WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.600 We're starting a new series this morning on the book of 1st Timothy, Paul's Letter to 00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:11.439 Timothy, and the title of the series is Life and the Family of God. 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:17.280 We've just finished a series on vision and values, our DNA, who we are, why God's put 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:23.640 us right here on the royal mile in the city center to be committed to the Gospel for Edinburgh. 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:28.679 And in this letter, this is the very end of Paul's life when he's writing this. 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:32.240 It's likely written either 63 or 64 AD. 00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:36.119 Paul's going to be murdered in 67 for his faith. 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:39.600 And so this is one of the very last things that he wrote, 1st and 2nd Timothy that we 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:41.079 have. 00:00:41.079 --> 00:00:46.079 And it's all about life in the midst of the church family within the church. 00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:51.679 It's sort of Paul's instructions for life inside the local church and the church walls 00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:52.679 and what it should look like. 00:00:52.679 --> 00:00:57.000 And so really we're just doing vision and values part two with a lot more detail and 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:01.480 a lot longer because Paul's going to give us instructions here on worship, mission, 00:01:01.480 --> 00:01:05.000 community and discipleship over and over again. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:12.200 Now Paul in verse one says, I'm an apostle of Jesus by the command of God. 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:18.960 And so he says, I've been given authority to speak to the church by God's pronouncement, 00:01:18.960 --> 00:01:21.280 by Jesus's command. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:27.719 And you say, Paul, tell me in your great instruction book here what you want for the church, what 00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:30.599 you want for the life of our church family here. 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:35.320 And he says, well, let me tell you the first thing, the apostle, the first thing he wants 00:01:35.320 --> 00:01:39.640 us to know is what truth is for. 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:40.840 That's what he says. 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:45.439 And that's really the centerpiece of this passage, what truth is for. 00:01:45.439 --> 00:01:48.280 And we can't say everything about these 11 verses. 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:52.719 There's so much we have to leave behind, but the very main point is to get at that. 00:01:52.719 --> 00:01:54.120 What is truth for? 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:55.560 And so two things this morning. 00:01:55.560 --> 00:02:01.320 First the problem with truth and secondly the goal of truth. 00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:04.719 So first the problem with truth. 00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:11.719 If you've ever been around a church like today or if you've grown up in a church, especially 00:02:11.719 --> 00:02:16.520 a Protestant church or you've come into Christian faith and joined a church or been visiting 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:21.719 a church for a long time, a Presbyterian church or free church, any Bible-believing church. 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:26.240 One of the things that you may have heard, and this has been around for 500 years now, 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:31.760 is that Protestant Christians have often been called people of the book. 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:36.680 And people of the book are truth people, people that are very serious about the truth. 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:42.360 And St. Columbus is a place for nearly two centuries now that's been very serious about 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:46.080 the truth, about the truth as it comes out of God's word. 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:52.840 And so more than 150 years ago someone built this pulpit right behind me on Thomas Guthrie's 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:56.040 plans that he brought back from the continent. 00:02:56.040 --> 00:03:01.200 And the symbolic value of it was to say we're serious about the truth, about the truth as 00:03:01.200 --> 00:03:03.640 it comes out of God's word. 00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:08.560 And that's why a tall pulpit like that exists. 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:11.840 People of the book are truth people. 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:14.520 And that means that they're also doctrine people. 00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:22.040 And Paul uses that word doctrine several times in this first 11 verses. 00:03:22.040 --> 00:03:31.280 And the word doctrine just simply means using the Bible to tell truths about God in your 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:32.719 own native language. 00:03:32.719 --> 00:03:33.719 That's doctrine. 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:39.520 Anytime you say a truth about God directed by the Bible in your own native language. 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:43.520 And sometimes we copy doctrines straight out of the Bible. 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:47.840 We just take quotes from the Bible and put them right in our theology. 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:52.080 Like nothing can separate you from the love of Jesus Christ. 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:53.120 That's a quote from Paul. 