Well, we're in 1 Timothy today, and this morning, we are beginning a study through a group of writings called the Pastoral Epistles. 1 and 2 Timothy, along with Titus, were written to two of Paul's beloved sons in the faith. They were both pastors. Timothy was in charge. there of the church at Ephesus and Titus pastored those on the island of Crete. The pastoral epistles that we're looking at now, they were the last of Paul's letters to be written, his last letters that he wrote to the various churches he wrote to these two pastors. And they provide the details in the last years of Paul's life following his release from that Roman prison. We learn about that in the book of Acts. These letters are valuable to us because they provide instruction for church life. Matter of fact, at the first of those epistles, we're in it, 1 Timothy. If you look in chapter 3, we'll start at the very beginning. But if you look in chapter 3, they're just across the page and verse 14 and 15, Paul says this. these things write I unto thee, that thou mayest," he goes on in 15, "...that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." So here what Paul is doing is he's writing here on church life that you might know how to behave yourself in the house of God, which is his church, the pillar and ground of the truth. I want to mention that with only the exception of a fellow named Marcion, an obvious heretic in the second century there in the early church, with only the exception of him, the authorship of Paul for each of these epistles that we're going to be looking at has not been questioned since the early church. But in the 18th century, relatively not a terribly long time ago, with the rise of higher criticism, modern critical scholars today, they deny Paul as the author. Despite his claims, in the very first verse of each of these books, where the books begin, I, Paul, so he's claiming himself to be the author, But they deny that. They argue that there was a pseudonymous author, a forger, a pious forger who came along and is the one who really authored these letters. But the early church never did approve pious forgeries. And forging personal letters like this was not even a common practice during the early church and there's so many things that could go on but I just want to make you aware I don't want to take a lot of time with it because overwhelmingly the church would argue and has since the early church that the Apostle Paul is the one who wrote these letters but there is stuff out there that you're gonna find from people that tell you he really didn't write them these were forgeries from someone else but that's not the case The first of these letters, of course, is 1 Timothy. That's where we're beginning. Let me give us just a little information about Timothy. You know Timothy was Paul's disciple. His son in the faith. He was a co-worker. He was a friend of the Apostle Paul. Timothy's mother and his grandmother were no doubt devout Jews before they became devoted followers of Jesus Christ. You can see that in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 15. Timothy's dad was a Greek man. He was an unbeliever. And Timothy was likely converted in the hometown of Lystra, that's his hometown, through the ministry of Paul and Barnabas on Paul's first missionary journey. I had asked Tim if he would read that passage this morning when you saw there that a lot of people were coming to faith in Christ as a result of what was taking place there and Timothy very likely could have been one of those new converts there. He grew in the Lord and his local church leaders there recommended him to Paul and Paul added him as a useful worker. And so Timothy joined Paul on his missionary journey. He was with Paul in Corinth He was sent by Paul into Macedonia and he accompanied Paul on his return trip to Jerusalem. He was with Paul when Paul wrote the book of Romans, when he wrote 2 Corinthians, when he wrote Philippians and Colossians and the Thessalonian epistles and Philemon. Timothy was a constant companion of the Apostle Paul and after about 15 years, of ministry together with Paul and Timothy. Paul now writes Timothy in this first letter. Around 62, 63 AD is when this letter was written. And with the book being all about church life, the best outline that I find, just a really succinct outline, as you will often find very good, succinct thoughts from Warren Wiersbe, You're familiar with that name, I know many of you. Here's the way he outlined the book. The church and its message was chapter 1. The church and its members was chapters 2 and 3. The church and its minister was chapter 4. And the church and its ministry was the last two chapters, chapters 5 and 6. So he's kind of summarizing everything. related to church life and its message, its members, its minister, and its ministry. So chapter one is dealing with the message of the church. The message of the church has to do with its words. You and I are constantly bombarded with messages, personal messages. It may be an email. It may be a voicemail. It may be a text message, an iMessage, a Facebook message. It may be a letter that someone has written. But what all of those things have in common is that they are communicating words. They are sharing a message. And so let me ask you this morning, what should be the message of the church? This is what chapter one deals with. What should be the message of the church? When Paul answers that question in chapter 1, he answers it with a three-pronged approach. And we're only going to look at the first of those. And so the title of today's message is, The Church and Its Message Teaching Sound Doctrine. That's the first of those three prongs that Paul deals with when he talks about the message of the church. I think you'll see that. we go along. We're going to read just the first 11 verses today and we'll begin in verse 1. Paul writes this, Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ which is our hope. So Paul's talking about who he is, he's a messenger sent from God, he's an apostle And he's writing and he's talking through the commandment of God and Jesus Christ. And then he reminds us that's where our hope is, is in Jesus Christ. Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. As I have sought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith. So do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart. and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless, and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men stealers, for liars, for perjured persons. And if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. We're going to stop our reading right there. So following Paul's release from prison, he revisited some of the key churches there that he had served and one of those was Ephesus. Then he left to go into Macedonia and he left Timothy behind in Ephesus to deal with some of the challenges that the church was facing. And so then he begins with the message of the church and specifically its doctrine. How does a church teach sound doctrine? That's what this passage, these first 11 verses are dealing with. And we're going to look at three aspects and all of them are critical as we as a church and any Bible believing church is going to preach and teach sound doctrine. That's what we're looking at this morning, these three aspects. Now let's pray and ask the Lord to help us as we look at it. Father, would you give us understanding this morning? Our hearts have been so encouraged when we think about the salvation that we enjoy in Christ and the ultimate end of that. And so thank you so much for so many people who put so much into the ministry here And we are able to benefit from it and how it encourages and aids our worship to you. And so we thank you for that. And now as we look into your word, God, we need your help. We need your spirit to guide us today. We are not sufficient for what is in front of us, none of us. And so we need your spirit helping, guiding, enlightening us. Affirming truth in our own hearts. So make that so, Lord, we pray. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. The first way that a church teaches sound doctrine is this, by permitting nothing but the word of God. Permitting nothing but the word of God. In John 8 and verse 44, Jesus tells us that our archenemy, the devil, is a liar. You know that verse, ye are of your father the devil. He was a liar from the beginning. Jesus is telling those people there. And one of the most pernicious ways the devil deceives us is through doctrine, through distorting doctrine. He takes a seed of truth and he turns it into something that is false. And the church has had to fight this urge. for centuries. And I just want to remind us of that. We can go all the way back to the very beginning. And here's what Jesus said in that famous Sermon on the Mount. He warned of the danger of false teachers. When he's getting toward the end there in chapter 7 of Matthew verse 15. Remember this? Jesus says, Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly They are ravening wolves. And one of his most prominent sermons, he's reminding the people of that. And then in his earthly life, at one of his very last sermons, actually his last major sermon that we have recorded, the Olivet Discourse, he warned again of false teachers. In Matthew chapter 24, verse 11 and then verse 24, And I have them on the screen for you. And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. So he's warning, be careful. False prophets with their false teaching are coming along and they're going to be very powerful. Paul, the Apostle Paul, a little while later in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 13, he warns the church here, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into an angel of light. He's talking about how deceitful they are. They look like they're angels of light. They look like they're good guys, but they're not. Beware of those people, Paul is telling the church there. And then the apostle Peter, a few years later, is warning them in 2 Peter, Chapter two and verse one. But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false prophets among you who privily. Shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. So we've heard from Jesus, we've heard from Paul, we've heard from Peter, and now the Apostle John warns of the very same thing in 1 John chapter 4 and verse 1. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Now think about that. We have begun with the ministry of Jesus in the A.D. 30s in the first century. And now we've gone the Apostle John takes us all the way to the end of the first century. He's writing around A.D. 90 and all of them. Jesus on one end and John on the other and the apostles in between. They're all warning. All the prominent ones that have written in the Bible, Peter and Paul and John, they're all warning of this very same thing. And Paul actually warned at the church here in Ephesus. In Acts chapter 20. Verses 29 and 30, For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. So you can see this is not a small thing. This is not some incidental thing. that happens way out there remotely somewhere. All of these folks have been warning the church, be careful about false teaching. And the way you and I teach sound doctrine is to make sure that we allow nothing but the Word of God in the ministry. And in verse three, as you see, Paul is pleading with Timothy to stay behind in Ephesus and he commands that they teach no other doctrine. He's commanding them not to teach, and you may have a translation that says this, don't teach strange doctrine. That's what that is talking about. The Greek word, if I could just be a little bit technical with you, the Greek word It's hetero-didasculine. It's a compound word. And you recognize at least the first part of that word, hetero, heteros, meaning of a different kind. We think of a heterosexual relationship. It's a relationship of two people of a different kind. There's a man and there's a woman in that relationship. It's a heterosexual relationship. That's the first part of this word. Didoscalane is the word here. It's an infinitive and it means to teach. And so this is what he's saying. Don't teach doctrine of a different kind. It must conform to what has been revealed, the revealed apostolic doctrine. And then in verse four, he goes on to describe the various forms of that false teaching. And just to tell you, we don't know exactly what is meant when he says myths or fables, they're myths, or endless genealogies. Didn't you see that? Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies. We don't really know exactly what those are, but some have speculated that it had to do with legendary interpretations of Old Testament. The Old Testament as it related to the patriarchs, the pedigree of the patriarchs and family trees. And there's a whole story about that that we don't have time to go into. But some people think that that may be what is being referred to. Bottom line is we don't know, but we do know the end result because Paul tells Timothy here. The end result is that this false teaching created questions rather than edifying the people. It created questions among the people. And so what does this mean for us? Is that the scripture again and only the scripture must be taught. The Bible must be paramount in our church. And in any Bible-believing church, the Bible has to be paramount. It has to be what's taught. You ought to be able to hear it in every classroom that you go into. When you gather and there's any kind of devotional that is being given, it ought to be this book. It ought to be the Word of God. It shouldn't be anything else. The message of the church is the Bible and the doctrine of the Bible. And so you and I must tenaciously hold to that no matter how much pressure we may face to embrace the popular thinking that arises. And that always happens. Constantly it happens. And it's always out there. For example, some will say that hell is only a figurative place. But the Bible teaches it is a literal place of eternal torment. Some say that there are many paths to heaven. But the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus himself said, I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me. The Bible says. Some say salvation includes our own works, at least to some degree. But the Bible proclaims, no, it's not of works. Some say that the grace of God allows you to live however you want to live. You just believe the facts about Jesus. At some point you pray a prayer and you continue to living however you want to live. Because everything is covered by grace. But the Bible teaches us that grace is not a license for us to sin. And we could add so much more to this list. And I'm telling you, there are many places right here in our city that you could go and sit today and this is what you would hear. Some aspect of this. And Paul is warning Timothy here with that church in Ephesus Don't allow any strange doctrine. Don't allow it to be taught in any way. And that's the message of the church. And we cannot ever allow that. It must center on doctrine and nothing contrary to what has been revealed in the scripture should ever be allowed in any way. But I want you to notice the second part. It kind of seems a little bit abrupt and maybe a little bit strange, but Paul is going somewhere and I hope to open this up to us here. In addition to not permitting or permitting only the Word of God and nothing else, nothing that's contrary to that, we also teach sound doctrine by emphasizing love through the Word of God. Did you notice how Paul, right after he says, don't allow them to teach anything that's strange and not according to what has been revealed. Don't allow it. And then he says, verse 5, and it seems almost strange that he just jumps in this way. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith. Here in these, you say, well, why is Paul saying that all of a sudden? I thought he was talking about false doctrine. Well, he is. And don't allow anything that's contrary to the scripture. But here in these verses, Paul is contrasting the goal of these false teachers and his own goal in his instruction. Of course, Paul's goal, and what should be ours as well, is that we produce in the church what God requires. A love for Him and a love for others. That ought to be, and the teaching of sound doctrine, that ought to be where we're going. Everything that we're teaching ought to encourage us that way. And you remember what Jesus commanded. There, as we studied Matthew, you've heard this many times, I'm sure, Matthew 22, verses 37 to 39, when they ask Him, okay, what's the greatest commandment? You remember what Jesus said to them. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. That's the most important. With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That is a commandment that we must follow. And all of our teaching here must focus us this direction. And then you see what Jesus said in John 13. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. You want to let people know that you're a follower of Jesus Christ. Here's the primary way you're going to do that by loving God and loving others. A genuine love for God and a genuine love for others. Well, how does this kind of love grow in an individual? How does it grow in a church? Well, Paul gives us exactly how it grows. These three sources. First of all, a pure heart. A pure heart is a heart that has been reconciled to God. It's been washed by regeneration and it's living in obedience. That's a pure heart. It's like what David cried out following his sin with Bathsheba in Psalm 51. You know that. Create in me a clean heart, O God, he said there in Psalm 51 10. And love, this kind of love for God and for others, it flows out of a pure heart. This kind of love flows out of a good conscience. A good conscience is one that is non-accusing. It's free from offense toward God or toward man. And love easily flows out of a clear, a good conscience. And then a sincere faith. That's a faith with no hypocrisy, no insincerity there. And real trust, faith, and love, they go together. It's hard to trust anyone that you don't feel like loves you or has a concern for you. Those go together. And so what that means to us is that all of our teaching here, as we teach sound doctrine, it ought to foster in us a love for God and a love for one another. It ought to be doing that. And any teaching that doesn't promote those two aims should never be allowed. It shouldn't be allowed at all. We ought to be teaching sound doctrine, not allowing anything that's contrary to the scripture and doing it with the aim of producing love toward God and toward one another. And the false teachers have strayed away from those goals. They've turned aside, they've gone off course, and that's what he's saying there. In verse 7, as you see, the false teachers, They had a consuming desire to be the teachers. That's what they wanted. They weren't genuinely interested in learning the law or knowing the God of the law or serving people according to the law. No, they merely wanted the applause of men. They were confidently, Paul says there, asserting things of which they knew nothing about. That's a bold statement that Paul says. Did you see that? Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. The language there is very strong. And what Paul is saying here is they're not only ignorant, they are dogmatically ignorant. They're teaching things that are not accurate and they don't know anything about what they're saying. They should never be allowed into the ministry. So what we're teaching ought to always be communicating a love for God and a love for others. And then I want you to notice the third way very quickly, and that is not only. Do we teach sound doctrine by allowing only the Bible and nothing else? By only promoting in that fostering a love for God and a love for one another? Those are the commandments that God tells us we ought to focus there on those. But then thirdly, by unleashing the power of the Word of God. And you'll see this in verse 8. While Paul condemned those who wanted to be teachers of the law, he didn't want to give the people a wrong idea. He didn't want to give them a wrong impression. He's not condemning the law itself. And he wanted to make sure that people understood that. So do you see what he's saying here? He's saying here at the very beginning of those verses here, don't allow anything that doesn't coordinate with the teaching of the Bible. And then he begins in verse five. Now, here's what the Bible tells us. The end of the commandment is love. So everything ought to be promoting this, a love for God and a love for others. And that's not what these false teachers are doing. But listen, when we're talking about the law, the law is good. Don't get the wrong impression, he's telling them. The law is good. You see that in verse 8? But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. And the law is good. It is useful because it reflects to us the will of God, but it must be used lawfully. And the false prophets were misusing the law. In some cases, thinking it was a means for salvation. And that's a role the law will never fill. It can never fill it. And that's a whole new sermon. But then in verse 9, the law in general and the Mosaic law in particular is not made, Paul tells Timothy, for a righteous man. The law is not made for a righteous man, those who think they are righteous. will never ever be saved because they fail to understand the true purpose of the law. Someone who thinks that by their law keeping, that they are righteous people, they'll never come to genuine salvation. They'll never be made genuinely righteous because they'll never get that from the law. And we understand that. The law was made to convince us that we're sinners and that we need a Savior. And when I think I'm okay, I'm a pretty good guy, I'm righteous because of the degree to which I keep the law, then I'll never come to faith in Christ. And the law will never save me. The law was given by God to teach me that I am a sinner in desperate need of help. I need righteousness of God that's what the law does and so Paul is just emphasizing that and it seems here to me in the last couple of verses of our passage this morning as we wrap up here that Paul is making reference to the Mosaic Law you see that in verse 9 when he says this knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless for the disobedient For the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane. All of those references in our relationship to God, that's what they're referring to. The ungodly and the profane and the sinners and the unholy. And of course, you know, in the law, the first part of the law that we studied, Those first four commandments have to do with our relationship with God. It's maybe not, but it seems like that's what Paul is referring to when he talks about that. And he's describing people that have no regard for God's law because they have no regard for God. But then it seems he goes on when he's closing out here, this thought, and he's making reference to the second part of the commandments that deal with our relationship to our fellow men. And notice what he says there, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers. That's certainly a violation of the fifth commandment that tells us we're to honor our parents. And then he says manslayers, that violates the sixth commandment not to kill. And then he says whoremongers and them that defile themselves with mankind. Those are violators of the seventh commandment regarding our sexual purity. Men stealers or kidnappers violates the 8th commandment not to steal. Liars and perjured persons violates the 9th commandment regarding bearing false witness. It seems like Paul is just walking through the commandments and then to kind of cover all the bases at the end he just adds there and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. So it seems like that's what Paul is doing. here. He's saying, look, don't allow anything that doesn't square with the teaching what's been revealed, the apostolic doctrine. That's what he's telling them then and you and me today. We shouldn't allow anything that's contrary to the Bible. And I know that most everyone, hopefully everyone in here would agree with that. But remember the challenge in the scripture about this. It can so easily creep in and can become very, very powerful. You have to be very, very careful about that. So Paul's telling them that. But then he says, now, whenever you're doing this, remember, you're teaching the Bible, and the end of the commandment is this, the law. What does Jesus tell us? Love God and love, it's love, loving God and loving others. And then he goes, now wait, just to make sure you understand, the law's not bad. The law is actually good if you use it lawfully, because that is what teaches us that we're sinners and that we need a savior. And of course, that only savior is Jesus Christ, which he goes on to talk about in verse 11. The glorious gospel, he says. Which is the only hope for the lawbreaker. So the word of God is powerful all by itself. It convinces us of sin. It speaks to us like no other book does because of its supernatural power. And so to teach sound doctrine, we just teach the Bible and let the Bible speak. Just unleash the power of the Word of God. It doesn't need help. It just needs to be proclaimed and the Spirit of God will take the Word of God and He will stir in our hearts like only He can. And so this is the lesson that Paul is urging Timothy while he's left him at that church at Ephesus. Paul's moved on, then Paul writes him back and says, Hey, listen, I just want to talk to you about church life. And when we talk about church life, you have to think about the message of the church. And that message is, first of all, teaching sound doctrine. And that is important. And I hope that we as a church embrace that. I hope that every Sunday school teacher who's going to stand up in a few minutes, and many who have done that over the years, and many as God tarries who will be doing that, every person in Bible Baptist who stands before any group that's gathering anywhere and opening up the Bible, and by the way, we must be opening up the Bible, right? We cannot be conforming ourselves to anything other than what this book says. And that has to be preeminent for us. We have to always be thinking along those lines and doing it in a way while we in a way in such a way that we are pointing people to love. for God, helping them to grow in their love for God, helping them to grow in their love for one another, and just let the Bible speak. And the Bible will do that. The next thing he's going to talk about, which we'll look at next time we're together in 1 Timothy, it's going to be about the gospel. And you'll see that as we continue on through that part of the Scripture there. Let's pray.