Ranch up in Kansas City. And that's an old folks home up there. I love y'all. Anyway, I was working up there, and I started going, man, things are kind of hard.

Maybe it's time. I'd moved three times in a year. I thought, maybe it's time to move. I think maybe I've done something wrong, and it's time for me to move. God bless you faithful moms, right? My mom looked at me, and she said, you will stay here for one year. You will work here for one year. And at the end of that year, if you still feel like God is telling you to move,

then I will support it. But until then, you have to stay. You have to work. You have to do hard things. And I am so thankful that I have a mother that was willing to do that. I'm so thankful that my parents were willing to do that for me. To make me do something really hard in life. Paul was that for Timothy. You are that for your kids. We are that for each other.

That tells us, hey, I know it's hard. Keep doing the hard thing. My marriage is hard. And I think the easiest thing to do is going to be to end it. No, keep doing the hard thing. Because anything worth keeping is hard to do. My job is hard. And I'm having a hard time with the people that I work with. I'm having a hard time with my boss. Maybe since my job is hard, it's time for me to quit.

No, it's not time for you to quit. It's time for you to dig in. And it's time for you to stay. And it's time for you to work hard. Because sometimes God calls us to do those hard things. And he wants us to continue in it. To remain in it. Because that's what it means to be faithful. And if Timothy was going to be faithful to the truth of God's word, he had to stay where he was teaching God's word.

He had to remain even though it was hard. And I'm here to tell you right now, being a pastor is a really hard thing to do. I'm just going to be really honest with you about that. I've heard Chuck Swindoll. I've heard Chuck Swindoll teach on this lots of times. As a matter of fact, I heard Chuck Swindoll teach on this. And he said, I was in, he said, I sat on a panel,

a question and answer panel at a pastor's conference one time. And it was me. And as a matter of fact, he named Chuck Smith. And there was one or two other guys that were up there. And he said, they asked us what we do every single Monday morning. Like, what does Monday morning look like for a pastor? And he said, Chuck Smith, who always just goes straight through the Bible,

says, well, I get up Monday morning and I keep studying. Whatever's coming next. And he said, two or three other pastors, they said what they do Monday morning. He said, I just looked at all of them and thought, you guys are so much better than me. I wake up every Monday morning and write a resignation letter because I'm pretty sure that they're going to fire me.

And quite frankly, it's hard. And I don't know if I want to go back. Like, sometimes life is hard. But he says, remain where you are. And when you remain where you are, charge them, instruct them to do something. He says, remain on at Ephesus so that you may, instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies.

He says to instruct them. Now, that's a great word. Sounds very kind, doesn't it? Sounds very, very gentle. Like, you think of like maybe a professor wearing a smoking jacket with a pipe and he's going to instruct. That's not the idea of this word at all. As a matter of fact, I don't prefer this translation. I actually prefer the old King James translation of this,

which says, charge them. Because the idea behind this word instruct or to charge is to give strict orders as if from a commanding officer, to give strict orders as if from a commanding officer. In other words, what he's going to have to do with the people in Ephesus is not an easy job, which is why he had to tell him, you got to stay. You got to commit to be there.

Because if you're going to be there, you have to command them to not give in to strange doctrines, command certain men not to teach strange doctrines. Not to teach strange doctrines. Now, I want you to think about something. He's not telling Timothy to go and make a blanket statement that a whole bunch of people may end up hearing on the radio or may end up hearing online or may end up somehow hearing that he made.

No, he is supposed to specifically go to people because he says to certain men and tell them not to teach strange doctrine. In other words, it's time for Timothy to man up. Again, I appreciate Timothy because Timothy is easily intimidated. He's really timid. And he's a little bit anxious, right? I bet he had an overactive bladder, too. Maybe he was bald. He's just a nickels man.

That's all that there is to it. And I appreciate that about him. And he says, you're going to have to man up. And you're going to have to tell certain men. You're going to have to instruct. You're going to have to charge certain men to not teach strange doctrine. This phrase, strange doctrine, is kind of interesting. And Wiest's commentary on this, he says, strange doctrine does not indicate that which

is completely different from the gospel. Strange doctrine poses as Christian but is ultimately diametrically opposed to the gospel. Which is kind of interesting to think about, isn't it? Because it's going to look as close to the truth as it can, but it's going to still be different. You see, that's what makes doctrine false. False doctrine is easy to spot if everything about it is false, right?

