In Scott Brown's sermon titled 'The Law is Good,' he explores the proper use and profound significance of God's law as described in 1 Timothy 1:8. Brown emphasizes that the law is beneficial when used lawfully, providing guidance for the lawless and ungodly. He contrasts sound doctrine, which he defines as healthy teaching that promotes love, with unsound doctrine. The law reveals God's moral beauty and wisdom, acting as a spiritual nutrition essential for a believer's soul. It is likened to honey, protein, and other nourishing foods, highlighting its role in maintaining spiritual health amidst cultural distractions. Brown stresses the complementary relationship between the law and the gospel, explaining that the law identifies sin and points to the need for the gospel. He categorizes sins under the Ten Commandments, using them as a moral framework. The sermon underscores the necessity of teaching the law to children, portraying it as an 'owner's manual' for life. Brown concludes by affirming the law's role in leading believers to the 'glorious gospel' of Jesus Christ, which offers salvation and true happiness.

Please open your Bibles to 1st Timothy chapter 1 and find verse 8. 1st Timothy 1 verse 8. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. 1st Timothy 1 8 but we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous person but for the lawless and insubordinate for the ungodly and for sinners for the unholy and profane for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers for manslayers for fornicators for sodomites for kidnappers for liars for perjurers and if there's any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.

Let's pray. Lord we thank you for your word We thank you for giving us your law. I pray, oh Lord, that you would give us a right view of your law and that we would say with David, oh, how I love your law. It's my meditation all the day. Your words were to me sweeter than honey.

Amen. Please be seated. So here we are back in 1st Timothy continuing our series walking through the book phrase by phrase. The importance of this letter is difficult to underestimate. It really presents some of the most complete guidance to local church life that exists in the whole Bible.

We just passed through one of those testimonies and tied us, but speaks to the organization of the church, the challenges of the church, the worship of the church, men and women in the church, and in this passage of scripture, the law of God in the church. Now in the first 11 verses of this chapter which we've or the first seven verses of this chapter which we've already covered, the Apostle Paul he's contrasting sound doctrine and unsound doctrine. The word sound in sound doctrine literally means healthy. Healthy doctrine as opposed to unhealthy doctrine. And so he is identifying the fact that in in that church, there were teachers of the law that were using the law in a harmful way that did not promote love.

And so he's addressing to Timothy how to use the law of God and what he's basically saying is that God's commandments are just arbitrary restrictions upon human happiness. They really are expressions of the goodness of God, the wisdom of God, the moral beauty of God himself. And David summarizes this so beautifully in Psalm 119 verse 103, How sweet are your words to my taste sweeter than honey to my mouth." And this is such a pivotal issue because the Apostle Paul has already spoken about how critically important it is that we rightly understand the law of God because he says the goal of our instruction or the goal of the commandment, the commandments of God is love. The commandments of God always promote love and they and they drive out the lack of it and this is the whole matter of of sound doctrine. Literally healthy teaching.

This idea of sound, the word sound, appears five times in the pastoral epistles, and here we encounter it in this first chapter of 1st Timothy. And it really, it has everything to do with our information diet. Everybody has an information diet. Everyone is on a diet of one sort or another. You don't go on a diet.

You're always on a diet. You just have to define what that diet actually is. And our hearts, our lives, our families, our churches, they're all outgrowths and manifestations of our diet, our information diet and what we believe. And If you want a better life, then it's so important that we don't starve ourselves from what the Bible calls the finest of wheat. And he wasn't talking about physical wheat.

He was talking about your spiritual diet in the Word of God. And this is so critical because, you know, when the body is starving, when the spirit, the soul is starving of sound, healthy doctrine, It happens to your spirit the same way that it happens in your body. Muscles start breaking down when you're starving, your temperature falls, your strength declines, your immune system is compromised when you're in a state of starvation. Your thinking becomes dull, your organs start working more poorly, and you begin to suffer. And to heal, One of the things you have to address is good food.

Am I eating good food that has the proper mix of minerals and electrolytes and you need protein and carbohydrates and of course, fat and vitamins and all kinds of things like that. But your spiritual life is the same way. All of us are on an information diet of some kind and that has everything to do with what the Bible says about the law of God and what is needed to the starving soul. The Word of God is like milk and honey. It's like protein for the spirit.

Now you know with all of the information dump that this culture is assaulting us with all of the podcasts and all of the playlists and the scrolling distractions, you know, vying for our attention. Paul's words really show us where the best food is, where the sweetest honey is, where the piping hot bread right out of the oven is. This is what he's addressing here. So you can see there's an outline. You can see where I'm going here.

