- Well, good morning. My name is Seth Fagerland, and I'm the high school and family pastor here at Rockpoint Church. Thank you so much for joining us today as we get started into our time together. You can find the messages notes on the sermon page online, otherwise, you can go to the same place that you found the lyrics for today for the worship songs, at rockpoint.church/today. We will also be starting a new series in the book of 1 Timothy, so you can start turning there in your Bibles, and we'll get there in just a moment, but before then, I want to say Happy Father's Day, okay? Happy Father's Day to all of our dads and grandads, both those who are in those roles biologically, but the many others who have become spiritual mentors and role models in our lives, and on a personal note, dad, if you're watching, Happy Father's Day. Thank you for leading your family to know and follow after Jesus together. Well, if I could combine some of these recent things that have been happening, we just celebrated the graduating class of 2020, our graduating seniors, and today being Father's Day, and it made me think of a time, which was now a long time ago, but when I was graduating high school and I was preparing to go off to college, and I had one of those father-son moments with my dad, where he was sharing with me the importance of finding a new church home as I was gonna go off to college. And my dad shared with me, he said, "Seth, if you find a perfect church, don't join it, "because you will ruin it." Thanks, dad. But then he went on to say, "Because the church is full of broken and imperfect people "who need Jesus." That was so good for me to hear, as a young man preparing to go off into the adult world, that there is no perfect church. But what does it look like to be a healthy church? Here at Rockpoint, our mission statement is, "Multiplying disciples in a healthy church." So that's why we're going into this series called "This is Us: A Healthy Church," and we will be walking through the book of 1 Timothy together this summer, and it's gonna be great. Well, speaking of fathers, and speaking of the church, the author of 1 Timothy, the Apostle Paul, literally starts off his letter with this statement. He says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus "by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, "to Timothy, my true child in the faith: "Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father "and Christ Jesus our Lord." Well, Paul was never married, and nor did he have any kids, but we clearly see his connection and attachment to this guy, Timothy, whom he calls his true child in the faith. Now, as we begin this book, allow me to give a few very brief but introductory comments to give us a little context to this letter that Paul writes, all right? He, Paul, the Apostle Paul used to be this really bad, religious dude named Saul who became Paul after he was transformed by the love of God through the power of the Gospel, and then he went on to spread the Good News about the rule and reign of the living King Jesus across the known world in the first century. Thanks to Paul, we have much of the New Testament in our Bibles, and also thanks to Paul and his missionary efforts, the Gospel of God got spread to all the Gentiles, the non-Jews, and for many of us now today, should cause great joy and thanksgiving to God that that happened. Well, during one of Paul's several missionary journeys, he founded a church in this city called Ephesus. It was a major well-known city, it was a port city. It was super important, but it had become very significant in that region. Well, on Paul's missionary efforts, often he would just stop and go, and he wouldn't stay very long in any one place, 'cause his goal was to spread the message of Jesus as far and wide as he could, but for some reason, when he came to Ephesus, he stopped and he stayed there for three years. Now, for us, that may not seem like a very long time, but in the timeline of Paul and what he did and where he all went, it was a significant amount of investment that he did. Well, after Paul's first major imprisonment, where he got sent into prison. He was in prison a lot for preaching the Good News about Jesus, but one of the first major ones, when he was in Rome for a very, very long time. Well, Paul was given a report that there was trouble going on back at the church of Ephesus. Again, a place that he had spent a significant amount of time, and the trouble that was going on wasn't from the Romans and it wasn't from the priests from the local pagan temple of the god of Artemis, which was super well-known there in Ephesus. No, the trouble that was going on was happening inside the church. There was a bunch of bad teachers that had kinda risen up and were promoting some bad teaching that was causing all sorts of divisions in the church, and it was spreading things that were not true about Jesus and what it means to follow Jesus, and so this was causing all sorts of problems. So Paul writes this letter to this young guy named Timothy, his true child in the faith that accompanied him on these other missionary journeys, and he sends Timothy to confront these bad Bible teachers, who were misusing the Bible and were causing all these problems. He leans into the fact that what a church truly believes, not what they say they believe, but what a church truly believes then affects how they behave, how they live their lives, and then Paul emphasizes that it's only the Gospel that can truly bring holiness and a transformed life in a believer's heart. So the key passage in all of 1 Timothy is actually in chapter three, and we'll get to it, but I want to mention it here in our introduction. This is where Paul sums up everything that he is writing about. He says this. He says, in verse 14 of chapter three, he says, "I hope to come to you soon, "but I am writing these things to you do that, if I delay, "you may know how one ought to behave "in the household of God, "which is the church of the living God, "a pillar and buttress of truth." And this is why we're calling this series, "This is Us: A Healthy Church." You see, Rockpoint is not a perfect church, and that starts with me, because we are a community of broken and imperfect people, but we have found our hope in the love of Jesus Christ, and in this series, we're gonna be focusing on the main thing, and we are gonna go after what it looks like to be a healthy church only by the power of God within us. So before we even jump into 1 Timothy, would you pray with me? Jesus, thank you for your Word that you have passed down to us, and thank you for your people, who have sought to be faithful, with your help, in being your people, specifically where you've called them to be. And now God, we ask for your help this morning to open up our hearts and our minds to understand more truly who you are and who we are in you, so that we, too, may be your faithful people, here in this place, and in this time. Jesus, by your Spirit, come and do this work in us. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, back to 1 Timothy, and we'll pick up where we left off in verse three. 1 Timothy chapter one, verse three. "As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, "remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons "not to teach any different doctrine, "nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, "which promote speculations, "rather than the stewardship or the good order "that is from God, that is by faith. "The aim of our charge is love "that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience "and a sincere faith. "Certain persons, by swerving from these, "have wandered away into vain discussion, "desiring to be teachers of the Law "without understanding either what they are saying "or the things about which "they are making confident assertions." Now jump down to verse 18, as Paul continues his parallel thought. Verse 18. "This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, "in accordance with the prophecy previously made about you, "that by them you may wage the good warfare, "holding faith and a good conscience by rejecting this. "Some have made shipwreck of their faith, "among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, "whom I have handed over to Satan, "that they may learn not to blaspheme." Well, let's note a couple things as Paul is making his introduction in his letter to Timothy. There's two main thoughts I wanna give you guys today, and at first is this. Don't listen to just anybody who teaches the Bible, okay? Don't listen to just anybody who teaches the Bible. Again, the focus that Paul is making, and the whole point of why he writes this letter, is that there were these bad teachers who were messing people up inside the church in Ephesus. Twice Paul refers to them as certain persons in verses three and verses six, and then he even goes as far to, he calls out, he names two of them, Hymenaeus and Alexander, both of whom show up in his second letter to Timothy. I mean, Hymenaeus even went as far as to say, Paul says in 2 Timothy, that the resurrection had already taken place, which makes us wonder, or what's implied is that maybe Hymenaeus was saying that he now had the secret information of how to still get into heaven, which gave him all sorts of power and control and division in the church. So Paul says something pretty strong here. He says that he hands him over to Satan, which is a phrase meaning that he kicked them out of the church, and he did that so that they would learn not to blaspheme, not to proclaim things that were not true about who God is. Now, the exact nature of the false teaching is unclear. Paul gives some ideas, he references it a little bit, but these false teachers, what were they doing? Well, they were trying to make a name for themselves. They were trying to create new and novel ideas, something deep, something mysterious that only they knew, right? That doesn't happen today, right? Quick side, practical application. As I said, don't just listen to anybody who teaches the Bible. It doesn't matter if a person has a trending video on Facebook, or that they have their own YouTube channel, okay? That doesn't mean that they have the final word or authority of what the Bible says. See, Paul's concern is the result of the bad teaching, the false teaching, what the effect of it was. So how do we recognize dangerous Bible teaching? Okay, Paul actually gives us three signs or three things to see that point out, wow, this could be not good teaching going on. Okay, number one is speculation. Number one is speculation, okay? Verse four, Paul says that they devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculation. I mean, you know what speculation means, right? It means that they don't know. They don't know, right? But they're making these confident claims, but speculation, they don't know. Back in the first century, you may have heard of the Gnostic Gospels, and that was, these showed up later, these people who claimed to have this inside scoop, this secret knowledge. You know, we see New Age stuff today, we see conspiracy theorists, but this is speculation, and speculation forms, it says that they form a theory without having firm evidence to back it up. You know how this happens, right? Somebody, and in a very convincing way, and they make it look so convincing, and they have all the background and videos and music, but they throw this idea out there and they make this claim without ever showing evidence or backing it up with firm evidence. But then, now more than ever, what happens? They throw it out there, and then somebody shares it, and then somebody shares it, somebody shares it, and it gets on and on and on, and it has all these views without anybody stopping to say, "Is this actually true?" Speculation. Well, Paul says another sign of dangerous Bible teaching is controversy. Controversy. Now, I'm not saying that we can't have different opinions or that we can't come to a matter and have different perspectives. I'm all for having a good conversation and sharing our different views. This is how we learn. This is how we grow. But when it's controversy purely for controversy's sake, purely to create almost battle lines, and to create two different camps, that is not healthy, and that's what Paul is talking about in verses six and seven. He says, "Certain persons have wandered away "into vain discussion," which he's saying is leading to controversy. This is