Like if everything about it is false, then we as Christians go, I saw that coming from a mile away. But that's what makes it deceptive. Right? It's got about 98% to 95% truth in it and enough false to make it dangerous and enough false to make it go, no, we just can't align. That's why when people start teaching strange doctrines, you go, well, I agree on the morality

and I agree on the respect and I agree on these things, but something's still off. Yeah, it's usually missing Jesus. It's usually missing the reality of Jesus in his gospel. Tell them not to teach strange doctrine. It's interesting because the words, doctrine. Doctrine and teaching in some form are used at least 32 times in the pastoral epistles. 32 times when Paul is addressing Timothy and Titus in these three very small books, he

somehow references doctrine or teaching. That should indicate something to us. That should indicate to us that doctrine is one of the most important things for us to pay attention to. You know what most people hear when they hear the phrase doctrine? When they hear that word, they think snooze fest, right? Oh, doctrine's so boring. That's way too smart for me.

I can't figure that. Can't we just have love? No, not without doctrine you can't. Because without sound doctrine, you can't have sound practice. Because if you don't believe what's right, then you can't practice what's right. And if you don't know what's right, then you can't believe what's right so that you can practice what's right. Doctrine is a key, and the doctrine and the practical go together.

And so we have to have good doctrine. The problem in the church culture today is we want to water down doctrine. Oh, let's just make it palatable for everybody. And you know what we've done? We've made it palatable for nobody. Because now people show up to churches, and they get what Xavier Reese used to always call sermonettes for Christianettes, right? Like you get this little 10-minute sermon, and it's somehow some scriptures I will never

forget hearing. I heard about these churches all the time. Like there's these churches that do not teach the Bible, and I'm like, I've never been to one. You know, I grew up going here, listening to Pastor Mark, and then I went to Bible college, and I'm going to churches that teach the Bible really well out there. Even the only church really in town that I ever visited was First Baptist, and Wade

Graber was the pastor at the time, and he was teaching the Bible. I'm like, these churches don't exist. What are you talking about? And then I visited one. And they read the first handful of verses in Ephesians. Some of my favorite parts of Scripture. And I was like, oh, this is going to be fantastic. I just, I truly love the teaching of God's Word. I love hearing it expounded.

And you can't screw up the first chapter of Ephesians. It's the, it's one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. All you have to do is just read it and go, yes, Jesus loves you. I mean, you just got to spend a little time talking about it, right? This pastor gets up, and he reads the first chapter of Ephesians. I think it was the first 15 verses. After he gets done with the first chapter of Ephesians, he says, you know how sometimes

an ice cream sundae is just way too much to take in? Well, that's kind of what this first chapter of Ephesians is. It's way too much for us to take in. I'd like to talk to you about our summer program. And I'm going, put me in. Go. Coach, I can spend a little time trying to take it all in. Let's work on this a little bit. And I thought, this is what churches today do.

This is apparently what they were talking about, what my Bible college teachers were talking about when they said, some churches give sermonettes for Christianettes. But we need this doctrine. And so he says, charge them, command them not to teach strange doctrine. Doctrine that gets you away from the truth. Doctrine that kind of looks like Christianity. But misses the point.

Instruct them, charge them not to teach strange doctrine. But then he goes on to say, also instruct them not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith. Instruct them not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. It's kind of fascinating. Nobody really knows what he means by that.

Myths and endless genealogies. Fables and endless genealogies. Some have said that perhaps it was a mix of Jewish spiritism, Jewish mysticism at that point in time, where they created numbering systems for the Old Testament and tried to find hidden meanings in the genealogies and things like that. Some say it was the beginning of Gnosticism, which was one of the great issues within the church.

But the fact of the matter is, whatever it was, these myths and genealogies that came from Old Testament teachings to create some novel new doctrine were just that, some novel new doctrine. And at the heart of all of it is this. They are silly distractions. They're silly distractions. That's all that there is to it. And what do they lead to? They lead to speculation.

