1 Timothy 1
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
I can remember in the wake of 9-11 back in 2001, a lot of people were wrestling with the existence of God. If God exists, how could he let this happen? I was at my youth group growing up in the Methodist church in my hometown, and we were watching a videotape shortly after this of a guy debating another guy about the existence of God. One person was a Christian, the other was an atheist. I had no idea who the guy was at the time, but it actually ended up being Joel Osteen.
Now, you have to remember that back in 2001, we barely had the internet. Al Gore hadn't invented that yet. We didn't have social media, no iPhones. You younger generation, mind is blown right now. I'm a dinosaur. If you don't know who Joel Osteen is, he's the pastor of one of the largest churches in the world. It was a few years after I heard him speaking that he came out with his book, Your Best Life Now.
I had no idea that Joel Osteen would go on to become one of the most infamous preachers of the prosperity gospel. Well, this morning we're going to start a study of 1 Timothy. So you can turn in your Bibles. If you have the Pew Bible there, it's on page 991. Over the next six weeks, as Eric mentioned earlier, myself and the other staff pastors will be preaching through this whole letter. So we're going to preach through all of 1 Timothy. So before we jump into this letter, a little bit of background on 1 Timothy.
Some scholars, like other letters in the New Testament, doubt that Paul wrote this letter. They say that it doesn't sound like Paul, he sounds different, and there's an emphasis on church structure and elders and deacons. And those things develop much later, so this probably was written after Paul was deceased. Neither of those ideas hold water. The letter clearly states in verse 1, the first word, that it was written by Paul.
And in the early church, if a letter claimed to be written by someone, an apostle, it turned out it wasn't an apostle, the church rejected that letter. It wasn't treated as scripture. Furthermore, the idea of elders being a later development is not true. We see in the book of Acts that Paul called to these very elders in this church in Ephesus to come to him so that he could speak with them. Acts chapter 20 verse 17. Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to the elders of the church to come to him. So it's just not true that elders and deacons was a later development. We'll actually come back to this passage in Acts 20 a little bit later. Paul is the author of this letter. He likely wrote this letter sometime between 62 and 64 AD. We know that because Paul was in prison up until 62 AD, and then he went back in prison in 64 AD,
and in that time, he writes 2 Timothy from jail to Timothy. So it's sometime in between 62 and 64. So in this letter, Paul is writing to his protege, Timothy, whom he left in Ephesus. They're traveling together. He leaves Timothy in Ephesus. Paul goes on into Macedonia, but he leaves Timothy here to help lead the church through a difficult time. The reason that Paul wrote this letter is because the church is under heavy attack from false teachers. The letter is not a theological treatise or a church manual. It doesn't go through everything that a pastor would need to know. It's an occasional letter written by Paul to help Timothy in this specific situation that he was facing in Ephesus. The occasion of the letter seems to be a fulfillment of what Paul warned the Ephesian elders about in Acts chapter 20. So if you want to turn to Acts 20, you can.
I'll read it though so you can listen. And this happened around 57 AD. So five to seven years before Paul is writing 1 Timothy, he's speaking to the elders of the church in Ephesus. Acts 20 verse 17. Now from Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, and skipped down to verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers or elders to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away disciples after them. So that's the background and context of this letter. Sometime five to seven years later, after Paul spoke with those elders, exactly what Paul warned about has come to pass. And so Paul is writing to Timothy, who's helping to lead the church at Ephesus.
So let's turn to our passage for this morning, back to 1 Timothy, page 991. 1 Timothy, we're going to read the whole chapter, chapter 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus our hope. To Timothy, my true child in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they're saying
or the things about which they make confident assertions. Now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, 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, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to healthy or sound doctrine.
in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 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.
But I receive mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience.
By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. So the primary audience of this letter was Timothy, but the church would receive the contents of this letter as well through Timothy. So both Timothy and the church are the audience. Here's the main idea of this text, 1 Timothy chapter 1. False teachers distort and distract from God's truth.
But faithful shepherds proclaim the gospel of grace, transforming sinners for God's glory. False teachers distort and distract from God's truth. But faithful shepherds proclaim the gospel of grace, transforming sinners for God's glory. So we'll break that down into two points. False teachers and faithful shepherds. I know I could have said faithful preachers and it would have rhymed, but I think shepherds captures it a little bit better.
