Final Instructions: Guard the Faith

Aloha and good evening. Ohana, you know, we've been doing good on evening services during the revival week. I was kind of expecting a little bit of a a much smaller crowd, but thank you for coming out. Uh it's been a very interesting uh kind of way of study for me in, you know, being with the pastors and and trying to preach and and teach First Timothy. And I I do want to thank first of all pastor and all the pastors really they've been very uh helpful in trying to give tips and so forth to help us as a group to really teach from the perspective of the Lord and the importance of first Timothy towards uh the the members of this church uh and and all believers in general.

And I I've learned a lot. And so tonight we're going to go back and we're going to do uh more of sort of like a recap of the last two chapters for the sake of context and then we're going to dive into uh the last two verses of chapter 6. But if you don't mind, we're going to I'm going to go ahead and read our text, which is the last two verses of chapter 6. I I would like to ask you to stand out of respect of the word of God as I read our text and I'll pray and we'll get into it. Okay? And so 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 21. Oh Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions of signs falsely so-called which some professing have heard concerning the faith.

Grace be with thee. Amen. Father Lord, thank you so much again for your holy word and we we really do appreciate the time that you've given us to come together as a family of God to to really learn uh what your word has to say and and to not just know but to to be able to discern between good and evil and Lord to be able to be on guard for uh false teachings by understanding the correct teachings, the the correct doctrine. And so we thank you so much for this opportunity. And father we pray that as we come together and learn from this first letter of Timothy uh Paul to Timothy that you will help us to to really not just understand it but learn these truths and apply it in our lives as well.

We we thank you again. We love you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Please go ahead and have a seat. So as I was saying, we're going to go back to the last two chapters. Let's start with chapter five. In chapter five, uh Paul talked about how to minister to elders, to widows and church leaders. And then in this last chapter, Paul continues his advice to Timothy on ministering to various the various kinds of believers in the church. And I find it very interesting that he did this in a manner of within a military tone or atmosphere. And there's a purpose to that. And I think that's and I'll try to explain that and I find it uh uh he he uses words that are usually used in the military for example particularly army.

How many of the army guys are here? There you go. Hello. Okay. Um for example, fight a good fight of faith. The word fight in verse 12 of our chapter. I give thee charge. Verse 13. Charge them that are rich. Verse 17, oh Timothy, keep guard that which is committed to thy trust. And in other words, if you look at how Paul is in the military tone addressing this and talking to Timothy, in a sense, you can you can see that he is Paul is a general giving Timothy the orders from the Lord, our commander-in-chief. And so if if you understand from a military context how that is so relatable in in this context of what Paul is saying here.

So in this chapter Paul instructed Timothy on how to minister for four different groups. I want to just quickly cover those groups. The first group were the Christian slaves of their time. The Christian slaves were to count their masters worthy of honor. And at the same time, the Christian masters were to treat their Christian slaves as brothers in the Lord. And then the second group had to do with false teachers and preachers. And again Paul reiterated this from previous chapters the issue of false teachers and preachers indicating the importance of this problem especially in the um recurrence of such an issue.

The third was Paul was talking about pastor Timothy himself. He pointed out that while ministering to others, Timothy and and for that matter all pastors need to care for themselves to and to be content. Often times we as leaders of the church, we we are so into teaching and taking care of of the the congregation that we neglect our own needs as well. So it's important that uh we we pay attention to our needs as well. But we do it in with contentment. Godly contentment is is um great gain. Scripture says so. Pastor Ch uh John preached on fighting a good fight. In the last group of believers in this chapter, Paul was addressing rich people, how to minister to rich people.

And so, Pastor Wayne and John both touched some of the elements of of this group. um you know failing into uh failing temp uh to in other words not failing but falling into temptation. Rich rich people p people with resources are so into their their resources that sometimes they are so liable to fall into temptations. But it is also important to understand that you know it's okay to gain. It is okay to have riches as long as you share those riches for the glory of God. And so tonight's message is entitled Final Instructions as we get when you know we dive into these last two verses in this chapter to take a closer look of what that really entails.

