Our text this morning will be in 1 Timothy chapter 4. We've spent the last four weeks on one verse, so you're probably ready for us to move on at this point, right? We had our Advent focus there in 1 Timothy 3 verse 16, the person of Christ, the person and work of Christ, in those six lines of that song. And now we're going to look into chapter 4 here of Paul's letter to his young apprentice Timothy. We've talked in terms of house rules. This type of terminology has come up repeatedly where Paul talks about not wanting the church to get distracted from the stewardship that they have been given. And that idea is the household responsibilities. Within any family we have responsibilities, right, that we have to carry out. That's part of being a member of a family. And Paul says, I don't want you to get distracted into doing a lot of different things and miss the things that the Father has given you to do, that he expects of you, our household responsibilities. And then a little bit later on, he talks there in the end of chapter 3 about, you know, he wants to come see them, he wants to give them these instructions in person, it could be more effective, but in the meantime, he wants them to know how they should behave in the household of God. And so this family terminology comes up again and again. Paul calls Timothy his true child in the faith, right? So all of this has led us to adopt this little theme of house rules, thinking about how we live within the family of God, how we live as the children of God. It's a very important thing for us to consider. Well, we are currently in a season of celebration. We have additional time off to enjoy family and leisure activities. We enjoy special foods, some of you a little bit too much over the course of these days. We enjoy doing special things, things that maybe we don't often have the time to do. Maybe it's a puzzle. Maybe it's board games. Maybe it's going and watching a special Christmas movie or reading a book that you've been wanting to read. We have a little bit more discretionary time over the holidays and these kinds of celebrations. And so it provides an opportunity for us to talk about the topic of Christian liberty. This is what Paul is going to talk about in these verses. He's going to talk about the use of God's good gifts. You know, we've been given so much. The Bible has a lot to say about our freedom in Christ. We are to live as free people. And here in these verses, the opening verses of chapter 4, Paul talks about this notion of Christian liberty and our freedom in Christ. and how we are to exercise that freedom. So if we think about it in the context of a time of celebration, how do we use that free time that we have? How do we allocate that time, right? That's just a microcosm of life. God has given us so much, and he's freed us from sin and the slavery to sin, and how do we use that time? How do we use those gifts? It seems that most of us respond to our spiritual freedom in one of two ways. Some are very serious, scrupulous, duty-oriented, to the extent that they fail to enjoy God's blessings. It's one extreme. There's always more to be done. Very little time to stop and enjoy God's good gifts. And when they do, they feel guilty about it. So that's one whole perhaps side of the continuum. Someone who doesn't really appreciate all of the good things that God has given to us. Others are carefree. Selfishly pursue every conceivable pleasure. So there are Marthas and there are Marys. Right? You remember the account? Jesus interacting with Martha and Mary? Martha was busy preparing the food. There was a lot of people there. There was much to be done. And Mary's off, sitting at the feet of Jesus, just enjoying being with Him, just hearing Him teach. And Martha just could not free herself from her responsibilities to kind of enjoy the moment. And so there are Marthas and there are Marys. Each of us has a tendency towards one of these two extremes. I'll let you do some self-assessment this morning to figure out where you fall. If you need some help, I can tell you where you fall. Our text this morning, again, gives us a biblical view of Christian liberty and some helpful correctives if we find ourselves towards one of these extremes. So, 1 Timothy chapter 4, Verse 1, hear the word of the Lord. Now 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, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer." May God add his blessing to the reading of his word. So the first observation I want to make here about Christian liberty is this. Number one, we are free to enjoy all that God created for us to enjoy. We are free to enjoy all that God created for us to enjoy. This is a word for the Marthas who are always working their way through life, never stopping to smell the proverbial roses. There was a particular teaching that had taken root in Ephesus. Some had forbid marriage and required people to abstain from certain foods. We're not exactly sure who these people are or the nuances of their particular philosophy that they were espousing. It was likely a form of Gnosticism which arose in the first century. Gnosticism created a distinction, held a dualism between the physical world and the spiritual world. The physical was bad and the spiritual was good. And so things like marriage, and sex. These things are earthy, they're physical, they're bad. Food is bad. You attain some measure of spiritual progress by getting rid of these earthy things. and focusing on the spiritual things. These earthy things sort of weigh you down, and the more you can shed those things, the more you will be able to really go places spiritually. So this is the gist of what they were teaching. And of course the Scriptures teach something very different. They teach that all of God's creation is good. Remarkable, even as Craig pointed out this morning, even in a fallen world where everything has been tainted by sin, God's creation is