All Who Are Under the Yoke as Slaves #3

All right. Well, this morning, we're going to continue our study in 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verses 1 through 5. This week, we're going to move on from our discussion of slavery and racism we've been talking about the last couple of weeks, and we're going to move on to verses 3 through 5. In these verses, Paul addresses the issue of bad doctrine and bad teaching. And as he does this, he assigns sins to the men who are bad teachers and who promote bad doctrine. He also describes the fruit of their sin. What does it produce? What he says in a nutshell is that their pride brings destruction to those around them, which means that for our sakes, we ought to care about bad teaching and bad doctrine. And I realize here I am talking to a bunch of Reformed people, and that's our battle cry, isn't it? We care about bad doctrine, and we know who false teachers are, and we could list them. And it's helpful, but that's not the end. That's not the final goal. There's more to it than being able to say, that's wrong.

God didn't put us on this earth simply to say, that's wrong. He put us on this earth to build his kingdom, to love and serve his son, Jesus Christ, to love our enemies, our neighbors, the lost, one another. So there's more to it than just identifying what's wrong. We have to know what to do with it, and we have to be warned away from it. Because as it turns out, none of us has perfect vision when it comes to what's right and what's wrong. How many times have you thought something was right or something was wrong, and you were, I mean, convinced of it? I have been. Come back in six months or a year.

How right were you? How well did you understand the situation and the decisions that were made? You think, oh, well, if I'd have known then what I know now, I can see how they would have done something entirely different. And so the pursuit of understanding what's right and what's wrong and what should be done is a lifelong pursuit. And that's what we're going to be talking about this morning. The first step in that is being able to identify and acknowledge that there is such a thing as good doctrine and bad doctrine, good teaching and bad teaching, as well as the results of those things. So our text this morning, as I said, is 1 Timothy 6, verses 1-5. Would you please stand for the reading of the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. For those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more, because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.

If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing. But he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Before we get right into the text, I want to tell you that the work of discerning between good and bad is essential for Christians to grow to maturity. It's not something that we can just pass over. It's not something that we can just farm out to other people. It's something we all, in our own lives, have to be cultivating. The ability to see the difference between light and darkness, good and bad, right and wrong.

In Hebrews 5, at the end of that chapter and into chapter 6, it says this. Solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about Christ, let us press on to maturity. And so here in Hebrews, we're told what our aim should be, what our work is going to be. We're supposed to go from infancy as Christians into maturity as Christians. We're not to remain. vulnerable, weak, incapable of telling the difference between good and evil. It's necessary that we grow in that. And one of the difficulties that we face just with the work of telling the difference between good and evil is that there's opposition in our own hearts, relationally, potentially with regard to your job or what have you, of saying, that's wrong. That's not what God says. That's not what the Bible teaches.

There's a cost to saying that kind of stuff because someone might accuse you of being unloving. And oftentimes that's enough to stop us in our tracks or at least to give us pause where we go, I don't know if I say that, you know, it's going to, hmm. But I'll tell you that as you do that, if you give in to that temptation to be quiet when you should speak up, you will succumb to the lie because you're giving it a place to grow. And so we have to be able to discern between good and evil. We have to learn a lot more as Christians and have a life that reflects a lot more than simply the fact that Jesus came to die for our sins. That's true. That's the central tenet of the Christian faith, and we can never forget it or leave it behind. But there is much, much more to living as a Christian than circling around that tenet for our whole lives alone. You think of all of the writing that Paul did. He wrote most of the New Testament.

How much of that time does he spend circling around Jesus' death? I would argue that most of his time is spent working out the implications of Jesus' death and his resurrection, saying that he came to set you free from the bondage that you're in to sin so that all of your life, every square inch of it, can be transformed and changed and made new. And if that's supposed to happen, we need instruction in all of those areas. And so... We have to be able to discern between good and evil, between right and wrong. And so when Paul says at the very beginning here, if anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, we need to have in our mind that there is such a thing as good and bad teaching. Everything that calls itself Christian is not Christian.

And I'm not trying to make us proprietary in a way that says we're the only people who know the truth. That's not actually what I'm trying to do. Jesus said in another place, those who aren't against us are for us. And Paul said, whether they preach from selfish ambition or not, I don't care as long as the actual gospel goes forth. And so there was room and latitude for people, even with... known sinful motives, Paul says, I'm just glad that the gospel goes forth. If those guys are full of themselves as they do it, as long as they tell the truth, I'll consent myself with that. Because he cared about what they said. He said, if they're telling the truth, I want the truth to go forward. And so we can't think that we're the only people that have the truth, that this pursuit of knowing what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, ends up with the conclusion that, well, I'm the only person who knows the truth. If that's the conclusion you draw, you're wrong.

