1 Timothy 4:6-16; Acts 6:1-7
You may be seated. Turn, if you
will, in your copies of the Word of God to Acts chapter six. We’re
going to read again verses one through seven. We considered
that passage last week. We’re going to use this passage
to jump into a study this week of what is a minister. Next week,
what is an elder? The week after, what is a deacon?
And probably a fourth week. This thing is evolving as we
go. the qualifications for ministers, elders, and deacons. So today
we want to read from Acts chapter 6 verses 1 through 7, and then
we want to flip over to 1 Timothy chapter 4, and we’ll look at
some of the practical things there for a minister from chapter
4, 6 through 16. So a little different than usual,
but I think y’all are up to the challenge. Prepare to hear God’s word by
asking for God’s help. Pray with me. Lord, if you don’t
give us your blessing, we won’t hear, we won’t see, we won’t
understand, and we won’t do what you ask. So give us the blessings
of your spirit now with sight, with hearing, and with willingness.
And we ask it in the name of Jesus, who can make all things
so, amen. Hear the word of God from Acts
chapter six, beginning at verse one. It says, now in these days,
when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the
Hellenist arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being
neglected in the daily distribution. And the 12 summoned the full
number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should
give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore,
brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute
full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this
duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry
of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering and
they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit
and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas
and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before
the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
And the word of God continued to increase. And the number of
the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many
of the priests became obedient to the faith. Then if you would
flip over to 1 Timothy chapter four. 1 Timothy chapter four,
verses six through 16. Remember that Paul is writing
as an old man. His last letters were Timothy
and Titus. Before his death, he’s writing as an old man to
Timothy, the young pastor at the Church of Ephesus. And he
says to Timothy, the pastor, if you put these things before
the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being
trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that
you have followed, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly
myths, rather train yourself for godliness. For while bodily
training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it
holds promise for the present life and also for the life to
come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance,
for to this end we toil and strive because we have our hopes set
on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially
of those who believe. Command and teach these things.
Let no one despise you for your youth. Set the believers an example
in your speech and your conduct and your love and faith and purity.
Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture.
to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have,
which was given you by the prophecy when the council of elders laid
their hands on you. Practice these things. Devote
yourself to them so that all may see your progress. Keep a
close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this,
for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Amen. The word of the living
God. As I mentioned a couple of times, we are going to take
today to look at those who minister the Word of God. Next week, we’ll
look at the office of the ruling elder or the governor of the
church and then The next, the office of deacon. Remember that
in Acts chapter six, one to seven, uh, there were already apostles. Uh, there were preachers teaching
and ministering the word. Uh, a, a, a need arose. There were some folks being overlooked
in the daily distribution. It was going to take the preachers
away from preaching the word. So they said, let’s select deacons
and have them do ministry of service. Uh, typically in the
life of the church, especially since the reformation, You have
what we call three offices, the office of deacon, elder, and
minister. The office of minister has fallen
on hard times today. The office of minister has really
morphed or downgraded into a church CEO, a church do it all. a master of all trades or maybe
it’s even downgraded worse than that to the MC of something that
happens on Sunday in a building that may or may not look like
a church. And so we want to straighten out our thinking by the word
of the living God. All of this came to a crisis
for me, not, not when I felt the call of God to be a minister,
not when I was ordained to be a minister, but it really, came
to bear in my life in 2006. I had been a minister for some
time. I was wet behind the ears, didn’t
know what I was doing. I was an assistant working under
another fella and I really felt like my sole job in life was
to make sure the church didn’t kill him. And they did try. And back in 2006, maybe in the
fall of 2006, I can remember sitting in a circle at an elder’s
house And I wasn’t sitting in the circle, I was sitting in
the middle of the circle. And I was sitting in the middle
of that circle with the other pastor, and for two hours, probably 20,
25 people heaped abuse after abuse after abuse, mainly on
the other pastor as the head minister, but a little was aimed
at me. And I left that night thinking,
these people do not deserve a minister. These people do not deserve the
prophetic voice of almighty God. These people deserve far worse,
but God is being gracious. And then a few weeks later, some
of these same folks who were on our session came with their
personnel recommendations. They had sat around and decided
what a minister ought to be and do and how our senior minister
was not being and doing the things that they wanted him to be and
do. And he would have never met their expectations. I’ll give
you a sampling. Pastor, we ride by the church
and we don’t see your car there. How is it that you are working
if your car is not at church? And then they would turn around
literally in the same breath. Pastor, you don’t get out and
visit. And I pointed out to them that maybe when they ride by
the church and don’t see his car there, that maybe he’s out
visiting. Well, this went on and on and on. And so I sat down
to do a study of what the word of God says about what a minister
ought to be and what a minister ought to do. And when it came
up to be my time to preach as an associate, you know, you get
to preach maybe three, four times a year or something like that.
