EPIC: High-Impact Truths in the New Testament – Part 13

All right, well, we are continuing our series. It's called Epic, and we're flying through the New Testament, hitting the hotspots, hitting the major pieces of Scripture that have powerful truths to share with us. And so we've been looking at the apostle Paul recently. We're going to continue with Paul today and 1 Timothy. So we're going to be looking at 1 Timothy chapter 1 today, and we begin in verse 5. Paul writes this young pastor, Timothy, and he says the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Now in today's religious world, this verse just doesn't fly. It doesn't jive with the logic of you having a dirty heart. It doesn't fly with the logic of you having a wicked heart. Maybe you've heard in religious circles that your heart is detestable to God, that it's wicked, that it's deceitfully wicked. We pull up the Old Testament passage, and we justify a dirty heart syndrome for every Christian believing that somehow I'm dirty, but I got to live clean. I'm sinful, but I got to live holy. I'm bad, but I've got to live good. Are you kidding me? A recipe for disaster, never going to happen, never going to work, because I've got to know I'm good. I'm a good tree so that I can bear good fruit. It's okay to say that you're good. Now I can hear you thinking of those words of Jesus. I mean those words of Jesus were, nobody is good. Why do you call me good? Nobody is good except the Father in heaven. Well, of course, Jesus is talking to unregenerate Jews before the cross, before the resurrection, before the born again experience. He's talking to people that are sitting in a circle on rocks perhaps, listening to him on the countryside there, and what he has to say to them is he's calling into question

their idea of goodness. Why do you call me good? Are you saying that I'm good? Because only God is good, and if you're calling me good, then guess what you're calling me? You're calling me God. Now, you know what? That is true. He wanted them to see his identity as good, as the Messiah, as the Son of God, and that's great, but don't miss the forest because of that tree. Look at you today. You've got a right to call yourself good because Jesus took you to the cross. You were buried with him, raised with him, and God made you good. God is good, and he made you good, and then he put good things out in front of you to do that we walk in, good works that he prepared in advance. But look, it's just like any jet airplane. It's just like any amazing car. You build the prototype. You design it from the ground up, and it's designed to do a certain thing, and that design is going to match that function, right? The design has to match the function. A race car is designed to go 200 miles an hour around a track. A jet plane is designed to go I don't know how many miles per hour all over the planet, but the design is going to be in agreement with the function. Now you have been designed for good works, so what does that tell you? You got to be good in order to do good works. You got the one who is good, Jesus Christ, living in you, but you're not just absent from the picture. You're a new creation. You're a child of God. You're in this.

It's called union with Christ because you're in it. You're part of it. You're not a hollow tube. You're not a fire hose through which Jesus lives his life. You're a child of God, and he's calling you a good tree because your design matches your function. So how many Christians know their function, but they don't know their design? They know the intended function, oh, I'm supposed to, you know, I'm supposed to live right, live holy, live good, live godly, be a good person, so to speak, in their minds, but they believe that they are evil. They believe that they have that dirty heart. Well Paul is telling us here as he writes this pastor, Timothy, he's saying the entire goal of our teaching, the reason we're here, doing what we do, is so that people can learn what it is to love from a pure heart, and he goes on and he matches that with a good conscience and a sincere faith. So when a person comes to Christ, that is a sincere faith. When a person comes to Christ, they have a really good reason, a great argument for a good conscience, right? So the good conscience comes two ways. Maybe you're not acquainted with both, but the good conscience comes two ways. It comes through the blood of Jesus, but then it also comes through the resurrection. Peter writes that. He says, an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection. So I guess I would ask you to reflect on why can you have a good conscience? Why can you have confidence with God? What is your secret? Well, if you know what you're talking about, your secret is that you know the blood of Jesus has taken away your sins once for all, past, present, and future. There's no scorecard, there's no clipboard, there's no ledger, there's no scorekeeping. And so he remembers your sins no more. He removed them as far as the East is from the West. You know, you go North. If you go North far enough, then you're going South. But if you go East, you're always going East. If you go West, you're always going West. God knew what He was saying when He said, I've removed your sins as

