Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,
To Timothy, my true child in the faith:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
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[a] from
God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion,
desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
It is safe to say that no preacher, no professing Christian, would stand up before the church and say that he wanted the congregation to forget the gospel and to believe the
world’s ideas instead. That is not the way falsehood takes over. Rather, someone is offering a new insight…something that no one has ever realized that will take you deeper into the faith…something that does not require the kind of “all in” lifestyle…or a
new way to make Christianity relevant to the world, more exiting and enticing for you, for your children who, after all, we want to stay in the church…and also these novel ideas will attract unbelievers.
A new and modern way to worship, an emphasis that takes us away from the main themes of the Bible, things like sin, judgment, sacrifice, humility and death to self…Come on…those
things do not play well in the 21st century…let’s get with the times and be innovative. Preaching, sacraments, worship, those things might have worked in the past, and we are going to keep them in the rotation, in our repertoire…but we need other
means for the 21stcentury.
As my mentor put it when warning me to stay away from jumping on the latest theological bandwagons: The Devil may, of course, make dumb ideas much more attractive than they
ought to be, but, humanly speaking, a smart fellow who can communicate can make other reasonably intelligent people believe almost anything!
One of the remedies to the temptation to wander that is offered in the pastoral epistles and we will get there soon enough in greater detail, is the importance of godly, qualified
leadership. Follow Israel’s history and what you find is that when the king is faithful, for the most part the people are faithful, and when the king is unfaithful the people follow in unrighteousness.
We depended on our parents when we were children, we depended upon our teachers when we were students, we depended upon our pastors, elders and deacons as Christians.
One author and pastor put it this way: If you love your children and your grandchildren, if you wish for the church to survive American culture and to thrive again as a powerful
force within this culture, you must pray for and do what you can to encourage the right sort of leadership in the church.
We live in an anti-clerical, anti-authority age. Most men and women who profess the Christian faith do not see, do not practically believe that the church has much if any authority
in their lives. And when pressed, will actually become contrary so as to reject the notion or just ignore the church other than showing up for Sunday morningservice.
Because of this, such a message that you are reading about this morning, that Paul is promoting and teaching Timothy, does not fall on welcoming ears. But what Paul is emphatically
teaching in the pastoral epistles is that your future as a Christian, and that of your children and grandchildren without a doubt depends upon the church and her faithfulness…
…It depends on the church standing against all that the world demands her to embrace and that listening to the world regardless of who is promoting it, Christian or not, would
amount to covenantal treason.
AND, therefore…the church’s fidelity to the truth depends upon the kind of men who are leading, teaching, and serving her. Men who are going to stand in the stream of Holy Scripture
no matter what.
I want to conclude by reading you something that I found in a sermon some time ago. I think this puts it well:
I sometimes find myself talking to people whose heart-breaking problems are intensely personal to them, I remind them that these problems are profoundly historical, cultural
and ecclesiastical. We do not live our lives in isolation and cannot live them in isolation.
The difficulty young women have today in finding worthy young men to marry is not the result of some sin they have committed. It is the result of profound changes in our
culture that have resulted in the disintegration of noble masculinity.
Jeremiah didn’t live his life as a bachelor because he had done something wrong. He was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. The difficulty men are having in our time
with sexual temptation is not simply the age-old problem of sexual desire.
It is made much worse by the culture of pornography and the technology of pornography that are the hallmarks of our time. The same could be said about divorce, about homosexuality,
about materialism, about political and legal developments, and on and on.
The church’s fidelity to the truth in the teeth of the culture’s hostility or disinterest and its being furnished with able leadership will have everything to do with what
kind of Christian life you live and even more the kind of Christian life your children and your grandchildren will live if, by God’s grace, they live it.
Large things have a tremendous influence on small things, institutions have tremendous influence over individuals; and so, it is the condition of the Christian church as
a whole in a time, in a place, and in a culture that will have everything to do with each and every Christian life.
To know this is to be wise.
Prayer: Father, forgive me for the many excuses that I have for not loving you and serving my brothers and sisters. Forgive me for saying words that I do not live
with my life; for laying down the cross when the difficulties grow and I get tired. Give me the strength of Your Spirit to see myself as I am, lost and helpless, but then to also see myself as I am in Christ, forgiven and holy! Father, I want to walk with
you faithfully, give me, I pray, the courage, faith, hope and joy that is for your children, through Jesus Christ I pray, Amen.
Hymn: Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken