We’ll be in 1-2 Timothy for about five months or so. Should be good. I’m gonna start off tonight with a verse from Hebrews Chapter 13, Verse 17. It sort of lays out in a very condensed and concise form on the relationship that you and I have together. It says in Hebrews 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Now, Paul there is talking about, if he’s the author of Hebrews, he’s talking about the relationship that leaders in the church and people in the church have, and what he says is that first of all, leaders in the church have a responsibility to the people in the church to watch over them, to make sure that there’s good teaching and love and encouragement and support. That this church is a good place for you, where you grow and learn, or maybe even just come to know about Jesus Christ and that they should be a place that you find God to be present and the truth to be present and you to be encouraged and build up in that and by that.

What it also says, though, is there’s reciprocity in that relationship where your duty as members of the church is to conduct yourself in such way that it doesn’t feel like I continually get a roofing hammer to my frontal lobe. You’re supposed to make my work a joy and not a burden and the interesting thing about this job, then too, is it’s – it’s unlike any other job. Here it says that me and the other leaders in this church, our elders and deacons and such – we must give an account for you. Think about that. Look around. Some of you have a hard time with a pet because it’s a huge amount of responsibility. Think about 1,700 people that we’ll have today, maybe two and-a-half, 3000 people that call this home. At the end of the age, when you all pass before the Lord Jesus and give an account for your life, I’ll be there. I’ll be like, “What, what, what you – you got us in huge trouble. What’d you do that for?” I gotta give an account for the people in this church. It’s a huge responsibility. It’s why I pop Zantac outta Pez dispensers all the time. It’s – It’s a huge responsibility. And so what he says is this, that leaders need to take good care of people but people also need to take good care of the leaders so that the church can be a healthy and good place and that within that, the work should be, for the leaders in the church, a joy and not a burden.

I would say this – in the history of this church – in our seven years of growth and existence – the majority of people have been a tremendous joy. I can honestly say that. I have gotten to see many people become Christians. How many of you became a Christian in or through the ministry of this church? Okay, dozens of hands. It’s great. How many of you came back to Christ after you were off doing stupid things, breaking most of the commandments on a Friday night? How many of you got married here? You fell in love? Ooh, very nice. A lot of you. How many of you have kids or are pregnant or trying to have kids and so you want me to hurry up? Right, some of you that, too. Great things happen. People get saved. People fall in love. People get married. People have kids. People get their lives turned around. People stop abusing drugs and alcohol. I’ve seen people that have marriages there were just terrible that got turned around. I’ve seen divorced couples get remarried.

You know, you see things that just fill you with joy. You see people figure out their spiritual gift. You see people from the church go out and start whole other churches and God uses them as well. Much joy, but also, too, there’s burden. Some people are a burden, huge burden, and it’s not the kind of burden where you hate them and want to kill them – sometimes it is – but for the most part, it’s a deep sense of responsibility that comes in. People that aren’t obeying the counsel that they’re given and their life is really coming undone. People whose marriage is right at the end of the tether. People whose children are not getting the nourishment and encouragement and love and support that they need and they’re suffering for that. Just burden for people who are off into weird doctrine, reading the wrong books, following the wrong websites and the wrong teachers. Just this deep burden.

Paul says elsewhere in the New Testament that he was beaten, shipwrecked, stoned, homeless, left for dead, imprisoned, mistreated and abused but the thing that kept him up late at night and stressed him out the most was his deep and abiding concern for the health of the church. That’s me too. I sleep with a pad next to my bed because oftentimes in the middle of the night, I wake up and I’m thinking of many of you and I write down your name because I need to be praying for you. All pray for you briefly, and if I hoped to get any sleep, I need to write it down so I can pray the next day. There’s been, in the history of this church, a number of evenings where I didn’t sleep at all because I’m thinking about a person or family or people that have become a great burden, great in tremendous burden. That is the reality of church life. A church is not all joy, and the church is not all burden. The church is – if it’s a good church – it’s more joy than burden. If it’s a bad church, it’s more burden than joy, but both are always present in some form or measure.

As we get into the book of 1 Timothy, what we find is that Paul is a pastor who loves his church like I love you, and that Paul is deeply burdened for the condition of his church. This church has given him, in Ephesus, a tremendous amount of joy, it’s a good church. But there are some people that have risen up from within the church and have come into the church that have become a great burden. They’re keeping Paul up late at night and Paul can’t be there to deal with them, so he’s got this young guy, Timothy, on the job to sort of straighten things out and pick up the mess. And so we’ll look at the joys and we’ll look at the burdens, beginning in 1 Timothy, Chapter 1, Verse 1. As we do, I’ll just preface it by saying this. This is a letter from a pastor, and older pastor, Paul, to a younger pastor named Timothy and they’re talking about the church. For some of you, this will be a whole new look at the church. Many of you see the church from your vantage point; coming to church, sitting there, being yelled at, going home. The vantage point for me is really different than it is for most of you, right? I have a macro view of the church. I get to see in large perspective, all that is going on; good and bad, joy and burden, and as we go through this book, some of you will be surprised that a pastor has these thoughts about certain people. You’ll get a real, honest look at what it means to be in leadership in the church and the blessings in the burdens that come with that. And what I want you to do is, as we go through this book, flip your understanding from a person who is in the church to the perspective of a leader who has responsibility before God for the whole church and its health and its future in his life and its doctrine. And then it’ll make a lot more sense to you because my hope is that for all of you that are Christians, you will love this church and you will see it from the perspective of a leader, where you care about the totality of the spiritual family and the overall health of this church and that you’ll have a bigger and broader and more on this perspective of who we are and what we do.

Paul kicks it off, Chapter 1, Verse 1. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,” I love that language. God is our savior and Jesus is our hope. You need to know that Mars Hill. God is our savior. We don’t save ourselves and Jesus is our hope. We have no hope apart from him. Paul says that he is an apostle, okay? What this means is, he has a special mission that he’s been sent on by God. When the Bible uses the word apostle, it does so in two different ways. One, there are the 12 apostles – these are special leaders that were handpicked by the Lord Jesus. They were eyewitnesses to his resurrection and they wrote books of the bible. They are a very special and select number. Those 12 apostles do not exist today. That number is sealed and set. Anyone who says they are that kind of apostle is a freak, a weirdo, a nutjob who needs to get their medication all sorted out. They’re not that. Nobody writes new books of the Bible. Nobody is like Peter, James, John – we don’t have that.