You know how else we can translate the word speculation? Controversy. They lead to endless controversy. And now you're like, oh, I know what he's talking about. Now, right? Isn't it fascinating? The things that we get into as the church and the things that we get distracted by. The silly distractions that lead to nothing but controversy. The silly distractions that cause us to get totally distracted from what God has intended.

Well, I toyed with the idea of making a list. And I was like, no, I'm going to step on somebody's toes if I make this list. And then I thought, that's exactly what he told Timothy to do. He told Timothy, to start stepping on people's toes, so make a list. So I did. If this is you, just know it was the Holy Spirit, not me. But these are things that I hear. These are things that I hear people get really, really worked up about right now

and are kind of endless controversies that have become silly distractions for us, distracting us from what God has intended for us to do. Endless speculations about who the antichrist is. I hear this one a lot. Every new world leader that... The only world leader I've ever seen that nobody thought was the antichrist was Joe Biden, right? Like, everybody agreed, nope, not that guy.

But other than that, everybody thinks they've identified the antichrist, right? Like, I think I know who it is, and let me tell you. And then when you disagree with them, they're like, I don't even like you anymore. Are you even saved? Right? So there's all this endless debate about the antichrist. And then the next thing is, there's always endless debate about what the mark of the beast is.

Do you remember when everybody thought that the vaccine for COVID, was the mark of the beast? Oh, you know, the word palisades is in there, and that has to do with this, that, the other thing. And I'm pretty sure we've added up that it's 666, and that's the mark. No, it wasn't, okay? I remember it when I was a little kid, and they started having the Dillon shopper cards,

remember, where you put all of your information on there, and you beep, and everybody's like, the mark of the beast. No, it's a great way to get coupons, okay? It's not the mark of the beast. And that's what everybody does. We come up with all these things, and when people don't disagree with us, we say, you're wrong. And that becomes our pet doctrine that we talk about all the time,

and we talk about it everywhere we go. You know how you can identify someone's pet doctrine? It's the only thing they want to talk about. I remember one time, I've got more of a list. Don't worry, if I haven't offended you yet, I'm on my way. I remember one time when I was leading college ministry up in Kansas City, and this is another pet doctrine, Calvinism, right?

Ryan, that's what I believe. Well, great, because part of it's in the Bible, and part of it's not. So you just have to know that, like, there's Calvinism in the Bible, there's Arminianism in the Bible, and you guys got to figure out how to get along, because you're both in there, right? Anyway, this guy came to my Bible study, and I was like, he kind of has some interesting ideas.

I don't quite know where he's coming from. And then he looked at me, he says, so what do you think of Romans 9, 10, and 11? I'm like, oh, you're Calvinist. That's what it is. That's the difference. No one's laughing right now. That's funny, okay? Because that's exactly what they talk. Y'all are Calvinists, aren't you? And I've just offended every single one of you in the room.

I knew I would do it. But those become pet doctrines. That's all we want to talk about. We no longer want to talk about Jesus and how good he is. We want to talk about how the five points of Calvinism are correct, and everybody else is wrong, right? The next one is flat earth. Don't worry, I'm going to get you. I taught on this one time at a conference, and somebody came up to me afterwards,

and they were like, yeah, that guy over there, he's a flat earther. And I was like, he ain't coming back. And you know what? He did not come back. That's just all that there was to it. Listen, I don't care if you agree or disagree with it. Don't make a big deal about it, right? The fact of the matter is, if the earth is flat, are you still telling people about Jesus?

If the earth is round, and it is, are you still telling people about Jesus? That's the important thing. The next one is how you educate your kids. This one has taken off right now, right? Like, everybody's like, well, you know, if you want to do it right, you have to homeschool. That's the only way. That's what Jesus intended. Show me in the Bible where it says that.

No, you have to get them into the Christian schools because only Christian schools know how to do it correctly, really. Let me tell you about some stories of kids that I taught in Christian school. No, the public school is the best place for them because they can be witnesses. It's a struggle. Listen, the fact of the matter is, everybody has to do what God calls you to do.

Keep Jesus at the center. If that becomes your mission, if your mission is to tell people how to educate your kids, you've missed the mission. You've missed the point. The next one. Vaccines and Maha. Make America healthy. Again, I cannot believe the Christians that are flooding my social media timelines with nothing to do with the gospel and everything to do with steak and eggs, right?

