THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
The Household of God
1 Timothy 1:3-11
READ THE PASSAGE:
3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
INTRODUCTION:
If a man with a broken arm and a woman having a heart attack both walk into the emergency room at the same time which one gets treated first? Obviously, the person with the life-threatening emergency gets preferential treatment. This method for assigning urgency to patients based on their conditions is called triage.
It’s the assignment of degrees of urgency and importance to wounds or illness to decide which order patients ought to be seen.
Modern triage was developed by doctors during the Napoleonic Wars. They realized that in a battlefield of 200 casualties… some are likely to live regardless of what care they receive; others are unlikely to live regardless of the care they receive; and for some—immediate care can make the difference between life and death.
In other words, all medical issues matter—but they do not all matter equally. Some are critical and urgent—and it’s imperative that battlefield medics are able to quickly identify which wounds qualify for instant action.
The same can be said of doctrine, or the established truths that the church teaches. All doctrine matters—but some doctrines matter most. To put it another way, some doctrines are a matter of eternal life and death. Less important are those doctrines that mean the difference between Baptist and Anglican. And even less important than that are the doctrines that debate the end times.
Just like we prioritize heart attacks over broken arms, the church must learn to prioritize and focus on those doctrines which are most crucial to our mission, or love for others, and our obedience to Christ.
BRIDGE THE GAP:
The Apostle Paul had established churches throughout the Roman empire in 3 successive missionary journeys. At the end of the third mission trip he was arrested and he appealed to Caesar. After being released from prison in Rome he prepared for his 4th missionary journey—a trip that would take him all the way to Spain.
He would be leaving behind the familiar—Jerusalem and the Apostles; the churches he planted and spent years instructing. This trip would take him to the edge of the map—and therefore—he left younger ministers, Timothy in Ephesus & Titus in Crete, to encourage and instruct those churches.
Paul understood how much these churches needed strong, mature, and balanced leaders. In fact, when Paul left the church in Ephesus at the end of his 3rd missionary journey, he gathered the Elders of that church together and gave them this warning in Acts 20:28:
28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
When Paul gets to Spain, he won’t be able to keep tabs on the church in Ephesus. Letters will take months to get to him. He needs someone he can trust to make sure the church remains faithful and steadfast in the work of the gospel. So, he writes these words to Timothy, beginning in chapter 1:3
3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine
And if you turn over quickly to 3:14… Paul writes…
14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
That’s actually the title I chose for the sermon series: The Household of God. How are we to conduct ourselves? How are we to live as the church?
Paul’s first instruction to Timothy is to confront false teachers in Ephesus. “Charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.” Timothy is to teach what accords with what Paul calls “sound doctrine.” His teaching ought to produce soundness, or health within the church… and in this passage Paul actually gives us three signs of church health. They aren’t the only signs of church health—but they are crucial.
What are the three healthy results of a focus on sound doctrine? They are:
1. A MISSION MINDSET
2. A TRANSFORMING LOVE
3. AN AWARENESS OF NEED
So, first, let’s see that…Sound Doctrine Produces:
1. A MISSION MINDSET
A focus on sound doctrine gets the church on mission.
3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.
Notice the firmness of Paul’s words: I urge you… charge them not to teach any different doctrine. Those words: any different doctrine are actually one word in the Greek—and it’s a word that means teaching something that deviated from the standard.
Here’s what that means: in the earliest years of the church there was an established standard of teaching for the church. There was a rule of faith that pastor and Christan’s were not to wander from. This core set of teachings didn’t develop over centuries—but over months and years—within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of Christ.
As you read the New Testament you realize there are complex and organized norms in place immediately. For instance:
1. In Acts 15 James is a moderator in the church.
2. A record was kept of members being added. (Acts 2)
3. Sunday becomes the regular day of corporate worship. (Heb. 10:25, 1Corinthians 16:2, Acts 20:7)
4. The church met both in homes and publicly suggesting a high degree of coordination.
5. They held regular called prayer meetings (Acts 2.42, 12.5)
6. They held regular called observances of the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2.42, 46)
7. They exercised church discipline, sometimes by vote from the membership (1 Cor. 5:4, 2 Cor. 2:6)
8. They collected and dispersed money for both the poor and mission efforts.
9. Paul commanded all things be done in decency and order. This presupposes a structure by which order could be measured. (1 Cor. 14.40)
10. Deacons have a simple beginning recorded in Acts 6. The office is more fully developed by the time Paul writes 1 Timothy.
