THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST
SPREADING THE SOUL-SAVING MESSAGE OF JESUs
(Chapters 5-6)
Introduction by narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Spreading the soul-saving message of Jesus. And now, Kevin Pendergrass.
Welcome to the Gospel of Christ. In this lesson we are going to be looking at 1 Timothy 5 and 6, and learning what it means to understand have a true love and respect for one another. Having a true biblical love and respect for one another is quite a bit different than having a worldly love and respect for one another. What I mean by that is this. Just because you “think” that you love and respect one another does not necessarily mean that you are, because it may contradict what the Scriptures teach. As an illustration of this, consider people who claim to love God. They are all the time talking about how they have such a great love for God. They say, “I love God, and I have a respect for God.” Yet they are not doing what the Bible says. According to the Scriptures, they not have a love and respect for God. In John 14:15 Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” In John 15:14 Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” We learn from 1 John 5:3-4 that if we love God, we will keep His commandments, which are not a burden to us. We can see how things like this could get confusing if we do not go to the Bible in order to understand what true love is. What does it mean to have a true love and respect for one another? That is exactly what we will be examining in this lesson.
If we have a true love and respect for one another, it means that we will exhort one another, as we see in 1 Timothy 5:1-2. We will exhort one another if we have a true love and respect. Look at Hebrews 3:13, and let’s see what the Bible has to say about exhorting one another. “But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” What are we to do? Are we to exhort one another “weekly”? No, that is not what the Bible says. Are we to exhort one another “monthly”? No, that is not what the Bible says. We are to exhort one another daily. This shows us the urgency of this matter. If we truly love and respect one another, then we are going to want to exhort one another.
What does it mean to “exhort”? Sometimes people come to the passages that talk about exhorting one another, and they say, “Well, this means that I should pat someone on the back when they do a good job,” or “This means that all I have to do is shake a person’s hand or give them a thumbs up.” Is that what it means to truly exhort someone? No, it is not. In fact, to exhort carries the idea of “holding one another accountable.” In Luke 3 we see a good example of true exhortation. Luke records John preparing the way for Jesus Christ. John preaches to the multitudes, and in verse 7 of Luke 3 he calls the Pharisees “a brood of vipers.” In Luke 3:8-9 he then goes on to call on them to repent. In verses 16-17 he makes a reference to Hell, and how they will spend eternity there if they do not repent. People today would say, “Wow! That’s mean, harsh, and unloving.” Yet that is exactly true love. In verse 18 of Luke 3 we read, “With many more exhortations, he preached to the people.” What was John doing when he was telling people that they needed to repent or when he was holding people accountable for their sins? Luke tells us that he was “exhorting them.” We need to make sure that we let the Bible define the Bible when it comes to exhorting one another and holding one another accountable.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:1 we see another good definition of what it means to exhort. “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.” Paul was writing to the Thessalonians, and he was exhorting them to continue. In other words, he did not want them to be satisfied with the status quo, but he instead wanted them to continue fighting the good fight of faith. From Jude 3 we learn that we are to “contend for the faith.” When we see someone doing something that they should be doing (something right), we need to encourage them. But we need to encourage them not only for what they have done, but also so that they will continue to do the things they have been doing. Hebrews 10:25 shows us that one way we exhort is by not forsaking the assembly. The Bible teaches that we must go to church, and that we must not forsake the assembly. We must attend worship services. People say, “I love God. And even though I don’t go to church, it doesn’t matter because I’m still going to Heaven.” No, they are not—according to Hebrews 10:25. They are forsaking the assembling of the saints, which is wrong, not only because we are commanded not to do that (since we are there to worship God), but because that represents a time when we are able to exhort one another. Matthew 6:33 says that we are to put Christ first. By assembling with the saints on the first day of the week, we are able to exhort one another. By doing that, we are not only fulfilling a commandment, but we also are helping one another and showing true love and respect for one another. One way that we have true love and respect for each other is by exhorting one another.
Now let’s go on to the second point to see what it means to have a true love and respect for one another. If we have true love, we will take care of one another’s physical needs. We see this in 1 Timothy 5:3-16. There, Paul talked about taking care of widows who were “widows indeed.” They had no family to take care of them. They were over the age of sixty, and it was difficult for them to remarry or to find a job. Paul said that we are to take care of those widows. James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” What is “pure and undefiled religion before God’? It is making sure that we are taking care of one another’s needs. In fact, under the Old Law, we see from Exodus 22: 22 that it was a sin not to do that—just as it is a sin not to do that today. Galatians 6:10 says, “Do good unto all, and especially those of the household of faith.” We are to do good to everyone, but especially those who are Christians. When we see a brother or sister in Christ hurting, what are we supposed to do? We need to help that person, just as 1 Corinthians 12 says. We are all members of the body of Christ, and we need to do something about that. We should hurt, too, and want to help such people. Look at Acts 20:35—“I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Any one of us who has ever given something understands that it is so much more joyful to give than it is to receive. When we give, we have the joy of knowing that not only are we doing the right thing, but we also are helping someone else. In 2 Corinthians 9: 12-13 we see that the contribution went to help not only Christians, but also “all men.” It helped both Christians and non-Christians. So what does it mean to have a true love and respect? It means that we will take care of one another’s physical needs.
We see this at the beginning of the church in Acts 2:44-45. What did they do when people had a need? They sold what they had so they could help those people. That is the kind of mentality that we, too, need to have, because it represents a true love and true respect. In Mark 6:30-44 we see the feeding of the 5,000. When we come to Mark 8:1-10, we see the feeding of the 4,000. So, yes, we need to take care of people’s physical needs when we have an opportunity.
At the same time, however, I want to make this point. That never needs to be the “end” of what we do. While it is important for us to make sure to help people who are physically hurting, we also must be sure to take care of people spiritually. I know people who say, “I have a true love and respect, so I’m going to give money to feed non-Christians.” When Christ fed people or did good deeds for them, that was not the end of it. He wanted to give them not only blessings from this world, but also spiritual blessings, too. From Ephesians 1:3 we learn that all spiritual blessings are “in Christ.” So, not only must we give people the physical things of this world, but we also need to make sure that that’s not the end, and that we go on to teach them things that really matter. This world is here only for a short period of time, but eternity is going to be forever and always. We must keep that in mind as we take care of people’s needs.
What is another way that we can show true love and respect for one another? This next one may surprise many of us because it is something that is contrary to the world, yet we find it many times in the Scriptures. If we truly love and respect one another, we will judge one another. You may be thinking, “Wait a minute. Doesn’t the Bible say somewhere that it’s wrong to judge?” Let’s look at these passages so we can understand what I mean when I say that we must judge one another. In Matthew 7:1 we read that those who judge are wrong for doing so. That’s what people like to say since the Bible says, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” We frequently hear that Jesus condemns judging. There are certain passages in the Bible that people like to “pick and choose.” People love John 3:16. In fact, a lot of times people will write it on a billboard at sporting events. But so many times, people do not even know the meaning behind it. That is how it is with Matthew 7:1. People will say, “Somewhere in the Bible, Jesus said, “Don’t judge, because you are condemned if you judge.’” Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” But what kind of judgment was Jesus condemning? In that very same passage we read just a few verses later that it was a hypocritical type of judgment that was under discussion. For example, if a person has a plank in his eye, but he tells others to get the specks out of their eyes, that’s hypocritical. Consider this example. Let’s say you are driving down the road at 95 miles per hour when the speed limit is 70. Someone is in front of you driving 75 miles per hour. Both of you are going over the speed limit, but you are going 20 miles an hour faster than they are. As you drive by them, you yell out your window and say, “You shouldn’t be going past the speed limit. You’re going too fast. Slow down.” That is a hypocritical type of judgment, and it is condemned. But a judgment that is demanded is not like that. Jesus went on to say that once a person gets the plank out of his own eye, then, and only then, can that person see clearly to get the speck out of his brother’s eye. He also tells people not to cast their pearls before swine. If we cannot judge, then how would we know who the swine are? The Bible does teach that we are to judge. And if we love one another, we will judge. But with what kind of judgment? John 7:24 tells us the type of judgment we are to use. We not to “judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” So many people today have not read John 7:24. And if they have, they did not understand it. The Bible says that we are to “judge with righteous judgment.” What is “righteous judgment”? First, it is not a judgment based upon appearance. This does not mean that if someone is dressed immodestly, or if you are seeing someone doing something sinful, you cannot make a righteous judgment. “Judging by appearance” refers to the types of situations where you see something, but you really do not find out all the facts. It looks one way to you. But you are not seeing it objectively. That is what “judging by appearance” means. But “judging righteous judgment” means that you are basing your judgment on the Word of God. John 12:48 says that we will be judged by the words of Jesus. We will be judged by the New Testament. When we make a judgment call, it’s not a judgment call that we make based on merely our understanding, but is instead something that we base on the Word of God.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 we see a list of sins that people commit who will not be in Heaven, but instead will be in Hell. Among those are liars, fornicators, idolaters, and homosexuals. It is a “righteous judgment” for us to say that such people will be lost if they do not repent. Why? That assessment is not our own opinion. Rather, it is a judgment based upon the Word of God. If we love one another, we will want to go to the Bible to make a judgment that is righteous to ensure that we go to Heaven. We read in Hebrews 11:7 that “Noah condemned the world.” In 2 Peter 2:5 we see that he did this through his urgings as a “preacher of righteousness.” Noah did not condemn the world based upon his own beliefs and opinions, but by righteous judgment and truth. In Mark 16:15-16 and in Matthew 28:19-20 the Bible says that we need to go out to the whole world to preach the Gospel to the lost. “He who is believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.” When we see this in Matthew and Mark, we understand that we, as faithful Christians are to go out and preach the Gospel to the lost. We have to make a judgment call regarding who is lost. The only way we can know is by making a righteous judgment by comparing people’s beliefs and actions to the Scriptures. In Matthew 7:20 Jesus said that we will know people by their fruits. Have you ever seen an apple tree that produced oranges? Of course not! Why? It is an apple tree. And what kind of fruit does an apple tree bear? It bears apples. If someone is living a Christian life, what kind of fruit will that person bear? We know from Galatians 5 that such a person will bear the fruits of the Spirit. That person will be faithful. We can know whether such a person is right with God by comparing his lifestyle to the Word of God—just like we can know that a tree is an apple tree based upon the type of fruit that it produces. We can make righteous judgments when we go to God’s Word to compare it with what people are doing.
