1 Timothy 6:3-10
Isaiah 53:1-6
Jesus is enough!
Paul started this letter to his mate Timothy, by charging him, urging him, commanding him to stop certain people from teaching, who were not teaching the true Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:3).
Paul named and shamed those false teachers who were teaching lies- and he knew they had to be stopped.
As we come to the end of his letter, he again warns Timothy about those teachers who were teaching a different gospel than the one Paul was proclaiming.
It is obvious from this letter that Paul wrote to pastor Timothy, that the right teaching was absolutely crucial to the health of the church.
The teaching in the church sets the spiritual temperature for the church.
We know, that any sort of teaching in any context, is crucial, because what you are taught can shape the whole direction of your life, especially by what you are taught from a young age.
This is why it is crucial that kids are taught well in our schools. What they learn in schools will shape who they are as a person, shape what they believe in, shape how they live.
And so if a school is teaching lies, we need to correct that teaching in our own homes. If a school teaches that there are 100 different types of Gender, we need to correct that teaching in our homes, and let our kids know there are only two types of gender, male and female. We need to teach them that God gave us the body we were born with, and that is good!
If our school is teaching that marriage is between a man and a man, or a man and donkey, or a woman and a road, we need to correct that teaching, and tell teach them the truth that God made marriage between one man and one woman.
Teaching is so crucial, because it shapes how we live, it shapes how we die.
Some Muslim boys are taught from a very young age, that they will die with glory and honour, if they die by killing a Jew at the same time. Some Muslim mothers are taught before they have children that the greatest honour for their son, would be to die while killing some Jews.
What we are taught is crucial, because it forms and shapes our lives.
This is why Paul urged all pastors to be able to teach, (1 Tim 3:2), because it is the teaching of God’s word which sets the direction of the church.
The apostle James reminds us of how important our words, our teaching can be:
Listen to this from James 3:1-5
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
And so no wonder, Paul emphasises the importance of correct teaching in the church, and the need to point out incorrect teaching.
Look at 1 Timothy 6:3 with me:
If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness,
Paul makes it clear that the true gospel- the true message, focuses on the person of Jesus- the mystery of godliness. And as Paul has already told us in 1 Timothy 3:16, the real Jesus, the mystery of godliness who has been revealed to us in these last days is the Jesus who:
1. Came down to earth and took on Flesh- Jesus is fully man and fully God
2. Was the one whom the Holy Spirited vindicated-it was the spirit who spoke of his coming, it was the spirit who worked through the prophets and apostles, to declare that Jesus was and is the Son of God- the saviour of the world
3. It was Jesus who was seen by the angels, it was the angels who pronounced his coming, it was the angels who ascended back to heaven with him, it is the angels who will one day return with him.
4. It was and is Jesus who is proclaimed among the nations, across the whole world, no longer bound to just the nation of Israel.
5. It is the name of Jesus that people call upon and are saved- there is no other name
6. It was Jesus who ascended back to heaven, from where one day, he will return
Friends the real Jesus has been revealed to us by God through his word- the bible. If we want to know more of the real Jesus, we just need to open our bibles.
In Timothy’s day, some false teachers were teaching that Jesus was not a real human like the rest of us, that is simply not true. Jesus was a human, like me and you, so that he could genuinely die in your place for you- human for human.
Some false teachers in Timothy’s day, where teaching that Jesus was not God, that is simply not true. Jesus has to be God because it is only the blood of God (Acts 20:28) which could save us from our sins, any other sacrifice would not have been good enough.
Not only do we teach the correct doctrine of who Jesus is, but we also teach the right things about what Jesus taught, or as Paul says in verse 3, we teach the sound words of our Lord Jesus.
One of the errors that some teachers make today, is that they separate the teachings of the apostle Paul and Jesus.
When Paul teaches on rules within the family and rules within the church, because some people don’t like what Paul has to say, they would separate the teachings of Paul and the teachings of Jesus.- which is crazy if we think about it for a second.
It was Jesus who hand-picked Paul before he was born to be a herald, a teacher of the gospel.