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:54.680 And that's a doctrine. 00:03:54.680 --> 00:04:00.080 Sometimes we extrapolate truths, doctrines from the Bible that aren't there as quotes. 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:05.460 Like to say we believe in God, Father, Son, and Spirit, the triune God. 00:04:05.460 --> 00:04:06.860 God is Trinity. 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:12.060 There's nowhere in the Bible that you can pull a quote that says God is Trinity, triune. 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:13.280 But we learn that from the Bible. 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:14.280 We extrapolate. 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:19.959 Now, all this to say is that if you live in the same late modern world that I do, you 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:25.360 know very well that doctrine is not popular. 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:30.600 That absolute truth statements are not popular at all in the time that we live. 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:35.079 And one of the reasons for that is because of the immense influence of a philosopher, 00:04:35.079 --> 00:04:40.199 a guy named Michel Foucault, who lived in the middle of the 20th century and wrote philosophy 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:41.199 then. 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:46.039 Foucault, even if you've never heard of him, is really the father of saying something very 00:04:46.039 --> 00:04:50.079 important that's affected our current modern life. 00:04:50.079 --> 00:04:51.079 And this is what Foucault says. 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:59.279 Foucault says that any attempt to speak doctrine, absolute truth statements, are attempts at 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:02.319 seizing power. 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:05.800 And he says there are no absolute truths. 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:07.599 We can't say that. 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:14.520 And instead, what doctrine really is, is what people use to lord truth over others. 00:05:14.520 --> 00:05:18.920 It's an attempt at what was made famous in that time, a power play, an attempt at seizing 00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:19.920 power. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:22.879 Now, here's the tricky thing. 00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:28.040 Paul, I think Paul would say, we cannot dismiss that outright. 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:32.840 Because for example, in my home state where I grew up and where I've lived before coming 00:05:32.839 --> 00:05:40.079 back here, Mississippi, in the 19th century, pastors, Christians took the Bible and they 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:47.759 pulled out of it statements of truth, so-called doctrines, in order to justify the slave trade 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.799 that was happening at the time that led up to the Civil War. 00:05:50.799 --> 00:05:55.799 And so they took Bible and they manipulated it and they wrote doctrine in order to make 00:05:55.799 --> 00:06:00.000 a power play, in order to convince people that what they were doing was not grievous 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:03.519 but okay and sanctioned by God, right? 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:09.160 Now Paul is addressing a problem like that here in 1 Timothy 1. 00:06:09.160 --> 00:06:14.040 And he is saying that people do bad things with doctrine. 00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:17.879 People do bad things sometimes with truths and with doctrines. 00:06:17.879 --> 00:06:23.199 But unlike Foucault, Paul had a very simple distinction that was quite easy to make. 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:28.040 And that's that the issue is never a question of whether or not truth exists or if there's 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:31.960 access to it, but the issue is people. 00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:32.960 Issues the human heart. 00:06:32.960 --> 00:06:34.360 Issues what we do with it. 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:37.319 Now that's exactly what's going on here. 00:06:37.319 --> 00:06:42.240 Paul is writing to Timothy and Timothy is a young man. 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:45.080 We know he's probably about 20 years old. 00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:48.759 And we also know that Timothy has a stomach problem. 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:51.759 Paul says in a couple different places that Timothy has issues. 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:55.680 He has some kind of gastrointestinal issue that continues to plug him. 00:06:55.680 --> 00:07:00.959 And we also know from some of the things that Paul says that Timothy is timid as a person. 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:02.280 He's fearful. 00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:03.280 He's young. 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:04.600 He's a leader in the church. 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:07.439 And he has an air of timidity of fearfulness. 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:12.920 And so we know Timothy is young, sick, and scared. 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:20.639 And Paul says, Timothy, by my apostolic authority, verse 1, I charge you in the next verse. 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:22.160 I charge you, verse 3. 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:23.160 I urge you. 00:07:23.160 --> 00:07:25.720 I'm giving you the heavenly commission that I'm giving to you. 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:29.520 I'm giving you authority and extending authority. 00:07:29.520 --> 00:07:33.400 And Timothy, you're young, you're scared, and you're sick, but you've got authority from 00:07:33.400 --> 00:07:35.600 God to do what? 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:44.160 Verse 3, he says to deal with certain persons who are teaching ESV translates it different 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:45.160 doctrine. 00:07:45.160 --> 00:07:49.400 I think it's very literally strange doctrine. 00:07:49.400 --> 00:07:50.400 That's the charge. 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:51.400 Okay. 00:07:51.399 --> 00:07:59.639 So certain persons are very likely elders in the church in Ephesus, where Timothy's living. 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:03.599 And what they've done is that they've taken the Christian faith and they've turned it 00:08:03.599 --> 00:08:06.239 into a power play. 00:08:06.239 --> 00:08:09.519 And they've manipulated it and they've added things to it. 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:13.359 The gospel that Paul preached, they've begun to add things to it. 00:08:13.359 --> 00:08:18.319 And they're doing it, we're told, at the end of the book in 1 Timothy 6 for their own personal 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:19.319 gain. 00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:22.480 And Paul says that they're selfish and conceited. 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:25.360 And so we know that they're doing it in some sense for their own personal gain. 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:31.519 Now it's hard to say exactly what they were teaching, but we know at least has three 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:32.799 things, three elements to it. 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:36.639 The first is they were teaching, quote, strange doctrine. 00:08:36.639 --> 00:08:42.159 That word in verse 3 is actually a word that Paul makes up. 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:45.679 It doesn't show up anywhere outside the New Testament at all, outside Paul's writing. 00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:47.240 He creates it. 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:49.399 And it translates to something like strange doctrine. 00:08:49.399 --> 00:08:51.480 And then you say, well, what about it, Paul? 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:55.120 Well, the very next verse he says, he makes it clear, verse 4. 00:08:55.120 --> 00:09:01.480 They're devoting themselves to myths and to endless genealogies which promote speculation. 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:08.399 So in other words, they're taking Jesus in the gospel and they're probably taking mythologies 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:14.480 that arose in the time between the Old Testament and New Testament, that 400 year space. 00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:20.759 And genealogical speculation, all sorts of speculation about angels and astrology was 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:23.240 quite often practiced in the midst of this. 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:27.039 And they're adding all of this strange stuff to the Christian faith and they're missing 00:09:27.039 --> 00:09:29.360 the point altogether. 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:33.480 And then the second thing they're doing, we're told, is they're adding the law. 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:35.680 We know this from several different places. 00:09:35.680 --> 00:09:38.480 That's the reason Paul addresses the law. 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:39.800 Not the moral law. 00:09:39.800 --> 00:09:43.879 At the end of this passage, Paul's going to say that God's moral law is good. 00:09:43.879 --> 00:09:49.200 What they're adding is saying, we've actually got to go back to the ceremonial law. 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:51.799 And that means that you can't eat certain foods. 00:09:51.799 --> 00:09:53.720 All the men need to be circumcised. 00:09:53.720 --> 00:10:00.039 Yes, Jesus is the way to get in, but if you want to stay in, you need secret knowledge 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:05.639 that only we possess, speculations, and you need to practice the Old Covenant ceremonial 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:07.200 practices as well. 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:11.360 Now the third thing is not a doctrine that they were teaching, but all of this comes 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:14.000 with an attitude. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.360 It's very clear throughout both of these letters to Timothy that whoever these people 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:19.080 were, they had an attitude. 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:25.600 And we know that just from verse 6, it says that they were all about vain discussion. 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:30.560 And that gets clear at the end of the book when Paul says in verse 4, chapter 6, 4, they 00:10:30.560 --> 00:10:37.879 were puffed up with pride with an unhealthy love of controversy and a constant spirit 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:39.279 of argumentation. 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:40.480 All right? 00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:43.279 So here's the takeaway. 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:44.960 They took the basics of the gospel. 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:51.680 They went on first century Facebook and Twitter, and they argued with every single person on 00:10:51.680 --> 00:10:56.159 their all day constantly about every little point of theology. 00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:00.440 And then they started trying to figure out the day Jesus was going to come back again 00:11:00.440 --> 00:11:03.279 using astrology and all sorts of other things. 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:06.480 And then they wrote books about it in order to make money. 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:12.159 And in other words, the weirdos got the power and emphasis to put it bluntly. 