So Paul gives his final instructions to Timothy on his responsibilities to guard Paul's teachings of sound doctrine and to teach others. He he started with a plea to Timothy for his faithfulness on this this cause that he's got has been assigned to him. when he said, "Oh Timothy," in verse 20, this is more of a affection of his affectionate expression of his spir to his spiritual son. And and along with that, oh Timothy, he's also about to tell him the warnings of the possible uh false teaching that is going to occur as well in the church. I also want to mention that it may be well noted that Paul closes the letter by calling out the name Timothy.

Oh, Timothy very affectionate, personal addresses his favorite spiritual son. But I wanted to mention that it's you know as I was thinking about the letter and how he's writing and he started out in the last two verses old Timothy that he uses the name Timothy to his fullest meaning. The name Timothy, he used it to his to that name's fullest meaning. I'm not sure if you're aware, but Timothy, it comes in two two parts. Timon, which means to honor, and theos is God, which literally mean Timothy means honoring God. So it's appropriate as he closes this chapter as he closes letter he addresses Timothy with that kind of meaning to his name as well that you are you have been ordered you have been

given charge and you Timothy your name tell say tell say tell say tell say tell say tell say tell say tell say tell say tell say tells it all that you are to honor the lord as well you know as I look at scripture and I I'm sure we all agree on this when you read scripture there are so many different names and the lord uses is sometimes it reveals the meanings of the names in the characters within the scripture and uses those meanings and I think in this case this is one of those. So Paul's reiteration of the importance of keeping or guarding uh against false teachings highlights the importance and the magn magnitude of such responsibility.

It is not a light duty, folks, to keep guard that which was committed to his trust. Paul pleads for Timothy's faithfulness as a requirement for a steward. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. 1 Corinthians 4:2. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4:2, "Moreover, it is required in steward that a man be found faithful. a man be found faithful. We must be faithful. Not just Timothy, but all of us. When we are given an order or a duties by the word of God, we are to guard that as a steward by being faithful. All believers, including Timothy, are given gifts and callings from God. And these gifts and callings are sacred.

They must not be taken lightly. Go to Romans 11:33. Romans 11:33. The Bible says in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out." See folks, we must not let our guard down, not even for one minute. We must be faithful. Paul's charge to Timothy is in two parts really. One is really mentioned and one I think is implied. He is to keep guard when he is to keep guard and to communicate and and the word communicate here is to teach others. And what is he that to communicate or what is he to teach?

And what is he to to guard? That's about it really mainly is is uh sound doctrine. What Timothy I mean Paul's teachings through that Christ has given him has then been passed on to Timothy and he is to guard what has been entrusted to him and not only guard it but to teach it teach it to others teach it to members of his church. And this idea of teaching is it really makes sense because it is uh ultimately the result of teaching is guarding as well. Because if you teach church members, if you teach young believers about sound doctrine, then they would be able to discern between good and evil. They would be able to discern, hey, that's correct.

Hey, that's not correct. We must not again let our guards down. And and so how else would we when it's so important to teach? How else would we have our church members learn and trust and to be able to guard? We are to study the word of God. That's that's really one of the main uh things that we need to do. In uh in 2 Timothy 2:15, the Bible says, "Study to show that has approved unto God a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing a word of truth." Often times we have people coming in here and some of them I don't know and they're up here preaching. I wonder if we all understand where they're coming from.

And I wonder if through the word of God we we know and we can tell whether this is true doctrine or someone who's just trying to use parts of scripture scripture for personal gain. We also not just need to know the scripture but we need to guard our hearts. In Proverbs 4:23 the Bible says keep thy heart with a with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. It's very so important as we think about guarding to not just guard our our knowledge and guard our our true doctrine, sound doctrine teaching, but we also need to guard our our hearts. But you know, you can do all of this and still fall short fall short because sometimes we forget that we have a commander-in-chief.

We we should submit to the grace of God. In 1 Timothy 1:14, the Bible says, "And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." We have a God who is abundant with grace. We ought to rely on it. We relinguish our lives to God and let his grace work in us and to communicate and teach the word. In 1 Timothy 1:9, if you can turn to there, 1 Timothy 1:9, the Bible says, "Holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught, that he may be able to sound do be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gains gains." Very critical. very critical to to be able to understand and to be able to teach the word so that your fellow believers can be strong in the word and strong in the Lord.