In 1 John 5:13 John says, “I write that you may know that you have eternal life.” People want to say that it is wrong to judge. Yet when it’s a positive judgment, they all of a sudden are OK with it. Think about it this way. What if you were at a funeral, and the person in the casket had been baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38) and had lived a good, faithful Christian life? From what you know, you could make a judgment call that that person is saved. That person will have Heaven as his or her eternal home. How many people do you think would walk out of the funeral home if you said that, and say, “I can’t believe you judged that person as you did!” I doubt that anyone would do that—if you compared a person’s life to the Bible, and found that what the person had done was correct. But what about the flip side of that? Imagine someone who is a drunk, who is not a member of the Lord’s church, who had never had his sins washed away, and who was known as a terrible person because he did not do what the Bible said. If the preacher then said, “According to the Scriptures, this person was lost.” People would get very upset, and would say, “I can’t believe that you just judged.” You judged both times. Both were righteous judgments. The only difference was emotions. We cannot let emotions be our guide. If we really love one another, we will judge one another. This should be something that we should want to do. If we see someone doing something wrong, we should go them according to the Bible so that you can talk to them about it, as Matthew 18 says. We should show them from the Bible that what they are doing so they can correct it. That is a true love. That is a true respect for one another—when we judge one another righteously.
Another way that we can show true love and respect for one another is when we rebuke one another. Look at what 1 Timothy 5:20 says: “Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.” Jesus was someone Who had a true love for souls. We know from John 3:16 that He came to Earth to shed His blood so that people could be saved if they came to Him. John 2:13-22 talks about the beginning of His ministry. And what did He do? He made a whip of cords, went into the temple, and turned over the tables of the moneychangers. He rebuked those people because they needed a harsh rebuke. In Matthew 21:12-17 we see Jesus doing the same thing at the end of His ministry. This showed a pattern of Jesus’ works. In 1 Peter 2:21 we are told that we are to follow Jesus in all of His steps, even when it comes to rebuking. We live in a world today that does not understand true love. When it comes to rebuking, people say, “That’s just mean and harsh.” When someone is living in sin, the kindest and most-loving thing that we can do for that person is to show him from God’s Word that he is lost and will go to Hell if he does not repent. This is why it is important to show him from the Scriptures what he must do to be saved. Those are the kindest, sweetest words that could ever be spoken to anybody because we are trying to help someone who is lost. That is exactly what Jesus did. There are times when we must rebuke. If we love someone who is in sin, we will rebuke that person. In Acts 8:14-25 we read of Simon the sorcerer. Peter rebuked him by saying, “Your heart is not right in the sight of God” (vs. 21).
People get offended when you say, “Your heart is not right,” because they say, “You cannot judge my heart.” It is true that only God can search the heart fully because there are secret sins that people can hide. But as far as people bearing fruit (Mt. 7:20) being able to be judged, the same is true when we come to Matthew 15:18-19. Jesus said that our actions proceed from our hearts. Where do the things that we say and do come from? They come from our hearts. We can know a person’s heart during the times when they are living in sin and doing contrary to God’s Word. We know from Galatians 2:11-15 that Paul rebuked Peter to his face. Paul did not rebuke Peter because he hated him. He did rebuke him because he was mad at him. He did not rebuke him because he didn’t like him. Peter and Paul were great friends, yet Peter was sinning. So Paul rebuked him to his face in the presence of all because he loved Peter enough to try to correct him. In Luke 17:3 the Bible says, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.” Why do we rebuke someone who sins? It is because we love that person and want to see him come back and repent. People today have a false idea that if someone sins, then we are to forgiven that person unconditionally. God does not forgive us unconditionally. We know from Ephesians 4:32 that we are to forgive in the same way that God forgave us. If God cannot forgive us unless we repent, then, as Luke 17:3 points out, we cannot forgive others until they repent. We must rebuke them because we love them and because we want to see their souls in Heaven, not in Hell. Look at Proverbs 27:5—“Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed.” What? “Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed.” Someone might say, “I love that person too much, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings or run him away.” But the Bible says that open rebuke is better than for a person not to say anything at all. If we have a true love and respect, we must rebuke people by the Word of God of they are in sin.