far as the East is from the West. Never the two will meet. That's reason number one, the blood of Jesus. What's reason number two? Well, you got resurrected with Christ. You got raised up to newness of life, and He took a syringe, a spiritual syringe, and He sucked out that old self, that old creation, and put in a new self, a new creature in Christ. And so because of that, you can have a good conscience. Now, watch how these work in tandem. These work in tandem because, first of all, I could believe I'm a new creature but still stumble. I could believe I'm a new creature in Christ that I'm righteous and holy and blameless, but if I stumble, what am I going to do about my failure? Well, the blood of Jesus takes care of all that. You are free to fail. I don't want you to fail. I don't want to fail. But we are free to fail. We're free to mess up. Now, again, that's not promoting sin because you were sinning just fine before I got up here. You were sinning just fine before I got up here. But what if, what if you decided that you were free to fail because your Father loves you no matter what, He accepts you no matter what, you're forgiven past, present, and future? That doesn't make you want to sin more. The Bible says Jesus says the opposite. He said, whoever's forgiven much loves much. Forgiveness leads to love, not sin. Forgiveness leads to loving people even more because if my God, knowing my track record, knowing my mess-ups and my failures, if my God forgave me to that degree, then wow, I'm pretty excited about sharing this with others, just sharing the love and grace and mercy and forgiveness and kindness of our God with other people. And I'm not just talking about evangelizing. I'm talking about that attitude, carrying that attitude of graciousness toward others. So we got these two truths working in tandem. The blood of Jesus takes care of our failures, but then there's a cause, an impetus, an influence, a motivation to not fail. He didn't leave you in the muck and mire. He didn't leave you in the ditch. He didn't leave you as the old self. He actually gave you new desires. Last week we talked about how you want to be a good parent. You're not always performing like a good parent, but you want to be because God gave you a new loving heart for your kids. You don't always act like a good employee at work, but God gave you a new heart, and He

talks about serving others in the love of Christ. He talks about the workplace, even the workplace in the Scriptures, right? And so we have been built from the ground up for upright living, and the only way you get somebody built like that is to change who they are at the core, to change their nature, their heart, to change their desires. So when God says, walk in a manner that is worthy of your calling, He's saying, look what I did to you, now walk. Look at how I changed you, now walk. Look at how I transformed you, now walk. If you take away the transformation and you just tell people to walk, then you've got legalism. If you tell people, walk better, do better, try harder, be better, love more, come on, then you've got legalism. If you take the second half of Paul's letters and lord them over... over people, you've got legalism. Because he's talking about behavior later, but he's talking about your righteousness and your forgiveness early on. And so watch this, we're not doing away with good behavior, quite the opposite, we're taking the good behavior, the bearing fruit message, and we're gonna put a little jack under it. And then we're just gonna hoist it up on top of that pedestal, and then we're sliding in identity in Christ, we're sliding in our union with Jesus, we're sliding in the new covenant oneness with Christ. That message of loving and bearing fruit and forgiving is still there, but suddenly it's not legalism of try harder and get in an accountability group and get yourself behaving or else God's mad at you. No, we've hoisted that up,

and we've slid in the message of God's mercy and kindness and love. Suddenly we got the cross and the resurrection as our basis, you see that? Now the whole thing starts to make sense. People throw stones because they don't understand, we're just sliding in a foundation. The behavior message is still there all over the New Testament. Love others even as I've loved you. Guess what you gotta know first? You gotta know how has he loved you? Let's slide that in there first, and then love others even as he's loved you. All right, so we got a lot to talk about. We're in verse six. Paul's talking about the goal of his instruction. He says, some men are straying from these things and they've turned aside to fruitless discussion. Now, this fruitless discussion is still happening today. As we fast forward into this passage a little later, I mean, you're gonna see that this kind of fruitless stuff is still occurring because Paul's talking about law. He's talking about law keeping. He's saying they wanna be, they wanna be teachers of the law, but without saying it, he basically says, they're clueless. They don't have a clue. Like, they're cherry picking.

They're picking their favorite parts. They're doing whatever they feel like. They're not obeying this one because it's not convenient, but they're gonna keep this one. They're gonna tell you about this one, but not this one. Fruitless discussions as they take 613 things at the buffet line of law, right? Just like at your favorite restaurant. Think of your favorite Chinese restaurant or your favorite rib restaurant or your favorite restaurant that has a big buffet with all those fixings and all those choices. 613 in this case, and they're gonna have fruitless discussions standing there. Hey, you think we ought to keep that one? No, not that one. You think we ought to keep, well, yeah, we gotta keep that one. And they're going down the line having fruitless discussions. They wanna be teachers of the law, but they don't know what they're talking about. He says this in the next verse. He calls them clueless, essentially. Look at this, verse seven. Wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying

or the matters about which they make confident assertions. Wow, you know what he's saying? Oh, boy, they're filled with confidence. Let me tell you how to live. Here's your guidelines. Here's your laws. Here's your regulations. You need to be accountable to these because I'm doing these. Well, you doing those? I'm not doing those, but I'm doing these, you see? And so what we got is a confident crowd of law teachers that are clueless. Confident, but clueless. That's what Paul's saying. So when you and I begin to talk about our freedom in Christ, we begin to talk about how we're dead to the law, not under the law, that Christ is the end of the law. Do we get some pushback? Do we get some people say, oh, that's too, what do they say? That's too simplistic. That's too good to be true. That's too easy. That's too straightforward. That's too simplistic. Let me invite you to our fruitless discussions. Come on in.

You were bearing fruit, but now let's go fruitless. You were bearing fruit just fine under grace, but let me tell you about the 10 that you need to be looking to, or the 11 with tithing, or we'll delete the Sabbath and make it 10 again, or we'll delete the Sabbath and just make it nine. But let me tell you about the fruitless discussions you need to be a part of. And that is exactly what Paul is saying here. Wow. confident beating their chests, but they are clueless. They don't know what they're talking about. Verse 8, Paul says, but we know that the law is good. We're not law bashers. We're not law haters. We know the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing that the law is not made for a righteous person. Now, the obvious question is, are you a righteous person? Because, see, if you don't have that nailed down, if you don't have that figured out, if you're not calling yourself the righteousness of God, then you're going to read this verse and miss this whole point. What he's saying is, why are you looking to tablets of stone? You've got a new heart. Why are you looking to rules and regulations? You can let Christ rule. It's not about rules. It's about letting Christ rule. You've got Christ. You can let Him rule. But you start putting your confidence in law-keeping,

you start putting your confidence in rules, and look at all the good stuff I'm doing as I'm a rule-keeper, then you're missing the life of faith. Oh, you may be going to heaven. You've trusted Him for salvation, but I'm talking about Tuesday at 2. I'm talking about Wednesday at 4. I'm talking about daily living. Are you trusting your set of rules and principles? Well, my family's good people, my family. I mean, family values, Christian principles. My family's always lived according to Christian principles. You see, and we've got it built into our society, conservative living, family values, Christian principles. Watch out. That all sounds good, but if you're not trusting the living, resurrected Christ as your life, then that's not fruit. That's fruitless. That's not fruit. That's wax fruit. Because we are not just the product of our environment. We are the product of Jesus' death and resurrection. Amen? And so we've got a miracle life. I mean, think about it. It really is. The only reason you end up behaving is Jesus rose from the dead and lives in you. That's a miracle life. The only reason you end up behaving is because He's alive in here, and you feel like you can just prove it, because He's alive in here, and He's your life, and He's the one sustaining you. So the law is good. Nothing wrong with the law,

