Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for the scripture reading. Sermon text is 1 Timothy 4:11-16. Let me comment before I read the text, however, that the song we just sung. You notice the words are a tad different than what we used to do as we sang that for our prayer for illumination of the text. This song is actually intended as an ordination hymn to be sung by men who are ordained to preach the gospel. Our text today has to do with ministers and their responsibilities in terms of that office.

But I think by way of application, it applies to every person here in this assembly. And so we have no problem singing that song and asking that God would fill us as he does his holy ministers of the word because we are the holy saints of God. We are all called to be prophets, priests, and kings. So hear the word of God from 1 Timothy 4:11-16. And understand that as you hear it, the Holy Spirit is intending today to teach it to you that you might make personal application of it as well.

1 Timothy 4:11-16. These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them. For in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.

Let us pray. Lord God, we do ask that your Holy Spirit would illumine this text to our understanding. Help us, Lord God, to take out the plugs from our ears that our sins create and the veils to our eyes that prevent us from seeing the wonders of who you are and the clear instruction that you give us to bring us to repentance and to our knees for our sin before you and then to resurrection power in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, we pray that your spirit would do his work. We pray also for the Sabbath school teachers of the younger children whose parents desire them to be taught during this time at a level commensurate with their understanding that you would help them Lord God to cleave to your word to teach that word and open the ears of even the youngest of the children in these schools, these Sabbath school classes today that their ears and their hearts may be soft and malleable that your spirit may write these words upon their hearts.

We ask this Lord God, not for the sake of ourselves or our kingdom, but for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of his beloved kingdom. In his name we pray, Amen.

Go to Psalm number 30. Psalm 30. I’m going to begin with reading this psalm and just briefly saying one or two things about it by way of review really of last week’s sermon, although I did not reference the psalm.

In Psalm 30, we read this. I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up and hast not made my foes, rather, thou hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried unto thee and thou hast healed me. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave. Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord all ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

For his anger endureth but a moment, and his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong. Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. I cried to thee, O Lord, and unto the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me, Lord, be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing. Thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness. To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thee thanks and I will give thanks unto thee forever.

This psalm gives us a proper interpretation of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States this past week in overturning the Colorado Initiative that was seen as an attempt by Christians and others to put restraint upon the public immorality of homosexuality and sodomy in our land.

What am I talking about? Psalm 30 is first of all an actual event in the life of the psalmist. There are difficulties going on that he is being delivered from. The difficulties had to do with near death and destruction, perhaps illness. The difficulty has to do with enemies who wish to triumph over him and they seem to for a season. But in the middle of this, deliverance is found. By the end, mourning is turned into gladness and dancing and celebration.

Not mourning in the sense of mourning, but morning in the sense of weeping. And he in the context of this very significantly we read in verse five that his anger endureth but a moment and his favor is life. Ultimately this psalm is about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the attempt by wicked and sinful men of whom we all are in Adam. Remember, not us and them. We’re all on that side of the equation apart from God’s electing grace.

The attempt by sinful men to exalt and triumph over the Lord Jesus Christ. And they thought they had done it when they put him to death. But God’s ways are not our ways. God’s ways are not our ways. And God resurrected the Lord Jesus Christ and accomplished his great victory of the creation of a whole new world populated by a whole new citizenry. And that’s what we’re in the process of—God removing the generation of men that obey not the Lord Jesus Christ and exalting the church of Jesus Christ.

Well, if that’s true, Dennis, what’s going on at the Supreme Court? God’s anger endureth but for a moment and then blessing. When we go through difficulties, whether it is illness, whether it is the oppression of sinful men, whether it is conduct that seem to drive us to death and maybe even to physical death. We must always look for the chastising hand of God in such difficulties that we face. God’s anger burned out against the Son because he took upon himself the sins of the elect, your sins, and so he endured God’s anger.

The psalmist understood that while he was essentially righteous, certainly in comparison to the wicked doers who would oppress him. As Israel was God’s beloved and yet he raises up the Assyrians to punish it, the psalmist understood that while he was in relationship to God through the mediatoral work of the coming one that all those sacrifices pointed to, the psalmist still understood. See, he still read in his present day circumstances the chastisement of God against him to drive out sin.

Whether it is those sins of high-handed presumptuous sins that we just ask God to forgive us of and to keep us from or whether it is those sins that we do not understand in ourselves. The Canons of Dort correctly I believe say that in this life sins will cleave to us. We will fall and blemishes will attend themselves to the best of our works. God is always doing more work to cleanse us and purify us.

He could do it instantaneously. And in heaven, this process stops. But in this earth, it continues. And why? What does this have to do with last week? Verse 11 begins where verse 10 ends. Verse 10 of 1 Timothy says this. For therefore, we both labor and suffer reproach as the psalmist did, as our Lord Jesus Christ did. And as we do, we labor and we suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the savior of all men, especially those that believe.

We don’t bug out. We persevere. Why do we do that? The eyes of sight say it’s stupid to persevere in the Christian faith. No way that’s going to work in this day and age. But we see here the reason for it is that God is the savior of all men. He has demonstrated to every man on earth his goodness. The unregenerate reject it and it becomes cursed to them. But he demonstrates his goodness in the context of waking us all up this morning.

Whether you’re sitting here as a false son on the pale of the church or as a true son on the pale of the church. He is gracious to you at this moment and extending life to you. He is the savior of all men and particularly of those that believe. Christian, do you understand this? Our eternal salvation has been secured by the Lord Jesus Christ that he daily, hourly, every minute, every second is ministering blessing and love to you because of our position covenantally in Jesus Christ.

And so we persevere. We persevere because of these things. So when the Supreme Court says what it says, people who don’t understand this and who think that the world is going downhill and that the Christian church is ineffectual, the church they’re members of and that we’re going to get raptured out of all this or something, they wring their hands and say, “Oh, it’s over now. It’s not over.” I think what we want to see is that God’s anger is burning not against the world.

I mean, certainly that, too, but it’s burning against the church. We don’t want to be able to pass ordinances that say that homosexuals and sodomites shouldn’t get special rights. We want to pass ordinances based on God’s word that say it’s a crime. It’s a felony to commit sodomite acts. That’s what the scriptures say. But God’s explaining some things to us. You try to go through the back door and use the equal protection clause and civil rights and all this. Forget it.

Now let’s turn to the text today. What does it tell us? Oh, it’s real simple what it tells us. It says to be a minister of God, you teach the word and you command things on the basis of that word. And the pastor does that to the people. The elders, the pastors do that. And officers do it. And heads of households do it. And mothers do it. And older children, you do it to your younger children, to the younger siblings that you have.

Everyone is in the process of ministering the word and giving biblical exhortations, biblical ones, not gentile lording over ones, biblical ones to people. And we all there’s this gradation in life now that we’re all equal in the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that. We don’t got to keep saying that, right? Huh? We can move on from those baby things that we’re all equal. We can go to maturity and say that there are positions of functional rank in the world and God wants us to attend to it. And here he’s talking about the functional rank of the context of the church.

You chafe against it, you’re going to be in trouble. You chafe against the functional rank of the Supreme Court in this land and don’t understand what God’s doing through it, you’re going to be in trouble. I’m not saying you should command their actions. I think their reasoning is probably screwed up. But I’m saying look beyond what the authorities are doing for what God’s doing through them in your life.

The fathers get out of this text the application for you in terms of your responsibility to minister the word in an authoritative way in the context of your home. It’s a rank. Mothers, you’re next. You know, you’re there with the kids most of the time in this church. You’re homeschooling. Minister the word. Exhort in the context of a life. That’s the context for this is a life. This is an example to those in your flock. Do those things. And older children, younger children’s eyes are looking at you. Young children’s ears are listening to what you say. You’ve got a responsibility primarily to provide an example in your life as Timothy provided an example in his life here that people might listen up.

Indeed, keep listening younger siblings and older siblings. Tell them the word of God says thus and such. Encourage them, comfort them, try to encourage them in righteousness, younger children, to the ones under you. You see, there’s these rings that go on and that’s what this text says. It says to persevere and the means of perseverance is the instruction in God’s word and it’s the exhortation that comes along with that and it is a life lived in holiness before God that puts the cap and the stamp of authenticity on everything that happens.

Okay. Now let’s turn to the text. I have no printed outline. I do have an outline that I want to suggest to you. I want to talk briefly about three things. First, I want to say that the minister is to command and teach. And if you’re keeping notes under that, we say that he is to command and teach is correlary in verse 11 to verse 13. You see, look at verse 11 and verse 13. Verse 11 where it begins “These things command and teach” and then verse 12, “Let no man despise thy youth but be an example of the believers in word and conversation…”

And then he goes back—”till I come give attendance to reading exhortation doctrine.” So I think there’s correlation between verse 11 and verse 13. First point is the minister is to command and teach and he’s to do this by way of further explanation by Paul in verse 13 by giving attention to reading—public reading of the word of God in the context of worship—exhortation, encouragement, warning, and doctrine, systematic truth instruction. Okay, so he’s to command the exhortations. He’s to teach doctrine. And the commanding and the teaching is to be on the basis of the reading of what? The word of God.

See, so we have the word of God that leads then to two activities on the part of men: to command, exhort, encourage, warn, etc. on the basis of the instruction and the teaching of the doctrine of that word. Okay. So verses 11-13, that’s the first point.

Second point, the minister is to properly defend himself to men with God’s defenses. First point’s pretty clear. Command and teach, reading, exhortation, doctrine. Second point, I put a couple of qualifiers in to remind us of something here. The minister is to properly defend himself. He’s to defend himself. Timothy is told in verse 12, “Let no man despise thy youth.” He was 35 to 40 years old, somewhere in that area. He was a bishop. I don’t know if you like that term or not. He was an overseer for Paul over the churches in Asia Minor.

And he is positively commanded to not let men think lowly of him. Commanded Timothy. So he’s done that. And then in verse 14, you see it’s a hopscotch sort of thing here. Verse 11 and 13 both say the same thing roughly. Verses 12 and 14 say the same thing. And 14 expands on 12. Verse 14 says, “Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy at the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.”

And then verse 15, “Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all. I think those two statements are referring to his office primarily. He did not receive some sort of special abundant gift or charisma through the laying on of hands. The laying on of hands was a recognition of God’s gifting to Timothy in terms of prophecy that he received through prophetic utterance of the Old Testament and the teaching and instruction of Paul.

And he then was given that gift of discernment of the word based on the word of God as well and the ability to teach it. But the office was conferred by the laying on of hands of the presbytery representing all the churches in Asia Minor. Okay. So he’s to defend his office but he’s to properly defend it. We defend ourselves improperly. That’s what our sinful nature is to do is defend it improperly. So he gives an injunction here to defend his office but he to do it properly.

And then I add in my statement here if you’re keeping notes that point two is the minister is to properly defend himself to men with God’s defenses. Okay? He’s defending his reputation and he uses God’s defenses. And I put two qualifiers “properly defend himself with godly defenses” as a two-fold statement and exhortation to me and to you to go about these things in biblical ways and not be like the gentile rulers.

We know how the BATF and the IRS defend their position. And we don’t want to do it that way. We’re commanded to be Christians and in our defense of our positions, whether they’re head of our household, head of the church, authority in the church, authority in the home, authority in the workplace, godly defenses. Properly defend ourselves. So that’s the second point.

And then the third point, the minister is to save himself and his flock. I mean, if I wrote that, you would properly question what I’m talking about. But this is inspired word of God. God uses secondary means that God uses to affect the salvation of his people. Remember we said last week, God’s the savior of all men. All men are not going to heaven. All men are not potentially saved through some sort of universal atonement. No, no, no, no. It says God saves literally all men.

Because the word salvation does not refer to eternal salvation necessarily. The word can refer to deliverance as well. That’s true here too as well. But we don’t want to take off the tremendous pressure and focus upon the minister that he is able by properly fulfilling his vocation, his calling to save himself and his flock. The word of God says that. Now we know—again I don’t—we want to make sure you know that we’re not being misquoted here. We know that it is God’s unconditional action. It is the basis for our right standing with him. We know that it is God’s sovereign grace. We know that faith is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We know all that. It’s simple stuff.

In terms of God’s secondary means he says to persevere in your calling and as a result you have salvation worked out in your life. Does that sound familiar by the way to something else in Timothy earlier? Women would be saved in childbearing. Remember we talked about that. That’s the normal pattern for women. Now, some can’t. Some choose improperly not to have children, I believe. But some can’t. That’s okay. Understand that. Some men can’t exercise vocational calling because of disabilities. Understand that. But Adam was made to do work. And woman was made to be a wife and to raise up children.

