How Do W Avoid False Teachers?
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There are many different churches in America.
Weird Woods (Spread)
Now with Postmodernity we can’t even ask the question, “Which church is true?” MICRO-AGGRESSION, “Are you implying that all paths don’t lead to God?”#coexists.
According to Scripture division is a problem . Division is contrary to God’s Word. We are to watch out for it and to avoid it .
“ask for something earnestly.”
Watching out is serious business. The church is to seriously v17 “watch out” for false teachers. Serious because life is at stake.
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Why does the Bible place so much emphasis on doctrine? I thought doctrine divides #tolerance #lovetrumpshate. The Bible places so much emphasis on doctrine because Jesus… The word behind the translation “creating obstacles” is a word that Paul uses in Romans to refer to a spiritual problem that leads to damnation. False doctrine opposes God or… The JSV reads, “against the doctrine.” False doctrine attacks truth. It fights against God. This is a text… #hellisreal.
Heresy attacks the church in two ways: We must be aware of this .
“Jesus saves by grace if you are baptized” or “Jesus is God, but not like the Father is God” or “Jesus was resurrected, if you believe it.”
False teachers twists Scripture. Knowing this, the Bible commands Christians to avoid false teachers (, ). We are told to not even let them in our homes.
Hospitality (). into your home v17 “avoid them.”
Avoiding false teaching is serious stuff. Your life and the life of your children depends on it. How do we avoid false teachers? Paul gives us several answers to this question in our text this morning.
How do we avoid false teachers? By confirming the opposite: We must know right doctrine. We avoid false teachers by knowing, trusting, and living orthodoxy.
JSV reads, “watch out for those who divide and create obstacles which are against the doctrine you have learned and now live.”
Living out doctrine is discipleship. It begins with trusting everything God reveals in his Word is true .
Obedience in Romans is faith (; ). We live move and have our being in Christ, the eternal Logos (i.e. truth).
We must follow God’s Word . What Timothy “learned” is the same Greek word translated here “taught.” Faith believes… Faith avoids false teachers by avoiding doctrine not taught from God’s Word.
That sounds simple enough
Its subtle, but there is an answer here in the clause “have been taught.”
teaching selves We avoid false teachers by sitting under true teachers.
The true church has always confessed the “faith once for all delivered.” Orthodoxy is old. Heresy is novel. False teachers introduce unfamiliar truth. If you cannot find your doctrine being lived out in the life of the church antiquity… We need to be more old fashioned as… There are several signs of a false teacher. First, is the novel.
Take Premillennial Dispensationalism for example.
Second, false teachers attract the naive through v18 “smooth talk and flattery.” Its the personality cult. They are slick public speakers. This is true also of the methods they employ to capture their audiences.
Premillennialism Popular?
False teachers don’t follow the church, are novel, and smooth talkers. Lastly, they don’t serve God .
Here is where we really find them out. False teaching serves man.
What Paul means by “serving their belly” is not clear. Is this actual gluttony? Is this the Jewish tendency to put to much stock in food laws, which Paul... “the kingdom of God is not about food and drink” or is belly the same thing as “flesh” elsewhere used in Paul? I say yes. All of these work, because false teachers are self-servers. They seek their own pleasure.
Some are greedy (sincere)
They mix their own commandments into Scripture, “Do not touch, do not handle, do not taste.” They then mix this law with the gospel, “Believe in Jesus and wear this.” In the end, both the greedy and guilty are living “according to the flesh.” How do we avoid false teachers? Avoid the gospel of Christ and ________________.
The truth is Christ alone. Our faith must be Christ centered. If you can pull Christ from your doctrine than it is false.
E.G. Circumcision “No, its a tribalism thing, a sign of geo-political possession.” False, its about Christ and him crucified a sign and seal of our spiritual covenantal place in Christ’s death. Proper faith is all about Christ and begins, “I am not my…” We avoid false teaching by having a gospel centered and saturated church #christandhimcrucified.
Here we need to be alone. We need to trust Scripture alone, the case I have just made, which includes the right understanding… We need to trust also in Grace alone by faith alone so that our life might center on Christ alone.
That little word alone is serious. False teachers use the name Christ and words like grace and faith, but not… This is because they do not serve Christ alone.
The word alone will guard us against false teachers. Here we will need wisdom and innocence . We cannot swallow up whatever a church offers. We only want Christ and him crucified .
Here we are taken back to where the heavenly battle lines have been drawn between the army of darkness… Here from these two camps a single Warrior… The winner takes all. Here Paul centers us on Christ. You see Satan attacked first and killed our Champion. As the earth grew dark and the forces of evil shouted in victory, joyfully ready to fill their stomachs with sin and death, right there in death… Christ crucified crushed… fatal blow… the church militant to fight. We don’t fight to win, we fight as winners, for we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.
Pastor, I don’t feel victorious? I feel like sin and death. That’s our place in this dark world. That’s why we need to hear these words of Paul v20, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” “The God of peace” is the God of our complete salvation.
This is Paul’s way of saying, “by grace alone.” Grace is unmerited favor. There is more grace in Christ than sin in you.
This is also Paul’s way of saying “by Christ alone.” We have no other savior. There is no work for you to do. Put away… He alone is Savior, whose blood owns us, whose Sovereignty is Lord over us. The battle is hard and you may feel defeated and alone, but you are not lost for God is greater than our sin… enough.
There is one last answer to the question, How do we avoid false teachers? We must surround ourselves with Christians . Timothy was Paul’s closest ministry associate. Timothy was with Paul throughout most of his ministry (cf. ; ). “Lucius” is possibly “Luke the evangelist.”“Jason,” gave hospitality to Paul during his brief and tumultuous stay in Thessalonica (). And “Sosipater” accompanied Paul when he left Greece toward the end of the third missionary journey (). If Paul needed to be surrounded by men of like faith then so do we. We need Christ and his church. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.