still inherently good and valuable. It's distorted for sure, but it is good. That is the teaching of Scripture and runs counter to the teachings of these individuals here in Ephesus. Well, how did these people get to this point? What led them down this path? How did they arrive at such a whacked-out conclusion that all of these things, marriage and certain foods, should be rejected? How did they get there? The text gives us a little bit of background to understand what led them to this point. They, first of all, departed from the faith. The Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith. Paul had just unpacked the gospel in chapter 3 verse 16, right? We just spent four weeks on it, okay? Paul had said that the church was the pillar and the foundation of the truth. What truth? the truth of the gospel, the truth about Jesus Christ, and he goes on to talk about it. He gives this great, beautiful, six-line song about the person and work of Christ. This was the truth. This was their faith. This was their foundation. And these individuals had departed from the faith. It's a word that means to actively put aside or to reject. They turned aside or rejected the work of Christ. The text also says that they were deceived, devoted themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. They came to think something that wasn't true. They had come to think that there was another path of salvation, that there was a better way in which they could attain spiritual ascendancy. They thought they were better than they were. The text also says that they had developed a seared conscience. They lost sight of their own depravity. They lost sight of how bad they were, how sinful they were. Their sin didn't seem so bad anymore. They came to think that they could actually achieve something of some value in their own efforts. And this led them to create some extra biblical requirements for salvation. This caused them to say, okay, these are the things you have to do to be saved. They lost sight of the fact that they couldn't do anything about their own sin. They were completely hopeless before God, completely lost under the judgment of God. And they began to develop some extra steps that people could undertake to secure their salvation. And by the way, we shouldn't be surprised at this. Notice how the text starts, now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith. By the way, we live in what Paul's calling these later times. Times since the advent of Christ, since the coming of Christ, and before His second coming. There will always be people who will move away from a humble reliance upon the gospel to some form of human effort and achievement. We have a natural propensity towards pride and self-sufficiency. We don't like to be given things. We want to earn them. And so there will always be people who will step away from God's humble grace and seek to go our own way. We see something of this progression in other of Paul's letters as well. I put in your notes this morning Colossians chapter 2 verse 20. Here we read that if with Christ you die to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So people sometimes gravitate towards things that that make them have a sense of participating in their salvation. They've deprived themselves of certain things, and they want to think that in some way they are earning some standing with God, that they are somehow deserving of what God gives them. So these things have an appearance of spirituality, but they don't address the heart issue. They don't address our sinful propensities and desires, the depravity of our hearts, No amount of human effort can ever make us acceptable before God. Only the work of Christ, accomplished on our behalf, His righteousness, imputed to us, is what is required for us to be saved. A proper understanding of the Gospel frees us from the futility of human striving. There's a bondage that comes with trying to perform, trying to achieve. And Paul wants to free them from that. And wants them to trust fully and completely in the finished work of Christ. Notice how he says this here. Verse 3, those who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. So it's those who've come to grasp the gospel and the sufficiency of Christ's work and the salvation that's been offered to us freely, it's those people that are able to then fully enjoy God's good gifts, what God has created. Otherwise, we're in the gerbil wheel, trying to do something ourselves. Paul wants these believers to enjoy all the good things that God had created for them. Now, you don't have to participate in everything that God created. You might choose not to pursue marriage. You might not like Brussels sprouts. You might have allergies to certain foods. You might choose not to eat meat. But the point is that we do not have to do anything additional to be saved. That is the heart of the gospel. That is true freedom. If we add any additional requirements for salvation, we depart from the truth. We depart from the gospel. You notice how serious this is? Any additional requirements, even some requirement about food, if that becomes a requirement for salvation, if that's what we're looking to, then we have abandoned the gospel. This is serious business to Paul. We are saved by grace and grace alone. I remember a few years ago, a family from church gave us a very generous gift card to a local restaurant. Sherry and I went out to eat, had a nice meal. I gave the waitress our gift card and she returned with the receipt and I noticed that there was no place to leave a notation for a tip. So I asked her about it and she said, well actually the gift card can't be used for the tip. and I'm, you know, I spent a few minutes trying to talk some sense into her, you know, that the tip is part of the meal, you know, it's part of the cost of the meal. She says, well, I understand that, and you know, but it's just, it's the gift card policy, it's the way it's