Listen to the talk here or read the transcript below
Preacher: Lionel Windsor
Church: St Nics Anglican Church, Coogee
Date: 30 August 2026
Bible text: based on NIV 1984
1 Timothy 1:1–2 — Hope, grace, peace, and daily life
What a terrific song we heard just before our readings. It was a reminder of who Jesus is—our King, exalted, Lord forever—and a call to praise him, to exalt him.
That song echoes some of the great biblical truths about Jesus that we see in these first two verses here of 1 Timothy. It’s there in your outline. That’s what we’re looking at.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope,
To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 Timothy 1:1–2
Those are wonderful and comforting truths. God is our Father who calls us his children. Christ Jesus is our Lord, whom we serve. Right from the start of this letter, the apostle Paul wants to ground what he says to Timothy in these great truths about God.
God our Saviour rescues us from sin and judgment. Christ Jesus is our hope, a sure hope that lifts our hearts and minds to the future, that great day when Jesus returns in glory. We have grace, mercy and peace—that unspeakable gift.
God is merciful to us through Jesus. He forgives us. He draws us to himself. We have peace with God. We have reconciliation.
It’s so worth pondering, isn’t it? These are wonderful truths to remember: we can praise our exalted Lord for salvation from sin, and hope and long for the future, when his salvation will be clear to all.
What a great thing to do on a Sunday morning: to remember, to rejoice and to praise.
But I want to ask you a question. What does all that praise and hope and rejoicing and grace and mercy have to do with the rest of your week—with your Monday, your Thursday or your Saturday?
What does this praise and hope and grace and mercy have to do with how you live and act towards your family members, children, spouse, friends, housemates?
What does this praise and hope and grace and mercy have to do with how you make your money, how you spend your money? What does it have to do with what you say about other people in your workplace, how truthful you are in all your relationships?
What does it have to do with who you sleep with? What does it have to do with what websites you visit when nobody’s looking? What does it have to do with your daily life?
Because you might possibly say, “Well, not a lot. I didn’t come to church to be challenged. I came to church to be affirmed. I came to church to be lifted up to those heavenly realities, not to be reminded about the mundane.”
1 Timothy 1:3–4a — Myths and endless genealogies
But in this letter of 1 Timothy, which we’re looking at over the coming weeks, the apostle Paul deliberately wants to make that connection between heaven and earth, between Sunday and Monday.
He wants to connect exalted truths and mundane living, being wonderfully comforted and being challenged.
Paul’s writing here in the early 60s AD. He’s writing to Timothy. Timothy’s his long-term mission co-worker. Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father. And more than 15 years earlier, Timothy had heard this wonderful message of hope and grace and peace. He’d heard it from the apostle Paul in Lystra, which is in modern-day Turkey.
Timothy had heard about that wonderful gospel and had come to trust in it. And he’d actually had 15 years of really productive ministry with Paul. Paul had brought him along at various times and in various places.
And now Timothy is in a place called Ephesus. It’s on the west coast, or close to the west coast. He’s helping as Paul’s representative. And what he’s doing is helping to ground those churches who’ve come to believe in Jesus in the message of Christ.
And Paul is writing this particular letter to Timothy because he has an important job for Timothy. There’s a problem in Ephesus, a problem that Timothy needs to deal with. So, verse 3:
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.
1 Timothy 1:3–4a
Now certain people are teaching false doctrines and Timothy’s there to charge them to stop. Now, the phrase “false doctrines” doesn’t necessarily mean some really clear, obvious, straightforward heresy that you can identify straight away. These men might not deliberately be going around saying, “Oh no, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead,” or something as obvious as that.
And in fact, as you keep going in the letter of 1 Timothy, you see that the issue isn’t just a matter of a particular doctrine you can identify. It’s not just that these false teachers had a wrong syllabus. No, there was more. They had problems with their entire manner of life. It’s not just what they taught; it’s how they taught and how they lived. And it helps us, as we read 1 Timothy and as we look today, to be discerning about teaching: about what we hear online and what we hear even here in church.
