So tonight we will be in 1 Timothy 1, verses 8 through 11. You find our passage on page 991 in the Pew Bible. 1 Timothy 1, verses 8 through 11. Hear the word of the Lord. Now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. Understand 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 sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. This ends the reading of God's holy word. So last year, uh, Andy Stanley, a pastor of a large church in Georgia, uh, came out saying that we need to unhitch our faith from the old Testament because he claims that that's what the apostles did and that we really need to just focus on the resurrection, particularly when we are speaking with non-Christians. And he just was concerned about people getting tripped up and debating over flood narratives and six-day creation. And I said then and maintain today that he's not a heretic, that here we have a Christian pastor who has noble intentions, who's trying to, out of concern for the next generation, is trying to narrow the area of debate when we are defending our faith. But as is so often the case, it's not the intention that we have to question. It's the method. It's how one goes about it. And the problem with his method is that in trying to defend Christianity, this pastor is advocating a way, a means that ends up throwing the Bible itself under the bus. Well, that happened last year and this week. It came up again because there was, I listened to a friendly debate that was hosted by a British radio broadcaster between Andy Stanley and then another with a Reformed Baptist pastor who very much disagrees, named Jeff Durbin, who very much disagrees with Andy Stanley's position. And so they had a very friendly debate and Andy clarified some of his positions, which was helpful. like that he believes the Old Testament is the word of God, inspired by the scriptures, saying, look, it's there. But when it came to the law, he firmly argued that the law has no place in the Christian life. It has totally gone out with the old covenant, which means that we don't need things like the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, that's super basic anyway, but you don't need it. It's not for God's people today. That that's just that's the minimum. But you don't see like you don't need the Ten Commandments on the front of courthouses. You don't need the Ten Commandments for an own personal guide of morality as Christians. We have the commands of Christ, he would argue. Now, you can trust that position. with the position of other denominations or groups such as the Messianic Jews or Seventh-day Adventists who argue that the law to one degree or another is very much in play in the Christian life to the degree that you keep the Old Covenant Sabbath or that you follow the Feast, the Festal Calendar. And this highlights that somewhere in between are the evangelicals, right? Somewhere in between these areas. And so oftentimes we don't know what to do with the law of God. Now, if pastor Stanley is correct, then what we have here in first Timothy is a wonderful opportunity for Paul to set the record straight. men were coming into a majority Gentile church in Ephesus and teaching about the law in ignorance. That's what Paul says. They don't know what they're talking about. They don't know. They don't understand the law or even they don't even understand what they're saying. Right. And so if If Andy Stanley was correct, then we would expect Paul to say to this largely Gentile church, look, stop talking about the law. We don't need it anymore. We've moved on. We, you know, we unhitched our faith to the Old Testament back in the book of Acts or something to that effect. But he doesn't do that. And that is significant. Instead, what he says is that the right use of the law is beneficial for the Christian church. The right use of the law is beneficial for the Christian church. And again, this is a largely Gentile church. So this is not just beneficial for Jewish Christians. This is for the church as a whole. Now we have to admit that it is easy to misuse the law. It is very easy to misuse the law. If you think of parental authority, it is very easy to misuse parental authority, right? How often when I get angry with one of my children, am I mad because they have transgressed a standard of God? Or am I mad because they're bucking up against number one right here, right? Like what's got me really so mad? Is it my pride? Or is it my concern for them and their soul? Right? But it is easy. And so there's a couple of ways that are common misuses that we see in the scriptures. The most common way that Paul says that the Jews were guilty of, the Pharisees were guilty of, was to use the law as a means of righteousness. That is to merit acceptance from God by works through observance of the law. But we are reminded even that when, when old Testament Israel was given the law, they were never given the law so that they might become God's people. They were given the law because they were God's people. They had been made by God. They had been made God's people. They've been delivered by God from slavery in Egypt and made the people of God. And therefore God gave them the law because they belonged to him already. You can include in here kind of the halfway version of that, which is to use the law to gain temporary favor from God. That's when we do the things that we think God wants us to do so that he'll give us something that we want, right? I promise I will go do this if you'll do this for me, right? God, if you'll do this, I will go do this thing over here, right? Is it when people are making deals? Another way that the laws misuse is to exalt ourselves over others. This is when we use the law to condemn others for their sins while we comfort ourselves that as bad as