happening among Christians. You know what I'm talking about, right? Somebody eventually draws a line in the sand and says, "All right, pick a side. "Pick a side. "You can't just be in the middle. "Be in one side or the other side," and all of a sudden, it gets inflated. It gets blown up, and all of a sudden, something that's seen to be a smaller, minor issue now has become almost the determining, well, where's truth and where's false? Who's right and who's wrong? Now, you may, this is incredibly hard for our young people today, right? Yes, in the adult world, yes, people can throw out whatever unfiltered thought that they have on Facebook, and just throw it out there, but among our young people today, it goes even to the next step, and they are forced to pick a side. I mean, it causes a lot of anxiety to our young people, where now their friends are saying, "Hey, if you don't post this, "then that means you're this, this, and this." Or, "If you don't post this, then I'm gonna unfriend you, "because I don't want to be associated with someone "who isn't willing to post this," and it creates something where someone, just on the outside, just trying to observe and understand what's going on, is forced into a position to, "Well, I don't want to be on the wrong side." It creates this controversy, and this bad Bible teaching that Paul is talking about that promotes controversy, now, instead of making us more like Jesus, divides us into all these mini camps that are just fighting against each other. Paul specifically talks more about this in Titus chapter three, verses nine through 11. Go and check that out. But it creates controversy. But the third thing to recognize of dangerous Bible teaching is confident ignorance. Confident ignorance. Paul says in verse seven, "Desiring to be teachers of the Law "without understanding either what they are saying "or the things about which "they're making confident assertions." Okay, confident ignorance, and this is specifically in areas that aren't black and white. Now, I find it interesting, the way that Paul describes these teachers. It says that they are desiring to be known as teachers of the Law. I think there's something to say about the people wanting to have this perception of spirituality and depth, and I think what Paul is getting at is you can recognize unhealthy motives sometimes in these false teachings, in these bad teachers. It just doesn't quite sit right. So speculations, controversies, confident ignorance. Paul says don't just listen to anybody who teaches the Bible. So here's some application for us today, all right? You should test what a Bible teacher says, any Bible teacher. Does it line up with what Christians have affirmed to be true now for thousands of years? Okay, that's called orthodoxy, is what the church and Christianity has affirmed, the authoritative believers over time have affirmed that this is true, this is what we believe. You may have heard about the Berean Christians in Acts chapter 17, right? It describes them that they, "Received the Word with all eagerness, "examining the scriptures daily "to see if these things were so." Did you catch that? So Paul was the one who was teaching to them, and it says that they were fact-checking the Apostle Paul to see this guy, who wrote most of the New Testament. They were double-checking to see if what he was teaching actually lined up with the truth of the Bible that God had made known at that time. So if the Berean Christians were double-checking what Paul was saying, absolutely, you should double-check what any teacher here at Rockpoint says. This is why we have a statement of faith. You see, Rockpoint is part of a denomination, of a conglomeration of churches across the country, called the Evangelical Free Church of America, and if you've never checked out what our statement of faith says, I encourage you to do so. Go to our website, go to rockpoint.church, go to the About Us section and scroll down to the Our Beliefs, and there you will find the EFCA statement of faith. This is our foundation upon which we stand as a local church in living out our mission of multiplying disciples in a healthy church. So Paul gives these warning signs to recognize bad Bible teaching. So how do we recognize healthy Bible teaching? Well, Paul clearly says in verse five, which is the main verse in this section, if not the entire book of 1 Timothy. Chapter one, verse five, he says, "The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart "and a good conscience and a sincere faith." And then he repeats himself again later, in verse 18, just a little differently. He says, "This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, "that you may wage the good warfare, "holding faith and a good conscience." So how do we recognize healthy Bible teaching? Paul says that healthy Bible teaching produces love. There are different words for love in the Bible because the New Testament was written in Greek, not in English, and so they had different words to describe the different types of love, and the word that Paul uses here is agape love. So Paul says that you will recognize, you will see the result or the effect of healthy Bible teaching as producing agape love in the life of the believer and in the life of the church, a love that sacrifices and puts the needs and interests of others ahead of their own. This is the love that God loved us, through Jesus. Now, that is not natural love. It is supernatural love, which means it comes from a source other than myself. Remember, Paul is sending Timothy to confront these bad teachers who are misusing the Bible and causing all sorts of divisions and problems, which we've already discussed. But then he leans into the fact that what a church truly believes, not just what they say they believe, but what they have internalized and said, "We believe this," it then affects how they live, how they behave, what comes out of their life. And he says it is only the Gospel that can produce a transformed life. And so Paul says there are three things you will see. You'll see a pure heart. Jesus said in Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, "for they will see God." Paul says you'll see a good conscience. Romans 8:1 says, "There is