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TIMOTHY’S PRIMARY GOAL!

“Today the spiritual state of the country is disintegrating. People run after anything and everything. A number of cults are moving into the Congo, many of which exploit the people seeking after them. People are seeking a god who can deliver them from misery and war. Therefore, people enter any door where “prayer” is offered. Wherever a “church” is announced people come en masse, no matter what the teaching may be. Many seek out any person with a Bible in his hand calling himself “Pastor.” False teaching abounds; false Christians fill the churches. Many people follow the old animist traditions, though they also attend church. What is the result? The misery of the people, rather than dissipating, grows exponentially.”
So writes Buingo Mateene, the newest missionary staff member of Partners in Christ International. If his assessment of the church in the Congo is accurate, it is an unhealthy refuge for those seeking help. Men, women, and children who have been devastated by the effects of war walk through its doors hoping to find balm for their wounded souls. Instead they are met with false doctrine that simply adds to their misery.
In the mid-to-late 1950’s my mom walked through the doors of a “church” in Prescott. As a waitress trying to raise three kids she was looking for help and this church had the image of being a healthy place for families. Within the first year she found herself being pressured to tithe her wages, including her tips. She then discovered that my twin sister was being lured into posing for a photographer within the church. Those who sounded as if they knew something about being healthy simply added to her burdens. Looking for help, she found misery.
Just so in Ephesus. Within five years false teachers had crept into the church. They projected an image of confidence and authority. But despite their so-called knowledge, despite their ability to spin fables that sounded so right, they added to the misery of those who sat before them. In vv. 3 - 4 of chapter one of I Timothy, Paul described them in this way:
When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those who are teaching wrong doctrine. 4 Don’t let people waste time in endless speculation over myths and spiritual pedigrees. For these things only cause arguments; they don’t help people live a life of faith in God.
Here Paul coined the word heterodidaskaleo to describe the teaching of these teachers. He was saying that these teachers proclaimed a doctrine that was heteros meaning not so much that it was false but that it was different from the teaching of the apostles. In like manner, Paul complained that the Galatians had deserted the grace of Christ for a “a different gospel” and that the Corinthians were being led astray by a “different Jesus”, “a different Spirit”, and “a different gospel” from what they had “first received.”
What my mom found in the church that supposedly promoted healthy families was not so much false as it was different. In their classes it was hard for her, or anyone else, to put their finger on exactly what was false about their teaching. But it wasn’t hard for her to figure out that what was being taught was different from everything she had learned in the First Congregational Church of Prescott; a church she had first attended in Prescott but for some reason stopped attending about the time my twin sister and I entered grade school.
Paul, in the context of a bit of sound doctrine, gives us a broader description of these false teachers in I Timothy 6: 1- 5. We read:
Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. 2 If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.
Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. 3 Some false teachers may deny these things, but these are the sound, wholesome teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are the foundation for a godly life. 4 Anyone who teaches anything different is both conceited and ignorant. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, fighting, slander, and evil suspicions. 5 These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they don’t tell the truth. To them religion is just a way to get rich.
It’s clear that Paul was concerned about the health of the church in Ephesus. For some had deviated from sound doctrine and in doing so they simply stirred up arguments which resulted in a very unhealthy church.
So Timothy’s first task was to put the church in Ephesus on the road to good health. This meant commanding the false teachers to stop what they were doing. For in their misguided use of the law, in their spinning of fables based on myths and genealogies, they were causing more harm than good. Sure they could tell a good story, and others could top the previous story, but all the stories simply created friction within the body.
Timothy’s specific objective is found in v. 5 of the first chapter. We will do well to look at how it is expressed in various translations or paraphrases. In I Timothy 1:5 - 6 we read:
The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. (NIV)
The purpose of my instruction is that all the Christians there would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and sincere faith. 6 But some teachers have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time arguing and talking foolishness. (NLT)
Now, the objective which is the aim of the aforementioned charge is divine and self-sacrificial love out of a heart which is pure, and a conscience which is good, and a faith which is not assumed but real, 6 from which things certain have deviated, having turned off into talk which is futile. (Wuest - An Expanded Translation)
But the aim of your instruction is to be love that flows out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. 6 Some people have stepped aside from these things and turned to fruitless talking. (Charles R. Williams New Testament)
The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love – love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God. 6 Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into cul-de-sacs of gossip. ( Eugene H. Peterson - The Message)
The ultimate aim of the Christian ministry, after all, is to produce the love which springs from a pure heart, a good conscience and a genuine faith. 6 Some seem to have forgotten this and to have lost themselves in endless words. (J. B. Phillips - The New Testament in Modern English)
The false teachers proclaimed a message that led to endless discussions and questions for which they had no real answers. In the process they produced ugly Christians. Timothy’s task was to restore others, including the false teachers, to good health which would be seen in their love for each other and in their love for their neighbors.