Badly wrong. That's not where we need to end up. And yet we do need to be able to discern between good and bad, right and wrong. Because Paul does. Three times in this passage he talks about doctrine. When he's speaking of the slaves, he says, you slaves need to submit to your masters. You need to honor them. Why? So that our doctrine won't be spoken against. So the gospel won't be dishonored. That's why you need to work as a slave to honor your master. He cares about it. We've told you the truth and your behavior is going to either reflect or it's going to reflect well on the things you believe. And so even as slaves, it matters that you not malign the truth by your actions. So he comes in verse 3 and says, if anyone advocates a different doctrine, how do you identify a different doctrine? How do you tell the difference between something that's real and something that's fake? Have you ever seen these blind studies? We kind of laugh at them where they'll blindfold somebody and they'll put two cups in front of them and one of them will have Coke and one of them will have Pepsi. And some people absolutely love.

the one and they know they can tell the difference. But when you don't have any sort of indicator of what is right and wrong, how often are those people right? Maybe with Coke and Pepsi they are. Maybe they've really learned the taste. But to know the difference, I think you'd probably be better suited to know the difference between Coke and Pepsi if you actually drank, had an interaction with both of them. If all you ever drink is Coke, you might not be able to tell the difference. Here's another example. Maybe a better example. How many of you can tell the difference between butter and margarine?

How many of you have a preference? How many of you don't like the other one about mayonnaise and Miracle Whip? Age-old debate. Which one is better? How do you tell the difference? You've had your taste buds. Michael says your taste buds. One of them makes you go, right? That's training. You've learned that. Kids don't have that sort of discriminating taste. They have to learn it. And just as they have to learn the differences between, I'm not going to tell you which one I prefer. Between Miracle Whip and mayonnaise. Well, in my house, you have to learn the difference between good and bad doctrine. You have to know. You ever watch kids make an ice cream sundae? And you see all the stuff they put on it? And it turns your stomach. Because they've mixed fruit with chocolate. And they've got gummy bears in with Oreos. And it's just like, right?

They don't have any discernment. They'll grow and learn that that's nasty. When you were a kid, you used to go to the soda fountain and you'd get what was called a suicide. Remember that? I'm going to get the tea and the Powerade and the Hi-C and the Coke and the Sprite and the root beer. That's nasty. That's nasty, right? But when you were a kid, you thought that was cool. You thought, man, look at me. I'm inclusive. I'm telling you, you have to learn to tell the difference between good and bad. You develop your tastes, your preferences, what's actually good and what's actually bad. Anyone who says that gummy bears and Oreos taste good together is wrong, okay? And if they say they're right, that doesn't make them right, okay? And we can all laugh at that. We can all say, yeah, there's no question about that. And I say, good, you understand the...

process, now you have to realize, we've got to be able to do the same thing with doctrine. We've got to be as sure about what's the truth and what's a lie as we are about gummy bears and Oreos. And if someone says, no, it is good, and you're a fool for thinking it's not, you can't be wavered by it and go, well, maybe I should try it again. No, you shouldn't. It was nasty then, and it's nasty now. We have to be able to do the same thing with doctrine. And it's a pursuit. One of the temptations that we face in distinguishing between good and bad is when there's good mixed with bad. What do you do when there's good doctrine mixed with bad doctrine? Do you throw it all out? Some people would say, just throw it all out. Well, they're not right about everything, so they're not right about anything. Well, that's a pretty high standard for you to meet. Are you right about everything? What happens when you change your opinions? I remember when Luis first came to this church, he was part of a group of young people.