And ministers are made to attend to their ministerial duties. It’s their vocation. In their element of that Adamic calling of vocation. And Paul’s saying the same thing here about man that he’s saying in terms of women—that it’s in the exercise of vocation that our salvation is worked out by God.

Now he’s saying something a little more than that in terms of the minister because the minister is ministering the word of God which is the basis for the salvation of men. The word—how are they going to believe if they don’t hear? How are they going to hear if the word isn’t preached by preachers? Right? Okay. So those are the three points. Minister command and teach. Minister is to properly defend himself using God’s means and the minister is to save himself and his congregation. Okay, let’s go over again a little more slowly now.

First, the minister is to command. He is to exercise authority. He in the words of one translation, he is to pound in the message—proper translation of the Greek word. He is to announce, to pound in, to order in an authoritative manner as Paul’s representative the things that Paul is instructing him in the word of God. So we have authority positively displayed in the context of the institutional church. So he is to command these things. And secondly, he is to teach these things.

Turn, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 13 and we’re going to look at verses 7 and 17 just briefly. Remember them which have the rule over you—is verse 7 of Hebrews 13. Drawing it all up here at the end of the book in few words, by the way, is what he says. I wrote to [in] small manner 13 chapters. Verse 7: “Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation and of their walk. Consider their walk.”

Like Timothy’s going to have a walk that’s considered by people. Those who have the rule over you spoke to you the word of God. Look at verse 17: “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief. That is unprofitable for you if they have to do it with grief.”

Well, okay. So, what I’m talking about here is this two-fold statement to Timothy—command and teach—is repeated in Hebrews 13:7. Those who rule, exercise authority, command, announce authoritatively, pound in if necessary into the will of men. Those that have the rule do so by means of the word—who have spoken to you the word of God. We rule by means of the word.

And this is the problem I have as a side comment in terms of the institutional church and its ministers with ruling and teaching elders. I think that what happens when you end up with two separate offices and you know I want to be careful of my criticism because I criticize here a long tradition in the church, in the reformed churches in the last 300 to 400 years. But I think that when you separate out the idea of teaching and ruling, you separate out the word of God from its place in terms of command and rule.

Now, that isn’t necessary. You don’t have to do that. Proper instruction can avoid that. But I’m just saying the very picture of ruling elders and teaching elders. And the teaching elders have to know the word of God. And they’ve got to pass theological exams. And they’ve got to pass exegetical exams. And they’ve got to pass homiletical exams—how to prepare the scriptures, put them in a context of theology and instruct people in a way that is useful homiletically to present it in a way that gets it through to them.

They get all that stuff. And then in terms of rule, we got these guys over here who don’t aren’t examining those areas. You see what point I’m making? If their rule, if the commanding is linked to the teaching and if those who rule over you are supposed to be those who have spoke the word to you. I got a problem with this system that says that these ruling elders can somehow not have to meet muster in terms of theology and exegesis of texts and the proper presentation of them because that’s how they’re going to rule with the word of God.

So we don’t bother to look it up. You go back to Moses and the selection of the tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. That’s not the only thing Jethro told him to do. Set these guys up and have them rule and teach. Those guys. Teach the heads of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands of the word of God. Why? Because that’s what they’re going to do—is they have to teach that as they rule. The only authority in the world is the word of God. The only authority in the world is the word of God. And you have no authority to tell people you do this or you do that. You have to have a standard. And they must understand the standard to effectively submit.

Now they can submit just to your orders. You can make them. You can compel them with force. But what we want is a submission on the part of God’s people to commandments that are issued in the context of the instruction of the word. Yeah. Right. That’s what we want. Our children understand what we’re saying. And if they understand and if they remove away from their sinful tendencies to rebellion, then they’re really going to be submissive. They’re not going to be slavishly obedient. They’re going to be submissive. See?

So once again, with the heads of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, the model for the organizational structure of the church. We got teaching and ruling combined and we end up in churches that separate the teaching and ruling functions. We end up with litigious law-going churches where the legal system becomes a battle. And that’s why we have OJ Simpson trials in America because the church led the way by screwing up by not putting together the instruction and the word with ruling. And so we end up with rule over here as a combat arena.

as opposed to an arena based at God’s word and principles and truth as its foundation. Okay? So Timothy is supposed to do that. Now notice significantly here. Okay? And then as I said he is to do this by means of reading of the word, exhortation and teaching. And there is a sense in which this can become a process. I mean get together in the Lord’s day. We read the scriptures. We exhort you to faithfulness in the scriptures.