I basically have three points here this morning. And of course the heading of it is that the law is good. You know, what is good? Well, the law is good. And then what is ugly?

And that's verses 9 through 10. Lawlessness is ugly. And then what's the remedy? It's the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, which works in harmony with the law of God. So that's basically it.

Well, he says here in the text, the law is good. He uses a word, callos, which means excellent, beautiful. It's the root of moral beauty and it really, the word is used many times in the Bible. For example, it's used of Sarah's beautiful appearance in Genesis 12. The same word is used for Rachel's beauty.

Same word is used for Joseph's handsomeness in Genesis chapter 39. So when you read the law is good, you can say the law is beautiful, the law is excellent, It's fantastic. This should be the foundational view of our law of God, of the law of God. Now let me just say something. In the next probably two or three weeks, I'm going to continue to lean on the doctrine of the law of God.

We'll move to various matters of the sufficiency of Scripture and also our particular confession. We'll walk through how to interpret the case law in the Old Testament, some things like that. But Paul here is bringing us to this foundational understanding of the law and Paul helps us to understand it by saying that the law is good. Now Perhaps you've already noticed why the Apostle is bringing this up because Paul is telling Timothy to deal with unhealthy doctrine, with law that's not good, that's not sound. They were men twisting the law, they were they were teachers of the law, the text says explicitly, but they were using it in the wrong way and they were using myths and idle talk and they were they were veering off says says they straight off like they veered off the path and they got lost and losing other people along with that them and so the Apostle is setting them straight for the right use of the law.

He's just, he's correcting an unhealthy use of the law. We've talked about this matter of health the last time we were in 1 Timothy and particularly a book that's recently been written called The Death of Religion with a question mark and in the book they're telling us that there's massive research that indicates that the church, the gathered church, is the only place where you find substantial human flourishing. It's the fellowship of the saints for people who are dedicated to the Church of God and what these researchers are saying is that these, they call them markers of social cohesion exists that don't exist anywhere else in the culture and outside of the church people experience isolation, anxiety, hopelessness, despair they call crippling despair in contrast to people who are being exposed to the word of God. And these researchers are saying that inside the church you find healthier people and they have half as much hypertension and depression and drug and alcohol use and lower suicides rates and all kinds of things and I that's because the church is is subjected to the law of God it has some sense that of Jesus Christ and all of his ways.

And so you know what the law of God does. It calls us out of darkness and into repentance and into trusting God, into holiness, into self-control, into courage, into generosity, all kinds of things. The law of God is a sweeping comprehensive impact on your life and it transforms everything. So that's the idea. I think David captured it when he said in Psalm 133, blessed is that people whose God is the Lord happy blessed happy is that people we encountered this word happy in our text the blessed God the happy God we'll get there in a minute But he's talking about how you make use of the law You know, do you do you view the law like going to the dentist or do you View it like going to watch a beautiful sunset.

How do you view the law of God? David spoke of the perfection of the law. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. He says the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord. The commandment of the Lord is pure. It enlightens the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

And then he says, more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb." And then he says, by them your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward. This is the significance of the law of God. David also said in Psalm 1, 1992, he said, unless your law had been my delight I would have perished in my affliction. He says, I will never forget your precepts for by them you have given me life.

You know this isn't the standard view of the law. We have massive numbers of people in evangelicalism who don't think about the law that way. They think the law passed away. Solomon said this, he said, those who forsake the law praise the wicked. And then he says, and those who keep the law contend with them.

You should keep the law to contend with the wicked. That's one way you contend with the wicked is just by keeping it. Solomon also said in Proverbs 28 he said, whoever keeps the law is a discerning son but a companion of glutton's shames his father. And then Solomon says really it's a terrifying statement. He says in Proverbs 28, nine, the one who turns away his ear from the law, okay, you have a person who's turned their ear away from the law what's gonna happen he says even his prayer is an abomination that's terrifying to the prayers Proverbs 13 13 says he who despises the word will be destroyed but he who fears the commandment will be rewarded.

And of course there's the flip side Proverbs 29 18, Happy is he who keeps the law. So I could go on and on and on in this vein about the blessings of the law of God and what actually is the case. Now, so how do you view the law? Do you view it like David who said, how sweet are your words to my taste? Sweeter than honey to my mouth.

That's the big question. Honey is a sweetener. Honey is mentioned 61 times in the Bible and it always points to prosperity and abundance. And in 1 Samuel 14, 27, it brightens your eyes. Every time I eat honey, I think about that scene in 1 Samuel where David's eyes were brightened.