So this whole idea of guard to keep to guard is is not a minor responsibility. We can all understand the awesome responsibility that Paul entrusted into Timothy to guard. As we think about that and the importance of guard, we can bring bring it to today's times today's modern military because even in our army today in our military the issue of guard is not small. It is not a small thing. The military has they they've hold such high regard for the responsibility of guards that they start teaching young soldiers, young sailors and so forth during this basic training on how to properly guard and and they do have general orders on how to guard to really so that they can understand what those are and and to do their job as a guard in such a way that is acceptable to their superiors, their military branches, and so forth.

So, right now, I'm going to kind of shut up and I'm going to ask Ricky to call in the guards group left face. rest. Rest. Now, let me ask you, soldier, what is your first general order? The first general order is I'll guard all limits of my post and I quit my post properly. Very serious stuff. A lot of times, well, not a lot of times, but you know, those who are in charge of the guards, they better be sure when they are done to come and relieve these guards because these guards can be there until they are properly relieved. That's how serious the guard is, the duty of a guard in the military. So, as I have these two strong, handsome military guys, you know, size sometimes matter.

So, you have these guys guarding the perimeter. And I'm going to call Tupelo to come on up. Now understand in normal in normal times they probably would have their weapons. Okay. But here here's Tupu. He's he's larger. He even has something to to fight with. Do you think looking at these guys that he actually has a a a pretty good chance of breaching the perimeter? Yeah. You agree with me? Okay. I'm not going to have you do that, brother. You can you can go ahead and uh sit down. Thank you so much. But the idea here is this. As Christians, we are to guard we are to guard the faith. And when stronger, more influential false teachers come our way, sometimes the guards are not enough.

And this is what, you know, it brings me to the the second part of of Paul's uh charge to Timothy is not to guard only, but to teach. Because when he teaches, let's say this first row here, all new believers and they have been taught about sound doctrine, they can come up and stand next to these two and guard against the world, guard against false teaching. And that's the idea is that when you teach then the members of the church become more effective guards and then they can do their part. And as a church we are in a better position to guard the faith. And so thank you guys. You're you're you're you're dismissed.

Attention. Left face forward. March. See, it's a group effort. We know that we have the most powerful commander-in-chief ever. But I want you to remember something because sometimes I forget about this. See that flag there? That's a Christian flag. We are all in the Lord's army. Remember that we are all in the Lord's army. We help one another. We help, we learn, and we guard. So that's the first plea is faithfulness to his duty and do us as Christians to be faithful to our duty to guard. But Paul also pleaded for separation. Not just faithfulness but separation. And in verse 20 of our passage in verse 21 it says avoiding profane and vain babblings and oppositions of signs falsely so-called which some professing have erred concerning the faith.

So in order to be faithful, in order to be faithful, Timothy and all believers like us must avoid the detours of profane and vain babblings and the science falsely so-called. So let me address this thing about profane and vain babblings because I've actually spoken about uh to a certain uh degree in previous messages on this. These are ungodly and and and empty words which refer to so many different controversies and doctrines and the purpose of that is only to produce strife and they are not there to be adapted to promote the edification of the church. They are not. Think about that. Profane is also sometimes explained as the act of treading underfoot as a metaphor for rejection and worthlessness like stepping in mud or in a piece of gum.

Sometimes we get so focused on the things that are really not biblical, not of sound doctrine, and it just holds up progress. We are to avoid that. We must be careful not to get caught up in these profane and and vain babblings because you know what it causes as I said conflict discord or contention. And it's important to understand why it's happening because sometimes oftenimes it stems from pride. pride, selfish ambition, gain, personal gain or jealousy. Let's be very careful as believers. So as Paul, I mean Timothy to guard against that. Now let's visit this idea of oppositions science falsely so-called the order there Timothy was to avoid everything which falsely laid claim to being knowledge and science for the sake of science we're correct there was much of this kind of things happening when Paul wrote this letter to Timothy and I think that's why it's part of that And we we're still dealing with those today.

These were happening there. And you know what? Perhaps more than anything else, these kinds of babblings and vain empty words causes a lot of corruption in the church. The word science or ginosis here refers to any falsely named wisdom which does not begin with the fear of God. Be careful of that. Speaking of that, I I want to pause a little bit and touch on the Bible itself because you know what? Scientifically, we have things in the Bible that is proven scientifically that is true. For example, the world is round. Do you know that the Bible says that the world is round? Turn to Isaiah 40:22. Isaiah 40:22, it says, "It is he that sitth upon the circle of the earth."

