Sept. 3, 2017 PM Service - Doctrine or Demise by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Doctrine as the Church’s Rule of Faith and Practice

6, 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 2 through 10 will be our subject this afternoon. You may recall that the first few words I'm going to read are the end of verse 2, which was the end of last week's message, and I think it sort of hinges both ways to what we preached last week, verses 1 and 2, and now what we have before us this morning, 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verses 2 through 10.

Again, the Word of God, and most specifically the Word of God from the Apostle Paul to Timothy as he manages and puts back in order the church in Ephesus. Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.

He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain, you know, doctrine.

Ah, doctrine. In the Greek, teaching, instruction, the didactic precepts of scripture that must be understood and obeyed by God's people. Some people bemoan how doctrine seems only to cause controversy, and so they deny that we should pay doctrine any heed at all.

Others lament the academic field that comes with doctrine because its development requires rigorous analysis of the sacred text, and it makes it feel like it's the work of scholars. It's inaccessible for many of us.

Some of our most important doctrines such as the divinity of Christ and the triune nature of God took centuries to develop, yet on them we stand today with our very lives. Others are easier to grasp, such as the many clear commands against greed or sexual immorality, or positively to love neighbors, or to be kind, to be generous.

These are all doctrines. And largely today in Christendom, especially here in the western part of the world and in our part of this country, especially here in this western part of our own nation, doctrine seems to have fallen on hard times.

Churches that hold to the orthodox faith are becoming anachronisms, bastions of outdated practice out of step with so-called enlightened modern man. Today the doctrines of the church are under attack as never before.

A devouring fire of sorts is sweeping across this nation, and churches, too many churches, have allowed their stance to be consumed by this fire that is sweeping across. For too many the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ have given way to a false peace of worldly conformity.

We stand in the face of the frontal assault of what Al Mohler calls the moral revolution. Gender has become a byword for freedom, and that freedom is defined by self-expression. Anyone who says your sex is a gift from God and is part of this image carried in all humanity is therefore derided and marginalized.

If we move to the next logical implication of that, if we say therefore that same-sex relationships are abominable to God, we've moved from an old-fashioned oddity to a clear and present danger to be attacked, to be demeaned, to be, I think is coming, eradicated.

Too many so-called pastors have folded and are gladly blessing same-sex marriages. I mean, how long must we wait until they bless any union at all between any two at all, whether married or committed or just happen to find each other for an evening, is anyone's guess.

My guess, though, is it won't be long, and much of this comes under the auspices of what is called the church. But the ones that would approve something like that, the ones that would condone it, have abandoned being the church.

And one of the surest ways to step out of being God's church, the very body of Christ Jesus, as Paul says here, the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, that gives some weight to it, does it not? The surest way to step out of that is to abandon doctrine, to abandon the teaching of the scripture, what is required of us, what we must know, what we must believe, and what we must do.

I'm not going to advocate this afternoon that we can have every doctrine down so pat that there's no disagreement even amongst brothers who generally agree with everything. We have the 1689 confession as basically our statement of faith, and we all largely agree with it, but we don't agree with everything in it.

As a body, we take some exceptions to it, and as individuals, we take some exceptions to it. But to abandon doctrine is to abandon being who and what God created the church to be. What is our answer? What is our answer to this movement outside of us, which is so concerned to grant what is called freedom?

Honestly, we know what it is because we have good doctrine. It's not freedom that they're being brought into, but slavery and continued slavery to sin, and an approval of sin which increases the weight of the chains and the strength of the locks that hold the manacles in place.

We know these things. I know I mixed up and threw a lot of metaphors at you because of our doctrine, and we know that that is not true freedom. What is our answer to that as it presses in on us and it becomes more and more intense?

Even at a little place like this, we are so small. Who would notice us? They will, I believe. The is going to happen. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. What's our answer? It is not an in-your-face pugnacious response.

We simply hold to the teaching, the doctrines of the Bible as our rule of faith and practice. We live out our faith as best we can in the power of the Holy Spirit and in accord with His Word. To say it in a word, we follow the doctrines God has given us in the scriptures.

We do this in a way that we hope brings honor to God, that magnifies the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who gives us these doctrines. We do this in a way that is not thumbing our nose and just being that obnoxious person to those outside and being different just for the sake of No.

We do these because we serve a beautiful Savior who, in fact, save us. O come, O come, Emmanuel. You came, you came, Emmanuel, and we love you and we serve you and wish to please you and we want to be like you.

And all this comes from following the doctrines, the doctrines. In our passage, Timothy is commanded to teach and urge these things, meaning everything Paul is instructed for the correction of the church in Ephesus.