but it's not for a righteous person. That's what Paul is saying. The law is good if we use it properly. It's been said for many years by many Christian teachers, the law is like a mirror, right? You look at the mirror in the morning, it shows you the dirt on your face, but it does not clean you. It does not solve your problem. It shows you your problem, but it doesn't solve your problem. That's what the law is for humanity. Not for Christians, but for humanity. I look in the perfection of the law, and I say, whoa, no way, can't do it. And Jesus says, exactly. to be cleansed and made righteous forever. So the law is good if we use it properly. Secondly, I want you to notice the law is not dead or gone. Some people say, well, the law is dead. No, Jesus said not a jot nor a tittle of the law would disappear until heaven and earth disappear. Last time I checked, heaven and earth are still here. The law is still here. Paul is saying that. The law is here, and it's good if we use it properly, but it's made for the unbeliever. The law is made for the unbeliever so that they can say, I fall short of the glory of God. I need Jesus. And then once you have Jesus, Jesus does not invite you to Moses. Jesus doesn't say, I want to share you with Moses. Remember, flirting with Moses is cheating on Jesus, and that's serious business.

So what we're seeing is the law has a function. So maybe I'll put it this way for you. The law has not died, but we've died to the law. The law is not dead, but we're dead to it. Big difference. The law serves a purpose to show the world that it has a problem. Let's put the law on a pedestal. You think we're law bashers, law haters? No way, quite the opposite. We're saying, I'm not going to settle for your favorite 10. I'm not going to settle for your favorite 11 or 9. I'm saying 613 on a pedestal. I look at it and I say, no way, I need Jesus instead. And now I have respected the perfect and impossible standard of the law. Look, folks, the guys who are saying, hey, I think it might just be 10. The guys who are saying, hey, I think it might just be 9 or 11, that's a joke. They're disrespecting the law. We're the only ones, we who are in the grace of God, we who understand life by the Spirit, we're the only ones who are truly respecting the law because we're saying it's all or nothing and there's no way for me to do that. So we are truly respecting the law when we opt for God's grace. You see it? The multiple choice option is no option. The choose your own adventure is a lifeless joke. You don't get to pick your favorite parts. James says, if you keep the whole law and stumble in one point, you're guilty of all of it. Galatians says, cursed is everyone who does not obey everything written in the book of the law. It's all or nothing. So let's respect it and then let's pivot and turn to Jesus instead. So Paul continues in this letter to the young pastor Timothy.

He says, who's this law for? It's for the lawless. It is for the rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, he goes on, and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching. I don't mind that there's laws out there. And I don't mind that the Judeo-Christian values are out there and they are known by the world, meaning that the law is showing the ungodly their need for a solution. I love it. I'd rather have that than chaos. Can you imagine lawlessness in the world? Just nobody thinking about anything, no conscience, no law, no nothing. I'm glad it's out there. But Paul is saying, once you realize your death, look to life. And the law cannot impart life. So we define the problem, and then we look to Christ as the solution. According, I love this verse, it's just sitting there, but wow. I mean, look at this. According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. There's three little nuggets in this little verse, right? I mean, first of all, is your gospel glorious? Because Paul is saying the gospel is amazingly glorious. It's not good news, it's great news. There's no fly in the ointment, no worm in the apple. People, sometimes you go to a church and they front-loaded the gospel with some good news. Then you get in there, you're there a week, a month, a year, a decade. Eventually you learn the bad news, right? They front-load it with the good news. It sounds so good.

Oh, welcome, so good to see you. Now get busy. Oh, you're so wonderful. Saved by grace. Yeah, come on in. Now, have you been doing your Bible study? We start one way, and then we start holding people to a standard and saying, you get to feel okay about you if. 80, 70, 80% of the early church was illiterate. They got to feel okay, not because of Bible study. They got to feel okay because of the death and resurrection of Christ. We can too. So is your gospel glorious, or is it somewhat less than glorious? Have you allowed a worm in the apple? Have you allowed a fly in the ointment? Have you allowed something to ruin it, to kill the joy of it? Because from my vantage point, the gospel that you've got, nothing wrong with it. In fact, everything right about it. From my vantage point, what's not to like? Look at you. You're forgiven, past, present, and future. You're under grace, not law. That means you're accepted, and you're loved, and you're embraced, and you're celebrated by God, and he's happy to have you, and Jesus says you're a gift. Thank you, Father, for those whom you have given me. You're a gift. You're co-heirs with Christ. He says we'll be judging the world and the angels. We're co-judges.