The secondary use of apostle is one who is a missionary or a church planter. Somebody who goes into an area that has a need for the gospel in the church. They preach about Jesus. People become Christians and a church gets formed. The difference between an apostle and a pastor is very profound. A pastor can take a church, love and grow and build a people. An apostle comes in where there is no church and starts something from nothing. It really is an entrepreneurial gift. Here, I function as apostle, not the big A apostle, eyewitness to Jesus, you know, you’ll love my new book of the Bible. Not that kind of apostle – but the small A apostle. The guy, who comes in, preaches and starts a church from nothing. That’s my gift. That’s what we do. We’ve been privileged to be part of an organization that started over 100 churches in the last three years. It’s actually headquartered here at the church, and our goal is to plant 30 more churches in the United States of America this year, alone. So you can pray for that. That’s what we do. We pull into an area. We find a leader. We raise money. We gather people and a church gets planted. The leader does that. Were looking for fellow apostles.

An apostle is someone who starts with an idea and a calling from God. Usually, it’s a guy in his underwear, walking around the living room of his house trying to figure out what is going to do. He’s got an idea. “I want a church. A lot of people. I want people to come to meet Jesus. I want to have a band. Oh, man. I gotta get a musician and a woofer. I need – I want to have people download my sermon. Oh no, I’m gonna need a computer. You know, we’re gonna have people. Uh oh, we gotta get people. They’re gonna need chairs. We gotta get chairs. We’re gonna need a roof. Oh my gosh. I better put my pants on. I have a lot to do.” That’s an apostle. An apostle’s got a big idea and has gotta figure out how to execute it. And Paul says he’s an apostle by the – by the command of God. That’s why he’s an Apostle.

Any of you guys who are thinking, “Oh, I’d like to be an apostle,” no you don’t. You don’t. You don’t. You’re only an apostle if God makes you an apostle. I didn’t want to be an apostle. I remember, as a brand new Christian, I was at a men’s retreat with my first church. It was a wonderful church that I thank God for, and I was praying and God spoke to me and he told me what to do with my life. And I thought, “Noooo. Not that.” Because see, part of my salvation prayer, part of my salvation prayer was that I wouldn’t be a pastor. Seriously. I remember thinking, “Man, if I become a Christian, I’m gonna have to be a pastor. If I become a pastor, my life’s going to stink. I want to go to Heaven. I don’t want to go to Hell but I don’t want to go into ministry. How can I go to heaven without going into ministry because ministry seems like Hell and I don’t wanna go to Hell and I don’t wanna go into ministry?”

And so I remember telling God, “God, here’s the deal. I know Jesus, you died for my sins. You rose for my sins. I love you. I’ll follow you. I’ll serve you. I’ll do whatever you want. I would just rather not be a pastor. Amen.” That was like my salvation prayer, literally my salvation prayer, and then God speaks to me a short time later at this men’s retreat and says, “Study the Bible, marry Grace, plant churches, and train men.” I’m like, “No! Come on. I don’t wanna do that.” And what you find is the majority of people in the Bible that are called of God are not excited. These aren’t like those freshmen in Bible College, you know, these guys are like, “No, come on! Come on! Not a pastor! I don’t wanna be a pastor. I wanna get a real job with, you know, I wanna, no. People are gonna call me and gosh!”

Paul is an apostle by the command of God. He’s in it because God, Jesus Christ, came to him and said, “Paul. You’re gonna be an apostle.” “Okay, this is what I’m doing.” A church gets started by an apostle that God commands go do the job. They didn’t really want to do it. And I know, some of you say, “That sounds terrible.” I’m just being honest with you. It’s a great job. It’s a wonderful job. It’s also a tremendous – you look around. How do you think we got here? Do you think – you think we had any obstacles on the way here – from me in my underwear in my living room to where we are today? There’s been a whole lot of grief in the middle. I mean it’s been a whole lot of work. Unbelievable amount of work to get here. And it keeps going, we praise God. I love Jesus, so I’ll do this until I see him. You know, then I’m taking a day off, that’s for sure. But Paul says, I’m an apostle by the command of God.

And now here’s the goal. He infers the goal of an apostle right here. He says, “To Timothy my true son in the faith:” the goal of an apostle is to build a church, plant a church, begin a church that operates like a family. Some of you need to understand this. We’re not a business. We’re not a business. Some of you were like, “I went to Mars Hill I didn’t get it my way, right away.” No, that’s Burger King. We’re Mars Hill. We don’t do that. I’ll give you a Whopper if you want one but in a business, the customer’s always –

Response: Right.

- right. In the church, the customer’s always evil. Sinful, okay? So the customer doesn’t always get what they want, right? You don’t get what you want. You come to church, you get what you need. Oh. That’s like something your mother would say. That’s the way it is though. In a business, you get what you want. In a church, you get what you need because a church he is not a business, it’s a family. It’s a family. Now, when you go to a business, you could say, “I stood in a very long line and I didn’t like this product and service or good that I got, and I would like to speak to the manager.” now, in a family, your dad says, “Shut up and mow the lawn.” That’s what your dad says. “Shut up and mow the lawn. “Well that’s not very,” “Well, here. Fill out the customer comment card.” Right? Feel free. While you’re mowing the lawn, right? Bring it up with Human Resources. Shut up and mow the lawn. When you’re in a family, you got your part to do and you can’t be selfish and you can’t be mean, you gotta think of the well-being of the whole family. The church is supposed to be a family. That’s where he even uses familial language. It says that God’s a father. Paul says here that Timothy is my son. He says that three occasions in the New Testament. An older man, Paul; young man, Timothy, whose father probably has died, is like a son. It says, gentlemen, elsewhere in the New Testament that you should treat younger women as sisters. You should treat fellow men as brothers. That you should treat older men as fathers and older women as mothers. It’s a family. Church is a family.

Some of you are doubly blessed because you have a good family and a good church family. So you’re doubly blessed. We have two kinds of family, according to the Bible. We have family by birth and we have family by new birth. Family by birth is your mom, your dad, your brothers, your cousins. I’ve got a great family. Love my mom; love my dad – they’re wonderful. Great, wonderful, enjoyable people. I’m blessed. I also have a great family by new birth – this church. People here that feel like brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. They feel like extended family. Some of you don’t have good biological family by blood, by birth but you’re not an orphan, the Bible says, you’re still part of a great family. And some of you, that makes sense. Some of you know that you feel closer to some people who are Christian friends than you do members of your own family and that God has really built a relationship of a family for you with other Christians. That’s one of the great joys and benefits to being a Christian.

And apostle comes in, starts from nothing; wants to start a church that operates like a family where people love each other and take care of each other and they accomplish this through what he calls here, “Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus the Lord.” Okay, that’s a lot of grace. Nobody’s perfect. Things are always a mess. We’re saved by grace. We’re empowered by grace. The church comes into existence by grace. God’s a good, kind God. And mercy. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, like this building or this sound system. That’s grace. Mercy is the withholding of what we should get. We should get discipline, death – some of you, that you’ve done terrible things in your life and you haven’t had to pay the full consequences. Why? God gave mercy. He withheld some of the full penalty that you should’ve suffered from things that you’ve done. God gives grace. He, through mercy, withholds what could be so arduous and painful. The result is, then, is we have peace. We have peace with God and we have peace with each other and it comes from God the father through God the son. That’s it. That’s it right there in his introduction. A leader with apostolic gifts, starts a church to operate like a family that’s centered in grace and mercy and peace from God the father, through God the son.