And they were all about studying the Bible, street preaching, and evangelism. You did it every night of the week you were together with this group. You remember? And the guy that led the group had no business leading the group. Anyone who didn't believe what he believed was a heretic. And that's what he would tell them. And then when he would change his position on things like justification, you were supposed to follow and change. now believed the thing he used to believe as a heretic. This guy was nuts. And still, you know him, I don't. Were there things that that young man said that were true? Yes. So how did we minister to Luis and his friends, trying to get them out of the clutches of this group? Well, we had to teach them the truth. And when he's like, well, but what about this other thing? We say, no, that's not true, but this is true. And we had to make a judgment call.

about when to say, you can't have anything more to do with that. But the reality is, and I'm using Luis as an example, as Luis came to understand what was actually right and true and good, it became clear to him what to do with the mixture of truth and falsehood that was in this group. And the answer was, I don't want to have anything to do with that. In fact, his answer was, we need to stop doing this and you all need to come to my church. And some of the people came. And some of them stuck for a while. Some of them didn't. So what do you do with the temptation to pass over a lie or a falsehood because there's some truth in it? Well, sometimes you need to do what they call eating the meat and spitting out the bones. You know, in American culture, we don't eat meat with bones in it anymore. We just don't do it. But if you go to other cultures and they make you a stew or you go get Indian food and you get curry or something, you know what's going to be in that stuff? Bones.

And what are you supposed to do? What do you do when they feed you a fish and it's the whole eyes and everything? It's the whole fish. What do you do? Well, you chew the meat and you spit out the bones, right? They're wrong. You want the meat. Well, my point, the principle stands that there are things that you eat that have nutrition in them that also have things that could harm you, bones. You eat the meat, you spit out the bones. And yet you have to make a judgment about whether there's enough meat to justify the bones. If there is no meat and there's lots of bones, what should you do? You shouldn't put it in your mouth because there's no nutrition in it. And you have to make a judgment about that with food. And you have to make a judgment about that with truth and falsehood. Is there enough meat that's substantive and real? Are they right on the essentials? Do they have the basic things rock solid and good or not?

We have to be able to discern between what's right and wrong and also what we're right and wrong about. And then we have to make our judgments. What we can't do is say that so long as there's a little bit of truth in there, I'll take all the lies that go along with it. Not the case. You know, at my house, if we were going to have spaghetti, one of the things that my kids, you know, we make the noodles and make the sauce and they make the meatballs and they're all separate. And you come to the table and what are all the kids wanting to know?

How many meatballs am I going to get? Is there enough of what I like in here? Is there enough of what I need in here to eat it? And if I just give them, if one kid gets seven meatballs and another one gets two, the one with two is going to say, this isn't worth eating. The one with seven will eat it. And they're making a judgment about whether there's enough good stuff in there. We have to do the same thing. It takes discernment. But if we're going to be able to make those sorts of... and be able to see those sorts of things, we first have to know what is right and what is wrong. Everything can't be gray. And if we refuse to do this, we'll never be able to identify a different doctrine than what Paul's advocating here. And we also should know that Satan's way with us is always to seduce us with half-truths. This is what he did with Jesus in his temptations. Half-truths. It's what he did with Eve. Half-truths. Eve didn't fare so well.

Jesus did. We need to be like Jesus. Now, how does Paul define different doctrine? He says, well, it's something that doesn't agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with doctrine conforming to godliness. And so we ought to ask in our minds, does what we're hearing, does what's being taught agree with Jesus? Now, again, this takes discernment because not everything that we're told agrees with what Jesus would do actually agrees with what Jesus would have done. We can't take everything at face value. It's true that Jesus loved sinners, but it's also true that they loved him in return. He didn't love them so that they could continuance, and he loved them so that they could be free of it. You think of the woman at the well, an adulterous woman. What did he do? Did he love her? Yes. How did he love her? Where's your husband? And what was her takeaway from her conversation with Jesus? He said other things to her. I have water.

I have food, spiritual food. You'll never thirst again. Where's your husband? What was her takeaway? She went back into the city saying, this man said things about me that nobody knows. He told me my whole life. She loved him. She appreciated being told the truth. And you wonder how much she would have appreciated if he hadn't said, where's your husband? And so, yes, Jesus loves sinners. And it's often the case that they respond to him. They reciprocate with love. And they reciprocate with godliness. And they reciprocate with faith. And they reciprocate with repentance. They don't reciprocate with confirmation in their sin. So how do we know if what we're being taught squares with what Jesus would say or what Jesus would do? It's a fair question. Well, we look at the second thing Paul says. What is the purpose of their instruction? What do they need to do? He says, well, he says, you shouldn't have anything to do.

with anyone who advocates different doctrine if it doesn't conform to godliness. The goal of good teaching is to produce godliness in the hearers. When you come to church every week, the goal over the course of your whole life is to move you in the way of godliness every week. That's the goal. About this topic or that topic or the other topic, it's to move you just a little bit to remind you, to show you, to teach you there's a thing here you need to work on, I need to work on. Next week we're going to come again and we're going to get the same thing. There's a thing here we need to know about and we need to work on every week for the rest of our lives. At men's group, at men's retreats, at women's socials, at small group, move you just a little bit toward godliness. Okay? That's the goal.

And so when we look at teaching, we have to look and say, is the purpose of this teaching, is what's being said to me meant to move me toward godliness? If it is, good teaching. If it's not, bad teaching. And if it's bad teaching, don't consume it. When I became a Christian, it became very clear to me that I had no idea what it meant to be a man. I never had a dad, never had any long-standing male role models. I did have some. I had a big brother for a few years and big brothers, big sisters. I had coaches, right? I didn't have any friends' dads that really took an interest. And so I got into my early 20s with no idea what it means to be a man. Just none. No one had ever taught me. Very common problem in America, right? Men don't know how to be men. No one's ever taught them. So what did I need? Did I need to be taught how to be a man? Well, yes, but more than that, I needed to be taught how to be a godly man.

And those are not the same thing. I didn't just need to learn how to work hard and how to sacrifice and how to be strong and make money and be fit and whatever else that men do end up doing some level or another. I actually needed to learn godliness as a man. And so I needed someone to teach me sound words conforming to godliness about how to become a godly man, not just how do you become a better man. I needed to become a particular type of man, one that loved God. And so if you find yourself going, I need to learn how to become a better mom. I need to learn to become a better man. Yes, generally, but you need to be a little more specific and say, I need to learn how to be a godly man or a godly wife. I need someone to teach me about godliness in regard to this pursuit, not just the outworkings generally of what I should do. I need to know how to honor God in this.

We want teaching that pushes us in that direction. And if it doesn't push us in that direction, explicitly, it's not going to help us. And there's a lot of it out there. And so godliness is a good metric to judge teaching by. Does it get under my skin in a way that motivates me to love God better? Does it expose where I'm weak and where I'm deficient and where I need to grow? That's good teaching. Because that good teaching is also going to get you to ask the questions like, what must I do to be saved? How can I have victory over this sin? How can I see the years that the locusts have eaten restored? You have to ask those questions. You have to want answers to those questions. Good teaching will provoke those questions. Another way of saying this is that our fruit, the fruit of our lives actually matters. Christians are actually supposed to bear good fruit.

When Jesus spoke in Luke 6, he says, there's no good tree that produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. So you ought to be looking around at your own life and saying, good fruit or bad fruit? Which one's growing? Is good fruit growing? Probably got good teaching somewhere around you. Bad fruit growing? You've probably got bad teaching. And I can tell you that whenever new people come to our church, and this is not meant to brag, because I and we are not perfect. No claim to be perfect. But I have, on more than one occasion, had people who've come to our church and visited and stuck and went, this is, it's different, and they go, and it's good. What they say is, I was discontent at my previous church because they never, they didn't seem to care about the truth. And I wanted to know what the truth was. So I left.

And it seems that you care about the truth, so I'll stay. That's our aim. That's our goal. We know we don't do it perfectly, but it's what we're striving for, to do you some good, to make you more godly. We would be wasting your time if we didn't, incurring judgment and condemnation for ourselves if we didn't. So am I bearing good fruit in my life? You want to know whether it's good doctrine or bad doctrine? Look at the fruit of it in your own life. Is it producing good fruit in your life? Well, then it's probably good. If you're discontent with the fruit in your life, it probably means there's some deficiency. Maybe the teaching's bad. Or maybe you're not listening to the teaching. That's likely too. You can be around something good and not consume it, not take it in. And it won't do you any more good. You can have a beautiful meal set out in front of you. If you don't eat it,

you won't be nourished. I don't like that. What do you tell kids that say, I don't like that? That's what's for dinner. And you can go hungry in the short term, but I'm not going to allow you to go hungry in the long term. You'll eat it for breakfast or lunch or however long you want to be stubborn. You're going to eat it. I'm not a mean parent. No, certainly a parent could abuse that. But a good parent says, no, you need to eat what's good. You can't drink soda and eat cake and cookies all day and all night. There are certain things you may not have for breakfast. However much you might want them, that's not a meal. That's a dessert. We were talking at my house yesterday about our favorite breakfast foods, and donuts came up. And one of my kids said, why do we eat donuts for breakfast? That's more like a dessert. And I looked at him and I said, I don't know. I like them. We don't eat them often at my house.