00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:14.440 And they forgot the point of the gospels. 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:18.879 And this is the same stuff that has turned people away that has been a bad witness for 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:21.680 Christianity for century after century. 00:11:21.680 --> 00:11:22.680 It's never changed. 00:11:22.680 --> 00:11:24.440 Social media has just made it worse. 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:29.720 But it's infighting, missing the point, and writing weird books about the book of Revelation. 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:30.720 Right? 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:31.720 This is all, it's always happened. 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:33.519 And it happened right here in the first century. 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:40.480 And you see, Paul's saying is that the problem with truth, the problem of truth is not truth, 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:42.399 it's people. 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:46.360 And we take good things and we use them in bad ways. 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:51.480 And so that means that it's really important to say that it's always a bad argument, always 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:58.039 a bad argument to say, to argue against the Christian faith or any other religion for 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:04.480 that matter by saying, well, look at what people in the past have done in the name of 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.719 Jesus Christ. 00:12:06.719 --> 00:12:11.240 People have started wars, they have supported the slave trade, they have gone on the crusades, 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:16.159 whatever you might want to list, murders have happened in the name of Jesus, absolutely. 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:18.159 Just like every other religion. 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:20.719 And in the name of atheism as well. 00:12:20.719 --> 00:12:26.559 It's always a bad argument because it says nothing about the nature of what's true. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:29.719 All it says is exactly what Christianity teaches. 00:12:29.719 --> 00:12:34.079 And that's that people's hearts are broken and bent reads and we always take anything 00:12:34.079 --> 00:12:37.319 we can get our hands on and we do bad things with it. 00:12:37.319 --> 00:12:42.879 And we've got then, we've got to get more specific here because Paul does, there's a 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:48.039 bigger problem in the passage and it's more fundamental than that we take stuff and we 00:12:48.039 --> 00:12:50.000 break it. 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.519 The problem is not just that people do bad things with truth, Paul is saying here that 00:12:53.519 --> 00:13:01.319 the real problem is that we are prone to miss the point of truth entirely. 00:13:01.319 --> 00:13:03.919 And he hints at that in verse four. 00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:09.960 He says that false teaching promotes speculation, but truth teaching, teaching the truth is 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:11.439 the stewardship of God. 00:13:11.439 --> 00:13:13.399 And then you say, well, Paul, what does that mean? 00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:17.039 And that leads us to point to, and that's the aim of truth. 00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:18.879 So secondly, finally, the aim of truth. 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:25.159 Paul says really clearly here what the point is, and this is a moment where we've all got 00:13:25.159 --> 00:13:31.639 to lean in and listen closely to Paul because this is the end of Paul's life. 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:38.840 And he's saying, I want to, in just a few words, tell you the entire point of ministry, 00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:43.519 the point of Christian ministry, the point of doctrine, the point of truth, why it all 00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:45.480 exists and it's right there in verse five. 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:46.480 And this is it. 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:57.000 The aim of our charge from God, verse five, is love that issues from the truth. 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:05.800 So the point of it all, Paul says, is that truth doctrine would issue forth in love. 00:14:05.800 --> 00:14:11.879 And Liggen Duncan, my former Boston pastor, I read him on this text this week and he puts 00:14:11.879 --> 00:14:12.879 it pithily. 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:17.679 He says, Paul is a truth guy and Paul is a love guy. 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:20.840 And he won't pith those against each other. 00:14:20.840 --> 00:14:25.240 And that's very important because people will often today, Christians even will often today 00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:30.200 look at churches and will talk about churches and will talk about the landscape of churches 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:36.360 in our city or another city and use that in a form of dating each of them and figuring 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:37.679 out where we're going to go, right? 00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:38.919 And what will people say? 00:14:38.919 --> 00:14:42.720 They'll say, that church is a truth church. 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:44.399 It's a doctrine church. 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:47.399 That church is a church where you're going to get great teaching. 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:50.240 You're going to hear the Bible clearly preached. 00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:51.680 They're serious about theology. 