SPEAKER_00 0:00

You might have noticed, Pastor Stephen's out this week, and so you get me instead. It's great to be in front of you guys and to worship with you today. If you've been with us the last couple of weeks, you'll know that we started a new service or a new uh sermon series in 1 Timothy. And we're going to continue there today, but before we do, I'd like you to rewind a little bit in your Bibles, to go back just a little bit further to the time of a man named Daniel. Daniel lived several hundred years before Christ. And if you remember the story, Daniel lived during a fascinating time in Israel's history, a really rough and tough time in Israel's history. Israel was long past its prime. It had splintered into two separate nations. One of the nations had been conquered years ago by this group called the Assyrians. And now, in Daniel's time, the Babylonians had come and they had taken over. At a young age, Daniel was pulled from his homeland and taken to live in Babylon. The Babylonians sent Daniel to a special school and they tried to indoctrinate him in their culture. They drilled him with Babylonian culture, with their language and their literature. They tried to control how he acted, how he lived, how he worshiped. At one point during his exile, Daniel was even told that he wasn't able to pray to his God. They passed a law trying to prevent him from doing that. But while living in the middle of this pagan nation, Daniel not only survived, but we see that he thrived. In many ways, as we look around us today, the story of Daniel is our story. Don't get me wrong, we're blessed to live in a nation where we can worship as we please. We haven't been conquered by some foreign power. But the truth is we live in a kingdom that is not our own. We live in a broken, hurting, sinful world. Our true kingdom is Christ's kingdom. God has promised us this kingdom, this future with Him, in a place that Revelation calls a place with no more death, sorrow, or tears. This kingdom has come in Christ, but it hasn't come completely in full yet. We're still on the road home. And in the meantime, like Daniel, we live out our lives in a kingdom that's not our own. We're here temporarily, but we're wanderers in a place that's not our home. And so the question for each of us today and throughout our lives is how then do we live in the midst of this? How are we faithful to God and our beliefs in the midst of a pagan nation, in the midst of a different world, a kingdom that's not our own? That's what we're going to discuss today. Back in Timothy, Paul's writing to a young pastor in the city of Ephesus. Ephesus was every bit as pagan as Babylon. The city of Ephesus had this giant temple to a false God, just as you pulled into the city on a boat. Paul gives Timothy three commands on how to live faithfully in this kingdom that isn't his own. So turn with me, if you will, to 1 Timothy 1, starting in verse 18. If you don't have a Bible with you today, there should be one in the back of the uh the pew in front of you, or you can follow along with me on the screen as I read. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymeneus and Alexander, who I'm who I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blasphemy. First of all, I urge that all supplications, prayers, and intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at a pro at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I'm telling the truth, I am not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. Let's open in prayer. Lord, as we turn to your word today, bless this congregation. May your words be proclaimed boldly. May they change hearts, change minds, and draw people closer to you. Amen. So, as we dive into this passage, one of the first things that we see is Paul telling Timothy to guard the faith. Paul starts off with, This charge I entrust to you, Timothy. To see what Paul's talking about, we have to go back quite a few verses in typical Pauline fashion. We have to go all the way back to verse 3 in chapter 1. And it says, As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus, so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. As we look at this, we see that Paul and Timothy had a little bit of a mess going on with the church in Ephesus. This church had been founded by both of them during their missionary journeys. It had been founded in truth. It had been founded in the truth of the gospel. But here we see that they've wandered, and there's people teaching different things, different doctrines, all sorts of weird stuff. Dissecting Paul's statement a little bit, we see everything from different doctrines to myths and genealogies. And Paul says that these have caused people to wander away from the faith and in to vain discussion. Back in our passage, we see Paul telling Timothy to hold fast to the faith, to guard that truth. He's not suggesting that this is optional or even encouraged. Paul is saying that this is absolutely vital. He tells Timothy that he entrusts this specifically to him. The word that we see here for charge is peringlia in Greek. It's the same word that's used for a military command. It's not a suggestion, it's not open for discussion. This is a mandate to be carried out obediently. Paul knows that guarding this message, this true gospel message, isn't going to be an easy task. It's going to be tough. He even equates it to a battle, telling Timothy to wage the good warfare. This isn't a fight against people coming in and trying, or this is a fight against people trying to come in and water down or change the gospel, maybe even add to it. But notice the very next phrase. Holding fast or holding faith in a good conscience. Paul links the public fight to a very personal one in Timothy's life as well. The battle isn't only against these external false teachers, the battle is also against Timothy's own sinful nature. They're both fights that we deal with each and every day in our own lives as well, daily in our own Christian walks. Often new believers think of Christianity as easy, and that's the way that we portray it. But it can be really tough at times as well. Jesus has certainly called his followers to an abundant life of life, of love, joy, peace, and communion with him. But there's another side to the Christian walk, the Christian life that often doesn't make it in our gospel messages, doesn't make it in our evangelism. The Christian walk is a daily battle as we struggle against our own sinful flesh, this lifelong fight with evil in a world around us. We often don't think about it, but even within our own churches, we see this as well. Doctrine all error is constantly trying to avoid or invade our churches. Even here in the center of the Bible belt, you don't have to go very far to find trouble. You'll find churches preaching everything from a complete disregard for morals to legalistic adherence to the Old Testament law and everything in between. We usually look outside our walls and we say, wow, I'm really glad I'm not that church or that denomination. But the truth is, even in healthy churches, we still see this try and invade. There's always this constant battle against compromising that gospel message. It starts small and it might even start a little innocent, but compromise is something that continues to grow, to warp, and to change. It can be a cancer in an otherwise healthy church. But also, Paul's talking about our personal lives here as well. That can very easily be us as we struggle with sin and fall further and further away. And as we often see, our doctrinal purity is closely linked with life's purity. Theological error is often driven by our own moral error. People like to teach wrong doctrine to accommodate their sin, or to believe wrong doctrine to accommodate their sin. Paul tells Timothy to keep a good conscience, to keep the faith. As he says, conscience here, we know that conscience is a good God-given device that's constantly reacting to our behavior. Paul talks about this a little bit more in Romans 2, 14 and 15, where it says, For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. Here we see that the conscience that Paul is talking about can either accuse or make excuse for our behaviors. It produces this feeling of peace and calm when our behavior is good, but guilt and shame when our behavior is evil. Its purpose is to warn us when we're sinning, when we're falling short, when we're doing what we shouldn't. And in Romans, Paul mentions that even unbelievers have a sense of this and that it's pointing them back to God. But as believers, we also have the Holy Spirit guiding us, which strengthens us all the more. Guilt warns that something threatens the well-being of the soul. So the question is, what happens when you don't hold faith, when you ignore your conscience? Paul gives us a picture. He says simply, some have made shipwreck of their faith. Paul names two individuals in particular, Hymeneus and Alexander. We don't know much about these two guys, but we do know that they ignored Paul's warnings long enough to be called out in this text, even. Now they're experiencing church discipline for blasphemy. This could have meant a lot of different things, but where Paul mentions them in the passage, it's very likely that they were teaching some sort of heresy in the church. They were teaching something contrary to the gospel message. Paul's phrasing and what he says other places on church discipline suggests that this was likely because of continued unrepentant sin in their life. This wasn't a one-time accidental occurrence. It was a repeat occurrence. We never liked to practice church discipline, but in order to guard the truth of the gospel message, Paul needed to remove these guys from the church body. Just like cancer spreads if it's left to grow. That's what happens in the church. Allowing these men to continue teaching falsely would lead to further issues in the church. Paul's goal for this situation, of course, was that these men would repent and that they would turn back and that they would be reconciled to the church body. But for now, for the good of the church, they had to be separated. But I don't want you to listen to this and hear Hymeneus and Alexander as a story about someone else. Paul named them specifically so that Timothy would know and feel the stakes, the stakes before him. A shipwrec at the rocks. It starts with one small compromise that you start noticing. It starts with a doctrine that you let slide, or maybe a corner of your conscience that you've learned to ignore. A ship just a few degrees off doesn't seem like a problem at first. But as it goes miles and miles further, you realize that you're hundreds of miles from where you meant to be. That's how faith is lost. It doesn't happen all at once, but a degree at a time. So hold tight to the faith and keep a good conscience. But remember, you don't have to do this all on your own. The God who calls you to guard the faith is the same God who guards you. And that's exactly why in the next section we see Paul turn to prayer as he reminds Timothy to pray for a broken world. Starting in Timothy, or 1 Timothy 2.1, Paul says, First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Often when we pray, if we're honest with ourselves, our prayers are a little bit self-centered. We pray for our needs, or maybe we pray that so that we can strengthen our communion with God and our focus on our relationship with Him, and those are good things, but sometimes we don't think about praying about the external world near as much. We might pray for a loved one or someone in church or in our small group. How often, though, do we specifically pray for the salvation of the world around us? I love that our church has these prayer walks every so often. You'll see them on the screen before the service. And if you haven't been, basically it's a time where instead of Sunday school, we pray for the community around us. And we focus on praying for them, that they would find Christ as we have. Another really interesting initiative out there, the North American Mission Board started this a few years ago, is called Who's Your One? And its goal is to challenge people to commit to pray for one individual in their