1 Timothy 4
Please be seated. The scripture reading for this
morning is 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 6 through 16. So if
you would please turn there. Let us hear now from God’s Word
as we read together from 1 Timothy 4, beginning at verse 6. This is Paul speaking to Timothy,
the pastor at the church at Ephesus. If you put these things before
the brothers, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ, being
trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine 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, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct,
in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself
to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation and to teaching.
Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by 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 doing
so you will save both yourself and your hearers. This is the word of the Lord.
Let us pray together. Our Lord and God, we thank you
for speaking to us in your word, for these words that are here
for us today to hear and to receive, to treasure in our hearts and
to abide by them. We pray for your help and for
your encouragement and your blessing in these things. that your word
would penetrate our very hearts and minds and lives, and that
we would walk in the obedience you have asked of us as new creations
in Christ Jesus. This we pray in the name of Jesus,
our Savior. Amen. Several years ago, I turned
on the news in the morning. That was my practice then, and
I was shocked to see that the headline of the day was A man
was found dead in his home. Now, that might seem like an
ordinary occurrence. We turn on the news often and
hear those sorts of reports. But this particular morning struck
my attention for two reasons. For one, the event took place
in the town where my wife was raised. But the second thing,
maybe even more interesting to me, was that this man was a pastor. And as I watched the news that
morning, everyone was speaking of the event. They were speculating
about the motive as they do for hours on end and all sorts of
Things were said, all sorts of guesses about what really took
place or were made. There were lots of interesting
things. But one man on the news in particular said a couple of
things that really caught my attention. He said, you know,
the life of a pastor has many unfair expectations. But well,
that’s that’s that’s true. And then he said, secondly, everyone
is your is your critic. And then the third thing he said,
and this Caught my attention, he said, nobody really understands
what it is that a pastor does. I was amazed. This is on the
national news. This wasn’t a discussion about
church or pastoral life, but this was on the news. I thought,
what insight this man must have. Well, then I found out later
his father had been a minister. But it led me to think of this,
that many people do not have a biblical or even a theological
understanding of what God calls pastors to be and to do. Well, the Apostle Paul can help
us fix that. He writes in this letter to Timothy.
This is this is one of the pastoral epistles. He’s speaking pastor
to pastor about how to serve the church of the living God. Now, Timothy is a young man.
He’s the pastor of the church at Ephesus. He is laboring in
a congregation where Paul sometime before, as you have read of in
the book of Acts, where Paul has gone and established the
work of the church there. Timothy is their second pastor.
We know that later John the Apostle was a pastor there in his old
age. In fact, when he writes the book
of Revelation, he’s in prison on the Isle of Patmos for having
served God faithfully there in Ephesus. But here is Timothy,
the young pastor, and in the early part of the letter, the
apostle has said to him several things about how to put the church
in order. He has spoken to them about prayer
and about worship, about officers in the church, of elders and
deacons and men and women. He has even dealt with the difficulty
of false teachers. In fact, in chapter three, verse
15, he speaks directly saying this is how one ought to behave
in the household of faith. He’s given Timothy advice on
how to lead the church and put it in order. But here in chapter
four, he turns a bit. He turns from speaking to Timothy
about the church to speaking to Timothy about his own ministry. He gives him pastor to pastor
advice. Let’s look for a few moments,
if we can, at Paul’s biblical and theological advice to Timothy.
We can gain some insight in what it is that a pastor is to be
and do. Now, this isn’t everything. The
Apostle Paul will say other things in other places. Peter will say
things in other places. The whole Bible will speak in
various ways to what a pastor ought to be and do. But at least
here in this couple of verses, let us examine two big headings,
what the pastor as the servant of Christ must be. And there’ll
be four things and what the pastor or the servant of Christ must
do. And there’s three things what
he must be and what he must do first, what he must be. The servant
of God must be a scholar. He must be a student. He must.
He must, as verse six says, be trained in the words of the faith
and the good doctrine. And he’s speaking to Timothy
that you have followed, he’s saying, in other words, you’ve
got to know God’s word backward and forward. You’ve got to know
your theology, your church history. You’ve got to know your stuff
in order to do your job or to fulfill your calling. Well, I
remember several years ago speaking to someone who was new to a town
and new to a church, and they made the comment to me and to
my wife and some others in the room saying, our pastor, our
pastor spends a lot of time studying. And I said, is that good or bad?