But what were they doing in particular? What were these people doing? You see, the first thing Paul wants to highlight is that they devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Think about that. It’s a bit strange. What are they doing? A few verses later you can see that the myths and endless genealogies are connected to the law. These people want to be teachers of the law. So what’s going on there? What’s the law? What does that mean?
The law that Paul’s talking about is the law of Moses. He means the first five books of our Bibles: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. We were reading Deuteronomy just before. That’s the law.
You might ask, hold on, what do these myths and endless genealogies have to do with the law? I’m not sure if you’ve read Genesis recently or the start of Exodus. I mean, it’s definitely worth doing. If you do, you notice something in Genesis. What’s in Genesis? There are a lot of genealogies.
In fact, Genesis starts most of its sections talking about genealogies. Here’s the repeated kind of wording: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” “These are the generations of Noah.” “These are the generations of the sons of Noah.” “These are the generations of Shem,” et cetera, et cetera.
Now, those genealogies are there because, very close to the start of Genesis, when Adam and Eve sin, Eve is deceived by the serpent, Adam sins, God judges them and brings a curse, and God also promises the woman that a child, her descendant, her offspring will come and crush the head of the serpent.
And so Genesis has got those genealogies to help us to keep looking forward. Who’s the one who’s going to rescue the world? Who’s going to be the offspring who rescues the world? And in the end, that person is Jesus. That’s what the genealogies are there for.
But around the time that Paul was writing this letter, there were some groups of Jewish people, not all Jewish people, but some, who took a very, very strong interest in these genealogies for quite different reasons. They got very excited by those genealogies. And there are writings we still have from the time. They’re not inspired Scripture, but they were still very influential amongst some groups, writings called things like Jubilees and Enoch.
Certain Jewish groups took these genealogies from the Bible and combined them with Greek ideas, and then they went to town. They started to create backstories to the genealogies to explain them—in other words, myths. And when I say myths, I don’t mean fairy tales. I mean more like those ancient Greek myths, like the Odyssey, you know, those sorts of mythological ideas.
And their myths were spiritual stories: accounts of spiritual beings, angels and demons, supernatural powers involved in a great cosmic order, and fallen angels called watchers. They included angelic messengers with heavenly tablets bringing extra-special revelation, and secret messages known only to the chosen insiders, the few.
And these backstories, these myths, took hold. People loved them. Why did they love them? Because you could talk about them forever. And they promised special knowledge. If you followed them, you could be in the inner circle, with its esoteric and mystical knowledge.
That’s the kind of thing Paul’s talking about when he’s talking about these certain teachers wanting to be teachers of the law of Moses with their myths and their endless genealogies.
And you might say, well, that’s a very fascinating piece of ancient history, Lionel, but what on earth has it got to do with me, with us? Well, in all sorts of different forms, it’s still around today in different ways, and it really can affect us.
Through various twists and turns, this kind of mystical interest in myths and genealogies was picked up in medieval times in what’s called Kabbalah. There were mystical ideas, a search for hidden meanings in the text, special Hebrew letters, special ideas and special people. That’s one example.
There’s actually a whole modern religion that’s directly based on angelic messages with mythical genealogies and insider knowledge and special golden tablets. It’s called Mormonism. It’s very big.
There’s still a strong interest in the actual books I mentioned. There’s a very strong interest in Jubilees and Enoch. They were the direct inspiration for the 2014 film Noah. So if you knew that, it’s not only loosely based on the Bible. It’s based mainly on these myths and endless genealogies.
But even more than those things, even more, our world is still massively influenced by these ideas, but in another form. And all of us are as well, even if we don’t realise it.
So for example, there is a stupendously influential poet in our world with these kinds of ideas. She was raised a Catholic, but she’s not really a Catholic as far as I know. Now she’s created myths and genealogies of her own. The opening of her massively influential music video, which has inspired millions, perhaps even billions, is a theological poem about myth, generation, inner circles and predestination.
Extended quotation omitted for copyright reasons. See Lady Gaga — “Born This Way” (original music video)
Do you recognise it? The lyrics go on to make claims about how we were born and about God’s purposes. One brief line captures the point: “God makes no mistakes.” And the refrain keeps returning to the claim that you were born this way.
