Dear Christian, don’t get distracted

What are we going to do about ___________?   Did you hear that ___________ is happening?  What are they actually trying to do by _________________?  Does this mean that?  Does that mean this?

These questions and many others are prevalent in our world today.  With information flowing to us at an unprecedented pace there is so much to consider and quite a bit to be concerned about.  

But we are Christians right? 

And as I was reading a few days ago in I Timothy chapter 1 I received a powerful reminder about the importance of Christians remaining focused on the great teaching scripture, the powerful truth of the Gospel and strong faith in Jesus.

In the opening words of this letter to this young pastor, Paul immediately charges Timothy with the importance of not allowing the chatter of the culture of his day to become a distraction to simply living out the pure Gospel in the world.  As a young leader Timothy was not only being called to not allow the speculations of the day to divert his faith but he was being called to challenge those within the church who were losing the centrality of the Gospel in their life by embracing the crazy noise of their day.  

This is how Paul says it in those opening lines of I Timothy.  Notice the things that believers were being drawn to and therefore away from the simple truth of the Gospel. 

v.3…remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion.

What we understand these things mentioned above to be are cultural myths mixed with scriptural teaching.  These Christians were not abandoning truth altogether they were simply mixing it with sensational ideas of the day.   They were polluting the truth not denying it.  Yet, this mingling of God’s truth with a man’s theory, the cause of Christ with conspiracy, salvation with speculation was only impeding the growth of the Gospel in the church and the lives of those believers, and therefore in the world.  

Paul wants Timothy stay away from this himself but more importantly to “charge” (a word that means give military orders) the church to stay away from mixing salvation with superstition.

I believe this is a good word for Christians today.  If this was a problem amongst Christians in a primitive world where news traveled at a snails pace, how much more is it an important word for you and me today who are exposed to every possible crazy idea known to man every minute of the day, via the internet?

As human beings we only have so much spiritual, mental and intellectual bandwidth.  And as believers we are to give our “whole heart soul mind and strength” to primarily knowing the Lord and living out His truth in this world.  When we consume our minds and emotions continuously with stuff that looks and sounds so convincing from the internet we too will become absorbed with things that do not help us but distract us on our journey to heaven.  We, like these early Christians are susceptible to being “led away into vain discussions”.    

Paul tells us exactly what our focus and purpose as believers should be in verse 5.The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Wow!  Is there anything more important than these things being present in our life?  This is the “aim of our charge” the goal of our life, the purpose for which we live as believers and it is where we should spend our energy.   

If a bad person, company or government is scheming to destroy us, that’s stinks.  But for the person whose faith is truly in the Lord, whose heart has been made pure by the blood of Jesus, whose conscious is clear before God and who by grace is loving others and God, they will be ok. We are serving the God who attends every closed door meeting and who sets the parameters on Satan’s work in the life of the believer.   

So as a pastor I am going to heed the words of Paul and challenge you and me to spend a little less time chasing the latest internet speculation and spend more time in pursuit of the one who knows it all and has the power to bring us through whatever this world brings our way!

BE ENCOURAGED, WE’RE CHRISTIANS!

Pastor Troy