Preserving Sound Doctrine in a Confusing World

tonight I'm going to pick up where Pastor hner left off in terms of the scripture we're going to be in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and our text tonight is verses 3 to7 but I'm going to read from verse one all the way to verse 11 because I think that's sort of the basis of the message tonight so if you don't mind let's all stand as I read the Holy word 1 Timothy chapter 1 starting with verse one Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the Commandment of God Our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ which is Our Hope unto Timothy my own son in faith grace mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ Our Lord as I Bes besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went to Macedonia that thou mightest charge

some that they teach no other Doctrine neither give he to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than Godly edifying which is in faith so do now end now the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of Faith unfeigned from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling Desiring to be teachers of the law understanding neither what they say nor where of they affirm but we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully knowing this that the law is not made for righteous man but for the Lawless and disobedient for the ungodly and for Sinners for Unholy and profane for murderers and of fathers and murderers of

mothers for manslayers for whoremongers for them that defile themselves with mankind for men Stealers for liars for purged persons and and if there be any other thing that is contrary to the to sound Doctrine according to the Glorious Gospel of the Blessed God which was committed to my trust father Lord thank you so much again for your holy word we praise you for your wisdom and your love and father as we come together tonight I I pray for clarity and I pray that you will help us to open our minds and our hearts to the message not only to understand the truths that are going to be the message Lord but to be able to apply them in our lives pray now that you bless our time together in Christ's

name we pray amen please go ahead and have seat before we dive in actually in the actual main message of tonight I wanted to cover three different points to help us understand the tone uh and the purpose of Paul's chur uh charge concerning Doctrine to Timothy the first point I wanted to clarify some terminology of some key words that we need to know about so that we can have the same understanding the first one is Doctrine we need to know what Doctrine is specifically sound Doctrine Doctrine is scripturally is uh is taught by a church it's it's a set of beliefs that a church has and that they teach teach their church members it it's a scriptural teachings on the theological truths that we

find in the Bible sound Doctrine means error-free Doctrine or pure Doctrine simply put sound Doctrine is the accurate teaching of the Bible and the central beliefs of the Christian faith and it spans from Creation in Genesis all the way to revelation so when I start talking about Doctrine and and sound Doctrine it's in the scriptures Paul describes sound Doctrine uh if you go to uh verse 11 or our passage he describes it this way in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the Blessed God which I have entrusted and if you look for Doctrine in in scriptures you find one in 2 Timothy 4:3 where Paul warns that there will be there will come a time where people will not endure or tolerate sound

Doctrine instead they will gather around all these false preacher false preachers to hear what they want to hear and I believe brothers and sisters that that time is not coming it's already here to verse three of of of um 1 Timothy chapter 1 I mean ver uh 2 Timothy CH 4:3 here's a here's a verse for the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own lust shall they he to themselves teachers having itching ears as I Was preparing for this message and reading all these uh verses about sound Doctrine and about people moving away I always wonder when I look down in the pews there's a lot of empty chairs empty seats empty spaces perhaps they are surrounding or going

towards the these false preachers and falling into their false Doctrine so you may ask well what what exactly are you talking about in terms of these sound doctrines what what is the teachings of Paul all well I I'll name a few justification by faith salvation through Grace the church as the body of Christ spiritual gifts the resurrection of Jesus and the unity of Believers and of course Believers in the new life as a new creature that's all covered in his Epistles so that's the first point there second Point Paul's intro introduction in verse one that he's the Apostle of Jesus Christ by the Commandment of God but that only he he introduced himself as the Apostle but that introduction not

only establishes his authority but it extends it to Timothy his spiritual son his disciple now Timothy is overseeing the church so that Authority is there it has been uh uh this is a notice for for for the people of the Church of Ephesus that not only is Timothy the pastor of the church but he is now charged with the responsibility of overseeing the the the church itself with instructions and orders and tonight that is the subject of our message I also wanted to know that this letter from Timothy is significant in two ways first it assured Timothy that he was supposed to be there as I was studying Timothy I understood that he sometimes he gets discouraged and sometimes he plans to move but

this letter serves first as an encouragement to Timothy secondly First Timothy that first letter to Timothy is his marching orders and I know you understand that you military people marching orders right thirdly Paul's charge to Timothy is to teach sound Doctrine in the Church of Ephesus and warned him of the false teaching that is already occurring within that church so deoy Timothy was supposed to guard the faith those are the three introductory points that I wanted to share with you before we dive into this message tonight I now invite you to join me in examining these three points concerning Paul's charge to Timothy we're going to look at the purity of Doctrine the purpose of Doctrine

and thirdly perversion of Doctrine excuse me let me drink the purity of Doctrine it's it's important that we our Doctrine is pure it's not corrupted you find that in in verse three and four of our uh passage by the way if you haven't gotten in it yet put a marker in in our passage because you're going to be going back we're going to be going back to this throughout the message verse three for the Bible says as I besought Thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other Doctrine neither give heed for to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than Godly edifying which is faithly which is in faith so do

let's break it down a little bit the word besought in Greek is paraco by the way please forgive me when murdering these Greek words okay because I'm not really good in pronouncing them how have the the main love folks who are here now how are you doing when pronouncing the Hawaiian names know okay Paro or bisad is used is the same word used in Romans 12 verse1 and and it's a strong word which suggest that Timothy was actually probably planning to move on but at the urging from Paul he Paul wanted him to stay the word abide means to stay put Paul wanted Timothy to stay in Ephesus especially while he was away we also know as reading these scriptures that Paul Used military language to help

Timothy and his people understand the serious seriousness of the problem of false teaching that that's happening in the church you know the term charge found in verse three of our passage can also be interpreted as a command an order and instructions which Demands a Timothy to take a strong stand against false Doctrine and order some some to only teach sound or pure Doctrine based on Paul's teachings couple things I want to share with you about this the fact that Paul said some and not all kind of tells us that he and perhaps Timothy already has an idea of who these false preachers were because he didn't say all some let me go back to the word charge in Military and I'm talk I was talking

about the seriousness of the problem I was in the Army and the first thing the Army teaches you when you go into basic trainings that your three general orders orders are important especially during hostile environment there is no time to be questioning you take your orders and you do does the Navy do that too so when I'm talking about military terminology being used in in in this passage it goes to tell you that Paul takes this false teaching false Doctrine very seriously so Timothy's assignment was to be aware of the teachers of false Doctrine and charge or order them to teach no other doctrine that is contrary to Paul's teachings Paul is to confront these false teachers they are to stop

focusing on fables and endless genealogies because these lead to nothing but more questions and confusion see God is not a god of chaos it's a god of order they want Paul wants to avoid using these false doctrines that brings up but focus on the teachings that brings about Godly edification through faith you know as I was studying this looking back to these terminologies fables and endless genealogies these kinds of stories and myths and descent uh lineages are the use of them are common practice during this time fables or in the in the Greek word again MOS means speech or saying or a narrative or a story or a myth what happens during this time is there's a lot of romantic kind of stories

and really around their history and so forth and is very appealing when you listen to them and genealogy in Greek means uh gen Genia which means a record of uh descend and lineage and the endless listing of genealogies and so forth can become very confusing however you got to understand that in scripture genealogy was used to show the background of of our savior and others so it is easily be confusing for people to listen to these false genealogies for example and and be thinking that this actually is biblical but the problem with fables and genealogies is most of the time they are false and through some of my reading I read a little bit about about Alexander the Great and his genealogy in