lives, that that person would come to Christ in some sort of fashion, and to share the gospel with them as God opens the door, as God provides openings to do so. We all hope to see others come to Christ. But when we think about sharing our faith, we worry about it being awkward or maybe even angering the people that we're talking to. We often think about what we're going to say or how to even start or approach that conversation. The starting point, though, should be prayer, as Paul's calling out here. It's amazing how those doors just simply open and those awkward conversations begin when you commit yourself to pray for someone. The 1800s uh pastor Charles Spurgeon said, the soul winder, the soul winner must be a master of the art of prayer. You cannot bring souls to God if you do not go to God yourself. You must get your battle axe and your weapons of war from the armory of sacred communion with Christ. If you are much alone with Jesus, you will catch his spirit, and you will be fired with the flame that burned in his breast and consumed his life. You will weep the tears that fell upon Jerusalem when he saw it perishing. If we truly understand the desperate, desperate situation, the desperate condition of the souls around us, the lost souls, we should be crying out to God desperately for their salvation. Do we fully believe and understand the desperate condition that they're in? If we do, our hearts should ache, that they would know Christ as we know him. Paul isn't talking just about our family, friends, and neighbors, though. Paul says to pray for all people. All people. Those who are close to finding him, and those who, to our appearances, would seem to be very far off. In Isaiah 45, 22, God says, Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth. In Isaiah 51, or 55, 1, he invites everyone who thirst to come to the waters of salvation. In Ezekiel 18, 23 and 32, God states very clearly that he does not desire that the wicked should perish, but that they would sincerely repent. And in the New Testament, we see that Peter writes, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some would count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. As we get further into this passage, Paul calls out specifically some individuals. He calls out specifically that we would pray for kings and people in high positions, so that we might lead a peaceful and quiet life. There's two words here that are really interesting. The word peaceful, the Greek word behind it, is actually only here in the New Testament. It's only used this one time and refers to this absence of outside disturbances. The word quiet, on the other hand, is used twice here in First Peter here and in 1 Peter 3, 4, and it refers to this absence of internal disturbances. There's two parts to this prayer. We're praying for the world around us, we're praying for the kings, for those in charge, and externally, we're praying that that would minimize our disturbances, but also these prayers change the world around us and they change our own hearts. They give us peace as God reminds us that He is truly the one in charge. He helps lead us to greater compassion for these individuals as well, greater understanding. Right now, if you think about our nation, something that I think we can all agree on is that we are very deeply, deeply divided politically. And regardless of your political affiliation, I'm sure that there's public officials that you're pretty upset about being in power. How often do we pray for those people? We spend a lot of time complaining about them. As a nation, we spend a lot of time rallying for change, but how often do we pray for the people that we disagree with? Paul's writing this letter during a really terrible time in Christian history. It was one of the worst periods of Christian persecution. The emperor in Rome at this time was a guy named Nero, and he was a man known by history for his cruel punishments, especially of Christians. At one point, it was even rumored that Nero set. Fire to Rome and blamed it on the Christians. But Paul is telling Timothy to pray for Nero, to pray for those people in charge, people who were persecuting them, who were hunting them down. Both Peter and Paul would be martyred during Nero's reign. Yet Paul wants to pray for him. And Paul doesn't just mean to pray that these rulers would be wise and just. He's saying that we should pray that they would come to Christ as well. When you think about a guy like Nero, it's completely unlikely that such a harsh and vicious ruler would come to know Christ. But Paul, he wanted Timothy to pray for him anyway. Our God is a God of miracles, and even the most unlikely of people can repent and be redeemed. It makes me think of the book of Jonah. Jonah, he was called to go to the Ninevehes, and if you study history, you know the Ninevehites are not very nice guys at all. They're rough, they're warriors, they were very mean. But in Jonah, we see them repent. We see them turn back. In Jonah 3.4, we see Jonah's amazing sermon. He simply says, Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. There isn't a gospel presentation. He doesn't tell them why they're going to be overthrown. He doesn't tell them even who's going to overthrow them. Yet when God moved in them, they repented and changed from the greatest to the least. Often we look at people and we might write them off as being too far gone. And we don't even think about praying for them. But praying for them is exactly what we should be doing. It's the only thing that can truly change. We can't change people on our own, but God's power to change people is completely undeniable. And it's for this reason that we must preach one hope. Our third bullet today. Starting in 1 Timothy 2.5, we see Paul say, For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I am not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and in truth. See, here we see Paul talking about our one hope. Our one hope, which is Christ. Specifically, Paul is talking about relying on Christ's sacrifice for our sins and on him as mediator to reconcile us with God. It's