The Aim of Our Charge is Love

August 20, 2023 Speaker: Chris Oswald Series: The Household of God

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Introduction:

I recently came across a very old advertisement for cough syrup. The ingredients were:

Alcohol

Cannabis

Chloroform

Morphine

They don’t make em like they used to.

In many respects, the world is safer.

These days, it is very common to see kids wearing helmets while riding their bikes.

In my day, if you wore a helmet while riding your bike, you were immediately shipped off to bootcamp to toughen up.

The world, our world, appears to be safer.

Is the church any safer from wolves? That’s the subject of our text today in 1 Timothy 1:3-

In a previous encounter with the Ephesians elders (recorded in Acts 20), Paul told them…

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.

Now, something like 5 years later, we have this in 1 Timothy 1:3-4

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 from God that is by faith.

So back to my question, is the church safer these days, especially from wolves?

What we find in scripture is that the safety of the church does not depend so much on the presence or absence of wolves — but on the presence or absence of a faithful manly shepherd.

And so in my opinion, as I look out across this country. I feel the church is less safe than it used to be. Not because the wolves have increased in number. But because the shepherds have decreased.

But of course, that problem is not really a new problem. The very existence of this text shows that the Ephesian church had suffered the same issue.

It seems very likely that the elders in Ephesus were not doing their job. Paul warned them. They were not up to the task of wolf fighting.

Had they fled? Like the hired hands of John 10? BTW, many pastors do not necessarily flea the church when the wolves appear, they simply flea the controversy.

Had they fled? Or had they become the wolves? What Jesus describes elsewhere as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

We don’t know why they failed. But we do know that Paul had to insert outside authority into the church. That’s what we see in vs. 3-4,

“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 from God that is by faith.”

And we see good evidence that this intervention worked. Look at Revelation 2:1

2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. 2 “ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

The church had, most likely through the prolonged efforts of Timothy, overcome the false teachers.

Before we leave this passage in Revelation, let’s make one observation concerning Jesus’ complaint in vs. 4, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

We tend to think that there’s a tension between love and truth. Or that in the pursuit of doctrinal purity, they forgot to be loving. Maybe. But there’s something more than that at play here.

Look back at 1 Timothy 1:3, but this time we will read all the way to verse 5

What is motivating Paul and Timothy to fight the wolves by charging them not to teach? The aim of our charge is love…

So when Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for overcoming the wolves and then says, “but you’ve abandoned the love you had at first.” I think he’s bringing up love because love is the necessary force to fight future wolves.

And there’s more. Look at 1 Timothy 1:5-7

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 make confident assertions.

Not only is love the motivating force behind the fight against wolves. We also see that the false teachers became false teachers when they “swerved from” or “deviated from” “love that stems from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.”

So the key verse in our text really seems to be vs. 5 — “the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.”

This love is able to do two things:

Firstly, it will compel the leaders of a church to fight the wolves rather than flea. Why charge certain persons not to teach false doctrine? Love for the church compels men to enter into that confrontation.

Secondly, if the people hold to this love and do not abandon it, do not swerve from it, they will not wander into vain discussions, and futile teachings.

So now maybe we see more clearly why Jesus brings up the subject of love in the Ephesian church. It isn’t unrelated to the fight for doctrinal purity. Quite the opposite, the love of which Paul speaks is central to preventing heresy from arising in the first place and it is central in stirring up shepherds to lay their lives down for the sheep by openly opposing the wolves.

So I really think we need to spend the majority of our time on vs. 5

“the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.”

This should be the agenda of every man and woman… If you pursue this, you’ll be well on your way to being part of the solution and not part of the problem.

People who are part of the problem have some dysfunction in this triadic formula Paul is putting forth.

People who are part of the solution have these things working in the right direction.

And besides, this verse is pretty special in its own right. It is really quite interesting to find an ingredients list for agape love. We’re told to love - all over the scriptures we’re told to love. This verse is saying, “love flows from these three things.”

So let’s get into it…

1. Pure Heart: Life in the Catharsis of God.

The greek word used for pure here in vs. 5 is katharos. The origin of our English word catharsis. And the thing we need to see about the catharsis of God is that it not only cleanses, but is over time, actually transforms us. The tensing here refers to a continued cleansing and inner transformation.

Probably the classic text for the Catharsis of God is found in 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Cleanse. That’s the word katharas. We get a pure heart by confessing our sins — which God not only forgives — but over time — this grace works into our hearts to purify them in a practical sense.

Grace does not restore us back to our original state. Every encounter with grace makes us better than we were before. Grace is such a remarkable force that Paul has to in Romans, anticipate the question, “then shouldn’t we sin so that grace may abound?”

A man who experiences the catharsis of God — when he calls false teachers to repent, sinners to repent, etc… He does so in love — inviting God’s enemies into the catharsis of God.

How he is able to “charge” (that’s a very forceful word) the false teachers to repent — not simply with love, but because of love. Because he knows how sweet it feels to experience the catharsis of God.

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. — 2 Corinthians 5:14–15

2. Good Conscience: Locking out the Furies

As a man continues to experience the catharsis of God, his actual behavior becomes more and more Christlike. This phrase good conscience has a great deal to do with boldness.

Now here I’d like to point out something that I think might edify you. Going back as far as Cicero, the conscience was connected to some female spirits known as the furies. There were three of them.

One was typified by endless anger.

Another was typified by jealous rage.

The third was typified by vengeful destruction.

And these three vengeful goddesses would come and torment the guilty. So in the greek sense (and Paul would’ve definitely read his Cicero), a guilty conscience is really a kind of spiritual warfare with the furies.

To go in a Jordan Peterson direction — it might serve you to know that the mythology says these furies came into being by the castration of their father. There was a fourth entity which arose as well. Aphrodite. The lustful seductress. And so through the castration of the father — you have forces of seduction and guilt unleashed upon the world.

And to go in a Haunted Cosmos direction — one has to ask if the Greeks and Romans were talking about spiritual entities.

There are men everywhere who would stand up and fight in love if they were not constantly seduced by Aphrodite and tormented by the Furies.

But a man must have his conscience in a good state in order to fight in love. He might fight even with an accusing conscience — but he will not fight in love.

Good conscience has to do with readiness.

But more often, a man who is afraid of the furies is going to go along with the spirit of the age.

One author writes, “The only way to deal with guilt among those who refuse to repent is the palliation that comes from social activism. Involvement in social movements like the civil-rights, abortion-rights, and gay-rights movements became a way of calming troubled consciences.”

3. Sincere Faith: Living like a Child

Very little needs to be said about this. The phrase simply describes true genuine unsophisticated belief. Another way of thinking of sincere faith here is “Unapologetic belief.”

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

I have noticed over time that some of the most faithful fighting men in the Christian faith have a childishness to them. They are playful. They are often cheerful. This can get them into trouble.

But… they don’t take themselves too seriously. And they aren’t afraid to be fools for Christ.

They are happy to say that God is their father. And that he can do all things.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty