“Christian Love Contends for Truth” 1 Timothy 1:3-11

“Christian Love Contends for Truth” 1 Timothy 1:3-11

An Expositional Sermon
1 Timothy 1:3-11
“Christian Love Contends for Truth”

Theme/Big IdeaYou will recognize false teachers and unhealthy churches by their fruits.
Aim/Appropriation/ApplicationIt’s my prayer that God would guard us from false teaching and bear the fruit of love in our church because we know that He first loved us.

Outline:
(1) 
The Necessity of Sound Teaching (1 Timothy 1:3)
(2) The Fruit of Counterfeit Love (1 Timothy 1:4-7)
(3) The Law & Justification (1 Timothy 1:8-11)

Questions for Further Reflection:
(1) Does love hate? Does your commitment to truly love something demand you to hate anything? Read Leviticus 18:22-23; Deuteronomy 7:25; 16:22; 17:1, 3-4; 18:10-11; 22:5; 23:18; 24:4; 25:13-16; Psalm 5:5; 11:5; Proverbs 3:32; 6:16-19; 12:22; 15:8-9, 26; 16:5; 17:15; Isaiah 1:13-14; 61:8; Jeremiah 44:2-4; Amos 5:21; Zechariah 8:17; Malachi 1:1-3 (with Romans 9:13); Malachi 2:14-16; and Revelation 2:6, 15. Does God hate anything? Now read 1 John 4:7-21. What is God’s relationship to love? How should we think about God’s attribute of hating and being love?
(2) When you see the sin in your heart, the hearts of your friends and family, or fellow church members do you doubt God’s power to be able to change through His Spirit through His Word? Why do you think you struggle to believe that God can actually change us? If God isn’t able to change us through His Word does that give you hope? Why or why not? If God’s Word is able to change us does that give you hope? How?
(3) If we are to pursue to love each other in a local church with a biblical love, how can we get the three things that Christian love springs from? (1) A pure heart. (2) A good conscience. (3) A sincere faith.
(4) How can we cultivate a culture of rightly ordered love in our church? Should we muster up all the good works we can think up? Should we set the Bible aside and devote ourselves to the myths and supposed wisdom of our culture? Should we give ourselves to pop-psychology of surveys and studies that show five ways to have a better marriage and put some Bible passages in to try to justify what we say? Why?
(5) Is Paul contradicting himself by saying that the law isn’t for the “just” or “a righteous one” when in Romans 3:10 he wrote that no one is righteous? Why?
(6) In what ways are you tempted to minimize the depth of your depravity? Are there ways that you try to soften God’s law, or His justice in order to try to justify your sin before God? 
(7) What is the fruit of false teaching?
(8) How does a wrong understanding or “lawless” use of God’s law rob people of the good news of the gospel?