Well friends take your Bible and join me in the book of 1st Timothy. Our passage comes from 1st Timothy chapter 1 verses 18 to 20. 1st Timothy chapter 1 verses 18 to 20 and we are coming today to what is really the conclusion of Paul's introduction in this epistle to Timothy, returning to the theme that we took up at the very beginning of this study, this principle that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ must be both faithfully proclaimed and ardently defended. Both are necessary and Paul has given us a lay of the land. We've seen the issues or at least an overview of the issues that are at hand in the church at Ephesus. False teachers have infiltrated the church. They have taken the law and have mishandled and abused it. And they've neglected things that ought to be central to the life and faith of the church, the gospel of Jesus Christ. This good news we saw last week that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, that wonderful gospel story that ought to be preeminent. in everything that we do as a body. Instead, these men have devoted themselves to irreverent, silly myths. Well, having set things forth for Timothy, we are looking at really a call to action. Look with me, if you would, at what the Apostle Paul says under inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 1 Timothy 1, 18 to 20. 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 in 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. Would you pray with me? Gracious Father, we bow our hearts again together today, asking that you would send the Holy Spirit to bless the preaching of the scriptures. Lord, as we prepare to go to the teaching and to the testimony, we pray that you would bless it. Bless the preaching and the hearing of the word. We pray that you would feed and sanctify us by the truth. Your word is truth. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Paul begins by saying, this charge I entrust to you. What charge is he talking about? Well, if you look back at verse three, you can see Paul's point of reference. First, he urges Timothy to remain at Ephesus, that he might, quote, charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. And then again, if you look at verse five, positively speaking, he says the aim of our charge is love. that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. So he states things both positively and negatively. You're to defend and proclaim the apostolic message so that by the working of the Spirit of God within the heart of man, which is evidenced by these things that he's laid out, a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith, the church would come to be characterized by love. And we've seen how that is a summary of the whole duty of man, love for God, a love for neighbor. So the charge has been issued and now it's time to get down to business. We're going to be focusing today on how to discharge that calling, what is going to keep Timothy and the congregation that he serves on the right path and ensure that they not fall prey to the kind of error and falsehood that the false teachers are promulgating in the church. Before we do that, though, there's some encouragement that is in order. Paul offers to Timothy, he exhorts him to do this in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you. And this looks back to Timothy's ordination. where elders in the church would have gathered around him and they would have laid their hands on him. In fact, if you have your Bible open, you can flip over to chapter four of 1 Timothy and verse 11, chapter four, verse 11. Paul makes mention of this episode. He lays out this body of doctrine that the church needs to hear. And then he turns to Timothy and he says this, 1 Timothy 4.11, command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have which was given you by the prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. So Paul commands Timothy to command the church in turn and to teach certain things. He says, speak, read, exhort, teach, and don't neglect the gift you have. So it seems clear that he has in view this gift of teaching that was imparted to Timothy as he was prayed over at his ordination. Teaching is the one dimension of giftedness that an elder must have. He must be apt to teach or able to teach. That's apart from his character qualifications. In the second epistle to Timothy, Paul says, I remind you to fan and to flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. So again, he's saying, don't be fearful. Don't be timid in the proclamation of the word. God has gifted you for the task that you have at hand. We aren't told all of the details of the prophecies previously made about Timothy, what those were, but there seems to be an indication here that Timothy was to find encouragement. As he reflected back, he was reminded, yes, I have been set apart by the Holy Spirit for the work to which I've been called. I've been fitted, I have been equipped for this same work as well. Now, before we get into greater detail at how Timothy is going to remain faithful, I want you to just get a bird's eye view of the three verses we're looking at today. Paul charts out two different courses of action, with each of them going in very divergent directions. First he talks about waging the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. So he says there's a battle to be fought and it's a good battle. There is a fight to fight, and it's a good fight. It's a fight worth fighting. This is to be on the side of the victor. It's to be waging warfare under the banner of the king who goes before us, who has already won the victory for us. The king of kings, the Lord of lords, all things having been put under subjection, under his feet. And then there's this