The poet is, of course, Lady Gaga. I’ve been referring to her music video “Born This Way”. And you might think, “Well, this myth is just pop-song nonsense, isn’t it?” And yes, it is pop-song nonsense, but it isn’t just that. It’s actually powerful. It’s strong.
She’s singing mainly about sexuality and gender, but there’s much more to it. It’s a manifesto, a statement about God’s election, and the core of her religion is this: You are righteous. You are righteous. You are not wrong. And if you feel guilt, that’s the fault of society, not you. Whatever you feel, that’s the truth. You’re righteous, you’re good. In fact, that’s your predestined reality.
And if you want to argue with that, if you want to believe in sin and salvation from sin, that’s just prejudice and you’re a heretic. Don’t you dare claim God makes mistakes. You’ve got nothing to be saved from except other people’s judgmentalism. You’ve got no other way: that’s how you were born. And your inner feelings are actually God’s predestined, elected will for you. You have no other way. I’m not sure if you realise how influential Lady Gaga has been—one of the most influential theologians of the 21st century. Well, not quite. She’s just echoing other people’s ideas, really.
But in her religion, there’s one taboo. There’s one heretical thought that you must never say, and that thought is this: “I’m wrong and I need to change.” Because what you need to do is keep affirming yourself: “I’m fine, I’m good, I am enough.”
What does this myth do in our world? What does it actually do? It claims to celebrate non-judgmentalism, but what it actually does is it creates endless hand-wringing and shouting about who’s the victim and who’s the oppressor.
We’re not allowed to say we’re wrong, so I have to constantly affirm, “I am righteous,” and I’ve got to demonise my opponents.
And we have the angry, bitter controversies that spiral, that are never resolved, that get worse and worse.
It affects our world deeply. It affects our churches. It affects us in different ways.
1 Timothy 1:4b–7 — Meaningless talk versus faith, goodness and love
A very similar thing was happening in Ephesus amongst God’s people in the first century AD, where Timothy was.
What did the mythological teachings do for them? I’ll read from halfway through verse 4:
These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
1 Timothy 1:4b–7
These Christians were being turned away from living their daily lives and being captured by these stories, by these debates, by this controversy. And Paul wants to say that’s just talk. It’s just meaningless talk. It’s meaningless talk about things that don’t matter.
What does matter? Paul says, this is what matters: love, a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith. Literally, that’s an unhypocritical faith. It is a faith or trust in the Lord Jesus that really makes a difference, a faith that acts in our daily lives. Faith in the exalted Jesus is meant to lead us to love others, to be pure in our own individual hearts and thoughts, to discern what’s right and wrong and to act on it.
What these myths had done is they’d led to ongoing chattering, controversy and arguing without any sense that it has anything to do with loving people and thinking purely and speaking rightly and caring about a reality outside of ourselves of right and wrong.
You might say, well, of course that’s not a problem for us because we’re not carried away by myths. We know the truth. But let’s be careful, because there’s a danger for us. I’ve got to keep watching it in myself for good reasons. We believe in the Bible, and so we focus a lot on words and these ideas.
This week I’ve been involved in it myself, a debate online with somebody about the meaning of individual words in the Bible. So we go into detail about it and we debate. And so we’ve got to be careful, because do you notice what characterised these false teachers?
They wanted to be teachers of the law. That is, they wanted to be teachers of the books of Moses. They wanted to be teachers of the Bible. They wanted to be Bible teachers. These are men who on the surface love the Bible. That’s what they said. That’s what they wanted to be. They loved it so much, they wanted to spend all their time talking about it and debating it and discussing it and arguing about it and thinking about the stories and the knowledge.
But no, they’re not men who love the Bible. They’re men who love talking about the Bible and showing their own special knowledge. Do they really care about what the Bible says, about what faith is leading to?
Now, of course, words matter because God’s word matters. We need to talk about words. But the discussion and the debate’s not an end in itself. They’re the means, not the end. What’s the end? What’s the goal? Verse 5 again:
The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
1 Timothy 1:5
That’s the aim: love. Love, according to the Bible, isn’t just a feeling. It’s something deeply moral. It arises from purity and moral goodness and sincerity.