So it came up my time. I thought I’m gonna be loaded
for bear. I’m gonna give these people a dose. I’m gonna sit them in a circle,
right? And tell them what for. But isn’t it interesting? how
the very church of the living God, given the gift of ministers
and elders and deacons, hardly know what that means and how
it could benefit them more if these things were biblically
put into practice in the life of the church. So from Paul’s
letter to Timothy, from chapter four, verses six to 16, I want
us to think in two big categories today, what a minister ought
to be, And then what a minister ought to do. In each of these,
what a minister ought to be, what a minister ought to do,
have a couple points under each. The first thing a minister ought
to be is a scholar. Verse six, towards the end, Paul
says to Timothy, you being trained in the words of the faith and
the good doctrine you have followed. Paul’s emphasis to Timothy is
you have a training. You have an education. You labor
in the word. And so a minister ought to be
a scholar. He ought to know God’s word.
He ought to know the theology, the history of the church. He
ought to know doctrine and practice backwards and forwards. He ought to have been properly
educated and continue in that education so that as he grows
in his ministry, the church grows with him. The servant of God
must be a scholar, trained in the words of the faith and the
good doctrine. Somebody was commenting to me
some years ago that they got a new pastor at their church
and their new pastor didn’t come into the office like all the
other staff did. No, he stayed at home. worked
in his own private study in his house. And I said, well, do you
think that’s a good thing or a bad thing? Well, I don’t, I
don’t know. They said, and I said, actually,
I think that’s a very good thing. If a minister comes into the
office and there’s office politics, there’s water cooler conversations,
there’s staff meetings, there’s a, what we call the drive-bys,
you know, the people that don’t make an appointment, but they
drive by and they stopped by, Oh, pastor, you’re not busy.
You’re not playing golf. So you must have time for me.
Um, that’s a joke, right? So we only work an hour on Sundays.
But it becomes very difficult for a minister to labor in the
word if he goes in and it’s just busy work. And so my comment
to this person was, well, if he’s going to eat a steady diet
of the word in the privacy of his home study, he’s probably
going to feed your flock better. Never thought of that. Did you
know the Presbyterian and Reformed pastor is likely the most educated
of all American clergy? Today, to be a minister, you
just need a following and a Twitter handle. And you can do quite
well. There’s gold in them there hills,
as we say. But for a Presbyterian and Reformed
pastor, he must Have a college degree. He must study Greek and
Hebrew and Bible and theology and preaching and leadership
and counseling and government and culture and philosophy, world
religions, ethics and worship. There’s so many things he must
know about. And the reformed faith has said, if you’re going
to take up this sacred office, you must be prepared. But as
Paul continues to teach Timothy, you’ve got to constantly be a
student of the word. The pastor should study hard
each week to ensure that what he puts before the congregation
is solid teaching. He needs to be proficient in
the scriptures. Here’s an interesting saying.