They were not meant just for him, but for him to digest and then to return to the church. The teaching is from the word didosco, and it has the same root as we had in the word that brings us doctrine.

He says teach, didosco, it's like doctrine, teach, didosco these things, and urge is parakaleo, parakaleo, to encourage, to comfort, to come alongside. Para is alongside, kaleo, to urge, to comfort, to exhort.

In fact, one of the names of the Holy Spirit is our paraklete from parakaleo. So Paul is telling Timothy to teach, didosco, and urge, parakaleo, these things. So we do these, we live this way, we do these things, we give this testimony to the outside world with this in mind, that it is doctrine.

Doctrine is black and white, you do it, you understand it, you do the doctrine with parakaleo, with sort of a gentle, urging, exhorting, comforting alongside spirit. And there is then in the scripture, in 1st Timothy 6 there, there's then this immediate warning, he is to beware of those who do not teach these things, those who do not urge the body of Christ in the right manner or direction.

And remember as we study this letter that was written by Paul to the church that he himself founded, and this letter with all its corrections was not written long after the founding of this church. Teachers of different doctrines have always plagued the church.

I believe they are the savage wolves that Paul warned the Ephesian elders of in Acts chapter 20. If you just take a moment just as a quick excursus and think of the importance of the church in Ephesus and how much it comes up in scripture, how long in the book of Acts Luke stops and focuses in on Paul in Ephesus and all the things that happened there.

Huge events with the riots and all those things that happened. The temple of Diana was in Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world. It was a cross, sent a crossways for many cultures to come. And we soon have the letter to the Ephesians, the book of Ephesians.

And then first and second Timothy written to Timothy as he's at Ephesus ministering to the Ephesians. And of course Ephesians, the Ephesian church comes up in the book of Revelation in chapter 2 when Jesus addressed that church personally.

The false teacher in first Timothy, the false teacher is seen first in his treatment of the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you look again at that you'll see this, he does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And we can take this a couple of ways. I mean first there are the words that Jesus actually spoke while he walked on the earth. And the Sermon on the Mount would be just one if not the primary organized body of what Jesus Christ actually said, the sound words that he spoke.

And second the words of Christ means the whole apostolic teaching as it is Christ by his spirit who led them, who led Paul here even in this letter, every letter of the way. It's inspired. Now Timothy is warned about them.

And in Acts chapter 20 Paul tells the Ephesian elders about these savage wolves that are going to come in and take no heed to the body. We have to understand a heretic does not usually begin by introducing himself as such.

We're never going to hear somebody come to this pulpit or any other pulpit and say something like, well good morning, open your Bibles to, well you know it doesn't really matter. Wherever you want, I have no interest in your Bible.

As a matter of fact why don't you just close them. No, don't close, just put them under your pew. Because I'm a heretic. And I'm going to tell you something that's antithetical, so I don't want you reading it while I preach this to you.

Forget Acts 17 with those Berean people and all that stuff. That doesn't happen, does it? No, that's that's not being disguised as an angel of light. No, they have us open our Bibles and then pretending to tell us what is there, they enter their own thoughts upon us.

And one way to spot them is that they keep away from quoting Jesus very much. When our Lord said over and over, but I say to you in the Sermon on the Mount, his clarity is like a lighthouse beacon breaking through clouds and guiding us right to him.

But the false teacher, the heretic, the one who would lead us astray, the one who does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, they do something different. They might speak, and I hear this often enough, they speak of the historical meaning of Jesus.

The meaning that God might have had when he had Jesus walk on the earth. What is the purpose of the example that he gave us? And these sorts of things, and talking about him historically, but in a way that's not quite literally historical.

You see the distinction I'm making? The Jesus Seminar is an example of this kind of nonsense. Are you aware of what the Jesus Seminar does or did? I don't even know if they're still around to tell the truth.

But there'd be passages of the words of Jesus, and they would hold up these cards. Red is Jesus' words, pink it might not be. And all these different colors that they would hold up, and when they count the cards, they would vote and say, okay, well this must not be Jesus' words.

Or maybe this one or two over here was that. That's how heretics gain a foothold. They seem so smart. They have the polished resumes. They went to all the right schools. Then they hold up these cards, and we're supposed to follow them and say, well if he says Jesus, didn't say it.

Another way to spot them is that they take the plain teaching, and they so complicate it. They make it so convoluted and unbound from the page that you'll feel like your brains are melting just trying to keep up, which may be the goal.

And so what then becomes of the doctrine that you're supposed to know? What are you supposed to do Monday? How do you know to love your wife? How do you know how to submit to your husband? How do you know how to love one another and edify, encourage one another?

Well you don't. I think that's one way we do it, or they do it. It's by making it so complicated that you can't figure out what it is. That doesn't mean we get everything every time. I've made plenty of mistakes up here.