Now the problem is Satan’s also involved in this equation. Satan either sends people into the church or takes people in the church and leads them astray to such a degree that the health and the encouragement and the strength and the vibrancy of this kind of family is threatened, attacked and undermined. It’s a critical problem and issue. Much of the New Testament is written in response to what to do about these kinds of people that Satan has either brought into the church or risen up from within the church. There’s some problems here in the church of Ephesus. It’s a good church but a few people have gotten astray. They formed a little team. We don’t know what their issue is but they’re creating problems.

There are such thing as holy agitators. People who create problems in a good way, because they’re necessary. If I stop preaching that Jesus Christ is God, someone should get agitated. There’s bad agitation where you just get off on your pet doctrine and your pet theology, or your little weirdness, and you ignore the health and the overall well-being of the whole family because if you care more about one or two little things that you think are very important, more than you do the love of your brother. And so here he goes, in Chapter 1, Verse 3. He tells this young Timothy, who’s dealing with these weirdoes and nutjobs, “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus,” stay there. Why? Does Timothy want to leave? Probably. Paul started the church, left. The weirdoes, freaks, nutjobs, heretics people come in. Paul sends Timothy, “Go get ‘em.” He says, I’m telling you, Timothy, you gotta stay there. You gotta fight. You gotta hold your ground. Now here’s Timothy, he’s young. These guys are probably older. He’s all by himself. This is a group of men. He is, in all likelihood, not highly educated. These guys, in all likelihood, are skilled in oratory, debate, rhetoric, philosophy. They have a good Greek education. He’s outnumbered. He’s outgunned. He’s surrounded by older, more experienced, more articulate men. And he’s thinking, “I’m gone.” Right, “I’m outta here. This stinks. There are other things I can do. I’m gonna leave.”

Is there ever a time, even if you love God, that you’re in ministry and you think about quitting? Yes. I call that Monday. Every Monday, every Monday I have – I love you, I love the church – but every Monday I have a bread truck fantasy. I will share with you my bread truck fantasy. My bread truck fantasy is that I drive a bread truck. That’s what I do. I get up on Monday, I go to the bakery. They hand me the keys to the bread truck. I’m in charge of bread. Bread doesn’t commit adultery. Bread doesn’t get its girlfriend pregnant. Bread does it have alcohol problems or DUIs. The bread truck doesn’t have, you know, unpredictable giving patterns. The bread – the bread’s just the bread. And I get in the truck and I turn on sports radio, and I don’t have a cell phone because I don’t need one. The bread can’t email me; has no urgent emergency. In addition, I don’t have an e-mail address or a website because it’s just bread. I drive around all day in the bread truck and what do I smell? Bread. And when I get hungry, I pull over and I put meat and cheese on the bread, any time I like. I deliver my bread all day to the bakery and then they take the bread off the truck. When it’s all done, I go home and you know what I think about? Nothing. Because there’s nothing else to do, there’s nothing else to think about. My job is done. On Friday, nothing. It’s a glorious fantasy that I have. Every time I see a guy in a bread truck, I’m coveting another man’s life. I’m thinking, “That guy is brilliant. That is a brilliant man. In the bread truck.” and the best thing with the bread truck is, if you get in a terrible wreck with the bread truck and you roll the bread truck in the bread goes everywhere – it doesn’t matter, it’s just bread. They’ll make more. There are days, in every minister’s life – it’s just Bread Truck Monday. That’s what it is. Every Monday, I have Bread Truck Monday, kay?

Timothy wants to leave. You know, just “I’m gonna go drive a bread truck.” I think that’s what timothy’s thinking. Sports radio and bread. You know, he’s already been circumcised for this gig, that’s like, “That’s enough.” “That’s enough. Paul circumcised me, now he’s sending me to fight guys. Bread truck. I’m done.” There are days, no matter how much you love Jesus, if you are serving him, there are days you want to hit the eject button and go do something else. Now, you can’t. I can’t help myself. I would drive the bread truck for about 15 minutes and then I’d start yelling at the bread to repent. I mean, that’s what I would do. But they got this problem in the church. Timothy’s the guy, he’s thinking, “You know, I don’t wanna deal with these guys.”

“As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer,” do heretics ever listen? And that’s why they’re heretics. They’re like two-year-olds. They don’t, they don’t listen. “certain men,” it’s a group of men. Everybody knows who they are. And you know what’s weird? If you’re a freak, a weirdo, a nutjob. If you have some bizarre, odd, theological thing that you’re, you’re a total nut about, there’s a few thousand people in this church. If there’s three people that believe that, they will find each other. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. That’s what these guys do. Church, couple freaks, find each other. “We have a team. Now we have a faction. Now we can fight and leverage. Paul says, “Timothy, you’re one guy. Go get ‘em. Command them.” Command them. Heretics. Paul, they don’t listen. Heretics don’t listen. That’s what heretics do. They give you the finger and keep talking. They don’t listen. That’s why they’re heretics. “Command them.” Command them. Now that goes over real well doesn’t it? Don’t heretics love that? When those guys knock on your door, you know the old guy and the young guy on the bike with the tie and the white shirt and they wanna talk to you. You start commanding them, goes over real well. They love that! “Oh, well, since you said so, I will repent.” You never get that. You always get a couple two-day follow ups like Schick Shadle. “Well, we’ll be back next week. We’ll try again.” Heretics never listen. You can talk, command, they don’t pay attention.

But these guys are teaching, what? False doctrine. You guys know that there are false doctrines. This is huge. You gotta get this. Some of you say, “Well, can’t we all just believe whatever we want?” we can and then we can all go to Hell and burn and fry like sausage on a grill. We could do that, but we don’t recommend it. We have a Plan B. It’s called sound doctrine. We recommend that. False doctrine is this. Everybody believes whatever they want. There’s actually a church here in Seattle – the front page of their web site says, “We welcome all Biblical interpretations.” Think of that. I don’t think I’m very welcome and some people think some weird things. How you ever heard – of my favorite – is the Canadian nudist arsonist cult. You heard of that one? It’s a weird sect of Christianity, French Canadians – guys speaking French – naked, setting things on fire in Jesus’ name. “Well, welcome brother, we welcome all Biblical interpretations.” Yeah. Naked, French-speaking hairy arsonists. That’s – you gotta draw the line somewhere. That’s a good place to draw it. False doctrine- people get off on weird – say, you can’t say, “Well, we welcome everybody.” Well, look – here’s the deal. There’s true doctrine. There’s false doctrine. You say, “We don’t want to offend anybody.” Well here’s the deal. You’re either gonna offend people or God. So you gotta pick. You can’t be inoffensive. You can’t be in- you could say, “Well, look, the Bible says this.” People say, I don’t like that.” Well, look, either I offend you or I offend God but somebody’s gonna get upset on this, so you’re gonna get it. That is the way it’s gotta go.

