1 Timothy 1:18

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Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well. ~ 1 Timothy 1:18

Whether you know it or not, due to the fact that you are in the family of God through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are engaged in a battle between good and evil, God and Satan. And, your involvement in this battle is of utmost importance.

In today's text, the Apostle Paul admonishes Timothy to engage further in this battle. The Apostle uses a Greek verb from which we get our English word “strategy” which means to fight as a soldier. The strategy is already in the word of God to be discovered on a daily basis: the strategy is prayer and obeying the word of God. 

This fight is not a brief fight, it is a long-term continual war. The believer in Christ is to gear himself up to fight this fight. This is a cosmic warfare of massive spiritual proportions. It is not a physical war, this is a war fought on the spiritual level.

Timothy was in Ephesus, and the Apostle Paul had left him there to battle against false teaching, teaching that is contrary to God's way of thinking and living. These false teachings had come into the church in Ephesus and these false teachers were in positions of prominence, power and influence. Godliness was under attack, and Timothy was being charged to confront it.

This war began long before the writing of Paul's first letter to Timothy. This war was begun by the rebellion against God of Lucifer who is a created angel. The Lord Jesus said of Lucifer in Luke 10:18, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” It was at that point that the Lord Jesus changed Lucifer's name to “Satan” which means enemy or adversary. This war has always been a battle between the will of Satan and the will of God.

In 2 Corinthians 10:4 we read, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” 

This means we dare not use our intellect, wisdom, or our natural talents in this war. This means we can topple Satan's kingdom by appropriating God's power through prayer and the word of God. 

In Ephesians 6, Paul instructs us to put on the armor of God, which begins with the belt of truth, a commitment to fight on the basis of God’s revealed truth. Then, we put on the breastplate of righteousness, which is the righteousness of Christ. We dare not fight out of our own goodness, it is not enough. This is why His righteousness has been applied to our moral account. Then, our feet must be covered by the gospel of the preparation of peace. Finally, our helmet is the helmet of the hope of eternal salvation, and our sword is the Word of God. 

The Word of God is not a fleshy weapon. When we go out and try to attack the kingdom of darkness with our own opinion, we will get no place. When we go out with the Word of God, things happen. The Word of God has tremendous power, and it is our primary weapon in this battle. 

Spirituality is learning to live out of the Word of God and we do so by thinking and obeying His word. To excel in whatever we are learning, we must first steep ourselves in God’s Word. When we place a tea bag in hot water and quickly bounce it up and down, we won’t have very good tea. However, if we steep it slowly, we will extract all of the flavor and the goodness out of the tea bag.

We must do the same thing with God’s Word if we want to really excel at warfare. I am learning that reading the word slowly and reflecting upon it throughout the day is the best way to incorporate it into my life. Steeping myself in God’s Word gives His Spirit who lives in me, to teach me throughout the day. This is the key to being successful at engaging in the battle. And, I am learning that the Lord teaches us in advance of our battles as we are faithful to be in His word and talk with Him about that which we are reading.

Joshua 1:8 says of God’s Word, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

There will always be walls of resistance in our minds and the minds of others that must be pulled down. These walls are thought processes that are not the thoughts of God found in His word. When our thoughts are being influenced and rearranged by God's word, we will begin to defeat demonic forces. 

When Joshua and his army marched around Jericho for a week, the spectators thought they were crazy. When the Jews trusted God and obeyed orders, they brought down the high walls and conquered the enemy (Josh. 6). Once the walls in our minds and those with whom we work, have been torn down, the door to the heart can be opened to His influence. This is not only true with God getting through to us, it is also true with regard to us getting through to those who have long been held captive by the Prince of darkness. 

Are you engaged in the fight?

 

 

1 Timothy 1:12-17

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12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. ~ 1 Timothy 1:12-17

In our text today, the Apostle Paul brings attention to the designation "Christ Jesus." The order is a reflection of the Apostle's conversion experience. It was the exalted Christ that he met on the Damascus Road. Christ is, in the New Testament, used 531 times more than any other title to describe the Lord Jesus. Christ comes from the Greek word χριστός (chrīstós), meaning "anointed one of God."

In v.12-13 we read, "12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief."

In these two verses, the Apostle reminds us of Christianity's bottom line. We once were the enemies of God but now we are on God's team through Christ Jesus our Lord. The cause for our former enemy status was our ignorance and unbelief. We were clueless to the goodness of God and the deceitfulness of the enemy. It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance from our way to His. 

In Romans 2:4 we read, "You surely don't think much of God's wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don't you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him?"