A minister is a man who is called by God and the Lord Jesus Christ,
the king and the head of the church, to a special ministry
of the word. We talk sometimes about lay preachers,
right? somebody who has a day job, but
they preach on the side. And sometimes that’s necessary,
especially in rural settings. But I want to tell y’all, it’s
both a privilege for me and for y’all. It’s definitely a privilege
for me because this is how I make my living. But we as a church
have someone set apart, not to labor in the world, but that’s
an honorable thing. Don’t ever see work as sacred
and secular. It’s all sacred. But we have
the ability to set someone apart, to labor in the word and to preach
and teach the word to us. That is a special gift of Christ. And that’s why a minister’s call
is a contract with a call and provisions. And well, there’s
book money and study leave money. There’s a place with shelves. And it’s in order to provide
weekly preaching and teaching and laboring in the word for
the congregation. You know why the church is in
the fix that it’s in today in America? We’re the most educated
people in the world and we have the most uneducated ministers
and they are upfront people and they are eating out of their
hands. But what a great wonder it is, what a great gift it is
for God to raise up pastors and scholars who know their stuff
and can communicate it to you. And so Paul says to Timothy,
above all, a servant must be a scholar. There’s a second thing,
a servant of God must be disciplined. If you look at verse seven all
the way through nine, it says this, train yourself for godliness.
That’s what he says to Timothy. For while bodily training is
of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds
promise for the present life, but also for the life that is
to come. This saying is trustworthy and
deserving of full acceptance. Whoever is preaching and teaching
God’s word to you had better be a holy person. They had better
be disciplined. They had better be striving after
holiness. Now, not perfect, right? We’re all sinners in need of
God’s grace. But the person who ministers
to you ought to daily read their Bibles. They ought to pray. They ought to be quiet before
God. They ought to ask for his help and blessing, not only in
their own life, but in their own ministry as they combat sin
with every weapon available. And notice the words that Paul
uses for Timothy. There’s a characterization of
a regiment of training. In fact, if you I encourage you
to do it later today, read all of Timothy, read first and second,
and you’ll see that what the apostle Paul uses to show Timothy
that he must be disciplined across these two books. He talks about
a farmer laboring in hopes of a harvest. He speaks of an athlete
laboring in hope for a victory. He speaks of a workman laboring
in hopes of being approved and people may be purchasing their
goods. And so a minister ought to be
disciplined in the disciplines of holiness and grace. But I’ll
give you a little practical saying that I once heard and it stuck
with me. The pastor needs to sit on his
bottom in a chair for a long, long time until he gets his work
done. You see a lot of pastors today. They’re here and there.
They’re at this place and that place, this appointment and that
appointment. And it really has little to do with the ministry
of the word and sacrament or even as people. They’re down
at the soup kitchen. They’re down at this endeavor
and that endeavor and this endeavor. And the advice I was given, which
has proven to be really good advice, is you need to go to
your study and you need to shut the door and you need to sit
on your rear end until you get your work done. And no Saturday
night specials. Y’all know what those are, right?
That’s at 10 o’clock at night when the preacher says, Oh no,
tomorrow is Sunday. And I’ve been busy, busy, busy,
busy, mind you not doing what he should have been doing. And
now it’s time to get to work because I have to say something.
And I think most of you know, well, through your church experience,
Oh, a preacher will get up and say something, but is it a value? Has he been disciplined? Is it
obvious that he is godly and that the fruit of the spirit
is blessing His maturity and his hard work. Paul gives the
example of the athlete who trains for an event. He plays by the
rules. He competes, he wins. And he
says, godliness is of much more value than this. I think today,
if you look at most preachers, they’re more worried about their
muscles. And I’m serious. You look at their Twitter handles.