I wanted to know what they thought. You know, it’s bad when a pastor
hides in his office and never visits with his people or gets
out and about. But I wanted to know what she thought. Is it
bad that he studies? My ears perked up. And she said,
oh, no, I think it’s good. He’s a good preacher. And friends,
you see, if a minister is to feed his flock, he himself must
eat a steady diet of God’s word in order to feed the saints. The Presbyterian and reformed
pastor is probably one of the most educated of the clergy in
America, maybe even in the world. There’s all sorts of things he
must study. There’s Greek and there’s Hebrew, there’s church
history, there’s theology, there’s ministry skills and practices,
there’s counseling, there’s Old Testament and New Testament,
there’s. The history of thought and what people have said and
believed over time, what religions, world religions there are. It’s
important for him to have that foundation. But understand this,
he must continue to be a student of these things. He must study
hard week after week to ensure that he puts before the flock
that God has entrusted to him a steady diet of the meat of
God’s word. He should be a proficient student
of the holy scriptures. In our Presbyterian way, we often
speak of the minister in this way, a minister is a man called
by God in the Lord Jesus Christ, the head and king of the church,
to a special ministry of the word. He’s not an events organizer. He’s not a. supervisor of activities
and those sorts of things, though those things do come. He is most
especially there are other things he does, but he is most especially
a student and a minister of the word of God. Without the word
of God read and preached and proclaimed, there would be there
would be a famine in the land. In fact, speaking of a minister
being a student and a scholar, often when a pastor is called
to a church, He’s given a list of what will be paid and how
it will be paid. But generally in his call, there
are provisions for him to continue to study, to buy the books he
needs or to attend a conference or to receive the encouragement
and continuing education he needs. Brothers and sisters of the Lord
Jesus Christ, let me let me say this and you hear it with both
ears, weak preaching and teaching. Weak ministry of the word comes
from weak preparation. It comes from a lack of attention
to studies. And it is an important thing,
a paramount thing. It’s a must for the minister
of God’s word to be a student. Now, there’s a second thing that
the apostle says, a servant of God must be in addition to being
a scholar, a student, the minister of God’s word must be disciplined.
And the apostle Paul says it in an athletic sense to young
Timothy. He says in verse seven, train
yourself for godliness for a while. Bodily training is of some value.
Godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the
present life and the life which is to come. The saying is trustworthy
and deserving of full acceptance. You see the emphasis the apostle
places on this statement to Timothy. You must be disciplined. You
must train yourself for godliness. Just passed on the way here,
a parking lot of a fitness center. And guess what? The parking lot
was full. People there on Sunday morning
exercising their bodies, getting physically fit. And the apostle
says, yes, that’s of some value for this life, but guess what?
Training in godliness, training in holiness is of value in this
life and the life which is to come. And so what he’s saying
to us, to Timothy, is he’s saying, whoever is preaching and teaching
God’s word to you had better be a holy person. spiritually
fit, spiritually disciplined, not not perfect, but just like
you striving to grow in grace, striving to hate what is evil
and hold fast to what is good, striving to let the Holy Spirit
and the word do its work, allowing the refiner’s fire to remove
the dross and to purify in order to be transformed into the image
of Christ Jesus. It’s a daily walk with God. It’s
reading the scripture, it’s prayer, it’s fighting sin with every
weapon available, yielding to the spirit to give growth, even
when painful. This person, as the apostle pictures
it, Timothy is a person characterized by a regimen of training. They
know God so well through the Word and through the dialogue
with prayer. They’re full of the Spirit. It’s obvious that
God is at work in them. Yes, there’s sin. Yes, there
are struggles. But there’s spiritual maturity
and knowledge and growth and grace. And just as Paul speaks
of these things in spiritual terms, he says of the athlete,
of the one who trains physically, he says, The athlete trains for
an event. They play by the rules. They
compete and they win. That’s good. That’s good for
this life. But spiritual training is a value. Godliness is a value in this
life and the life which is to come. You know, we’re living
in an age where outward appearance becomes the most important thing.
We want to see Someone who’s physically fit. We want to see
white teeth. We want to see a full head of hair. We want to see
we want to see stylish clothes and we can be amazed at those
things. But the question for us is this.
Do we want to see muscles and endurance or do we want to see
holiness, humility, growth and grace? The apostle Paul says
in verse nine of these things of this servant of God that must
be disciplined. He says the saying is trustworthy.
It is deserving of full acceptance and brothers and sisters in Christ.
That means that both you and I need to be disciplined in our
holiness. It’s not just for the pastor.