Well, the word of God is like that. It's designed to brighten your eyes, to help you see more clearly and to have energy. The first time honey was mentioned in the Bible, it was a gift to win favor in a family. Do you remember where that was? Joseph in Egypt, he hides honey in the bags that are going to go back to his family.

You know where you have honey, you have orchards, you have flowers, you have pastures this imagery Should just teach us about the goodness of God and giving the law Proverbs 24 13 my son eat honey because it is good and the honeycomb which is sweet to your taste. But wait what's he talking about? Is he talking about physical honey? Well the next verse says, so the knowledge of wisdom will be to your soul. If you have found it, there's a prospect and your hope will not be cut off.

Here Solomon speaks about honey, but he's really talking about your soul and what it's like and when you when you look at what the law of God is compared to you know one of the beautiful things about the Bible and one of the one of the way reasons I love to read it there is so much poetic language there There's a metaphor almost in every paragraph, a graphic beautiful metaphor. And then you have all these narratives in the Bible that weave all this through stories. But of course, you know, honey shows up as a metaphor for the law of God. Gold is also one of those metaphors. Light in Psalm 119 verse 105.

It's a lamp unto your feet. A fire in Jeremiah 23. It burns away the impurities. In Jeremiah 23, 29, it's a hammer. In Hebrews 4, it's a sword.

In Luke 8, 11, it's a seed. In 1 Peter 2, 2, it's milk. In Matthew 4, 4, its bread. In Ephesians 5 26 its water. You wash your wife with the water of the Word.

In James 1 23 it's a mirror in Isaiah 55 it's snow and rain and Psalm 119 162 it's treasure. That's why Solomon says take firm hold of instruction and do not let it go. Keep her for she is your life. She is your life. Just like you need food to deliver you from the starvation of the body, you need the Word of God to deliver you from the starvation of your soul.

It is your life. That's the message here. You can live without many things. You can live without riches, you can live without recognition, you can live without comfort, you can live without health, but you can't, here's the message, you can't live without the voice of God in your life. It's the living water that flows in the church, that binds the church together, that settles its thinking together, that causes them to grow together in love.

It's the law of God that creates this environment where you have a law keeping people and frankly, God gathers his people to create a community a law-keeping community so that the light and the gold and the honey and the fire the word of God would be their unity. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So, This phrase, the law is good, is explaining what is the greatest blessing that has ever touched the world. It is the Word of God. And every word of God, every word of the Old Testament, every word of the New Testament is a word of Jesus Christ.

All of it has been breathed, God breathed through the Son into the world. Well that's one reason that you parents should be teaching your kids the law. They should understand not only just the 10 Commandments, which are summaries of all the other laws in the Bible. All of the laws in the Bible are, they're like rivers that flow back up to the Ten Commandments. And I hope I hope your children can recite the Ten Commandments, but not just recite them, but just understand what honey and gold and water and bread those those commandments are and how they apply to everything in your life.

The law of God is your owner's manual and your kids need to have that owner's manual firmly lodged in their minds. They need to know about the bad news about sin and they need to know about the good news of Jesus Christ who saves sinners I Hope the kids in this church They become like Ezra Who was skilled in the law? Says for Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. Well you parents I hope first of all you are teachers, but you need to recognize you're not just teachers, you're teaching a teacher of the next generation. You're not just teaching them as a stop, you're teaching them as something to go on for many, many generations.

That you, your son, and your grandson, all the days of their lives would be bringing the word of God when they sit in the house when they walk by the way when they lie down and when they rise up so raise up kids like Ezra You know the law tells you how to do everything. How to raise your kids, how to be married, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, what it means to take care of old people, how to experience the Lord's Day, how not to be a glutton, how to conduct your family, you know, how do you think about the government? The law of God teaches you everything about this and so we need to understand that. Theologians have said there are particular purposes of the law I'll give you four. First it discloses the righteousness of God.

It gives you a sense of the character of God. Every law gives you a sense of the character of God. Second, it convicts of sin. That's a valuable thing. Third, it constrains evil in your life and in the civil realm.

And then fourth, it's a rule of life. Well we'll elaborate on these in the coming weeks here as we go through this series on the law. So after establishing that the law is good or beautiful, he turns to how the law is necessary. We need the law of God to identify, to root out sin, and Paul in verses 9 and 10 he's explaining how harmful law breaking is. I'll just say it this way he's explaining how unhealthy it is to not deal with sin in your life because the law points to sin in your life.

So he has stated what is good in verse 8. Now he states what is ugly. What is ugly? Ugliness is lawlessness. And ugly.

