Skid Marks and Grace

“for by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you” (1Tim 6:21)

You can tell a lot at an accident scene when you look at the skid marks. What’s left of the car may be still smoking in the ditch, but the burnt rubber left on the road will tell you where the trouble began. That’s why police investigating any wreck will carefully examine and measure when and where the tires made their black marks on the pavement. 

At the very end of his letter to Timothy, Paul looks over the skid marks of another accident scene. It was a terrible crash. No, there wasn’t six chariot pileup on some Philippian freeway. He’s talking about the wreck of the Ephesian church. It all happened when a team of false teachers distracted folks from following Jesus with a lot of pointless discussions they claimed was essential to the faith. The result was tragic. “For by professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you” (v21). 

When you take your eyes off grace, you’re going to leave skid marks.

As Paul wraps up his note, he personally encourages Pastor Tim to “guard the deposit entrusted to you” (1Tim 6:20). The apostle is talking about protecting the purity of the Gospel. When you compare spreading the Good News to reporting, it’s critical to maintain journalistic integrity. This goes for pastors, ministers, Bible teachers, as well as folks like you and me. We must make sure the message of Jesus remains untarnished, untainted, and undiluted. This is Paul’s call to quality assurance. And by guarding it, he doesn’t mean hoarding it. I’m to share it readily and generously.

Just a quick reminder of exactly the key ingredients of the crystal clear Gospel of grace. In an incredible moment of generosity, God created a perfect universe and put us in it. It wasn’t long before we jacked the whole deal up by thinking He was holding out on us. We continually rejected His goodness and repeatedly ignored His loving guidance. 

In order to save us from ourselves and restore creation, God personally got involved. His Son left heaven and went on the greatest search-and-rescue mission in all of history. Jesus lived the perfect life we should have lived. He died the death for our sin and rebellion we should have died. He rose to new life we don’t deserve. Christ restores our broken relationship with God for us. 

We simply trust in what He did for us that we could never do on our own. We follow His leadership as an act of gratitude and worship. I must keep my eyes locked on Jesus who not only starts and ends my rescue. When I’m distracted and start thinking it’s up to me to save myself, I headed for trouble. BIG trouble. When I take my eyes off grace, I’m going to leave skid marks.

Meanwhile back in Paul’s epistle, he stands at the accident scene knows exactly what happened. It all started when some of these spiritual hucksters began making promises they couldn’t keep. He writes how they were “professing it” (v21). “It” being the “irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge’” (1Tim 6:20). He uses a Greek word (Gr. epaggellomai) to describe what they said that describes someone promising publicly what will occur. The term literally means to “pre (epi-) announce (-announce).” They asserted openly and emphatically how things would go down. You may remember back near the beginning of the letter how Paul these religious con artists had a bad habit of talking about all sorts of goofy stuff “about which they make confident assertions” (1Tim 1:7). 

Check out how writers use this word in the NT. When Judas cooks up the plot to throw Jesus under the bus, religious leaders “were glad and promised (Gr. epaggellomai) to give him money” (Mk 14:11). Despite being well a VERY old man, Abraham put his trust in God’s covenant pledge to give he and Sarah a son because he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised (Gr. epaggellomai)” (Rom 7:5). In the opening lines of his letter to Titus, Paul tells him how everything hinges “in on the hope of eternal life, which God who never lies, promised (Gr. epaggellomai) before the ages began” (Titus 1:2). A promise is only as good as the one making it. Hint, hint. Trust God’s promises!

You can bet when we take our eyes off Christ, we’ll hear squealing tires very soon. Folks in Ephesus saw it happen with their own eyes. Paul and Tim remember that horrible time false teachers made empty promises and “some have swerved from the faith” (v21). “Swerved” is the Greek verb astocheo, which describes someone who completely misses the target. Picture a distracted driver while texting who veers wildly into your lane and off the road (because we know neither one of us would EVER do something so stupid, right? RIGHT?!?).

Earlier in this letter, Paul reminds Tim how folks who once had a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith, “by swerving (Gr. astocheo) from these, have wandered away into vain discussion” (1Tim 1:5-6). In his followup note, the apostle tells Tim how two false teachers named Hymenaeus and Philetus “swerved (Gr. astocheo) from the truth” by claiming the resurrection of the dead has already happened (2Tim 2:17-18). Pastor Tim is certainly used to seeing skid marks at spiritual accident scenes. 

The man from Tarsus signs off his letter to his spiritual son by writing, “Grace be with you” (v21). No, it’s not “yours truly.” Not “sincerely.” Not “regards.” It’s “grace.” This is no automatically generated signature at the bottom of an email. If you’re familiar with our man Paul, you know God’s amazing grace is a big deal. A VERY big deal. Some folks call it God’s descending, one-way love. Paul Zahl says it’s “love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return…Grace is being loved when you are unlovable.” It’s God’s overwhelming and overflowing goodness to each one of us who really deserve a one-way ticket to the far side of hell instead. 

Flip back to the opening lines of this epistle. Paul starts with a prayer for God’s goodness to Tim. “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord” (1Tim 1:2). And now it ends celebrating His divine generosity to every follower of Jesus in the church. The apostle bookends every letter with grace (Rom 1:1; 16:20; 1Cor 1:3; 16:23; 2Cor 1:11 13:14; Gal 1:1; 6:18; Eph 1:1; 6:24; Phil 1:2; 4:23; Col 1:1; 4:18; 1Tim 1:1; 6:21; 2Tim 1:1; 4:22; Titus 1:4; 3:15; Phm 3, 25). Every. Single. One. See for yourself. I’ll hum the music to Final Jeopardy while you do.

Our journey with Jesus starts with grace. And it ends with grace. Why not open and close every conversation I have with a reminder of God’s undeserved and unmerited favor for you and me? Our relationship with our Heavenly Dad begins and ends with grace. His very act of creating the entire universe out of zilch for us to enjoy is certainly an example of it. It all starts with His grace and ends with His grace.

Paul constantly reminds us of the incredible impact of Jesus’ one-way love on his life. “The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1Tim 1:12). Remember, the apostle formerly known as Saul was a one-man wrecking crew on a search-and-destroy mission to kill the followers of Christ before our resurrected Savior blindsided him outside of Damascus. From murderer to missionary. From assassin to apostle. Now THAT’S grace!

When it comes to my own salvation, I bring nothing to the table except the sin that makes it absolutely necessary. Or as Paul tells his Ephesian friends, “Saving is all His idea, and all His work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play a major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!” (Eph 2:8-9 The Message). I absolutely love Tullian Tchividjian’s description. “Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated Giver.” And if I don’t keep my eyes on His grace, I’ll swerve and wreck myself too.

There’s something curious about the very last word of the letter: “you” (v21). It’s actually plural. At the very end of this very personal note, Paul’s talking to the entire church. For those of you from the south of the Mason-Dixon line, you can read this as “y’all.” Well, the apostle is originally from southern part of Asia in the city of Tarsus. This is a powerful reminder that while our relationship with Jesus is very personal, it is certainly NOT private. We do it together. In other words, we’re carpooling in our journey with Christ. I’m not traveling solo. If I don’t focus on His grace I could easily end up careening and crashing. Just like that horrible accident in Ephesus. You can still see the skid marks.