After the Apostle came into a personal relationship with the Lord, he was given strength, he was considered trustworthy, and was appointed into His service. The same has happened to all who have believed, including you and me. The gulf that once was there between us and God has been bridged by the mercy of God. And, we now have a personal relationship with Him which, if we act on, will soar into a deeper intimacy with Him. And, as this happens, we begin to increasingly experience His heart for others, especially the lost.

Of the mercy of God, Thomas Merton once wrote, "But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God."

Mercy has to do with misery. Grace has to do with guilt. Grace takes away the guilt, whereas mercy takes away the misery that accompanies the guilt. The undeserved relief of misery that comes with saving grace came to the Apostle Paul, as it has to all who have ever believed and will ever believe.

In v.14 we read, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” 

And now, the Apostle introduces the grace of God. Whereas the grace of God pardons us of sin, the mercy of God gives us His calling on our lives. Grace will always be greater than sin, but if we do not access God's grace through His Son, we will remain judged by our sin. And, we can not access God's grace through none other than the Lord Jesus. Notice that we not only receive grace but along with it comes faith and love. When grace comes, with it comes faith and love. This means when God saved us, He granted us the grace to trust Him. Even our faith in Him is a gift.

In v.15 we read, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst."

If the Lord Jesus can save the worst of sinners like Saul of Tarsus who was intercepted by the Lord Himself while he was on the road to Damascus to round up Christians to be jailed for believing in the Lord Jesus, He can save any sinner. No one is beyond His reach.

In v.16 we read, “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” 

We are all displays of God's great mercy once we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. The ultimate purpose of our salvation is to glorify God, to demonstrate His power and His long-suffering in our lives. Even those false teachers that were creating such havoc in Ephesus were not beyond the reach of God's mercy and grace. Those who believe that some are beyond the Lord's reach do not understand His vast mercy and grace.

In v.17 we read, "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." 

Once we have seen the Lord for ourselves, we will unmistakably speak of Him in an accurate and believable way. This is the ultimate response to God's grace. Once we became Christian and saw Him with our hearts, we possessed a thankful heart toward Him. Gratitude is the first breath that comes out of a saved soul. Gratitude turns what we have into enough and that enough will always be Him.

1 Timothy 1:8-11

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8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. ~ 1 Timothy 1:8-11

The Apostle in the previous verses highlighted the believer's need for love to be our motivation behind correcting false teaching. False teachers were using the Old Testament law to teach doctrines which were leading people away from the grace of God which is the access point to His love. And, through their false teachings, these false teachers were causing division among the believers in Ephesus. The Apostle Paul used the word "conscience" twenty-one times in all of his writings, and six of these references are in 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. 

The word conscience means “to know with.” Conscience is the inner judge that accuses us when we have done wrong and approves when we have done right. It is possible to sin against the conscience so that it becomes “defiled” according to Titus1:15. Repeated sinning hardens the conscience so that it becomes “seared” to the truth, like scar tissue. 

The false doctrine in the church at Ephesus was due to the misuse of the Old Testament law. These false teachers did not understand the content or the purpose of God’s law.They were leading believers out of the freedom of grace into the bondage of legalism, a tragedy that still occurs today. The flesh (the sinfulness that is still within us) loves religious legalism because rules and regulations enable us to appear holy without really having a change of heart. It is only in the context of grace do we best understand the love of God for us which determines how much we are enabled to love others.

The lawful use of the law is to expose, restrain, and convict the lawless. The law cannot save us, it can only reveal our need for the Savior. When we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, we were freed from the curse of the law, and the righteousness of Christ was applied to our account before God. The law and the gospel go hand in hand, for the law without the gospel is diagnosis without remedy. And the gospel without law is only  salvation for people who don’t believe they need to be saved.

In v.8 we read, “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.” God gave man the law for a reason; to hold our sinfulness in check. However, these false teachers were using it as a means of salvation. The false teacher believes the law is the standard by which mankind merit God's favor which we know is impossible for any of us. And, of course, this is why the Lord Jesus came in the first place. Only He could bridge the huge gap created by our rebellion against God.

In v.9-10 we read, “9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.” 

The law is for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for those who are trapped in their sinful behavior that is contrary to God's definitions of things,. The law is good but the law alone is not the good news. The law alone is bad news. The law condemns, preparing us for the good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The law crushes the sinner. Then, by the gospel, God lifts up the broken who have been made willing to cry out for grace and mercy.

In v.11 we read, "the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me."

A proper understanding of the law is rendered by the gospel, which declares mankind is separated from God by our sinfulness and man cannot redeem himself. But Jesus Christ came into the world, God in human flesh, died on the cross, was raised the third day for our justification, and by faith in him and the grace of God we can be forgiven of our sin. That is the gospel. 