Ugliness is lawlessness and law breaking is worse than you think. Law breaking actually is heartbreaking and the law shows us the ugliness of a life of sin and how unprofitable and harmful it is to distrust God in his laws. So verse 9, knowing this that the law was not made for a righteous person but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine or healthy teaching. So now these verses are referring to the moral law of God that's summarized in the Ten Commandments, which is the universal standard of behavior. And he's also saying when we get finally to to the last verse in our text verse 11 that this law is not a contradiction to the gospel it is complementary to the gospel the law and the gospel are friends they work together for the same purpose So Paul has just established the goodness and beauty of the law now he's explaining the badness and the harmfulness it is to violate God's commandments and notice Paul lists sins that are related explicitly and you'll see how in a minute to nine of the Ten Commandments.

He leaves out the tenth commandment but then he says and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. You know the 10th commandment is the law against covetousness. It's a secret sin and perhaps that's why he leaves it out. But he speaks of notice it's it but is for the lawless and insubordinate. These are, this is autonomous man who wants to live his own way, the lawless and insubordinate.

And if you understand the Ten Commandments, you know for every prohibition There is a counterpart. In other words the prohibition do not bear false witness. The counterpart is tell the truth You know all the commandments have a counterpart in that sense. And there are categories of sins that are here. The Ten Commandments give us categories of sins.

I want us to think clearly about how we view the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are categories of sin under which there are other sins in that same category. For example, Jesus says you have heard that it was said you shall not murder. He said well If you hate your brother in your heart, you're a murderer. In other words, hatred is under the category of murder.

In other words, in order to break that law, it's not necessary that you shoot someone. If you hate them it's under it's that same category of sin. All of the commandments are like that. That's why David in the Psalms he says your commandments are very broad. In other words they They penetrate every part of your life.

They aren't, you shouldn't think of the 10 commandments as just these wooden, tin things that you should stay aware from, you should. But there are other sins underneath those in the same category. Jesus said the same thing about adultery. He said don't think of adultery is exclusively a physical act. If you lust, that is in the same category as adultery.

Do you see that? So there are many many other sins and if you go to the the great catechism the Westminster larger and shorter catechism and the and some of the others some of their other reformed catechisms they will list various sins under the particular sins of the Ten Commandments and they elaborate on those those categories and we'll maybe do that sometime later but then he says this knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate. Now, if you look at that phrase, some have concluded that this means that the law does not apply to Christians. It doesn't apply to the righteous. In other words, the Christians are the righteous.

And this is what is called in modern times New Covenant Theology, which dismisses the law of God in the life of the Christian, of the modern Christian. Now, let me say that it cannot mean that because of other very, very clear things that the Bible says about the law of God. Paul makes it very clear that the law of God applies to him personally, and it also applies to the whole church. And I'll give you some examples. In Romans 7-22, Paul says, I delight in the law of God according to the inward man instead of dismissing it he says no I delight in it in Romans 7 12 he says therefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good and then in Romans 3 31 he says do we then make void the law through faith certainly not on the contrary We established the law and he's using language that I believe is code for the complimentary role of the law and the gospel as they work together.

Paul said in Romans 13 verse 8 he said he who loves another has fulfilled the law. Yes the law is applicable for a New Testament Christian. In Galatians 3, 21 he says, the law is not against the promises of God. He says is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not.

He says that emphatically. For if there had been a law given which would have given life truly righteousness would have been by the law. And he's arguing that righteousness is not achieved by the law, it's only achieved through faith by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 3, 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight.

For by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's what I believe Paul is driving at with Timothy. By the law is the knowledge of sin. Jesus said it like this in John 14 15, if you love me you will keep my commandments. In John in 1st John 2 verses 4 & 5 says that loving God and law-keeping are inseparable.

He says, he who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. You know that you are in him because you love to keep his commandments. Do you keep them perfectly? No, you don't and neither do I.

But your heart's inclination is to keep the law of God that's the mark of a Christian and that mark extends to love that loving the law causes you to love your brethren. John also said in 1st John 3 24, now he who keeps his commandments abides in him and he in him and by this we know he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given to us and all over you find you know Moses in the Pentateuch which by the way Paul only had the Pentateuch He did not have the New Testament. He was writing the New Testament. He had the Pentateuch and over and over again he says concerning obedience to the law he says it like this this is so powerful this is your life this is your life this is your life this is your nourishment this brings you out of starvation of your soul this brings you the knowledge of sin so that you might be saved this is your life To diminish the law of God is to diminish at the same time the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said, "'Wretched man that I am who will deliver me "'from this body of death.'" When Paul uses this phraseology, he is speaking of all people who are unrighteous.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All do and all need the law. Matthew Henry said this, the law is still very useful as a rule of life though we are not under it as a covenant of works yet it is good to teach us what sin is and what is his duty. So when Paul says the law is not made for a righteous person but for the lawless he's affirming that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He's affirming what Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.