So false teachers and faithful shepherds. So point one, false teachers preach a false gospel leading the sheep astray. False teachers preach a false gospel leading sheep astray. Look back at verse three and verses six and seven. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.
Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion. They desire to be teachers of the law, but they lack understanding. False teachers come in a variety of forms. And unlike many other situations that Paul faced in the early church, like in Galatia, in Corinth, in Philippi, where the threat of false teaching was coming from outside the church. Here in Ephesus, the false teaching is coming from within the church, possibly even some of the elders of the very church. This is a scary situation. Can you imagine that happening at your church?
Maybe that has happened at another church where you've been a member. It's a good time to remind us all as members of Third Avenue that we are a congregationally ruled church. What does that mean? That means that the assembled members together of this church have the final say. We are not an elder ruled church. So if any elder or all of the elders begin teaching false doctrine or a false gospel, you can and should remove them from office.
God forbid, yes, God forbid that that ever has to happen, but we know from church history that it has happened. So be on guard, third avenue. Don't let it happen. So who are these false teachers in Ephesus? What are they teaching? One thing they seem to be marked by is confusion and controversy. Look at verse 4 again. They're devoted to these myths and endless genealogies.
Unfortunately, since we lack the full context of what was going on in Ephesus, obviously Paul and Timothy were aware of all those details. He doesn't detail them out here. But we don't know exactly what he's referring to. It's possible that Paul is referring to a reliance on extra-biblical material like the Apocrypha, these writings that came about between the Old and New Testament. Maybe the focus on genealogies was an attempt of these false teachers to gain some type of standing in the church by saying we are descended from these Old Testament figures.
We don't know for sure. What we do know is that their obsession with these myths and genealogies led to a distraction from the true gospel and ultimately to a shipwrecked faith. They were now teaching a false gospel. There are countless false gospels today. And many of these false gospels are based on myth. One very popular myth that is thriving today with millions of followers was started in the 1800s by a man in New York.
This man spoke to an angel. This angel revealed to him that in a hill close to his home, there were some golden plates. This man went to the place where the angel told him, and he discovered a stone box. And in the box, he found the Urim and the Thummim, the ones that are from the Old Testament. They were in this stone box in New York. Also, he found Aaron's breastplate. This man used Urim and Thummim and a special seer stone that he found earlier in life to translate these golden plates that no one else could read.
The writing on these plates became the foundation for this myth. And according to this myth, when he translated the plates, he read that God the Father was once a man living on another planet. And because of his faithful living, he progressed on to godhood and was given a planet, the planet Earth, to rule. According to this myth, God the Father is not the only God. He's one of many gods on a council of gods. God the Father did not have one son.
He has many spirit children, including Lucifer, who is Jesus' brother. Jesus came and he died to save humanity, but he's not God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct beings working together for our salvation. If you follow the plan of salvation, you too can become a god with your own planet. first you have to have faith in Jesus, repent of your sin, receive the Spirit. Then you have to obey the commandments with pure conduct, avoiding alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea. Follow the temple ordinances, including endowment and celestial marriage. Endure to the end of your life in moral purity and be ordained in the priesthood of Melchizedek. Don't forget that.
And continually strive for personal improvement. But if you die without doing all of this, don't worry. Others can be baptized on behalf of you, and then you too can attain to godhood. There are more than 17 million people who follow this myth. They're Mormons. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Maybe you weren't aware of all these teachings of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. I doubt that Mormons are aware of all these teachings, because they don't talk about these teachings. They talk about the similarities they have with Christians. They talk about how Jesus died for us. Lots of Mormons think that Mormonism is just another denomination of Christianity, but they're not. Mormonism is a false religion with a false gospel that's based on a myth. Just recently, one of our senators, not from Kentucky, but in the United States Senate,
tweeted this. Latter-day Saints believe in Jesus Christ. We believe he was born of a virgin. We believe he lived a sinless life. We believe he suffered and died for the sins of the world. We believe he rose from the dead. We believe he is the only way back to the Father. If that doesn't make us Christians, I don't know what does. Well, despite those claims, Mormons do not believe that Jesus is God. So if you're ever talking to a Mormon, which I know many of you talk to Mormon missionaries in your own house. They come and they try to make you believe what they believe.
