A Gospel Life: 1 Timothy 1:1-7

Our sermon text this morning comes from the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 1, verses 1 through 17 through 7.

1 Timothy 1:1–17

Verses 1 through 7.

We're taking a break from the Mark Sermon series.

Today is a morning every year, once a year this time, we elect new officers, which we did this past well, about an hour ago in this room.

And we have a new elder, ruling elder Ryan Ferguson, is coming back on session after years of being off.

And we give thanks to God.

But we're thinking about leadership.

I'm thinking about leadership, not just with ordained officers in the church.

The spiritual leadership class that we just concluded after about two months.

We had about 23 members in the class.

Only one stood for office.

You know, you're a leader.

You know that, right?

Where's your sphere of influence?

Who do you have influence over?

In your home?

Your marriage?

At work?

I mean, God gives us opportunities to be leaders in many different ways.

And so this passage that we're going to look at now has relevance, I think, for all of us.

And so here are the reading of God's holy word.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my dear 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 so 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 are saying or the things about which they make their confident assertions.

This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant word.

Let's pray for the Spirit's help.

Holy Spirit, as we just say, we believe that you're real.

We believe that you are a member of the triune God, fully God, the same in substance, equal with power and glory, all-powerful Holy Spirit.

Open our minds that we would understand.

Open our hearts to receive Jesus, you as Lord of our life, Savior.

We pray in your name.

Amen.

So we're looking at a very personal letter that the apostle Paul wrote to his son in the faith named Timothy.

This is one of three pastoral epistles, 1st and 2 Timothy and Titus.

Paul wrote these letters near the end of his life because he knew that the church of Jesus Christ needed instructions how to conduct ourselves in the church of Christ, how to conduct ourselves in our own personal lives for the sake of the gospel.

So we have this letter.

Today we're going to look at two gospel leaders, the Apostle Paul and his son in the faith, Timothy.

But as I suggest earlier, this is for all of us.

These letters, these epistles, are short, very personal, very practical, and deal with issues of the church and life.

After Paul's first release from imprisonment in Rome, Paul was imprisoned in Rome twice.

The first time was pretty good arrangement.

He was under house arrest.

He was able to come and go and meet with his friends.

And somewhere around that time, probably between 62 and 67 A.D., he wrote this letter to Timothy.

The second time he was in prison in Rome wasn't like that at all.

It was a very, very hard situation.

It was a dank, dark prison, as much as we understand and know.

It was a brutal place to be.

That's when he wrote the book of 2 Timothy.

But Paul, in this first prison, after release from Rome, he's writing to the church at Ephesus, a church that he knew about, that he helped birth.

Many people came to faith in Christ through the preaching of the gospel in Ephesus.

Idols and idolatry systems were thrown over.

Artemis, the great sculptor of the idols, they lost a lot of money because Christianity came to town.

And you know that's generally true.

Wherever the gospel was really at work, the people on the enemy side lose money.

And so the gospel is growing.

And by the way, as we just took in these 26 new members, we had three brand new professions of faith.

People that have just come to Christ.

And they're a joy to be around.

That's what happens when the gospel is at work.

But that was true in the church of Ephesus.

And yet there was trouble that was starting to brew in this church planted by Paul.

If you want to read about it, go back to Acts chapter 20.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

Not now.

That'd be a good thing to do this afternoon, maybe.

But I'm also going to give you a homework assignment.

If you have time, if you can make it work, read the first epistle to Timothy.

Six chapters.

You could probably read it in 15, 20 minutes.

It'll give you much more context for what we're talking about this morning.

To Timothy, my true son in the faith.

Timothy was so close.

I'm not going to spoil your reading for 2 Timothy, but I kind of will.

So close.

This is when Paul was in prison the second time.

He said, Timothy, please do everything you can to come visit me.

Because I miss you.

I'm lonely.

And would you bring my favorite cloak?

And would you bring my favorite writings?

That's what ministry should look like for all of us.

No Lone Rangers.

Going alone, trying to do it on our own.

That's not what God wants.

In 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 6, Paul tells Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands.