Oh, I’m a CrossFitter. You know, I’m a workouter, and
you don’t have to worry about that here. They have muscles, they have
endurance, but do they have holiness? Have they put in the work to
do the word of the living God? A pastor, a servant, ought to
be scholar. He ought to be a disciplined
servant. He, third, ought to be a hard worker. Paul says in
verses 10, also in verse 14 and 15, he says, for to this end
we toil. That’s a hard work word, isn’t
it? To this end we strive because we have our hopes set on the
living God who is the savior of the people, especially of
those who believe. Do not neglect the gift you have,
which was given you by the prophecy when the council of elders laid
their hands on you, practice these things, devote yourselves
to these things. There ought to be agony and toil
and striving in addition to discipline when a minister is serving the
word of God. Why? Because the consequences
are eternal. A lot of ministers are thinking
of quitting and Paul says here to Timothy, do not neglect your
gift. Do not quit. Why do you think
Paul would quit or Timothy? Well, if you think about the
statistics that are true of pastors in America today, it was probably
true of Timothy. There are very few pastors under
the age of 35. Supposedly 1,500 pastors leave
the ministry every month. The average career of four pastors
is seven years. 80% of pastors will tell you
that pastoral ministry has affected their families negatively. 75%
will tell you they have significant stress in their ministry. 70% will tell you they have a
lower self-image now than when they began. 40% will report a
serious conflict with the parishioner at least once a month. 70% have
no one they consider a close friend. 30% of pastors are forced
out of their churches at least once in their career. And here’s
an interesting fact. Most pastors leave a church because
of seven or fewer people. Isn’t that interesting? When
the pastor gets run off, 93% are happy. It’s the seven or
fewer that raise up the tussle and lead the charge. So why would
Timothy need to be encouraged to fan into flame his gift? Well,
pastoring people is tough. It’s spiritual. It’s never done.
But Paul says to Timothy, you were ordained. You were called
by God. You had the elders lay hands
on you and pray you. So get to work. You know, NASCAR
season has started. I think I saw they raced last
week in California, Daytona’s coming up. And the thing you
don’t want in a race is a DNF, right? A did not finish. And
that is very true of a minister. It’s a tough job telling people
how to live, telling them what God says. Well, a pastor, a servant
ought to be scholarly. He ought to be disciplined. He
ought to be a hard worker. This is the last thing under what
a pastor ought to be. The servant of God must be a
model of spiritual virtue. Paul says, do not let anyone
despise you for your youth, but set the example for believers.
An example in speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. Timothy’s
young. He’s in his thirties. He’s timid.
He’s shy. Think you’d rather go sell insurance, which is what
most pastors think on Monday morning, by the way. But you’re
to give an example in your speech, what you say, what comes out
of your mouth reflects what’s in your heart. Set an example
in your conduct. Live well based on Christian
character. Set an example in love. Love
people unconditionally as Christ calls us. to do. Set an example
in faith, what you believe and how that faith helps you to live
in hard times. If you’re a pastor quitter, what
does that say to the people about your faith? Paul is laying it
on thick. Set an example in purity. That
is holiness. And verse 16 tells us the result
of that. If you set an example, if you
are a model of spiritual virtue, he says, if you keep a close
watch on yourself and your doctrine, your teaching, if you persist
in this, you will save both yourself and your ears. There’s nothing
worse than a worldly pastor. There’s nothing worse than a
faithless pastor. There’s nothing worse than a
lazy pastor or a undisciplined pastor or a pastor who displays
everything that’s not in the good book. But what does this
lead us to think on as a church? Well, pray for your pastor. Pray
that he’ll be a scholar and he’ll be disciplined. He’ll be a hard
worker. He’ll be a model of great faith. So the servant of God
must be those four things. But he almost, Also must do certain
things the servant of God must do. We want to think of three
things. The servant of God must first warn people of error. Verse
six says, if you want to be a good servant of Jesus Christ, point
out the errors of false teachers to the people of God. And I have
to tell you, this is where you really get in trouble as a preacher.
I can remember back in the early 2000s when the Da Vinci code
came out. And so one Wednesday night I
did a little thing on the Da Vinci Code. Don’t read it. Don’t
go see it. Bunch of mess. All the women of the church got
really angry at me. They had already planned a date
night. They had already planned a women’s night and little did
I know it was already in the bulletin. What a poisonous thing
for the people of God to get into is false teaching. But isn’t
it so popular? Oh, this is so wonderful. You
know, Easter’s coming in a few weeks, a month or two. We always
get those Easter surprises. Time Magazine puts it on the
cover. You know, Jesus had a girlfriend, all that kind of crazy business.