False doctrine. Now here’s the deal. This is where false doctrine gets really hairy because in our day, people don’t believe in false doctrine. Here’s how false doctrine comes into existence. There’s primary and secondary issues in Christianity. We don’t agree on everything. We don’t have to. The only place that everyone agrees on everything is a cult, right? Get white shoes, Kool-Aid and complete agreement. That’s not what you want. What you want is people who think and people who study and people who have their own opinions. But there has to be – there has to be a reference point, book ends, in your orthodoxy. So, here’s the deal. There’s primary and there’s secondary matters. Primary matters we have to agree on to be Christians. The Bible is true, accurate, trustworthy. Jesus is God, born of a virgin. Lived without sin. Died for our sin. Rose for our sin. Salvation is through him alone, by grace and faith. There is a Heaven. There is a Hell. There is one God and one way to God. Primary matters.

Secondary matters. You’re Calvinist or Armenian. You speak in tongues or not speak in tongues. You like your pastor to wear a robe that looks like a skirt or do you want a guy who doesn’t tuck his shirt in? Secondary matters. Secondary. You like an organ? You like a guitar? Secondary matters. You know what? As Christians, we can agree on this. We can disagree here, but we don’t divide over things here. We only disagree and divide over things in this hand. If you baptize babies and I don’t baptize babies – we can still be friends unless, unless here’s what happens – heretics tend to do this – they take a primary doctrine, they reduce it to a secondary doctrine. “Jesus is God for me but I don’t think he’s God.” Take a primary, make – or they take a secondary doctrine and make it a primary. “If you don’t baptize my baby; if you don’t speak in tongues; if you don’t believe in a pre-millennial rapture of the church, flying people, I’m gonna leave and I’m gonna take people with me. I’ll baptize you. I mean, you’re not coming up, but I will baptize you, yes, we can do that.

There’s primary and when you take a secondary matter and you lift it up when you’re saying is, we should get a divorce and split the family and divide the kids over this? Is it that big of a deal? I mean is it that big of a deal? Primary matters are the things that we’d say, you know what we’re getting a divorce and were splitting custody of the kids over. Jesus is God. We can’t – we’re gonna die on that hill. Secondary matters – we can be flexible. We can disagree. We can debate. We can dialogue. False teachers attack primary doctrines, reduce primary doctrines and elevate secondary doctrines, and confuse people. And so what he says is, command them – don’t do that. Don’t allow these men to keep to the gym. Okay, and here’s where else he goes.

“[A]ny longer, nor to devote themselves to myths,” here’s a myth. A myth is something that somebody made up. It’s not true, there’s no fact. There are huge gaps in your Bible that people feel free to just fill in. From Jesus’ youth to his early manhood there’s a gap. We don’t know what happened. People write books, “Oh and he went to India.” “He went to Egypt.” You know, “He got on a flying saucer.” All this stuff, you go, no – we don’t know that. That’s a myth, you made that up. Here’s the most popular myths in our day. Any of you read The DaVinci Code?

Response: Yeah.

Over four million copies sold. New York Times number one bestseller, coming upon better part of the year. Huh! This is great. Here’s what they say. Jesus didn’t rise from death and go into heaven. Jesus ran away with Mary Magdalene, ran off to the South of France, started knocking boots, had a whole bundle of kids. They formed a secret society of Jesus. They had the secret chalice from the last supper. Later on, Leonardo Da Vinci, the great painter, was a member of the secret society of Jesus and when he painted the painting of the last supper, to the right of Jesus was not John the beloved, it was secretly Mary Magdalene. Pfft! No! If you go ask the guy, “Where’d you get that? Where’d you get that?” He’ll say right here. Here’s where I got it. It’s a myth. It’s a total myth. It’s not in there. It’s a total myth. Four million copies sold, but a myth nonetheless.

Response: Right.

You can’t commit yourself to myths. If there’s gaps in your Bible it’s because we don’t need to know what was in there. Don’t fill them in. And other myths – people say, we’ll Jesus died, went to Hell. He didn’t go to hell, that’s a Christian myth. He said today you’ll be with me in –

Response: Paradise.

- paradise. Paradise is not a metaphor for Hell. It’s just not. Paradise, Hell, same thing. No. Paradise is paradise, Hell is like Kentucky, they’re totally different. All these myths come up. He says you know what, don’t teach false doctrine, command those guys to stop, and to give up on the stupid myths. But here’s the thing, if you’re into myths, you can go from one silly thing to another silly thing to another silly thing, and all of a sudden, you know, you’re not reading your Bible, you’re reading all these weird conspiracy theories and books and you’re reading all these weird websites and you’re of into this obscurity, you get really weird. And some of you are like that.

He then talks about “endless genealogies.” Some people, if they get off on the wrong track, they just continually – it’s a series of bad conversations about the wrong thing, it’s endless. How many of you have met this person? Every time they talk to you, it’s about something you don’t care about. It doesn’t matter. Endless. I’ve had this with certain people, it’s just like, “Now what about this?” and we’re, “Oh, gosh. Read your Bible. You wouldn’t get into this if you were reading your bible, but okay fine. We’ll untangle the knot you made, there you go.” Now – and then they come back, “Hey, now what about this one?” “Untangle the knot? Oh gosh.” “Okay, what about this?” “Do you ever take a drink that’s not from a toilet? Stop that! Where do you get this stuff? It’s just one wacky, bizarre, odd, strange, obscure, nut thing after another. He says, command these guys. No more false doctrines, no more myths, no more endless genealogies. We can’t tolerate that as a church. Timothy’s got a hard job.

“These promote controversies,” he says, “rather than God’s work—which is by faith.” It’s arguing. I’ll tell you what Mars Hill. We have work to do. This is incredibly – we have work to do. We’re in the least-churched city in the United States of America. There are a ton of people here in this city that don’t know Jesus – have never heard about him – other than a curse word or that he, he was in bed with Mary Magdalene. I mean there’s a lot of people that don’t have the story straight. So we have work to do. There’s non-Christians to love, to answer questions to; there’s new Christians here to build up; there’s little kids being born that need to be raised; there’s families that are in distress that need to be encouraged. There’s lots of work to be done. There’s lots of churches to be planted. There’s a lot of work to be done. And what false teachers and heretics and weirdoes and nutjobs do, they want to get a – the church, any church – off of its mission of people and Jesus and get over onto obscure, secondary, unimportant, stupid things that waste time and don’t go anywhere. And it just promotes, he says, controversy. Just fighting, arguing – about what? How many of you have been in churches where it’s arguing, arguing, arguing but nobody gets saved. Nobody gets changed. Nobody gives up drugs. Nobody gives up alcohol. Nobody gets married. Nobody has a kid. Nothing good ever happens, just arguing about the latest thing that some agitated, small group of influencers has cast into the middle and everybody rallies around it as the point of conversation, and it’s just controversy.

