Last time we were together, we looked at Paul's testimony of God's grace. Paul showed us that even the foremost of sinners, one who had been the ultimate legalist and religious zealot, even one who persecuted Jesus and the church, was not outside of or beyond the reach of the grace of God. Paul received mercy and grace, and that same mercy and grace is available to every man for salvation if he will turn from his own self-righteousness to Jesus in faith.

We see this glorious truth in the singular focus of the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God in verse 15 of chapter 1. If you'd look at 1 Timothy 1.15 with me, it's a beautiful, encouraging statement. Paul wrote, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." Aren't you so thankful for that truth? This is the essence of the message of the Bible. It is the heart of the gospel, that it is God's desire to show mercy, to give superabounding grace to save sinners, and that is why Jesus came. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.

Paul says he was a pattern in which Jesus showed all longsuffering and patience, a pattern for those who would believe. Salvation is the same for every man because every man is a sinner before a holy God in desperate need of a Savior, and for the man that realizes that, affirms and believes that, and turns to the only Savior, Jesus Christ, in faith, that man is saved forever. This is why Jesus came, and that is what we learned last time in the example of Paul and his testimony of God's grace, and in the faithful saying of verse 15.

You'll remember that Paul's writing this letter to Timothy to give him a commission to stay in Ephesus and charge some that they teach no other doctrine, no other doctrine than the doctrine of grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ. He told us clearly that there were some there, some active teachers, perhaps pastors, who had turned aside from teaching grace and mercy, the gospel and salvation, I think particularly sanctification by grace through faith alone. Paul said that they desired to be teachers of the law. They wanted to bind the law and the believers as a rule of life, as a means of sanctification, and Timothy was to charge them to teach grace, and grace only, the gospel and life by faith in Christ.

He says, because the law is not for a righteous person. It is for the man in Adam to show him his sin and lead him to faith in Christ, but after faith has come, Galatians 3 says, we are no longer under the tutor; we are no longer under the law. This is the context of Timothy in chapter 1, and we're going to see examples of two of these teachers mentioned by name in our text today, and we're going to see Paul charge Timothy again in these last verses of chapter 1 to fight the good fight, to wage the warfare. 

What I want to hone in on this morning in our message is the nature of that warfare. What is the essence of the battle that Paul highlights here? And why is it important in the context of the truth that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners? Let's look at our text in 1 Timothy 1 at verse 15. We'll start there and then go to verses 18 to 20. 

1 Timothy 1.15: "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." In verse 18, "This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some, having rejected concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."

Well, I have four points for you this morning on an outline. First, we're going to look at point and purpose. Second, waging the war. Third, failing the faith. And fourth, learning the lesson.

Well, I want to begin by sharing with you a little bit of my study and how I've come to the conclusions that I have in this first chapter of Timothy. Studying the Word of God is often for me a very interesting path of coming to an understanding and attempting, by the grace of God, to communicate, to make clear, really just to say what God is saying.

You see, I don't really have a system. I don't have a rigid framework in place designed by men. God has brought me to this place in my ministry, preaching and teaching now for going on 19 years by a most unorthodox path. I wasn't raised in the faith. I didn't go to Bible college. I was educated in biology and business management with an emphasis on wildlife management, largely with an atheistic evolutionary foundation. 

When I was first saved, God provided me a lot of time in the winter months at home with my children to study, just to study the Word of God. And He gave me a voracious appetite to know His Word and to know the truth. I literally knew nothing of the Christian world. I didn't know there was such a thing as commentaries or Christian preachers on the radio or systems of theology that had been worked out by men. 

I just sat with my Bible and my yellow legal pads and studied and wrote and prayed, and this is the way that I thought that a man could come to know God through His Word, who He is, what He has done, what He has promised, how to live, and what to do just by studying His Word. So this was a great blessing for me in my early Christian life, and then I met Pastor Krenz, and I started to meet with him once a week, and we just read the Word and talked and worked through it together, and we've been doing that for almost 18 years now. 