If we separate the teaching of Paul and Jesus, we must come to the conclusion that Jesus got it wrong in choosing Paul, and yet we know- Jesus never gets it wrong.
Some people like to separate the teachings of Jesus from Paul because they think Paul is harsh and Jesus is more palatable, and yet if we listen to whole teachings of Jesus, he was anything but easy to listen to at times…..
Listen to these teachings of Jesus:
If anyone who comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and children and brothers and sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26)
Or what about these teachings from the most famous sermon of Jesus- the sermon on the mount
You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect (Matthew 5:48)
Or this one…..
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, his brother will be liable to council, and whoever says, “you fool” will be liable to the hell of fire (Matthew 5:22)
Perhaps we want to go back to the teachings of the apostle Paul now….
And if we do, we will soon realise that the teachings of Paul and all the apostles and the teachings of Jesus cannot be separated, because it is all teaching about Jesus.
For a teacher in God’s church who never teaches about the true person of Jesus from the scriptures or the true teachings of Jesus from the scriptures, they are teaching lies and in the end it just causes constant friction among everyone.
Look at 1 Timothy 6:4-5 with me:
4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, 5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.
Paul warns pastor timothy here, that if a pastor is not teaching about the real Jesus from the scriptures and not preaching about the teachings of Jesus, then they are just going to stir up controversies and quarrels and envy.
Friends, if a pastor is not preaching from the bible, and constantly preaching from the bible- not just a token verse at the start of the sermon, then heed the warning and run, run before you get sucked in.
Sadly, there are false teachers in churches today who provide some wonderful entertainment but speak no truth. They can spin a great yarn, they can reel off some facts from the internet, they can give you 10 steps to live a better life now, but they can do all of that without actually teaching the truth of the gospel.
Some of these false teachers have an unhealthy craving for controversy.
In other words, some false teachers deliberately go out of their way to stir the pot, because they want to get some click bites, or they want people to talk about them. They crave for controversy because they want to be centre of attention.
This is the false teacher who deliberate swears at the start of the sermon to get people’s attention, or the false teacher who zip lines his way onto the stage to make his big entrance.
And why do these false teachers like to stir up trouble or teach things about Jesus which are false?
Well, 1 Timothy 6:5 gives us the answer…..
They “imagine that godliness is a means of gain”
False teachers, teach lies about Jesus because they want to benefit themselves.
Instead of Jesus being the ends to a means, Jesus is the means to an end…..through a false Jesus, they can gain wealth, power, prestige and so on…..
Paul makes it clear in verse 6 that there is indeed great gain in godliness with content, which basically means that yes- Jesus is enough- Jesus is your prize.
Paul says that false teachers don’t believe that Jesus is enough, they don’t believe that his death and resurrection on the cross was enough, they don’t believe his presence with them now and forever is enough- they are not content with Jesus, and so they use their version of Jesus to gain money, power and popularity.
This is why Paul encouraged Timothy to look for pastors who were not lovers of money (1 Timothy 3:3). This is why Paul in chapter 6 goes on to warn us about falling into the temptation of wanting to get rich quickly. He warns us that the desire for us to become rich will lead to all sorts of sins. Paul encourages us to be content, be thankful for what we have now, our food, our clothes, our basic needs.
False teachers who teach this false gospel, a gospel which has been labelled a “prosperity gospel” are Benny Hinn, Keith Copeland, Joel Osteen and Creflo dollar to name a few. There are many more….
They take the gospel of Jesus and they twist it to gain money, power and influence.
And you can understand why people fall for this false teaching, this is what they teach….
1. You can live your heavenly life now
They teach that when Jesus died in the cross, he not only set you free from the penalty of sin in your life, but he set you free from being able to do any sins, he set you free from all kinds of sickness, he set you free from all kinds of suffering, and he has given you all the blessings that this life can offer. And so if you are a true believer, you will be healthy, you won’t suffer, you will have lots of materials and the more God blesses you, the more material stuff you will have.