2 Timothy 1:6

Laying on of hands is biblical language representing ordination.

Elders and deacons, when they're ordained, we lay hands on them.

And that's what Paul did for Timothy.

But did you catch that?

Timothy, fairly young.

Commentators guess that he was probably in his late 20s or early, mid-30s at the oldest.

Fan into flame the gift of God.

Gifts are never given in full bloom.

They need to be developed.

They need to be cultivated.

And that's true for you too.

Spiritual gifts need to be exercised, but you don't get the full force of your gift at conversion.

Use your gifts.

Try serving the church and God in different ways, and you try things, you think, wait a minute, I think I can do this.

And then you get more confident in it, and your your faith grows, and God uses you even more.

And then eventually they develop into full bloom.

I mean, that's a beautiful thing.

Are you using your gifts?

That's a fair question.

If you're a Christian, God has given you a gift or gifts.

Are you using what God has given you to be a blessing to other people, to serve other people?

The church at Ephesus, twice he mentioned certain men have come in.

These were bad guys.

They may have started out on the right course, but they were troublemakers in the church.

At this particular point, he doesn't call them out by name.

He says certain men.

But you can sense in the in the letter, in the writing between the words, they knew who he was referring to.

These are troublemakers.

They've come into the church and they're not really majoring in the gospel.

They're majoring in minors.

Do you know people who major in minors?

You know what I mean, right?

They're always kind of looking at the footnotes.

They want to make life about the footnotes, the things that appeal to them personally, the things that they really want to dive into and study and they want to make a big deal about relatively small things.

Those are troublemakers.

Do you know why people major in minors?

Because they don't major in the majors.

The gospel is not a power in their life.

The gospel, it doesn't become all about the gospel.

It becomes about their pet peeves.

It becomes about people that study so much time about trying to predict the hour that Jesus Christ is going to return.

Come on.

Nobody can figure that out.

The Bible doesn't tell us.

But that's what he's the type of people he's referring to that just want to dive into minutiae.

And they miss, they miss the really important things about the gospel.

Peter's, excuse me, Paul is telling Timothy, who's now the pastor over the church at Ephesus, watch out for these guys.

They're troublemakers.

Don't let them get a hold in the church.

You know, a person will either, a person will either make you see Christ more or see Christ less by the quality of their character.

That's true for all of us.

When Christ is really at work in your heart, in your life, and you're growing as a Christian, people will see more of Christ.

But if you're not, you're going to get in the way of them seeing Christ.

We don't want that, do we?

I don't want that.

I don't want to be that guy.

I want to be somebody that when they look at me, they see, no, no, this is, he's pointing me to Christ.

And that's what it was with Paul and Timothy.

So the rest of the time, our minutes is verse 5.

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Now, this is a bonus promise, all right?

If you're new here, we're memorizing a new promise every month.

We've got the next promise is coming up next week.

Have you just loved the promise of Psalm 23?

I get so many good reports of people that are studying this at home in their covenant fellowship groups.

Are you seeing Jesus in new ways as your shepherd?

Your good shepherd?

Well, this is like, you know, this we're throwing this promise in for free, okay?

It's short.

I think you can memorize it.

What is it?

The aim of our charge is love.

It is about love.

You can serve God and the church and not love.

Not really.

You're not going to serve well.

But if your life is not marked by love, you're not going to serve God or the church well.

That makes sense.

Love is missing today.

We live in a city, in the nation's capital, that desperately needs more Christian love.

There's a lot of bitterness, a lot of enmity, a lot of discord.

God's calling his people to be exemplary in how we love other people.

With a pure heart, first of all.

Remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

What does that mean?

We're going to do a deep dive this morning, okay?

You ready for a deep dive?

We're going to break it down.

What does a pure heart mean?

1 John chapter 1 gives us a good clue.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

Verse 7 and verse 9.

Verse 7.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

This verb cleanse is very closely related to the word in Greek, pure, purity.

To become pure.

Verse 9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to what?

Cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

What is Paul telling Timothy that we can learn here?

That God forgiving and cleansing from all sin through the blood of Christ, all of those who confess their sins, he's really talking to Christians now.