To do this he had to overcome three obstacles. For love, and therefore beauty, is virtually eliminated from our lives when the following three obstacles prevail. Love, sacrificial love, is seriously marred when:
A) The heart is impure. For in an impure heart the expression of love is contaminated through and through by selfishness. In Matthew 15:15 - 20 Jesus gives us a snapshot of a contaminated heart. The passage reads:
Then Peter asked Jesus, “Explain what you meant when you said people aren’t defiled by what they eat.”
“Don’t you understand?” Jesus asked him. 17 “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes out of the body. 18 But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them. 19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. 20 These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands could never defile you and make you unacceptable to God!”
Here we have wall to wall ugliness. It may momentarily be disguised by a nice home, a new car, and a shirt and tie. But when push comes to shove, when our flesh demands that we look out for ourselves, it will reveal itself in all its ugliness. When the Queen of Clean talks dirty she doesn’t even come close to the real dirt that exist within the human heart. Nor does she have any cleansing solutions that will take care of a heart bent on sinfulness.
So the pilgrimage to beauty, to sacrificial love, must begin with a brand new heart. A heart cleansed by the blood of Christ. So the first step toward purity is to acknowledge impurity and to accept the fact that the only cleansing agent available to man is the shed blood of Christ.
In one sense, of course, this is a once-and-for-all step. For when Christ radically changes the nature of our heart it is changed forever. In another sense, however, the cleansing must be daily. After all, we live in a polluted world and like it or not the pollution of this old world falls on the righteous and the un-righteous. This is why Solomon warns us to guard our heart in Proverbs 4:23. It reads:
Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do. (NLT)
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (NIV)
Then in the New Testament, John encourages us to maintain the purity of our hearts in I John 1:8 - 10. We read:
If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
The second of the three obstacles that must be overcome is:
B) A guilty conscience. For a guilt-ridden conscience confines the expression of love. When your conscience is overloaded with guilt you simply cannot have a good relationship with others. For example, in the story of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15 I think it can be argued that both sons had guilty consciences and therefore knew that they couldn’t meet their father’s gaze. Which meant they couldn’t have a good relationship with him.
To the credit of the younger son, he not only recognized that he had a guilty conscience but that there was good reason for the sad condition of his conscience. So he took steps to remedy the matter. He went back home, faced his father, confessed his sins, and restored what had been a good relationship.
David, after his sin with Bathsheba and the subsequent rebuke by Nathan eventually did the same thing. He turned to his Heavenly Father and confessed his sin. Until then his life was simply wasting away over the load of guilt as can be seen by reading Psalm 32.
The older son, however, never confessed sin. For a long long time he had been harboring bitterness toward his father. His bitterness eventually expressed itself in anger which, as far as we know, was never resolved. That is, it was never confessed as wrong-headed. So in his anger the oldest son refused to attend the party. He sat outside by himself and fumed.
Love to be expressed must flow through a good conscience. And a good conscience is one that has been restored, through Scripture, to its original specifications and has been maintained through confession.
The third obstacle that must be overcome is:
C) Hypocrisy or pride. For a life of pretense robs love of its beauty and power. It conceals the love of Christ. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day are a perfect example of those who professed beauty but didn’t really love anybody but themselves. They spent their time maintaining the outside while the inside was rotting away. They looked great on the outside, but in their pride they annoyed everyone - especially Jesus who saw their hearts.
Paul in II Corinthians 4:7 said that we have the glory of God shining within us. That is, the glory of God, sort of speak, is held within clay jars. What this implies is that we have two options before us. We can shine the pot and conceal the glory of God - which is exactly what the Pharisees did in Jesus’ day. Or, we can let others see the real pot - cracks and all and reveal the glory of God. The latter draws others to us, in fact it draws them close enough to us to really love them.
Maintaining the beauty of Christ within us is expensive. It means guarding our hearts, maintaining a good conscience, and swallowing our pride. Only those willing to pay the cost will be in a position to love others. How about you, are you willing to pay the cost?

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