This Is Who I Am

It is not easy being an ignorant follower of Jesus Christ these days. By ignorant I mean those who do not read and study the Word for themselves but instead take their knowledge from others. It may be from the pastor on Sunday morning or from little snippets off of the Internet or even just nice sounding sayings people share on their blog. Their knowledge is more “hearsay” based and is both damaging and dangerous.

As I browse through blogs and read articles on the Internet I am seeing a lot of humanism and other teachings mixed in with biblical teaching. I am also seeing people focusing on minor arguments concerning Christianity. I see in discussions a number of Christians with a little bit of knowledge attacking other people with a little bit of knowledge, both digging in their heals about minor things while losing the big picture of God’s plan. There is no love in these discussions as they beat each other up and rob God of his glory. It is good then to consider what Paul had to say to his friend Timothy who was more like a son to him.

Paul had to return to Macedonia but he left Timothy responsible for the huge ministry in the region of Ephesus and he left him there with a purpose:

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. (1 Timothy 1:3-4)

Timothy’s purpose was to keep the gospel teaching pure and true, to confront any of the false teaching that was welling up from people with little knowledge. Paul was concerned because he saw how easily it was for people to turn to things that were new, exciting and nice to listen to:

Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. (v. 4)

There it was; anything that promoted self-work over faith is a danger to the truth of the gospel. Anything that convinced people that man was capable of saving himself, by sacrifice or good living is a danger to the truth of salvation by faith. Anything that promotes the human spirit to overcome, that good lies in all of us, that we can find truth the more we look within ourselves, that the answer lies with us, comes in direct opposition to the gospel that says the answer is found in Jesus who did it all for us.

The reason Paul gave this command to Timothy is because the work of God needs to advance. The command was given for Timothy not to destroy people but instead to see them becoming mature in Jesus:

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (v. 5) 

As I have said before, love is the beginning and the end of it. Every day should be spent in the pursuit of discovering the depth of God’s love and seeing it put into action in our own lives. But love does not come from a heart bent on selfishness or evil intent. Love cannot come from a heart that is plagued by a guilty conscience. We cannot put this love into affect in our lives if we do not believe it’s source is pure and holy. The only way that the love of Christ can permeate our heart and overflow into others is if we accept the gospel as true and follow Jesus according to what he has taught us. Anything else will taint this love with our own failings and in the end will fail.

Paul reminds Timothy of the challenge he faces:

Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (vv. 6-7)

Paul is saying that people have left the importance of a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith which allows for the flow of God’s love. They have left these things in pursuit of lesser things, things that appear to be important, disputable matters. Often we find these people wanting to be teachers of others. They think they know without knowing and so many people fall into the trap and leave what is important.

We need to check ourselves all the time and make ourselves accountable to our pastors and elders. We need to look at what we are promoting; is it what matters? Are we promoting a pure heart, encouraging people to stop being distracted, to cut out things that take away from Christ, to keep their eyes fixed on him? Are we promoting repentance and forgiveness, good relationships between believers and neighbours, considering other people more important than self, a life of servanthood? Are we promoting Jesus Christ, who he is, what he has done, that he is the only way, that he is our everything, that he is our saviour and that we must trust him in all matters? If these are the things we are concentrating on, promoting and teaching then all other teachings will fall away and we will see his love well up in those we teach.

Some of you may think that you are not a teacher and this does not apply to you but let me point something out to you. If you have a blog where you quote scripture, reblog nice sounding sayings, share artwork with sayings or pass on little stories then you are involved in teaching or the promotion of someone’s teaching. Be careful. Before you reblog something check it against the Word of God. Before you agree with someone that God is love so there can’t be a hell, check it out in God’s Word. Before you fall victim to fine sounding arguments and start teaching it to others, check it out against the Word of God. If you are not sure talk to your pastor or one of the elders. That’s what they are there for. I encourage you my friends, know the Word of God and stick to the fundamentals: a pure heart, a good conscience, sincere faith which allows God’s love to flow from us to others.

It is amazing some of the crazy questions people will come up with about God just to avoid the obvious ones. People would rather discuss whether God is actually a woman, why he would allow evil in the world, and if Jesus had a beard, then to discuss the more important matters of the heart. Most atheists do not know exactly why they do not believe, they just don’t believe. They look at the idea of God, listen to a few opinions and then decide, with no investigation of their own, that there is no God. What amazes me is how many people start believing after they do look into it for themselves.

Jesus had to face a group like this called the Sadducees. Although they had some concept of God they were very liberal in their thinking, becoming more of the world than anything else. They were very much opposite to the Pharisees who saw themselves as the guardians of the law of Moses. It was because the Sadducees were so liberal that the Romans found them to be the easiest to work with and so would choose the High Priest from among them. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, but it did not stop them from coming up with a ridiculous question to test Jesus.

Their question was based on a human concept and not the Word of God. They wanted to know if a woman married 7 brothers successively, after each died, whose wife would she be after she died. A crazy question to waste time and distract from the more important matters and Jesus dealt with it as such:

“You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:29-30)

It is amazing how many people today have the wrong idea about the resurrection. Some believe we are all going to become angels, get little harps, wings and a fluffy cloud to sit on all day. There are those who do not understand that marriage was instituted by God for this world, not the world to come. We have crazy ideas like the Sadducees for the same reason; we “do not know the Scriptures or the power of God”. But Jesus was not about to leave it there. There was a more important matter to deal with than just a silly question about marriage. He addressed one of their false beliefs:

“But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Matthew 22:31-32)

Notice that Jesus used the Word to bring correction to their false belief. He used the Word whenever it was a question of a person straying in their understanding. In fact, Jesus used the Word all the time, revealing the depths of its truth to a people too long in the dark. He used the Word to bring greater understanding, correction, and, in the case of Satan, rebuking. Today, the first thing an atheist will dismiss is the Word of God without even looking into it themselves. They will even challenge us to prove the existence of God without the Word. I don’t know about you but if Jesus never did anything without the Word, I am certainly not about to attempt it.

The Word and power of God are vital to our growth and understanding as Christians. We cannot be defenders of the faith without a growing knowledge of the Word and we cannot have a growing knowledge of the Word without the power of God, who is the Spirit. We can read the Word with limited understanding but it is when we read the Word through the Spirit that it really takes on life for us. So how do you explain that to an atheist? You can’t. You can point out some fundamental errors in their thinking and then encourage them to do their own investigation but most won’t.

Like many Christians, atheists really don’t want to put that much effort into it. They would rather listen to other people’s opinions, watch a few videos and then settle the matter in their own thinking. Theirs is not so much a belief as it is an opinion. Unfortunately many Christians are similar. Many do not look very deep into the matter of Jesus. We don’t study the Word ourselves but instead watch videos, listen to popular Christian music, and form an opinion. This opinion is often based on emotions and misconceptions. Not all teachings and Christian music are based on the truth of God’s Word. Both atheists and Christians should listen to Jesus’ gentle rebuke: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

We all need to become students of the Word so that we can be part of the solution instead of the problem. False teachings and ideas are as viral as urban myths. People just can’t help forwarding warnings about FaceBook starting to charge for its services, or many the other silly things that have no basis in any form of truth. The only way to deal with such things is to educate people to the truth, one at a time. It is no different in bringing the truth of God’s Word to people. Our temptation is to want to do it in one big production, but something gets lost when we do it like this. Just as Jesus did, we need to deal with the truth one person at a time but we need to make sure that we know the Word and the power of God or we are just part of the problem. Know the Word and become trained in how to handle it properly and please do not get distracted by the silly questions; go for the things that matter the most.

There certainly are plenty of things that disciples of Jesus must be aware of and alert to. One of the things we must be aware of is that the world is not getting any better. In fact, the mask is starting to come off and we are beginning to see clearer the depravities that exist in the “every man’s” heart. If you want to see it for yourself, take the time to warn someone of the consequences of death without Jesus, then you will see the ugliness revealed. But this is normal for the world and we really should not be surprised by it. However, what we need to be alert to is much more disturbing, and that is the distorted and twisted teaching that is being put out there by those who carry the title of Christian.

As disciples we know that sin is sin. If we fall into it we do it by choice. That is very clear. However, this second danger is much more insidious and affects those who have an average or little understanding of the Word. We might think that such false teaching is easy to spot but when it comes wrapped up in the guise of God’s love many believers fall for it. This teaching robs Jesus’ sacrifice of its power. It tries to sweep under the bed the truth of the coming judgment. It attempts to mask the fact of absolute truth. It does away with holiness in action and abuses God’s grace. It is subtle and it preys on the weak of understanding.

The prevailing thought is that disciples of Jesus have it wrong about the judgment. They paint us as being proponents of condemnation, of hatred, of discord simply because we cannot accept sin as not being sin. We get labeled with lots of names so that when we try to explain about sin and our separateness from God we are told that we are spreading hate. They fail to hear that we are saying that we understand them because we have been there in that place of depravity, where sin had us completely under control. They refuse to hear us say that it is because we were there that we now know the truth of the matter because Jesus set us free from it. Yet, I can accept this from the world; in fact I expect it from the world; it’s natural from the world. However, I am shocked when I am told this from Christians. Where are these people getting their teaching; from; one of those “ministers” who picked up their ordination papers for $50 off the internet?

This really concerns me because they are picking and choosing what to hear from Jesus. We need to hear, understand and live everything that Jesus taught, not just the stuff the suits us. Jesus taught that there will be a judgment. a time when the good and bad are separated. We are currently reading through Matthew 13 and in this one chapter alone we have two examples of Jesus warning about the separation that will take place at the Judgment. We read a few days ago about the field that was sowed with good seed but the enemy came in a added bad seed. In this Jesus warned that at the harvest the wheat would be separated from the weeds and the weeds would be burned up. Today we read about fish:

Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13:47-50)

Jesus could not be any more clear on this fact. The world won’t recognize it because the world refuses to acknowledge the authority of the Scriptures but surely believers should recognize this. Sadly there are believers who no longer consider Jesus the only way, even though he said:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6) 

However, those of us who have this saving knowledge of Jesus should not be content in the knowing. What a selfish people we are if we are content with our own salvation. No, we have the responsibility to be involved in the rescue of as many people as we can. It should be our greatest thought every day as we walk this earth, looking for the opportunity to grab another victim of sin and haul them up onto the Rock of salvation. Not everyone is ready and there is no good end to arguing with anyone about Jesus. However, there are millions of people who have been prepared by the Spirit and who are just waiting to hear about Jesus from someone, anyone. 

Just because the world is an unfriendly place for us does not mean we have permission to stay home and do nothing. Jesus said to go and make disciples. There are those who are under threat because of the confusion in teaching. There are those who are perishing under sin because they are not even aware of their condition. The day when the angels come to separate us is approaching. Every day that passes is one less day we have to rescue people. The disciples of Jesus should be feeling the urgency of the matter and we should be examining our days to see if we are missing opportunities. I am happy I am well saved but I cannot rejoice in my selfishness; I must be busy with the Father’s plan to rescue as many as who are willing to be rescued.

So be aware of what is going on in the world; be alert to the false teaching that is growing among the believers and be determined to remain as a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Yet, go beyond that. Recognize the purpose we have and get to work. Get involved in the world around you and in the lives of people who need Jesus. Don’t waste the talents and gifts you have been given. The separation is approaching.