11. And, most importantly, there is a hierarchy of doctrines that ought to be taught:
1 Corinthians 15:3
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
The false teachers in Ephesus, presumably elders in the church who turned out to be immature in the faith, are teaching myths and genealogies which promote speculation. We don’t know the exact content of those teachings. It sounds like they were focusing on obscure details in OT genealogies. But regardless of the content of the teaching… we see the result: speculations. Guessing, theories & conjectures. They weren’t teaching the clear major doctrines of the Scriptures. They were consumed with obscurities.
Instead, the teaching of the church ought to focus the church on what Paul calls “the stewardship from God that is by faith.”
That word stewardship is a word Paul uses several times in his letter to refer to the work of proclaiming Christ to non-believers and planting churches. It’s a synonym Paul uses for mission work.
Sound doctrine gets the church on mission. It focuses on the main storyline of the Bible and doesn’t get lost in subplots. My dad used to tell me, “Son, don’t minor on the majors, and major on the minors.”
The major story line of the Bible is that the Holy God, who will judge sinners, is also a God of mercy who has provided a way for sinners to be cleansed. He sent his only Son to live a holy life and receive the punishment for our sin in his death. And now, he is sending his church into all the world as his messengers of grace.
Does the Bible contain more truths than that? Of course! Should we study those other truths? Yes! Should we become so focused on the details that we lose the big picture? No.
Friends, we have a stewardship. God, as the master, has given to the church, as his servants, a weighty task. We are to preach the gospel to every creature. We are to teach the nations obedience to everything Christ has commanded. This is the Great Commission. In fact, it’s this month’s memory verse in our children’s ministry.
If you are a teacher at LWBC, let me exhort you—your teaching ought to direct people towards the mission of God to save sinners in Christ. It ought not divert people into endless speculations. You have a stewardship, and you will give account to the master.
A pastor in another church called me and told me of a young lady in his church who recently trusted Christ and was baptized. Within one week another Christian in the church gave her a book explaining why women ought to wear head coverings. He asked me what he ought to do.
I said you need to ask her for the book and toss it, and you need to have a loving but firm conversation with the church member who gave her the book explaining why it was inappropriate.
Why? Because here was a new believer who needs to learn to read her Bible, pray, and worship getting sucked into a speculative obscure topic by an immature Christian.
Friends—there is nothing wrong at all with a lively debate on the end times. There is something tragically misguided about a church, or a pastor, or a Christian who only wants to talk about their theories on the end times.
Beware pastors who have a new book out on the end times every year. Beware Christians who are only interested in speculative theology. Beware churches that elevate minor doctrines into major prominence, while ignoring the headline of the Bible: that God is on mission to save sinners in Christ.
Sound Doctrine Produces a Missional Mindset.
Sound Doctrine Produces:
2. A TRANSFORMED LOVE
A focus on sound doctrine produces a transformational love. Or, put negatively: a lack of love is a sign of bad doctrine.
5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
As one commentator put it: this is a major point of contact between Paul and Jesus, as Jesus said of the commands to love God and neighbor, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”
Paul uses the word “charge” again. What’s the aim of doctrine? What’s the aim of our teaching? To produce love. But not just any love—this is the kind of love that only comes from a gospel-transformed life. The kind of love that is shaped by the gospels itself.
First, he says this love results from a pure heart.
When we hear the words pure heart we may be tempted to imagine someone like Snow White. An innocent girl with perfect complexion who sings to birds and never says a cross word.
That’s not the type of person Paul is describing. Pure heart means someone who, though they be dreadfully sinful, has been cleansed and made pure through Christ.
Look down a few verses at Paul’s own description of himself in verse 13:
13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
To have a pure heart means that your sins have been pardoned in Christ.
Second he says this love results from a good conscience.
I hate to go back to animated movies, but again, we may be tempted to relate our conscience to a talking cricket named Jiminy. Or maybe you think of conscience like the old Looney Tunes episodes when an angel and demon would appear on a character’s shoulders. One enticing him, the other tempting him.
Biblically speaking, conscience is your own internal consciousness of what is right and what is wrong. It is also an internal gauge making you aware of your own guilt or innocence.
