1 Timothy 4:1-5

[0:00] 1 Timothy 4, verses 1 through 5, that is on page 964 of your pew Bibles. And remain standing for the reading of God's Word. Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, forbid marriage, and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

[0:35] For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the Word of God and prayer.

[0:46] This is the Word of the Lord. Amen. You can be seated. One of the abiding pressures of pastoral ministry is knowing that on any given Sunday in a congregation this size, there are undoubtedly dozens of concerns that fill the minds of those who enter through those doors.

[1:32] Concerns that weigh down the heart. And so you come expecting, anticipating, hoping that your concerns would be addressed, that your heart would be lifted up.

[1:53] And for those in pastoral ministry, they often wonder, how in the world can what I say in the next few minutes meet the needs of so many so diverse?

[2:07] I was thinking about that this week as we looked to our text and wondering how does this text address the fundamental needs of our people today.

[2:23] And then I began to think differently about it. Perhaps if we gave ourselves to Paul's concern rather than our own, we might trust God to address our needs.

[2:38] For indeed, Paul comes to church today, chapter 4, 1 to 5, with concerns. So let us together set our concerns aside and take up the apostles, praying in faith that God, who is our shepherd, will meet our needs through this word and through the week to come.

[3:10] His concern is listed squarely in verses 1 and 2. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

[3:36] His concern has been made known. Notice the verses roll in three ways.

[3:48] That the Spirit has expressly said, and in reference to that, we're not sure how. He doesn't tell us of an Old Testament text that he's thinking of, nor does he speak of the words of Christ or another.

[4:03] But nevertheless, the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, that of course for Paul would have been his very times, some will depart from the faith.

[4:15] That's the first wave of his concern as he enters into the church, the household of faith on Sunday. Timothy, the pastor, interim pastor, teacher in Ephesus, this is my concern for the church when you enter on Sunday.

[4:29] Some will depart from the faith by, second wave, devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

[4:48] Almost as if he indicates that there is some spiritual word going forth. There's a power within a realm that seeks to undo the faith of well-meaning church goers.

[5:09] That there's something deceitful about a spirit of the age and teachings that while they're coming from the lips of men actually have their roots in an underworld.

[5:24] So he says, this is my concern that I want to address when I come to church. Some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to a word whose real origination point is the underworld.

[5:46] And that will come through, verse 2, the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared through those who are speaking words to the congregation whose own conscience is seared either by Satan, like a brand, or by their own acquiescence to not living in accordance with that which would be sound doctrine.

[6:15] Wow, that's a concern worth addressing. We have our concerns, and they are real.

[6:27] Even in our midst. Family. Marriage. Singleness. The will of God for the summer, let alone life.

[6:43] Parents. The shadow of death. Fears. Friends. Those who have already estranged themselves from us and the faith.

[6:57] All these things are yours in abundance. And Paul sits with you today and says, my concern, there will be some who will depart from the faith.

[7:12] They will give themselves unwittingly over time to a teaching which really originates in an underworld. In an untruth.

[7:24] And that will come through ministers in the church who are insincere and whose consciences themselves have already been moved away from that which would be the benefit of the people.

[7:38] what a concern. It makes me think that it's important enough to stop to remind ourselves of what the faith is.

[7:50] What is the faith in verse 1? I love thinking of it in these terms just going back to the opening verses of the letter. 1 Timothy 1.

[8:02] Look at that benediction at the end of verse 2 that Paul placed on Timothy. He calls him their true child in faith. That is, Timothy was related authentically to that which is faith.

[8:16] Legitimate faith. And then he has this little phrase, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. In a sense, that is almost a distillation of true faith that grace and mercy and peace come to you from God the Father through Jesus Christ.

[8:41] Grace is yours in the faith. Mercy a need of yours this week for mercy and endurance is yours through God the Father.

[8:55] He is your shepherd. Peace which is a peace that goes all the way to the rootedness of your relationship with God.

[9:06] All that is yours through the Father done through the work of Jesus Christ. The faith is the gospel. It's what Jesus has done. It is so good. It is so rich.

[9:16] It is so full. It is so trustworthy as he said in chapter 1 that this is a trustworthy statement that Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

[9:27] That is such good news. It comes to you through the gift of faith. In other words, the gospel is what places you in a relationship with God through faith in Christ.

[9:42] and his concern was that that faith would be departed from. The word depart is interesting in regard to trying to get a hold of it.

[9:53] What is it to depart from the faith? In one sense, it's to stand against from. It's to be established away from.

[10:10] And his concern is that church-going men and women will at some point be led to stand against from the gospel because they've given themselves to another word that isn't really going to benefit them at all even though they've devoted themselves to it.

[10:33] So what is the content of their underworld teaching? Well, it's there in our text.

[10:45] You move from his concern one and two to the content of their teaching which gave rise to his concern the first part of verse 3.

[10:56] This is what it is. They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

[11:09] Well, that's surprising content. I'm surprised by it. I'm used to people standing against the faith by giving themselves over to licentiousness over to embracing everything.

[11:25] This is quite a different angle. That there is an unworldliness that can grab hold of some just as worldliness grabs hold of some.

[11:41] You can go out of faith through rigor or through just abject rebellion and giving yourself to all things pleasurable. There's two exits from the household of faith.

[12:00] They are those who evidently in his day there were some who were beginning to forbid marriage and require abstinence from certain foods. I don't know what that actually would have been.

[12:15] You can't go back to the Hebrew scriptures and start finding verses that at least in marriage are going to say there's the categorical statement that it was to be forbidden or they were beginning to go against that.

[12:30] You can't really find that anywhere. I wonder personally if it's an overreaction to the teachings of Jesus on what would happen in the latter days.

[12:44] This is just strictly speculation but any answer to this question of where do these two concerns marriage and the forbidding of food come from they are all areas of speculation but Jesus said in his own earthly ministry concerning the day and the hour of the end no one knows not even the angels of heaven nor the son but the father only for as were the days of Noah so will be the coming of the son of man for as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away so will the coming of the son of man be.

[13:30] There was this latent teaching attending the end of the world and the coming of the son that said the world was just going on as it was always going on.

[13:41] People were just getting married and doing their thing and eating and having festivals and so therefore perhaps we need to give ourselves to God we need to be prepared we need to look for the end.

[13:55] Fact! No marriage! Well that wouldn't have sat well in my house this past week. If you know anything about my family we just celebrated the marriage of our oldest daughter last Saturday and we had a blast.

[14:14] I did not forbid marriage but evidently there were some who would. that there is some spiritual way forward.

[14:27] In other words the content of their teaching rather than relating to God through faith in Christ you would substitute that you relate to God through this rigorous assessment of regulation and rule.

[14:46] Prohibitions. In other words the spiritual person the truly spiritual person walked away from engagement in a secular world or even in a sexual world or in a celebratory world.

[15:03] That the one who really knew God never celebrated, never feasted, never married. And so it went and the unwitting embrace it and walk out of church spiritual spiritual but no longer in the faith.

[15:26] Let me just put an end to that. The Christian gospel ought to be birthing people who are of all people marked by celebration, marked by festivity, marked even by marriage.

[15:46] church. If you saw me try to do my father-daughter dance on last Saturday and a few of you were there, hopefully while you didn't see a father who got all his steps right, you saw a man who was enjoying the expansion of a platform for the gospel through the covenantal vows of marriage and we celebrated it with dancing.

[16:20] The truly spiritual person doesn't have to walk away from celebration. But this was what was being purported, that the spiritual was what was right and it almost begins to look now like the renouncement of the material is there, that there's a difference between the seeing world and the unseen world.

[16:44] The seen world was becoming bad in their teaching, the unseen world was good, heaven was good, earth was bad, the mind was good, matter was bad, earth is filled with garbage, stain, sin, heaven is filled with goodness and blessing and the law or not became some means of navigating these laws, of relationship with God.

[17:14] What an irony to think that the spiritual realm was good, the material realm was bad after what we saw last Sunday. I mean, take a look, what was the mystery of godliness in chapter 3, verse 16?

[17:28] The mystery of godliness is that he who was manifested in the flesh is vindicated by the spirit. that Jesus who came in the flesh is actually vindicated by the Holy Spirit.

[17:44] There's a union between the spiritual and the material in that sense. What a sad irony. And thus, my own personal love for life.

[18:01] life. Do you have a love for life? Are you so rigorously intent that you begin almost this practical dualism, never having even taken a class in philosophy on it, where you're committed to enduring the world and give yourself to all these rules that will keep you, in a sense, free from stain?

[18:34] Paul seems to say that's one way out. I mean, out of the faith. Every year, one of my sons, as you know, his instrument is his voice.

[18:47] And so, we go to Whitney Young to watch the choir concerts. And I'm telling you, there is nothing more splendid in all of life than sitting at a high school concert choir with 200 high school students up there, like little flowers, all getting ready to bloom.

[19:12] And the beautiful representation of face to face, it's one of the great things about watching a choir as opposed to an athletic event, is just the individuality, the creativity, the beauty, the expressiveness of each individual flower.

[19:33] It is glorious. Every face filled with the glory of a God who created them in his own image. I love that. I can't imagine what kind of spiritual teachers were rolling through Ephesus that began to tell the people, no, to know God is a spiritual thing and that's going to mean no more marrying and no more participating in festive celebration.

