A lot of popular evangelical theology puts love and law poles apart. As far as the East is from the West, the law is considered suspect in Christian life by many of our brothers and sisters in faith. It's tied to trying to earn your salvation, or else associated with an Old Testament economy which is set aside by Christ. The Old Testament is God's dealing with people by law, and the New Testament is by grace and love. Many of them are brethren and insist that Christians are to live by love, not law. Now brothers and sisters, friends gathered here, this is not Paul's view here in 1 Timothy. It's not biblical. As Jim said, this letter is written toward the end of Paul's life and ministry to Timothy laboring in Ephesus to lead a church which is very much like our church. He wrote to advise Timothy and us. And he told him to rebuke the doctrine which divides law from love. And let's clear a block some people have right off the bat. We should remember that both law and love are doctrine. Doctrine just means teaching, God's teaching. We tend to put them in different compartments and we have doctrine which is things like predestination with no particular application to it, just information. Law which is standards for behavior and love which is Christian motivation, usually not very clearly defined. But Paul has no time to waste for that kind of tearing apart of God's teaching. He says that misconceptions regarding law or love are errors in doctrine to be rebuked sharply. So today we start on this letter. Jim is going to be carrying on from here. The theme of these first verses I've taken is the purpose of the law, of God's law. Three things we want to see. We either call to turn away from false doctrine. We see that the law's purpose is to build love. And we see the law is given to restrain evildoers, drive them to Christ. First, we're called to turn away from false doctrine. From legalism to start and let's be sure we're clear in this. This is a word which gets much abused. Legalism many will tell you that any very careful adherence to the law is legalistic. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines legalism as strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code. Even if you try to obey small points of the law, people will call you a legalist and it's not a compliment. The reality is better expressed in the Oxford dictionary. It recognizes that usage the Webster picks up as common usage but reminds us that the root meaning of this word is the doctrine of justification by works. Legalism is the doctrine which says I get my place with God in some part, at least, by what I do. It's up to me. Legalists diminish Christ's work. We know that the scripture tells us that Christ does the whole work of salvation from beginning to end. It's His doing, not ours. Legalists will believe that at the most Christ makes it possible for you to save yourself. He may do 99.9% of the work but you've got to take that last step. Many of them you have to take all the steps. In the end, your salvation depends on you doing enough good at some point. Keep in mind as you look at this, as you look at the scriptures, that Paul had no available word for legalism. It wasn't there in the Greek language. To address it, he had to talk about abuse of the law. There are places in which it seems to condemn the law and you should understand that he's addressing legalism in the language that's available to him at that time. The Christian church had to develop language to deal with this issue more explicitly. There was a lot of debate about the value of our works against Christ's work in the Middle Ages. A friend of mine has lent me a book, well two books about that thick and they go into a lot of this discussion of just how much is up to us, how much is God's doing. That group, this is a Christian theological term to describe an error. Legalism is only seen in this part, beginning of Timothy by implication. We're told that the purpose of the law is love, it's faith. It's the contrary of salvation by works. Understand that law and law keeping are not legalism. Even care about tiny details of the law is not legalism. Jesus told us in Matthew 5.18 that not the smallest letter or even a corner of a letter which would change a word in the Hebrew writing can pass away from God's law until it was all accomplished. Tiny detail counts. Legalism is law seen as able to convey merit. Law understood as a way by which you can save yourself. Do this and you're okay with God. It's law perverted, turn away from it, have nothing to do with it. There is nothing in the scripture which says you can save yourself. I'll qualify that slightly at a later point. Paul tells you here to turn away from the doctrine of salvation by race or by family. We're told to reject endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith in verse 4. We know that the Jews were given to genealogy. There are obviously some purpose in genealogies because there are many of them which God put into the Bible. He didn't put them there for nothing. They show us in some ways that God is faithful to his promises and especially they show us how God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and to David to give them a child who would save all nations. He shows that Jesus is the descendant of Abraham and of David and fulfills that promise. The problem with genealogies comes when they become a source of merit. The problem comes when a person is considered right with God because he can trace his lineage to some ancestor. The common Jewish attitude in Paul's time was that we can trace our ancestry back to Abraham. So we're right with God. We're okay. The Jews they saw were the only people that God loved, the children of Abraham, of Jacob. Of course it becomes even worse when you get into it and you start saying your