The following message was given at Emanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, Florida. All right, 1 Timothy chapter 1. We'll read the entire chapter and we'll come back and look at individual verses. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. To Timothy, a true son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers. And if there's any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God who was committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason, I obtained mercy that in me, first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some, having rejected, concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck. of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." Okay, well, there is certainly a lot here, and there's no possible way for us to address everything in any sort of detail, but we want to at least get an understanding of where Paul is going here in this letter, and it's If you put it in terms of the letters that Paul has written, we call this a pastoral epistle. Who is Paul writing to in 1 Timothy? Timothy, right, good, I'm starting easy. It'll get a little more difficult as we go along, but I do wanna hear from you. He's writing to Timothy, and Timothy was a pastor, right? A young pastor at the church of Ephesus. Now, we learn early on in the letter, right here toward the beginning, that it seems as though, now it's not maybe explicit, but it seems as though Timothy was tempted to want to leave his post at Ephesus. Right, there's a lot of discouragement going on. There's false teaching that is now in the church. He's having to face some heavy opposition. And obviously one of the things we can see going on here based on what Paul is writing is what we see frequently throughout his letters is that his apostleship and his authority as an apostle is being challenged as well. And so it would seem as though Timothy is, again, he's young, he's new at this, and he's being discouraged, and he needs the encouragement of Paul to stay where he is, to teach the truth, and to confront those who are false teachers and blasphemers. And so this is the context within which Paul writes to Timothy, who he calls his son in the faith, the one that he has taught along the way, the one that he has instructed, the one that he has appointed to the church in Ephesus. And so he has his father in the faith writing to him to encourage him and to exhort him to hold the line and to stay where he is. So what we see in terms of the false teaching early on in the chapter is what we read in, let me pull up my verses here, sorry. He says in verse three, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus. And here's where we get an understanding that perhaps he was wanting to leave. He's telling him to remain at Ephesus so you may charge certain persons not to teach a different doctrine. So here he's telling him you need to charge them. This is actually a military term. It's a command given that must be followed. That it's from a commander. And so charge them because, and what's implied there is that Timothy, as the pastor of the church in Ephesus, has a certain kind of authority to charge these people who have come into the church. And he says, to not teach any different doctrine, verse four, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculation rather than the stewardship from God. That is by faith. And so what could be wrong, for example, with genealogy? Is it wrong that we would go and we would seek to find our family lineage, find out where we're from and who our ancestors were? Is that Paul's point here? Well, we actually get a clue, and we'll obviously look at this down the road, but in chapter four, he deals with this a little bit more. But what Paul is talking about here, he's saying an emphasis on myths. on genealogies, the myths likely would have been some historic religious Jewish folklore, wives tales, and they had a tenuous link with people in the Old Testament. And so the devotion to genealogies would have singled out the Jewish Christians, right? We see this problem over and over again in the New Testament church. That there are always those who are trying to make a division between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. This is what Paul is continually confronting. We've been looking at that in great detail in Paul's letter to the Galatians. But they're looking into their genealogies And they're trying to trace their roots to find out from whom they descended. Now, if you're a Jewish Christian in Ephesus, why might you think you would want to trace your genealogy to find which Old Testament saints you might have come from? What do you think the motive might have been? What's that? Pride, yeah. This is why Paul is going after this, because it's fueled by nothing other than pride. That one could stand up and say, well, I am a descendant of Moses, well. They could all say that, really, but I am a descendant of whoever, someone prominent that they could look to and point to and say, this is who I have come from. And therefore, the implication being, obviously, you should respect me more highly. And so Paul's point is not that genealogy in and of itself is an evil thing or a wrong thing if you're spending time trying to trace your own family roots, but it's the motive behind it, the heart behind it. Why are you doing this? What is your intention with this? And there certainly was to boast. These teachers also introduced a lot of unnecessary rules, regulations, laws. We've seen that again time and time again through the epistles that you have God's law and he says, here are your boundaries, don't cross these boundaries, and then false teachers always come up and they create more boundaries. If you think of the law as sort of being a central