He was right in saying this is kind of like a dessert. It's a piece of cake in a circular form. It's frosting on it, fruit inside of it, but we don't eat donuts all the time for breakfast. So are you bearing good fruit? If you're not bearing good fruit, you should consider the teaching that you're receiving. If it's not producing good fruit in your life, it may not be good teaching. You also need to consider whether you're partaking of the teaching if it's good teaching. Am I applying myself to it? This is how we distinguish between good and bad doctrine. Now, that's all well and good, but teaching doesn't just come to us in a little module, a little PowerPoint presentation devoid of a person. Bad teaching comes through bad teachers. And so Paul speaks not just about bad teaching, but about those who promote it. What does he say about the bad teachers, the false teachers? He says they're conceited and they know nothing.

Which is quite a hat pin to the balloon of their pride because the one thing that they think is they know everything. They have an answer for every problem. They have a solution to everything. They know how to fix it all. They know what everything is that you've got going on and how it's wrong. Paul says they know nothing. He also says they're conceited. They're not able to admit their faults. I will tell you that what you want in people who teach you and you husbands. You need to be in your families. And you mothers need to be to your children. You need to be able to admit when you're wrong. Without candy-coating it or having it be a glancing blow, you need to be able to say, that was wrong of me. It was corrupt and it was wicked and there was no excuse for it. And it's not your fault. I did it. I knew better. Or maybe I didn't know better and I should have. But I did it. Because the word that's here translated as conceited is arrogant.

or proud, or boastful, incapable of acknowledging failures or faults in yourself. You don't want teachers like that because nobody's perfect. And so what you want are teachers that know they're not perfect and who will acknowledge and tell you they're not perfect. And not just generally, but specifically. It's really important. False teachers won't do it. They'll convince you that the problem is with you and that your job is to protect their arrogance and their pride because they need your support and your encouragement because It's important to them. You're not important to them. Their pride's important to them. And you're just a vessel to promote and shore up their pride, their conceit, their arrogance. You don't want teachers like that. You don't want to be husbands or fathers like that, mothers like that, employers like that. Jesus taught us to come to him, to learn from him. Why? Because he is meek and humble in heart. And so it follows that those who teach the gospel ought to be like Jesus. And when they're not, they ought to say,

I'm sorry, I failed. Beyond being conceited and knowing nothing, Paul says that these men have a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, meaning they like to argue and fight. They have a morbid interest. They like to fight. What that means in our own words, if I can translate that to you and interpret it to you, it means his interests and the things that he cares about and the things that he teaches lead to death, not life. What does it mean to have a morbid interest? What is morbidity? It's death, dying, destruction. He has a deadly interest. Deadly to who? Deadly to you. Wants you to join in the fight. Wants you to argue. Wants you to take up his cause and carry his mantle to your death. In John 10, when Jesus talks about the good shepherd, he also talks about a thief. And he says this.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. So in the very first verse, you have a thief coming to kill and destroy and Jesus coming to give life. Contrast. Jesus goes on and he says, I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, which is the opposite of having the sheep lay down their life for him. And then he says, he who is a hired hand and not a shepherd. who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming and he leaves the sheep and he flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he has a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd and I know my own and my own know me. Even as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep. Now why does a shepherd lay down his life for his sheep?

It's for their good. It's for their life. Why does the hired hand run and flee? Because his life is more important than the life of the sheep. And this same thing is true of good shepherds, good teachers, and false teachers. False teachers have a morbid interest. They care about death. They're leading to death. And when hardship comes their way, you're on your own because their interest from the beginning has been death. Now, they won't tell you that. That won't be on their Facebook page, right? They won't say, I'm all about death. They'll tell you they're all about life, but you've got to be able to discern the difference between what they say and what they mean. So those who stand up and teach in the name of Jesus Christ ought to be concerned with life, your life, growing into abundance, willing to give their own lives and sacrifice on your behalf, because that's what Jesus says he does. And if someone's to speak in his name, they ought to do the same things Jesus has done.

