A True Child in the Faith

1 Timothy chapter 1 starting in verse 1, just verse 1 and 2. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the 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. Let's pray again, I need it. Heavenly Father, please, as we go into your word, as we see Paul and as we see Timothy, let us look to an example of discipleship. Let us look to an apostle that has been appointed by Christ and has given us a prescriptive book that gives us a guideline and a guidance on how to govern your church. We pray that you would bless the preacher of the word this evening. Your son's name we pray.

Amen. The president of Wheaton College, his name is Philip Reichen, and he went to Wheaton College as an undergraduate and when he went off to college for the first time, his dad Leland Reichen, also Dr. Reichen, raised him in the Reformed faith and he sent him off with a copy of a book called A Manual for Christian Doctrine by Louis Berkhoff. This is a classic in Reformed theology. And in it he wrote his son a brief note and it said the following, for Philip upon entering college in the hope that your theology will remain Reformed. Dr. Reichen noted that his father wanted him to remain a faithful believer and a true son in the faith. He was already his biological son but at the same time he had raised his son in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord and so the hope is that he would remain a spiritual son and he would not swerve from the faith but he would maintain this true faith once delivered to the saints. This is the hope of any Christian father that their children would believe the Gospel.

Even already Rachel and I, we have a six week old son, he weighed in at 11 pounds yesterday and already we are hoping that he is healthy and that he is happy but more to the point we really hope for an eternal hope that he would be a born again disciple of Jesus Christ. The third epistle to John tells us in verse 4, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. And so Paul is writing to Timothy as a father to a son praying that he too would guide the church and keep the faith. That is the point of this sermon this evening and that is the point of 1 Timothy really is that Paul is guiding Timothy to lead the church well and to remain a true son in the faith. But before we go into this passage we have to look at Paul, we have to figure out the profile of Paul the apostle. So going back the first time that Paul is actually in the Bible we don't see him. Acts chapter 22, Paul says that he was there back in Acts chapter 7. Stephen was a deacon and he was preaching a sermon pleading with everyone to believe the gospel and he is the first martyr in the New Testament church and Paul tells us that he was standing there approving and watching, looking over the garments of those that martyred Stephen. Paul was not always Paul, he was at one point Saul of Tarsus.

Tarsus was a city that was part of the Roman Empire. He was a Roman citizen himself. He was also a committed member of the tribe of Benjamin. He was circumcised on the 8th day. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews and in regard to the law he was a Pharisee.

He was trained in some of the best schools available and he was a committed leader within Judaism seeking and killing anyone that followed the way. Back at this time there was no word Christian, it was simply called the way. In Acts chapter 9 it opens with Paul breathing murderous threats against the church and he is on his way to Damascus and the Lord Jesus Christ calls him out and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he responds, who are you Lord? And he says, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. And in that moment Paul is struck blind.

He is brought on to Damascus. Ananias is warned about this Paul that's been persecuting Christians but God tells him, he's a chosen instrument of mine, do not kill him but he's chosen that he would be a witness to the Gentiles and to the kings and to the children of Israel. God had a plan for the life of formerly Saul, now Paul, the apostle. And so Ananias arrives, he places his hand on Paul, he receives his sight and he is filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul who once persecuted the church is now the chief missionary to the Gentiles.

He's saved and he's called to ministry and he's baptized and then along with Barnabas he's introduced to all the many ministers within the church, John Mark and Silas and Timothy and Apollos and Philip and the rest of the early Christian church. And so they met Paul, they heard his testimony, they saw that he was directly appointed by Christ to be an apostle and they bring him in as one of the apostles and then on his second missionary journey in Acts chapter 16 he runs into a young Christian named Timothy. And from then on Timothy was with Paul throughout his second and third missionary journeys. Paul gets arrested in Rome, Acts chapter 28, he's at the very end of Acts, he's in prison and he writes Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon while he's in prison.