They don't believe that Jesus is God. So ask them that. They don't believe in the Trinity. Get right to the point. There are all kinds of false gospels out there today. We've talked about Mormons. There's Jehovah's Witnesses. There's Oneness Pentecostalists, Seventh-day Adventists, Christian scientists. There's the prosperity gospel. Churches that believe in baptismal regeneration, that you have to be baptized in order to be saved, that the going unto the water is what saves you. On and on these false gospels go. And many false gospels we find are actually based on a misuse of the law. Look at verse 7. These certain persons, they desire to be teachers of the law. That's not the bad part. That's okay. The bad part is that they don't know what they're talking about. They're misusing the law. There's two main ways to misuse the law. The first is what
we refer to as antinomianism, anti-against, namas, law, antinomianism, against the law. People who fall into this ditch will tend toward license, the idea that it doesn't matter what I do. We are free from the law. We can do whatever we want because we are no longer under the law. That's the tricky part. They don't get everything wrong, right? It's true that as Christians, we are no longer under the law. as new covenant Christians, we're not under the Mosaic law. Jesus Christ fulfilled the law on our behalf. We're under a new covenant, and that's what Paul is talking about in verse 9.
He says it much more clearly elsewhere. Romans 6, 14, you're not under the law, but under grace. That's true. Unfortunately, some people run with this idea and conclude that since we're no longer under the law, it doesn't matter if we sin. Those people should have read the next verse in Romans 6. What then? Are we to sin because we're not under the law? By no means. Keep reading. Just read the next verse. The other way to misuse the law is what we call legalism. So on one side you have antinomianism against the law. On the other side we have legalism. And in its pure form, legalism is an attempt to win God's favor through obedience to the law. This too is an error. This is a works-based righteousness. It's another false gospel, which is rejected by Paul and the other apostles. Galatians 2, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 3, for by
works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. The Bible could not be more clear about this. Trying to earn God's favor by obeying the law will not work. It's a different gospel. So which one of these errors do you think the false teachers at Ephesus had fallen into, right? Paul is saying they want to be, they desire to be teachers of the law. They don't have understanding. Some have thought that since Paul later in chapter 3 gives the qualifications for elders that maybe these guys' lives are not reflecting what they should, and therefore they're antinomian. They're not living rightly. Well, if Paul's talking about the same people in chapter 4, you can look over at chapter 4, verse 2. He seems to be saying that they're leaning the other way. They require abstinence from marriage. They require abstinence from certain foods, abstinence, to abstain. That's legalism. At the end of the day, honestly, we don't
know for sure which way they were falling, but these false teachers were misusing the law and leading people astray into a shipwrecked faith. They're making a shipwreck of their faith, and then they're leading other Christians in their wake. Which way are you tempted towards? which way do you fall into the ditch? You're not preaching the false gospel yet. You're not preaching that. But your life, as you think about it and reflect on it, which way are you tempted to fall?
Antinomianism, against the law, or legalism? Let's spend a little bit of time drilling down in this because if you sense either of these errors just cropping up just a little bit, let's go ahead and weed that out before it grows into something more. So how do you know if you're falling towards antinomianism? Have you ever sinned and then started to justify it in your mind? You know it's wrong, but you start to make excuses for your sin. Or you say to yourself, it doesn't matter if I sin because Jesus died for me.
As Christians, we're no longer under the law. That's true. But the law can still reveal our sin. And yes, if you are truly in Christ, he died for your sins, past, present, and future. But that doesn't give you the license to just go on sinning freely without any care. Jesus didn't die for you so that you can go on doing whatever you want. He bought you with his own blood so that now you belong to him. Your desires are now meant to be shaped by his desires.
So don't fall into the trap of antinomianism. What about the other ditch, legalism? How can you tell if you're starting to fall into legalism? Well, typically it starts with abstinence. We talked about chapter 4, verse 2. Abstinence, to abstain from something. Abstinence is when you choose to stop or completely avoid something. To abstain from something is not automatically bad. There can be all kinds of good reasons to abstain from things.
And to be clear, I'm not talking about abstaining from sin. you should always abstain from sin, okay? We're talking about abstaining from something that's not necessarily sin. One form of this practice is automatically legalism, right? That's what Paul rules out in chapter 4. That's when you require someone to abstain from something that's not inherently sinful in order to be a Christian. Like, you have to abstain from this, otherwise I'm going to call your salvation into question. That's what the false teachers were doing. Paul talks about it in chapter 4. If you do this, you're essentially preaching a different gospel, a works-based one.
