WWUTT 633 Hope Set On the Living God?

The Trustworthy Saying in 1 Timothy 4

Everything that there is to be said about the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. And there's not any part of it that we should ignore or discard. These things are trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of 1 Timothy chapter 4. And once again, I'll be reading verses 6 -10. The Apostle Paul writes, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

The Trustworthy Saying and the Pastoral Letters

So in our study of this particular paragraph, we're now up to verse 9, where Paul says, The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. And we've seen him say that a couple of times so far in this letter.

The first occasion was in chapter 1 verse 15, where he says, The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

The second occasion was in chapter 3 verse 1, as Paul was introducing qualifications for overseers, he began with this, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

And so whenever we see a reference to this phrase, the saying is trustworthy, Paul is calling attention to something that has been fashioned into a creed or a confession that was memorized and shared and accepted in that first century church.

That first statement that we have there in chapter 1 verse 15 is just very basically the gospel. The saying is trustworthy, deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

That's the gospel truth. The word gospel, which means good news, and whenever we use that word gospel, we're usually talking about the good news of Jesus Christ, who came to earth, took on human flesh, lived a perfect life, died the death that we were supposed to die, took the wrath of God upon himself as he bled on the cross, shedding his blood as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

He was buried in a tomb, he rose again on the third day so that all who believe in him, their sins will be forgiven and they will have eternal life. By grace, through faith, we receive this salvation.

And Christ is ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, he is mediating for us on our behalf. Even these truths have been shared in this letter that Paul has written to Timothy.

So this basic understanding of the gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners is put into kind of a confessional form and shared by Paul in 1 Timothy 1 .15, the saying is trustworthy.

And then the next time he says that, of course, is chapter 3, verse 1, pertaining to qualifications for an overseer. But apparently in these confessions, it was stated that if anyone desires to be an overseer in the church, they desire a noble task.

It is worthy of nobility and that they should be of impeccable character if this is going to be a person who is going to lead the church in understanding the truth of the word of God. And so here we come to yet another portion of confession that Paul has pulled out and reminded Timothy of.

Which by the way, anytime we see this phrase which is translated in English, the saying is trustworthy, it only appears in the pastoral letters. It appears three times in 1 Timothy, this is the third occasion.

It appears once in 2 Timothy and it appears once in Titus. So as Paul is talking to his pastors, he is reminding them of the good confessions that have summarized essential doctrines of the Christian faith and even those things that pertain to godliness, because the pastors clearly understand and have memorized those things and will teach them to the congregation.

And so Paul is calling attention to those things as he is sending them to the respective churches where they are going to pastor and put those things into effect. And so this third saying is here in 1 Timothy 4, 8, not 9.

Paul says in verse 9, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. But the saying that he's calling attention to is actually what we just read in verse 8. Train yourself for godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Now, it's kind of difficult to limit what exactly is the trustworthy saying out of all of that statement. Does it go all the way back to verse 7, have nothing to do with a reverend silly miz, rather train yourself for godliness?

Or is it just the statement, godliness is a value in every way? Or is there more to it than that? It's kind of hard to know which portion of this was really taken from the confession that Paul is reminding Timothy of.

But we know that while on the other occasions he has said the saying is trustworthy, and then he gives the saying, in this occasion, he gives the saying first and then says, by the way, this is the saying that is trustworthy and is deserving of full acceptance.

He's reminding Timothy, you know of this, you know of the good confessions that we cling to and we have followed, so put these things before the brothers likewise, which was what Paul said in verse 6.

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. And that's really what confessions and catechisms do.

They help to train us in the words of the faith. They help us to take the Bible, which is 775 ,000 words or something like that, I guess, depending on your translation, and summarizing all of what's written in these 66 books into short, concise points that help us to qualify essential and important doctrines, like who God is, who Jesus Christ is, the trinity of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, the atonement of the cross, the resurrection from the dead, original sin, and Christ's death on the cross being the propitiation for our sins.

Some of these essential doctrinal truths are summarized in our creeds and confessions. And to this day, the church still clings to those confessions. Maybe we don't know exactly what the list of confessions was that Paul is drawing Timothy's attention to here, but we know there was something.

We know there was some sort of confession that the churches shared and memorized and helped to summarize those essential doctrinal truths, and was terribly important during that period, especially because not everybody had their own Bible in their own home.

Like, I've got a whole shelf full of Bibles that's next to me to my left here, and when I say shelf, I'm not saying like first shelf, second shelf, third shelf, it's just one platform, whatever you would call that.

What's one tier of a shelf called? I guess I just answered my own question. It's a tier. So anyway, I've got, you know, just Bibles on that one shelf, and Becky and I counted them up one time. I think we've got somewhere around 30 Bibles or something in this house.