I don't want you to get me wrong. I am super happy that we have discovered steak and eggs are healthy again. I was planning on eating them anyway, but. Along with my brownies, right? I mean, that's a brownie. It's going to top that thing off. Amen to that. It's going to wash it down, right? But but we have turned this into a religion. Right? I'm watching this happen.

Currently, we are turning make America healthy again into a religion in our culture, and we are becoming divided over it. And you got people going. You can't ever vaccinate your kids. You can't ever take your kids to a doctor. You can't do these things. And rather than talking to them about Jesus, all you talk to them about is your conspiracy theories about medicine and health and foods and dyes and all that kind of stuff.

Listen, at the end of the day, do we need to be wise? Yes. Are we all going to die? Yes. So far, the the mortality rate is still ninety nine point nine percent because we've always got Elijah and Enoch mixed in there, right? Like like other than that, mortality rates taken us all out. Listen, in and of themselves, except the flatter thing. None of those things are really all that bad.

But when they become our silly distraction, they become a problem. And that's just all that there is to it. And he gives us the thing right here. They become controversies. Notice what it says in verse four, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith. What does he mean by that? Let me read it to you like this.

It doesn't help people live a life of faith in God. That's what it says in the New Living Translation. It doesn't help people live a life of faith in God. And with all of this, listen, I genuinely I hope I haven't offended you this morning, but I hope I have brought us all back to. You're right. Sometimes I put things in the place that only God belongs. Sometimes I make a big deal about sometimes I major in the minors and it's time to get

back to what really matters, because what really matters is living a life of faith in God, because what I'm called to do is to share the gospel, not my opinions. Right. So he says, charge them, instruct them, give them a commanding officer's order not to teach strange doctrine. And not to pay attention to myths and genealogies. Can you imagine Timothy reading this?

He's like, really, that's what I have to do. It's like, yep, if you're going to be faithful to the word, if you're going to be faithful to the truth, that's what you have to do. Why? He gives the purpose. The goal of our instruction, verse five. Is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. The purpose. Of the command. The purpose of what command?

I saw some people say, well, you know, the purpose of the Ten Commandments. No, he's going to get to that in a minute. It's not talking about the Ten Commandments. What command is he talking about? Well, what did he just tell them to do? He told him to give a command. And so what is the purpose of the command that he is supposed to give? The command to not teach strange doctrine, the command to stay away from endless genealogies

and myths that only distract. Pointless controversies. Why do we stay away from those things? Why is he supposed to command those things? What is the purpose of the command? The purpose of the command is love. Now, as we've talked about before, there's multiple words in the Greek language for love. This particular word that's used here is agape. Agape, which is that sacrificial, perfect, divine love that only comes from God.

You see, the goal is love. And I'm here to tell you right now, love is always the first victim of bad doctrine. Love is always the first victim of bad doctrine. Because I will guarantee you, if you start falling into strange doctrines or pointless controversies, love starts to fade into the background. First of all, it starts to cause your love for God to fade because now you're no longer

pursuing God so that you can know God. Now you are pursuing God. Now you are pursuing your controversy so that you can prove yourself right. And it becomes the thing, again, that you think about and talk about the most. And so that becomes a little bit of who we are. And it starts to affect my love for God because now I'm more interested in studying to prove

myself right than I am studying to show myself approved unto God. And so it affects my love for God. But do you know what else it starts to affect? It starts to affect my love for everybody else. Because it's really hard for me to be loved. To be loving to everybody else when I'm always trying to prove myself right. When I'm always trying to prove my point.

When I'm always trying to say, I'm right and you're wrong. It's really, really hard to be loving like that. And listen, I'm watching this happen right now in real time in our country. I'm watching this happen in real time as the church. As we get so caught up with all of these incendiary, all of these extra things, we've stopped being loving, which is what God called for us to do because the purpose of the command.

And really, we could take this in a general sense. The purpose of any command in scripture is always love. If you think about it, when Jesus was asked, what is the first and great commandment? Do you remember what he said? He said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it. You should love your neighbor as yourself.

So while specifically, contextually, when he says the purpose of the command, he means the command to tell them to avoid strange doctrine. And silly controversies, the purpose of any command is love because love is what God is trying to produce in all of us. That agape love for God, where we are sacrificially loving him with our lives, and that agape love for each other, where we are sacrificially loving each other. It doesn't always look like what the world says love looks like.

