Our gracious Father in Heaven, we bow before Your throne, grateful for Your blessings, for Your love and care and concern, for the mercy and the grace which You have granted to us
through Christ and through the blood of the sacrifice that atones for our sins.
We're abundantly grateful and thankful for all that You have done without which we could not have salvation, or hope of eternity, and inheritance in Heaven with You.
Lord, we pray that you be with those who are in the midst of struggles and trials.
We pray that you be with the leadership of this nation and the nations throughout the world, that they might make decisions which lead to open doors of opportunity for the
kingdom, but also that lead to peace and the ability to peacefully be able to teach and preach the truth.
Lord, we pray that you watch over those who are dealing with chronic illness and
continued issues in their own lives physically.
We pray that you give them the strength and the abilities that they need to carry on through their daily lives and do what they need to do.
Help us to be a support and encouragement to them as they go through the struggles of each day.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.
Paul, as he is writing to these Christians, as he's writing to Timothy as a teacher, Timothy then is to teach and exhort these things, as Paul says in verse 2 at the end of
that verse.
He says in verse 3, if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, notice that
Paul is making it abundantly clear that there is a doctrine which is right, which ought to be taught, and there is a doctrine which is wrong, and Paul says you can know the
difference between the two.
Not only does he say you can know the difference between the two, he is making Timothy accountable.
for discerning the difference between the two and making sure that the right thing is taught and the wrong thing is not.
There are those even who claim to be members of the body of Christ, especially those of a liberal persuasion who claim ah the same name that we do, who will tell you that there's
only two commands that matter.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbors yourself.
Those are the only two commands that matter.
If you fulfill those, you're saved, you're in a right relationship with God, and nothing else matters.
if you didn't mess up the assumptions in that statement, which they are hoping you would.
If you didn't mess them up, you'd be correct.
because if you love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and all your mind, as God actually tells you to do, you would live out the rest
of his doctrine and his commandments faithfully, and you would teach them faithfully.
Because anything else isn't loving God, it's actually being the enemy of God.
So if you didn't produce assumptions into that statement that says,
It doesn't really matter what you do, it only matters what you love, which is what they mean by it, by the way.
They don't mean love the way the Bible means it.
They don't mean love the way God means it.
God says, if you love me, keep my commandments.
But what they mean by love is love God and the commandments don't matter.
And certainly you shouldn't oppose anyone who believes something different about the commandments than what you believe.
That's what a liberal means by the word love.
That's not what the Bible means by the word love.
If the Israelites had loved the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength, and with all their mind, they would have kept His word and His
commandments and His laws and His statutes.
And they would have done so faithfully.
That's why in the Old Testament prophets in Isaiah and in the Minor Prophets, when God addresses the problems in Israel, He draws it back to the fact, you don't love me because
if you did, you would have kept the covenant.
But then they say, but it's fundamental to love your neighbor as yourself.
Absolutely it is.
Of course, what they mean by that is you never oppose your neighbor if they're teaching that which is false.
Except that's ludicrous.
Because if you love God first and you love God above everything else, then by loving God, you would oppose those who oppose God.
even within the church.
Paul tells Timothy that there are things that must be taught and there are things that must not be taught because they do not pertain to wholesome, sound doctrine.
They are rather those things which are taught by those who are shipwrecking the faith of others.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Respectfully, humbly, out of love, with long suffering, all of those things.
Which is, by the way, a demonstration of the love that you have toward one another.
If you teach the Bible and you teach the truth out of an earnest hatred for those who you're teaching it to, you will use the Bible as a kludgeon to kill them.
and people have done it throughout the centuries.
except that's not what God commands us to do.
That exists out of a lack of love for God because you don't love what God loves.
If you loved what God loves, you would love all the people God made.
You would love all the people even if they're lost and in their sins.
You would love those who abuse you, mistreat you, and persecute you.
Isn't that what Jesus said?
And yet, the false accusation is from those who do not want to believe in the concept of sound doctrine or that there is a law and a set of commandments that we must teach and
follow and that we cannot accept everyone just because they claim to love God, there is a mindset that says if you hold to truth, you don't love.
except truth and love have never been opposed to one another because they both emanate from the very character of God.
Over in John chapter 17.
because by the way you only need exactly one passage in all of the New Testament to validate that statement.
John chapter 17, verse 17, as Jesus prays to the Father concerning his disciples, concerning his followers, he prays to God, sanctify them by your truth, your word is
truth.
Jesus prays and requests that the Father sanctify His disciples through the truth.
Except the word sanctify means to set apart.
Jesus says as he prays to God, God as my Father will you please set apart and separate my disciples by your truth.
He says, sanctify them by your truth, which tells us that the truth of God, the truth of God's word, the truth that is in full agreement with the very character of God demands a
separating of people from those who will believe it, obey it, and accept it, and those who will not.
Jesus even prayed that there would be a separation.
Now you can go through the rest of the text and find out he prayed that there would be a separation from the world so that there would be a unity with God because you can't be
unified with God if you're one with the world.
And yet the liberals will say, you just need to accept everybody.
Oh, you absolutely, as long as they believe in Christ, I mean, obviously they have to, wait a minute, now you just drew one line.
So now it's not love anymore, it's love and belief in something.
So what else do they have to believe?
Well, they'll go down a list.
Well, they need to believe this and they need to believe this.
OK, well, what about all the rest of the commandments?
God said they needed to obey.
And the moment you add one commandment to love, you've done the same thing to the liberal doctrine that you do to once saved, always saved, the moment God tells someone to repent,
the same thing that you do to faith only, the moment someone has to pray or repent, the same thing you do with every doctrine that says this is all you have to do, and then they
exclude all the rest of God's commands.
is the moment you add one thing to, this is all you have to do.
You can't stop.
It's like a can of Lay's.
Once you eat one, you just, you can't eat just one.
You can't add just one more commandment to only.
If you add one more commandment to only, what about the next commandment?
And the next commandment?
which is why Paul is telling Timothy there is something that is sound, healthy doctrine.
And then there's doctrine which does not accord to wholesome words.
There is doctrine that will infest you and infect you with sin to a degree that you will not be able to tell the truth from error.
Paul says, if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which accords with godliness.
He is proud, knowing nothing, is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, revelings, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men, of corrupt
minds, and destitute of the truth.
Some might say, well, Aaron, what you're really just saying is that everybody has to agree with you.
False.
What I'm saying is God set the standard of you have to agree with him.
And if I don't agree with him, I'm wrong.
And if someone else doesn't agree with him, they're wrong.
If we do not choose to lay aside our opinions, our thoughts, our justifications, our manipulation of truth, and rather accept the Word of God in its plain simplicity and set
aside everything else, then we're all wrong.
truth.
is truth.
It's truth no matter where you find it.
You don't have to be a member of the Church of Christ to speak truth.
How do I know that?
Well, for one, Abraham was never a member of the Church of Christ.
He spoke truth.
He existed before it existed.
John the Baptist was never a member of the kingdom.
He spoke truth.
But further, Nebuchadnezzar in his lost state,
when he came to a realization that what God had done had validated that God rules in the kingdoms of men spoke truth.
When Nebuchadnezzar realized that he had thrown into the fiery furnace three servants of God who was the God who really existed because that God saved them from that fiery
furnace, Nebuchadnezzar pulled them out and spoke truth.
You can open up your song book and you can read words from individuals who were never members of the kingdom of God, who are not members of the church of Christ, who were not
saved.
And yet they opened up God's word and they looked at it.
They discovered truth in it and they wrote it down and they set it to music.
And the truth is truth no matter who wrote it.
We can appreciate that the world is surrounded by the very nature and character of God so built into the very existence that we live in that every time someone opposes truth,
nature as God created it pushes back on them.
When someone says, don't believe in gravity, nature will force them to a different conclusion.
because God created the universe.
When someone says there's no such thing as man or woman, nature will argue with them in a very, very clear way.
Because if they really believed that, they'd quickly die off and there would be nothing left from them.
we understand and we should recognize that we can accept truth no matter where it originates.
Because it will always accord with, agree with God.
But that no matter where falsehood originates, no matter how much we like of a person who teaches the false thing,
no matter how much we would love to just accept it because we think they're a great person, false doctrine is false no matter where you find it and no matter who teaches it.
Doesn't matter if they're member of the body of Christ or if they're not a member of the body of Christ.
If it's false, it's false.
Paul says that these individuals, these who desire to be teachers who Paul says Timothy is going to have to oppose, he says these are individuals who continue in useless wranglings
of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth who suppose that godliness is a means of gain from such, yourself.
When we reduce doctrine to the question of, do people want to hear this or not?
Will people show up more if we teach this or less if we teach it?
When we reduce doctrine to a popular opinion which produces revenue.
I mean, if we taught the truth on such and such an issue, you know, some of the best givers in this congregation might get up and leave, so we better just skirt around that.
No, we don't do that.
Now, do the hearts and souls and minds of the wealthiest people in a congregation matter just as much as the poorest people in a congregation?
Absolutely.
But they don't matter anymore because of their wealth, and they don't matter any less because of their wealth.
but they do have a different burden to bear.
Notice what Paul says to Timothy.
Now, godliness with contentment is great gain.
As Paul examines the teaching and the commandments of Timothy, he says, here's what you should consider to be gain.
Here's what you should consider to be real value.
Here's what you should consider on your profit and loss analysis to be profit.
godliness with contentment.
When you look at a business' balance sheet, and their profit and loss statement, godliness doesn't show up on it.
That's not a line item.
when you look at a person's net worth in the world's terms, you're not going to see a line item for of good character and obedient to God.
In a right relationship with God.
And yet all that tells us is the world's way of measuring value is entirely messed up.
that what God measures isn't what man measures.
When Samuel was commanded to go anoint one of the sons uh of Jesse, and he arrived there at Jesse's house, which one did he think was the one he should anoint?
The oldest.
Why?
He looked the part of a king.
He was tall, handsome.
He had the air about him of a king.
What did God tell Samuel?
God does not look upon the outward man.
Rather, God judges the heart.
God tells Samuel, you keep going.
This isn't the one.
So he went to the second son, not the one.
Third son, not the one.
Fourth son, not the one.
Fifth son, not the one.
Sixth son, not the one.
Seventh son, not the one.
how many sons were present when Samuel arrived to anoint the next king.
Seven.
And they just went through all of them.
None of them were the one.
What does Samuel have to ask Jesse?
Do you have another side?
And Jesse says, yes, the youngest.
He's out tending the sheep.
And the youngest was David.
God looks at value differently.
When David arrived at the army, sent with supplies from his father to take to his brothers who were part of the army, then he arrived at the army there of Israel and he brings the
supplies and as he's doing so he's questioned why his brothers as to why he's there.
And then he hears the declaration from Goliath down in the valley, send one of your best down to meet me.
We will do battle with one another and whoever the winner is takes all.
David questions why there was no one in all the army of Israel.
who trusted God enough to go shut the mouth of a blasphemer.
David knew there was such a thing as David knew there was such a thing as honor and value in standing up against false teaching.
And David just wondered why there was no one in all of Israel's army with a backbone and enough trust in God to stand up and speak the truth.
So David did not go out with an army.
What did he go out with?
the weapons of a lowly sheep keeper, of a shepherd.
the slingshot and some rocks.
godliness with contentment.
What did Saul tell David to do?
Take my armor.
Take my sword.
Take my armament.
David said, I haven't proved those.
Those aren't mine.
I'm going to go out with the trust of God.
I'm going to go out with the same defenses I had against the lion and the bear, which was God.
David exhibits himself as one who's content with God.
That's enough.
As long as he's got God, the rest of it doesn't matter.
Without God, none of it matters.
Paul says, Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
Paul is going to make it clear to Timothy.
If you set your mind, your focus, and your attention on assembling this world's goods, if you determine your path in life based upon the assembling of this world's goods, you're
going to find out there's a day coming where this world's goods are staying behind and you're leaving.
And then it won't matter.
How many you had.
over in Luke chapter 16 as the rich man entered into eternity.
How many of his possessions did he take with him?
None.
And as Lazarus entered into eternity, how many of his possessions did he take with him?
None.
How many did he have?
None.
He passed into eternity with the same number of possessions that He had on this earth.
but he had a right relationship with God.
the one thing he could take with him.
He had the one thing the rich man couldn't take with him.
he lacked entirely.
Now, of interest to our point in Paul's discussion about doctrine, when the rich man says to Abraham, send back Lazarus and surely my brothers will believe him for he's risen from
the grave.
What did Abraham say in reply to the rich man?
What was sufficient for his brothers?
They have Moses and the prophets.
Let them hear them.
because if they won't believe the doctrine of God.
they won't change because they witnessed America.
Paul says.
We brought nothing into this world.
I like the way he puts this, and it is certain.
It is undeniable.
It is scientifically provable that everything that you have in this life is staying here when you're gone.
So he says, and having food and clothing with these, we shall be content.
Now, wait a minute, does Paul disagree with Jesus then?
Because Jesus back in Matthew chapter six said, why do you give thought for what you shall wear and what you shall eat and what you shall drink?
Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." So, which one's right, Paul or Jesus?
Both.
So how then do we understand what Jesus said and what Paul said?
Okay, Paul didn't say, if you got enough food and you got enough clothing, you can be content in a vacuum.
What did he say before that?
Godliness with contentment is great gain.
Paul doesn't strip out contentment in saying, if you've got food and clothing, you should be content.
For if you do not have a right relationship with God, you should never be content.
Rather, Paul has placed those things as secondary only to first having godliness and being satisfied with God, being satisfied with your relationship with God.
He says, having food and clothing with these we shall be content, but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation
and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
Paul is saying it's wrong to become wealthy, right?
No?
Paul says, those who desire to be rich.
when you spend much time studying individuals who become significantly wealthy.
you'll find there's two different types.
There's the people for which wealth was their only focus all the time.
And then you'll find the people who whelp was never their focus.
It just happened to be a byproduct of all of the things they did.
And as a result of that, you'll find two very different scenarios in their lives.
It is rare to find the person who wealth was a byproduct of the things that they desired to accomplish, but they never focused on it.
You'll rarely find them in a destitute, destructive, self-destructive environment.
focused entirely on themselves.
But the one for whom wealth was their focus, that the wealth and the power was everything they focused on.
It was the desire, or as Jesus would describe it, the darkness of their eye.
Those people you find over and over over and over over again are in a self-destructive state that destroys themselves and everybody around
And yet, Paul points out that at all points in time, carries baggage.
Didn't Solomon already teach us that way back in Ecclesiastes?
Solomon said, what good is it to do all this work, to gather all these things for the more you gather, the more people eat up what you got.
Because you need more people to take care of what you've got, so more people consume the more you have.
Solomon pointed out that the man who had great wealth would spend his nights staying up worrying about his wealth.
is that it's better to be the worker who comes home, eats his food with gladness, goes to bed, gets up and goes to work the next morning.
Paul is addressing...
Two things, the desire of the heart first.
Because the desire of the heart for riches is always diametrically opposed to the desire for godliness.
How do I know?
Jesus told us so.
Jesus said, you cannot love God and money.
He says, can love one and the one you love, you'll serve.
but you cannot love God and mammon at the same time.
They're diametrically opposed to one another.
That is the love of them is diametrically opposed to one another.
Now, who created money?
That's an interesting question.
Because we have to first examine who created value.
Turn all the way back to Genesis chapter one.
I'll find the verse in just a minute.
I'm looking for the verse, if somebody finds it first, where God describes where the...
ah, chapter 2.
Chapter 2, where God describes where the garden is.
Verse eight, the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to
the sight and good for food.
The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from there it parted and became four river heads.
The name of the first was Pishon.
It is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilla where there is
Gold.
You know, in Genesis chapter two, before we get into the second generation of humanity, gold's already being talked about.
How about that?
Who created value?
God did.
Who created the world with value and scarcity?
God did.
Question, how do we know when something's worth something?
Answer, when someone needs it and there's not enough.
How much is gold worth if you're in a city under siege and there's no food and everyone's starving to death and your gold won't buy you food?
How much is gold worth?
Nothing.
Matter of fact, there's a time in Israel's history where we're told that they threw their gold and their silver out on the street and walked on it.
They were tired of looking at it.
It wouldn't even buy them food and they were starving to death.
To the degree that some of the people were eating their own children to stay alive.
You know, when you're in a destitute state, riches don't matter.
because without food you're gonna die.
And by the way, everyone who's destitute of food knows you can't take your possessions with you.
They figure it out real quick.
They'll leave anything behind to get to the food.
Now, when we understand that God created value in the world, God created...
value both by the things which he created that had inherent value and by the fact that he created things of a different nature.
What is it about gold that's different from a lot of other metals?
Okay, it's got durability.
It's, did somebody else said something else?
It's rare, okay.
It's got rarity, it's got durability.
What does gold not do that other metals do over time?
It doesn't corrode.
Now, you can get imperfections in it, but gold has a different nature than other metals.
You go put a piece of steel or a piece of iron out in the weather for a long period of time, what are you gonna find?
Nothing.
It's going to corrode to nothing.
It's going to deteriorate.
Gold has a certain value.
oh
derived from its nature.
God created the element of gold in a different way than other things.
It doesn't have all the same properties.
Other things don't have the same properties as gold.
It's recognized going all the way back to the Garden of Eden as something of value.
But what do men do when men start creating money?
as exhibited by our government.
They just create more and more and more and more and more with nothing behind it.
No actual intrinsic value other than an agreement that says this has value.
God exhibits that there are things in this world of value, but always with the point that the things in this world have value, that have value, should not draw your focus to them,
but they should point out rather that eternity is the only thing of full and lasting and real value.
when we do not realize that riches are not quantifiable in possessions, that someone who is rich in God's terms cannot have their balance sheet measured by their possessions.
when we realize that riches with God cannot be quantified in the number of possessions that we have, Jesus said.
that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
When we realize that, we realize that those who desire to be rich, by definition,
have a problem discerning the value of spiritual things over physical things.
Now what does Paul say is the byproduct of that?
He says that those who desire to be rich fall into temptation.
When your focus and when your attention and when your desire is on riches, he says you have opened wide the gate for Satan to tempt you.
He says, fall into temptation and a snare and to many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
when you watch the world and you watch the world's advertising.
when you pay attention to what the world assumes to be true, which sometimes people who want to live half in the world and half out of the world refuse to admit.
is that the world advertises a certain lifestyle.
They advertise that if you have this lifestyle, you will have all of these enjoyments and happiness.
And yet, as they pose the handsome looking man in the powerful business suit next to the sports car,
They fail to enumerate the broken marriage, the destitute family, the broken relationships, the absent fatherhood that go with it.
Absolutely.
And the foolishness is that sometimes those who are righteous start to believe the advertisers.
They start to think, you know what, if I just had that, if I just had this, if I could just get to this, except what God tells us is there's no end to that.
Solomon would point out that the one who desires silver and gold will never be satisfied because they'll never get enough.
And we should understand that when a person's desires trend towards physical possessions, they're opening themselves up for temptation and harmful lusts and desires.
Okay?
We're gonna pause it right there and we'll continue this next week.