I want us to look at one more point related to how, if we have a true love and respect for one another, we should treat one another. If we truly love one another, then we should always look out for each other’s best interests. We need to make sure that we do not sin, and we need to look out for others’ best interests, too—especially spiritually speaking. We need to make sure that everyone is on the road to Heaven. In 1 Timothy 6:9-10 and 17-19, Paul talks about how we should not be greedy for money. I want to talk about how the idea of gambling contradicts looking out for the best interests of others. In Matthew 22:39 Jesus said, “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus was teaching us to look out for the best interests of others. But what is gambling? When we gamble, what are we doing? We are wanting someone else to lose money. Who goes to gamble, hoping all the while that they themselves will lose? If a person was to do that, that would be sinful since that would not be good stewardship. But if you go gambling in order to win, you are automatically hoping that the other person is going to lose money. That is in direct contradiction to Matthew 22:39 because we are not looking out for the best interests of others. Not only that, but gambling—which is a practice in which people in the world today are so heavily involved—is not authorized in the Scriptures. Gambling is a sin, and those people who are involved in it will go to Hell if they do not repent. There are only three authorized ways found in the Scriptures for receiving money. The first is the law of labor, which simply says that we must work for our money (assuming that our work is scriptural in nature). We do work, and we receive money for having done so. We see this in 1 Timothy 5:18, Luke 10:7, and 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12. The second authorized way is the law of exchange. Perhaps you sell something for money (which it is scriptural to sell). We see this in Matthew 13:45-46. Included in the law of exchange would be borrowing or investing (Mt. 25:14-30 and Jn. 4:8). The law of exchange is another authorized way of receiving money. Finally, we have the law of giving (Eph. 4:28; 2 Cor. 9:6-7). Gambling is not only sinful because it contradicts Scripture, but it also is sinful because it is not authorized in Scripture. Those participating in gambling are lost and need to repent so that they will not go to Hell for eternity.
As we look at the ways that we need to treat each other if we have a true love and concern for one another, we need to keep in mind also that we need to be sure that everyone is on the road to Heaven. Have you obeyed the Gospel? Have you done what the Bible commands you to do to become a Christian? If you are not a faithful member of the Lord’s church because you have not followed the steps of salvation, then you are lost in sin and need to change your life so that you can be on the road to Heaven. If you have not obeyed the truth, we pray that you will obey the Gospel of Christ today.
Narrator accompanied by a cappella singing:
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1. What did Jesus say in John 14:15?
2. What did Jesus say in John 15:14?
3. Whom did John have in mind when he spoke of “a brood of vipers” (Lk. 3:7)?
4. In Luke 3:8, what did John the Immerser call upon “the brood of vipers” to do?
5. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, what did Paul command Christians to do?
6. What does Hebrews 10:25 command Christians not to do?
7. How does James 1:27 define “pure and undefiled religion”?
8. What does Galatians 6:10 command Christians to do?
9. What does Matthew 7:1 tell Christians not to do?
10. John 7:24 tells us that we are not to judge, and that we are to judge. Explain the difference
11. According to Matthew 7:20, how can we judge people?
12. In Mark 16:15-16 and Matthew 28:19-20, what commands are set forth for Christians?
13. What important statement regarding salvation did John make in 1 John 5:13?
14. What does 1 Timothy 5:20 command Christians to do?
15. What does 1 Peter 2:21 command Christians to do?
16. What does Ephesians 4:32 command Christians to do?
17. In Acts 8:22, what did Peter tell Simon to do when he had sinned after becoming a Christian?
18. What does Proverbs 27:5 mean when it says that “open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed”?
19. In 1 Timothy 6:17, what does Paul command Christians not to do?
20. What does Jude 3 command Christians to do?
21. The only words of Christ recorded outside of the four gospel account are found in Acts 20:35. What did Christ say there?
22. According to 2 Corinthians 9:12-13, can Christians offer help to those who are not Christians?
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