alternative course, which is marked by a rejection of the faith and a repudiation of the king. He says, some have made a shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I've handed over to Satan. So here are two men who serve a different Lord. They do not worship Christ, and they don't share the same destiny that Timothy and Paul and others in the congregation do. So it's as if Paul is saying, as he speaks about this charge that has been entrusted to Timothy, consider the stakes. Think about the stakes here, Timothy. Think about undying souls. and the direction that those under your care are going in. Don't let your eyes glaze over here. Listen to what I'm saying. This is not a time to grow slack or to grow weary. Paul is furnishing Timothy with this motivation to take very seriously this charge and to discharge it and to faithfully steward what he's been entrusted with by saying, look, eternal destinies are at stake here. He's going to talk in a minute about the danger of making spiritual shipwreck out of your faith. Before we get there, though, we want to see what warning signs Paul provides that will help to keep us on the right path, that will keep us on the right course and make sure we reach our final destination. How do we, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, avoid breaking up on the rocks ourselves. To change metaphors, Paul says, Timothy, I want you to think in military terms. And this is for all believers. He says, wage the good warfare. This is not just for pastors or elders. Our task as believers can be conceived of in the same way that a soldier would think of in terms of going out to war. Fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life, to which you have been called, and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." Faithfulness and endurance and perseverance in the Christian life call for a certain amount of discipline. They call for a certain amount of regimen. in your life. You cannot expect just to casually coast on through. You can't saunter your way through the Christian life. This is a battlefield. You would be foolish, Paul says, to think that you will just miss all the flaming darts of the evil one if you're not alert to his wiles. You have to fight. You have to be engaged. in the battle. Stay focused as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You heard our brother read it earlier, 2 Timothy 2.4, no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who has been enlisted. Beloved, we've been enlisted. We've been enlisted by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're following after him. We're not to be entangled in civilian pursuits. You remember the children's song, I'm in the Lord's army. Yes, sir. That's how we're to conceive of things, wage the good warfare. Now, This is not an earthly battle. We walk in the flesh, but we don't wage war according to the flesh. It isn't an earthly battle, but it is a battle. It is a battle. There's a warfare to wage. We don't do it on our own. We do it in absolute dependence on the grace of God. The weapons of our warfare are not of flesh. but have divine power that's coming from God to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, being prepared to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. For Timothy's sake and this particular context, that included the need to be on the lookout for error, not without the church, but within. inside the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. There were strongholds and arguments and lofty opinions, not outside the church, but inside the church. Anything that contradicts the teaching of the scripture and the message of the gospel needs to be torn down. It needs to be destroyed. 1 Timothy chapter 6, Paul says, keep the commandment unstained. That's just another way of putting things. Unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. That has certainly particular application to Timothy's position as a leader in the church opposed to these false teachers. He is to keep the commandment of Jesus Christ unstained, unsullied, undefiled, fight to preserve the purity of the apostolic message. Fighting false teaching. I want you to allow this to be impressed upon your heart. Fighting false teaching is a good fight. It is a good thing to do whatever other men might say, it's an interesting thing that we live in a world today where if you're the one who identifies and calls out and seeks to destroy false teaching, you are the one who is labeled as being divisive and overly dogmatic. You're the bad guy. Well, brothers and sisters, false teaching is what's divisive. False teaching destroys lives. And any leader, any pastor in the church who fails to identify and address false teaching when it's necessary in the church is really guilty of dereliction of duty. Now, to drill down further, how do you wage this good warfare? How do you, as a believer, fight well? Holding faith and a good conscience is Paul's answer to that question. How do I wage the good warfare? I hold faith. and a good conscience. Now this picks up on the same two phrases we saw mentioned earlier in verse five, where he talks about that aim of our charge. This love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Number one, Paul says, one of the ways we wage the good warfare is by holding faith. What does that mean? To put it in simple terms, It means that you cling to Christ in a continual loving trust. You cling to Christ in a continual loving trust. And Paul is now moved on from looking at faith in objective terms, the defense of the faith, the defense of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, to Timothy's personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, waging the good warfare requires not