we may be, at least we're not guilty of that transgression. Also using the law in order to gain material advantage over others. And we see this repeatedly in the New Testament where false teachers were going around teaching and taking money from people who didn't know better. They were seeking to advance themselves. And we see that, of course, going today with the charlatans who call themselves apostles going around, ripping people off, saying, if you give me money, God will bless you. But before we move forward, I think we need to dig a little bit more into what this looks like in the church today, because I don't think any of us are in danger of re-adopting the dietary and clothing laws found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, right? I don't think anyone's here is gonna go, I'm giving up shrimp, right? There's like, no, I got a crawfish boil. I ain't going nowhere, all right? The way this happens in church most often is when we create new laws that perhaps were prudent or wise at the beginning, but we make them into a new law that everyone must follow. That we make these new laws and assure that God blesses those who will follow these new evangelical church laws. So oftentimes it begins with something that seems wise in order to keep from sinning. So, you know, we know that the vice president's got a lot of flack for following the Billy Graham rule, right? For saying, look, I will not meet with a woman alone, right? And he got a lot of flack for that. And so, but he, but it says, well, that's wise. You're saying, look, no, that's a wisdom thing. It's saying, look, he doesn't want to give any opportunity for a pretense that even he, he was going to get a whiff of something that might, that he might be doing something wrong, right? But does that mean No Christian businessman can ever meet with a woman alone, ever, or he's in sin. Well, some, and I'm glad to see people shaking their head no. But some would say yes. You know, some would start to, that's when we go, that's when we create that new law. We take that wisdom thing and we make it the new standard. Or another example is so to keep from getting drunk, some resolve never to drink at all. To keep from lusting, some resolve never to watch rated R movies or certain cable TV shows. And again, these are fine personal convictions to have. The problem is when they are given the status of a law that God blesses and approves of all those who don't drink and those who abstain from certain forms of entertainment and God is mad at those who drink even though they don't get drunk or God is angry with those who watch that particular show or that particular movie. And so that we could go after example after example of this where something began as wisdom but then became a new law. You know, I've had to counsel more more than one young person about who they were raised in and they went and they they went and they were raised up and they went to these. I mean, it's just called purity teaching where they're saying, look, we want to help these young people to stay pure, to save themselves for marriage and to do that. And that's good. Here's some wisdom. Here's how, you know, here's how to keep yourself godly and to prepare yourself for your marriage, things like that. But then there's some unintentional things when that stuff got out of control, where I've had to counsel people and say, like I had a guy come to me and say, I'm not sure if I can marry this, my girlfriend, I want to marry her. We're both Christians, but She's not a virgin. And so therefore, you know, she's, you know, this idea of like, she's damaged goods now. And it's like, well, no, that's not how that works. It's not like that's the unpardonable sin all of a sudden. Right. And so there's, there's things where it goes too far. We've create new laws that we have to avoid. And so that's where, that's where the modern church, our, like our church today, can start to create these new laws and things get out of control. But before we proceed further, we need to consider this statement which is going to seem to run opposite of what Paul says here, but it doesn't. The law is good no matter how we use it. Now Paul says the law is good if we use it rightly. And so it's important for us to wrestle with this because someone could read this and believe that Paul is a pragmatist. That whether the law is good is determined by how you use it. So if you use it wrongly, the law is bad. If you use it rightly, it's good. And so, but that would be like saying Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is good based on whether someone enjoyed it or not. Now, if you go talk to 14-year-old Eric who had to read that in ninth grade English class, Eric, what do you think? It was boring. I didn't get it. I didn't like it. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand it. Get this book away from me. Give me my video games, right? But if you asked 24-year-old Eric how he enjoyed it, because Eric was poor and in seminary and classical fiction's cheap at the used bookstore, and he would have told you about how that book brought him into fits of laughter and to tears as he read it. And it's one of my favorite books of all time. I love that book. So my point is that the law is not based on a reader response, the goodness of the law. In Romans 7, Paul says that the commands of the law are good. They are always good. The question is not whether Great Expectations is a good book or a classic work of literature. The question isn't whether the law is actually good in itself. It comes from God. It is scripture and scripture after scripture attests to the goodness of the law. Jesus himself said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. The question is, how does one benefit from the law now that Christ has