set up, it can't, I can't apply a tip. So the manager comes out, we talk to the manager, and meanwhile this very pleasant meal is turning into a very stressful situation. I had no cash, you know, and I like to maintain a pretty good reputation in the community, you know, I mean, So I say, okay, well, I'll tell you what. Why don't you just ring me up for a tip? You know? Just take my card and go and she says, well, sir, I can't do that. You have to buy something. We can't just ring up a tip. You'd have to buy something, you know? So I did. I bought a dessert that I didn't need and put a very generous tip for that dessert. When God gives a gift card, it covers everything. Okay? No additional requirements. Is it possible that you might be here today trying to pay for something that is already paid for? Is there any sense in which you are seeking to contribute to your own salvation? We're again a bit squeamish about just receiving gifts. When we haven't been prepared to give something in return, you've been in those situations, I didn't know we were getting gifts here, I feel really small. That's hard, it's humbling. But that's the way it is with the Gospel. You've got nothing to bring. It's already been paid for. It's a free gift that's been offered to you. where you humbly receive God's gift, not only the gift of salvation, but His many good gifts, the things that He has created for you and I to enjoy. Those who are overly conscientious need to be reminded that it's not about your effort but about God's grace. Think of the nation of Israel and how God established. You count up the feast days that God established for the nation of Israel, and then you factor in the weekly Sabbaths, the days of rest. God was intentional about wanting His people to celebrate, and they fought against it. They were constantly trying to work, to earn more, to sustain themselves over the course of the Sabbaths and these feast days, and God kept... part of His judgment against them was that they refused to celebrate. They refused to stop and simply trust Him. They forgot to realize, refused to realize, part of the Sabbath principle, they forgot to refuse to realize that God was the Creator and they were creatures. God was the one who would hold the universe together. Amazingly, even when they weren't doing their part. Right? That's what the Sabbath was meant to reinforce. God is the one who has done these things. and He wants us to rest in them. So all you Martha's out there, you need to remember that we are free to enjoy all that God created for us to enjoy. There's a second principle about Christian liberty and that is that we are free to honor God and live as we were created to live. We are free to honor God and live as we were created to live. This is a word for the Marys out there who are always enjoying life. A major problem in first century Ephesus was asceticism, the rejection of God's creation and the physical world. Sort of rejecting pleasure, that's what asceticism is, just rejecting pleasure, rejecting anything that might be enjoyable and just enduring hardship. That was kind of a growing philosophy in the first century. The clear emphasis of this passage here is, again, on our freedom to enjoy what God has created. I'm struck with the fact that the emphasis in our day is very different. There's not a great push for personal holiness. There's not an emphasis on spiritual disciplines. There's not an exhortation towards faithfulness in service to Christ. Our culture encourages us to do whatever we want to do, to live for ourselves, to deny ourselves no pleasure. And this way of thinking has infiltrated the church. We've come to define spiritual freedom as the ability to do whatever we want to do. When challenged with personal lifestyle, I've heard people respond, we live under grace. None of those verses mean anything to me because I am under the blood of Christ, I've received His grace, I'm free to do whatever I want to do. Talking with an area pastor. working with students, particularly college-age students, and they identified several pitfall areas, several challenge areas. One of the biggest areas they identified for college students, and I think this is broader than college students, I think we can apply this to just our emerging generations here, our younger generations, overindulgence. One of the things that they identified could be sleep, could be video games, could be food, could be alcohol, could be movies. We are on a different end of the continuum here where oftentimes we are just given over to what we want to do. That's what Christian liberty means for many in our time. And the text again has a corrective for those who embrace that kind of a worldview. The text does not say that you are free to do whatever you want to do. It does not say that you are free to use what God has created in any way that you please. It does not say that you are free to pursue your own pleasure at all costs. The text qualifies how we are to receive God's good gifts. How we are to exercise our freedom. We could make some additional clarifying statements here that God's good creation should be received with a Godward orientation. Should be received with a Godward orientation. Specifically, it should be received with... Anybody see it in the text? It's there twice. Thanksgiving. These things are intended to be received with Thanksgiving. I ought to be mindful of the fact that these things have come from God. I haven't earned them. I don't own them somehow independently of God. They have come as gifts from God to use in His service. We offer a simple prayer when we prepare to enjoy a good meal, and we thank God for providing that meal. And it might become a little bit rote at times, but significant nonetheless, that we pause before we just dive in for the food, and we pause and we remember that God has provided this food. My father-in-law will often pray that you'd strengthen us for your service with this food. That's a good prayer. I understand this food has come to me from God for a specific purpose. And we can see different passages where our freedom is talked about in this way. Galatians 5, for you are called the freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. So God hasn't freed you from slavery to sin so that you can just do whatever you want to do. He's freed you so that you can through love serve one another." 