And in this case, Paul is saying a good conscience is one that is clear—one that has been cleared by God. You’re no longer worried that your sins will condemn you. You’re free because God has forgiven you.
Third, this love results from sincere faith.
Elsewhere Paul says we are saved BY grace through FAITH in Christ. Our faith does not save us—faith is the instrument by which we take hold of Christ who saves us.
Let me put it more simply: how do you receive a pure heart? How do you get a clear conscience? You’ll never do it through your own efforts. You will only receive it by faith in what Jesus Christ has done.
And listen… when you understand that you are saved through faith in Christ any not by your own moral striving… you begin to relate to other people differently. Sound doctrine produces transformed love for others:
When you realize you have no claim on God, you stop boasting. When you believe that you’re saved by grace, you lose every reason to feel superior to anyone. When you know that you’ve only earned hell… you can look at everything else as a gift, and therefore live more generously. When your conscience is free from guilt you can stop making comparisons to make yourself appear better than you are.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
Notice, Paul did not say that if I have not love, I am less. He said, if I have not love, I am nothing.
Friend, if the doctrines you are focused on are not making you more gracious, sympathetic, patient, longsuffering, joyous, and faithful… then your doctrine is a clanging cymbal.
Brennan Manning said this:
The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. While there is much we may have earned—our degree, our salary, our home and garden… and a good night’s sleep—all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift. “If we but turn to God,” said St. Augustine, “that itself is a gift of God.” My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.
So, sound doctrine gets the church on mission…
It produces transformed love.
Finally…
Sound Doctrine Produces:
3. AN AWARENESS OF NEED
A focus on sound doctrine teaches us to obey God with the right motivations. Look at verse 6:
6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion,
By swerving from sound doctrine, the church swerves from missions and love and heads straight into vain and profitless discussion.
7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
Now let me ask a question: is it wrong to want to teach God’s word? No. That’s a good desire. But when Paul says they desired to be teachers of the law—he isn’t talking about a good desire to help people know the Old Testament. He’s saying these teachers desired to be treated like Rabbis—they wanted to the respect and the attention that the Rabbinic teachers of the law received.
The problem was that they didn’t understand how the law operated—and Paul, like a good teacher, takes a rabbit trail to explain to us how the law is to function. And, to be clear, when we refer to the law here we’re referring primarily to the commands God gave in the Old Testament through Moses. Verse 8:
8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane,
Why do we need speed limits? Because some people, we won’t name names, have a lead foot on the accelerator. Why do we need boundaries and borders? Because there are trespassers.
Paul says that God gave the law to Moses not so that we could justify ourselves through our own moral excellence. No! The law was given to show us our own moral failures. The law was given to make us aware of God’s holy standard and our inability to meet it.
Who is the law for? It’s…
for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,
Let me summarize what Paul is saying here: the law is for all of us, for all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. Whether you’re guilty of murder, or perjury… sexual immorality or lying, enslaving someone or stealing from the office.
For centuries, the church has taught that the law serves three purposes—or can be used in 3 ways:
First, there is the restraining use of the law—the law restrains evil in the world. The threat of punishment restrains evil doers.
Second, there is the condemning use of the law—the law reveals our sin and need.
Third, there is the sanctifying use—the law instructs Christians in how to love and serve one another as we obey God.
In this passage, Paul is illustrating the second use: The law levels us all as guilty—it condemns us. As Martin Luther said:
The law… is a mighty “hammer” to crush the self-righteousness of human beings. For “it shows them their sin, so that by the recognition of sin they may be humbled, frightened, and worn down, and so may long for grace and for the Blessed Offspring [Christ].”
Proper teaching of the law of Moses ought to lead you to an awareness of your guilt and your need of Christ. The goal of that list isn’t to point out any one sin in particular as especially offensive, but rather to point out that all have fallen into sin and all need redemption that can only be found in Christ.
When we teach on the law and sin, we do so as an entry point for the gospel of grace.
Gresham Machen once wrote:
What I need first of all is not exhortation but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news for me? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died
for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,
Friends, he even died for self-righteous Christians.
The doctrine that we need most desperately isn’t doctrine that puffs us up… instead we need doctrine that humbles us, points us to Christ, causes us to love others and ultimately— sends us out to the unreached of the world with the grace and mercy of God.