thing, He's built a fence, but they're building more fences to keep you away. To say, well, if God says, do not do this, we want to really make sure that you don't even have the opportunity to do that, so we're going to build fences further and further out. Well, Paul is obviously attacking that. What's the assumption there? The assumption is that God's law is not enough in and of itself to to preserve and keep his people in holiness. That man who is a Christian with the power of the Holy Spirit residing within and helping him in his Christian walk doesn't have what he needs in order to obey God's commands and so we need to add to those regulations and continue to push them further away. And that's where you hear all of the silly things that especially the Pharisees were doing to do things like honor the Sabbath or whatever it is that they determine. Well, you get all kinds of crazy rules as you do that. So, Paul is dealing with that as well as particular foods. And as we see in chapter 4, he said that these people were forbidding marriage. They were telling people not to get married. expressly in contradiction to what God himself has commanded, and to require abstinence from foods that God created, this is Paul's words, God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. And so the dietary restrictions as well. So as you read through the pastoral epistles, you start to see patterns emerge that all of the false teaching kind of followed the same line of thinking. And obviously much of it had stemmed from the Jewish understanding of the faith and they were adding this now to their Christian faith. We see also that these are self-appointed teachers. The people who had introduced these ideas had set themselves up, Paul tells us in verse seven, as teachers of the law, although they did not really know what they were talking about, right? They were teachers of a law, but it happened to be their law and not God's law. They thought they were very spiritual. They thought they were knowledgeable. But really, what does Paul mention in verse 6? Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion. They have wandered away from the truth that God had given, and in doing so, they're dividing the church. They're distracting from what they are called to do as the church, and by virtue of doing so, they're distracting Timothy from being able to accomplish what he's been appointed to do. Yes, one of his tasks is to protect the church, but primarily, as the pastor there in Ephesus, we want to see him preaching and teaching and doing the work of the evangelist, but he's now being distracted as well, having to deal with this. Now, Timothy, because of his age, because of his newness to ministry, because there appears to be some temptation in his heart to walk away from Ephesus, he's often been portrayed as some, as sort of this timid, fearful young man. I don't know that that's entirely fair to say of him. He was just like you and I, an ordinary person who, in the face of great controversy and conflict, he didn't like that, obviously. He had all of these ideas being brought in, and at his young age, you can imagine that most of them were probably older than him, probably more prominent in the community. They were gaining a lot of respect from others around him. And so I wouldn't chalk it up as Timothy being a man without courage, but rather one who's being attacked in every direction. And this is one of the main reasons that Paul is writing to him, to encourage him, to stand his ground, to be courageous, and to not waver from what he has been appointed to do. And in all of this, he's really showing him that God is on his side. no matter the opposition he may face, that the Lord is there to help him and to protect him along the way. And so, I think one of the things as we think about that aspect of Timothy's life that we all need to be encouraged by is that in the face of such harsh critique in the face of even persecution, perhaps, that we need the encouragement, but we also need to remember that we can break through all of that with God's help as long as we continue to stand on the truth. As I preached on last week, what can stand against us? What can separate us from the love of Christ? What can separate us from the truth of what God has given? There's nothing. And so, let God be true and every man a liar. And that ought to be the confident assertion of every Christian. That as we look to God's truth, we know it's true no matter what others say, no matter how they seek to stand against us. Now, when false teaching comes into a church, one of the first things that you see to start to go among those who remain faithful is the work of evangelism, which is exactly what's happening here in Ephesus. These people brought all of these false ideas and teachings into the church. They played up the law and they're playing down the good news. And so Paul addresses that here in verses 8 through 11. Look at those verses again. He says, now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, or as the new King James says, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, the sexually immoral men who practice homosexuality, or the sodomites, 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. And so Paul is dealing with this problem. He's confronting them on their own ground. If these men were experts of the law, they would have known how to use the law properly, right? That's an obvious statement that follows what he's saying. And to do so, what would be the proper use of the law? In the church, and especially evangelistically, what is the proper use of the law? I pose that question to you. Yeah, good. Say that again, Rabbi? Yeah, good. To show us our sin nature, our sin condition, our inability to live up to what God has commanded