And in 1 Timothy, actually, Paul really stresses this kind of moral goodness. We’re going to see it as we work through it over the coming weeks. It’s about people caring for each other practically and sacrificially: that kind of love. It’s based in creation and includes young men treating young women with purity and that kind of thing. These themes keep coming up in the letter.
That moral goodness is not just a side benefit of being a Christian; it’s fundamental. Paul often describes the teaching as “sound”. And the word “sound” comes from an older meaning of the word: it means “healthy”, in line with God’s creation. And so it leads to healthy families acting in purity and rightly relating, and to morally upright, godly church leaders. It leads to righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness and gentleness. They’re the kind of things Paul keeps talking about here. He’s talking about moral living.
And again, you might say, hold on, isn’t this becoming a bit moralistic? Surely the gospel’s about freedom, not morality. Well, I just want to help us to see the difference between an “-ity” and an “-ism”. So for example, I believe in the importance of community, but I don’t believe in communism. I’m not a communist.
The Bible pushes us to gospel-shaped morality, but not moralism. We’re not saved by being good. We’re saved by Jesus Christ. But the gospel of Jesus Christ leads us to being moral. Jesus came in the flesh; Jesus died for our sins; Jesus is the one in whom we hope. We have salvation in him, not by works. It’s not something we achieve, but that salvation is supposed to work in our lives.
And we don’t come to this salvation by escaping from the world. We come to that salvation walking in this world, heading to eternal life, knowing that Jesus has died for us.
1 Timothy 1:8–10a — Using the law properly
So that’s what the law in the Old Testament’s actually for. So you see, verse 8:
We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
1 Timothy 1:8
God’s word is good; the law is good; words are good. But Paul’s talking here particularly about the law of Moses. The false teachers agreed that the law is good. But Paul’s point is that the law of Moses is good if you actually know how to use it properly.
Lots of things are good if you use them rightly. A car’s good if you use it properly, if you use it to transport yourself and your friends and family. A car is good. A car is not good if you use it for a ram-raid on a jeweller’s shop.
A phone is good if you use it properly, if you use it to stay in touch with people and care for people, but not if you use it for cyberbullying or something.
God’s law is good if you understand what God intends for it. And if you use it that way, how are you supposed to use the law? Well, we use it properly by keeping something in mind. Verse 9:
We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, …
1 Timothy 1:9a
The law is not made for the righteous. The law—and the Bible overall—isn’t there just to affirm us in feeling good about ourselves and our own self-righteousness. It’s not there so that we can feel, “Oh yes, we’re right.” No, it’s there to teach us about what is right in God’s eyes. It’s there to show us what is right. And it shows us right and wrong. And when it does, it shows us how much we’re wrong.
It’s very similar to something that Jesus himself said quite clearly. What did Jesus say? The Pharisees and teachers of the law challenged Jesus about his eating with tax collectors and sinners:
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and “sinners”?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Luke 5:30–32
That’s Jesus’ point. Jesus didn’t come to affirm people who thought they were righteous. He didn’t just come to say, “I believe in you. You’re good.” No, he came for the people who knew they were sinners to bring salvation, to bring rescue, to bring forgiveness, and to call them to change, to repent. The Pharisees and the law teachers thought they were good. They thought they were righteous.
Are you righteous? Are you good? Well, if you think nothing’s wrong with you, then you won’t come to Jesus, because you’ll believe that he’s got nothing in you to fix. And that’s actually the theology I was drawing out of Lady Gaga’s song, isn’t it? The refrain insists that you’re already on the right track.
See Lady Gaga — “Born This Way” (original music video)
So the false teachers in Ephesus, they had their endless genealogies about the law of Moses. Paul’s saying, you’ve missed what’s there. You’ve missed what’s really there in the law. Stop looking at the bits you love to argue over, but look at what’s there. Look at all the things that God says are wrong with us. It’s there. It’s there in the Ten Commandments that we just read. It’s in the rest of the law too. You see it so much in Israel’s history and the prophets. Most of the Bible, the Old Testament is about how Israel was wrong.