These are called the prison epistles. And when he's released he goes on this one last journey and he writes first Timothy and Titus, some call this his fourth missionary journey. Finally in second Timothy he's arrested and this is his last time in Rome to write one last letter to his son in the faith Timothy and he talks about his departure, his finishing the race, keeping the faith and so we have confirmation here that after second Timothy he is executed in Rome. But Paul is coming to Timothy and coming to this church in Ephesus with the full authority that comes with being an apostle. He realizes and steps forward first with this God ordained apostleship.

He wants to come with the full authority that God has given him that he's been directly appointed by Christ himself. And so he's writing to his son in the faith Timothy but in a broader sense there are indicators here in the text that this is for the rest of the church. Some read this and say this is strictly for Timothy and strictly for his time but actually when you go into the letter if you look at the last verse of first Timothy chapter 6 verse 21 he'll say grace be with you. But that you is actually in the second person plural which means it's more like you all. Grace to you all or as we might say in the south grace to you all.

Which I think we should encourage more of that. If you see a family say grace to you all. Not just to you but to you all. And we see that he is writing this letter and he is ultimately prescribing this to the rest of the body of believers in Ephesus. Even with him being an apostle it comes from the Greek word apostolo which is one who is sent out or the sent out ones.

He is an ambassador a representative of the Christian faith and the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 20 Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles. The prophets would be those that came before Christ going back to Abraham and Moses and all the many Old Testament prophets Malachi being the last. John the Baptist comes in as a forerunner for Christ and then these apostles are the 12 disciples that walked with Christ in his earthly ministry. You might ask yourself were there not more people that walked with Jesus?

Yes. But there are two specific criteria for being an apostle. First one has to be one of the 12 disciples that followed the Lord Jesus Christ.

They are appointed directly to follow him. And so the 12 are the apostles. Secondly they must see the resurrected Christ. This is an important criteria for being an apostle.

Paul saw Christ after the resurrection in Acts 9 he was blinded but he was directly called and he did see Christ in his glorified state. So Paul is technically counted among the 11 apostles. But on this basis there is no apostle today anymore apostles. What we have is their testimony from scripture and now we are taking their word and going forth and in a small sense you and I are you could say kind of little a apostles. We are sent out as disciples of Christ to fulfill the great commission. We are called to call everyone to repent and believe the gospel.

We are still disciples and evangelists and ambassadors for the good news that is found in the gospel. But then Paul further explains that he is going out by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. Notice the way that it is written it is Christ Jesus.

Typically we see it is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see Jesus being emphasized first. Jesus meaning in Hebrew Yehoshua. Joshua comes from this and it literally translates to Jehovah saves. And then secondly his title as Christ means anointed. And so he is the king of Israel.

He is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul here is ordering it Christ Jesus because he wants to emphasize the fact that Christ is ruling and reigning over us as king. The other apostles knew Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth. They knew him as his humanity.

They knew him personally walking with him. Paul is knocked off his donkey and simply knows this ruling and reigning Christ post resurrection, post ascension. Jesus is Lord from heaven not Jesus of Nazareth to him. But he says that Jesus is God the Son and God is also our Savior.

We have this eternal hope of life that is through the Son who while we were yet sinners he died for us. And as the Father sent the Son to save sinners he saves Paul to save many more. And then he is extending this legacy down to Timothy and he tells him to remain in the faith.

And he describes him in a very intimate way. He says my true child in the faith. That is our second point is that Timothy is a true child in the faith. Timothy was from Lystra.

He was in a Roman colony in the province of Galatia. He had a Gentile father and a Jewish Christian mother named Eunice and a grandmother named Lois. And they named him Timothy meaning he who honors God. So they gave him a Christian name and Paul cites his mother and grandmother when he said, and how from a childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

You were able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. You see Paul was radically converted but Timothy we see that he was simply raised in the faith by a faithful mother and a faithful grandmother in the church. I was raised in the Methodist church and at a young age you don't really take the faith as seriously. At least in my church we weren't as serious Christians at 8 years old. We went to Sunday school and we had a very sweet lady named Denise, an older woman in the church, that would try to get us focused on the Bible and call us, reign us in a lot. And I can think back to when Ms. Denise, she began to read Luke chapter 23 and she just wept, I mean wept over the crucifixion story. She didn't put us through evangelism explosion. There was no slick advanced discipleship program she put me through. It was simply reading God's word and just weeping over the Lord that she loved. That was over 20 years ago and it still affects me as I think back on it. It was just a faithful woman of the church that loved me and cared for me and taught me about the Lord Jesus Christ from the gospels. At 8 years old you don't know really the depth of what you're watching.