We ought also to notice the similarity between the thief that Jesus describes and the man, the false teacher that Paul describes. What motive does Paul attribute to the false teachers except the exact same motive that thieves have, which is to steal and to accumulate for themselves at your loss? At the end of our passage, he says, these men suppose that godliness is a means of gain. They get into the work and they do the teaching. Why? Because they suppose it to be a means of gain. They think that if I do this, I'll get... rich. I'll get money. And in that, they're identical to a thief. They're willing to take from those they ought to be giving to for their own benefit. Now in weeks to come, we're going to dig more into that because Paul goes into it in the preceding, in the next few verses. But you should keep in mind that a good teacher's job is not to get rich on the backs of his people. Jesus didn't. Jesus gave. He sacrificed himself.

For the good of those around him. That's what a good teacher will do. That's what the Bible teaches. Bad doctrine says, no, no, no. We can all get rich together. We can all do better. And you might think of, I'm talking about Joel Osteen. Sure. T.D. Jakes. Yeah. How many of you listen to them? None of you. I'm talking about men in the reformed world that are taking your money, getting rich off of providing you content without giving one shred. of sacrifice for your soul. That's who I'm actually talking about. Who at the very end of all of their podcasts and books and all the stuff they put out say, and if you'd like to support our ministry, if you'd like the premium content, a small donation. Now, do I mind if you support other people who are doing good work? No, I don't. But you better be very careful because there's a lot of people who see you as sheep to be fleeced, not sheep to be protected and guarded. Their business model.

as a false teacher is to argue about controversial things. And I want to tell you that controversial questions, as Paul describes them here, are by definition unimportant questions. Men who want to argue about things that don't really matter, they want to major in the minors, they miss the point while believing they've hit a bullseye. An old Lutheran theologian back in the early 17th century said, in essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity. And the reason I bring that up to you to say is, in things that are really important, there's no disagreement about what's right. There cannot be unity if there's disagreement about the fundamentals of the faith. There just can't be disagreement about that. There are second-tier issues, third-tier, fourth-tier issues that we have liberty on.

And what I think is that a lot of the false teachers make their living elevating second and third tier things up to the top and saying, this is the measure and the mark of true faithfulness. In essentials unity, this is a quote you ought to remember. It was said by a guy named Rupertus Mendensius. Not Augustine. A lot of people think Augustine said it, but he probably would have agreed with it, but he's not the one who said it. Just an old Lutheran churchman. who wrote a tract and in the tract said this. An essential is unity and non-essential is liberty and all things charity. Charity is the opposite of contentions about words and controversial questions. There's no charity. Have you ever met men who have no sense of proportion, who are ready at the drop of a hat to argue about just about anything and argue with the same tenacity and intensity? Whether we were talking about the...

penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus or whether we're talking about head coverings or whether we're talking about flavor of ice cream, John says. There's just no sense of like, dude, that's not as important as this other thing. Chill out. Yes, you can have your opinion. Yes, we can talk about it, but we don't need to be breaking up the church and other Christians about it. I like to argue about words and controversial questions. Now, I realize in saying this and saying that controversial questions are Always about things that don't matter. You think, no, we have so much controversy in our society. We're arguing about everything all the time. And we're arguing about things like whether a man can become a woman. And if there was ever such a thing as settled science, you'd think that would be it. And yet here we are. And what I want you to be able to do is to discriminate and say, is there any question actually about whether a man can become a woman? No. That doesn't mean that men of depraved mind who are given over to their sin and blinded

don't understand that. That happens all the time. But that doesn't mean it's a real question. It means it's a foolish question. It's a question that arises out of darkness and depravity, not a question that rises out of light in the gospel. And so while in our world there may be controversies and questions about things that are so settled as to be laughable that you would even question them, in the church it ought not to be that way. Men who make a habit of fighting over things that are not essential to the faith and to the souls of God's people are often doing it to get rich, to make a name for themselves. Men who look at Jordan Peterson and say, I want to be like him. I want to be a Christian. I'm going to be a better Jordan Peterson. And I would ask, why? Why? Why aspire to be like Jordan Peterson? Why not aspire to be like a godly man?

Well, because Jordan Peterson's got a name and people listen to him and he makes lots of money. He's very smart. Granted, all those things. But he's not going to do your soul good. And he's not the fountain you should go drink from. When you look at a guy like Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro, you should look at them and say, look at how much an unbeliever can figure out. Look how obvious the truth is. People who don't even know Jesus can figure this stuff out and believe it strongly. What in the world is wrong with us? they're not even believers and they can discern between truth and falsehood. How much more so should we be able to? So you don't want to follow men who argue about words and controversial questions. Now, does that mean questions are bad or that arguments are bad? No. But there's a certain type of arguing that's bad. There have been times in my life where I've had men tell me, essentially, Dave, you're out of line. You don't know what you're talking about. Just be quiet. And there have been times I've said things just like that to young men.