and to drive us to see our need for the gospel. We have no other hope. And this is what Paul is after. He's saying you're creating laws, you're emphasizing the law, but you're using it unlawfully. Right, in this context, and this is why I mention evangelism, this is what you are to do with the law, to present the law, to simply, to reveal to every human heart that you have no way, there's no possibility of you living up to God's standard. Therefore, you need another way. And what is that way? Obviously, now the ground is laid to preach the gospel, to point them to Christ. And so Paul is saying, you're not doing this. You're not pointing them to God's forgiveness. This is offered as good news. Instead, you are talking to them about how to be a righteous person on their own, in accordance with God's law, and not only God's law, in addition to that, your own made-up laws. Paul's saying this is unlawful. And then he goes on to state what, to us as Christians, is the obvious, but He's saying the law is not given for those who are righteous, right? This is a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek here. Paul is sort of mocking them a little bit. They present themselves as teachers of the law. They're wise. They're all-knowing. And all of a sudden, Paul comes and says, well, you guys, you are the ones, right? You are You are the man, right? And if that's the case, then you don't actually need the law. You're already righteous. This is for sinners. This is for the awful people of society who recognize they're murderers, they're blasphemers. He mentions all kinds of things, enslavers, liars, perjurers, homosexuals, the sexually immoral, and on and on and on. And he's pointing out that if you stand guilty of breaking one of these, you've broken God's law. But this is who this is for. You guys, you claim to be righteous, so this isn't for you. This is for those who are the sinners, right? And Jesus made similar statements. And so Paul combines all of this. He says, whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God. And that word sound there, I love this. The word that is sound is translated. It means essentially medicine. It's at least from that area of work in the medical world. So Paul combines it with doctrine to make the point that the truth that God has revealed to him and to the other apostles is there for spiritual health. It's intended to promote spiritual health, right? And so later on, he says that the people who have brought the new teachings into the church have had the opposite effect. They're not promoting spiritual health. They have an unhealthy craving. We see this in chapter six. They have an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, right? We've probably all met a person like that. If you haven't met them, you've certainly seen them on social media. They have an unhealthy craving for conflict. They find something that they, oftentimes don't know anything about, but they're in it for a good old argument for no purpose at all. And this is an unhealthy craving, right? To get people riled up to be contentious. This is the very thing later Paul is actually going to write to Timothy about with regard to the qualifications for elders and deacons. That they're not those who crave contention. They're not those who seek to stir the pot. They're not those who are intentionally out trying to create divisions. And so we see this is obviously a problem in the church that Paul seeks to mention it. here in chapter six and then even amongst the qualifications that we see for officers in the church. And so the difference between what Paul has taught and these new ideas is that at its clearest, when looked at in relation to the good news, in their misuse of the law, these new teachers have put the emphasis on what people could do. Right, you can accomplish this, you can do this. But what has been Paul's message all along? The gospel he's proclaimed and that the Ephesians believed and that Timothy was no doubt preaching. It's not about what you can do, contrary to what JFK said, it's about what Christ has already done for you, right? It's not what you can accomplish because the more you try to accomplish it, Paul teaches us in Romans, the harder you will fall, the more you will fail. And so stop thinking about how am I going to do this by my power and my strength and just sort of white knuckle grasp onto this. Instead, continue to remind yourself of what God has done. And so these false teachers were drawing people away from God's offer of forgiveness while Paul and Timothy were certainly seeking to point people to God's love and forgiveness. Now, Just checking the time here. If we skip down to verses 12 through 17, I'm going to read these again. I'm using a different version from our first read-through just to give us a better understanding. He says, I thank Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful, appointing me to His service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost." Right? So what is, what is Paul doing here? He's obviously contrasting himself and his own testimony with the testimony that's being presented by these false teachers. This is a very well-known passage of Scripture, but this is where Paul is saying, look, I'm not deserving of this at all. These men are presenting themselves as righteous, and I'm telling you, I wasn't righteous in any way. I was a blasphemer. I was a persecutor of the church. I was one who had come against the church at every turn. In fact, we learn in Acts chapter seven, remember this, it says, then they, they're talking about, Luke's writing about Stephen here, they cast him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. That was Paul. What was he doing? Well, he was the overseer of what was going on as they're stoning