00:14:51.680 --> 00:14:55.160 So if that's you, that's your personality, that's where you should go. 00:14:55.160 --> 00:14:59.160 But that truth of that church over there is a love, that's a love church. 00:14:59.160 --> 00:15:02.240 And that's where you're going to feel accepted immediately, where you're going to feel like 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:06.200 there's a warm community and that you're loved no matter what, right? 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:08.320 And Paul says, no. 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:10.360 No way. 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.320 There can never be separation between truth and love. 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:15.519 We've got to be truth people and love people. 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:19.000 And actually the confusion is that it's the only way to get true love, the love that he's 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:25.759 talking about here is when it grows up from the soil of true doctrine, that they can never 00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:27.039 be separated from one another. 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:32.639 The problem is never the truth, we can never be committed to loveless truth or truthless 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:35.120 love, but love that issues from the truth. 00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:42.080 A sure way, we've seen from the 20th century, and it carries on, but a true way to kill 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:49.799 a local church is to abandon, change, or manipulate the doctrines of Christianity that have come 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:56.799 from the very beginning, from apostolic authority in the name of love, to change them and conform 00:15:56.799 --> 00:15:59.240 to modern preferences on the name of love. 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.120 It doesn't breed love because truth breeds love. 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:05.320 It ends up killing the local church, and we've seen that over and over again. 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:10.440 So we've got to ask as we turn to the end here, what exactly Paul, do you mean here 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:11.720 by love? 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:16.279 If truth and doctrine is for love, what is love? 00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:20.120 And this is what he says, he puts it clearly in verse five, that you need three things 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:22.840 in order to love, in order to be growing up in love. 00:16:22.840 --> 00:16:28.759 He says we need a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. 00:16:28.759 --> 00:16:35.519 Now a pure heart, commentators will say that this is probably a connection to Matthew chapter 00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:41.120 five, when Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:47.279 So Jesus uses that phrase, Paul uses it again here, and the heart in the New Testament is 00:16:47.279 --> 00:16:50.080 the seat of all affection. 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.559 It's the place from which you love and desire. 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:56.559 And so he's saying a pure heart, Matthew five, is a heart, what does it mean to have a pure 00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:00.599 heart, one that longs to see God? 00:17:00.599 --> 00:17:06.679 Meaning that you actually want God more than you want your stuff, more than you want your 00:17:06.679 --> 00:17:10.839 finances and your reputation and your security and whatever it may be. 00:17:10.839 --> 00:17:13.279 It's to want God more than idols. 00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:17.679 And you see why that has everything to do with being able to love, because when you 00:17:17.679 --> 00:17:22.480 want God more than your stuff, you're not preoccupied with the things of the world. 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:24.480 You have space to love. 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:25.679 So we need a pure heart. 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:30.240 And apparently we need a good conscience, he says. 00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:37.960 That is relief from the inward judge, our conscience that's shouting guilty all the time at us. 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:43.080 We need a restful, non-accusing conscience instead of an accusing conscience. 00:17:43.080 --> 00:17:49.160 And the reason for that is when your conscience is screaming guilty at you all the time, you're 00:17:49.160 --> 00:17:51.799 necessarily introspective. 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:54.840 You can't get out of your own head, you can't get out of your own heart, you're always trying 00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:58.480 to deal with your own problem, which is your guilt and shame. 00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:01.319 And so you don't have space in your life to turn outward. 00:18:01.319 --> 00:18:04.639 And so you need a good conscience if you're actually going to love. 00:18:04.639 --> 00:18:06.759 But thirdly, you also need sincere faith. 00:18:06.759 --> 00:18:11.599 And he means by this that you can't just have outward religion, religious practice, but 00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:18.839 you've got to have inward certainty that the things that you sing about, you actually believe. 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:24.240 That you really do believe that there is going to be something when your eyes close in death, 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:29.359 that your eyes will arise again in the life hereafter in front of the face of Jesus Christ. 