|
Introduction:
There are numerous kinds of teachers in the world today.
They are marked with different goals. Some have the goal of making
money. Some have the goal of producing a following. Some want
power. Some simply want to raise questions and speculation. Some
want to cause arguments over pointless issues. Some want to
destroy the foundation of the gospel by teaching error. Some want
desperately to be considered intelligent by always having
something new and different to say, claiming, “I have studied
this for myself.” But none of these are to mark us as teachers.
The scripture tells us what our goal in instruction is to be and
it must govern everything we do and say to proclaim the gospel to
others. Paul explained the goal of our instruction to Timothy in I
Timothy 1:5: “But the goal of our instruction is love from a
pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Discussion: I. The goal of our instruction is love. A.
In contrast to those false teachers and
troublemakers in Ephesus, whose goals were to raise questions,
further speculation and delineate pointless issues, Timothy was to
focus on love. That is to be our goal as well. The purpose of our
preaching is not to put people in their places. It is not to prove
we are right and everyone else is wrong. It is not to make people
do what they do not want to do. The purpose is to produce love
within them. This is the “agape” love we have heard so many
sermons about. It is the unconditional love which God had for us (Romans
5:8). But notice, Paul does not specify the object of our
love. Paul is describing our lives in general, not a particular
relationship. B.
We are to love God, who first loved us (I John 4:10, 19). But this is not some warm, fuzzy feeling inside.
This love is an action: the action of obedience (II John 6; John 14:15, 21). Therefore, the goal of our instruction
is to produce obedience to God (Matthew
7:21-23). C.
According to II
Thessalonians 2:10, we are to love the truth. Without that
love, there will be no salvation for us. In II
Thessalonians 2:12, Paul demonstrates that loving the truth is
what leads to believing the truth. And of course, believing the
truth means obeying the truth. Again, the goal of our instruction
is obedience to the truth of God which will set us free (John
8:32). D.
We are to love our brethren. John speaks of this in
I John 4:7-21. Jesus
commanded it in John 13:35.
This love is described in I
Corinthians 13:4-7. Therefore, the goal of our instruction is
to produce proper relationships between us. E.
We are even to love our enemies. Jesus spoke of
this in Matthew 5:43-48.
Again this love is an action, providing blessing and goodness,
even to those who have not and will not provide it in return.
Thus, the goal of our instruction is to produce selflessness and
humility even in the face of our enemies. II.
The goal of our instruction is love from a pure
heart. A.
The goal of our instruction is not just about
outside action but also about inner motivation and thought. As
demonstrated by I
Corinthians 13:3, someone may perform some action that appears
to be love and yet their motivation is not right. Everything we
teach is in order to produce love from a pure heart. B.
This first calls to mind that we fall short of this
requirement by ourselves. As Proverbs
20:9 says, no one can cleanse his own heart. That is why Jesus
died for us, that His blood would sprinkle our hearts clean (Hebrews 10:19-22). The Hebrew writer calls to mind Psalm
24:3-4. No one but the pure of heart can come to the holy
place. Jesus died that our hearts can be sprinkled clean from the
wickedness that has taken up residence there. Now that Christ has
sprinkled our hearts clean we must maintain purity of heart. C.
II
Timothy 2:20-26
demonstrates purity in action. Our instruction teaches us to be an
honorable vessel, following after good works. To be pure we must
flee youthful lusts and foolish speculations. Rather, we must
pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace. We must be kind,
patient, able to teach and correcting with gentleness. But in I
Timothy 1:5, Paul is not speaking just about pure action but
about a pure heart. D.
Remember Jesus’ words about the Pharisees in Matthew
23:23-28. Here were men living in hypocrisy. They wanted to
appear righteous, so they administered strict rules about certain
issues in the law. But, their hearts were wicked. They were the
ones of whom Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount who taught you
couldn’t murder but you could hate (Matthew
5:21-26), you can’t commit adultery but you can lust in your
heart (Matthew 5:27-28).
You can’t lie when saying certain oaths but you can when you
don’t speak those oaths (Matthew
5:33-37). No wonder, Jesus said they were full of “dead
men’s bones”. We must not only purify our actions, but purify
our hearts as well. Of course, if our hearts are not pure, we will
not be able to keep up the ruse forever. Eventually our actions
will follow with our heart (Matthew
12:33-35). The goal of our instruction is to produce in us a
pure heart and clean mind. Cleansing our heart and mind of the
impure thoughts and motives that governed us as non-Christians. III.
The goal of our instruction is love from a good
conscience. A.