[20:08] I suppose they wouldn't have done too well with my balloons behind me today. I've never had balloons in church to my knowledge but I brought those in here because I'm so thrilled with what God is doing in our life together.

[20:24] And besides, I thought it matched the colors of the banner. over the area. Think of Socrates.

[20:36] I'm not picking on him, I just love these words though. Socrates, when he begins to think about the division of this world and matter and then a better, higher plane that philosophers and others can finally attain and a beatific vision that's to be had.

[21:00] And he talks about beholding a beatific vision being initiated into a mystery which we truly call blessed, like seeing God, actually before he actually took on a body, beholding, shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about.

[21:22] Now that we are imprisoned in the body, here's the metaphor, like an oyster, in his shell. This kind of idea that this human body of ours is holding us back from the real me.

[21:41] Now this is the real me. And in all of its imperfection, by the grace of God, it is good. You are not like an oyster in your shell.

[21:53] You are not like an oyster in your shell. No great separation anymore between the spiritual and the material. Let me say a word as it relates to marriage.

[22:07] Now, Paul certainly advocates singleness in the scriptures as well as a way of serving God. But marriage is to be held in high esteem.

[22:18] I would love to see that continue in our own midst. A celebration of singleness, an unmitigated devotion to the gospel work in all of its fullness, and a celebration of marriage, of proper dating, of courting, of seeing these kinds of things take place, of families being built and raised in our midst.

[22:42] What a great thing that would be if they would just continue to multiply. That takes initiative. That takes direction. That takes an understanding that it is good. May it be so even in our midst.

[22:57] So, Paul's concern? People in church will give themselves to a teaching that in the end is from the underworld, and it's put forward by people whose consciences are already seared, and it will make them stand against the gospel, which is the free good grace found in Christ, where the spiritual world and the earthly world were united and brought back together.

[23:23] What a mystery. Things in heaven and things on earth now under one head, and so it is in the gospel. What's the corrective?

[23:38] His concern, the content of the concern, what about the corrective? Well, the corrective will be next week primarily, but as we close today, I just want you to look at four and five.

[23:51] Just as a precursor, everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is to be received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

[24:05] Just think about those for a moment. Everything created by God is good. There is this great illusion in these two verses all the way back to the Genesis chapters where God pronounces everything good.

[24:21] What a thing to remember today, as you leave here with your concerns, that God does a good thing. If you don't believe it, come to me after the service and I will show you the, what do you call the thing you put on your cell phone, the photo, you know, you can put a picture on your phone, screensaver, yeah, that's it.

[24:45] So you come see my screensaver, because earlier this spring I had a day where everything in the world was going wrong. I mean wrong, I mean as bad as you can get wrong in the lives of those I love, some.

[24:57] But on my porch, on the row behind me, the forsythia was in bloom, the rose blood was in bloom, and I don't know the name of the white thing, it wasn't bridal wreath, but this white thing was in bloom.

[25:12] And I took a picture of it and I put it on my phone as a screensaver and I told my wife, this is what God does. Because I'd forgotten that.

[25:27] I thought everything was going down with no answers and no presents and he's not at work. This is what God does. You come see my phone if you need to be reminded that everything God created is good.

[25:45] Remember that as you leave here today with your concerns. Nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving.

[25:57] We're to be thankful people. With all your concerns, you're to be thankful. Most of you know I smoke cigars to the glory of God.

[26:11] And I will tell you that as the old sage used to say, everyone will give an account to God for the things they could have enjoyed but failed to do so.

[26:22] I love that. That's a law to live by. Find occasion, rightful, rightful, moderate occasion to celebrate the goodness of God with thanksgiving.

[26:41] Celebrate with thanksgiving all that he's done. And then it says finally, for it is made holy by the word of God in prayer. And I think that needs some explanation. I don't think when we, in a sense, bless, we don't bless our food before we eat it.

[26:55] We don't turn it into something holy. It was made holy by the word of God at creation. He called everything he did good. It is holy.

[27:07] Therefore, it's to be received with a prayer of thanksgiving. So as you leave today, your concerns may not have been addressed. But Paul's concern was, he doesn't want any to depart from the faith.

[27:25] And one of the ways out is to move Christianity from a relationship to a rule-based religion. And he won't have anything other. And you are to celebrate all that he has done.

[27:40] Give him thanks. He is your shepherd. He will supply your every need. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gospel which comes to us freely.

[27:51] And I pray that we would be encouraged to follow you in faith with thanksgiving. In Jesus name we pray.

[28:02] Amen. Yeah.