The earth is round, and the inhabitants thereof as are as grasshoppers that uh stretch it out to the heavens as a curtain, and spreadth them out on a tent to dwell in. How about this? The earth being suspended in space. This was written long time ago. Job 26:7. He stretched out the north over the emptiest place and hanged the earth upon nothing. Hangth the earth upon nothing. Space. I think the more closer one that I we we can think about in terms of the Bible and how it proves that uh science actually supports scripture and vice versa is is Leviticus 12 uh 17:11 the blood is the source of life.

In that verse the Bible says for the life of the flesh is in the blood. And let me continue. And I have given given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement to your souls. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. I'm bringing it up because it's really talking about specifically the first part of the verse, how blood is the source of life of the flesh. So the Bible is full of these verses that really shows that the word of God is scientifically supported. But sometimes sometimes even our own believers use different things to kind of make that compromising decision to support science and we better be careful about that as well.

Uh compromise the science about creation for example. And I I don't really like to talk too much in detail about these, but I think at this point we need to kind of mention it a little bit to understand it. How about the day age theory of creation? the day age uh theory of creation. It suggests that the days described in Genesis uh creation narrative are not literal 24hour periods but rather represent much longer times potentially spanning millions or even billions of years. This view attempts to reconcile the Bible's account of creation with scientific findings about the age of the earth and the universe.

If you're not careful, you can fall into these kinds of wrong beliefs. How about the gap theory? It's a it's a form of creationism that attempts to reconcile a literal interpretation of the six day creation uh in Genesis 1 and the vast geological ages suggested by science. It possesses a period, a gap between the initial creation described in Genesis 1:1 and the events in Genesis 1:2. Gap theorist theorists believe that Genesis 1:1 describes the initial creation of the earth and then and then they insert a gap of time between Genesis 1 and two suggesting that the earth was actually initially created in a perfect form perfect state unlike the young earth creation creationism uh which maintains a recent creation around 6,000 years ago.

This kind of guess within the six little day hours, the gap theory allows a much older earth sounds very kind of reasonable, but it's not biblical. The earth, God created the earth in six literal 24-hour days. There's no gap. There's no this one day is actually equal to I think at this time I want to pause and kind of it's more of a warning for parents when you send your kids to public schools when you send your children to public schools and older ones to college public colleges you're going to find in the text in these public schools even in college when you open up the first lines of the first chapter usually is millions and millions or billions of years ago.

That wrong people use so-called science in the wrong way and that has consequences and that is what Paul is talking about here. Failure to avoid such wisdom, false wisdom, causes believers or some believers to er or miss the mark concerning faith. Evidently, some who profess to be true Christians were attracted by these false philosophies and consequently were led to deny the doctrines of Christianity. And it's happening. So often now we need to be careful. One important thing I want to talk about professioning Christians is one might profess faith in Christ and not actually possess his faith or her faith in the sense of having genuine life transforming uh relationship with him.

You can claim to know God. You can claim to know Christ, but you don't have that true one-in-one relationship. That's the difference between professing and possessing. So, in light of all of what I just mentioned, believers must separate themselves from those practices that are worldly wisdoms, false teachers. Believers must practice discernment in in what they read and what they listen to and in today's world what we see online. And so finally as we come to the final part of this letter Benedict Benediction in verse 21 grace be with thee. Amen. This is at the end. This is Paul's blessing to Timothy, wishing God's favor upon upon him.

And as I think about his conclusion to his first letter to young pastor Timothy, it's quite fitting as he reminds Timothy that it takes the grace of God to shepherd the flock. Sometimes we forget and try to do it on our own. 2 Corinthians 12:9. Maybe some of you remember this. And he said unto me, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Paul say, he seek the Lord three times about this issue that he has. And he said, "My grace is sufficient for thee." His grace is sufficient for you. May the favor and the influence of God be with thee, Timothy, and preserve thee from these and all other errors. That's what he closed with, paraphrasing it.

So I hope this been helpful to you as we think about this whole study of first Timothy because there is one theme that we as pastors came together to about the the study of first Timothy is to help us come together learn more and build a stronger church. So, we're going to have our three questions, but I want to close with with prayer and then we'll stand up and break up into groups and have the discussion. So, uh let's pray. Father