So we've been qualified as co-heirs, qualified as co-judges. We're forgiven, and we're free, and we're righteous. What's not to like about this gospel? Oh, the behavior part? Well, that's all good news too. He's just trying to save you time. You want to chase after the other stuff? You can, but at the end of that tunnel, you're just going to find nothing but frustration and anxiety and confusion because God's good, and that means sin is not. And that's just a fact. We need oxygen, that's a fact. We need God, that's a fact. Without oxygen, you can't breathe. Without Christ in you, well, guess what? It's gonna be pretty frustrating. And so, Jesus' satisfaction. So even the behavior thing. It's like Paul is saying, what benefit? What benefit are you deriving from the things of which you're now ashamed? What benefit, the outcome is nothing good. It's just death, not life. What's he saying? Look at the benefit and look at the outcome of what you're doing. I don't know about you, but that's pretty logical. I mean, if you're gonna make a choice, maybe look at the outcome, the potential outcome. If you're gonna make a choice,

look at the benefit and the outcome. That's just godly common sense, okay? So Paul's saying, let me save you the trip because here's a preview of coming attractions. Let me save you the trip because you sow to the spirit, you're gonna reap life and peace and goodness from the spirit. You sow to the flesh, you're gonna reap corruption and lack of peace and stress and anxiety and confusion and why can't I make sin work? Why can't I make it work? Come on, the world makes it work. Why can't I make it work? Your design and your function are different. From the ground up, recreated in Christ Jesus for good works. Whoa, look at you. You're different because Jesus made you different. All right, we got a little bit more here. He's saying thank you to God. I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into service. Now in a minute, he's gonna tell you his resume and I just gotta tell you, plug the children's ears, right? Because I mean, his resume is not pretty. Paul was a killer. Paul says he was a violent aggressor. So I'm not sure he could run for president today, right? The press would be all over him. A violent aggressor, right?

I mean, this is serious stuff. Now he's our apostle, the apostle to the Gentiles but he is a violent aggressor, a persecutor of the church. Wow, okay. So here's his resume and yet look at his joy. He's saying God, God chose me. Even in my mother's womb, I got chosen as an apostle. Paul says that elsewhere. So remember Jesus chose the disciples. He chose the disciples. He also chose Paul. That's not for you and me to build a theology on a whole. You know, God's gonna, God picks you but not you and God pre-chose you but not you. We turn that into a salvation thing. No, no, no. It's just that Jesus chose his disciples who became apostles. But today we know the gospel is open to anybody and everybody. Anybody who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But back to the main feature here. I mean, Paul is basically saying thank you Lord that I get to be a part of this. And notice he's saying God strengthened me. I'm in it but God strengthened me. I labor and I strive according to the power at work within me. God strengthens me but it's me but it's him but it's me but it's him but it's his strength

but I'm strong in him and I'm more than a conqueror but it's because of him. And so we play, watch this, we play this dance. It's a dance. We engage in a dance of two truths. It's Christ in you and you in Christ. I labor and strive but it's his power. It's all his power but I get to be a part of it. I'm his kid. And so you gotta have both pieces like this to have a healthy Christianity. The folks, there are folks who just have one piece and they run around either acting like they're Jesus or acting like they're nothing. Meaning they believe it's all Jesus and none of them. They believe their identity is I'm Jesus. There are people like that. And then in a similar vein, they believe that they're just a hollow tube, a lifeless tube, a fire hose through which Christ lives and then when you pay him a compliment, oh no, it wasn't me, it wasn't me. It was just the Lord. I mean, I'm pretty sure you showed up, you were there. Jesus wasn't wearing a blue shirt, was he? Because you were. You're in it. And then on the other side, we got people who are using the identity, catch this, grace community, catch this.