To rightly define the law is part of the gospel; that’s why the Apostle Paul then writes in v.11, “the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel.” We show love in various ways. The Apostle, in our text, reminds us that we love people when we tell them about the reality of their sinful condition so that they can be saved. Many today say that this is not loving, telling others of their sinful condition. They would see the love in this if they were to die and spend eternity in hell. I mean, what is more important than where one spends eternity?

Finally, notice the final phrase in v.11, "which he entrusted to me." This means that we get the message right. The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple; mankind is separated from God, God sent His Son to bridge the separation, and if one believes in the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross, he shall be saved. Christianity is not about good people getting better. The Gospel is good news for helpless people who can not be good enough to earn God's favor. And, it is out of our helpless posture that we see God's enormous love for us and we grow in our love for Him and others.

1 Timothy 1:5-7

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5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. ~ 1 Timothy 1:5-7

According to the Bible, Satan is a liar and a master deceiver. His primary mode of operation is to use deception to gain power. One of the manifestations of his lying intent is the proliferation of false teachers who try to thwart the advancement of the gospel. Wherever truth is found, there will always be this offer of what seems to be good, yet isn't.

The Apostle Paul knew that the church at Ephesus, like any church, would come under attack from errant teachers. That is exactly what happened in Ephesus. The church there, where Timothy labored, though it had a great beginning, was never impervious to false teachers. So, the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, to tell him to keep the teaching pure, and set an example for other churches to follow.

In v.5 we read, "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith."

In order to stop false teaching, the goal of the correction must always be love. The word used here for love is agapē which is a self-denying choice, a self-sacrificing love. It is essential that Christians are known as those who “love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves." This love is not an emotion, it is a choice made which comes from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith. 

Someone once said, "The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart." The heart is the center of our beliefs and convictions. The heart is the center of our longings for God and others. And when our hearts are made pure by the washing of regeneration, then it is a pure heart. And a pure heart is one devoted to God with an undivided allegiance, because it’s been washed and cleansed by the blood of Christ.

Now, whatever is in the mind influences the conscience. What we think influences our conscience. It is not that we are sinless, it is that Christ's presence in our lives have changed our orientation on life. We are being changed from the inside out. The motivation of our hearts has been influenced by the love we have and are receiving from Christ Himself. 

Those who have a pure heart, are being granted a pure conscience. This new heart and conscience increasingly does not accuse or condemn such a one. Self-judgement and the judgement of others will be increasingly silenced and the heart and conscience will render peace, and freedom from guilt, because the heart is being changed to see all through the eyes of the Lord.

In addition, love comes out of sincere or genuine faith, not the hypocritical faith that false teachers manifest. Biblical faith is a faith that has no pretense, and it causes us to love others the way God loves us.

God's love is pure but it can only be accessed through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, whereas God loves everybody, not everybody is loved by God. You see, our sin has separated us from God and in order to bridge that gap, God sent His Son to take the punishment for our sin so that we can access a personal relationship with God.

According to Proverbs 3:12, "God disciplines those whom He loves." We love it when we experience certain aspects of God's love like His provision and His protection. But, when He disciplines us, we struggle. Most often, while we are being disciplined, we conclude that He does not love us because we have an incomplete understanding of love. 

God loves us just as we are but He loves us too much to allow us to remain as we are. So, He has to, at times, chisel those things out of our lives that are not good for us. This is the approach we must take with those who are teaching false doctrines, and if they reject the correction, we must be obedient to the Lord.

In v.6 we read, "Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk." Their teaching is wrong because their goal is not love. The false teacher's desire is always for self. He is most interested in getting rich; he is in it for what he can get. Therefore, his message is defiled.

In v.7 we read, "They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm."

The motive for these false teachers was the desire to be teachers of the law. They wanted the recognition but the law of love was not in their hearts. The primary expression of the love of Christ in the human heart is that there is obvious care for people, especially the least. People do not care about what we believe until they know that we care. These false teachers wanted selfish status that came through the applause of men. The source of our understanding of love is of utmost importance for obvious reasons.

We live in a world full of deception. Many today are being deceived because they are not being defined by what God says in His word. And, being defined by God's word is not only reading it daily, but thinking about it in such a way that we live it. We never merit God's favor by our obedience; we can not do that. But the more we get to know the Lord and His truth, we naturally will want to walk in His truth.