00:18:29.359 --> 00:18:31.160 That sincere faith here. 00:18:31.160 --> 00:18:34.759 And you need that because if you don't have hope beyond this life, then you're going to 00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:39.799 be forced to spend this life accumulating all the pleasures you possibly can. 00:18:39.799 --> 00:18:46.039 Now one more thing, one more thing, and that's that you've also got to know that the word 00:18:46.039 --> 00:18:48.240 love is specific here. 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:51.640 And my wife pointed out to me this morning when I was talking to her about what I was 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:56.080 preaching on, and this is sort of an inside joke, so I apologize. 00:18:56.080 --> 00:19:01.440 But when I was here before, from 2013 to 2018, I got made fun of this quite often because 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:04.240 it just kept coming up in sermons. 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:08.160 But it has to be said because it's basic Bible, this is the word agape. 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.880 And it's the word for love. 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:14.040 It's a specific word for love. 00:19:14.040 --> 00:19:18.560 There are multiple words for love in Greek, and this one here is agape. 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:23.599 And it's important to say that because agape is defined in the Gospels in a specific way. 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:31.480 And that's that Jesus says love, this love is to lay down one's life for a friend, it's 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:35.519 self-sacrificial outpouring to the point of great cause. 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:41.039 Now look, let's take stock here. 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:44.879 Paul sees what Michel Foucault did not see. 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:52.920 And that's that truth can never be a power play if it's united to love, to true love, 00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:54.600 to agape. 00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:56.280 Because real love is self-sacrificial. 00:19:56.280 --> 00:19:58.760 It never takes doctrine to do wrong things. 00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:02.040 It never takes doctrine and truth to beat over people's heads. 00:20:02.040 --> 00:20:05.440 Instead, the ground of truth produces real love. 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:10.920 But listen, look, I hope that when you heard me talk about verse 5 there, those three things 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:19.400 you need that you, maybe if you're like me, you said, I don't know that I have that. 00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:25.160 I don't know that I have a pure heart and a good, clean conscience and a sincere faith. 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:31.440 At best, each of those areas for me as a Christian are half-hearted at times, right? 00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:38.519 And look, that is exactly why truth and love can never be separated. 00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:42.319 That's exactly why truth and love can never be separated. 00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:46.559 Because the truth, what Paul is saying here is that the truth has to have its way with 00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:49.000 you in order to love. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:51.759 The truth has to get down all the way to the core. 00:20:51.759 --> 00:20:57.240 The truth does in order that you could have what Paul is talking about here. 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:04.440 And you see, we asked what is love, but we can ask also what is truth. 00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:11.279 And in the middle of history, in the land of Israel, a gentle and lowly man stood up 00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:16.200 in the midst of the synagogue and said, I am the truth. 00:21:16.200 --> 00:21:18.559 And this is what philosophy misses. 00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:22.240 That truth is not fundamentally a set of words. 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:25.200 Truth is fundamentally a person, a human being. 00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:28.240 It's not a philosophy first, it's a human. 00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:32.320 And when Jesus Christ said, I am the truth, he meant I am God, and I've come to tell 00:21:32.319 --> 00:21:37.919 you what reality really is, what it's like, and I've come to teach you how to love. 00:21:37.919 --> 00:21:46.359 And you see, again, truth can never be a power play because the truth himself came into the 00:21:46.359 --> 00:21:49.480 world to lose all power. 00:21:49.480 --> 00:21:54.279 The truth himself came into the world taking on the weight of human sin because we always 00:21:54.279 --> 00:21:58.159 manipulate the good things God has given us. 00:21:58.159 --> 00:21:59.960 And he didn't use it for a power play. 00:21:59.960 --> 00:22:05.400 He came in ultimate self-sacrificial love to bear the weight of human guilt in himself. 00:22:05.400 --> 00:22:06.400 That's truth. 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:09.000 And you see, go back to the three things again. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.960 You say, in order to love love well, I need a pure heart. 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:15.400 And no person has that. 00:22:15.400 --> 00:22:18.200 No person wants God more than their idols. 00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:19.200 Nobody does. 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:22.400 That's fundamental to Christian thought, to Christian doctrine. 00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:27.539 And Jesus Christ comes into the world and says, well, I'm going to replace your heart 00:22:27.539 --> 00:22:30.119 of stone with a heart of flesh. 00:22:30.119 --> 00:22:32.240 I'm going to do that for you. 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:33.839 And you need a good conscience. 