And of course, me as a pastor, that's not terribly unusual. But statistics show that the average American has about three Bibles in their home. Well, that wouldn't have been the case in the first century.

They would not have all had these Bibles. In fact, the only writings that the church would have had would have been kept in the place wherever it was that they had church. And if it was in somebody's home, maybe the writings were kept in the home, or there may have been a particular elder that was responsible for those writings.

And those elders may have also copied those writings. So they probably sat around and wrote other copies of them just in case something happened to one, or maybe if they were going to raise up missionaries that would go into another place and they would plant a church, then they would take those books and those scrolls with them.

So that church would have those writings as well. And whenever an elder would get up and would teach the good doctrine of Christ, what they were teaching was, first of all, the Old Testament, showing how Christ had fulfilled all of these things that were spoken about through the prophets and in the Psalms and things like that.

And then the other writings that they would have had would have been the letters that Paul wrote. So the church in Ephesus had a letter already. And when Paul writes to the Colossians, he says, take this letter and show it to the Laodiceans.

And while you're there in Laodicea, read the letter that I wrote to them. In second Peter, chapter three, Peter says that in Paul's letters, there are difficult things that he writes about, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures.

And so this kind of draws attention to the likelihood that many of these apostolic writings, that which came from the apostles, they were being copied and chronicled and put into books. And so the various churches were teaching these things.

They probably had the letters that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians or the letters he wrote to the Corinthians, and they would go through the teachings of the apostles, which helped them to qualify and understand essential truths pertaining to the gospel and how that produces godliness in the lives of believers.

The book of Luke is essentially the gospel as Paul preached it. So Luke was a fellow missionary with Paul. What he wrote down was the gospel the way that Paul preached it. And then that's also very similar to Matthew and Mark.

Matthew was Matthew's own gospel. Mark was the gospel the way that Peter preached it. And then John, of course, being an apostle of Christ, wrote his own gospel down. So the reason why Matthew, Mark and Luke are so much alike, as they're referred to as the synoptic gospels, a word that means same, they're very similar to one another because this was the apostolic confession.

This was the tradition of the apostles to share this message. They decided these are the things of Christ. These are the miracles that he did. These are the sayings of his that we are going to teach in the other churches.

And so that's why Matthew, Mark and Luke look so much the same. And then John, also an apostle of Christ, but he's the beloved apostle. So he had his own story that he wanted to share based on the things that Jesus said.

So his gospel is a little bit different than what we read in Matthew, Mark and Luke. But all of this, again, I bring this up because all of this goes back to a clear confession, things that were summarized, things that were precise, specific, that all of the churches had in common.

It wasn't like one church believed one aspect of the gospel and another church believed another aspect of the gospel. But everything was just kind of in chaos because churches believed in so many different things and you couldn't unify them all.

And it's a common conspiracy theory to believe that, that there was no uniformity in the churches and that uniformity didn't come about until Constantine and the council at Nicaea in 325. And it was only at that point that all these things were kind of brought together and summarized in concise confessions.

But that's simply not true. That's not true at all. In fact, Paul was very particular about the gospel that was preached to those churches and that they would not follow any other gospel. We see this rebuke that he gives to the Corinthians in both letters that we have in canon, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, rebuking the Galatians head on, where at the very start of the letter, he says, I'm astonished that you're going after a different gospel, rebuking them for falling into a gospel of faith and works because there were Jews that were telling them you had to keep the Jewish law in order to be a good Christian.

And so there is a consistency and a conciseness in what we read from Matthew all the way through to Revelation. There's no inconsistencies, there's no contradictions anywhere in the Bible, even throwing in the Old Testament from Genesis to Revelation.

What we have are 66 books written over a span of about 1500 years by 40 different authors, three different continents, three different languages. And yet it tells the same story throughout in the same tone, the same voice.

This is God telling this story through his prophets and apostles about how he is good and holy, but we are wretched and sinful and have rebelled against God. And yet God, who is loving and merciful and gracious, sent his son to die for us so that all who believe in him by faith will be forgiven their sins and receive eternal life.

That is the story of the Bible, and Christ is at the center of it. The Old Testament looking forward to him and the New Testament, we're looking back at him talking about what Christ accomplished on the cross and then what that's supposed to produce in the life of a believer.

Those who have turned from sin and are following Christ, we have those instructions then that are written in the letters from the apostles. And none of this was written by man's own will, but it was the Lord that led his prophets and apostles to write what they did.

As Peter points out, 2 Peter 1, verses 20 and 21, no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, it was men who wrote the Bible. Skeptics will try to say, it's not a Bible or it's not God having written these things down. It was men that wrote them down. Of course, it was men that wrote them down.

God used men to write his word down. It's still his word. Just as now God uses the church to be the bullhorn of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, it is our responsibility to take the gospel to the whole world.