him to death. And this is the man. Paul is presenting himself. He's saying, you know, not only am I not righteous like these men claim to be, I am the worst of the worst of sinners. Right? I don't have anything to stand upon. And if it were not for the mercy of God, if it were not for the grace of God, if it were not for the Lord Jesus Christ, I would have nothing. Because this is the kind of man that I was. but God came and He rescued me. And this, brothers and sisters, this is the testimony of every Christian when we truly understand who we are, when we understand what we have done, when we understand the magnitude of our sin against God. Now, we've all been blasphemers. We've all been insolent. We've all been, at least in our heart, we've all been murderers. Right, we could go right down both tables of the law and find ourselves in opposition to what God has commanded. And so to think in any way that we could look at God's law and say, by this I will be righteous is a fool's errand. And that's Paul's point, to point to this and say, look, they can claim to be righteous, you can claim that you're going to follow what they're saying, but it's an impossibility. I am a man who will say, even though I'm an apostle, I've been appointed by God to this work, I want to tell you that I know who I am. I know what my heart is, I know what I have done, and there's no way I have anything to stand upon except for Jesus Christ and his faithfulness to save me. And so, as you think of Paul's life, he wasn't a Christian, let alone apostle, right? He didn't have anything prior to Christ saving him to offer him. And he says here, the only thing that I could look to and say in any way that would have justified this, not that any of it could be justified, is that I was ignorant. Right, what did Paul think he was doing when he was persecuting the church? What did he think he was doing? What's that? Yeah, he thought he was doing what God wanted him to do, right? that this new teaching called Christianity was coming in and it was, in their eyes, the Jews saw that it was an opposition to them, to what they understood, to what they believed, and as a result, obviously, thinking to what God had commanded. And so, what's the response of the religious leaders who are all self-righteous and think it's upon them to do this? Of course, it was justified in their minds that we would persecute the church. Why wouldn't we? Right? And that's what Paul was doing. And so he says, I was ignorant, but once I was made aware, I realized just who I really was. And again, Paul makes this point in, in the book of Romans as well. And so again, he's, he's emphasizing this reality that God accepts us, even though we are incapable of earning his favor. Right, this letter that Paul writes to Timothy is not just a letter to a pastor, it's a beautiful letter that reveals to us afresh, once again, the truth of the gospel. The gospel is woven all throughout this letter, and we see it come up time and time again, and some of the most beautiful statements of the gospel are right here in chapter one. And so we see that he tells us in verse 14, What a beautiful picture, right? That his cup is being filled with grace, and not only is it full, it's overflowing. That there's no amount of grace that won't be available to him in his time of need. And this is the truth. This is the gospel to proclaim that God's grace is abundant and is available to all who trust in Christ and it will overflow. You remember when Paul says that he gives us grace upon grace upon grace upon grace and we could just keep saying that all day long and this is the grace that he gives us minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. We have all the grace we need when we are in Christ. Now this gets into where Paul says the first of what we'll see throughout the letter, there are five trustworthy sayings, right? He says this is a trustworthy saying. They're found throughout. Now it's not certain where these sayings come from. Some have concluded that maybe there were catchphrases used in the church to help people remember. Right? It'd be similar to our catechisms when we catechize our children. We want to ask the question and get the answer. So these trustworthy sayings may be something that they memorize so that they could remember and recite the truth of God's Word. Others say they maybe were phrases that Paul used to emphasize certain aspects of his teaching, things he repeated often. If you have a preacher perhaps that you listen to regularly, all of us just by nature have certain things that we say often. You'll sort of pick them out over time and we say them a lot. Maybe that was what was going on there. But whatever it was, there's one thing that is certain, and that is that Paul is drawing Timothy, and by extension to the church, and certainly to us, drawing us to the truth that God has revealed. And that trustworthy saying, verse 15, is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. Again, the testimony of every Christian who really knows their own heart. This is a stark contrast to these false teachers that have come in. And so, even though Paul was ashamed, most certainly he had great regret over what had happened in his previous life, he's able to rejoice that his life was an example to others of God's perfect patience. Right? So often I meet with Christians who, in thinking about their previous life, thinking about the sin that they have committed, thinking about all the ways that they have acted contrary to what God has commanded, they just walk around with a tremendous amount of guilt. Now, shame is not always a bad thing, right? These things can be very shameful. Regret is not always a bad thing, right? Hopefully we all have things, if we see them for what they