September and
October months are notorious for Yard Sales. I quite like Yard Sales. There are 279 garage
sales, yard sales, and estate sales in Massachusetts in the next 7 days. There
are individual family, multi family, multi neighborhood and church yard sales
just like the one we had last Saturday. One lady called me and said, “I am
clearing up my basement, and I got so much stuff, I want to donate to your
Church Yard Sale.” Thank you!! Let’s be honest, one of the reasons we organize
Yard Sales is that we want to clean up our messy houses and basements right? No
doubt we may get great deals in Yard Sales but more often “Yard Sales” are
there for “Getting Rid of Mess.”
As I was preparing for this week’s
sermon I could not help but think of the spiritual mess that certain
individuals and churches get into over a period of time. Thank God for these
Yard sales; at least once a year our basements get cleaned, but how about the
spiritual mess in our individual lives, families and our churches? When will
that get cleaned? Who takes care of that?
Unfortunately, many of us have grown
comfortable with spiritually messy lives. Year after year we live with it,
never wanting to change or try to get rid of that mess. Since June this year we
have been on a journey to discover where we are as a church. The results of the
Natural Church Survey has revealed to us that we are not as healthy of a church
as we thought we were. We are taking active measures to address the messy
situations and to restore health.
This past week we have taken one such
action to address an unhealthy and messy situation. When I think of getting rid
of the mess in our church, I was reminded of a biblical church, which once was
a healthy congregation in the region but over a period of time became messy.
Let’s see how a young pastor went about Spiritual House Cleaning. I Timothy
1:1-10.
The two Epistles to Timothy and the one
to Titus, commonly known as the Pastoral Epistles, belong to the period at the
close of Paul’s life. What is the background to these letters? In Acts 18:24,
we read, the church in Ephesus was founded by Apollos. Paul on his second
missionary journey visited this fledgling congregation of twelve members and
guided them to receive the Holy Spirit. (Acts 19) According to Acts 19:20, “So
the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” That shows how powerful
the Ephesus church became.
Over a period of time Ephesus has become
a mess. Surprisingly, sinners show up. Wonderful beginnings can end up in
terrible catastrophes. This is the Ephesus to which Timothy is sent; not to
enjoy a pastorate in a mega church but to clean up the mess. Could what
happened to the Ephesus church happen to our church too? Most of us, no matter
how wonderful a place we enter into, are going to find ourselves in the middle
of a mess sooner or later. For the Christian faith is always lived out in the
conditions of the world; try as we may, we cannot isolate our Christian lives
from the world in which we make our living. This culture seeps into the church,
let’s see how the Ephesus church became messy?
I. THE MESS IN
EPHESUS
We don’t know exactly what went
wrong in the Ephesus Church. All we know is that certain men were teaching
false doctrines that are contrary to the sound and healthy doctrine of the
gospel of Jesus Christ and that was threatening to destroy the church. Apparently
in this congregation there were “certain persons” who were obsessed with
“religion” but resisted order and sound teaching. They were teaching and
putting high value on myths, and endless genealogies which promote speculations
(controversies) rather than God’s work which is by faith.”(Vs 4) Paul warns
later in II Timothy 2:17, their teaching will spread like gangrene.
Timothy enters into a congregational
mess with the mandate to straighten it out. Timothy inherited both the legacy
(left by Paul) and the problems which others were responsible for (among whom
were Hymenaeus and Alexander) later in the chapter in Vs20, Paul says that he
handed them over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. Let me bring this into
our context. When I first became a pastor of ECCOA I too have inherited the
legacy left by previous pastors as well as some problems for which others were
responsible.
We are the sons of our culture and we
are the sons of our homes. The culture we live in seeps into the church through
the pores of our congregations. Whether we like it or not this is what we are
faced with continuously. We are faced with a religion without commitment, a
spirituality without content, aspiration and talk and longing, fulfillment and
needs, but not much concern about God. All that matters is our selfishness and
self-centeredness.
Hymenaeus, Alexander, types of people
are found in every church. They are mere talkers, given into endless controversies.
They engage in vain discussion over matters that have no eternal value, they
haggle over words. Paul was concerned about the state of the Ephesus church, Out
of that concern he gave a command to Timothy. We must recognize here Paul was
not coming as an authoritarian, controlling, and commanding leader. Instead he
was full of love, his heart was pure, his conscience was good and above all he
was acting in sincere faith.