We got people who are using the identity in Christ message as a feel-good, a steam lifter alone. And you know what? I think it's great that we feel. feel good. I think it's great that we have esteem in Christ. That's awesome. But don't forget, apart from Him, we can do nothing. He's our fuel. He's our life. He's our everything. You got to have both pieces. It's all of Him and all of us together in a beautiful union. Paul's thankful. He continues and he gives his resume. That resume I've been promising you. Here it is in our face, staring right at us. Verse 13, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. There's his resume. It is not pretty. So I would ask you, as I often do, some of you know where I'm going. I'm going to ask you, who have you killed lately? Because the Bible was written by murderers. I mean, isn't that incredible that people who had a checkered past beyond belief that should have been on death row in many communities, they are the authors of the scriptures. Moses killed an Egyptian and wrote five books of the Bible. David put a guy on the front lines of his army so that guy would die because he really liked that guy's wife and he wanted that guy's wife. So I hope that guy dies today because then I'm free and clear. He wrote the Psalms. Paul, a killer of Christians, wrote more letters in the New Testament than anybody else. So I'm not just being dramatic here. I'm asking you, who have you killed lately? How big are your sins again? Because I keep hearing, number one question on the radio program more or less is, am I okay still? Because look at what I've done. Am I okay? Have I lost it? Am I all washed up? Is God done with me? Is it over? Is this my swan song? It's over. And the reality is, compared to your God, your sins are small. Your God is big and He has qualified you. Don't be obsessed with the size of your sins. Be obsessed with the size of your Savior. Paul was, and I'm sure it was a humility check. Oh Lord, are you sure? You sure me? Because my sins are a big problem. And we get people like that, don't we? We become those people. Oh, I know the gospel's good for them, but I mean, you don't know my life, okay? Is it filled with murder? Because then we can talk about Paul's testimony. Until then, how about you just assume that the blood of Jesus is greater than anything you've ever done? Anything, even

murder. And so Paul is a violent aggressor and he says, but the grace of our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. Wow. And we finish with this final thought from the Apostle Paul. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am the foremost of all. Yet, what does he say as he finishes? Yet, for this reason, I, the blasphemer, I, the violent aggressor, found mercy so that in me, as the foremost of sinners, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience. Why would he want to do that? As an example for you, as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Now, I got to tell you, it's clear as day now. I mean, look at it. He's putting the pieces together. Paul killed people. God used him on purpose as an example for you so that you would know that you can't out sin God's grace. Paul killed people. God used him on purpose to show you his mercy and kindness as an example for you and for you and for you and for you who have thought you were too far gone and that you're the exception and that you're different. What he's saying is Paul is your example and you're not different. You're not an exception. If God used Paul to write more letters in the New Testament than anybody else, then why are you believing your sins are an obstacle to God? This was done as an example for you who believe in Jesus for eternal life. Wow. Thank you, Lord, for the example. It's graphic. It's graphic. It's in our face. for a reason so that we don't mistake the ginormous love of Christ that never ends. You cannot out sin the grace of God. You cannot exhaust the blood of Christ. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this powerful message of truth in your word that what you have done is off the charts. That is incredible. We keep thinking this way, this way of the puny pitiful gospel where you died for some sins and maybe you died for small sins and maybe you died for sins that are not so serious and maybe there's still a sin blockage, a sin issue, an obstacle between us. And yet here is this stark example staring us in the face. We got to do something with it. Call the murderer of Christians now holy, righteous, blameless, equipped, qualified.

An incredible example of your mercy, your kindness, your love, your forgiveness. We get it. It's beginning to register, Father. We see it. Thank you. We needed it in black and white. We needed it in our face and you've done it. We are so grateful for your amazing grace. In Jesus name, amen.