are, that we regret them. The things we've said or done or thought. But what we can say when we come to the gospel is that although we may have regret, although we may have shame, God's patience with us is perfect and Christ is far greater than any of my sins. Right? We were just on the way here this morning listening to a great song. I love it so much. We hear it probably every Sunday morning. My sins they are many, but his mercy is more. And that is the truth that we need to continue to hold on to. And this is what Paul is emphasizing. My sins, I had so many of them. In so many ways I was in rebellion against God, against His word, against all that He has commanded. I am ashamed of that, I regret that, but in the end His mercy is more. and is far greater, and as again, as I looked at last week in Romans 8, and nothing, not even these things can separate me from the love of Christ. And so, We have this contrast and Paul continues to contrast himself and true believers from these false teachers. Again, they devoted themselves to myths, to endless genealogies, to promote speculations. But who is or what is Paul devoted to? He tells us he's devoted to Christ. He's devoted to the gospel. So you can go and build your family trees and see who you think you descended from so that you can boast and be proud if that's what you want to do. But I'm going to stake my claim on the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. That's Paul's point. He's devoted to Christ. And so he makes this declaration about God's greatness. You see, in verse 17, to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Right? And it makes us all want to sing immortal, invisible, God only wise. A wonderful, wonderful truth. This is a statement of doxology, a statement of praise. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. We see this all through Paul's writings. He gets done stating some glorious, wonderful, magnificent truth, and it's as though he's generally reciting his letters to a person called an amanuensis. It's essentially a secretary. They're writing down what he's telling them. He's dictating these letters. And it's like he's dictating and you kind of think he's maybe pacing back and forth reciting this and he's getting more and more excited about what God has done and how he has been saved. And so he just bursts out in praise. To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, our God only wise. And so this is instructive to us, right? That as we reflect on who we were, and who we now are in Christ, this should be the response of our hearts, that we rejoice in what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, that we live lives of praise, that we delight in all of the ways that God has not only saved us, but protected us and watched over us and provides for us each and every day. He's a faithful, faithful God. Just earlier this week, myself, Pastor Smith, and Pastor Chansky, Mark Chansky, we were riding in a car in New Jersey coming home at night after the pastor's conference, and we stopped to turn into where we were staying, and someone came very, very fast behind us. And right as about we were going to turn, another car, that car coming so fast, swerved around the double yellow line into the left lane where other cars are coming to get around us. And we almost turned into that and they almost plowed into us and there are other cars coming. It was a frightening situation. And we're talking a matter of inches. God spared us. And as soon as we pulled into the driveway, Mark turned off the car and he said, we have to pray. We have to thank God because we would have died, no doubt about it. And it's this sort of thing we look at and say, our whole lives, anytime these kinds of things happen, especially we're reminded of God's faithfulness. We're reminded of his kindness to preserve us, to watch over us, and to even direct the wheel of the car as others are acting in ways contrary to how they ought. And so Paul, lastly here, we're about out of time, he gets into talking about those who have had a good start, but they tend to go astray. We see that example in verses 19 and 20. He says, by rejecting, he's talking about faith and a good conscience, by rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith. among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." Now we really don't know any more about Hymenaeus and Alexander from any of what Paul has written. We don't know the nature of their sin or what they have done in terms of shipwrecking their faith other than that there is some kind of blasphemy going on in their lives. But this is a warning, right? It's a warning to all of us. And this was a warning to Timothy and a warning for Timothy to give to the church, to ensure that you continue to walk in faithfulness with a good conscience. That you can lay your head on the pillow at night and know that you have walked faithfully. And if not, that there is repentance. That we can turn to God in repentance. That we're not continuing to hold on to these things and continuing to walk in these things. Because it will make shipwreck of our faith. That's a powerful image, isn't it? You think of them as these ships on the waters and all of a sudden all of the waves start crashing in and their faith isn't strong enough, right? They're not able to push through it and to continue to stay the course. And so what happens? They get knocked up against the rocks on the shore and eventually they're wrecked and they can't go any further. And so it depicts a people who have made a disaster of their lives. Why? Well, very simply. The world won't have this answer for you, but it's a very simple answer, and we see it all through the scriptures. Why would a person, or how does a person make shipwreck of their lives? They