It is it is for us all. We must strive to be godly. And so the apostle has said to
us that the servant of God must be a scholar. He must he must
be disciplined. There’s a third thing. He must
be a hard worker. He must be a hard worker. Verse
10 says, for to this end, we toil and strive. Because we have our hopes set
on the living God who is the savior of people, especially
of those who believe. And then skip down to verse 14.
He says, Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you
by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on
you. And then beginning of verse 15, he says, Practice these things,
devote yourself to them. You hear the words of hard work,
of agony and toil and striving of practicing these things. What
is the end goal? It’s salvation. What is the aim
of a ministry of the gospel? It’s that people might come to
faith in Jesus Christ and from there grow in grace and be made
fit for heaven by God’s word and spirit. That’s why he’s given
us the church. That’s why he’s given us pastors. And so the consequences of the
ministry and the hard work of Timothy and of every pastor are
gospel consequences. And he’s saying to Timothy, you
thinking of quitting? Are you thinking of giving up? Are you
worn out? Are you tired? Don’t neglect your gift. It was given to you by God himself
and confirmed by the laying on of the hands. Now, why do you
think Timothy would be considering neglecting his gift? Why do you
think Paul needs to encourage him in this way? Well, if we
looked at the statistics of pastors in our day and time, we can probably
look back and think that some of the same things that trouble
ministers today have troubled men like Timothy. For example,
today there are few ministers under the age of 35. Every month,
1,500 ministers leave the ministry. They abandon their
training. They abandon their calling. They
neglect their gift, as the apostle says. No, it’s for different
and various reasons. But fifteen hundred pastors leave
the ministry every month. The average career of a pastor
is four years. Now, remember that he goes to
he goes to seminary for three, unless it takes him 10. It takes
some a while. But the average career is four
years. Eighty percent of pastors believe
that Ministry has negatively affected their life and their
family in a significant way. 75% of ministers report significant
stress in their ministry. Now, I’m sure as all of you have
been in the workplace, you can report significant stress as
well. 70% of ministers say they have
a lower self-image of themselves than when they started. 40% report
a serious conflict with a parishioner at least once a month. And then
over 70 percent do not have someone they consider a close friend.
And at some point in time, at least 30 percent of pastors are
forced out of a call where they are serving. And then here’s
a final statistic. Most pastors leave a church because
of seven or fewer people. Now, do you think the apostle
Paul knows these things when he’s speaking to Timothy? Paul’s
been there. Paul served the church. He’s
been discouraged. He’s he’s seen what is out there
in the church world. And these things can speak to
us today. We need to be encouraged as pastors. We need to encourage our pastors.
Why? Because it’s a tough job. It’s a it’s a hard calling. And
guess who hates it the most? Satan himself, because the church
is the visible manifestation of the kingdom of God. And it
is against Satan and his kingdom. The apostle says to Timothy,
your ordination, your your gift is your calling. You must fulfill
it. You must work hard. Don’t fail to finish. Keep on
press on. It’s a tough job, but you must
do it. And so he says the pastor must
be a scholar. He must be disciplined. He must
be a hard worker. The fourth thing is this. He
must be a model of spiritual virtue. As a servant of Christ
Jesus, he must be a model of spiritual virtue. Notice what
Paul says to Timothy in verse 12. He says, Let no one despise
you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech,
in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Now, Timothy’s
a young man. He’s in his young 30s. He’s known
to be timid and shy, maybe maybe a quiet sort of fellow. And so
the apostle speaks to him specifically about his. About his life, how
he models himself before others, and he says something of his
speech, of his conduct, of his love, of his faith and of his
purity. Timothy, what’s coming out of
your mouth, what of what of your speech? It reflects what’s in
your heart. So think of your speech, your
conduct, does your life reflect what you believe? You know, we
always say that we live based on what we believe. We we act
out of our convictions, we act out of our faith and our beliefs. So, Timothy, how’s your conduct?