I've gotten very excited about some doctrines, and even before I got challenged by one of the brothers say, you know, pastor, you might want to look those notes. I'm already going, oh my word, where did I get that from?

But there's a difference between a mistake, an error, and misleading someone. These are areas kind of hard to sort out. A couple of weeks ago on Sunday school, our deacon Conley did a good job sorting out what's behind the idea of head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11.

And that was hard. It's a hard doctrine to sort out and then teach in a way that people can understand it and look to the scripture as it's being taught and say, yes, that is what it says. It's not an easy task.

I think he got it right, but the sheer difficulty of the passage makes us give room for other interpretations and practices. The key may well be what was at the end of that verse where it says, it accords with godliness.

It accords with godliness. The heretic, the false teacher, is the one that Timothy is to silence. They don't agree with the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. That accord with godliness, that leads you to be more like him.

And brethren, if you're going to be more like him, you need to understand what you're being told. What is the doctrine? Therefore you shall, and it should be simple, it should be understood. I'm not saying they're all easy, but we need to understand them.

Head coverings, for example, are not a signal of godliness or heresy. But such things as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, those are clear.

Those are easy to understand. And they've generated almost no controversy or disagreements. What does it mean to show each other love? Well, I can't give you a seven-step program for showing love to each other, but don't we know it when we see it?

Don't we know when love is coming out of my mouth to another? We know it. What is joy, peace, all those other things? We know them when we see them. They're clear. We need to ask ourselves, does what I just heard accord with the godliness that the New Testament, taken as a whole and on its own terms, says?

Does what you just heard bode with the rest of the scripture? Can you understand it? Was I encouraged to love my wife more closely to how Christ loved the church? Did the preacher-teacher set before me our Lord's demand that I make short work of offenses?

Am I leaving today puffed up with pride, or has pride been brought low, its defenses destroyed by a call to godly humility? When I return to my work-a-day world tomorrow, on whom am I depending? Myself and all my own resources, or Christ, or Jesus Christ, and complete dependence on him as I was taught, as I was urged, as I was called to surrender everything to his spirit.

Those who teach otherwise, who do not agree with Jesus, usually cover it up by not mentioning him at all. His words are too sound. They are too easily accessible by the faithful for him to even bring up, lest he be exposed and yanked off the pulpit like a bad vaudeville act.

He's puffed up with conceit. That's what Paul says. He's puffed up with conceit. To think he won't be found out is sheer hubris. Numbers 32 .23 says that sin has a way of exposing itself. Your sins will find you out.

Experience tells us that that is not just a proverb. That's true. To think Christ, to think the Jesus Christ, to think that the risen ascended Lord at the right hand of God, who seven times in the letters to the churches in Revelation said, I know your works, put the emphasis on know, I know your works.

To think that he would sit back and watch his church, his body, be abused by that kind of falsehood that so is often presented as gospel is sheer hubris. Puffed up with conceit. To think that we'll never discern the error and challenges conceit.

He understands nothing. He has nothing worth sharing because he knows nothing about those things he so confidently asserts. First Timothy 1 .7. He's hardly worth noticing. You know there was a scene in Saving Private Ryan that when I wrote those words that he's not worth noticing that came to my mind.

It has to do with when the French translator who was on the combat patrol and all he was there for was to translate from French to English for the combat soldiers. And at one point they get caught up in some very intensive combat.

And as he's going up the stairs to bring extra ammo to one of the soldiers, the German who had just killed him is coming down. And he looks at this man and he's so frightened. He's so non-combat they don't even bother to to shoot him.

He just looks at him kind of snorts and walks past. I sort of thought of that when I was thinking of these men who would stand as gospel preachers when Paul says they understand nothing. Almost beneath notice.

Jesus said we know a false prophet by the fruit he bears. Paul says the same thing here at the end of verse four. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words. This idea of unhealthy craving is used only here in the New Testament.

So it's impossible to find other contexts. But I think our ESV Bibles carry it very well. His desire is not for God honoring unity but the opposite. His desire is for controversy. When the lights are turned out and the doors are locked, if people are unsettled and unsure about what they just heard, if they're bickering over words and phrases, if the church is stirred up and can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again, then he has satisfied his longing.

He's accomplished his purpose. And his fruit is obvious. Envy amongst the saints among whom covening is prohibited by Jesus' sound words and yet that's what he promotes. Dissension where it should be how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.

He leaves behind slander where Jesus' sound words say, go to your brother, just the two of you. He leaves behind evil suspicions where Christ's sound words say, as I have loved you so you are to love one another.

