A Message Preached 3/12/2011 @ BBCMP
THE MAIN THING IS TO
KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING
1TIMOTHY 1:1-6
INTRODUCTION:
1:1 This
is the first of the three “Pastoral Epistles”, which were written to help us
get it right when we do Church.
The Apostle Paul is the author of
this epistle –I assume you are familiar with him.
God is the One who made him an apostle. There are men who get in the ministry by other means, but those that God calls and sends survive what puts others out.
“God” as used here, is our Savior and Lord, Jesus
Christ. God is Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, One Being, in three Persons.
It’s more complicated than modalism – God being one Person with three
offices or agencies. But it is also more
complicated than three separate Gods.
It’s so complicated that theologians have long admitted that we lack the
vocabulary to really explain it to our own satisfaction. The Father is not the Son, is not the Spirit,
but all are God, and without any of them God as revealed in the Bible would
cease to be. But here, the emphasis is
on the deity of Christ
“By commandment” is how Paul became
an apostle. I’m not so sure about the
whole matter of volunteering for the ministry.
As Paul says here, he’s an apostle because he was commanded to be
one. Compare
Tit
1:3 But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is
committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;
His
being in the ministry was “not of men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father
Ga
1:1 ¶ Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and
God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)
Elsewhere,
he speaks of being called into it;
Ro
1:1 ¶ Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto
the gospel of God,
1Co 1:1 ¶ Paul, called to be an apostle of
Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
ordained
1Ti
2:7 Whereunto I am ordained a preacher,
and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of
the Gentiles in faith and verity.
appointed
2Ti
1:11 Whereunto I am appointed a
preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
chosen
Ac 9:15 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy
way: for he is a chosen vessel unto
me, to bear my name before the
Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
Being made
Ac
26:16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this
purpose, to make thee a minister and a
witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in
the which I will appear unto thee;
Being sent
Ac 26:17 Delivering thee from the people, and
from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send
thee,
And
there is a purpose for the sending (Ac. 26:18) – to “open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the
power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith” in Jesus Christ.
I hope
you can see here that there is indeed something special about those that God
has called into the ministry. We are all
“sent” in some respect under the Great Commission. But there is an authority and function that
is unique to those that receive a particular call.
Now I’m
convinced that I don’t have the power to do any of the stuff in v. 18 on my
own. To open people’s eyes, to get them
out of the darkness and into the light, to get out from under the influence of
Satan when they don’t even realize that he’s pulling their strings, to get them
to realize they need to be forgiven – and to get people to hear that have their
ears closed, clogged, and covered – that’s more than I can do. But I am the voice that certain people will
hear.
And that’s
why it is so important that the Church pray for its ministers. Prayer can do it, we can’t. And I can pray on my own, but all of us
praying together is bound to get more done than I will by myself. Above all, we need to pray that people will
have ears to hear. As Harry Nix said,
“Just because your pinwheel ain’t a-turnin don’t mean the wind ain’t a-blowin.
This is
a matter of spiritual warfare. Jesus
said to His disciples;
Mt
13:16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
-
This is because Satan
does blind people.
2Co
4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ
Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
-
Thus, they need eye-salve
Re
3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be
rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy
nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest
see.
That
was spoken to a very self-satisfied group of people that thought they had it
all together.
-
Similarly, the ears of many people are also
closed (Mt. 13:16 again)
Re
2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give
to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
That’s
repeated in Re 2:11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13 and
22. In other words, each of the 7 had
people in them that could not hear. So
why should we expect to be any different.
It’s
not that the Spirit of God isn’t doing anything in some places. He certainly may be. But He’s just not doing what some people think He
should be doing. Well, I’m not wise
enough to tell Him what I will or will not acknowledge as His work. I’m praying for eyes to see. And I see plenty. I can see it, I guess, because I know that He
works through tribulation, hardship, breaking and bruising.
Our hope is not merely in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our hope is the Lord Jesus
Christ. That difference may be subtle, but
encouraging. It takes it off of me to
put my hope in Him, and leaves the responsibility where it belongs, and where
things can’t break down. Whether or not
you put your hope in Him, He is nevertheless your hope.
1:2 As
you probably know, this epistle is written to a young pastor. The opening verses set the tone for the
remainder, and it seems to me that Paul is concerned that Timothy, and by
extension any of the rest of us that share his calling, not be distracted from
that which is absolutely essential by that which is merely incidental.
The
usual salutation follows, and while there is plenty that could be said about
it, we’ll pass over it for now
1:3-6 We
could take this apart, but I don’t think that’s what we need this
afternoon. I want us to look at all of
this instruction in these 4 verses together and get the point he is making
using it all.
We can
get off the main thing. We can preach “truth” or “a truth” and forget to preach “the truth” that is most important of
all. We can get caught up in what may be
true and valuable up to a point, and allow it to push out what is most
important, and at that point it is no longer edifying, or conducive to faith,
but it becomes ridiculous and pointless at best “vain jangling” (v. 6), and may
even become positively dangerous and destructive
“Jangling”
is making a lot of noise without any form or harmony. There is always the chance of taking a swerve off the track and into nonsense.
When a person has done that, it is jangling.
And there is undeniably some intersection here with a
wrong understanding of the use of the law (v. 7). We’re addicted to the law. And as soon as we swerve away from the gospel
as the main thing, and try to make the law the main thing, the more we talk,
the less we actually understand. We are to use the law to expose sin, not to remedy
it. The remedy for it is the gospel (v.
11).
Now I think I can use this passage to correct some wrong
thinking that I’ve learned about that may have affected many of you. It’s been said about our Church that “we don’t know what we
believe about anything anymore”. Those who say so don't care much for the truth.
To begin with, whenever we use all-inclusive terms or
all-exclusive terms we are usually equivocating.
EQUIV'OCATE, v.i. To use words of a doubtful signification; to express one's opinions in terms which admit of different senses; to use ambiguous expressions.
Equivocation is a form of bearing false witness. It is a form of the sin of lying. Nothing could be further from the truth than to say “we
don’t know what we believe” or “everything I’ve ever believed must have been
wrong”. Not if we understand what is
important and what is not.
It seems to me from v. 10, 11 and 3, that there is an
order or hierarchy of importance that we need to observe. Let me explain it for you like this.
1. The most
important thing of all is the gospel. We
have to get law and gospel right.
Unless we get that right, whatever else we may be right about is still
wrong because we have the gospel wrong.
The gospel is what God uses to deliver from sins power – not just the
day we are saved, but every day after that.
2. The next most
important thing after the gospel is sound doctrine. We are not a “creedal” church, but I believe
that the absolute bedrock most-important doctrines are the ones summarized in
the early Christian creeds – The Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian. We don’t have to recite them, but if we are
sound in the faith we believe what they say.
We probably believe them more than most of the people that do recite
them. But all true Christians do believe
those things.
3. The next most
important thing would be those doctrines as developed and presented in the
aggregate of the Reformation era confessions of faith and the catechisms that accompany them. With a few exceptions, the content of those
confessions are agreed upon by all Christians.
4. After that
comes the things that would distinguish us, as Baptists, from all other
Christians – Church government, ordinances.
5. After that, the
things that distinguish us from other Baptists.
By now, we are way out on the edge of what’s important.
Now somebody may say, “Well, I’m learning that everything
I was ever taught was wrong.” Well, then
one of two things is true. Either they
are equivocating, or they have put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. Because simply re-evaluating a few peripheral
points way out on the edge is not rejecting “everything”. Not by a long shot. The most important things are not what
American Evangelicals or Fundamentalists invented in the 19th or 20th
Century.
The most important things are what all Christians in all
times and places have agreed upon. When I began to emphasize those things, that's when people began to complain that I was saying that everything they had ever been taught was wrong. They messed a great deal, or they are liars.
I’m
not telling anybody “everything you’ve been taught is wrong” UNLESS everything they’ve
been taught is the few little inconsequential nit-picky things that no other
Christians ever cared anything about.
And if that’s the case, somebody failed to teach you the right thing,
and spent all their time jangling at you.
I’m not saying that there is no place for things that may
even distinguish us from other Baptists.
By the way, I’m inclined to go with much older Baptists before newer
Baptists or slightly older Baptists. But
given that, I think we need to remember that “every idle word that men speak
they give an account for in the day of judgment (Mt. 22).