You have to abstain from this to be a Christian. That's legalism. But what's a lesser form of this? You've chosen to abstain from something. There's nothing wrong with that. You're free to not partake of something for any number of reasons. The problem comes when your heart starts to tell you that you are somehow better than those who choose not to abstain from blank. Maybe you start to look down on others who don't join you in your abstaining. Take something as simple as watching TV.
You've decided that watching TV is a waste of time. Why would I waste my time watching TV when I can do so many other things that would be beneficial or a better use of time. That's fine. Take that stance. I'm happy for you. But the minute that you turn to your brother or sister and start to look down on them for watching TV, you've flipped a switch in your mind. You've now become self-righteous and proud. You're on the verge of legalism. This is a silly example, but hopefully you get the idea. Don't fall into the trap of legalism.
It will lead you to pride and self-righteousness. It's a dark road to go down. So these are the wrong ways of using the law. Antinomianism, legalism. What is the right use of the law? In the end, the law is meant to point us to Christ, to the Savior. The law teaches us about who God is, and it shows us who we are, sinners. And this list that Paul goes through in chapter 1, starting in verse 8, Paul is walking through this list, and it's essentially the law.
It's the second part of the law. Did you notice that? Verses 9 through 11. He's just walking through the second part of the Ten Commandments. Honor your father and mother, right? Don't hit them. Check. You shall not murder, right? It's right there, murderers. You shall not commit adultery. Here Paul mentions sexual immorality, including homosexuality. I'm not going to go into detail here, but suffice to say that the Bible has consistently rejected homosexual lifestyle as contrary to God's law.
You shall not steal. That's the enslavers part. See, he says enslavers are evil. And just as an aside, the Bible has always been against slavery. stealing anything, including people, is sin. In chapter 6, when Paul talks about slaves and masters, I forget if that's going to be Woods or Alex who gets to deal with that, but that's not the type of slavery that was practiced in our country. That was indentured servanthood, which is completely different than chattel slavery. It's essentially, you're in debt, and so you have to work for this person until your debt is paid off. It's not the same thing. The Bible says that enslavers are evil, so we should condemn that. You should not bear false witness. That's the line.
Check. You know, Paul's just walking through the second part of the Ten Commands here, and he's trying to show that these false teachers, they don't understand the law, and the right use of the law is to see that you're a sinner. You have violated these commands in some way. The purpose of the law is to point you to Christ. It's not to obey it perfectly so that you can earn your salvation from God. The law is not a ladder that we can climb up to reach God.
The purpose is to reveal you as a sinner. We're all sinners. We've all broken God's law in a variety of ways, constantly. And so we, as sinners, need to find a way of escape. And that leads us to our second point. Point two, faithful shepherds know the gospel. They are transformed by the gospel, and they lead people to Christ. Faithful shepherds know the gospel. They are transformed by the gospel, and they lead people to Christ.
So first of all, faithful shepherds know the gospel. The gospel is good news for sinners. And in order to preach that good news, you have to know what the good news is. So what is the gospel? What is the good news? Well, the gospel is not some myth. It's not like other religions. There are a lot of really smart people that you can listen to on podcasts. They talk about these things. They talk about how basically all the religions are the same. They can't decide which one is the best.
And so maybe the best thing to do is just look at what these religions have in common and then just follow that. Be a good person. Do no harm. Love your neighbor. Well, sadly, that's the exact opposite of what you should do. If you're on the fence, you're not sure if Christianity is true, you're trying to decide what you believe, you should be looking at what the differences are. What unique claims do Christians make? How is Christianity different from all the other religions? I promise you, if you spend time looking for answers to these questions, you will not be disappointed.
The gospel is good news. there is one God. He created all things, including people. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, they rebelled against God, and everyone who has been born since then has joined in that rebellion. They've been born into it, but God sent his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life, to die in our place, to take our punishment for our sins by dying on the cross, and that wasn't the end. Jesus got up from the grave. He defeated death once and for all. He defeated sin. He defeated Satan, our enemy, and he calls everyone everywhere to repent of their sin, to turn towards Christ in faith. If you do that, if you bow your knee to King Jesus, then you will be granted everlasting life. That's the gospel. That's Paul's gospel. That's the biblical gospel. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You see, Christianity is different from every other
religion in the world. Every other religion says, do more! Do better! If you've done enough, then perhaps God will have mercy on you in the end. Jesus says, it is finished! He has already won salvation for us. Every other religion follows someone who made a lot of promises, but at the end of the day, they're still in the grave. Buddha is dead. Gandhi is dead. Joseph Smith is dead. Muhammad is dead. Jesus is alive. Paul knew the good news. He knew it because he lived it.
The very risen Lord Jesus Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus and knocked him on his backside. He turned Paul's life upside down. Before Paul met Jesus, he was Saul, a persecutor of the church. Saul was a Jew who believed that he was doing a good thing. He was stamping out this new religion, these Jews who say the Christ has come. He made it his one goal to stamp out this new religion. The problem for Saul was that this new religion was actually the truth.
Nothing explains the turnaround in Saul's life other than what actually happened, according to Saul. He tells the story over and over again in Scripture. Do you know how Paul goes over this over and over? He cannot get over the grace and mercy that has been shown to him. Just a quick aside here. Did you notice how Paul introduced himself in verse 1? Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God. Paul was commanded into service.
on the same day he was converted. And I think this has caused some confusion over the years. Have you noticed that sometimes people will confuse their salvation with a call to ministry? Why does this happen? If you can remember back when you were first saved, you can probably remember that initial zeal for the Lord, for evangelism, for spreading the gospel. May that never go away. That's why across campus and college ministry is so exciting because they have this zeal to share the gospel.
But sometimes people confuse that initial zeal about your salvation with a call to ministry. Most people will not go into full-time ministry. Most people should not go into full-time ministry. And if you think that sounds harsh, I'm quoting the Bible. It's James chapter three, verse one. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. The whole idea of being called into ministry by God is confusing for many people.
So let's just break it down and talk about it for a minute. What does it mean to be called into ministry? What does it look like? Well, first off, what it probably doesn't look like is what happened to Paul, right? You were not violently persecuting Christians and then knocked on your behind by the risen Lord Jesus Christ. If that happened to you, meet me at the doors afterwards. I want to hear your story. That's amazing. Now, there's three components to being called into ministry.
Most people tend to think of the first one, and that's it, which is desire. You have a desire to go into ministry. That's good. Let me just warn you straight away, so did these false teachers. Look at verse 7. They desired to be teachers of the law. The false teachers had a desire to teach. How did that work out for them? Not so great. That desire that you feel is not an automatic call into ministry. The desire is necessary and good, right?
To aspire to ministry is a good thing, but it's not a sufficient call to ministry. Desire, that's the first thing. You need to have a desire. Second is affirmation. You need other, more mature Christians to examine your life, to examine your doctrine, and to try to discern whether or not you should go into ministry. This is the component that is most often lacking for people who say, I am called to ministry. You should not self-appoint yourself as a minister of the gospel.
That's a very dangerous thing to do. If you're sensing a desire for ministry in your life, tell other people, tell the elders, Jump into many, one of the many internships or training initiatives that we have, but don't start and end with, God has called me into ministry because I have a desire. Simply basing your desire to be a call is not a good way to go into ministry. It's very, very dangerous. So you need affirmation from other Christians. Third, you need an opportunity. You need a real life opportunity where other Christians are saying, you, come be our pastor. Come do this thing. We're going to hire you to be in ministry. Unless you have all three of these things, you don't have a call to ministry. There's no calling until the opportunity arrives. You're not called into ministry simply by having a desire. You're not called into ministry the day you graduate from
seminary. You are called into ministry when all three of these things come together. So what would my suggestion be? Stop saying that you're called to ministry. You're not. Unless someone has literally called you to be their pastor. Just say you aspire to ministry. Say, I want to go into ministry. That's fine. That's good. That's good to have that desire. If you want to think more about this. Bobby Jameson, a former member of Third Avenue, has written a helpful book on this topic, The Path to Being a Pastor. If you want to learn more about this, go read that book and talk to one of the elders about it. Anyways, back to Paul. Paul was the last person that you would think that God would save and then command into service. And that's the point. God is even more glorified by saving someone who seems like they can't be saved. This fact humbled Paul to his core, and he could not stop talking about it. He was completely transformed by the gospel. Look at verse 12.