wander, they stray from the truth of God. It's that simple. At the end of the day, we can look at our culture, we can look at everything going on around us and say, there's so much wickedness, there's so much evil, how did it get this way? This is how it got that way. We've wandered from the truth. Right? Individuals, much of the church, as a society, we've wandered from the truth. And the further we wander from the truth, the greater the crash on the rocks. And that's certainly what we're seeing. And so we're not, again, we're not given more details about what these two men have done, but we know their actions were so serious that Paul had no other option but to hand them over to Satan, right? This is, remember, Paul instructs the church with regard to church discipline. Remember, especially when he's talking to the church in Corinth, and he says, there's a man among you. who is committing acts of sexual immorality that are so grievous that not even the pagans would tolerate this. And yet he's still in your midst and you're not doing anything about it. I would have cast him out of the church already and handed him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. So what does that mean? This is what Paul is saying about Hymenaeus and Alexander. It means that if a person's calling himself a Christian, and yet he rejects the truth and embraces a lifestyle that contradicts the truth, he's already put himself under the sphere of influence that Satan has. He's the prince of the power of the air. So if, this is Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18, if after repeated warnings, the man refuses to change, he must be handed over to Satan. That his flesh would be destroyed. And what's the goal of that? We don't want to see the man destroyed. We don't want to see the man condemned forever to hell. Why would you want his flesh destroyed so that he no longer lives by the flesh but lives by the Spirit? And this is the goal. This is always the goal in discipline. We're not trying to be mean. It's not our end goal to be mean. We're not being vindictive. We're not trying to tear someone down. We're trying to tear down the flesh that they would live upon the Spirit. This is always the goal of discipline, is restoration, is faithfulness. And so, Through this all, Paul is encouraging Timothy to be consistent with the truth because so many around you are wandering from the truth. And not only, Timothy, am I exhorting you to stay faithful to the truth, but you are their pastor. And so exhort them to do the same. Instruct them in the word of God. And he's gonna deal with this later in the letter. And so to help him do so, Paul takes him back and reminds him that you're being appointed as the pastor here. This was prophesied. This is something that, this is not, it wasn't a mistake. It didn't just happen. You know, you weren't, you didn't just become a Christian one day. And the next day we said, well, you've been a Christian one day longer than the others. So now you're their pastor, right? This was prophesied. This was a word from the Lord that Timothy would be the pastor here. And so real quick, just to finish out, we're out of time. There are two weapons that God gives us, and we can see them here in the text, that we can continue to walk faithfully, and this is exactly what he was giving to Timothy. Again, the first is faith. which in this context describes the truth that God has revealed. Now further on in the letter, Paul is going to tell Timothy to watch his life and doctrine closely. Walk by faith, that the things you do in your life and the things that you believe and teach are consistent with what God has commanded. And the second thing, again, that he brought up in verse five is a good conscience. In other words, a sensitivity that gives people the ability to discern the difference between right and wrong, that they are walking in the truth, that they are able to say with a good conscience that I have done what God has given me to be able to do to walk in faithfulness, to seek to maintain a life of holiness. And so these two weapons are the ones that Paul puts in Timothy's hands so that he can continue to walk faithfully and to encourage others to do the same. All right, we are over time. So let me pray and we'll break. Lord, thank you so much for your convicting, encouraging, and strengthening words here in 1 Timothy chapter one. We're so thankful for your kindness to us. And as we think about what Paul has said, Lord, most certainly all of us can think about our own lives and all the ways that we have sinned, all of the ways that we have rejected your truth in our own lives. prior to becoming Christians, and even in our own cowardice at times, in our own fleshly desires, in our own ways of walking after the world. Lord, we can look at those, and we can, with Paul, say, and as I consider my own life, that I see that I am the chief of sinners. And yet as we look at our own lives and what you have done, we can say, although our sins are many, your mercy is more. And so this is truly a trustworthy saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And Lord, we are sinners, and you have saved your people. And so this morning, as we worship together, we rejoice in our great salvation. And we pray, oh Lord, that you would meet with us, that you would draw near to us, that you would strengthen us as your people, and that the joy of our salvation might yet again be restored. And we pray all of this in the powerful and precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. We hope you were edified by this message. For additional sermons, as well as information on giving to the ministry of Emmanuel Baptist Church, and on our current building project, you can visit us online at ebcfl.org. That's ebcfl.org.