As we had read in 1 Timothy 3, verse 15, the church is a pillar and a buttress of the truth. So we hold out the truth, we hold it up, we proclaim it to the world, and we also defend it from those who are teaching falsely or try to malign the truth.

So the tradition of the gospel of Christ is evident. It's evident in the Bible, and especially with what we're reading here in the pastoral letters, as Paul is telling his teachers, Timothy and Titus, what they're going to share with their congregations, and he draws their attention to the good confessions that they have learned and have applied to their lives in this work of faith that they have been called to do as men of God.

Hope Set on the Living God

So here Paul comes once again to saying, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. And again, that was however you want to take apart verses 7 and 8 to come up with that saying that Paul was drawing Timothy's attention to.

Timothy would have known what it was, even if we may not be able to summarize exactly the saying that Paul is drawing attention to. So then verse 10, here we are in the last verse of this paragraph we've been studying this week, for to this end we toil and strive.

To what end? Well, exactly what Paul has been talking about here, being trained in the words of the faith and the good doctrine that you have followed and putting those things before the brothers, sharing with them the truth of the gospel and warning them about those false teachers.

To this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God. It is fixed. It is unmoving. It is sustaining us to the very end. It is what we endure in the hope that we have in the living God, not a dead God.

We follow the living God, Jesus Christ, very man and very God who died on the cross for our sins, died in his body, not in his spirit. And then on the third day, his body was raised from the dead to show that he had power over death itself so that all who believe in him will not perish, but will inherit his life.

We share in his eternal life. We walk in the righteousness that he has called us to walk in, and then we will receive the same eternal, the same eternity that Christ dwells in. We will receive also if we believe by faith and endure to the end.

And it is the gospel, once again, it is the gospel that sustains us and will deliver us in the very end. To this end, we toil and strive. So the labor that we do in the faith is not easy. Christianity was never meant to be easy.

You go all the way back to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said that very thing, enter through the narrow gate for wide is the way and broad is the road that leads to destruction. And many are going to find that way because that's the easy way.

But long and hard is the road that leads to life, and few will find it because that's the difficult way. It is the narrow road. It is the narrow gate. That's the way that we need to go by. And from the very beginning, when Jesus called his first disciples, he said that the road was going to be hard.

Luke chapter 14, if someone doesn't hate father and mother, brother and sister, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple.

Those are serious words there, but this is Jesus putting before his disciples. It is a great cost to be my follower. You must consider the cost, but it is most definitely worth the cost. So we toil and strive, and we don't do that alone.

For as Jesus said to his disciples in the great commission, I am with you always to the very end of the age. In the book of John, he said, in this world, you will have trouble, but I have overcome the world.

So take heart as we toil and strive in this work of faith. Christ is with us, and we are sharing in the sufferings that he went through himself because we have our hope set on the living God. Life is the promise that has been given to us.

Life is the reward that we will be given because we have a hope in the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Now, that's a phrase that tends to be pretty debated.

What are we talking about there? You know, some universalists will try to use that phrase to even say that, well, see, Jesus saves everybody's the savior of all people. But it's most especially meaningful for those who believe it.

But we know that Paul is not a universalist, especially coming out of second Thessalonians before we jumped into first Timothy, where Paul is very clear that when Jesus returns, he is going to inflict vengeance, inflaming fire on those who did not obey the gospel.

But for those who did believe upon his name, they will marvel at him with the rest of the saints when he brings them into his perfect kingdom. So Paul was most especially not a universalist. And that's not what this verse is alluding to.

And then there's other debates about, well, see, this is this is the salvation that is being offered to everybody. But a person by their own free will can choose to receive that free offering of this grace that God gives through Jesus Christ.

Many people are going to reject it. And those who accept it are going to be the ones who are saved. Whenever we see this phrase, all people, or even if you go back to John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, this is not talking about the extension of salvation.

This is not a term of extension. Rather, it's talking about how all people are evil. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's what's being said here by all people. Everyone needs a savior.

But only those who believe have received that salvation from Christ. Jesus is the savior that all people need. But only those who believe receive salvation. And be careful that First Timothy 410 is not talking about anything related to predestination or election.

You don't find that here. Those are there are other passages that talk about that. But that's not what First Timothy 410 is talking about. So there are people that will have their own biases and notions about what this verse is saying, and they'll twist the verse to fit their biases and then try to say whether or not John Calvin was right based on First Timothy 410.

Well, this doesn't have anything to do with Calvinism. It's just very simply saying that Jesus is the savior that all people need. But only those who believe are going to be saved. These are the true words of the faith.

This is the good doctrine that we are to follow in. That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and all who believe in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life. Amen.

Final Exhortation and Church Fellowship

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.