People in the church eat that stuff up. And what does the church
do? Oh, let’s jump in and have a
supper and talk about it and act as if it’s great. No, we
should be warning against the errors of false teachers to the
people of God. We did that in Sunday school,
didn’t we? We talked about adoption. But we also talked about the
errors of sonship and showed examples of how it has terrified
the church and led us into darkness in the church in America. I have
a book on my shelf called Heresies, and it’s a thick book. I think
it was written in the 1960s, so I’m sure there’ve been a few
more heresies since then. But where do heresies often come
from? If you read the history books,
heresy comes from within the church. And it comes from weak
ministers, undisciplined, lazy in the spiritual disciplines
of godly ministry, not warning the people of error. And so heresies
pop up, they take over the church. But remember what the Apostle
Paul says over and over and over to Timothy, do not be tossed
to and fro by every wind of doctrine. In fact, last night I did a little
dorky thing. I read through Timothy and Titus,
and I’ve got black ink and red ink and blue ink and green ink.
And I wrote through what Paul said, why he said it, and what
Timothy was ought to do about it. And the whole middle section
of my little piece of paper here is a competing contrast between
laziness and error and heresy and making a shipwreck of your
faith and on and on and on. I wrote down all these words.
I bet there’s about 30 of them. And on the other side of the
sheet, it speaks. of being entrusted with the stewardship
of God, which is sound doctrine, sound words of Jesus Christ,
a glorious gospel, teach what accords with godliness, put these
things before the brethren, words of faith, good doctrine, urge,
command, rebuke, teach, encourage, set an example, read the scripture
publicly, exhort, teach, correct, practice, devote, show progress,
rightly handle the word of truth, and finally, keep the commandment
unstained. What grade would you give the
American church? Probably an F, but the servant of God must
warn his people of error. The servant of God must avoid
the influence of bad teaching. Seven or seven says have nothing
to do with irreverent and silly myths. There’s so many viewpoints
out there that have no credibility. Pastors are a little judgy. We
go in each other’s studies and look at each other’s shelves.
And you can tell a lot about a minister and a lot about his
ministry by what’s on his shelf and a lot of times what’s not
on his shelf. He should busy himself with the
good things of the scripture. The well of scripture is so deep
it can never be exhausted. And yet on our shelves, we have
books on every little sideshow. Every little pet project, every
little thing that will bring nickels and noses into your church
coffers. And that’s what we thrive on
in America, but it’s left us bankrupt. Well, the servant of
God must also teach the word with authority. Command and teach
these things, verse 11 says. Verse 13 says, until I come,
devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation,
to teaching. Read and teach the word of living
God. I have friends who ask me about
my work week. What do you do, Brian? I said,
well, I usually teach Sunday school. I usually preach on Sunday
morning. I preach on Sunday night. I have a ladies Bible study Wednesday
morning. I teach on Wednesday night. Sometimes
there’s a men group and then usually there’s one or two counseling
sessions. And they look at me like, what? And I said, well,
what do you do? Play golf? This is my job. This is my calling. I’ve been
set apart to be devoted. They look at me as if I’m from
another planet. No, they’re from another planet.
They might preach three times a month. They might preach three
times a month. They never teach Sunday school.
They never do counseling. They never have a Sunday evening
service or other things. And think, what in the world
do you do? You’re a minister of the word
of God, and so your job is to read and teach, to exhort. And
that is the calling, what a minister ought to be and what a minister
ought to do. But there’s one last thing we
should think of. And here’s the test. Can you answer this question? Has your pastor led you to Christ,
the ultimate minister? Week by week by week, do you
hear of Christ? and how you have need of him
and he is freely offered to you in the gospel. This is a gift
of God for the people of God from the risen and reigning and
ascended Christ to have ministers, elders, and deacons for your
growth in grace. Pray with me. Lord, we thank
you that when you ascended on high, when you rose up into heaven
and took your throne of glory, You equipped your church with
ministers, with pastors and teachers and elders and deacons to build
up the church in their most holy faith, to bring them to a place
of unity, a place of knowledge of the son of God, to bring them
to mature adulthood in the things of God and to the fullness of
the image of Christ. Lord, let our hope be set on
the living God, the savior of men. As he is read and taught
and preached and proclaimed in our place, may it be so for generations
to come. Lord, help us and bless us in
this endeavor, for it is of eternal importance. And we thank you
and praise you for this hour. In the name of Christ, amen.