What a blessing it is just to go to the Word, to learn and grow together, and what an example and pattern Pastor is for me and a friend and a brother. I tell you all this because when I come to 1 Timothy chapter 1 and I sit down to study, I don't begin with some great system of theology. I don't begin with a preconceived notion. 

As much as I am able by the grace and provision of God and the Holy Spirit who guides and teaches through the Word, my desire is to start with the words and their flow and their context with their intent to see what God is saying and to convey that to you to the best of my ability. 

What is interesting to me is that my general thoughts, anticipations maybe, or what I have heard, taught, or preached is very often not what the text says once I dig into it. This is the beauty of expository preaching, word by word, verse by verse, exposition, because in this we let the words form the meaning and the doctrine. 

It becomes evident to us as we study and move through a chapter, a book, what is true, what God is saying, and how we apply that in our lives. This has been particularly interesting concerning one major point in this chapter, in this first letter to Timothy. Much of the prevailing wisdom, preaching, and teaching on this book that I have been exposed to has made an assumption that Paul is talking to Timothy about false teachers who are preaching a false gospel.

Having made this assumption, the teacher-preacher that I would listen to often will bring all the scriptures concerning false teachers in, like Jesus teaching in Matthew 7 and Matthew 23 and John 8, some of these passages, Peter, Jude, Galatians, all those scriptures he'll bring to bear on 1 Timothy. This leads a man down a certain path in his understanding of the epistle.

To be honest with you, as I have studied in the words of this first chapter, I've been wrestling with that. Is it true that Paul had in mind false teachers preaching a false gospel? Was Paul telling Timothy to cast these men out and curse them to hell, as he did in Galatians 1? Is that the exhortation of Paul to Timothy? And is that who he has in mind in this first chapter? 

Some would use our text today and the examples of the two men mentioned here to support that view, but I have been so impressed with the words early in chapter 1 in verses 3 to 11 that Paul is talking about a much different situation in the church in Ephesus. He is not concerned with unbelieving teachers preaching a false gospel, a false way of justification, but with believing pastors who have gone astray, forgetting the grace of God, turning to law teaching and leading people down a path of futility, a law or works sanctification in particular. 

That is what I see so clearly in verses 3 to 11, and it has a much different application for us in the church, as I highlighted in my messages on those verses. So as I come to this, I know I'm coming to Hymenaeus and Alexander. How did these guys, these words of Paul, fit into this intent that we have seen in the first part of the chapter? 

I mean, Paul has delivered these men over to Satan. They have made shipwreck their faith. Surely they are false teachers. Surely they are unbelievers. How do they fit into the flow and context and intent? Or do I have my thinking off here in what is going on in Timothy's charge in Ephesus? I'm just sharing my study with you, the process. 

As I come to this text, it's on my mind, these guys, and I want to get this right, as always. What do I do? Well, as always, we must start with the words. We must go to the words. The words form the meaning, and that is what we will do this morning in order to come to the right understanding and application of these things, Lord willing. 

I want to start by looking again at the major statement of verse 15, which really sets the context for us. Our first point is the point and the purpose. 1 Timothy 1.15: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That was the primary point of His coming, of taking on flesh. 

That was His purpose in dying a death of the cross, His burial and His resurrection. The primary purpose of Jesus' coming was to save sinners. This is why He had to become a man. He had to live a sinless life and die in my place for my sins so that He could bring salvation to those who would believe. Call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

I'd like for you to turn to Hebrews 2 with me. If you have your Bible, turn over to Hebrews 2 at verse 8. We see a great text concerning the Incarnation. In Hebrews 2.8 it says, "You have put all things in subjection under His feet, for in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him. But now we do not yet see all things put under Him." The author of Hebrews here is saying all things are not right in this world. All things are not as God intended as He created in this world. 

We don't see that in our world, especially in these times. But, verse 9 says, "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone." For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Saying, "I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to you," and again, "I will put my trust in Him," and again, "Here I am in the children whom you have given me." 

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 

For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. 

Jesus, the eternal Son of God, had to become a man, take on flesh, and give Himself as a sacrifice, a propitiation, a full satisfactory payment for our sins, in order to accomplish our salvation. This is the very clear point that Paul has made in his personal testimony in this first chapter. 