You just kind of know this is serious and I ought to think about these things. But Timothy, much the same way, he is just simply raised in the faith with a faithful mother and a faithful grandmother that testified to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul on the other hand, he was openly against the Lord.

He was a terrorist. He was killing Christians and God had to strike him blind to draw him into himself. And it kind of makes me think, what should a testimony look like? And an older, wiser man of the church, an elder to me, a father to me told me one time, you know Steve, some of us are Paulian and some are Timothyian. And what he meant was that some of us have these radical conversion stories.

These radical, these earth shattering, this lightning bolt moment of conversion stories. And what can happen is a young guy like Timothy can look at a moment of conversion story and think, well I don't look like him, perhaps I'm not saved. But what we see in scripture through the Abrahamic covenant and on, we see that the ordinary way in which God saves covenant children is by the regular, ordinary means of grace by teaching and scripturally educating children in the church. One does not have to be a prodigal son going way off into the far land to be radically converted. What we have with Timothy is this ordinary day by day discipleship from a mother and a grandmother that love the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so what we need to look at here is see that this is the way that God blesses the efforts of parents and by His grace saves covenant children. And so along the way Timothy, while raised by a mother and grandmother, he found a father in Paul. And so he, growing up with an unbelieving father, Timothy's father was a Gentile and did not believe. Paul took this role as Timothy's father in the faith and began to disciple him. There were other men, Silas and John Mark and Apollos and Philip. These men were more older, they were more of a brother to Paul, but Timothy being a younger man, Paul saw it as his mission to personally invest in the life of Timothy. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 17, that is why I sent you Timothy my beloved and faithful child in the Lord to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church.

He was his beloved and faithful child. He loved him and cared for him and he was a product of Paul's ministry. In a sense he was an extension of Paul to the churches they served.

They worked in Athens together and then he represented Paul in Thessalonica and Corinth and Philippi and Macedonia and ultimately pastoring his church in Ephesus. And so Paul with his great knowledge as a Pharisee, he knows so much Old Testament, but as someone who is not converted this is only worse for the church, but as we see he has now been converted, all this depth of knowledge, his education as a Pharisee only strengthens his ministry to other Christians pointing out where Christ is present in the Old Testament. We see his preaching and teaching as Timothy is sitting under it is now going to strengthen Timothy as he is sent out into Ephesus and now he is warned by Paul to look out for these false teachers near the church and to protect them from this teaching.

He knew what was coming. Paul knew back in Acts chapter 20, he said that they were going to be, after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things and drawing away the disciples after them. Not only an outside influence but among the church are these wrong, aberrant doctrines creeping in and corrupting this message that Paul taught Timothy. And it looks based on verse 3. If you go with me in chapter 1 verse 3 we see that Paul's warning has become true.

He says, I urge you that when I was going to Macedonia remain at Ephesus so they may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine nor devote themselves to the myths, the endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than stewardship from God that is by faith. They had their own troubles just like we do today. The Christian church has so many different denominations, so many different focuses and also so much error sadly. And when we look back at the ancient church it was no different. There was already heresies cropping up 30 years after the resurrection of Christ. And so we see that there is still this issue of the Galatian heresy where you blend Jewish customs with the Christian faith. There were debates in the early church over the burial site of Abraham, which is interesting. There were debates over the end times, I think of left behind and the rapture, all these issues still present today.

And then there were also Jewish myths and fables and ancestral worship. These things were being blended into the Gospel message and ultimately corrupting the work that Paul had done. In Revelation John writes that the Ephesian church had left its first love. And so what Paul is saying here is he wants to centralize the person and work of Jesus Christ. We have to go back to a clear and faithful teaching of the Gospel and in light of this Gospel it must guide and direct our conduct within the church. And he says this in grace and mercy and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. The grace and peace greeting is kind of the common greeting here. But Paul adds mercy as well.