He's talking to Christians who day by day by day will continue to sin and sin and sin.

Have you ever had a sinless day?

No, you haven't.

Have I ever had a sinless day?

No.

Every time you think something you shouldn't think, you say something you shouldn't say, you do something you shouldn't do, and that's just one half of the ledger.

What I should have thought, what I should have said, what I should have done.

Nobody here, you can't calculate how much you sin, nor can I.

So what do we do with that?

Well, a lot of people just kind of ignore it.

Try to tamp it down.

You know, not don't think about it.

Don't think about what's going on in my life that I'm not proud about.

A lot of people do that.

And you can be in the church and do that.

That's not good.

I won't think about it.

Many times those people will find ways to medicate their heart so they don't have to think about it.

And that can include things like being a workaholic.

Some people around here are very, very hard workers.

And they think that by doing that, they won't have time to have to really deal with their heart.

That's not good.

You see what John is telling us in 1 John 1, 7 and 9 is the pure heart is the one that's cleansed by the forgiveness and cleansing that comes to those who continually confess their sins.

We have a little saying in this church always repenting, always rejoicing.

We believe that's what a gospel woman, a gospel man looks like.

We have sin every day to deal with.

We have two choices.

We can either not look at it and try to stuff it, look away from it, or we can say, Holy Spirit, would you please show me?

Would you show me what's getting in the way of my love and my joy?

I want to be like Christ.

So please show me my sin so I can confess my sin.

It sounds so simple, doesn't it?

Why is it so hard?

Because of pride.

The pride of the human heart.

I think I'm right.

I don't want to have to deal with this.

That's not good.

In 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 22, the Apostle Paul also said to Timothy, do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others.

1 Timothy 5:22

And then he says, Keep yourself pure.

Isn't that an interesting juxtaposition?

Don't ordain elders and deacons too soon.

They may not be ready.

I'm giving you all kinds of insider things today.

What our elders talk about all the time.

Don't put people in positions of spiritual authority unless you see them visibly being transformed by the gospel.

We believe that.

Unless you see them visibly being transformed by the gospel, just because they know the Bible a lot, no.

Just because they seem to be relatively good people, no.

Do you see the gospel changing them from the inside out?

Elect those leaders.

That's what Paul's saying in 1 Timothy 5, verse 22.

1 Timothy 5:22

Then he says, because if you don't, you're going to share in the sins of others.

That's a fascinating thought, isn't it?

And then 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 22.

2 Timothy 2:22

I'm going to read in verse 20.

Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay.

Some are for honorable use and some for dishonorable.

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, and ready or prepare for every good work.

I remember the day, this is many years ago, I remember the day in my office when I think I understood that verse for the first time in my life.

I'd read it many times before, but the Holy Spirit just opened it up to me.

And I thought, wow.

God, what would it be like for me to pray this prayer?

See you get the word picture?

In every house, big house, there are many articles that are used for serving, showing hospitality, entertaining people.

He's saying, I want you to be the kind of Christian that's like fine China.

You bring out your best, most precious goblets and plates.

I want you to be that kind of person that God can use for great purposes.

I don't want you to be like the paper plates.

I don't want you to be like the garbage disposal or the garbage can.

I mean, there's all kinds of articles in our houses that we use for purposes.

Look what he's saying.

I want you to be the kind of person that so desires that God can use you in a beautiful way.

You're like fine china.

You're like crystal goblets.

But in order to be that kind of vessel, we have to be cleansed.

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, that means you have to repent.

That means I have to confess my sins that only the Holy Spirit can show me.

Lord, don't let my pride get in the way.

Then you will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master, and prepared for every good work.

Those words just grab me.

They still do.

That's the kind of guy I want to be.

How about you?

This is all part of what it means to have a pure heart.

Those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart, this continued cleansing and inner transformation, I trust you know by now that this is not just coming to Christ, being saved, and thinking, okay, great, I can live as I want now.

I'm saved.

Some people describe that as fire insurance.

They hope that they're saved by God, but then they can live as they please.

The Bible doesn't teach that anywhere.

If that's what you think, you're not saved.