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:36.399 And nobody has a good conscience. 00:22:36.399 --> 00:22:38.799 Everybody is wracked with guilt and shame. 00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:42.440 And even if you don't feel that, it might be because your conscience has hardened over 00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:43.559 time. 00:22:43.559 --> 00:22:44.960 But the guilt is still present. 00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:49.119 There are no good people, no matter what the contemporary world says. 00:22:49.119 --> 00:22:52.200 And we can say alongside Foucault, yeah, you're half right. 00:22:52.200 --> 00:22:55.200 I have taken true things and manipulated. 00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:57.920 I take truths and make them half truths. 00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:01.400 I use them to manipulate my spouse and my children and people around me. 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:02.840 I'm bent and broke. 00:23:02.840 --> 00:23:04.120 That's every human. 00:23:04.120 --> 00:23:05.240 That's all of us, right? 00:23:05.240 --> 00:23:10.279 And Jesus Christ comes and says, the question is not, do you have a good conscience? 00:23:10.279 --> 00:23:13.360 But what are you going to do with your guilt? 00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:24.240 And in him, in him, the judge that we deserve became the judged for us. 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:28.599 So that today by faith you could say, in him my sins have been dealt with, my conscience 00:23:28.599 --> 00:23:30.079 is clean. 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:35.519 No matter how I feel, no matter how I feel about it, Jesus has cast my sins away. 00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:37.120 And we need sincere faith. 00:23:37.120 --> 00:23:43.599 And because Jesus Christ died as a man in the middle of history and rose again on the third 00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:48.120 day and there were more than 500 witnesses and they touched him. 00:23:48.120 --> 00:23:52.680 And the fact that so many people saw it, it turned the Roman Empire upside down in nothing 00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:57.759 but a century, you can say that if this man really did rise from the dead, then I can 00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:01.240 believe in things that I currently can't see. 00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:05.640 And if that's the case, then you're free in your life to love, to love on the ground of 00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:06.640 truth. 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:11.200 Now, we'll close with this. 00:24:11.200 --> 00:24:18.200 If you listen to Foucault and who says that truth is power, it's manipulative, doctrine 00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:19.880 always seeks control. 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:23.160 We need to get rid of the truth in order to love more. 00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:25.640 That's what the modern world says. 00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:30.720 What you're left with actually is a world of individuals who live in their own little 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:32.720 realities. 00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:36.360 And all of reality ends up being defined by the way you feel about it. 00:24:36.360 --> 00:24:40.360 And so morality becomes all about the way you feel and whatever you desire. 00:24:40.360 --> 00:24:44.760 And that means that the world has seven, eight, nine billion coming realities. 00:24:44.760 --> 00:24:47.520 If this is true, that is utter chaos. 00:24:47.520 --> 00:24:48.520 It doesn't work. 00:24:48.520 --> 00:24:49.520 It doesn't fit reality. 00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:54.839 It leaves people who embrace this completely unfulfilled. 00:24:54.839 --> 00:24:58.720 And we could say to Foucault, look, if you want to say that all doctrine, all religious 00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:04.559 truth statements are really just desire for power, that's a doctrine. 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:05.799 That's a doctrine in itself. 00:25:05.799 --> 00:25:10.279 And it's a grand doctrine to say that all truth is really just a power play. 00:25:10.279 --> 00:25:13.879 And so the same critique applies to his own statement. 00:25:13.879 --> 00:25:19.480 The Christianity comes into the world and says, the point of truth is love. 00:25:19.480 --> 00:25:21.880 And the truth himself is ultimate love. 00:25:21.880 --> 00:25:25.160 He lost every bit of power for me. 00:25:25.160 --> 00:25:28.079 And then he took it back up as king. 00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:31.480 And for that reason, I know that my conscience is clean if I trust in him today. 00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:35.640 I know that I have a pure heart, not because my heart's actually pure, but because my heart 00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:37.319 was united to his heart. 00:25:37.319 --> 00:25:38.759 And his heart is pure. 00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:40.920 And I have sincere faith and hope. 00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:41.920 And so I'm free to love. 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:47.000 Now, again, I was reading my old pastor from First Pres. 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:50.920 Jackson, where I was from a while ago this week, Ligand Duncan. 00:25:50.920 --> 00:25:55.279 He points to a story of journalist David Brooks. 00:25:55.279 --> 00:26:01.119 David Brooks is the very famous secular American Jewish writer. 00:26:01.119 --> 00:26:08.519 And David Brooks, some time ago, decided to do an exposes study of Christian evangelicalism 00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:11.720 in the United States and the United Kingdom. 