That is the death of the health of the church. The church has gotta just stick to its thing, which is Jesus. It’s gotta love and follow and serve and point to and emulate Jesus. And he tells Timothy, go tell these guys they’re way off track. See, the problem we struggle with, the problem many of you struggle with this, is you don’t believe the truth. False doctrines would indicate that there are things that are true and things that are false. In our culture, you’re not allowed to say that. People say, Philosophy 101, right? I don’t believe in truth. Is that true? ________ Well, I’m on the horns of a dilemma, now. Right, we believe in truth. We do. We all do. If I punched you in the mouth, hypothetically. There are a bunch of witnesses. We went to court. And you said, “He punched me in the mouth,” and they all said, “He punched her in the mouth,” or “He punched him in the mouth.” Equal opportunity. And I said, “That – I did not.” You would say, “That’s not true.” Oh. You went from a moral relativist to an objectivist and now you’re arguing for truth. Oh.

See, everyone believes in truth when they need it and they and deny it when they’re sinning. Has really little to do with ethics or philosophy. I studied a lot in the area of epistemology, knowledge of truth in theory, and then it comes down to a hard heart. “I wanna sin! I don’t believe in truth.” Somebody sins against me, “I believe in truth! You really punched me in the mouth. That’s true.” “I didn’t punch you in the mouth. I don’t believe in truth.” We play this shuffle game, where we deny truth when it’s convenient and we embrace it when it’s convenient. We believe in truth because if you believe in truth, then you gotta start judging. Now, if truth is unpopular, the word judging is not a popular word. We’re judgers. I’ll just come out and say it, right? We’re judgers. I’ll just come out of my closet. I’m a judger. Judge you, judge you, judge you. If you’d like, send me an email, I’ll judge you for free. Now, some people say, “Well Jesus said, “Thou shalt not judge.” Usually, it’s the pothead. The pothead only knows two verses in the Bible. “Every seed-bearing plant that the lord God made is good” and “thou shalt not judge.” If you ever talk to a pothead, that’s their only two verses. That’s all they got. I’m smoking, don’t judge me.

When Jesus says, “Do not judge,” he’s talking about hypocritical judgment. Hypocrisy. Like Madonna giving lectures on chastity. You go, “I don’t wanna hear it. I just don’t wanna hear it.” You know, if most of your living is earned around a pole, I don’t wanna hear about virginity from you, you’re a hypocrite. What he’s talking about there, is plank/speck. Guys who, “Ooh, you have sawdust in your eye. Ignore my 2×4.” It’s hypocrisy is what Jesus’ saying. Don’t judge hypocritically. Paul says to the Corinthians, “It’s not my business to judge people outside of the church, but it is my business to judge those people that are in the church.” So we have to judge in the church. Christians, we have to make judgments. And judging is saying, some things are true, some things are false. We judge. We say this is true, this is false. We take all that we hear and learn; we put it in one of two piles – true, false. Judgment. Woo.

Out of that, what happens is, if you believe in truth and you judge, then what you end up doing is you have to discriminate. Some of you think, “Oh, that’s a bad word.” Truth is a bad word. Judgment’s a bad word. Discrimination’s a really bad word. Discrimination is a great word. It’s a wonderful word. You’d better be discriminating, Paul tells the Thessalonians to receive that which is good and reject that which is evil. That’s discrimination. We don’t let drunks drive. Drunks say, “You’re discriminating.” Yes! Yes, we are. And you can’t drive in the HOV lane if it’s just you and Johnny Walker and Jose Cuervo and Jim Beam in the car. You can’t drive in the HOV lane. We discriminate. You wanna chain smoke in an elementary school, we discriminate. We do, right? We discriminate all the time. We don’t let anyone do surgery. “I feel like the Lord led me.” That doesn’t work! We believe truth. We judge, and then we discriminate. We say, “These people and things are acceptable. These people and things are unacceptable.” If you’re going to have sound doctrine, if you’re going to have right doctrine, if you’re going to walk with God, and you gotta believe in truth, you gotta get enough courage to judge and you’re going to have to be a discriminating person. You can’t believe everything you hear. You can’t follow everyone who speaks. You can’t trust in all sources. You gotta be discriminating.

Now some of you are saying, “This sounds terrible. This sounds mean and nasty. This sounds mean. What kind of pastor is that?” Good one. Some of you question Paul’s motives, “Why would he say that? Why would he say that?” Well here’s what he says it. Verse 5, “The goal of this command is,” what does it say, Mars Hill?

Response: Love.

Love. Love. I tell you what. If you love the church, you care about who’s teaching what. If you love the Lord, you care about who’s teaching what. If you care about lost people, you care about what they’re hearing. If you care about brothers and sisters in Christ, you care about what they’re believing.

See, we have this weird view of love in our culture. It says, “If you love me, you’ll let me do what I want.” That is hatred. Love involves itself. You know, this morning, when my tea was on, my two-year-old son, Calvin, he went to put his finger up in the gas burner flame to see what that was like. I said, “Calvin, no!” And he looked at me like, “Who are you to tell me what to do?” He was very indignant. Right? Little 25 pounds of manhood was very, very bent out of shape. You know what? I commanded him because I love him. Not just because my voice is raised, doesn’t mean I’m mad. Means I’m worried. What you have here is Paul raising his voice. Not that he’s mad. He’s worried. You got false teachers leading people astray. You’ve got the confidence of Jesus. The confidence in the Bible being diminished and people are being led astray. This is exactly how Satan worked with Jesus. He contorted the heart of Judas Iscariot. A guy Jesus loved, had spent three years investing and eating meals with a dear friend and then Judas gets off track. Same thing happens in the church. People you love, you know. Satan gets them off track. And it’d be like Eve, 2 Corinthians 11, 1 Timothy 2 – they’re well-meaning but deceived but they’re still off track.

Paul says, you know what? I love those people. I’m raising my voice and I’m giving them orders, not because I hate them but because I love them. They’re in danger. They’re walking away from the truth. They’re going off into strangeness. Some of you have had Christians speak to you very frankly, very curtly. It says in Proverbs that the wounds of a friend are to be trusted much. If somebody loves you and they sting you, take it. Take it. The person that doesn’t say anything; that lets you shipwreck your life and your faith; that lets you make terrible decisions that lead you astray – they don’t love you. They don’t care. As a parent, I don’t just let my kids do what they want. I give them commands and orders to keep them from harm and death. That’s why when we sin and gave God the finger and we each went our own way, running, doing what we want – God comes as a man and he goes on a rescue mission for us. He loves us enough to command us, “Repent. Repent. Repent. Turn to me. Turn to me. Turn to me.” God just doesn’t say, “I love you so I let you do whatever you want.” “I love you so I save you from yourself.” That’s the essence of Biblical love.