If that's what you think, you're not saved.

When God saves you, he sets you apart.

And he says, I want to bless you, I want to use.

Use you.

That's a beautiful thing to be a part of that.

But then he talks about a good conscience.

A good conscience.

What does it mean to live with a good conscience?

A clear conscience, not a noisy, nagging conscience.

We can easily do that, can't we?

Our consciences can get very noisy accusing us of what we did not do, what we did not do well.

Do you struggle with perfectionism?

A lot of us do.

This city is a magnet for perfectionists.

Do you struggle with that?

Do you ever do things good enough?

Do you just sometimes put your head down at night and think, I didn't do that like I should have?

How do we get a good conscience?

Paul says in Romans chapter 9, verse 1, listen to this.

Romans 9:1

It's an amazing statement.

I am speaking the truth in Christ.

I am not lying.

My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit.

Here's my question for you.

How in the world did the Apostle Paul ever live with a good, clear conscience?

You know what he did before he became a Christian.

He murdered people.

He went around, he made it his mission to find Christians, attack them, arrest them, see them sentenced to death.

This is a bad dude.

He blasphemed.

Have you ever asked yourself, how did he live with a good conscience?

Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

You might want to turn there.

Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Listen to how this happens, how this is for you and me.

Verse 19.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened up for us through the curtain, that is through His flesh.

And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, a pure heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Do you see what he's saying?

You can live with a clean conscience.

You can live with a good conscience.

You can live with a clear conscience.

And the only way you can do it is by looking at that cross.

What that cross represents.

When Jesus died on the cross for his people, he died for all of our sin.

He died for all of our shame.

He died for all of our guilt.

He said, Father, let their guilt, let their shame fall on me.

And it did, didn't it?

At the cross.

So how do you live with a troubled conscience?

You go back to the cross.

And you say, Jesus Christ, I believe that you died for me.

I believe that you cover me.

Your righteousness covers my sin.

And you claim it by faith.

And you say, Jesus, thank you for giving me a new record.

My old record is out of your sight.

I'm a new person in Christ.

And you ask him to give you faith to believe that.

And watch what he'll do.

When you accuse yourself of things, or other people accuse you of things that are not true, watch how he'll protect you.

Watch how give you sleep in the midst of the night from the things that otherwise would haunt you.

There is another verse, one last verse I just want us to look at in 1 John chapter 3.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

How do you live with a good conscience?

Verse 19.

For whenever our heart condemns us, what was that word?

Whenever?

Not if.

I promise you, your heart is going to condemn you.

Probably before the day is over.

Certainly before the week is over.

What do you do with that?

Listen to this.

We know, we know that God is greater than our heart and he knows everything.

Wow, you hear that, he knows everything.

Man, it's worse than I thought.

He knows all the junk inside that I don't even see.

But what's the next word he says?

Beloved, when you come to Jesus with your guilt, when you come to Jesus with your shame, when you come to Jesus with your noisy conscience, he doesn't send you away.

He doesn't condemn you.

He forgives you.

Is that amazing?

He says, look at the cross.

I covered your debt.

I paid for all of your sin.

I can call you beloved.

If you leave this worship service today without having a deeper sense that you are God's beloved in Christ, you miss something pretty important.

And I can't give it to you.

But the Holy Spirit can.

The Holy Spirit can make you actually believe this.

May it be so.

We just have to do a little bit more exegesis here.

So that whenever our heart condemns us, that Greek word condemn is a compound word, two little words.

What you know that you hold against yourself.

Got it?

Something that comes up in your mind, your memory, something that you did, something that you said that you know was wrong, and you can't forgive yourself.

People come into my office from time to time and say, Pastor, I can't forgive myself.

Sometimes I'll say, Well, why are your standards higher than God's?

Are you more perfect than God?

God can forgive you.

To use knowledge that you have about yourself against yourself.

That's what the word, the prefix means, kata, against.

Are you letting the enemy use things that you have done that you're sorry for?

Are you letting the enemy use that to haunt you, to dog you, to beat you?

He loves to do that.

That's one of his favorite sports.

I'm telling you this morning, that's not the way that the Holy Spirit wants you to live.

