We're gonna be in 1st Timothy tonight.
1st Timothy chapter 1.
That's in the New Testament, kinda toward the back, close to the end of the Bible.
1st Timothy chapter 1, verse 1, Lord willing, over the next couple of months, three months,
four months.
We're gonna go through 1st and 2nd Timothy on Wednesday nights.
They're both relatively short books, so it won't take us long to get through them, probably.
1st Timothy chapter 1, we're just gonna kinda get a little bit of an introduction tonight.
1st Timothy chapter 1, verse 1, we'll look at the first five verses tonight.
Let's pray and we'll jump in.
Father God, we come to you, we thank you for letting us be able to come here tonight.
We thank you for your good word and those good songs.
I thank you that we could just come here today, dear Lord, and love each other and love you.
And I pray that your Holy Spirit would just hide me behind the cross, that I would preach
and teach something that we need to hear tonight, dear Lord.
You know where we are in our life, you know what we're going through, and your word is
what's gonna speak to us.
So I pray that we listen to these verses, dear Lord, that your Holy Spirit can work
in this living word that you've given us to study.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
1st Timothy and 2nd Timothy is written by Paul.
Paul was writing to Timothy, who appears to be similar to what we would call a pastor,
a young pastor.
Obviously Paul, as we see in the text, as we read, we're gonna see that Paul knew Timothy's
mother and grandmother, and he come from a good family.
And Timothy was a man of God, and Paul was pleased that Timothy was working alongside
him and doing the work of preaching the gospel.
The book of 1st and 2nd Timothy, at least 1st Timothy, was written probably in the early
60s to mid-60s after Jesus died.
So about 30 years or so after Jesus died, 62 to 65 AD is when this book would have been
written to Timothy.
And Paul is writing to give Timothy some instruction, some encouragement on some things that he
might need to deal with where he is.
And where he is, as we're about to see in these first few verses, is in Ephesus.
So Timothy is in Ephesus, you may be familiar with Ephesus, the book of Ephesians was written
to the people of Ephesus.
And so this is where Timothy is serving, and Paul is giving him some instructions.
So let's start in verse 1.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the command of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus our
hope.
So there's no question.
You know, a lot of Paul's letters, they start off with kind of an introduction here that
tell who he is and who he's writing this to.
And these letters are all written in the name of Jesus, for the work of Jesus, for the kingdom
of God.
This is Paul saying, look, I, Paul, I'm doing this for the Lord.
I'm doing this for Jesus Christ.
That's who our hope is in.
And so I'm telling you who I am.
I'm Paul, I'm writing you the letter, and our hope is in Jesus Christ, is what he's
saying here at this introduction.
Verse 2, to Timothy, my true son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father
and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Okay?
So we know who's writing it, who it's from.
It's from Paul.
We read down to the next verse, we know who it's to.
It's to Timothy.
And how does he refer to Timothy?
As my true son in the faith.
Now Paul is not saying here that Timothy is his biological child.
He's saying he's the son in the faith.
That is, that Paul had kind of helped bring Timothy up and taught him and had guided him
and had helped him along in the work of the gospel.
And now Timothy is going off.
He had been raised up.
He's ready to go.
He's ready to go do the work of the Lord.
And Paul obviously thinks fondly of Timothy here.
He refers to him as his son in the faith, that he's a partner in the faith, a partner
in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So hey, I'm Paul.
I'm writing you this letter, Timothy.
And then he gives this kind of blessing, this word of encouragement here at the beginning,
grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so this is a warm greeting that Timothy is going to receive when he receives this
letter.
And that's one thing we need to remember when we read these things.
These were letters.
A lot of the books that we see in the New Testament were books that were written to
a people.
First and second Corinthians were written to the people of Corinth or Ephesians written
to the people of Ephesus or Philippians written to the people of Philippi.
And so the things that they addressed were certainly very specific to the people who
were receiving them.
Now that's not to say that these words are not good for us too.
We know that the word of God is a living word.
It's powerful and it's effective.
And so it can certainly be good for the people who originally read it, in this case, Timothy,
but it's also good for us because Paul's instructions that we're going to see as we go through first
and second Timothy are some of the same instructions that we go to today as far as how we're going
to conduct our services or appoint deacons or things such as that.
These are the types of things that Paul addresses for Timothy in giving him instruction.
Verse three, as I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may
instruct certain people not to teach different doctrine or to pay attention to myths and
endless genealogies.
These promote empty speculations rather than God's plan, which operates by faith.
Okay.
So here's part of the issue that Timothy is going to have to deal with.