Paul says, “The goal of this command is love,” He tells us where it springs from, “a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Paul says my motives are good here, my conscience is clear, my faith is sincere. I’m not doing this to be power-hungry or mean, to be difficult or obstinate, to knock you down, to make you feel bad. I love you. These guys had apparently been reading the wrong books, listening to the wrong teachers, getting so astray that even when their pastor – who had led them to Christ, who had loved them, who had walked with them through seasons of life, instructed them – they wouldn’t listen. It’s tragic. This is the most distressing part of my job. And you say, “You know what? That’s wrong. This is right. I’m gonna have to make a judgment call here. I’m gonna have to tell you take a left, not a right.” People say, “Well who are you?” “I’m your pastor.” We’re your pastors. We love you. Our motives are pure and clear and good. We’re not trying to manipulate, control. We’re trying to help. And if after years of investment, you can’t see that, then you’re just like Judas Iscariot, you’ve been filled with Satan and your eyes are blind to the affection of your family.

Paul says, “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” He tells us why he’s so distressed about this. Paul is emotionally distraught. This is devastating as a pastor. It’s almost like seeing one of your kids go astray when you see members of your church just go astray. He says “Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk.” Here’s what happens. People who get astray, doctrinally, theologically, they wander. They don’t get there all of a sudden, okay? You’re not gonna wake up tomorrow and be a heretic. Well, maybe you wake up tomorrow, you don’t read your Bible. You begin your wandering. Maybe all of a sudden, you get more excited about a particular author or a particular theological systematic, or a particular book publishing company than you do the canon of Scripture, and all of a sudden, you begin to wander. I can’t give you the best examples because it would be gossip, but I’ll give you a couple examples, tell you what I’m talking about.

I do conference speaking around the country, I have for years. And I remember, years ago, I was at one conference, met a really talented young pastor. He had a guy in his church that was a man who was dating another man, but he didn’t think it was a problem because the one man was undergoing a sex change operation to become a woman. And I told him, I said, “No, Genesis says God made us male and female. You can’t let this guy be a leader in your church in a homosexual relationship, undergoing a sex change operation, it’s like a Jerry Springer episode and there’s no verses. You can’t do that.” and he said, “Well, that’s your interpretation.” got into this whole deal. I said, “Yeah, what’s God’s interpretation?” We argued and argued and argued. I said, “You know what? Here’s what scares me about this. Not just this issue of this guy, but you taking the text of Scripture and you’re just sort of ignoring it.” And I said, I pleaded with the guy. A few other pastors did, as well. “Please don’t do that. It’s a dangerous thing. You’re wandering. You’re getting off track.” Got a call, year and-a-half, two years later, something of that nature – the leaders in his church called. They said, “Pray for so-and-so. We just found out he’s been having sex with a lot of women in the church. We had to fire him. Now he’s selling real estate.” You just go, “No!” I don’t think that guy ever thought, “I’m going to have sex with women in my church that call me pastor and get fired and be a national disgrace.” I think he just started to, just started to drift. And off he goes. Wander.

I had it with a person that I know who was a the professor of Bible interpretation. Got in an argument with them on postmodern hermeneutics. The question is, does the meaning come from God or does the meaning come from us in the Bible? That’s basically the heart of the disagreement that we had. I said, “Well the meaning comes from God and we obey.” He said, “The meaning comes from us.” “Really? So I can open the Bible and however I interpret it, that’s what it means? Regardless of what God intended for it to mean?” I said, “Then I can open the Bible and I can make it say any fool thing I want. That’s dangerous.” I said, “You and me, we’re different. You believe you stand over the Bible. I believe I stand under it. We’re different. That’s a big deal.” I said, “You stand over the Bible, you’re gonna start acting like God.” Got in this big argument and didn’t talk. I got a call about two years later. Said, “Pray for so-and-so’s family. He left his wife and his kids.” Ran off with another woman. Married her. I got a call a year later. “Pray for him again. He left that woman, ran off with another one.” I don’t think the guy who teaches how to interpret the Bible for a living wakes up one day and says, “I’m gonna leave my son and my wife and I’m gonna blow out three wives in three years.” I believe he, just one day, wandered, and he gained momentum, and if you go down, you move quick. Sometimes a lot quicker than going up.

Paul says these people have wandered from the truth and they are now just engaged in meaningless, stupid, trivial, time wasting, arrogant, chest thumping talk. There’s no fruit. People aren’t getting saved. People aren’t changing, being transformed, growing. They’re not talking about the big things, like Jesus and the resurrection and the Bible and salvation. There off into obscure nothing and it’s just a meaningless talk. Some of you have been in this Bible study, right? It’s a guy with a tank of gas and no map in fifth gear in a cul-de-sac. It’s just like, “Where are we going?” Nowhere. This is meaningless talk. I got an argument with a guy who was a hyper Calvinist not too long ago. We talked for an hour. He was arguing with me about the covenant, the covenant, the covenant, the covenant, the covenant. The covenant, covenant, covenant, covenant! He – I finally started counting. I was in the fifties with the word “covenant” and I said, “You know what? We’ve been going an hour. I’ve heard “covenant” so much. Do you know who we’re in covenant with? Jesus. You know what you haven’t said for an hour, Jesus.” You know? If you wanna go covenant, covenant, covenant, great. That’s like me talking, marriage, marriage, marriage. My wife’s name is Grace, Grace, Grace. I should be talking about Grace, the one I love, the one I’m in a relationship with. Not marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage. Well, look. I didn’t say, “I do,” and a put a finger – a ring on my finger and pledge myself to marriage. I pledged myself to her.

And this is what happens. It’s meaningless talk. Arguing, arguing, arguing, fight, fight, fight. About what? Nothing. Nothing. Sometimes the conversations go for hours and we’re still not talking about, “Hey, I like Jesus, anyone like Jesus? I like Jesus. I’m for Jesus, let’s vote.” I vote yes.” Just meaningless. Paul says these guys have wandered. If you love them, you’ve gotta – you gotta try and bring them back. Or sometimes like Judas Iscariot, you gotta tell them, “Look, if that’s where you’re gonna go, go.” But they need to be dealt with. “They want,” he says, “to be teachers of the law,” they want to teach! Doesn’t say they want to learn. Paul says, “I teach because God commanded me.” These guys say, “I voted myself. I wanna teach. I wanna be a teacher.” Some of you guys wanna be a teacher. Don’t aspire to be a teacher. Aspire to be a Christian. Good Christians make good teachers. Good teachers aren’t always good Christians and that’s the problem in Ephesus. That’s the problem. They’re great teachers but not great Christians. Be a good Christian. Love God. Read your Bible. Worship Jesus. Then, you’ll be a great teacher.

That’s why James 3:1 says not many of you should seek to be teachers. You’re gonna be judged more harshly. Put those words together. Judged harshly. Wow, that seems important. That seems big. You will be judged harshly. So, don’t just say, “I wanna be a teacher.” Some think, “I wanna be a teacher. I wanna be in charge. I wanna tell people what to do.” Do you know what you’re doing? Here’s the problem with these guys. He says, “They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they are so confidently affirming.” They don’t know what they’re talking about. But they have confidence. Confident idiots are the most dangerous. How many of you have meant a confident idiot? Ladies? Have you met this guy? Now, these guys are the most dangerous. They’re very, you know, just all chest out and “Yeah, man. Want talk to you about the atonement.” Like, “What the – who the –” These guys e-mail me on Monday. That’s why it’s always Bread Truck Monday. “I’m gonna fix your theology.” You live at your mother’s house. You’re 57. You’re using your dad’s computer. No. We’re not debating on UFOs. You. For the third time, we’re not gonna do that. You know, they’re confident, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. You can be confident and wrong. Now, some of you, that concerns you because you’re sort of humble, meek people. Somebody comes up and gets in your face, “Hey, read this literature! Read this book. Go to this website. Watch this video. Look at this. Look at this! Look at this! Look at this! Look at this!” You’re like, “Okay, okay. I mean, they’re so confident. They seem to know what they’re talking about.” Confidence doesn’t mean much. I’m sure if you met Satan, he’d be winsome and confident.

It’s okay to be confident. It’s more important to be right. If you had to pick between confidence and right, pick right. That’s what – these guys don’t know what they are talking about. And sometimes they’ll hide it. They’ll say – they’ll start quoting theologians instead of Bible. They start, “Well, the Greek blah blahhhhh.” I’ll say, “Ooh, big words.” Uncle. It’s – it’s about being right not about being arrogant. Combative. Fighting. These people kill a church. Some of you have been in the churches where these people come in. Or they rise up from within and they just kill the thing. Everything’s off track, it’s a total mess. It’s all a mess and arguments, endless fighting, controversies. One stupid thing after another. The work comes to a screeching halt and the whole thing is wrapped around a few disgruntled people. Just a couple, but there so loud that they garner all the attention. Paul tells us what to do with them in Verse 8.

He says, “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.” When the Bible talks about the law, it sometimes refers to the Old Testament. Sometimes the first five books of the Old Testament, sometimes the Ten Commandments. Usually, where people really go sideways in false teachers and heretics – they get astray because they don’t know what to do with the Old Testament. In my history, most of my debates with heretics, weirdoes, freaks and nutjobs centers around obscure parts of the Old Testament. Particularly the law. He says, “We know the law’s good.” That part of your Bible’s good, providing you know how to use it. Right, in the same way a hammer’s good if you use it to drive nails and not pound neighbors. It’s good if you know what to do with it. He goes on, he says, “We also know that law is made not for the righteous,” the people that are obeying God, but, “but for lawbreakers,” people that aren’t obeying God, “ rebels, the ungodly, sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers,” like Nero, the emperor at this time, “for murderers,” people who just go around whacking people, “for adulterers,” people who cheat on their husband or wife, “perverts.” It’s a general word there, guys who download porno from the Internet, people that are in strip clubs, people that are homosexual, people that are feeling up their girlfriend, it’s a big junk drawer, perverts. You say, “Hey don’t call me that.” I’m just saying it’s a pervert. I didn’t put you in the drawer, you did. “[F]or slave traders,” these are people that did exactly what happened in the United States of America. They go take free people, enslave them for no reason and make them slaves. It’s kidnapping. It’s a sin. One of the reasons we don’t have slavery is because people read this verse and Christians said we can’t do that. That’s wrong. It’s a sin. “and liars,” is that true? Yeah, it’s true. Lying is a sin. “and perjurers,” I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Yes, that’s a sin. It is a sin. “—and for whatever else that is contrary to the sound doctrine.”

Okay, first we’ll talk about the law. If you read the Bible, it tells you a lot of things to do and a lot of things not to do. How many of you have been discouraged. Maybe you’re a Christian, new Christian. You’re having a hard time. You think, “I’m gonna read the Bible so I can get some encouragement,” and you didn’t get it. You thought, “You know, I’m sure the Bible is like the cards at Hallmark or fortune cookies. It’s filled with pithy sayings that will make me warm in my bosom. I will feel good. I will find the verse that says, “You have a good personality and the dress doesn’t make you look fat.” And so you’re looking for it. I need encouragement. I need to feel better. And you read it and it makes you feel terrible. You say, “Well that page says that I’m awful and I flip the page and that page says that I’m awful. And I read the next, I kept – I see a theme coming together. It keeps saying that I stink. Now I feel terrible. How many of you have had that experience? You say, “There must be something wrong with me.” No, you’re Biblical. If you read the Bible, feel terrible, you read it right. You read it right. You read it and you feel terrible. It’s says, “I’m a pervert. I didn’t know I was a pervert.” “It says I’m a liar. I just thought I was creative, linguistically.” “It says I’m an adulterer. I just thought I was handsome. Handsome is so much better than adultery. That’s such a terrible word.” You read it and you feel worse because it starts naming you. That’s what the law does. The law says, “Do this. Don’t do this. If you violate the law, this is what you are.” Your first reaction when reading the law is to feel convicted of sin. To feel bad.

He says, in everything else that doesn’t conform to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. He says that the doctrine must be sound. The word there is healthy. Some people say, “Our church is little. Nobody comes because we have sound doctrine.” You read any of the verses on like, loving people and stuff? I mean, you should try that. Take them literally, like the other ones. They go a long way. Sound doctrine is healthy doctrine. Sound doctrine means our belief is precise and it leads to health in our church. Some people say, “Well, you can’t – you know, you can’t judge a church by its fruit.” You have to judge it by its doctrine and its fruit. People feel convicted of sin. He says here, “That’s sound doctrine. Makes you healthy.” Some people come to church every week, they feel convicted and intense, the come to faith in Jesus. He forgives their sin, gives them empowering grace. That’s sound doctrine. That’s healthy. Ah, being cleansed, purified, renewed, transformed, rebuilt. New creation in Christ. Ah. I’m healthy. That’s healthy. Churches who say they have sound doctrine but ill sickness in the church, they don’t have sound doctrine, it’s not healthy.