And Christ's other sound words say what? Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and the heretic will not leave true godly Christian love behind. They will either deny love or turn it into just some sappy emotion rather than a firm Christian duty that as soldiers we take up and exhibit to one another and live out for one another.

The rest of it really kind of speaks for itself as so many of Jesus' sound words do. What else does he leave behind? What are the fruits of these false teachers that Paul was concerned about 2 ,100 years ago that we must be concerned about today?

Constant friction among people who are depraved of mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. So doctrine. Doctrine is what saves there. Not saves in terms of salvation but saves us from falling into that error.

Far from being the cause of disunity, it is by doctrine that we're able to stand together. It is by our doctrines drawn from the text for centuries tested by the church, confirmed in our experience that we are united and protected from these other fruits.

It is by living according to the doctrines that Jesus gave us that we may hear someday, well done good and faithful servant. And bless the Lord that he gave us his will for our living in the doctrines of the scripture.

Bless God because doctrine means that God has revealed to us in the scripture what he wants of us. Can you imagine if we had a God who demanded holiness and we had to say, what is holiness? Because we have no revelation of it.

No, that's not our God at all. This whole scripture reveals to us his requirements for us, the doctrines by which we must live. Doctrine has a power that we hardly realize. It guides us. Yes, it does guide us, but as they are demonstrably extracted from God's word, our doctrines have a power to convict like God's word does.

We know our behavior to be wrong, not because we feel bad because too often left to ourselves we don't feel bad. Instead we make excuses. What stops this process? Doctrine. Jesus's sound words that God willing his spirit will again bring to the forefront.

Have you heard of the Nashville Statement? My hand up if you have you heard the Nashville Statement? A few have. It's a 14 article statement put out by men like Al Mohler, D .A. Carson, a large number of others as a statement on the church's position on sexuality, on human sexuality and the image of God and what all this means.

And in each of the 14 statements there is an affirmation and a denial. I forgot to bring up my copy of it so I'm not going to even try and quote you. I'm going to just describe it to you a little bit.

It says something like we affirm that male and female God made them. So we affirm that there's a distinction between the male and the female. We deny that this distinction can be obliterated. Yeah again I forgot to bring it up here so I didn't quote it very well.

I bring that up because we need to understand that doctrines need to be formulated in the language of the day and for the needs of the day. Our 1689 confession does just that. It was written for the needs of the day back in the 17th century and has held up quite well for several centuries.

But it puts what the Bible says into our language. Not that the Bible isn't our language but it puts it into the language of the day and addresses the needs of the day like the Nashville statement does.

It's not the Bible. It's not God's word but it's an accurate reflection of God's word that meets the needs of the church at this time. Now why do I bring all this up? Because they are doctrines. They're distillations of what the Bible teaches.

The sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ in the language of our day applied to the needs of the day. Obviously going against the tide of society's current direction. But don't think for a moment that just because it is not the word of God that it has no power.

Even as just a reflection of God's word it has great power. It's called quite a controversy. What interests me in all this, and I want to encourage you with this, to think of the power of right doctrine.

To take what the scripture says and formulate it in our own words and then live it out. There's a power in that. No sooner was the Nashville statement put out than the mayor of Nashville, Megan Berry, felt the need to immediately make a statement.

A statement that this statement, the Nashville statement, does not reflect her values or the values of Nashville, the city, and that Nashville did not condone it. As if anybody would read that statement say well I think the city of Nashville probably had something to do with it.

Nobody would say that. And she says this doesn't reflect our values. And nobody would read that document and say well I'll bet you there's a whole lot of citizens of Nashville. It's impossible. That would not happen.

And yet she felt the need because of the power of the accurate reflection, just reflection of God's word summarized in the language of today to the needs of today. She had to have a press conference and distance herself from something that she had no relationship to her or her city or anything else.

There's a power in doctrine. There's a power when God's people take God's word and speak it in the language of the day in which they live and apply it to the issues of that day when we do this accurately.

There's a power to that. So I want to encourage us here. I want to encourage us here to stay the course. Doctrine has fallen on to hard times. Doctrine makes us look centuries old, archaic, an anachronism.

And yet it is our very doctrines as they're taken from the Bible that lead us in the paths of holiness. It is our doctrines that have the power to convict. It is by our doctrines that we live lives pleasing to our Lord Jesus Christ.

As Jesus said, we are the light of the world whose good works led by biblical doctrine shed glory on God our Savior and his son Jesus Christ. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you again for this day. Ever bring us together and just pray, Father, that we would follow your word, that we would know your word, and that in all things as we live it out in this world in which you have us, Father, that we would be strong, we'd be brave, we'd be sweet, and Father, that we'd be consistent and live lives honoring to you.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Please turn as we prepare ourselves for the Lord's Day.