come and fulfilled it? When Paul says that he says the law is good, if one use it properly, he's talking about good in terms of whether or not you derive a benefit from the law. And so the use of the law that Paul puts forward here is very simple. And it is this. The law functions as a mirror showing us our true sinful selves and driving us to the gospel. The law functions as a mirror showing us our true sinful selves and drives us to the gospel. That is one of the primary functions and uses of the law. And Paul says that when we use the law rightly, it will do two things, two positive results that we will see tonight from using the law rightly. First, result number one, we are able to arrive at a right view of sin when we use the law rightly, because we must realize that the law is for sinners. The law is not for the just. Paul says it is not for those who are following after God with all their heart, mind and strength. The law, Paul says, is for sinners. And he explains this with a bunch of categories of people who are characterized by notorious sins, the lawless and the disobedient. And my list is a little off because I went through and translated it from the Greek. But the lawless and the disobedient, he lists off here, and that would be those whose internal attitude is one of rebellion against God. Then you have the ungodly and sinful or sinners. You can translate it as the ESV does. These are those whose behavior is characterized by arrogant rejection of God. You have the unholy and profane. And which that would refer specifically to behaviors that would be inappropriate for the worship of God, unholy and profane, you know, having a disregard for that, which is holy, using it wrongly. We see this on this list also, those who strike their parents. Literally, the Greek word is mother murderers. There's actually a Greek word for that. Mother murderers and father murderers. And then there's just normal garden variety murderers. After that, then you have the sexually immoral with a specific call out to those who practice homosexuality. Included here also are enslavers. kidnappers or older translations would translate it man stealers. Then you have liars and perjurers, those who seek to deceive and hurt others through their speech. And so one scholar summed up this list by saying this, it's a portrait of godless human activity that stands in opposition to the true love that Paul spoke about earlier. Love that comes from a good conscience, a sincere faith and so on. Now, an interesting feature of this list is that Paul seems to have developed it according to the 10 commandments. It's not as clear, but if you look at the first three pairs of the descriptors there, they connect very well, generally, with the first four commandments, which have to do with submission, showing honor to God, and the proper worship of God, all the way down through, you know, there's one God, worship me how I say, worship, you know, keep the Sabbath, don't take my name in vain, right? Now it becomes very clear that he's progressing through the list of the commandments. Once you hit the fifth commandment, because honor your parents. Yeah. Don't punch your mom or dad. Right. Uh, certainly don't murder them. Uh, don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal man. Stealing is, is it actually an explicit aspect of that command? We, when we studied it back in Exodus and D and do not bear false witness. We talked about lying and perjury. which were two specific applications of lying, especially in economic, when you're making deals in the marketplace, not, not, not lying. And then also not committing perjury in the court when someone is on trial. And so we see what Paul is doing. Then he's taking the 10 commandments and he's applying it to the life of the people at the time, specifically to the life of unbelievers. As Paul says in Romans 7, the commands of God that were meant to bring life actually bring death, but they also, as Paul says in Romans 7, bring about the knowledge of sin. The commands of God and our awareness that we have broken them bring about the awareness that we have sinned against the living God, that we have done what is evil in His sight. And so the law teaches us that we are in violation of God's holy character because we have violated His holy commands. This means that the law is for sinners, but that means, and we just got to embrace it, that means the law is for us. Right? Spoiler alert, y'all sinners, right? So am I. But the law is for the wicked and for the hardened who refuse to repent because the law prosecutes the guilty before God and his justice will come down with fire for eternity upon those who refuse to repent. But secondly, for us who did not know God but know him now, Did we not have to be brought first under a conviction of sin? Did we each of us not have to be brought to the point to go, I've sinned against God. You have to come to that moment. And how did that happen? Was it God coming to you and saying, you're so special and I approve of you no matter what you do. You go, I'm in sin, right? No, it's the realization through God's commands, through his word, that we are sinners under the wrath of God and without hope, save in his sovereign mercy. This is how Paul says he came to the realization that he was in sin. He said, the law convicted me. The law enabled Paul to see himself as one residing in a body of death that only God could save him from. And this is what the law does for each of us. We are confronted with our own sins. Usually at first with the obvious ones, with the ones that we have done, where we have mistreated other people, where we've held hatred and anger in our hearts and so on. But oftentimes it's not till later, even until later on as believers that we realize how we have sinned against God in terms of how we have not loved him with our whole heart, how we have not loved him with our actions. I was just reading in the Psalms this week, and part of the prayer time that I do on Wednesdays here at the church is I I'll read out loud the Psalms for about 10 to 15 minutes. And I came across the psalm that just is a psalm of repentance. And it says, Lord, I was a beast towards you. I was like an unthinking, unfeeling animal, so consumed with just my fleshly appetites. I was like just a thoughtless beast towards you. I was like, man, isn't that, doesn't that get to the heart of it? Doesn't that get to the moments where we just come to ourselves and we go, man, I was like Nebuchadnezzar bowing down, eating grass. I was so fleshly in that moment. Lord, forgive me. The law strips away our self-righteousness. Because whether we're the, we're, whether we're Jewish and we're trying to keep the 600 plus commands, or we are ignorant Gentiles who failed to keep the law that has written upon our very nature. We all come under the conviction of the law that tells us we are in sin and rebellion against God. This is Romans two, right? That's, that's all that is. That is the proper use of the law. Now, Paul is not giving here an extensive or exhaustive course on the different uses of the law. We know that conviction of sin is not the only use of the law, according to Paul, because there's a lot of places we could go here. But just one, just to prove the point, is, well, I'll give you two. In Ephesians 5, sorry, Ephesians 6, Paul cites the fifth commandment not to convict children of believers, but to motivate them to obey their parents. Why? He says, because this is the this is the first commandment that comes with the promise of blessing. Honor your father and mother, that it may be well with you in the land. And it says and it's saying, children, obey your parents. Why? Because there is blessing the Lord wants to give you for obedience to your parents. Well, if the law is only meant to convict only, then why is Paul using it to motivate Gentile children of believers to obey their parents? It's a very confusing situation to get into if the law is just, you know, or if it's only used for conviction of sin. Later on in 1st Timothy, Paul will say that the church should pay the pastor because the law says that you shouldn't muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain. And to which I reply, thank you. Like glad with the pay. Is it should I be insulted or encouraged that the pastors compared to the dumb ox? You know, just just don't muzzle the ox while he's just turning it out alright so. The law does a very necessary thing though. It delivers the unpopular and unwelcome message that to us, that we, not they, but we, I, it's hard to get from the, you gotta get all the way down to the, I am a sinner, a lawbreaker who stands guilty before God and worthy of judgment. This is why we say the law acts as a mirror to show us our true selves. It gets us past the comforting lies that we have told ourselves and forces us to face the truth. I deserve to be cast into hell. But the law is necessary, as Paul says here, because By it, we come to a right understanding of sin, a right understanding of our sin. But secondly, and gloriously, wonderfully, we also come to a right understanding of the gospel. And here we must talk about the gospel, but also what I would call the life giving gospel, because at the end of verse 10, Paul says that the law is laid down for this list of stuff. And then he says, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. Now, that phrase sound doctrine refers to the authoritative apostolic doctrine that was being taught in the New Testament church. But that word sound, it specifically means to be correct and without error. But the second meaning is to be healthy. So you think of someone who is of sound mind or sound body, right? That's how we say it. So it's like they're healthy. Right doctrine is healthy doctrine. Right doctrine is medicine for your soul. Can you abuse medicine? Yes. Do you need medicine? Yes. It's not about being right. It's about spiritual health. Now, unfortunately, in the past, when doctrine was debated or abused in the church, the response of church leaders or church members has been, well, we just got to get this doctrine stuff out of here. It causes so many controversies. Let's just get it out of here. But when we encounter bad doctrine, when we realize that we have believed bad doctrine, we don't need to just empty the void, just embrace a vacuum of space. What we need is good sound doctrine. We need more doctrine, right? Healthy doctrine. Because in practice, people who say, well, I've just, I've gotten away from all that man-made doctrine that everyone's fighting about. I'm like, Oh, so basically you pushed away the stuff you didn't understand, or you didn't like, which I understand why you may have gotten a distaste for it because of the people who are fighting each other, how they were treating each other. But then you just filled it with on oftentimes a man-centered doctrine. You just filled it with new doctrine and sometimes it's even worse doctrine. And so it's like, well, that's not the answer because sound doctrine is what we need. And sound doctrine can only be defined as gospel doctrine. That's how Paul defines it. He says, whatever, whatever is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the gospel in verse 11, but only the gospel can give life and health to us. This is why we need it. Only the gospel can give us help, can renew and save us. Only gospel doctrine can correct us and lead us in the true way. And so because of this, the gospel is the path of glory and blessing. And I thought it was interesting when I was reading this, because remember, he's