Paul says here’s how we should function. We should open the Bible, be convicted of our sins. That is the first step to becoming healthy, sound in our doctrine. He goes on to say everything “else is that is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.” What happens is, you open the Bible, you get convicted of your sin. That starts to make you healthy because it identifies the places in which you need God. You need God to forgive you. You need God to transform you and change you. You need God to empower you so that you can be different. That’s the gospel.

Do you guys know Jesus? Here’s the difference between a true teacher and false teacher? A false teacher will open the Bible and they will say, “Do this! Do this! Do this! Do this! Do this! Don’t do this! Don’t do this! Don’t do this! Don’t do this! Do this! Do this! Do this! Do this! Don’t do this! Don’t do this! Don’t do this!” A real teacher will open the Bible and say “Love Jesus.” It’s not about what you do, it’s about who you love. The false teachers will say, “You need to do it this way, not do it this way. Do it this way, not do it this way.” And the real Bible teacher will say, “How do you do that?” And a false teacher will say, “Just do it!” And the real teacher will say, “Well, you need Jesus.” You need Jesus. The Bible is filled with wonderful things to do and you can’t do them without Jesus. You need Jesus. False teachers care about what you do and don’t do. Real teachers care about who you love.

Jesus Christ is God. Eternal God. He made everything. He made us to enjoy Him, all that he has made and one another. We sinned. We thought we were smarter than him because we took psychology classes in college and we think we know everything. We go do whatever we want and he loves us. And so he is born in this world in humble circumstances and poverty to identify with us. He’s on a rescue mission to seek and save those of us who are lost. He lives a life without any sin. He allows us to murder him. He dies and when he dies he takes all my sin and he puts it upon himself. Jesus dies for our sin. Death is the penalty for sin. Jesus paid the penalty. He went into the tomb. Before he did, he said, “Father forgive them.” Unbelievable.

Three days later, as he promised, he rises. He conquers Satan, sin and death. He says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.” Your only way to have your sin forgiven. Your only way to see eternal life. Your only way to know God is through Jesus. That’s it. That’s sound doctrine. Jesus Christ loves you. You respond to him by what? Loving him. Loving him. That is sound doctrine. You say, “Well what about all the stuff in the Bible I’m supposed to do and not do?” If you love Jesus, you will do what you are supposed to do and not do what you’re not supposed to do. The problem is not lying. If you love Jesus, you’d stop lying. The problem is not stealing. If you love Jesus, you’d stop stealing. The problem is not adultery. If you love Jesus, you wouldn’t commit adultery. The problem is not homosexuality. If you love Jesus, you wouldn’t be engaged in homosexual sex. You wouldn’t be engaged in fornication, either.

False Bible teachers. Confident, arrogant, verse after verse, like buckshot out of a gun. At the end of the day, all they’re telling you is to do things for God. A real Bible teacher will tell you what God has done for you. And that’ll change you. That’ll melt your heart. That’ll change your life. That’ll cause you to love God and as you love God, you will do exactly what the Bible tells you to do and you will not do what the Bible tells you not to do. Mars Hill, the great words of Jesus Christ – if you love me you will obey me. “I’m really worried about obedience.” I’m not. I’m worried about loving Jesus. Obedience happens as a byproduct of those who love the Lord.

You need Jesus. He is God. He is a God of love. He commands you to stop worshiping your false Gods, yourself, your idolatry, your sickness, your bizarre theology, you guys and gals that are off into theological absurdity because you think that being new is so cool. Being cutting edge is so important. Everyone who ever tried to be innovative, ended up being a heretic. Everyone who tried to be faithful ended up being an innovator. We’re not about being cool. We’re not about being hip. The books and the magazines and the radio and the TV will tell you that we are something that we are not. We’re not about any – we’re about Jesus. It’s the new year. I’m supposed to tell you what our big mantra is. Here’s our goal for the year. You know what our goal was last year? Jesus. You know what our goal is this year? Jesus. You know what our goal is next year? Jesus. We’re not that creative.

Response: Praise God!

That’s it, we’re just, you know? We need Jesus. Jesus loves us. We love Jesus. That will give us healthy sound doctrine, healthy sound church, we can get primaries around Jesus. We’re a family. Secondary matters, we say, “Well, that’s the weird uncle, he lives in the basement. We still let him come over for Thanksgiving because we love him – still part of the family of God, loving grace and peace, mercy. I love you guys. I’m glad to be your pastor. I’m glad to be here.

We’re gonna take communion. We’re gonna remember the body and blood of Jesus shed for our sin. If you’re not a Christian, you need – right where you sit today – you need to, between you and God, acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you have violated God’s commands, his law. You need to realize that Jesus is God and he died and rose for your sin and you need to receive from him his forgiveness. You’d be a Christian. When you do that today, you can take communion with us. All who have are welcome to take communion. We’ll give of our tithes and offerings. It’s part of what we do for the health of our church and the forward progress of the gospel and we’ll sing and celebrate the Lord Jesus together today as a church family. And we will pray against false teachers and help protect you from falling into their confident, arrogant but erroneous assumptions.

I’m gonna ask you to do something. Get involved. This week, I don’t know what there is, 40 Bible studies. We call them community groups. They meet all over the city. Different times and places, topics. Get in one. If you got a family with kids and it’s hard to take little kids to that, come on Wednesday night. Take the gospel class, men’s class, women’s class. Get taught. Take a capstone class at our seminary. Study. Learn. Grow, so that you can be confident in what you believe so that you can be a teacher, not a false teacher, a good teacher, because we need them desperately. I don’t know what we are today, 1,700 people? There’s so many people, so many questions and so many needs that we need so many teachers but to do that, before you become a teacher, you gotta be a student and a good Christian. And so we want you to start there.

Father God we love you. We thank you so much for our time to study together as a church. God, I pray you would protect us from the enemy, his servants and their works and effects and doctrines and myths and endless speculations and elevation of secondary matters and reduction of primary matters and confusion over clear things and arrogant chest-thumping and confident assertion, all of which is just not right. I pray you would keep us, as a people, with our Bible open that we would be a people of the Scriptures. That we would love your word and we would not stand over it but that we would rather kneel under it. God I pray for the teachers in this church and the children’s ministry and the worship department and the community groups and the classes and the programming – God, so many people who have an opportunity to teach – I pray that they would stick to Jesus and that they would not deviate from the most important thing that we teach in the center of the Scriptures in our lives. I pray God that you take those people in this room that are off into obscurity and more excited about new theologies and new trends and new books and new publishing houses and new websites and new conferences and pray God you’d give them a love for old books like Habakkuk and Obadiah. Maybe books they haven’t cracked in a really long time. God I love you, I thank you that I get to teach here. I thank you that we get to learn and I thank you that Lord Jesus, you love us and that we can love you and if we do, if we do get straightened out who we love, then what we do comes altogether by the same grace that saves us. Amen.