It looks like what God says it looks like. As a matter of fact, you want to know what agape love really looks like? What agape love really looks like? It's serving the person next to you. That's what Jesus told his disciples, right? When he washed their feet on that last night before he was crucified, he said, this is what love looks like. It looks like serving people.

It's really hard to do that when I'm always trying to prove that my controversy is right. And when bad doctrine starts to seep in, love is always what is effective. Because bad doctrine causes us to look at who? Usually causes me to start looking at myself. And it starts to make me mad. It starts to make me my own God. And then I don't start caring about the people that are around me.

Because if my ultimate goal is always the best for everybody else around me, then it changes the way I view everything that I do in life. It means that sometimes I'm going to have the hard conversation with you. I'm going to have the hard conversation with you about things that I think are distracting you from Jesus. Things that I see that have become sin in your life.

Things that I see are causing a problem for you. It's going to make me want to have that hard conversation with you. And at the end of the day, I know that we're not just talking about some person that I've met before. We're talking about a soul who Jesus died for. You see, that's we're keeping the fact that we want to help people live a life of faith in God comes in.

And I'm willing to have the hard conversations. But it also means I'm willing to restore. I'm willing to come alongside and say, that is what was wrong, but this is how Jesus wants you to be right. Because that's what sacrificial love is. That's what sacrificial love is. That's what sacrificial love is. That's what sacrificial love is. That's what sacrificial love is.

That's what sacrificial love does. So it always puts the other person first. It always puts others ahead of our own needs. He says, that's the purpose of the commandment is true agape love. And I want to point out to you what he says this true agape love looks like. It comes from a pure heart. It comes from a good conscience. And it comes from a sincere faith, a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Love that is truly sincere. I love this because you know what the word sincere means. The word sincere literally means without wax. You see, in the days when Paul lived, sculptors, of course, would make their living from their sculptures. And if they had been paid by someone to make this sculpture and they're, you know, going along making the sculpture. And then their little three-year-old walks into the room crying for another animal, crying,

crying for another animal cracker. What would they have been back then? I don't know, crying for another animal cracker. And you're like, what? And you knock the nose off the sculpture. What did you do? Oh, well, I've got some wax. So they take a lump of wax and they put a new nose on there, right? And everything looks great. He can make it look just like the rest of the sculpture until the sculpture sits out

in that hot Mediterranean sun. And then all of a sudden the nose starts to run. See what I did there? I'm sorry. That's, yeah, y'all laugh at that one, but not the Calvinism one, right?

So he shows that he's not sincere because the sculpture has wax. Well, that's what it means to be sincere without wax. Everything is the real deal. Everything is true. And that's what agape love is intended to be in our lives. It's intended to come from a sincere heart, a heart that is always true, a heart that is without wax, that doesn't melt when the sun gets hot because it is what it is.

It is what it is day in and day out. He said that's the purpose of the command. It's love that comes from a pure heart for people. And then he goes on to talk about the problem. Notice what he says. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are

saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. For some men, having strayed from these things, true love, from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith, have found themselves straying. The idea is to wander aimlessly. They have wandered aimlessly into fruitless discussion. Fruitless discussion. I'm just going to go ahead and say again, I prefer the old King James translation of

this because the old King James translation of fruitless discussion is vain janglings. I just find that fun to say, period. But is that not what kind of Paul said when you speak without love? You sound like a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. It's vain janglings. It's just fruitless discussion. Have you ever walked into a room with a group of people that are having fruitless discussion?

Whatever they're saying is just so ridiculous in your life. You're like, what? And it just sounds like a whole bunch of noise in your ear, right? I find most discussions I walk into feel that way anymore. Now, I work around kids a lot. So a lot of fruitless discussions take place. But before we get too hard on kids, I have absolutely sat in the waiting room at Walmart

and the auto care center, and every discussion I've heard is vain janglings, right? There's this page on the Facebook machine called Arc City Ask and Answered. That's vain janglings, right? That is fruitless discussion. Because men wonder from what's real. They wonder from what's right. They wonder from what's true and what's pure, what's sincere. They wonder from love, from the sincerity of the commandment.

And so they stray off into fruitless discussions. Now, when Paul was writing this, he's writing this to an area where a lot of people thought that they were philosophers. Again, not unlike today. A lot of people think they're philosophers today. Have you ever noticed that? Again, I find it fascinating. The things people say, and then they sit back, and you can tell they're proud of themselves,

too. And that's the fun part. I'm like, you actually thought that was good. You thought you said something? Anyway, so he says they stray into fruitless discussion. Why? Because they want to be teachers of the law. And he'll get to the law again. So much of what Paul dealt with was those that did not handle the law correctly. And he'll deal with how to handle the law correctly.

He says, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they don't understand what they are saying, or the matters about which they make confident assertions. They want to be teachers of the law, even though they don't know what they're saying, and they only make these confident assertions. Let me give you a phrase that I have put on that. It's called being confidently ignorant.

Right? Again, I could put that label on a lot. Sometimes I'm that way. When I start getting into things I don't know about, and I start talking, I sit back and go, I'm being kind of confidently ignorant right now. It's time for me to stop, because I don't know anything that I'm talking about. When I was in my early 20s, I worked for a golf club company. I don't know anything about golf.

I still don't. And my job was to set up a hole-in-one on a par-3 and run a hole-in-one contest to try to win a driver. Right? And so I would set up, and the lady that trained me taught me how to walk everything off to tell you what the exact distance was to the hole. And, you know, place three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16,

17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 yards to the right or something like that. I didn't understand any of it, so I just made it up as I went along. Right? And so I'd give them the opportunity to use the golf clubs, and they're like, oh, yeah. They would go on to explain what the golf club did. I'm like, totally. Right? And I would be confidently ignorant, because I had no idea what I was talking about, and

just rolled with whatever they said. Right? That's kind of what he says here. They don't know what they're talking about, but they make confident assertions about it. And what do they do these things about? The law. And what happens when we do that with thought? The law. If I do it with golf clubs, you might have a bad golf game, which you may look at as a pretty big deal, but in the big scheme of things, not that big of a deal.

But when you start doing this with things like the law and God's word, you take people from their freedom that comes through grace, and you bring them back into the bondage of the law. And he said, that's where the problem comes in. These men who are turning aside to fruitless discussion, they want to be teachers of the law, and they say things. They're confident assertions about things they really don't know that much about.

Well, then he goes into what Paul tends to do. He goes into a discussion on the law. He says in verse eight, and we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious. He says, we know that the law is really good. He says, we know that the law is really good if we use it.

We use it in a lawful manner, because the law is not intended for the righteous. The law is intended for the unrighteous. I always think about it like this. I got a couple of different illustrations for you. You know, when I was a kid, I always had a bedtime, and I hated bedtime. You know, now I'm like, what a moron I was, right? Like, sleep is so good. And I had a nap time and a bedtime, and I remember there was a point in time I was like,

okay, this is your bedtime. And I had to be put under that law. Why? Because if I wasn't put under that law, I'd never go to sleep. I learned that. I learned that in my oldest daughter. My oldest daughter would have stayed up 24 hours a day if we would have allowed her to. Perhaps at some point in time, she would have crashed. Honestly, we should have run a test at some point in time to see how long she would make

it before she crashed. One time, we were in Kansas City. She was two and a half, I think. We didn't have Nora yet. Yeah, two and a half, maybe three. We were in Kansas City about this time of year. All of us were watching March Madness basketball, and then we start kind of talking a little bit, and all the kids were in another room watching a movie, right? And we come in.

It's about midnight. We come in to grab her. So that we can go home, and every other kid in the entire room is absolutely just passed out, right? And there's Violet eating popcorn, right? And I'm like, oh, sweet Jesus, she really never would go to sleep. I don't think she'd ever go to sleep if we made her. Well, that's the way I was. I was the exact same way as a little kid.

So my parents had to put this law on me, and the law was made because I was unrighteous, right? Because I did not know that that was an important thing for me to do. Well, no one has to give me that law now, right? I'm like fighting the law. No, you have to stay up and fight. I don't want to stay up and finish my work. I want to go to bed now, right? Like, I don't need that law anymore because I understand.

Now I'm under grace because I know what's good for me, so I do what's good for me. The law is kind of like a thermometer, right? It's cold and flu season. And dear God, has it been cold and flu season, right? Like, this has been one of the hardest I've seen for a while. And you know what it's like when you wake up in the morning, and your kid comes to you, and they're like, dad, I don't feel very good.

And you're like, are you sick? Or are you sick? Are you sick of school? Right? And so, so you, okay, well, tell me what you got. I got this cough. Well, everybody in the world has a cough. Oh, my nose is kind of runny. I don't care if your nose is runny. It's got wax. Anyway, so you got all these things going on. We'll do the real test. Let's take your temperature, right?

Because that's kind of usually a dead giveaway for 95% of the people, whether or not they're really sick. So you put the thermometer in the mouth or under the arm or wherever you put a thermometer anymore. And I think sometimes you could beep their head or wave it on their head, or sometimes you'll look at it, right? I don't know. Anyway, so you take, oh, 101.2.

Yep, you have a problem. But you know that that is the end of what that thermometer can do for you. That's where it stops. At that point in time, the thermometer is now a useless piece of machinery because it can only tell you that something's wrong with you. It cannot help you get better. Matter of fact, my wife always told me a great story about one of her students.

I think it was when she taught first grade, but it might have been fifth grade. I don't know. And she said she had this student come. To her, it was who said, man, I don't feel very good, Mrs. Nichols. And so she goes and she takes their temperature. No fever. I think you're going to be okay. And about 15 minutes later, the student looked at her and said, thank you for taking my temperature.

I already feel better, right? And so sometimes that's what we do with the law, right? We're like, oh, thank you for telling me. I already feel better. No, all the law can do is tell you you have a fever. All the law can do is tell you you have a problem. It can't do anything to solve that problem for you. It's like that thermometer. At that point in time, now you just go, well, now we've got to do something.

Now we need something to make us better. I'll go to the doctor. Only for us, the doctor is Jesus, right? He said the law is good if it's used lawfully, because it's not for the righteous person. It's for the unrighteous person. And then he goes through this list of things that I think is kind of interesting. I think we should pay attention to it, because he's writing it to Timothy, who is pastoring

in a church, the early church. So we all look at it as great. And he's telling him, you have to use the law in these instances. He says in verse 10, or excuse me, in verse nine, he says, realizing that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious. And then he goes through a series of things. For the ungodly and the sinners.

That feels pretty basic. For the unholy and the profane. That word profane is kind of an interesting word. The word profane there carries with it the idea of one who makes a mistake. He makes himself available for sin. It's the very opposite of being set apart unto God. At that point in time, you're not set apart for holiness. You are set apart for sin. In other words, your entire life is, what do we got next?

I'm here for a good time. I'm not here for a long time, right? And that's the idea of profane. He says, the law is for the unholy and the profane, because it shows them what sin looks like. It is for those who kill their fathers and mothers. Feels aggressive. Must have been an issue. Or for murderers. Again, we're reminded that the law not only tells us that murder is an outward act that

we've done, but we're reminded what Jesus told us, right? Many of us feel very justified in and of ourselves because we haven't really, never murdered anyone. That's usually the yardstick most people use. Interesting yardstick, but it's what most of us use. But what Jesus say, if you look with anger in your heart on someone else, if you call them a fool, you've already committed a murder in your heart.

Doesn't mean you go and do it. But it means that's the heart of murder. It's that anger. And he says you're already guilty. He says it's for those who kill fathers and mothers, for murderers. It's for the immoral men and the homosexuals. It's interesting that these two words are used. These have actually become kind of hot button words in the biblical culture today, because

everybody's trying to go, you know, we're not really interpreting those words correctly anymore. The word that's used for immoral men there is. is the word pornos in the Greek. I think we can all figure out what came from that. It's the word pornos in the Greek, and it can carry with it two ideas. Either one, a male prostitute, one who hires himself out for sex,

but the other aspect of that is one who is given to fornication, one who is given to unlawful sexual behavior, sex outside of marriage. So the idea of an immoral man is one who not only does what we would all consider debased, but also those who would just simply give themselves over to immorality. And I point that out because there are some, I've heard two or three different people in recent times, in recent months say this. They say, you know, the Bible doesn't actually say that you're not supposed to have sex outside of marriage.