John MacArthur said the following about this phrase. He said, Grace refers to God's undeserved favor, His love and forgiveness given to sinners to free them from the consequence of sin. Mercy doesn't free us from the consequence of sin but it frees us from the misery that comes along with sin.

Grace wipes out the sin and mercy wipes out the misery. And then there is the word peace. The peace is the result of grace and mercy. It means not only harmony with God but tranquility of the soul.

Peace is the status of every believer and we have obtained this through faith in Christ. And it is on this foundation that Paul instructs Timothy to order the church. And so what we see is this is an introduction to this book. I plan to preach through it and what we are going to see throughout the letter of 1 Timothy is Paul is calling Timothy to protect the Gospel in the local church through false teaching. He reinstates the Gospel. He talks about men and women's roles in worship. We see the qualifications of elders and deacons. We see the identifying marks of false teaching in the church and finally we see how we are to serve one another in the church.

And so in closing I want to give a few points of application. Number one, we remember both the personal testimony of Paul and Timothy. Some of our members are Paulian. Coming to faith at a later age it was a radical shift in our thinking. It was a radical shift in the way in which we viewed God and the faith and the importance of Christian living. At the same time I look at our families and I think and I hope that the children are Timothyans.

Simply raised in the faith under a faithful, spiritual father and mother that they would hold to the faith and hold dear and be faithful the way that Paul is calling Timothy to be. Secondly, I want to look at Paul warned us about these other letters in concern for the faithful teaching and preaching of the Gospel. What is absolutely essential is that we maintain Orthodox, that is correct doctrine as it is essential for Christian living.

The book of Ephesians is chapters one to three are all the things that we should know, the correct teaching. Chapters four to six is now that we know these things we are to walk worthy in the calling in which we are called. It is important now that our actions would reflect the truth in which we know.

Spurgeon said those who do away with Christian doctrine whether they are aware of it or not are the worst enemies of Christian living. The coals of Orthodoxy fuel the fire of piety. So it is correct understanding of who God is and His will for our lives that motivate us to faithfulness in our Christian life. Another way that Jonathan Edwards put it, I like this, that our affections towards God should correspond with our affirmation.

That the love in which we have for God ought to line up with the truths in which we believe that are found in God's Word. Fourth, I would encourage our church to look among us and figure out fathers and mothers in the faith and sons and daughters in the faith. Not as some sort of formal title but what we see in the church is that older men are instructing younger men and older women are instructing younger women. We see this concept with Paul and Timothy but in a broader sense there is a way in which the church ought to operate. We have younger men encouraging, discipling, instructing not only their biological sons but their spiritual sons. We ought to encourage each other in our Christian walk. Paul says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 4 verse 15, For though you have countless guides in Christ, some translations say teachers in Christ, you do not have many fathers.

For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. The difference between a teacher and a father is the personal relationship that we have with a disciple. Some churches are just filled with teachers and knowledge is good, knowledge is great but without love it can be a clanging symbol.

It can simply be teaching with no affirmation or love or affection that comes with it. That is an essential part of our Christian living is that we encourage one another, stir each other up to love and good works and show that we do care for one another. And then finally and most importantly we must see that Jesus Christ, emphasis on Christ here, is the king and head of the church. This is God's ordained book of church order. This letter speaks to how Christ governs his church and rules and reigns over us as our Lord and Savior.

God has established this order in the Bible. Let us take it and learn from it that we might be a church that reflects God's character and love for the saints. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we do thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ and through him we are washed of our sin. He gives us a perfect righteousness by faith and this is the basis in which we do all things. Please repent. Please call us to repentance. Please reinstate within our hearts a love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the truth of your word, let that orthodox clear teaching of Scripture motivate and call us to obedience. We pray that you would continue to strengthen the church, that we would be a church that honors you in all things. Please bless this time in fellowship. We pray that we would encourage each other, that we would stir one another up to love and good works. Please bless this evening. Bless this worship that it would be honoring to you. Your sins let me pray. Amen.