the history books were actually fake false but he wanted to sort of paint that picture that he came from a great uh a background of really great people I I like what Warren worby said in his in his book be faithful because it kind of summarizes what I'm trying to uh to say here and he backs it up with scripture he said God had committed the truth of the word to Paul that's first Paul uh 1:1 and Paul committed it to Timothy 1 Timothy uh I'm sorry First Timothy 1:11 and 1 Timothy 620 it was Timothy's responsibility to guard the faith you find that in 2 Timothy 1:14 and to pass it along to faithful people 2 Timothy 2:2 so so that is a summary of what what I'm talking about in terms of Rel uh

the authority and how it's being passed on and now Timothy is now entrusted in this responsibility to guard the faith and to keep the doctrine Pure or error free sometimes I think around this time I'm hoping that some of you may be thinking well what's so important about this Doctrine don't we just have to know who Christ is and believe that he's the Savior the answer to that is really very simple because false Doctrine is happening in order for us to know and identify false Doctrine it is very important that we know the details and what these doctrines are second point is the purpose of Doctrine the purpose of Doctrine and we find that in verse five of our passage let's go back there I'll

read it verse five now the end of the Commandment is Charity out of pure heart and of good conscience and of Faith unfeigned see the end purpose of keeping and teaching sound Doctrine is Charity it ought to bring out love that ultimately brings unity and not confusion go back to 1 Corinthians chap 14:33 1 Corinthians CH 14:33 the Bible says in verse 33 for God is not the author of confusion but of Peace as in all churches of the Saints what Paul is trying to do is to push the correct Doctrine uncorrupted Doctrine into the churches so that we will avoid confusion we when we are teaching the right Doctrine it creates love charity and trusting one another as Christians there's this whole thing

about a good conscience you know how we get good conscience or get there as Christians we shouldn't have any barriers with us and God no separation between us and our fellow brothers and sisters and we do that by by really talking about our faults and forgiving those the others their own faults when we are right in the relationship with one another with God and then with one another we then come about with a good conscience and let me go to the word unfeigned unfeigned in Greek and hocus you recognize that word is where we get the word hypocrite or one who pretends to be what he is not simply an actor so when we Now understand what unfeigned is a Fain Faith un faint really means sincere

Faith true faith not fake Faith so the purpose of Doctrine basically is to bring about when we follow to bring about love God's love and share and be good and have good conscience and sincere with our faith and our relationship with God third point perversion of Doctrine perversion of Doctrine I'm going to park and and talk a little bit on this last point a little bit longer than the others when we are talking about perversion of Doctrine or the law we are talking about the alteration the falsification the Distortion and the misrepresent presentation of the law God's law and folks this is done mostly intention by intention and sometimes it's not you find this in verse six and seven of our

passage let me read that to you again verse six from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling Desiring to be teachers of the law understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm let's deal with the word swerved having swerved again in the the Greek word here is us too which means to deviate from or miss the mark in this case Paul said that some of the church members have deviated from sound Doctrine their sound Doctrine and turn into on vain jangling which is very interesting I've never used this word jangling before in my life any of you heard of Vin jangling some of you probably have I had to look it up vein jangling basically is meaningless and uh talk

that maybe this kind of talk May create contentious talk conflict disagreements see unfortunately many many people back then and today still prefer vain jangling I don't have to name names but you see them online and and people are really flocking to these fake preachers you know why they flock to the fake preachers because these fake teachers will tell them what they want to hear right Pastor they're not interested in the word of God the pure word of God that creates holy lives they just want to hear and the things that they want to hear so they can continue living their sinful lives and thinking that they are good to go because they're going to church on Sundays with the false Doctrine the

law is good and is meant to be used even today if it's used according to its intended purpose turn to Romans chapter 3: 19 Romans chapter 3: 19 Romans 3:19 the Bible says now we know that what things soever the law sayith it say to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God I find this verse very interesting so every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God if you consider the law the Commandments none of I I know of no one in this world that can do and Obey all these Commandments without just doing them it's hard so because when we consider this this law and how it is unattainable the whole world is now

guilty before God and this I believe is the ultimate design of the law is to point to make people realize that they are guilty there is no but there's only there is hope there is hope you now turn to Christ for salvation the cause for false Doctrine in Paul's time as well as today is several things but some of the things that I I realize is the misuse of Old Testament law and then that's due to their lack of understanding of the law or sometimes they may understand the law but they use it and they they perverted they change it so that they can realize their own agendas their own personal gain false teachers today what scary even today are leading people away from the liberty of Grace back

into the bondage of sin back to hopelessness all in the name of come to me I I got the right Doctrine let me tell you this I hope this is clear to you a safe p a Sav person in today's world a new testament Christian is not under the law but it's under God's grace and sometimes we think oh we're not we're not subject to the law we're under God's grace we don't have to obey but if you understand who Christ is and his teachings you understand that his ways are even harder harder his standards are even harder than the Old Testament law for example the Old Testament law says Thou shalt not kill but Christ when one step further and say If you think it you're guilty you don't have to physically do

it if you think it you're already guilty but folks with the grace of God we turn to Christ and he forgives us of our sin for his cleansing blood a saved person is not under the law but under grace a Sav person is not Lawless but is controlled and guided by the indwelling spirit of the Holy Spirit uh the indwelling holy spirit in the grace of God many false teachers and false doctrines can be found online boy they come from every angle and it really looks like it's legitimate that's that's the scary part false Doctrine is coming to you through the internet through all different kinds of media you know as I was studying this you know we some of the common characteristics of these prone uh the

these false doctrines uh kind of is surrounded with pride rejection of godliness inability to unite in their efforts they use deception and the list goes on and on and on false Doctrine false preachers they pervert thinking and they poison the soul you might be thinking oh I I know all of that fine but does people around you know about this how is their knowledge of Doctrine but speaking of the internet I kind of put together a little bit of a list of what you can do to help top the top item that I have on my list is to know and understand scripture to know and understand scripture that's very critical if you want to be able to identify what is false then you must know scripture you must

know the doctrines behind those verses the other measure is completely not too popular to a lot of people is just completely cut yourself off of the internet don't even go there and it may sound funny but I know some families who do that they don't have internet they don't have all of the other access to to Media that's a good thing but most of us I'm going to assume most of us don't take that measure but if you are kind of looking and exposed to these kinds of for for uh false Doctrine you need to watch for the their agenda or their purpose when people are preaching or or talking about Doctrine and trying to use the name of the Lord what what is there purpose is their goal to glorify and

honor God by sharing the gospel of Christ folks if you don't see that I can already tell you that's most likely false Doctrine you should also look for their source of teaching and preaching is it biblical or is it just Fables or endless genealogies you know I was thinking about myself where I came from I was born and raised on Guam the culture there is very strong my mom is from Micronesia the culture there is strong they believe in how they track your your lineage they they do it by the mat lineal side they track it by by the moms and that's how we tell who came from where who you know how our history came about there are Chiefs similar to Sam and some people they try to distort their

lineage and they say okay we are actually from this Chief to kind of join in in in that Prestige if you will so it doesn't apply just in the European side not in in it applies everywhere today be conscious of that and you know sometimes we find something that may disturb us you saw it on the internet and all of a sudden you've made up your mind and and even though it may be wrong the last item is to check with your pastor in my list I was meeting with pastor on how we're going to how I'm going to preach this and he he's the one actually say no you can check with the pastor if you're in doubt check with him make sure that your train of thought is going down the right path I want to close with

this final thought to answer some of the questions I think might be lingering in your mind about why do I really need need to know the details see people generally behave based on their experience and their belief you behave based on how you were brought up and how you were taught your the the things that your beliefs in belief system so it's very critical that we have the right Doctrine the sound Doctrine to teach not just our elves our children so I invite you to join in with Timothy and be the Guardians of the faith today I hope this been a a a helpful message to you I certainly learned a lot Stu studying this and I hope you take time to go back and listen to this message and all the other messages and bring it all together and kind of look at all the things that we're talking about here because it'll help us to be a stronger Church