How about your love? Do you love do you love God’s
people unconditionally? Do you love them as Christ Jesus
calls you to do? And how about your faith, especially
when it comes upon hard times? And you know what it is to have
your faith tested. The glass is sometimes half empty, other
times it’s half full, and we waver accordingly. He’s saying
to Timothy, you must have faith in hard times. And what if your
purity or your holiness? These things affect your ministry,
and he says it very well, as he sums up his charge to Timothy
in verse 16, he says, keep a close watch on yourself and your doctrine. Watch what you believe and how
you live it out. Persist in this, for by doing
so, you see the gospel effect. You will save both yourself and
your hearers. Timothy, what you believe. Pastor,
what you believe and how you live these things before your
congregation and even the watching world, it matters even to salvation. These things that a pastor is
called to be ought to. ought to drive us to our knees
in great prayer for those who serve us. Pray for your pastor
that he would be a scholar, a student, that he would be disciplined,
that he would be a hard worker, that he would be a model of spiritual
virtue. These are four things that a
pastor must be. But Paul also gives Timothy a
to do list. The servant of God must do certain
things. There are three of those. And
the first is this. The servant of God must warn
his people of error. In verse six, he says, if you
want to be a good servant of Jesus Christ, you point out the
errors of the false teachers. Now, that’s a great fun job.
That’s a difficult task, but you must point out false teaching,
point out the bad diet that your people may be tempted to eat. He’s saying to them, whatever
is untrue. Whatever is not according to
the gospel, whatever does not follow God and his word, you
must point out these errors and keep people from it. I have a
book on my shelf and the title of the book is called Heresies.
Now, heresies are heresies are things. These are beliefs and
teachings that go against the Orthodox Church, that go against
what the church has consistently held in belief. But that book
is pretty thick and it’s an overview of heresies throughout the history
of the church. And guess what is true as you
read through a book like this? Is the same old false systems
of belief have cycled through the church over and over and
over. It’s just repackaged. It’s just
got a different name on it or maybe a different way of phrasing
certain things. But throughout the history of
the church, heresy has a factor. And you see what the apostle
is saying to Timothy here. You’ve got to warn people of
error. You’ve got to say to them that
it’s false. You cannot believe that and remain faithful to our
Savior, Jesus Christ. You cannot believe that and say,
I am faithful to the scriptures. He’s saying, no, you must warn
the people of error. Scripture says this. This is
what is true. This is what you are tempted
to believe. And it is false. It is empty. And it will lead
you nowhere. The pastor of the Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ must keep the congregation from being tossed
to and fro by the winds and the waves. And you know how it is
in our Christian culture, particularly here in the South. We love the
latest book. We love the latest movie. We
love the latest fad. And we’ll bounce in the Church
of Jesus Christ from one thing to the next when we have the
scripture as our guide and the scripture as our sure foundation,
and the apostle Paul tells Timothy, you must warn your people of
error. You must warn them of error.
Friends, let me tell you this heresy will destroy believers.
And if you destroy believers, guess what you will in time destroy. You will destroy the church if
you do not have faithful believers, you have no faithful church. So the servant of God must warn
his people of error, but he himself must avoid the influence of false
teaching. He himself must avoid the influence
of bad teaching. Verse 7a says, have nothing to
do with irreverent and silly myths. Have nothing to do with
it. Disregard it. These viewpoints
have no credibility whatsoever. These are things that are out
there. The peddlers are coming to your door, the inbox of your
email is full of these things, the latest teaching, whatever
it may be, it is not worth listening to. Busy yourself with good things,
with true things. It’s as if he’s saying to Timothy,
and we know this from our Christian experience, the well of Scripture
is deep. We can never get to the bottom
of the well of truth. So spend your time, Timothy.
Spend your time, pastor. Spend your time, Christian, there. Not with irreverent myths and
silly beliefs, things that will lead to death and not life. Stay
away from those things. And you know what? If a pastor
is a student, a scholar, if he’s busying himself in the things
of ministry, Hopefully what what Timothy is warned of here will
not be a problem. He’ll love the truth and he will
disregard what is not true. And so the servant of God must
warn his people of error. He himself must avoid the influence
of bad teaching. There’s a third and final thing
that he must do. And this is no insignificant
task. And it is this. He must teach
the word with authority. And you see how all those other
things he must be and do lead to this. He must be a scholar.
He must be disciplined. He must be a model of spiritual
virtue. He must labor in the word. He
must avoid false teaching. He must warn of error. But he
must teach the word with authority. That is why God has put his church
on earth. That is that is why God has raised
up pastors and teachers. It’s so that his word might be
read and proclaimed and preached and taught and declared with
authority to the people so that when they hear all the voices
of the world and they hear of its systems and they hear of
its values and they hear of its end goal, which is all of this
world. He can say, no, you need to hear
only the voice of Jesus. Only the voice of the shepherd,
only the voice of God himself, who is the God of history and
who has a goal and a plan and an aim. You need to hear his
voice alone. And so the servant of God must
teach with authority. He says it to Paul this way in
verse 11 and then 13, he says, command and teach these things
until I come to devote yourself to the public reading of scripture,
to exhortation and to teaching. He speaks to him of reading and
teaching God’s word and the way he says it to Timothy implies
that there’s preparation, there’s hard work, there’s being a student
of the word, there’s being trained and following your training.
You must teach the word of God. It’s a labor, it’s a task. And
then he says you must exhort. The Word of God says this, so
therefore, brothers and sisters, walk this way. Walk in a manner
worthy of the gospel. Behave this way in the household
of faith. Do not neglect to live as God
requires. This is the ministry of the Word,
of teaching the Word with authority. In the Southern Presbyterian
tradition we have, we as ministers often wear black robes like I’m
wearing today. Now, why we do that? What’s the purpose of the robe? As I stand here today sweating
and hot in this thing, I sometimes wonder that myself. But here’s
some of the reasons, and they link to what Timothy has been
told by the Apostle Paul. During the time of the Reformation
in the 15 and 16 and 1700s, one of the difficulties that the
church was facing was that the word of God was not taught. It
was not read. It was not proclaimed. It was
not taught with authority. In fact, if you wanted to be
a preacher, if you wanted to be a minister in the Roman Catholic
Church, you could buy your office. It was a position you could purchase,
but it was a position that you wanted because it came with great
It came with great blessings in an earthly sense. It came
with riches and respect and all sorts of things. And so one of
the great acts of the Reformation is, look, we don’t want lazy
ministers. We don’t want uneducated ministers.
We don’t want unholy ministers. And so the robe was a sign of
of submission. It has a yoke around its neck.
I’ve taken the yoke of Christ and his ministry, which he has
called me to and which he has given me. And I take this yoke
upon myself and I will serve him. It’s also a symbol of of
learning. I have I have gone to the training
that I need to have in order to be a minister. It’s it’s a
it’s a sign of the office of the minister. It’s a sign of
of ordination. And it’s it’s also just simply
A uniform. You go to the police station
and they wear uniforms. The fire station, you look at
an athlete, they wear uniforms. You go to the service station,
there’s a uniform. It’s just practically a preaching
uniform. It’s simple, it’s black, it covers,
it provides for simplicity and decorum. But it also sets a man apart.
It hides him and says you have been set apart to study and to
teach the word of God. And when you are in God’s pulpit,
when you are proclaiming his word before his people, this
is your sacred duty. This is your solemn duty. And
you must do it with dignity and you must do it with great zeal
and energy and hard work as you labor and teach the word of God. Now, what’s what is your part
in all of this? What does God ask of the congregation
of the Lord Jesus as we hear Paul’s pastor to pastor advice
to Timothy and to pastors today? Well, your part is this. It’s
to pray for your pastor to receive from him. to encourage him in
a biblical ministry. When he warns you of error, listen
to him. When he teaches with authority
and exhorts you, you should heed that instruction as from God
himself, as you follow in the word and receive it by God’s
blessing. And pray that the ministry of
your pastor, whoever he may be, wherever you may live in this
world, pray that his ministry would be biblical. But simply
this, show up and receive from him. because you are receiving
from God himself. We’ve looked at what the pastor
must be and what the pastor must do. And there’s one final thing
we must consider, and that is simply this. Does your pastor,
week after week, Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day, every time the Bible
is open, does he proclaim Christ Jesus? To your need of salvation,
your need of repentance of your sin, your need of faith in him
that you might be rescued from the kingdom of darkness and transferred
into the kingdom of life. These are the things that matter
most. And the Apostle Paul has already
said it to Timothy. Salvation is at stake here. These
are our gospel consequences. And that is the mark of an excellent
pastor. All these things Paul has said
to Timothy and other things he says other places. But does your
pastor week after week after week, does he proclaim Christ
Jesus to you? Friends, that is what matters
most, for that is what we most need to hear. Let us pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you that you have given us your church. You’ve given us worship,
you’ve given us the word, but we thank you that you have given
us as victory spoils of the cross, pastors and teachers to build
up the congregation into the unity of faith and the knowledge
of the Son of God, that you might bring us to mature manhood in
the fullness of Christ. Our hope is in you, the living
God and the Savior of men. And we ask now for your blessing,
as we have heard these things from your truth today, that we
would lay them up in our hearts and practice them in our lives
for our good and for the glory of your great name. We pray in
Jesus name. Amen.