Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: If you have the opportunity right now to share the gospel with someone, would you be able to do it confidently and clearly without wandering off on rabbit trails? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains why it's imperative that every believer has a solid understanding of the gospel.

Alistair Begg: I invite you to turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 6 and as you find that passage of scripture there, the final two verses, we're going to pause just for a moment and ask God to help us as we study the Bible together. 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 20. Father, take my words and speak through them. Take our minds and help us to think. Take our hearts and bring them to conviction and renewed conviction about Christ and about the gospel and about Christian service and about our place in history. For Jesus' sake, we ask it.

Amen. Now let me read verse 20 and 21 Timothy. Guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge which some have professed and in so doing have wandered from the faith. Grace be with you. Now it is clear not only from this but also from the opening section of this letter that Paul's preoccupation, if you like, purposefully throughout the letter has been with this problem of false teaching and specifically these false teachers. If you turn back a couple of pages to the opening verses of the letter, you will be reminded, for example, in verse 6 that he is concerned about those who have wandered away from a pure heart and from a good conscience and a sincere faith and having wandered from these three essentials, they have turned aside to meaningless talk.

Now in relationship to that, he has provided all kinds of instruction for the church. He left Timothy in Ephesus, we're told, in order that he might essentially straighten out the mess that was there and prevent further mess from taking place. And he provided all manner of instruction and relationship to the way in which people should conduct themselves within the household of faith. And now as he puts his pen to the end of the letter, he has, if you like, con full circle here and these final verses essentially summarize the thrust of his instruction. Timothy is to guard what has been entrusted to him, he says.

He mustn't be drawn away by the teachers of so-called knowledge and he must do his best to stop this pervasive influence from having any kind of inroad in the church at all. Now in doing this, Paul is providing Timothy with instruction in relationship to that which he has been prepared to do himself. The letter is an endearing letter. It is a personal letter. It is not that what we have here is a book as it were written from some academic reach disbursed out into the corridors of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, picked up by Timothy and discovered from there and applied.

It's not that at all. The picture that we should have throughout all of this is a picture of endearment and of concern and of an individual urging upon this young man the fulfillment of his calling and particularly his willingness to take a stand as Paul has done in numerous ways alongside him. For example, and I will give you only one cross reference, Galatians chapter 2. Paul in talking of the fact that false brothers had infiltrated the ranks of the church in order to spy on their freedom. The freedom that they have in the Lord Jesus Christ and to try and make them slaves.

He says in relationship to this in verse 5, we did not give into them for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. We did not give into them for a moment. Why? Because we wanted simply to make our point. No, because we recognized that the reaction that we had in that moment in time was going to have an impact not only for its immediacy but also for all who would then follow in the line of the church. And that is his great concern as he writes these pastoral letters to Timothy.

He wants Timothy and those who will follow him to understand that their and our ability to take seriously what God says about his truth in our day and in our generation has ramifications for those yet unborn. Timothy. Timothy. I want you to make sure that the truth of the gospel, your life, your calling, your ministry, your faith is lived out in relationship to this overwhelming thought. Now I'd like to gather our instruction around four words, two of which appear in the text and two are inferences from it and turn them all into imperatives. First of all, in verse 20, the second word, if you're using the NIV, is the word guard, guard.

If you have a King James version, you have an advantage because your version will begin with all. Your version reads all Timothy. And that is an important all because it conveys something of the earnestness which is the whole tenor of the letter. It is the kind of all that a grandfather has when he has the privilege of his granddaughter or his grandson around him and they and they're just alone and he says them all. It's the all of a mother. Oh, she says she and then she adds the name but it comes out of somewhere deep inside of her.

It not all. It not all. It not all. It's all. It's one of those alls and if you miss that all, you miss a lot because without the all, you may think you send a saying now Timothy, I want you to guard what is entrusted to you. See, it's not that at all. It's it's blood, sweat and tears. It's Timothy, man, I love you. Timothy, I'm passionately committed to you. Timothy, in one sense under God, the future hangs on you. Oh, Timothy. Now Timothy's listening, you see. He's already described him in the 18th verse of chapter 1.

He says, oh Timothy, my son in the faith. This is not arms length stuff. This is not cerebral. This is visceral. This is passion. This is the the the the seasoned campaigner with the young soldier it is arm. This is the the doctor with gray hair with the young intern at her side. I walked behind a gentleman yesterday who by dent of his calling has young men in his tutelage. And I walked about 150 yards behind this scene and it struck me so forcibly. Here on the right hand side, all of the experience, all of the maturity, all of the wisdom, all of the ability.

Here on the left hand side, all of the dreams, all of the longings, all of the aspirations. And I looked at it and I said, I hope that young man understands what a privilege it is to be walking at the shoulder of this man. And I hope he isn't proud and I hope he isn't smug and I hope he doesn't think he knows everything because if he has a humble heart, if he has a gentle spirit, then he will turn back on that scene in years to come and he will say, walking at that man's side marked my life.

And incidentally, that is what is supposed to happen in ministry and all ministry. Yes, there is a unique privilege and responsibility that is entrusted to someone as a teaching elder in the fulfillment of the function here and one absolutely underpins its absolute centrality and essentialness in relationship to our church but do not mistake me when I tell you this that the real impact of the gospel from here is going to be discovered tinkering underneath the hoods of cars and in the folding and unfolding of laundry and in the doing of algebra together and in gardens and in golf courses and in all sorts of strange places as we walk together and touch the lives of those whom God has put within our sphere of influence.

Now it is this kind of dimension that is here in this text as Paul says, now Timothy, come on. I want you to guard this. It's the same word as you find incidentally if your Bible is open in verse 14 of the first chapter of 2 Timothy, guard the good deposits. It's an obvious word. It's the word that the groom says to the best man when he gives him the rings. I always ask the question, who has the rings? I don't like it when they both look at one another. That is a that is a disconcerting moment.

It's the same moment as you said, who has the license in the going? It's not a good it's a it's a solemn moment but I always tell the joker, I say, look, take the ring and put it on your little finger. Put both the rings on your wee finger. Oh, I don't need to do that. I like to keep them in the leather thing. I say, look, cloth ears, do as I'm telling you. Put it put it on your little finger because when I say the rings, I want the rings. I don't want any nonsense.

I don't want footer in around in your pockets. None of that stuff rings rings. We are giving them to you. We are entrusting them to your care. When we ask for them, we want them. Do you understand that? Do it. Now that's the same word here for guard. God has, if you like, put a deposit in Timothy. He has deposited with Timothy. Now Timothy, you look after that. When God asks about it, you better be able to produce it instantaneously and intact, not meddled with, not fooled with, not dressed up, not diminished, intact. Now this already leads me to my explanation as to what it is that he is to guard.

The commentators differ. Some say that the gardening here is of Timothy's own spiritual life. Someone else will say, no, it is the gardening of his call to the ministry. Others say that it is the gardening of the apostolic teaching. It is the gardening of the gospel. Now let me say two things concerning this. First of all, it is virtually impossible to disengage those three elements because Timothy obviously is to guard his walk with Christ. His walk with Christ is directly involved with the fact that he has been called to the ministry of pastoring. And what is the ministry of a pastor but a ministry of the gospel?

So to split hairs over what exactly it is, I'm not sure it's particularly profitable but if I have to choose, then I choose the third that he is being encouraged to guard the apostolic truth which he has received from the instruction of his grandmother and from his mother and now at the hand of Paul. The reason I say that is is because the immediate context contrasts what has been entrusted to his care with the godless chatter and the opposing ideas of the false teachers. That antithesis doesn't work in relationship to his Christian life or in relationship to his call to the gospel ministry.

The antithesis is workable in relationship to the fact that here we have the gospel and here we have opposing opposing ideas of knowledge. So you guard this because you're in the middle of this. Now obviously he has to watch his life and his doctrine closely. He said that in 1 Timothy 4:16. So the whole thing is interwoven but I do think we will be helped by thinking in terms of the redemptive truth of the gospel in its widest sense. While there is a uniqueness to Timothy's call and he must pay careful attention to that, the implication, the application of this directive is not ending with Timothy but it is also a charge to all who are under Timothy's care, all the readers of Timothy's letter and therefore all of us who according to verse 19 and the ending phrase, all of us who have taken hold of the life that is truly life.

So in other words, nobody should sit back and say, well, somebody else will take care of that for me. That's obviously some kind of pastoral thing. This is after all a letter to somebody who was a pastor and therefore I'll just let the others take care of guarding this. No, you need to understand that it is imperative that you play your part in guarding it. We didn't sing all of the hymn. The church is one foundation but if we had, then we would have used the words, we bear the torch that flaming fell from the hands of those who gave their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose.

And the picture is of that Olympic torch as it makes its way all across Europe and it is passed safely from the hand to hand to hand until finally in that great ceremony it is fanned into a spectacular blaze. I'm not sure that I fully appreciate nor am I sure that as a church in our day we fully appreciate the way in which the battle lines are being drawn at this time in relationship to the issues of the gospel. And we will never be able to guard the gospel unless we know the gospel. And therefore it is incumbent upon those of us as parents, those of us as Bible class leaders, those of us as instructors in every area of our church's life, not least of all in pastoral responsibility to ensure that those under our care know the gospel, that they know the difference between an approach which sells the gospel as a commodity, which goes to people and says essentially, would you like to have Jesus in your life?

Person says, well, exactly why do you have this in mind? Well, I mean, are you interested in joy? Oh, yeah, I like to be happy. What about peace? I like peace. Direction. I'm a purposeful sort of person. Fulfillment, I like fulfillment. Oh, I see. So if I just where I am right now want joy and peace and direction and fulfillment, I I have Jesus in my life. Is that it? Yes, says the person. They think they're doing a great job on the gospel now. They think they're explaining it very well. The person says, well, what are you supposed to do?

We you have to believe. Well, the person says, well, what do you have to believe? We have to believe that Jesus is God's son. Well, I already believe that Jesus is God's son. Now at this point, the person getting in deep difficulty if they don't know the gospel because this person by their definition, this person is actually a Christian already, you see, because they want joy, peace, fulfillment and everything that happy to get it from Jesus Christ. You're supposed to believe that Jesus is the son of God and they already believe that. So the thing is a total dog's breakfast.

And they don't know where to go from there. They tell the person to make a commitment. The person makes a commitment. They don't know what it means. They don't really know what they're committing to. They come at the end of a service. Everybody gets some hyped up and has to make a commitment. And 3 months later, it's clear they made a commitment but they were never converted. And they were never converted because they never heard the gospel. No one ever told them that the problem in their life was that they were alienated from God. They were in bondage to themselves because of their sin.

They were in conflict with other people and they were in conflict with themselves because they were inalienably distanced from God on account of sin. Irrespective of whether they wanted joy, peace, fulfillment, direction and all those other things, irrespective of whether they like the idea of Jesus Christ being added to their life as if it was sort of a sort of special religious package like Pepsi Cola or something. Why would anybody want a savior unless the person was a sinner? This is so pressingly important. We wouldn't let we wouldn't let plumbers or electricians work in our home if they were as clueless about their craft as many of us are about the gospel.

Well, what are you going to do with those pipes? Well, you know, I haven't really decided. I was thinking, you know, maybe stick one up here and curl one over there and you fancy one up there? Search me. I don't know. What do you do with all those wires? I always just stand and asking myself the same question. Look at this mess, man. What is this? You be going, out of here, get out of here. And so what some of us are with the gospel. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. I think perhaps maybe and so on.

It's imperative that we know the gospel. If you don't know it, you can't guard it. And you won't be able to guard it from error. You won't know when somebody is telling something that isn't the gospel because you don't know what the gospel is. It's like if you don't know if you don't know what the currency is, you might be prepared to take on a few $3 bills. Guard it. Now how are we going to guard it? Well, he says, if you're going to guard what has been entrusted to your care, it is imperative that you turn away from godless chatter.

Now this is very very important. Instead of getting caught up in refuting all the inane nonsense of these false teachers, Timothy is simply to shun them. The folks, many of them do not understand the words that they are using. They don't understand the themes they are propounding. They speak with great volume, with many words, with unsurpassed confidence. And yet it's twaddle. So he is not to guard the gospel by refuting all these ramblings because if he thinks about it for a moment or two, there is nothing in the ramblings that is worthy of being refuted.

Some people have turned their pulpits into a soap box from which to simply refute all the ramblings of the day. Now it is imperative that we point out from our culture where error is obvious, where there is danger lurking. That's what it is to be a shepherd. But I mean at the expense of actually saying what the Bible says, I mean starting always with, you know what I found out the other day? I found out that somebody was saying this and they were saying that. Now let me tell you why all this is wrong. Let me tell you why all this is wrong.

Let me tell you all why all this is wrong and the person, okay, we understand all that but what about something that is right for once? How about something that is instructive? To engage these false teachers in dialogue is to confer on them an honor as if they were they were saying something that was worthwhile and that we could realistically consider. Every question doesn't deserve an answer but you don't have to be in pastoral ministry for more than 5 minutes and they'll come at you like flies around a a pot of honey. I like to answer questions but I I mean I can I can pick you out from 150 yards.

The the the the the the Levitical boys, I call them. You know you know this Excuse me. I have a question here about Leviticus 11 of the animals that move about on the ground. These are the unclean for you, the weasel, the rat and any kind of great lizard, the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon. Now pastor, could you tell me if and you're like, hey, just get out of my life. Would you please? You know, just just don't you have a place to go? I mean, do you do you have any do you have anything you can do?

You say, you're not a very nice person. You got it. You come and ask me how you can meet Christ. I'll meet you anywhere you want to meet me. You ask me how you can put and repair and mend, fix. That's good but not every question's worth an answer. Not every notion is worthy of dialogue. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. He's titled today's message Guarding the Gospel and we'll hear the conclusion tomorrow. As we're learning, we need to understand the Bible if we're going to be able to share the gospel. Long before the angels announced the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, there were prophets preparing God's people for the arrival of the Messiah.

In the book we want to recommend to you today titled They're Shown a Holy Light, you'll learn how the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament all point to Jesus. The book They're Shown a Holy Light is a 25-day Advent devotional. It presents the Christmas story within the bigger picture of God's unfolding plan of redemption and it highlights the unity of scripture and the faithfulness of God from a broad perspective. Ask for your copy of the devotional They're Shown a Holy Light when you donate to Truth for Life today. You can give online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884.

I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for studying the Bible with us. When you share the gospel, do you feel pressured to answer every question you're asked? Tomorrow we'll learn why that's not necessary. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the learning is for living.