1 Peter 2, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. So God's good creation should be received with a Godward orientation. God's good creation should be used also in a proper way. There's a little phrase here at the end that has occupied a lot of ink for commentators. It says that these things are to be received with thanksgiving, verse 5, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Word of God and prayer are great safeguards to prevent us from abusing God's good gifts, from abusing our freedoms. God's Word teaches us the rightful purpose of His creation, and prayer causes us to reflect on how we might use these gifts in a proper way. So these things are safeguards, they guide us. All of God's good gift, everything that He's created is good, and by the Word of God and prayer we're able to use these things well. God created marriage, and the opportunity for sexual intimacy between a man and a woman. Premarital sex, extramarital sex, homosexual sex, pornography are all distortions of God's creation. God created food for our enjoyment and nourishment, but when I binge eat or drink alcohol in excess, I twist God's creation and use it for purposes other than that for which it was intended. Proverbs talk a lot about strong drink. It says in Proverbs 31, there's a place for strong drink. It should be given to those who are dying. Right? In an age where there's no pain medications, God in his good grace has given us strong intoxicants that can be derived from the the grapes, and there's purpose for this. Now a little bit later on we see Isaiah the prophet talking woefully about the person who gets up early in the morning looking for strong drink. You know, we've got a problem here, right? We've got something good that God has given, that's being used in a wrong way, that's become an obsession, it's become a form of self-destructive behavior, it's become a form of bondage for a person who is addicted to it. So the Word of God and prayer help us to discern the proper use, the healthy use, the truly free use of God's good gifts. Satan seeks to distort God's pleasures. C.S. Lewis, one of the classic portions of his book, The Screwtape Letters, he addresses this. And if you know anything about The Screwtape Letters, it reads a little funny. It reads from the perspective of an older demon who is coaching a younger demon on how to tempt a Christian. So it's the enemy camp and they're discussing, how can we get these Christians to sin? How can we trip them up? And in one section he records this conversation between the demons and he addresses this issue of pleasure. He says, never forget, one demon to the other, never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are in a sense on the enemy's ground. We're on God's ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is his invention. It is God's invention, not ours. He made the pleasures. All our research so far has not enabled us to produce one pleasure. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our enemy has produced at times or in ways or in degrees which he has forbidden. All we can do is get people to twist God's pleasures and use them for selfish purpose. Scripture gives us clear guidelines regarding what He has created. You can look at 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Corinthians 11, Romans 14, I've included there in your notes as well. Paul writes, do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean. Nothing wrong with the food. You're able to partake of it. But it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. So I have to think about the impact of what I eat or what I do or how I exercise my freedoms. The impact of that on others. That's one of the ways in which the Word of God guides my freedoms. The welfare system. is a complex issue. If I asked for your political opinions, we'd be here all day, right? We recognize that certainly there are many who are disabled and unable to work or provide for themselves, recognize that there are deadbeat dads who leave women with their children and do not commit to supporting them and that there are genuine and legitimate needs in the world. But we have a sense that the system is broken, do we not? We are rightfully disgusted when people manipulate their food stamps to buy non-essential items like beer and cigarettes and lottery tickets. According to the Office of Management and Budget, there was an estimated $59 billion paid in fraudulent welfare claims in 2014. I won't bore you with statistics, we know the system's broken. I would suggest to you that we should be equally disgusted at ourselves when we use God's freedoms for selfish purposes. When we take something that God has intended to be used for, for our good and for the good of others, and we hoard it. we abuse it in some way. We use it to an extreme that God never intended. So those Marys who are given to overindulgence need to be reminded that true freedom is exercised for the glory of God and the good of others. Martin Luther wrestled with this tension, right? This exhortation to the Marthas and to the Marys, the word to those who never enjoy God's good gifts and the word to those who enjoy God's gifts to their own detriment. And Luther said, a Christian man is the most free Lord of all and subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone. that we've been made free, but we've been made free to serve others. May God help us as we seek to exercise our Christian liberty in ways that are truly free.