Our demonstration of love toward God, our brethren
and even our enemies, stems from the good conscience we want to
maintain. B.
This good conscience is the beginning of our
salvation as demonstrated in I
Peter 3:21. Our baptism is the answer of a good conscience
toward God. That is, because I want to have a good conscience
before God I will do what He tells me. C.
Paul demonstrates this good conscience in Acts
23:1. In describing his entire life, Paul said he always had a
good conscience before God. Yet, this man was a murderer of
Christians. How could he have had a good conscience? Just as Jesus
prophesied in John 15:20-21,
Paul was murdering in the name of God, because he thought that was
God’s will. He had a good conscience about what he was doing
because he was convinced it was right. However, all of that
changed on the road to Damascus in Acts
9:3-6. Suddenly, Paul’s perspective changed. He had to make
a choice. He must either maintain his good conscience or he would
continue persecuting Christians. He decided to keep his good
conscience. He became a child of God through the blood of Christ
and continued to do what he was convinced was right. D.
The issue of maintaining a good conscience before
God is at the heart of Romans
14. In Romans 14:5,
some believe Paul is speaking to two people who have mutually
exclusive beliefs. One thinks a thing is wrong and the other
believes it is right. To these, Paul is telling these men to be
fully convinced of their positions. But such a view of this verse
reduces all the instruction of the gospel to nothingness—since
we would no longer be able to correct those who are in error as
commanded in II Timothy
2:25. Rather, Paul is speaking of a man who is convinced
something is right and one who is not convinced it is right. He is
not convinced it is wrong, he simply doubts (Romans
14:23). His faith is weak (Romans
14:1-2). Paul’s statement that we are to be fully convinced
in our own minds then does not mean we are allowed to have
mutually exclusive beliefs of right and wrong, but are not allowed
to say anything about it. Rather, it means as individuals, we must
be fully convinced that what we are doing is right. If I am not
fully convinced, I can no longer maintain a good conscience and I
am condemned (Romans 14:23). The goal of our instruction is to help others keep
their conscience, even if their conscience is more strict than the
gospel, so long as they do not make laws for the rest of us where
God has made no laws. IV.
The goal of our instruction is love from a sincere
faith. A.
Our instruction is not only to produce love from a
pure heart and a good conscience, but we are striving to produce a
sincere or unfeigned (KJV) faith. This unfeigned and sincere faith
is a faith without hypocrisy as demonstrated by James
3:17. In other words, the goal of our instruction is to help
us be consistent in the working of our faith before our brethren
and before the world. B.
According to Young’s
Analytical Concordance, the term translated sincere or
unfeigned here means “undisguised”. Thus, the faith we are
striving to produce is one that is not covered up or hidden. We
must declare our faith to others with our very lives. Our
Christianity begins with a declaration of our faith (Romans 10:9-10) and our lives must be marked by a confession of
Christ before men (Matthew
10:32-33; Luke 12:8-9). C.
Peter urges this sincere and undisguised faith in I
Peter 2:11-12
and in I Peter 4:1-6. We are to live as Christians, differently from
the world (Romans 12:2).
We must not disguise our faith before others, even if they malign
us. This refers not only to maintaining moral purity in their
presence but also doctrinal purity. We need to be willing to tell
others the truth of God’s word and not disguise any part of our
faith. The goal of our instruction is to strengthen us that we may
believe, practice and teach our faith without hypocrisy. Conclusion: There are two applications to gain from the study of I Timothy 1:5. The first is what we have already discussed throughout the lesson. That is, each of us, as teachers, must have this as the goal of our instruction. Our desire in teaching must be to produce this love from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith. Secondly, this passage should govern us as those being taught. Often times we resent what is taught by others, whether in class, from the pulpit or even privately. When our brethren strive to fulfill their responsibility to bring about this love we might get angry. Or perhaps we simply respond, “That’s nice, but your wrong,” and never give their words a second thought. We need to give heed to the words of our brethren because this is their goal. That does not mean each of us is always right. But we must not be flippant with one another as we strive to help one another have this love. Finally, if you are not a Christian, please apply what you have learned to your learning of the gospel. What you hear from those who unashamedly preach the gospel is all about this. We are not trying to force you to do something you don’t want. We are not trying to brainwash you. We simply want you to have this love from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith. Won’t you please join us in our endeavor to help one another have this love so we can be with one another in heaven for eternity? Why not allow Jesus’ blood to sprinkle your heart as your body is washed with water (Hebrews 10:22)?
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
|
||||||||||