now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus." You'll see people have a good conscience, and then he says a sincere faith, and in Paul's letter specifically to the church in Ephesus called Ephesians in our Bibles, he says in chapter two and verse eight and nine, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. "This is not of your own doing. "It is a gift from God, not by works, "so that nobody can boast." A pure heart is the deepening of our character, making us more and more like Jesus. A good conscience, it means that our minds are filled with the truth of who God is and who we are in Him, which overflows in a life of obedience motivated by God's love for us, not because we have to, not because we're supposed to. It's just the response of saying, "Man, God loves me like this," and you're all-in. You wanna be all His and you wanna live for His glory. And then a sincere faith. It does not depend upon how much faith you have, but who your faith is in. That changes everything. These are the things that result from healthy Bible teaching because it is a transformed life that only God can bring in reality to us. Only God can do this. This is not a checklist for us to mark off. This is not something that we can force or control in other people. That's what the bad Bible teachers were doing. They were trying to force it. They were trying to control the other believers there within the church. But this is agape love that only God can bring into your life. Well, two more application points as we kinda wrap things up. These are two other Bible passages that I wanna point us to for this coming week. My friends, please, set aside a couple moments. I know it's summer and I know life is busy and it's full, but find a couple moments to quiet your heart, focus on God, and to enter into these passages and to seek Him in, 'cause the two things I want us to lead into as application in all of this is first, is 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13. Now, this is known as the love chapter, okay? This is famous at weddings. I know summers are often weddings, and maybe you've even been to a virtual wedding, but this is often spoken at weddings because it describes agape love, right? "Love is patient, love is kind," and so on. But my friends, this is not about you trying harder to be more loving. Love, I would argue, true love, must first be received before you can show it to somebody else. So this week, I want you to read 1 Corinthians 13. It's not very long. But read it slowly. Read it slowly, and repeat it to yourself again and again and again, but I want you to read it from the perspective of God's love for you, that God loves you like this, and then, here's what I want you to do. I want you to pick one. Okay, for you over-achievers out there, just one. I know some of you are gonna wanna do all of them. Pick one, 'cause if you try to do all of them, you won't do any of them. Pick one, write it down, put it everywhere, and then repeat that to yourself throughout the day, multiple times a day, but all throughout the week, and my friends, I want you to let God love you through this 1 Corinthians 13. The second one I want to point you to is John chapter 13, and this is the night before Jesus' arrest and betrayal. This is the famous Last Supper, where He washes the disciples' feet, and it's in that moment that Jesus says this. He says, "A new commandment I give to you, "that you love one another." Now, listen. "Just as I have loved you, "so you also are to love one another. "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, "if you have love for one another." Did you catch that? Did you catch how Paul described going after love in 1 Timothy verse 18, the second time? He says that, "By this, you may wage the good warfare." Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are in a war, and the weapons that we are given, the tools by which we change the outcome of the engagement are not bullets and bombs, it is love, and it is not power, it is not strength, it is not control, but it is love, it is humility, and it is dependence on God. Jesus did not say that the world will come to believe in Him because of your Facebook posts or your personal set of belief systems or your soapbox. He says the world will believe that He is real, how? By our love for one another. It has to be seen. It has to be experienced. And we can only give what we have first received. That's why Jesus says, "Just as I have loved you." So start there, remember, number one, start there. Let God's great love for you overwhelm you through Jesus, but then secondly, then allow it to overflow through you to everyone that God has brought into your life, starting with your family and then your church family. So here's the second action step, the second application for this coming week. I want you to pick one person, just one. Again, over-achievers, slow down. Just one. One. And then I want you to think about that person prayerfully throughout this week, throughout the day. Not just one day, but multiple days. Prayerfully think about that person, asking God to overwhelm you with God's love for that person, and then I want you to do something tangible that would show love to that person at the end of this week. So those are the two things. Let God love you through 1 Corinthians 13, and then overflow that love to someone else, one other person, this coming week. Well, this is us, a healthy church, and Rockpoint is not a perfect church, and that starts with me, 'cause we're a broken and imperfect people, but we have found our hope in the love of Jesus Christ, and through this series, we are gonna go after the main thing and look at what does it look like to be a healthy church, only by the power of God within us? But what we saw so far today is, what is a healthy church? A healthy church recognizes bad Bible teaching because it creates speculation and controversy and confident ignorance and those unhealthy motivations. But then also, a healthy church teaches and lives the Bible in such a way that it produces love through the power of the Gospel. A pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. My friends, this is what we're gonna go after as we seek to multiply disciples and a healthy church. Amen.