He says, okay, you're here in Ephesus and here's what you need to be aware of.
There are some that are teaching false doctrines.
There are some that are getting caught up and involved in things that aren't good.
They're not productive.
They're not helping the kingdom of God.
And so you need to be on guard and you need to be ready to give it a fence of the gospel
and to be able to teach these people to move on to Jesus Christ, to move off of these things
that do not matter.
Now he says here that you may instruct certain people not to teach these false doctrines.
Now maybe Paul has somebody in mind.
I'm not sure.
He may just be saying in general, hey, you're going to encounter some people somewhere along
the way that aren't teaching things that are true to the gospel.
Or he may have some people in mind.
He may know, hey, so and so and so and so are in Ephesus and Timothy's going to encounter
them.
These are the certain people that he might be talking about.
Perhaps that's the case.
We don't know.
And it really doesn't matter too much.
But of the things that he says, one is that they teach different doctrine.
That is they're teaching something opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now Paul has already told us at the beginning of the book of Galatians when he writes to
the people of Galatia, he says, look, if anybody comes to you teaching any other gospel than
that I preach to you, then don't listen to him.
He said, even if an angel comes to you telling you something other than the gospel, don't
listen to him.
Even if I come back to you and tell you something other than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And there are certainly many false doctrines we see in our world today.
Some of which don't have anything to do with scripture.
They're just some crazy teachings that people come up with.
And some of which even use God's word to some extent and kind of take some things about
God's word and twist it and say things that aren't true and aren't accurate and aren't
right about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So Paul says, okay, Timothy, you know the truth of the gospel.
You know what is good.
You know what is right.
And therefore you need to teach what is good, but know that you're going to encounter some
who are going to teach something different than you are teaching.
And you need to be on guard against them.
Now, false doctrine, we need to make a distinction between different beliefs that are Christian
beliefs that may differ from each other and false doctrines that clearly go against everything
that scripture said.
Now, even amongst Christians, there are some scriptures that are hard to understand.
There's different interpretation.
There's different views that even Christians may have with one another on some passages.
That doesn't mean necessarily that one is a false doctrine.
If somebody comes to you and they're Christian and they have a differing interpretation or
view than you, doesn't necessarily mean that that's a false doctrine.
There are a lot of scriptures that are difficult.
And so we want to make that distinction.
There certainly can be some disagreement among Christians, but what Paul is talking about
here are things that clearly go against what scripture says, what the gospel of Jesus Christ
is about.
So he mentions false doctrines.
Then he says, pay attention to myths and endless genealogies.
Okay, well, what are some of these myths they may have been paying attention to?
Well, certainly among the Jewish community, there were things that kind of went above
and beyond what the law was.
Now, God gave the law through Moses.
That was the written law.
But many in the Jewish community also had the oral law, things that orally had been
passed down by mouth through generations.
And they had kind of maybe added to some of these commands and kind of twisted some of
these things in their own way that were not really within what the intention was of what
God originally gave the command.
So they kind of made things harder for themselves in some way.
They didn't just live by the law.
They went above and beyond the law.
And not only that, they didn't live by the law very good, even the written law.
They twisted that kind of to their own benefit.
And so he says, look, don't get caught up in some of these myths or some of these things
that are said among this community that you're talking to.
These are not good things.
What else does he say here after the myths?
He says also endless genealogies.
Now, if you go back and you begin to look, especially at the beginning of Genesis, and
then you read through the Old Testament, you're going to see that there are some genealogies.
There are some lists that say so and so, begat so and so, begat so and so, begat so and so,
or this person begat so and so and they lived 117 years and begat so and so and they lived
118 years.
And there are lots of genealogies.
Now, this is important.
These genealogies are important.
It helps us to see through the generations who fathered who.
And it keeps a good family line that we can look at when we go through scripture.
We even see the importance of these genealogies when we get into the New Testament.
Before Jesus is born, we are introduced to these genealogies of all these that came before,
leading us to Jesus so that we could see who Jesus was, that he came from the line of David,
that he was going to be the king that was going to come and reign forever.
So there's certainly some benefit in these genealogies, but it sounds like whatever was
going on here in Ephesus is that people were putting too much focus on these genealogies,
that they were really focused on their genealogies.
Now, for Jewish people, that would have been kind of an important thing for them.
And even today, that's an important thing for them.
They focus too much on their genealogies.
They focus too much on their bloodline.
They really want to know what tribe am I from?
Oh, I'm a Jewish person and I can trace it back.
And they are so worried about their bloodline.