Now I'd like to extend this point a bit for our understanding, because God has chosen to accomplish this salvation work, to extend this grace to men by a very specific means, and that is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has chosen, through the foolishness of the message preached, to save those who will believe. Turn over to 1 Corinthians with me, please. 

1 Corinthians 1 at verse 21: "For since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God." 

I look at chapter 2, 1 Corinthians 2 at verse 1: Paul says, "The testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, and fear, and much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

God's plan for bringing salvation, the message, to men is through preaching, preaching the gospel of grace through faith in Christ. And the basis of this plan is the local church, the fellowship of believers. 

God has designed, created, and gifted the body, a body of believers, meant to function in harmony and unity, to equip and edify believers in Jesus Christ to go out into the world and share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who He is, what He's done for us. 

We've been studying this truth in 1 Corinthians 12, in our Thursday night study. God has compared the church to a body with a specific purpose. I'd like to look at that in Ephesians 4 as well, if you turn to Ephesians 4 at verse 11; it's a familiar passage to us, but it gives us the point and the purpose, what we're talking about, how God intends to bring this message to the world.

Ephesians 4.11: "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastor-teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect or mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

The church in Antioch in the book of Acts sent out Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles right in the beginning to preach the gospel, and the church has been sending out men to preach and women to preach and teach the gospel ever since. 

In fact, Jesus has given to each and every believer the great commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel, to make disciples, bringing men to faith in Christ. Romans 10, 14 says, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?"

God's plan is for the church, each member of the body, each doing his share to encourage, to teach, to build up, to minister to one another, to cause growth, discernment, maturity, for the express purpose that we would individually go out into the world to preach the truth in love. We preach Christ crucified.

I want you to remember the central kind of theme verse in this first epistle to Timothy is chapter 3 at verse 15. "I write," Paul says, "so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth." Paul writes so that we may know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God, what we should be doing, how we should be doing it, because the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. 

The word of God must be the focus. The faith, once for all, delivered to the saints. And the message taught must be the message of the Bible, of mercy and grace for salvation in Jesus Christ and His grace and life and power in us to accomplish His will of saving lost men. 

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And the church is His means to bring the good news message to this world. My friends, this is the point and the purpose, not only of Christ coming into the world, but for the existence of the church in the world. Jesus prayed in John 17, in His high priestly prayer to the Father, that He would not take us out of the world, but leave us in the world, that we all may be one as the Father and Son are one. He says that the world may know, that the world may know and believe that You sent Me. 

So everything we do must be geared toward this end, accomplishing this purpose, the will of God. And this all starts with and is fostered by the truth, the gospel, the word of God, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. So pastors, teachers must preach no other doctrine, as it says in chapter 1, verse 3. Certainly not a deviation from the message into law-keeping and self-righteousness and wisdom of words and men.

So we see the point and the purpose. Next, I want to look at waging the war. Look at verse 18 in our text, waging the war. "This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience." 

How is it that we fight the good fight, wage the good warfare? What is the essence of the battle in the church in the world? In the book of Jude, verse 3, Jude says, “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” 

Jude exhorts us to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Faith here with the definite article "the faith" refers to the revealed Word of God, the Bible. What Jude is saying is that there will be those in the church who will go outside of the Word of God, His revelation of Himself to us, and they will bring in fables and endless genealogies and law teaching, as Paul says. 

All kinds of things that are either additional to the Word or a twisting and misapplication of the Word. Therefore, he exalts us to contend earnestly. The Word is "epagonizomai." You can hear the word agonize in there in the prefix. Ep intensifies that. He says agonize over the Word. Study. Seek to know what God is saying and believe Him, and then teach and preach what He says. 

Contend earnestly for the Word of God in the church, the truth. That is the good fight that Paul wants Timothy to fight in the church in Ephesus. Because there are those who have gone astray, who do not work verse by verse through the Word, who are not committed to saying what God says, but have been drawn away to a worldly wisdom, philosophies and systems of men. 

Paul wants Timothy to get the teaching and preaching back to the truth. He wants him to contend earnestly for the faith and charge these men to teach no other doctrine. He calls him "Son Timothy," "technon," a term of endearment. "Son Timothy, I urge you, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you." 

It's difficult to say exactly what prophecies Paul's talking about, but they certainly seem to relate to the ministry before Timothy and the gifts he had been given. There are three passages in 1 and 2 Timothy that give us some insight to this. In 1 Timothy 4.14, Paul wrote, "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership." 

But you, in 2 Timothy 4.5, he says, "But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." And in 2 Timothy 1.6, he wrote, "Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

Timothy was to wage the good warfare, having faith and good conscience. These are interesting words. His trust, his dependence are to be in God. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3, we have no trust in our own sufficiency, but our sufficiency is from God. He was to depend on God's grace for his work, God's will in his life. 

Paul says he can have a clear conscience in waging the good warfare of contending for the faith, knowing that this is precisely what God has called him to do as a preacher, teacher, evangelist. 

So we see in our text point and purpose. We see waging the war, and next we see failing the faith. Look at verse 18 again, please. "This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."

Well, there's some very key words in these verses for our understanding. First of all, we see that some have rejected concerning the faith. The word rejected means to thrust away from oneself violently. What is it that they have rejected, refused, thrusted away from themselves? Paul says it is the faith. 

Vincent, Wiest, and Robertson all agree that this is the same usage as we see in Jude. Paul's not referring to the personal faith of Hymenaeus and Alexander, but to their rejection of the clear teaching of the word of God, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. 

The context would tell us that they would be some of those who have failed the faith, have begun to teach other doctrines and not grace and mercy from God through faith. They were no longer on course in Paul's illustration here. They were shipwrecked. They were like an unwise sailor who had cast his compass, his guiding principle overboard, thrust it violently from himself, and thus had suffered shipwreck concerning the faith. 

Macdonald comments that those who had made shipwreck of the faith were true believers, but they simply had not maintained tender consciences. They had gone their own way and run up on the rocks in doctrine and behavior. So what we have here is not two apostates, but two men who had left the teaching of the contending for the faith, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. 

Do you see the important application for the church today? Timothy's commission wasn't to kick false teachers out, but to get the pastors back to teaching the Word of God. 

It would be difficult to understand this apostolic prerogative here in this verse where it says that Paul had delivered them unto Satan if we didn't have two other examples of this in the scriptures, but I think they help us very much. First, one example is of Ananias and Sapphira, who Peter dealt with when they lied to the Holy Spirit, two believers who were struck dead. 

The other is more helpful, I think, in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul uses the same principle there for a man who was sexually immoral in the fellowship who was even living with his father's wife. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 5 and let's look at that passage. I think it will help us understand what it means that Paul had delivered these men to Satan. 

1 Corinthians 5 at verse 4: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together along with my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." 

What is interesting about this passage and the one in our text is that they both have the same goal in mind, and that is restoration to fellowship. Vincent says that there are four things we can observe from these two passages about this idea of turning one over to Satan. 

First, it implies excommunication from the church for a time. Second, it implies something more, that Satan is going to do something to them, which Vincent says the nature of which is not clearly known. Third, that casting the offender out of the church involves casting him back into the heathen world, which Paul habitually conceives as under the power of Satan. 

And fourth, that Paul has in view the reformation of the offender. And in Corinthians, we see in the second letter, in chapter 2, that this man, most likely this man from 1 Corinthians 5, who had committed a truly heinous sin, had repented and had been restored to fellowship. 

The word learned here is passive. It means that through this process, the person is taught or instructed. And that's the point of the excommunication. Taking away the blessings afforded by the body, the church, and being handed over to Satan in this world where he is the ruler, and the goal is repentance and restoration. 

Here's where we see our last point, learning the lesson. Verse 19 of our text, which says, "having rejected concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." 

The purpose of handing them over to Satan was that they may learn, they may be taught, not to blaspheme. It was through excommunication and whatever was involved in being delivered to Satan that Hymenaeus and Alexander would be taught not to blaspheme, would hopefully be brought back into the fellowship and would be restored to their place and purpose. 

But if they did not learn, if they persisted, they would not be welcomed back because the truth of the word of God, the grace and mercy of God through faith must be the only doctrine taught, no other doctrine. 

And if these men were going to go off into fables and genealogies and all these things that caused a distraction, caused division, law teaching, then they could not be allowed to remain in the church and teach. And the man of God must not undermine the message that he preaches by the life that he lives either. He must have a good conscience before God. 

When we go off into false teaching, we invariably go off into unholy living as well. Timothy must contend earnestly for the faith, must wage the good warfare and have a clear conscience and faith in his ministry in Ephesus. Only in this way would the church be safe, would it be secure, growing and fruitful, God's intention. This was everything. 

This is why Paul was so firm with Timothy, so clear in his teaching that there could be no other doctrine, that men who stray off into other ideas and teachings must be dealt with, admonished once, and then twice, as he tells Titus. "Admonish them once, admonish them twice. If they won't repent, turn them over to Satan." 

Some men would prove to be false teachers, false prophets with ill motives, teaching a false gospel, unwilling to repent. But others just needed to be brought back to the Word, to preaching Jesus Christ. This is an amazing chapter, I think it's an important chapter, and I think we really, when we really study the words and we see what's going on here, it has a much different application than what we may have thought.

It's not that false teachers were in the church preaching a false gospel or way to salvation necessarily, who were marked out for this condemnation, as Jude says, such as we see in many other passages in Peter, Jude, and the Gospels, even in Galatians. 

What we had here was most likely believing teachers who had left the laser focus on the grace of God and salvation by grace through faith alone, and were into other doctrines. Teaching other things, not teaching the Word of God. And this was the only doctrine to teach. Salvation by grace, life by grace through faith. The only way to equip the saints to do the work of ministry and to bear fruit for the glory of God. 

And my brothers and sisters in Christ, this is still the only way today. If a man gets off into some system, some design of man, usually an intricate, mysterious system that only he can teach you, if he gets into law preaching or worldly wisdom, then he makes shipwreck of the faith, the truth, the clear, powerful gospel, the only means of God to work out His will through the church. 

We need to understand this. We need to be discerning, careful, and studying the scriptures and searching and striving, agonizing over the truth so that we might know if what men say is true. This was the job of Timothy in the church in Ephesus. Charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

This is the same concern that we have in the church today, even now in our fellowship, to be sure that we teach no other doctrine. That we fight the good fight for the faith, the truth of the Word of God, once for all delivered to the saints. And that when I come up here and preach in this pulpit, that I'm preaching the Word of God. 

It's incumbent upon all of you to search the scriptures to see if what I say is true. Because we don't want to get off, we don't want to go to the right or the left to fall in a ditch to get into some system of men. 

Only through the teaching of the Word of God, renewing our minds, continually growing and learning, sanctified by the truth, can we then be fruitful, can we then be equipped to go out into this world and bring the good news message of Jesus Christ to lost men. 

And my friends, we have that opportunity now more than ever. People are afraid. People don't know what's going on. And we're here with a good news message. Our job hasn't changed. Our role hasn't changed. We are to be in the Word. 

It's hard not to be able to have fellowship. I'm thankful for the technology that we can be together in this way this morning. But it's difficult. We need fellowship. We need each other in the body. 

But more than ever, we need to be in the Word and we need to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have within. And that answer is Jesus Christ. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time this morning. We thank you for everyone who could be here through the internet connection, Lord, and fellowship in this unusual way, but we appreciate that opportunity and we appreciate the Word. We're thankful for the truth. Thank you that you've given us this book. Thank you that we can go to it and learn what is true and what is right, what to believe, what to trust, and what we should do. 

We thank you for Jesus, our salvation, the Holy Spirit, who you've given to empower us. We thank you for the great commission, the great privilege to bring this good news message of Jesus Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection to everyone we meet so that they might believe and be saved forever. Trust you. We thank you. We love you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.