And Paul’s list here is echoing the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy chapter 5 that we read earlier.
The law says:
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
Deuteronomy 5:7–8
It’s a message for the ungodly, that is the wrong worshippers and the sinful.
But the law also says:
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. … Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
Deuteronomy 5:11–12
That’s a message for the unholy and irreligious.
The law says:
Honour your father and your mother.
Deuteronomy 5:16
Paul says that’s a message for those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, those who lock them away in a home to fend for themselves.
The law says:
You shall not murder.
Deuteronomy 5:17
That’s a message for murderers. Or as Jesus says, anyone who harbours bitter hatred in their hearts.
The law says:
You shall not commit adultery.
Deuteronomy 5:18
And that’s a message for adulterers and perverts. Paul’s talking about any sex outside of marriage of one man and one woman. It’s a message for anyone who is caught up in an affair or enslaved to pornography and not seeking help.
The law says:
You shall not steal.
Deuteronomy 5:19
It’s a message for slave traders, anyone who makes their wealth through exploitation.
The law says:
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.
Deuteronomy 5:20
That’s a message for all liars and perjurers and people who get ahead by slandering others.
The law tells us what is right. And at the same time, it shows us that we are wrong. God makes no mistakes, yes—but we do.
And so the law is rightly used when it’s applied to sinners. Sinners like who? Sinners like me. And sinners like you. Sinners like Paul, who, as we’ll see next week in verse 15, calls himself the chief of sinners.
God’s law isn’t just there to coddle us. God’s word is profoundly moral. It tells us what’s wrong. It shows us that we’re wrong.
Why does it do that? It doesn’t do that to make us wallow in guilt, but to show us how much we need Jesus.
The law drives us to Jesus to be rescued. And in our Christian lives, the law exposes our sin and it drives us to change, to turn. It leads us to love and to live God’s right way in Jesus.
1 Timothy 1:10b–11 — Conforming to the glorious gospel
All those right ways of living are what Paul calls “sound doctrine”. See verse 10:
and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
1 Timothy 1:10b–11
That’s healthy teaching about right living—not just some added extra to the gospel, but teaching that conforms to the gospel. That is what it’s meant to do for us; that is what it creates in us.
That’s what we should use the law for, to show us our sin, to lead us to repentance, which is all in accordance with the gospel of Jesus Christ, who came and died and will return, who died for our sins to redeem us for himself.
And so when you read the Bible, do you use it regularly to turn, to repent, to be convicted? That gospel word is vital, but it’s not just a word to discuss. It leads us to faith in Christ, hope in Christ and love, which is a core concern of 1 Timothy.
And it is actually a glorious gospel. Why? Because as we’ve seen right from the start, it is about God’s grace: his amazing grace, his exalted grace. And what God’s grace does for us is it makes it safe to be wrong. It makes it safe to change.
If you don’t have God’s grace, then you’ve just got a desperate need to cling on to your own righteousness and to say it’s everybody else who’s wrong, not me. You’ve only got Lady Gaga’s mantra: you have to keep telling yourself that you’re already on the right track. The problem must always be somebody else, not me.
If you’ve only got yourself to believe in, that’s all you’ve got. But God’s grace tells you that Jesus died for your sins to bring complete forgiveness. As you trust in him, you are safe and secure in his love, and you have a glorious hope. You can be challenged by God’s truth because Jesus died for us. It’s safe to admit you’re wrong and it’s safe to change.
How might you do that? Here’s one way to use the law properly. Phillip’s written a book recently on the Ten Commandments. Read it and let it challenge you and shape your life day by day; let it lead you to repentance.
And today by grace, I believe you get 40% off at morning tea. Is that right, Phillip? I think that’s right. No, Phillip’s not sure. Okay. Phillip doesn’t get any proceeds, neither do I. But he gets to encourage you to put that faith in Jesus into practice.
So let’s do that together. Let’s pray.
Father, we praise and thank you for the grace that you have shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Father, to come to you for forgiveness. By your Spirit, work in us. And we pray that your word would do its work in our hearts to change us day by day. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.