importance depends on your descent. Then you have the questions like is it better to be a third cousin twice removed or a fourth cousin of some important particular, you know. You can see where that gets you into a lot of silliness, ridiculousness, error. You can dispute that kind of thing forever. But your place with God does not depend on your descent. It doesn't depend on the color of your face. It doesn't depend on the language you grew up with. It depends on Jesus Christ. Even the fact that God promised parents that he would help with their children gave them a place in his covenant. The promise is not that they will somehow be gods because of their DNA. The promise is that he will draw them to himself and they be bound to him directly. Paul warns us to turn away from the fables of our day. We're just as good at fables today as they were then. We tend to say fables back then. Well, we have them today. Some enthuse our ceremony and ritual as if the outward forms could bring you to God's throne. Among our chief fables is the idea that science or government can solve our problems. Another idea is the idea that of innate human goodness that we're born good and corrupted by people around us somehow. Another that is growing more and more as the world sort of filters into a society which is not known, it is the idea of guidance by a variety of wise spirits who speak in your heart somehow and show you right from wrong or best choices to make. You can go on and build on these. Understand that all these things turn God's law upside down. They present ways to God that Christ has not allowed. In one way or another they diminish the law. They'll say they make it easy enough that you think you can keep it. They'll make exceptions even squeeze through somehow bypass its demands. We read about that in the gospel reading. Now the Jews did that exact thing. They don't stay with the teaching of scripture. Hendrickson wrote that though these certain individuals in verse three yearn to be law teachers in reality, they are nothing but novelty teachers. They bring some new thing. He tells us, Paul tells us that the true teacher is a steward in verse four. His teaching does not lead to disputes but to godly stewardship in faith. The false teachers promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God which is by faith as you read in the standard version this morning. And the word that is translated here stewardship in some other versions administrator or edification is the word from the Greek that gives us our English word economy. The understanding how things work together there. It means the management of a household according to the plan of its owner. And Paul is saying true teachers are stewards of God. They do what God tells them to do. We're not called to come up with something new. It's usually good to speak God's truth in a new way so it hits home to people in a different way. That's one advantage of having different people preaching it from time to time. They say things in a different way. But we're called to manage according to God's plan. Jim was telling us how we were going to lay out some of what that means from this book for our church. Recall to bring the gospel doctrine faithfully as a steward of God. And in this context where we're working the doctrine of God's law. The law does not save you. So what does it do? Well the law's purpose is to build love. Love. And this is perhaps hard for us to get take in today but love is defined in law. Not in feelings or idle talk. In our time love is usually divided from law and we lose sight of the true meaning of love when we do that. Because love comes to mean very little more than a good feeling. I mean love means that he or she as the case may be makes me feel good. Full stop. And love so called is expressed in whatever way seems good to the individual. One person thinks it's loving to give a friend recreational drugs. He likes the highs and glad to pass them on to others. Well too bad if it kills them. It's okay because it was a loving deed it felt good. During the hippie movement, most of you aren't old enough to remember this but during the hippie movement there is a demonstration made in the states which made the news. The hippies gathered together to block a bridge, a road in protest against the evil government. The bridge led to a hospital an ambulance came roaring up with a patient desperately needed to go to the ambulance and was forced to find a way around to the hospital because they weren't moving. Too bad for that person who needed urgent medical care. It was okay because the reason for the protest was love. So called. People think you can love your child so much that you murder her before birth because her life would be too difficult. So you spare her that. I hope you understand it's obvious that we've lost sight of reality when such things pass for love. This is the love Paul's talking about that's found in idle talk and people talking building their own fairy castle in verse six. Brothers and sisters friends the real measure of love is God's law. First John five verse three we read for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. Listen again. This is the love of God that we keep his commandments. Love is found in law. It's a complete contradiction to the common idea we know today. Love is not just a feel good thing. It's shown in keeping God's law. Love is seen in action not just in feeling in actions which conform to God's law and his teaching about what is right and good and love leads to doing always real love. Many of you know that Lois and I are bird watchers and we have for years enjoyed looking at all the beautiful birds God puts in our world. Through the summer and nearly fall you watch the birds you see the parents feeding their babies little chicks and you can see they get quite visibly run ragged feeling a bunch of hungry babies their feathers are worn and often dirty they're running back and forth the babies are crying and you can hear them saying almost feed me feed me feed me I'm going to die if you don't get food in me in the next second they chase around their parents and they mouths are wide enough open practice to swallow the parents. Look at them. What moves the adults to rush around gathering food and rushing back to their babies and feeding them dushing back to get some more food and rushing back and it's love love for the children love moves them to action love moves us to action love leads to doing good for others and the God the way we know what is good is God's law God tells us what is good what is bad. Giving deeds come from a pure heart. Verse five the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart. The law is given to bring pure hearts into being. We'll talk later about how that happens. Note for now the law works to bring people to Christ to bring them to him who can purify their hearts. The law is also given to show those of pure hearts how they should act in love. The person with a pure heart will desire to do nothing but good. When God purifies you you will want to please him in all you do. You won't succeed but that's what your desire will be. But what will please him. The law is there to show the child of God what will please him. It's given so that you can do real deeds of love so you can know what you should be doing to show your love express it. Deeds that are based on God's knowledge of what is indeed loving. These are the deeds which rise from a good conscience we see in verse five and a good conscience is one which desires what God desires. Brothers and sisters there's more to this than a vague desire to please God. A pure conscience includes knowledge of God's will. Imagine an engineer who tells you he's confident the bridge he designed will do the job and you talk to him and you find out he doesn't know what traffic that bridge is going to be carrying. And he doesn't really know how much weight the footing he's going to put in will be able to take. And he doesn't know what forces the wind or the tide may exert on it. But he's confident it will work. Do you trust his confidence? I hope not. I wouldn't. I don't think any engineer in the world would. It doesn't mean much in the face of his ignorance does it? Whether you can have a good conscience in ignorance you can feel like you're okay but you don't have a clear conscience until you know what's right or wrong. A good conscience is one informed by God's law and therefore desires only what pleases God. Talking about faith, life with God and sincere faith leads to deeds of love. Notice how closely here Paul links the law to the gospel. He tells us that his appointment as an apostle as a spokesman for God is by the commandment of God our Savior and of the Lord Jesus Christ our hope. Verse 1, his gospel witness is established by law, the law given by our gospel God and gospel Savior. Sound doctrine is against what is the law breaking is measured against sound doctrine. The sound doctrine against which it's measured is the glorious gospel. And in verse 11 there's a common heresy I've already stressed that law and gospel are contrary. Legalism and gospel are contrary, yes. But law is an essential part of the gospel. Obedience is the fruit of the gospel. Hebrews 11 6, without faith it is impossible to please him. Without faith it doesn't matter how much you do and even how much it outwardly conforms to God's teaching you can't please God without the fullness that comes from faith. One purpose of the commandments is to draw you to faith. Not to draw you first to works as many take it, but to draw you to the faith which will lead to works. One person wrote the law sends us to the gospel that we may be justified. Recognizing the law can't save you. It shows you that you need to be saved. And the gospel, it goes on, sends us to the law again to inquire what is our duty being justified. The gospel when we come to know Christ then we want to serve him and go to the law to find out how we do this best. Used in this way as Paul says here, the law is good. Looks back to Psalm 19 verse 7 probably where we say the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. So we're talking about here. It's used to win people to faith. It's used to guide believers in deeds of love. The problem comes when people think obedience to the law makes them good. They think they keep the law to be considered good and then they've lost it. And they need to see its rebuke. That brings us to our third point. The law is given to restrain, to rebuke evil doers. It threatens only those who do evil. The law lessened in subordinate in verse 9. People who think they don't have to listen to the teaching God gives his church, they're insubordinate. They at root can ignore God and go their own way. And only such people will think they can be justified by law because any who listen to biblical teaching will soon see that the law condemns them. And the more you learn to obey the law, the more you'll discover it condemns you and things you hadn't even thought of before. I can assure you of that. The law stands as a visible judge telling you of your sin. It tells you sin leaves you guilty. Sin makes you worthy only of death. In verses 9 to 10 Paul gives a catalog of sins that closely parallels the Ten Commandments. He talks about the ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane. That's the first four commandments. The profane speak lightly of God. The ungodly and sinners don't set him first but give themselves to idolatry. It's people who dishonor the Sabbath who don't honor God on his day. There are those who dishonor parents by striking them. There's the fifth commandment. Those who are murderers, the sixth commandment, sexual offenders, the seventh commandment. In our day we need to take note that Paul specifies homosexuals among those. Kidnappers, the eighth commandment. False witnesses, the ninth commandment. He's going through the commands and pointing to the things people do. Contour the commands. In verse 10, if there is any other thing which is contrary to sound doctrine. And in saying that he reminds us that bad doctrine is sin. Doctrinal error is sin. It's our sin that makes it hard for Christians to agree in some doctrines. We struggle to see what the Bible says and we can't quite agree together because our sin blinds us to God's truth. Sin itself is doctrinal error. It's misunderstanding or rejection of what is right. It's practical failure to understand that doctrine is real only when it's practiced. All such offenders the law condemns. The law shows the evil of your sin. People described here thought themselves righteous. They ignored teaching that highlighted their sin. They got excited about genealogy and ceremonial details. They showed that they missed the whole point of the law. Jesus dealt with affairs. He came saying well your disciples didn't wash their hands before the aid. Meanwhile he points out how they nullify the fifth commandment by twisting the law. If they had understood the law they'd know they were not righteous because the law gets us all. You hear perhaps you have read President Trump quoted as saying he thinks he's done enough good that he's safe from God. If you understand God's word you want to get on your knees and pray for him because none of us are safe with God by what we do. Reading God's law should bring you to your knees in agony over your wrongdoing and it will keep you through. I've had a lot of years on most of you but you find you get so you've learned to more or less keep God's law on one thing but you discover more things that you've never even thought about. You know you see the depth of God's laws it penetrates your heart. It shows God's condemnation of sin, your sin, my sin, everybody's sin. The law then calls sinners to turn to Christ. It tells you, listen closely get this brothers and sisters friends, it tells you that you have no hope at all except in Jesus Christ. And so it drives you to come to him in faith. The law shows how foolish it is to trust in your own ability to be acceptable to God. You need to understand the ferocity of God's law. God does not say here my commandments there are only ten of them. If you live more or less according to them you're fine. His law proclaims in Jesus' words you shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5 verse 48. You shall not fail to walk by this law in one small detail. Galatians 3 verse 10. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse for it is written cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them. You go to the law and you say look I've kept most of the commandments please have mercy on my minor failures. And the law thunders back I know no mercy. There is no provision in God's law for mercy. The soul who sins shall die as the law. So we're different to Christ. Augustine wrote the law was given in order to convert a great into a little man to show you that you have no power of your own from righteousness and might thus poor needy and destitute flee to grace. It's take you when you're proud you think you're wonderful and say no you're not. You're small you're needy. Turn to Christ. Paul goes on here to call you to turn to the glorious gospel in verse 11. You're a condemned sinners but Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Verse 15 would go on to in future weeks. Sure Jim is going to be hammering that next week. If you put your trust in Jesus his sacrifice covers your the law. There is actually by law one way of salvation. That's if you obey it perfectly avoiding everything forbidden doing everything commanded perfectly for the moment of your conception to the moment that you stand before God at the end of this life perfectly. There's one person in the world who's ever even come close to that Jesus kept the law perfectly for us. He gave himself as our substitute to say when you stand before God if you follow me then God will look on my perfection and counted as yours. He went to the cross to pay for our sins and he said God will look on my payment and counted as yours. So you're free you're welcome with God because of me not by law. If you put your trust in him his sacrifice covers your debt completely. Now is then heretics abound. One commentator notes some of the common characteristics of heretics they're driven by a desire for novelty something new and different. Theological students writing doctoral theses have to come up with something new and different. So many of them drift away from the gospel in that. It often exalts mind and the extent of heart and theologians are very good at that. Thinking out arguing out instead of looking at what God tells them to do. It often deals in idle talk and argument instead of action. People want to teach not to learn. All the marks of heresy. They run flat against God's law because the law condemns each one of us. It drives us to find purity in Jesus Christ not in ourselves. It drives us teaches us to depend on Christ not on ourselves. It directs us to obey Christ. Then and now one of the great heresies was to divide the law from deeds of love. The law tells you what are real deeds of love. It shows you how to express your faith in your life. You should recognize that law keeping will never give you peace with God. You should keep the law. Yes. But that won't give you peace with God. But if you trust in Christ then you will find in his law direction to express the law. The law he sets in your heart. Let's pray.