dealing with the issue of false teachers. And I was thinking about what is it that false teachers always promise their followers? They promise them glory and they promise them blessing. But they always promise them a cheap form of it. A corrupt form of it. They promise that we will become better versions of ourselves. or some kind of fantastical version of ourselves. They promise the favor of God, that God will do wonderful things for us, wonderful things that we want him to do for us. But the glory they promise is only of earth. It is only a passing, you know, a passing shine. It will fade and rust. It comes most often in the form of material gains, whether in the body or in the bank account, which both moth and rust and time will destroy and rob us of. The promises of the false teachers are not concerned with the treasure that is only found in heaven. But the gospel is glorious. in that it is the expression of God's perfections. What is glory? And this is not original to me, but my favorite definition of glory is the glory is the outward radiance of the intrinsic beauty of God's manifold perfections. Glory is the outward radiance of the intrinsic beauty of God's manifold perfections. And to this specific case, I would say as revealed in the gospel. Oftentimes, the Gospels are referred to as a diamond, you know, and when you went to go buy the ring for that special someone, and you looked at it, and they give you the little thing, and you pick it up, and you kind of, and you pretend like you know what you're looking at, and they'll go, well, you're looking for this, this, and this, and I'm like, oh, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, just don't rip me off, please, just don't sell me a piece of glass, I just, I don't know you, you know, I don't know what I'm looking at. And you're looking at it, but you're just you're seeing these different sides. Well, that's how the gospel is, right? Is this many sided jewel that you can look at it as beautiful and just refracting all these the glorious beauties and manifold perfections of God, because the gospel takes sinners separated from God, like the law tells us we are and unites us to God forever to live in glory eternally. And this gospel, which Paul elsewhere calls the mystery of ages, now revealed in Jesus Christ, was planned out by God, carried out by God, is sustained by his promises and his power, is spreading forth across time and person after person, creating for God a kingdom of priests in which he will dwell forever. And so this is the glorious gospel that Paul says, but it's the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Is there any more, you know, you talk to somebody, how you doing? I'm blessed. What does that mean? I got a race, you know, things are going well, you know, is there any more blessed being than God? He's the very definition of blessedness in the Hebrew, especially in the Hebrew mindset, the biblical mindset, the very concept of blessing is for God to look at you and smile. It's the Aaronic benediction. May God lift his countenance upon you, right? May he look upon you and give you peace and grace, because when God looks at you and smiles, life and grace and blessing come upon you. That's the idea. because blessing flows from him. And so and so and so there is no more blessed being in the universe than God. And not only that, but when we talk about the blessings of that that are promised, it says that all the blessings is Ephesians chapter one. One of my favorite verses in the Bible in Christ. We have every blessing that is in the heavenly places. Not every blessing in the earthly places, that in Christ we have every blessing in the heavenly places. When I was working for the coffee companies, you know, it's a big corporation and they and so you did you they would give you a corporate stock options as they called it the Something had to do with coffee beans. I can't remember. But they were doing that. And so, but you had to get vested, right? You had a certain percentage after year after year, you would get more access to this stock that they were giving to you for free. So it was pretty awesome and encourage you to stay on board. Well, you know, it's, that's not how it works. It's not, well, you died, but you were only 20% vested. Sorry. you get 20% of the blessings in heaven. No, it says in Christ. Every blessing in the spiritual in the spiritual places in the heavenly places is yours. We're like, I don't even know what that means. Yeah, that's how good it is. That's how awesome it is. Is that we can't even comprehend what all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places can even. I can't get an inventory list of that. but it's ours in Christ. And so we don't need to get rid of the law, nor do we need to obey the law as if Christ has not come. That's the two positions. Rather, we need to see how Christ has fulfilled the law to consider how the law still convicts us of our sins, how it removes away our excuses and our self-righteousness, and then run to the glorious Son who has redeemed us, because then we will be using the law rightly. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us your law, that it did not disappear, when Christ ascended, but rather that, Lord, you have and you continue to. Minister to your people through the law. That you convict us of sins. That you remind us that we have not yet arrived. That we yet. Need grace today. but that we have a sufficient and glorious Savior who loves us and who has blessed us even now. May that encourage us and move us, Father, to be faithful, to repent, faithful to obey, and faithful to just get up every morning and to do our best to seek after you. O Lord, may you lead us in that way, your heavenly race, May we run. In Christ's name we pray, amen.