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:18.880 And he said that he wanted to find out something more about Bible-believing Christians than 00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:27.200 the cheap critiques that he often heard whenever XYZ celebrity pastor commits some public sin. 00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:32.480 And that becomes all of what Christianity really is, Bible-believing Christianity. 00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:35.759 And so David Brooks says, I was looking for something more than a caricature from the 00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:37.160 public media. 00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:38.160 And this is what he says. 00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:42.320 I finally found it when I read John Stott. 00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:46.759 John Stott is the great Anglican theologian who died in 2011. 00:26:46.759 --> 00:26:48.120 Great Christian thinker and pastor. 00:26:48.120 --> 00:26:49.720 You can't read enough John Stott. 00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:51.200 Pick up some John Stott. 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:55.400 But this, I just want you to hear what he said about Stott as a Christian man. 00:26:55.400 --> 00:27:02.000 He said this, in Stott, I found a rigorous intellect who cared about the truth, who was 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:12.200 committed to biblical ethics, even when unpopular, and a man undeniably loving from top to bottom. 00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:17.880 And he said, reading Stott is like reading Mr. Rogers with a backbone of steel. 00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:21.519 Now I wasn't sure if Mr. Rogers was a universal reference here. 00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:23.599 I'm getting heads yes and no. 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:28.039 So think David Attenborough meets Thomas the Tank Engine, niceness. 00:27:28.039 --> 00:27:30.079 That's Mr. Rogers. 00:27:30.079 --> 00:27:33.879 Mr. Rogers with a backbone of steel. 00:27:33.879 --> 00:27:34.879 That's the point here. 00:27:34.879 --> 00:27:39.159 Paul is saying we have got to be, the life and the family of God, we've got to be truth 00:27:39.159 --> 00:27:45.079 people with spines of steel, committed to hearing God's word, to saying no matter what 00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:49.480 the culture thinks, I will see reality the way God says it is. 00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:53.039 And I'll love theology and I'll love what God said and I'll hunger to know more and 00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:57.399 I want the Bible and I want people who have written about it so I can feed on it more 00:27:57.399 --> 00:27:58.399 and more. 00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:05.040 And I believe this passage, Paul gives a list of sins six times in his letters he does this 00:28:05.040 --> 00:28:07.200 where he lists off sins. 00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:11.840 And you read through this list and he is saying, two things he's saying, there is a bad way 00:28:11.840 --> 00:28:14.480 to use this list of sins. 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:17.759 And that's to not, to beat people with it and not love people. 00:28:17.759 --> 00:28:22.200 There's a bad way to think that obeying the law will get you into the kingdom. 00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:26.720 But he also says, nevertheless, he calls it at the very end that this list, the moral 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:33.039 law, what God has said is good is, quote, sound doctrine. 00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:34.279 Ethics is doctrine. 00:28:34.279 --> 00:28:38.160 It's truth because it's the way God has defined it. 00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:41.440 We've got to have spines of steel on the one hand. 00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:48.400 And then Paul says, truth people with spines of steel, committed to what God has said, 00:28:48.400 --> 00:28:53.920 truth people have got to be loved people as well, that God's truth would be the soil in 00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:56.480 which our love grows. 00:28:56.480 --> 00:28:58.279 Christianity is for people. 00:28:58.279 --> 00:29:00.920 In Jesus Christ, the truth came for people. 00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:02.880 And so we've got to love people. 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:09.000 And so today we've got to turn our eyes to the truth, to Jesus Christ himself, loving 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:15.160 what he said, loving his word, loving his theology, reading and digesting and hungering, 00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:19.079 but never forgetting what it is for, what it is for. 00:29:19.079 --> 00:29:24.839 And that's agape, this genuine self-sacrificial love to look more and more like the Jesus 00:29:24.839 --> 00:29:30.279 who loves people himself to the point of great sacrifice. 00:29:30.279 --> 00:29:32.480 Let's pray and ask that God would do that for us. 00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:39.519 Father, we ask that you would make us truth people and love people simultaneously, that 00:29:39.519 --> 00:29:46.399 no matter what the world thinks about theology and ethics, about all that your word says, 00:29:46.399 --> 00:29:53.799 that we would remain committed, and that we would also never say but, but only and, and 00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:57.919 that we would be full of love because of that truth. 00:29:57.919 --> 00:30:06.919 And so use the truth to wield in us not spirits of argumentation and nitpicking, but of self-sacrifice 00:30:06.919 --> 00:30:12.079 and pouring ourselves for, for the people of this city, Lord, and for each other. 00:30:12.079 --> 00:30:19.079 And so we ask that that would be our hearts collectively as a church in the name of Jesus. 00:30:19.079 --> 00:30:24.079 Amen.