At times when I tried either to bring
correction or biblical instruction in this church I was misunderstood and was
judged. People called me all kinds of names when I acted in sincere faith and
out of love. What was the command that Paul gave to Timothy? Paul’s command was twofold, firstly he was to
rebuke the false teachers not to teach such doctrines, secondly, to teach them
healthy or sound teaching. I believe that I too have been given a charge from God
which is to clean up the spiritual mess and to teach healthy and balanced
teachings to this church.
The more I spend time with God the more
I realize as your Pastor my mandate is not to fight against the popular culture
outside of the church, rather fight this culture flooding into the Church. I am
called to protect and preserve the purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we look into what sound teaching looks like, let’s look at the results
of false teachings.
II. THE RESULTS OF
FALSE TEACHINGS (Vs 9-10)
Paul mentions fourteen instances
or ways of life, acts, and behaviors of people who adhere to and teach false
teachings. They are: Law breakers, rebellious, sinful, ungodly, unholy, irreligious,
killers of fathers or mothers, murderers, sexually immoral, practicing
homosexuals, slave traders, liars, and adulterers.” When people believe and
practice false teachings they reflect some or all of the above mentioned traits
in their lives. False teaching is like gangrene, sooner than later it destroys the
church.
Paul wanted Timothy to teach
“healthy or sound teaching.” In fact in all three of Paul’s pastoral letters
the overarching theme was healthy teaching.
Sometimes “teaching” is translated as “doctrine” and so we get the
impression that orthodoxy is at issue. But this isn’t quite right. For Timothy is
given a mandate to teach in a way that brings health to people. In 2 Timothy
4:1-3, we read Paul’s charge to Timothy, “In the presence of God and of Christ
Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and
his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and
out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful
instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound
teaching. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a
great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
Words in Ephesus have gotten
sick, the “godless chatter” is infecting the souls of people with disease. So
as a teacher Timothy was responsible for speaking in such a way that people get
healthy again. I started my preaching and teaching ministry at the age of 18.
As a young preacher I always believed in balance and health. I avoided
controversies and extreme teachings.
If you look at all the messages I
preached over here you will notice balance. If you are looking to hear what
your itching ears want you to hear you will be disappointed in this church.
Because I am not here to tickle your ears or feed your fantasies, but I am here
committed to bring nothing but the whole truth of the gospel. I am here to
teach healthy and sound teaching. What
does sound teaching consist of?
III. WHAT DOES
SOUND TEACHING CONSIST OF?
Adhering to wrong teaching makes
us sick. Our lives become messy, disorderly and uncontrolled. Whereas adhering
to sound teaching our lives become healthy, wholesome, and fruitful. The only
way to get rid of the mess in our lives and in our church is by subscribing to
sound teaching. So what does sound teaching consist of? Sound teaching centers
around God, His nature, character, His ways and his work and purpose for our
lives. Sound teaching emphasizes both on
the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Sound teaching of God’s word
avoids all forms of extremes, and endless controversies. It builds faith and
gives hope rather than inducing fear and paranoia. It calls for servant-hood
and sacrifice instead of manipulation and control. It focuses on giving up
rights rather than holding on to our rights. It calls for self-denial and
picking up the cross rather than self-gratification and pleasure. It encourages
character over competence, purity over power. It challenges us to make a
difference in the society by being the salt and light in our communities. It
teaches us to respect authority and pray for the government. To love our wives and respect our husbands
and raise our children in the fear of God. The list can go on. Sound teaching
brings life at all levels while false teaching is deceptive and destructive.
No wonder why
there is such attack by the enemy on those who teach sound teaching and the
churches that practice sound teaching. We are living in end times where people
do not value sound teaching rather are carried away by every wind of false
teachings. I see this deviation from sound teaching in churches these days. In
light of this my dear congregation let’s develop a taste for sound teaching.
Let’s learn to discern the truth and discard controversies.
It is about time we rise up and get to the
work of spiritual house cleaning. It takes all of us working together. If you
let me, I am committed to carry out my God given task of equipping you for
works of service, so that in Christ we all may be built up until we all reach
unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no
longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there
by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their
deceitful scheming. Amen