only that Timothy do battle in the sphere of the church, when it comes to his duties within the body of Christ, that's necessary, but it also requires that he take heed to himself, that he watches his life and his doctrine. Well, that pertains to all of us. And this whole idea of holding faith, clinging to Christ, and a continual loving trust makes it clear that salvation is evidenced not just by a one-time decision. It is evidenced by an ongoing relationship of trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, where you hold fast to him from one day to the next, to the next, until your dying day. So you see how there is this, There's this activity that persevering faith enjoins upon the believer. Yes, in the end, it will be all of grace. It will be all of the Lord's doing. It will all redound to his praise. Yes, those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Christ's sheep hear his voice. He knows them and they follow him. He gives them eternal life and no one will ever snatch them out of his hand. The Bible says, I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work and you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus. But it is also true that in the economy of God, we can also say that you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. 2 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse two. The one who endures to the end will be saved. Mark 13, 13. Saving faith is an enduring faith. Saving faith is a persevering faith. It's not just that you once came to see Jesus as the answer to the problem of guilt and sin. It's not just that you understood at one point in time that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that you prayed some kind of prayer at some point in the past, or were baptized, but that you cling to Him in a living relationship of daily trust, where you fellowship with Him. He is your hope. He is your stay. He's the only one your faith is in. And brothers and sisters, let me just emphasize that we're talking about holding faith so that the grounds of your faith and your hope and your trust is in Jesus Christ and not in a past decision. It's not in the strength of your faith. It is not in faith itself, but in the object of your faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners. He is the one in whom we trust to represent us to the Father, to be our advocate, our mediator. Why does Paul lay so much stress on this? Why does he emphasize the need to hold faith? Well, he knows that there are attractions and allurements in the world that tempt the heart that have the power to lead us astray. So he says wage the good warfare holding faith, cling to Christ. Secondly, you wage the good warfare by holding a good conscience. Now, two questions immediately spring to my mind when I hear that. First of all, what does it mean to have a good conscience? What is a good conscience? And then secondly, how do I come by one? And how do I hold onto it once I have it? First, what is a good conscience? At the end of the book of Hebrews, the writer says, pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience. And then he expands on this, what he means by having a clear conscience or a good conscience, and he says, desiring to act honorably in all things. Well, how do we know what acting honorably looks like? We go to the word of God. We go to the scriptures. We seek the Lord and ask the spirit to eliminate the word to our hearts. So a good conscience is one that is alert to the word of God. Its sensibilities and sensitivities are shaped by the scriptures. It is conditioned by the truth, not by the world, not by what we believe to be right, but by objective truth. given by the Spirit so that it commends what is right and it condemns what is wrong. That's in contrast to having a seared or a defiled contrast. In chapter four, Paul warns Timothy, he says, the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. They've devoted themselves to other gods. They don't bow before the God of the Bible, the one true God. They haven't been discipled by truth. They've been discipled by the teaching of demons. by false teaching and by lies. And so what has happened? Well, now their sense of what is good and right and holy has been clouded and confused. They're deceived because they have entertained all of this falsehood and sin in their lives. One of the implications of this passage is that if you don't have a good or a clear conscience right now, today, in some way, you are in danger of making a shipwreck of your faith. Either that or you're not a Christian at all. You've yet to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and become a new creation. As long as the conscience remains in this condition, as long as it remains seared and defiled, it remains dull to the truth. It becomes more and more open to deception and falsehood. So if you are in the position today where your conscience is troubled, praise God for that. If you know that your conscience isn't clear that it isn't good, that is a sign of God's kindness to you, that you are able to recognize that, to identify and to see that, but you have to act on the grace that has been given to you. Don't take comfort, in other words, in the fact that your conscience is troubled. Take your troubled conscience to the Lord. go to Him for cleansing and forgiveness. That brings us to the first aspect of gaining and then holding a good conscience. Really, there are two sides to this. On the one hand, there is what you do when you sin. There is what you do with the sin that is present in your life, how you handle sin once you have fallen into it. We all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man. We know there is only one perfect man. There is only one who gave his life, the very Son of God, to redeem imperfect men. So what does holding a good conscience look like when we stumble? Well, you don't try to clean yourself up. You don't pretend that you haven't stumbled, that you're not all banged up and bruised. You go to the Lord. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. You run to the fount of cleansing where the blood of Jesus Christ washes you clean of all of your sin. So keeping a good conscience does not speak of perfection. It means you keep a short account with God. You're someone who knows what it is to regularly confess your sin to God. Paul said, I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward God and man. Does that mean I do everything I can to be a perfect person? No, it means that when he sinned against the Lord, he confessed his sin. He went to God and said, God, I have sinned against you. I need your washing, I need cleansing and forgiveness. When he sinned against a brother, he went to him and said, when I said this to you, I was wrong. Would you forgive me? So you go to your husband, or your wife, or your parents, or your kids, or a brother or sister in the church, and you repent, and you ask for their forgiveness. You live a life of continual repentance, of continual turning, and consequently, you know what the book of Acts describes as continual times of refreshing that come in the presence of the Lord. But then we go beyond the confession of sin. Maintaining a good conscience also deals with the fight against remaining sin. And there is, again, a fight. You have to do battle. You begin to get serious about putting away remaining sin by the Spirit, taking the way of escape when temptation comes. Put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. Put it to death. Take action. Wage the good warfare. It is not let go and let God. Some have been convinced and indeed some teach that if there is any kind of inner struggle, if there is any kind of battle going on within the heart, I must not be a Christian. I must not really be saved. If I was, there wouldn't be this fight within. That is false teaching. That is in error. The fight for a good conscience is a critical part of waging the good warfare. One old author is helpful here. He calls good conscience faith's necessary handmaid. Faith's necessary handmaid. He makes this observation that the contest we're talking about in this good warfare is in the strictest sense a moral one, and the deprivation of the conscience is a virtual abandonment of the struggle. To put it another way, if you find yourself without any pangs of conscience, if there is no spiritual battle within the inner man, you have every reason to be alarmed. You have succumbed to the wind and the waves and are headed toward those rocks that Paul speaks of. And we turn now to that alternative course and the consequences that come with it. Paul says, by rejecting this, by not waging the good warfare, by not holding faith, not keeping a good conscience, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander. Spiritually speaking, they are all washed up Their faith has been dashed upon the rocks. And Paul says he's now handed them over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. Church, verse 21 is one of the most harrowing yet hopeful verses in the Bible. With God's help, I want to show you what I mean by that. We'll deal with the harrowing aspect of it first. Two men, Hymenaeus and Alexander, are singled out. And Paul says, I have handed them over to Satan. What does he mean there? This is an authoritative, disciplinary act whereby these two men have been formally recognized as no longer belonging to the people of God. They've been a part of the worshiping church, the visible church, but the testimony of their lives has eventually made it clear, insofar as man is able to judge, that the fruit of their lives does not comport with the profession of their lips. Based on what we're able to observe, they're not a part of what we would describe as the invisible church. That body of truly regenerate believers, that body of saints who have a saving relationship with God, who have truly been born again. And you do find that distinction in the scriptures. If you've been part of our men's and women's studies, On Wednesday nights, we've been in 1 John, 1 John 2, verse 19 says, they went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. You see there that language of endurance and perseverance. They would have continued. would have continued with us. Every tree is known by its fruit, whether good or evil, and the fruit of these men's lives have come forth." And so Hymenaeus and Alexander are now marked out by name. If it is the same man, Hymenaeus is named again over in 2 Timothy, where it says that he and Philetus had swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection had already happened. Not the resurrection of Jesus, but the general resurrection, the resurrection from the dead. It says there that their talk was spreading like gangrene. that they were upsetting the faith of some. You see the urgency of dealing with these kinds of situations. In 2 Timothy 4, Alexander the coppersmith is mentioned as someone who did Paul great harm. And again, we can't say for sure that this is the same man as is named in 1 Timothy 1, but the same principle still applies. Paul now recognizes them as being outside the realm of God's blessing and protection grace, they have been excluded from the fellowship of the church. I'll say this as plainly as I can. When the Apostle Paul says, I have handed Alexander and Hymenaeus over to Satan, it is understood that their father, their spiritual father, is the devil and their will is to do his desires. They are not a child of the Heavenly Father. They belong to the spiritual realm of the domain of darkness that belongs to the devil. In 1 Corinthians chapter 5, you're welcome to turn there if you'd like. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 9, Paul deals with a similar situation that's going on in the church at Corinth. He says there in 1 Corinthians 5, 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world. He says, I'm not talking about the world here. We expect the world to live like the world. I'm talking about the church. not at all meaning the sexually immoral of the world or the greedy or the swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one, For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. Are Christians supposed to judge? Yes. Yes, we are. We are to judge with righteous judgment, and we're to judge among our own. Judgment begins at the household of God. We're not to judge with partiality. We're to get the log out of our eye so that we can see clearly in order to help our brother with the speck that is in his eye. But there is this onus of responsibility on each of us to judge with righteous judgment those inside the church. If you're a member of this church, you know that church discipline, what we're talking about here in this passage, is something that we practice as a body out of obedience to the word of God. In the ordinary course of life in the church, we are all disciplined in a formative sense through the scriptures. Every time we gather, I pray that today we are being formatively disciplined by God's Word. Every time we come together, whether that is in a large group or a small group fellowshipping homes, we aim to submit ourselves to the authority of God's Word, looking to be transformed and sanctified by the Spirit's application of the Word to our lives. But then there are times when corrective discipline becomes necessary, when a brother or sister falls into serious or protracted, unrepentant sin. In times like these, the scriptures enjoin us to go to one another and to make appeals, in effect saying, I love you too much to simply turn a blind eye while I see you going down this path of destruction. Hear the word of God. Turn and believe on the Lord Jesus. Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We pledge in our membership covenant to exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require. God help us to be faithful to what we have sworn to. When it comes to church discipline in its corrective sense, we practice it out of love. We practice it out of love for the erring sinner, that they might be awakened to their spiritual plight, that they might be arrested from their sin. And so turn in faith and repentance, look to the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might be restored. It has redemptive aims. They might be restored to the Lord, restored to the fellowship. of the church. It's practiced out as a deterrent from sin for others. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 1 Timothy 5, those who persist in sin rebuke in the presence of all. Why? That the rest might fall in fear. It's practiced out of a desire for the purity of Christ's bride that she might be presented to him in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy without blemish. And it's practiced out of a concern for the witness of the church to a watching world. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. If you're someone who's new to GFC, you may have never seen anything like this practiced in a church before. during the last hundred years or so, there has been a sharp decline in adherence to the Bible's teaching on matters that we're looking at here in this text. One of the reasons for that is what we would describe as modern church growth methods. The desire to grow numerically, whatever the cost, often at the expense of the holiness of Christ's bride. The call for repentance has so cited as easy believism and cheap grace, and even things like the invitation system, beginning with the second great awakening, began to come in and to take root in the church, which really did not emphasize the need to repent of sin. Sinner's prayers were emphasized that generally do not emphasize the need for repentance and transformation. But if you were to look back at church registers from the 19th century and going further back, you would find amidst the records of baptisms and weddings and deaths and additions to the membership of the church also acts of church discipline, excommunication. when the church took steps to remove erring members from everything from grievous unrepentant sin to non-attendance over long periods of time. One book I have in my study, a survey of church record books, I know that sounds exciting, it shows that in pre-Civil War days, Southern Baptists excommunicated nearly 2% of their membership every single year. They simply understood that when necessary, this was part of maintaining a healthy church, one that glorifies the Lord. Well, I said that this verse is harrowing and hopeful. Let's get to the hopeful part. Hymenaeus and Alexander have lost this battle. They have made a shipwreck of their faith But it may still be that by the grace of God they can win the war. The story isn't over yet. The last line has not been written. It is a very serious situation. It is so serious that they have been disfellowshipped from the church. Doesn't make any bones about it. He says he's handed them over to Satan, but then he adds that they may learn not to blaspheme. They have not been relegated to some number of irredeemable outcasts. He does not write them off. There is a redemptive purpose to church discipline. Paul's aim was corrective. It was instructive and it was redemptive. You see the very same kind of language over in 1 Corinthians 5 with that man who had his father's wife, something Paul says was not even tolerated among the Gentiles. And yet listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 4. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. There it is, the hope of redemption in Jesus Christ. Things have gotten so bad, he had to be removed from the church, but he isn't beyond the reach of God's mercy. you might be thinking of someone you once knew who, or maybe still know, who used to be a part of the church, used to be active in the church, used to be part of our circles, or used to worship with you somewhere else. You may remember someone participating in Bible studies, or even being a leader in the church, and now their life is a disaster. They've made a shipwreck of their faith. There's no denying that. But know also that that is not all, she wrote, spiritually speaking. Pray for them. Don't write them off. Share the gospel with them. Don't fellowship with them, as you would a fellow believer. But know that in Christ, there is hope. There is hope for them. I also want you to notice the particular nature of the sin with Hymenaeus and Alexander. What are they guilty of? They're blasphemers. Just like Paul, they had spoke irreverently against the name of Jesus Christ, against the Lord. They brought the name of Christ into disrepute. But look at what Paul's saying here. Blasphemy is not some unforgivable sin. This is not the unpardonable sin. And I say that because there's many, many people, and I'm thinking about sincere believers who are deeply troubled, who are deeply, profoundly afflicted by this idea that they have committed the unpardonable sin. They're disturbed by certain thoughts that fly into their minds or by questions they have of the Lord's dealings with men and it sends them into this spiral of depression and anxiety about their spiritual condition, about whether they are saved or whether they could ever be saved. Think though of what Paul has just recounted by way of his own experience, verse 13. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, insolent opponent, but I received mercy. The grace of our Lord overflowed from me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Paul was a blasphemer and he was forgiven. Paul was a forgiven blasphemer. He used to be standing in Hymenaeus and Alexander's shoes, blaspheming God with every fiber in his being, but the glorious grace of the gospel broke in, cleansed him of his sin, made him a new creation. He was a forgiven blasphemer. I think it's really helpful and instructive to see the way that Paul doesn't hold back his former life as he is dealing with these issues. As he talks about the need even to address those who haven't repented of their blasphemy, he puts his sin on the table as it were saying, it has all been forgiven. by the mercy of Christ, even as he is so bold to call attention. to the sin in their lives. That's a good model. That's a good example for us as we think about the prospect of at times needing to go to brothers and sisters who profess faith in Jesus Christ and have maybe gone astray. Sometimes we might be disinclined from going to someone that we know is living in a way whose life is out of step with their profession, And we think to ourselves, well, who am I to say anything to them? Well, brothers and sisters, if you have come to know what Paul did, if you have come to know the super abounding grace of God, you're the perfect person. to go to them. You're just the kind of person the Lord delights to use. We have a God who is abounding in compassion. Hosea chapter 14 and verse 4, I will heal their backsliding. Or in the ASV, I will heal their apostasy. their treachery, their repudiation, their renunciation of me, I will love them freely. In 1 Corinthians 5 we get to see someone in this position, someone who has been handed over to Satan, received back into the church. Quite possibly, this is the same man that is referenced in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. In the second epistle, Paul says, for such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. If there's one danger in the church of inaction when it comes to matters like these, of refusing to enact discipline when it's necessary in the body, there's also the danger of being so heavy handed that we lose sight of God's redemptive purposes, that we lose sight of God's heart for the lost, the wideness of his mercy. 2 Timothy 2, verse 24, I think captures the balance so well. It says, the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. You see the picture there. You have gentle stalwarts of the faith, kind contenders. God help us to wage the good warfare, to wage it well. Heavenly Father, we come to you and bow our hearts before the greatness of your name today. We praise you, Lord, for your grace and favor toward us, for your mercies, which are new every morning. Thank you, Lord, for the hope that we find in Christ, for the cleansing that his shed blood affords, or that no matter who we are, No matter what we have done, that the cross has provided a way for sinners to draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water. We do ask that you would grant us the grace today to wage the good warfare that we would cling to Christ all of our days. Lord, help us to point others to do the same, that we would be faithful to do this hard work of loving one another well. We pray for the kind of relationships in this body where we can open up and share our temptations and our sin, the sin that clings so closely. Give us relationships, Lord, where we can encourage and be encouraged every day as long as it's called today. We pray that you would glorify your name through the witness of this church. In Jesus' name, amen.