I thank him, verse 13. I received mercy, verse 14. The grace of our Lord overflowed for me, verse 16. I received mercy. He's obsessed with it. He's been transformed by the gospel of grace. Paul knew himself to be the worst sinner on the planet, but God saved him, and that made him confident. He didn't have self-confidence like the false teachers. He was confident in his God who could save the worst sinner like him. No one is outside of God's reach, not the worst sinner that comes to your mind? Who comes to your mind when you hear that? God would never save that person. Who is it? A family member? Your boss? Some political leader? God can save them. You should pray for them. How amazing would it be for God to answer your prayer for salvation for that person
that you think could never be saved. The gospel transformed Paul. Does your theology transform you? Does it lead you to humility? To love God more? To love your neighbor more? According to Jesus, that's what the law boils down to. Love God and love your neighbor. Do you desire to be a teacher? Does your own doctrine lead you to love God more and to love your neighbor more? If not, that's something to think about before jumping into ministry.
Well, there's one last thing we need to look at in closing here. Faithful shepherds will occasionally need to call out false teaching and even lead the church to excommunicate if necessary. Look at 1 Timothy 18 and following, the end of the chapter, that last paragraph. Paul says that he has handed these men over to Satan's. We promise to do this in our own church covenant. We will faithfully warn, rebuke, and admonish one another as the case shall require.
And at the end of a process, if someone refuses to repent, excommunication, or what we call church discipline, excommunicate means to remove from communion. It's not some mystical thing. It's just removing from communion. Church discipline is to take a member who professed faith in Christ and to, as a church, say we can no longer affirm this profession. Why does Paul say that he handed these two men over himself, right?
That goes against what we talk about often. Well, Paul's an apostle, guys. Paul is an apostle. You are not an apostle. I'm not an apostle. We don't have authority to just declare that some other person is outside the church. Maybe he even led the church to do it. We don't know that. It doesn't talk about that. We don't know. Maybe the situation was so dire that the church was unwilling to do it and Paul had to do it himself. We don't know. What we do know is that we're not in that situation today.
We haven't been in that situation for over 1900 years because the apostles died and then we don't have more apostles. no one has that authority. The action of church discipline is to be done by the church, like we see in Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, which was given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me be clear on something else. Church discipline is not consigning someone to hell. When Paul says he handed them over to Satan, he's not saying, I consigned them to hell, contrary to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. This idea of consigning to hell is drawn from this phrase that Paul uses, handing over to Satan, like we see in verse 20. And the assumption, of course, is that Satan, he's the ruler of hell. Satan is called the ruler of this world, though, not the ruler of hell.
He's the prince of the power of the air. He's on a leash, for sure. God remains in control, but Satan right now, he's out there roaming around like a lion looking for sheep to devour. And in the end, Satan himself will be thrown into hell in the lake of fire. He's not the ruler of hell. So the whole idea that church discipline handing over to Satan is somehow consigning someone to hell, it doesn't even make sense based on this phrase. What does make sense is that church discipline is putting someone outside the realm of God, the church, and putting them into the world where Satan currently rules. Many people see church discipline as harsh, lacking love, lacking grace, but that's not true at all. The motivation of church discipline is love. Love for the person who's in unrepentant sin.
love for the church, love for God. The goal is repentance. Church discipline is an act of love and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ who gave us this very thing to do. So faithful shepherds will sometimes need to lead the church in this way in order to combat false teaching and those whom they've led astray. It's a sobering thought, but it's a charge that Paul gave to Timothy and he gives to us, those who are called into ministry. Faithful shepherds will guard the gospel.
They will guard the sheep against false teachers and false doctrine for the glory of God. Paul says, 1 Timothy 1.5, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. This charge I entrust to you, verse 18, wage the good warfare, holding faith in a good conscience may the same be said for us here at third avenue to the king of the ages immortal and invisible the only God be honor and glory forever and ever amen let's pray our father in heaven we thank you for this letter that we get to read that Paul wrote to a local church leader Timothy his beloved child in the faith father we thank you for giving us Paul's example for giving us instruction and for saving us for sending your son to die in our place father we thank you for all these things this morning we
pray that as a church our preaching of the gospel our our singing and reading and praying would all be to the glory of Jesus's name we pray it in his name amen