The biggest danger of this type of teaching, is that you could as the church at Corinth in the first century did, believe that you have already reached perfection in this life and therefore you can live however you like, since your sins no longer effect you or the people around you.
In Romans 7, Paul calls this type of thinking- foolish!
The false teacher himself would claim that he has reached some sort of perfection, as he is rich, healthy and popular, and so Christianity comes a who has the most faith contest.
The other danger with this false teaching, is that people don’t believe that they are real “Christians” if they get sick, or if they are poor, because it is their fault that they are sick or poor, because they didn’t have enough faith- therefore you can’t be a proper Christian because God doesn’t answer your prayers, the way you want him to.
If you have prayed to God to heal you, and he hasn’t- that is OK-you are in good company with the apostle Paul. Three times Paul prayed for God to take away the thorn in his flesh, (whatever that was) and three times God didn’t. Did God ever take away the thorn in his flesh? We don’t know. We do know that God’s grace was sufficient for him in sickness and in health.
This type of false teaching stirs up envy and division- “I must be better than you, because God healed me and not you”,
The third danger of this false teaching of living our best life now, is that it takes our focus off the prize- Jesus. We focus on the gifts rather than the giver.
This type of teaching makes all forms of suffering almost sinful, whereas Jesus taught us that suffering will inevitable be a part of the Christian life and why?
Because Jesus suffered himself, and he really did lead a perfect life.
All of the apostles apart from John died young, all the apostles suffered.
The fourth danger of this “live your best life now” false teaching, is that it leads to you being your own god.
Often these false teachers would encourage you to name and claim whatever you want, and if you just visualise, just reach deep within yourself, just think positively for once, then all your dreams will come true, you just have to name and claim it, or as the false teacher Joel Osteen writes in his book – “You can”- it’s all down to you.
Not, Jesus, but you……..
Friends, we must pray that God will deal with these false teachers and open their minds to the wonderful truth of the gospel.
I am going to leave you this morning with a story of one false teacher Benny Hinn.
Benny Hinn presented a small conference in Brisbane in 2008, when I say small, there were 8,000 people there. Small pickings for Benny.
These are the lies Benny Hinn was spouting that night: this is a little commentary on what happened that night
Benni moved urgently around the stage. "I'm going to tell you something. This is a prophecy. You are about to see the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. You are going to see prosperity like you never dreamed of. Money is being transferred from sinners to the righteous." His voice boomed out: "Are you righteous?" "Yes," we cried. "Are you righteous?" "Yes," we cried a little louder. "This is money you never dreamed of. Are you righteous?" "Yes," we thundered.
And this is how he ended the show:
The close: "The Lord is going to speak to you tonight. He is not asking you to give to Benny Hinn. This is a gift to the Lord. To some of you he will say $1000, to others $2000 or $5000, to some it may be $10,000. Don't turn your back on the Lord … "
Benny then went on to pray for people who were pretending to be sick. He then left the conference on his private Jet, where he returned back to his seven bedroom mansion. He took with him $80,000 and lots of expensive Jewellery.
Thankfully, people like Benni Hinn’s nephew – Costi Binn, who used to work with his uncle- had his eyes open to this false teaching.
Listen to this:
Costi Hinn- Benni Hinn is his uncle
“Almost 15 years ago, on a shoreline outside of Athens, Greece, I stood confident in my relationship with the Lord and my ministry trajectory. I was traveling the world on a private Gulfstream jet doing “gospel” ministry and enjoying every luxury money could buy. After a comfortable flight and my favorite meal (lasagna) made by our personal chef, we prepared for a ministry trip by resting at The Grand Resort: Lagonissi. Boasting my very own ocean-view villa, complete with private pool and over 2,000 square feet of living space, I perched on the rocks above the water’s edge and rejoiced in the life I was living. After all, I was serving Jesus Christ and living the abundant life he promised.
Little did I know that this coastline was part of the Aegean Sea—the same body of water the apostle Paul sailed while spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was just one problem: We weren’t preaching the same gospel as Paul”
Let us pray
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