easy to look around at the world and to realize that something isn't right. Something's broken, something's off. If we're honest with ourselves, we realize, honestly, we're a part of that problem as well. In Romans, Paul says that we've all sinned and we've all fallen short of the glory of God. But God didn't leave us there. Again in Romans, Paul says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Our one hope. Back in Timothy, Paul's remind or Paul is reminding Timothy that there is only one way to reconcile this relationship with God. Christ, our one hope. The world around us knows that there's a problem. It sees the brokenness left by sin and it recognizes it. It sees the chaos in lives, and it seeks to reconcile. Some people try to fix this brokenness through all sorts of paths. Some work really hard to improve themselves. They might even get a bunch of self-help books. Some by buying a lot of stuff and having all the material goods that they can acquire. Other people see the need for religion, but they place their faith in the wrong place. There's actually a guy in India who's dedicated his life to holding up his right hand, or his right arm, I should say, to appease his false God. Since 1973, he hasn't lowered his right arm. At this point, he can't even. All in vain dedication to a false God. We hear stories like that and we ache and hurt, knowing that those people are seeking peace and reconciliation. It's heartbreaking to see the world struggle so much to find that peace that we have yet miss it. We can't come to God through other religions. We can't approach God through the works of angels or saints or Mary. It's only in Christ, and Christ alone, that we can find our salvation. John 14, 6, Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus gave us a path to everlasting life with God. But we have to accept it. This isn't just believing that Christ existed or even believing that he was the Son of God. This is putting your faith in him and him alone to save you. Paul's ministry was plagued by these guys that we call the Judaizers. And they would basically come behind him anytime he stopped at a place like Ephesus. He would get the church up and growing and going in truth. And then these Judaizers would come in and they'd start telling these brand new Christians that in order to truly be saved, they had to do this or that or this other thing. They were telling them that they had to follow the Jewish customs and rituals. But Paul's message is simple. Only in Christ is our true hope to be found. We can't earn our way to salvation. We have to trust in the finished work of Christ. As Paul puts it in Titus 3.5, he saved us. Not because of the works that we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy. Jesus came to earth as a man, lived a sinless life, and died on our behalf so that all could be saved. This is the gospel message. This is the good news. This is Christ's gift to us. Each of us has to make that personal decision to follow him, though, and to accept that gift. We can either accept God's free gift of salvation or we can reject it and search in vain for a solution on our own. Finally, Paul rounds out this part of the letter saying that for this message he was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher. If we dive into the word preacher, it basically means a public herald. It means a messenger from the king. In Paul's day, these would have been the guys that go from town to town to town to proclaim whatever the king wanted to tell everybody. It wasn't the messenger's message, it was the king's message. Relayed verbatim. It wasn't the herald's message, it was the king's. Similarly, this isn't Paul's message. This is Christ's message. Specifically, in Paul's case, to the Gentiles, meaning he was called to proclaim Christ's message to the unbelieving world around him, to the broken and hurting. Paul stresses this because Christ's good news wasn't just for those who were pretty good already and just needed a little help. His message was for all. No matter what you've done in the past, no matter how far you've strayed from God, where you find yourself today, Christ's offer is still available. He's waiting with open arms for you to repent and turn to him. We're living in this broken world because people are separated from God. They're far from God. But there's only one hope, there's only one bridge. The church, it guards the message, it prays for the lost, and it proclaims the one true mediator. No other religion, no political solution, no self-help book offers what 1 Timothy 2.5 offers. It's in Christ alone that we find that hope. As we close today, we're going to have a time of reflection, as we always do. Feel free to pray to yourself, with yourself, or in small groups and pray together. When you're ready, we'll have communion up front. Preston will lead us in that. If you're a visitor with us today, we do, you are free to join us, but we do ask that you be baptized in a member of a local church. As we dive into prayer, though, I have two questions that I would ask you to focus on. First, if you're honest with yourself, where is your hope actually resting today? Is it in the finished work of Christ? Or is it in something you're still trying to finish yourself? Have you truly put your faith in Christ alone? And second, Paul gave Timothy three ways to live faithfully in a world that isn't our home. Guard the faith, pray for the lost, and proclaim the one home. Which one is God putting on your heart right now? Who is the person that you'd pray for to come to see Christ this week? Let's close in prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this congregation, for these people, for the message that you brought to us today. Work in lives around us, Lord. The lost, the hurting, the broken. Bring them to you. We ache and we mourn to see this world transformed into your kingdom, Lord, to see more and more people find you and to find their way out of the lostness they're in currently. As we go from here, may we be messengers for your one true hope, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen.