(v5-7) I love this…He says the purpose of the commandment is love…to set folks free…you gotta understand, that’s what love is! Here’s a shocker…the purpose of the Ten Commandments is the same! It’s love! What do you mean? A bunch of rules, that’s love? Yes…because those rules were never meant to make you acceptable, they were meant to be a beacon, to shine the light on the truth…that you and I need only Jesus…watch this…

1 Timothy Chapter 1 Verses 8 – 11

•The law is good if you hold to it…but can you? No!!!! None of us can! There are folks out here today that say they are the only ones right with God because they hold to the Sabbath. But the Sabbath is only 10% of the law! Let me ask you, I heard Pastor Eric from Rocky Mountain say this on the radio…if you were pulled over for speeding, do you think the explanation of, “Well I haven’t murdered anyone,” will get you off? No, you’ve broken the law! You see if you can’t keep the whole law then you break the whole law…its black, its white (just like that terrible MJ song!), its 0/100…and so for someone who can keep every detail of the law…its good…but can you? NO WAY!

•But here’s hope, the law is not made for a righteous person. You can actually take this two ways. First, if you are righteous through the blood of Jesus, the hand writing of requirements against you in order for you to become acceptable to God has been wiped out…taken away…nailed to the cross (Col 2:14) and now by grace through faith you have the righteousness of Jesus imputed to you…credited to your account…if you’ve given your heart, your core, your life, your soul, your mind, your strength to Jesus. If that’s you, the law is not for you. You live to a MUCH higher law…the law of love…

•Second way to look at this…The law is not made for a righteous person. The law is a school master to bring us to Christ…but if you already consider yourself righteous…a good person…then man where is hope for you? You are your own savior and humans make bad saviors…Ever see a super hero movie where the hero is “Ordinary Man!!!” HA!

•The thing is…a righteous man, a righteous woman…one who knows the Lord and is filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with truth and grace, you need no law because your law is love. Love is so much stronger, so much more strict and leads to a much more principled and purposeful life than any law that is written! Instead of teaching the law…Paul says teach them the gospel. The glorious gospel of the blessed God!

1 Timothy Chapter 1 Verse 12

•I glean so much comfort from this verse as I’m sure many ministers do…because I am a mess. I’m emotional, aggressive, reactive, needy…I’m all of those things that anyone else is and yet it was God who placed me into ministry, not me. So I can keep going.

•The translation reads, “He counted me faithful,” but in the Greek it’s really all about God…literally this is that He led me. He led me into belief…my only part in the matter was to follow Him. And yet what’s cool, and true, and cool, HA, is that following God is what has made me and anyone else usable.

•Not smarts. Not talent. Not humor. Not cunningly good looks and razor sharp intellect. Thank you. HA! He enables, He leads, He puts…it takes none of those things I mentioned a moment ago to follow God…it doesn’t take even a good or bad past or a good or bad yesterday…God is not looking for ability, He is looking for availability…once He finds you available, then He enables! God leads. Got puts folks into the ministry…and sometimes God’s choices are shocking…so haters, deal with it! HA! LOL but on a for real tip, that has at times, REALLY kept me going year after year in ministry.

1 Timothy Chapter 1 Verses 13 – 14

•What’s to be found in Christ Jesus? Rules, condemnation and confusion. Complication, religiousity and corny Christianity? NO! Exceedingly abundant grace, faith and love are in Christ Jesus!

1 Timothy Chapter 1 Verse 15

•(We gotta talk about sin! See that! He came to save sinners!) This is a rather huge statement by Paul when you consider it among the whole of his ministry. Why? Because this letter is later in Paul’s ministry…and Paul’s survey of himself changes over time. Let me show you. Paul, walking in pride as Saul, pre-salvation, described by Paul in Philippians Chapter 3, “A Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless!” And then he meets Jesus. He gets saved and realized how broken he really is…

•And early in his ministry, during his first imprisonment in Rome, Paul wrote the letter to the church is Ephesus and in Chapter 3 verse 8 he says this about himself, “I am the least among the saints.” Then he walks with God for a while and pens this verse in 1 Timothy.

•From blameless, to the least of the saints, to the chief of sinners. This is what happens, man, as you walk with God. Humility soars as knowledge of the truth increases…and now Paul’s desire is simple. To be used by God…

1 Timothy Chapter 1 Verses 16 – 17

•I love that. His desire now is not health, wealth and prosperity! His desire after walking with God…following the Lord all these years, is to be a pattern of longsuffering strength to the world! And his statement is so very key to Christian life…God alone is wise…and therefore honor and glory belong only to Him.

1 Timothy Chapter 1 Verses 18 – 20

•Paul describes the ministry as warfare. That’s interesting to me. Because ministry leaders today, many I have seen, will go to great lengths to avoid…well…warfare. Warfare is defined as military operations against an enemy. A struggle between competing entities…and that is ministry and yet I would say, that is the Christian life. We have enlisted into the ranks of a kingdom. A kingdom that is in eternal opposition against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places…In that, conflict…sharp conflict is inevitable. Engage.

•Stand your ground. Be uncompromising. Walk by faith. Keep your conscience good and clear. And fight. Paul names Hymanaeus and Alexander as two that he has rebuked, corrected, exhorted and warned…and yet they blaspheme. And so in faith and good conscience, he gave them what they wanted…he delivered them to Satan because that’s the only way for him to continue to fight the battle for their souls…

•That’s heavy. And man I tell you what, I bet Hymanaeus and Alexander hated Paul. I bet they posted all kinds of things on his Facebook wall…I bet they called other churches to complain about Paul…I bet they were vocal and open saying all kinds of evil against Paul…but in the end, Paul’s ministry was approved by God and his letters comprise God’s selected method to speak to His bride. Why? Faith…good conscience. Who cares what they say, feel, think or do…Paul’s loyalty is not to himself, his ego or any other man…his loyalty is to Jesus Christ, his Commander. And that resolution clears his conscience day in and day out…

•One more thing as we close…we are in a war…we are all engaged in warfare…and so it’s no wonder the enemy has devised war to distract us. The war we are all in concerns two kingdoms. The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God…we are all in it…and yet Satan stirs up other wars to distract us. War with her or war with him. War with your brother or sister in Christ. War with your church. Call of Duty; Modern Warfare…1, 2, 3 and 4…all of those are the wrong wars…and the church today is for the most part in shipwreck and God have mercy on our next generation…

•You have a Call of Duty already…love the Lord your God with your everything. Ask yourself tonight, am I waging good warfare? IF you’re struggling tonight, is your struggle worth it? Is your struggle towards building the right kingdom? Or are you fighting the wrong war while folks fall each day on the real battle field…the one to which you are called…