In addition, developing the habit of talking to the Lord about what He is teaching us in His word throughout the day gives Him opportunity to show us how it applies to our lives for that day. This is eternal life. This is the type of life the Lord Jesus died to give us. We must be diligent to resist selfishness and receive the truth from Him daily, so that we can love people in the way we want to be loved.

1 Timothy 1:1-4

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1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope 2 To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. ~ 1 Timothy 1:1-4

Today we begin a new study of First Timothy. This first letter to Timothy was written by the Apostle Paul around 63 A.D in between Paul's two imprisonments. In this book, we will study such subjects as: false teaching in the church and how that error is to be confronted, the proper pattern for church leadership, the importance of sound theology and the importance of verse by verse teaching of the scriptures.

In v.1-2, “1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. 2 To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord."

Paul begins this letter to his young disciple who was a part of the leadership team in the church at Ephesus, by reminding him that the Lord Jesus is both God and Savior. This is crucial for us to understand on a daily basis. If we are going to live the life the Lord Jesus died to give us, we must operate out of this understanding. In order for the Lord Jesus to be our Savior, He has to be God and vice versa. These two work hand in hand.

In addition, the Apostle Paul reminds Timothy that he, Paul,  was an apostle by the command of God. This word for "command" means Paul was sent according to the "orders" of God. Paul was under orders from the sovereign of the universe. Paul lived following the leading of God through His Spirit and His word on a daily basis. For Paul, life was an adventure with the Lord Jesus daily. This can be the case for you and me, assuming that we are both "born again" of the Spirit of God. And, God's greatest navigational tools in the lives of His children is the word of God in tandem with the Holy Spirit of God.

Notice also, in v.1, the Apostle Paul refers to the Lord Jesus Christ as the believer's hope. Everyone on planet earth is in desperate desire and need of hope. This hope is the Lord Jesus Himself. This hope is guaranteed by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead, and it is the firm expectation of the believer for salvation from sin and death. Christianity is a religion of personal pronouns. Ours is not a belief in some distant deity to be appeased, ours is a faith that involves personal relationship and intimacy with God Himself. You and I do not have to be defined and ruled by sin because of this guaranteed expectation which provides for us this trusted foundation of recognizing truth and walking in it.

According to v.2, the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to Timothy. Along with Titus,Timothy tackled some of the toughest assignments in the churches that Paul had seen God form during his missionary journeys. Timothy was brought up in a Christian home and had been led to faith in Christ by Paul himself. This explains why Paul called Timothy “my true son in the faith.” 

Timothy's mother was Jewish and his father was Greek. This presented some difficulties for Timothy while growing up. But, as is illustrated in Timothy's life, our difficulties can be blessings if we seek the One who masters at taking the bad and bringing good out of it for us.

According to Acts 16:1–5, Timothy was so devoted to Christ that his local church leaders recommended him to Paul, and Paul added him to his “church plant team." Yet, in spite of his calling, and his close association with Paul, and his spiritual gifts, Timothy was easily discouraged. How we view ourselves very often determines the path which we follow. It is imperative for the believer in Christ to learn to view himself through the lens of Christ.

In v.3-4 we read, "3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer 4 or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith."

Timothy was sent to Ephesus to oppose and correct false teaching that was infiltrating the church. He was to oppose the wrong concepts being taught and to point out the myths and the genealogies that these people were propagating. 

Ephesus was a flag-ship church, sort of leading all the other churches of Asia Minor, and it was important to keep it corrected. But it must have been that somewhere along the line there was some questioning about whether God was really Savior, because it’s repeated by Paul in this letter several times.

The enemy always works in the church in whatever way the church allows him. If he cannot corrupt the theology, he will bring routine, apathy and numbness of heart toward God. The church at Ephesus was a growing and exciting church in its beginnings. It was the church to which Paul gave three years of his life to lay the foundations. In the process of moving from the ministry of Paul to the time of Timothy, in those very few years, maybe ten or twelve years, the church had already reached a place where heresy was creeping in.

The false teaching was founded in the idea that their value was measured by their ancestry, who they were, where they came from, their family ties, and their inherited honors. Giving Timothy's family background, this was used to undermine him as a leader. We all like to take particular pride in descending from some famous person. This is what was being introduced into the congregation at Ephesus. This was, in a sense, class warfare or even racism.

God's truth is how He releases us from the bondage of evil of various forms. This is the nature of the gospel which is so powerful and so radical that it is always under subtle attack both from without and within. That is why it is so necessary to ensure that the teaching is accurate and true and biblical, because, when it is, it delivers people, it frees people, it changes families and societies. Our world desperately needs men and women who have learned how to be free in Christ Jesus, to be what God has intended us to be. This is what a study of 1 Timothy will do for us.