That's not actually in the Bible. You know that, right? And I'm like, have you ever read your Bible? I mean, it's all over the place in the Bible. God's pretty specific about this. It's in the Big Ten, but then it's also carried throughout the rest of society. It really is in the Bible. And then the second one that's used there is of homosexuals. And this is what's being said right now

because this is the same word that's used in 1 Corinthians, I think it's chapter six, where it says homosexuals. They say, well, you know, that only speaks of pedophiles. That's what it, it talks about those who would have sex with someone who is underage. That's what that term, no, that's not what that term means. That's one of the uses of that term, but it also carries with the idea

of anyone who would exchange the natural use of the woman and lay with the woman. And the law points that out. It says these things are wrong. And if these are the things that you're living in, then you stand guilty before God. It goes on to say, and kidnappers, interestingly enough, men stealers or traitors of men is actually what that word means. And given our current culture today,

I find it fascinating that that's what that Greek word means because, you know, the sex trade has become one of the most horrific stains on our culture today that there could possibly be. And he says, it's to point out that those things are wrong and for liars and for perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching. Anything else that does not align with sound teaching, anything else that doesn't align with what the Bible has to say, that's what the law is there to do. It's there to reveal all of those things to us.

And so as we take our temperature, we go, oh no, I have a fever. Oh no, it's about 102.5. I'm gonna, I gotta do, I'm gonna do something about this because my fever's really high. I have a problem. And that's where Jesus comes in. You see, that's the point of the law is it shuts the mouths of everyone, is it shuts the mouths of people, even of us as believers.

Because even though maybe this isn't who we are, it is who we were. And it shuts our mouths from saying, but you don't understand, I'm a really good person. No, you're a really saved person who can't judge everybody else. All you can do is offer the same salvation to them that Jesus offered to you. And it shuts the mouths of the proud and causes all of us to sit back and go,

I'm guilty. And I really need Jesus. Because once I realize I'm guilty and I come to Jesus, then I can find that salvation. I can find that hope that only Jesus offers to us, which is sound teaching. Notice what he goes on to say. In verse 11, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. And next week we'll get into this gospel,

but can I just go ahead and tell you that Paul's gonna give us his testimony again. He's gonna give us his testimony of who he was, of who he is, and that Jesus is the one that got him there. Because he's gonna go on to say, this is a true and faithful saying, that Jesus Christ, came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. You see, that's a man who understands mercy, because that's a man who's been given mercy, because the law stopped his mouth.

And that's what the law is for, is it causes all of us to go, nevermind. Nevermind, I just need Jesus. Brothers and sisters, you gotta be aware of strange doctrine that pulls you away from Jesus. You gotta be aware of controversies, silly, divisional, pointless controversies, that distract us from Jesus. And you have to be aware of the law that doesn't give us hope,

it points us to hope, which is Jesus. Why? Because the point of it all is love. That our love for Jesus Christ would become greater and greater, and that our love for each other would continue to grow, as we understand that I am a sinner saved by grace, and I wanna bring as many other sinners saved by grace with me as I possibly can. Amen? Let's all stand.

And if you'd bow with me. Father, we come before you, and God, your word is so good to us. Father, it continues to become the thing that we need, to an even greater degree, more and more, as the lives of the world become more and more prevalent. Lord, as time continues to draw near, Father, we need that. Lord, as time continues to draw near, Father, we need that.

We need the truth of your word to permeate the depth of who we are. And so, Father, I pray that we would continue to soak in it, that we would continue to read it, to take it in, and to become who you've created for us to be. And Father, I just pray that, that if we have those areas of distraction, Lord, that if we have some of those strange doctrines, that it's time to abandon some of those things that are keeping us from you, keeping us from loving you, and loving the people around us, Lord, that we would abandon those things. And Father, that your law would continue to have its good work in our hearts, continuing to cause us to say, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. And so, Father, we just praise you for who you are. Praise you for your word, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.

Oh, what a joy to be, joy to know it's when I decrease. You fill up my soul, what a joy to see, joy to hold it's when we lose it all. Lord, how sharp and powerful, and the effect that it has in our life. Lord, God, just empty us Lord so that we can, that you can fill us up with more of it. Fill us all fresh with your Holy Spirit, Lord. We love you and we praise you.

In Jesus name, amen. You guys have a wonderful week. God bless you.