You don't know what you're talking about. You think you do. You're fighting me tooth and nail about it. You don't. Hush. Is that to say that there can never be questions, that there can never be conviction about those sorts of things? No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is we have to discriminate between men who make their living arguing in that way, who surround themselves and seem to have an aura of envy and strife and abusive language and evil suspicions, always causing you to doubt everyone except them. They're men of depraved mind, deprived of the truth, meaning they don't have the truth. That's why they know nothing. If that's the fruit, you should stay away from it. And you shouldn't feel bad about it. You should go, that's bad for my soul. And you should run away from it like Joseph ran away from Potiphar's wife because it was bad for him, because it didn't honor God. There will be a cost to saying no to bad doctrine and bad teaching and bad teachers. It's hard work to discern whether a question or a controversy is worth fighting.

if it's for the sake of godliness or not. We have all kinds of these fights going on around us. They've gone on throughout history. Is it for the sake of godliness? Is it for the sake of somebody's name? Is it for the sake of destruction? What's really going on here? What I tell you is you should look at the fruit of the combatants. What do they produce? Not what they tell you they're going to produce. You should look at what they have produced. In their followers, in their hearers, in their own lives. And if you don't have access to their lives in such a way as to be able to tell what their life is like, you shouldn't put all your eggs in their basket because you can't know them very well. It's very easy to talk about godliness. It's very easy to talk about pursuits and what your aims are. They're high, they're lofty. It's much harder to produce those things. Because to produce those things, you have to give your life to it and you have to sacrifice for it.

And oftentimes false teachers are on to the next thing, the next controversy. They're on to the next pot to stir. It's like the media. They're just looking for the next cycle, the next thing. Step out of it. Step away from it. It doesn't help you. You don't need it. If men are fighting over the truth, if they have good fruit in their lives, not perfect fruit, good fruit, if they're not fighting for their own reputation, their own interests, their own kingdom, then you should listen to them. Whether you agree with them in the moment, whether you think they have their head screwed on straight, I'm telling you, you should listen to them. Even if you disagree with them, you should listen to them. How foolish would it be to listen to a bad teacher when you know they're bad and refuse to listen to a good teacher when you know they're good? Just because you disagree with them. Don't put too much stock in your disagreement with them in the short term. If the testimony of their life is...

conforming to the words of Jesus Christ and to godliness, listen to him, especially when you don't agree, remembering that Jesus said that his sheep knew his voice and that they would follow him. So to sum up, what can we learn from this text? Well, first, you have to be a student of God's word. You have to know the difference between good and bad doctrine, not for the sake of being able to use it as a bludgeon in other people's lives, but so that you're better able to love them and to care for them and to minister to them and to lead them to Christ. That's the point.

That's why we need to discern truth from falsehood, not for our pride, but for their souls. Secondly, we should stand for the truth, having discerned it, and we ought to stand with other men who stand for the truth. Thirdly, we ought to judge the fruit of men's lives. Is it good and is it bad? If it's good, then follow with them, stand with them, go to battle with them, trust them. If it's bad fruit, don't give any attention to them. No matter how much they demand it, don't give any attention to them. Get away from them because they're not doing you any good. And their job is to do you good. Someone who stands up in the name of Jesus Christ, their job description is do your people good. Lead them to Jesus. Help them be more holy. Lay down your life for them. If they aren't doing that, don't have anything to do with them. Pretty simple, hard, but essential. That's what Paul's warning Timothy about here.

In the King James, he tells them at the very end of this, it doesn't, translations have different manuscripts and stuff. In the King James, it says, have nothing to do with these men. Get away from them. Flee from them. Men who do the kind of stuff I've talked about today, get yourself away from them. In this text, it doesn't show up as being in the text, but it's an absolutely appropriate application, even if it's not in the text. What should you do with someone who causes trouble and is going to lead you to hell? You should get away from them. Right? Don't be ashamed of God's truth. Love it. Give yourselves to it. Teach other people about it. Trust God to bring about good fruit from it. Start in your homes. The people that you're already around. Let's pray.