They're so worried to prove that, hey, I'm a descendant of Abraham, that they have totally
missed Jesus Christ.
That was true of many of the Jews at the time that this was written.
And that's still true of almost every Jew today.
They completely denied Jesus Christ entirely.
Not that he existed, but that he was the son of God, that he was the savior of the world.
What did they trust in?
They trust in the fact that they say, oh, I have Jewish blood in my veins.
But we see in Matthew chapter three, John the Baptist says, hey, you ought not be bragging
about that because even God can make these stones sons of Abraham.
That is to say, being a son of Abraham or having a certain blood that flows through
your veins is no benefit for you.
It's not the blood in your veins that makes a difference.
It's the blood of Jesus Christ that makes a difference.
Now, when Jesus came onto the scene and he began to preach and teach to many of the Jewish
people of his day, many of them rejected it.
They were focused on one thing.
Well, I'm a Jew.
I'm a son of Abraham.
So therefore, that's all I need to worry about.
They totally missed the Messiah.
And Jesus tried to get their attention and didn't get their attention.
And throughout the New Testament, we see these New Testament writers trying to get their
attention, but they're so focused on their genealogy and who they're a descendant of
and who their tribe they're from that they're missing what matters.
And sadly, many Jews today are still missing what matters because they are missing Jesus
Christ.
It doesn't matter.
There is no Jew or Gentile.
There's no free man, no slave.
There's no male or female in Christ.
There's no distinction.
Our blood in our veins makes no difference to us if we are in Christ.
It is the blood of Jesus Christ that makes the difference.
And so therefore, if people begin to focus on and get caught up in arguing and chasing
or tracing endless genealogies, that is they could look forever and forever.
What benefit is that?
That is of no benefit.
Now, even some in this room may like your genealogies and you may want to go through
and see where your ancestors come from.
And maybe on some level it's nice to know, but really what does it benefit you?
It probably ain't going to benefit you one lit unless you just happen to find some great
relative that had millions of dollars and nobody else had claimed it and you found out,
wait a minute, I'm entitled to that.
But that's not going to happen.
And so genealogies, while in some way they're interesting, in a lot of ways, they're frankly
just a waste of time.
And I believe that's what Paul is saying here.
These people were getting caught up in these things that doesn't matter.
So what does he tell Timothy?
He says, you need to tell them what matters.
You need to tell them true doctrine.
You need to tell them, don't worry about who you come from.
Worry about who Jesus Christ is.
That he came from God, that he is the son of God, that he is the one who gave his life,
that he is the one who will get you in a right relationship with God.
Not the blood in your vein, but the blood that dripped down the cross where Jesus Christ
was slain.
All right, verse five, or excuse me, the end of verse four there.
These promote empty speculations.
So there's no benefit to these things.
Empty speculations, these are things you can talk about, but what solid can come from?
Well nothing solid is going to come from these false doctrines, these myths, these endless
genealogies.
They produce empty speculation, he says, rather than God's plan.
So Paul says there's no benefit to these types of things.
What is God's plan?
It operates by what?
By faith.
It's not about works.
It's not about the law.
It's not about the blood that flows through your veins.
It is about faith.
And it's always been about faith.
Even in the Old Testament when God gave them the law, even when the Jewish people were
God's chosen people and the promises came through them, even then it was about faith.
It was about obedience.
And those who were faithful were blessed.
And those who were unfaithful, God dealt with them.
God destroyed some of them.
God didn't let that generation enter into the promised land who did not believe and
were not obedient.
They had to wander around in the wilderness.
It was the next generation.
Why?
Because they did not have faith.
They did not listen.
They were not obedient.
All throughout the Old Testament, we see time and time again.
That's what determines who God's people are.
Those who trust him, those who listen to him, those who live by faith.
That's not just a New Testament teaching.
That's all throughout scripture.
That's an important part of who are God's people.
Those who listen to him, who are faithful to him, who are obedient to him.
So Paul says, look, all this other stuff that these people are involved in, it's nothing.
It's empty speculation.
It's not part of God's plan.
It's not going to bring about anything in God's plan.
Who has brought about everything in God's plan?
It's Jesus Christ.
He has fulfilled all things.
Every promise that God made in the Old Testament is yes and amen in Jesus Christ, the scripture
tells us.
And how do we come to Christ?
We come to Christ in faith.
So all this other stuff doesn't promote the kingdom of God and the fulfillment of God's
plan, but Jesus Christ does.
And that's who we need to put our faith in.
So he says, here's the problem.
Here's the things that these people are doing.