That's the focus and the law is designed to identify sin. Paul says that he himself is the chief of centers later on in his letters. So, think of the law like this. Think of the law like a plumb line. Some of you are contractors and you probably use plumb lines.

A plumb line dropped against a crooked wall. You know, a wall might look straight from a distance, but if you drop a plumb line, you might see a bulge or you might see an indentation. You might see waves in the wall that you couldn't see from 10 feet, but the law is God's plumb line to the human heart. It shows the human heart where it is varying from what is true and good and The law reveals our crookedness You know another way to think about that is it's like a It's like an x-ray or it's some of you have gotten MRIs. With an MRI, it sees through you and it looks deeper.

The law of God is like the like the imaging of the soul. It shows what's what can't be seen necessarily on the surface. So the law of God has a critical place for the believer and Paul is just affirming that all have sinned there's none righteous but but one Jesus Christ and then notice he begins to break out these sins that are identified in the Ten Commandments. So just look at the text here. First of all, for the ungodly, those are those who do not love God.

This is the breaking of the first commandment. Second, for sinners. This is the second commandment. Third, for the unholy and profane. They do not desire what is holy.

For instance, the Sabbath day is holy. Fourth, unholy, or I'm sorry, holy and unprofane. This is no desire for what's holy fourth unholy fifth addresses the fifth commandment strike or murderers of fathers and mothers Now notice he takes the most egregious, the most serious sin in the fifth commandment, killing a parent. Well there are other sins that actually are part of violating the fifth commandment, dishonoring your father and mother. The pinnacle, the height of breaking the fifth commandment is killing your parents.

But he's just identifying the most serious of the sins. Then you see that in the next four manslayers and then next for fornicators and sodomites for kidnappers for liars and perjurers. He ends up with liars and for the ninth commandment you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. So this list obviously is not exhaustive, but he's talking about the most serious. Many of these actually required the death penalty in the Old Testament.

So he names the most serious, but under those very serious breakings of the Ten Commandments there are there are lesser sins like dishonor and lust and hatred and things like that. And then he says and if there is any other thing which is contrary to sound doctrine. I think he's just, that's a catch-all. I think what he's saying is that this list is not comprehensive. There are a lot more things that are against the law of God than what I've just mentioned here.

So Paul is mentioning the most extreme expressions, the most obvious expressions the most obvious expressions. And then he turns In verse 11, he turns to the gospel. Notice the flow. You have what is good, the law, what is ugly, lawlessness, And all of this in verse 11 is according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. In other words, the law and the gospel are complementary and they work together for the salvation of sinners.

The law, you know, of course it's like a plumb line and a crooked wall like an x-ray and the glory of God shines forth in the gospel and it illustrates the need that we have because it's true all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and he calls that he calls it this glorious gospel in other words it's beautiful it's wonderful and he says it's of the blessed God and he uses that classic word for happiness. Blessed, you know blessed are the poor in spirit, happy are the poor in spirit. Here we have the blessed God, the happy God. This is the God of the Bible, the God of the Bible, the happy God who brings his children into his fellowship who forgives all of their sins and brings them into this community of happiness where they've been delivered from all of their burdens. It's the greatest act of love for God to send his Son for the appeasement of sin and the rescue of sinners from all the sins that he has just listed here.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us have broken the Ten Commandments. James says if you've broken one law you've broken them all. That's how broad the commandments are. He is the blessed happy God who makes his own people happy and healthy through the doctrine.

So what is good? The law. It shows us the beauty of the life that God has designed and what is ugly? Lawlessness. The heartbreaking lawlessness.

And what's the remedy? The glorious gospel. The gospel of the happy God who saves sinners. Next week we'll talk about the sufficiency of Scripture and then we'll continue on to talk about interpreting Old Testament law in sessions after that. Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for giving us your law to teach us the ways in which we should go, to nourish our souls, to feed us with the finest of wheat and give us what is sweeter than honey to give us bread from heaven, water of life, Lord. Lord we thank you that all of it is embedded in your holy word and now Lord as we go from this place today help us now help us now to even more saturate our minds to create such a beautiful diet of information for our souls. Amen.