He wants you to take your sin.

He wants you to take the things that you're ashamed of, to take it to the cross and understand that as you confess your sins, that God has forgiven you.

This is the power of the gospel.

What would it look like this week if you could live with a good conscience?

We might sleep better.

We might actually have joy in our lives.

That would be a good thing.

When the enemy accuses you and says, look at who you are, look what you did.

Sometimes all the enemy has to do is tell the truth about us.

Guilty.

Sometimes the enemy doesn't have to make anything up.

All he has to do is tell the truth.

What we did.

What are you going to do next time the enemy comes after you?

Okay?

I'm going to tell you what you're going to say.

You're going to say, Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for dying for all of my sin.

Thank you for giving me of the things that I'm ashamed of.

I lay those sins at your feet.

And I believe that I can be forgiven.

And I believe that I can be cleansed.

And I want to keep short accounts with you.

Day by day by day.

I want to keep short accounts with you.

And when the sin washes over me, I pray that the purity of your word and your grace will wash away that.

This is the way to live.

And that's for you and me.

To live with a good conscience.

Theologian Robert Haldane said this: no sin is changed outwardly.

No sin is changed in action or behavior until it is first changed in the conscience.

If you've got a great memory, good for you.

But otherwise, I'd be writing this down, honestly.

I would.

Don't lose this.

Did you hear what he said?

No sin is changed outwardly and know how you live until first your conscience is cleansed.

This is why so many Christians live miserable lives.

This is why many Christians live miserable lives.

Because they don't heed what the Bible teaches about this.

It's not for you.

He has something better for you.

Let this gospel reach the depths of my heart, the things that I find most hard to believe.

Holy Spirit, let me see the blood of Jesus cover every foul part of my heart.

And believe that I can be forgiven and cleansed.

And let Him set you free.

There's a lot of Christians that need to be set free.

Lastly, he talks about a sincere faith.

Literally, in the language, it means literally a faith without hypocrisy.

A faith without hypocrisy.

Eight times in the pastoral epistles, in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, Paul links faith and love.

I don't have time to unpack that, but you can read them.

Read the epistles.

Faith and love.

Paul sums it up beautifully in Galatians chapter 5, verse 6, where he says, for neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters.

Galatians 5:6

The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.

Do you know why he says that?

It's harder to find examples of faith than it is love.

If you have real faith in Jesus Christ, it is going to express itself in real acts and deeds of love.

Does that make sense?

Real faith always leads to real love.

So look for acts of love.

Where you see gospel love in a person's life, you're going to find gospel faith.

It's a beautiful teaching.

The only thing that matters is faith inside that comes by the Holy Spirit that expresses itself through love.

The way we treat one another.

There's power in the gospel to make your heart a well of love.

Wouldn't that be beautiful?

More and more and more, make my heart a wellspring of love so that others around me will see the gospel in action in my life.

That's sincere faith.

The choir sang this morning beautifully.

That vision of in revelation of being before the Lamb of God, casting our crowns.

If you're a Christian, one day you're going to cast your crowns before the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

But there's a certain sense in which we do it here on earth.

Did you know that?

What is a crown symbolic of?

King.

Power.

As I've been thinking about this this week in my sermon, we all have a choice every day to either cast our crowns at the feet of Jesus or clutch our crowns for ourselves.

Isn't that true?

Am I really living for Christ?

Or am I living for myself?

Don't clutch your crowns.

They're not yours.

Whatever crown the Lord Jesus gives you, put it down at his feet.

Cast your crowns at his feet and say, Jesus, you alone are worthy of the glory and the power.

Pray with me, please.

Father, I ask now, would you please, Holy Spirit, would you do a powerful work right now in this room, in our lives, our hearts?

Would you give us faith to believe that this is true?

These things that we preach are true.

But we don't have the power.

We cannot make these things happen.

But we believe that you can.

Holy Spirit, give us the faith that we need to live pure lives, to have pure hearts, to have a good conscience, and to have a sincere faith that we would cast our crowns at your feet, that we will not clutch these crowns to our own chest.

This we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.