These false teachings, these myth, these endless genealogies.
This is the bad.
So how are you going to address this?
What do you need to tell these people?
Well, he says that in verse five.
Now the goal of our instruction.
Okay, so he's fisting to say we have a better goal than what their goal is.
Their goal is to figure out, oh yeah, I'm a member of this tribe.
But Paul says, we've got a better goal.
We're going to instruct them in better things.
We're going to instruct them in Jesus Christ because our goal is better than theirs.
What is their goal going to get them if they determine who their ancestors are?
It's not going to get them anything if they don't come to faith in Jesus Christ.
So Paul says we've got to give them a better instruction.
We've got a better goal than what their goal is.
And you need to tell them the better goal.
You need to give them the better instruction.
Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience
and a sincere faith.
This is what the New Testament teaches.
We just talked about this a couple of Sundays ago.
We talked about love.
This is the command of the New Testament.
This is the command of the gospel of all the things that Paul could have said.
Our goal to instruct them is in this, that or the other.
This is what he says.
The goal of our instruction is what?
It is love that comes from a pure heart.
They need to know the love of God.
They need to know the love of Christ.
They need to know what true love is.
And what does he say?
It's love, but love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.
That is not just doing some actions that have the appearance of love, not just doing things
that people who love would do, but doing them with the right heart.
Making sure your heart is pure.
And when you say you love somebody, you show you love that person and the way you interact
with them and the way you teach them, you show them the love of Christ.
It's a pure love that you genuinely care about somebody.
And when you care about somebody and really love them, that's evident.
That's obvious.
You can't just say you love them and then treat them like trash.
That doesn't line up.
And so when we love with a pure heart, that's evident to those who we love.
And in what other way are we to love?
With a good conscience and a sincere faith.
So when we do things out of love, now we may know, well, this thing would be a good thing
to do.
If I love somebody, this is what I'm supposed to do.
And we may do that action, but perhaps we don't do it with a good conscience.
Perhaps sometimes we do the right thing, but we do it with the wrong heart.
Perhaps sometimes we do the right thing, but we do it with some motive for ourselves.
Maybe we're being selfish in some way.
Maybe we have a little bit of a selfish love that we do the right thing for people because
we think it's going to benefit us in some way.
But that's not the way the Christian should live.
We should live to love other people, to love God, to serve them, regardless of what happens
to us.
Now, maybe there's blessing that comes from it.
And certainly there is.
There's blessing for doing the right thing, regardless if there's any physical reward
that you receive from that.
And maybe sometimes we do the right thing and maybe there is something that benefits
us.
But if we really love people and we're going to serve people, then we do it not because
of how it's going to benefit us, but we do it because it's the right thing to do.
We do it because God has loved us, that he gave Jesus Christ for us.
So therefore we love other people and we give all we can for other people.
We serve other people.
We help other people not to be seen, not to get a pat on the back, and not for any other
motives other than to love as God has loved us.
And this is the command.
This is the instruction that he gives.
He says, look, you're going to come up against some false commands, some false teachings
that aren't good, that don't promote the kingdom of God, that don't work to God's plan.
But here is the goal of our instruction.
Here is what these people need to hear.
And what they need to hear is love that comes from a pure heart.
And that's good instruction for us today.
Now, Timothy might have been a young pastor and in this room, we may not all be pastors,
but nonetheless, this is still good instruction for us today.
That if we want to try to reach people in the world, that the best way that we can reach
them is to love them from a pure heart, just as Paul commanded Timothy.
Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you.
We thank you for your good word.
And I pray that you would help us as we begin to study these books, that we would learn
something from what Paul teaches Timothy here, dear Lord.
And it is your word, dear Lord.
It is your instruction.
It might have been written by Paul's hand, but God, it was because your Holy Spirit led
him to write it.
So I pray, dear Lord, that we can take this instruction.
And even though it was written to a pastor, dear Lord, in Timothy, and we may not all
be pastors, dear Lord, there's still a lot of instruction in here that's good for us.
And quite frankly, dear Lord, most of the things that you call a pastor to do, you call
all of us to do, dear Lord.
These are just things that you call Christians to do.
And so I pray, dear Lord, that we would learn from your word, that we would be those who
would love with a pure heart and a good conscience, that we can feel good about the things we
do, that we don't have to worry about our motives or if we're doing it selfishly.
But dear Lord, we just do it because it's right and we can just feel good.
And our reward, dear Lord, is in knowing we've been obedient to you, regardless of what may
happen to us in this world.
So we thank you for this word, and I pray that you just would bless the reading of it.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.