And then we instruct you in what that’s to be. Now we have here properly understood an emphasis on the moral senses of men. An emphasis on the intellectual senses of men. Where’s the moral sense in read, exhort and teach? It’s in the exhort. He is to command and he’s to exhort. Exhort means to encourage, warn, admonish, etc. That is an appeal to man’s moral sense. It is the proper use of moral persuasion or persuasion with men.

And I try to—I plead with you at times as I did last week—about your conscience. I plead with you and I plead with myself and I exhort myself as well to not let our consciences become seared through insensitivity to the spirit’s driving us to repentance for sin. Yeah. So I exhort you. I try to appeal to your moral sense and when instruction and some of these things are wrapped up. They’re not but they’re separate aspects.

Paul separates them here. Instruction in the word is an appeal to your intellectual sense. Right? I try to give you intellectual concepts. Ideas do have consequences. I’m supposed to teach ideas. I’m supposed to teach the content of God’s word. And you’re supposed to understand the idea or the doctrine of justification. And it’s supposed to make a difference because you’ve intellectually understood it. Okay?

So, there’s an appeal to the moral sense. There’s an appeal to the intellectual sense. But notice preceding both of those appeals is the reading of God’s word. The public reading of God’s word. And you’ve had a lot of it today, you’ll have a little more before the day is done. And that’s good for you. It’s good to have a public reading of God’s word. And you see, that’s the foundation of everything else.

Why? Because the spirit speaks through the word. And when you change, it’s a result of the spirit’s sovereign work. And he uses the secondary means of moral persuasion and intellectual ideas, but it’s a spiritual work that God is doing in you.

Now, Arminians, they want to say, and I’ve read a commentaries. Well, exhortation needs teaching as a basis. So really the ordering here—reading, exhortation and teaching—we know it isn’t really the order it’s supposed to happen in chronologically because exhortation requires teaching. Why do they say that? Because the Arminian believes, okay, that man has a problem in his intellectual sphere. He’s gotten kind of confused in the fall. His intellect has been darkened, but he has a moral, he has a volitional will that is neutral. He believes in neutrality at the core of man’s being, his decision-making processes.

So, how do you get him to choose the right? You appeal primarily to the intellect because that’s where he’s screwed up. Now, he also has a propensity to vile affections. You got to deal with that, too. The Arminian will in certain ways focus on the intellect. And we have a culture that has focused almost exclusively on the intellect. Man’s only problem is he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand. And the scriptures say he understands all too well. He actively suppresses the truth of God and unrighteousness. His problem is not primarily intellectual.

His problem is primarily moral. He’s in rebellion. And as a result of that rebellion in his will, his thinking is also darkened. You see? So we don’t want to give primacy to intellectual endeavors. We want to—they’re part of the mix. But we also don’t want to give primacy to moral persuasion. That’s another error of the Arminian. Finney, heretic, denied the biblical doctrine of the atonement. I don’t care what people tell you about him.

He was a heretic. And Finney would try to get men to come to salvation through manipulation, psychological techniques not as well developed as our psychology today, but pretty effectual. He knew what he was doing. He knew what buttons to push. He knew how to demonstrate moral persuasion to people. And he was convinced that if you do the right stress to the moral sphere of men, to the right moral persuasion to them, you can produce decisions for Christ and he produced decisions. They weren’t for Christ. They were for something else and as a result produced large areas of the country where the gospel was essentially unable to penetrate because God wanted to demonstrate through Finney that he curses such activity. He doesn’t bless such activity when we try to save people through our use of moral persuasion.

Or in our day and age if we try to save people through the correct understanding of their intellect without having as a basis that reading of the word—the word of God—see an acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God’s spirit to move men. Yes we use moral persuasion with our children. Yes we use the intellectual endeavors of the teaching but all of us have to have as the basis the word of God and that word and that spirit is what is effectual for bringing men to correction for their lives.

So, so these texts you see—command and teach, exhort and instruct—because typically we come here, we go to the scriptures as we begin to read it with sin on us and we need to be first exhorted and commanded to repent of our sin or it’s going to screw up while we’re going to the scriptures. You know, you’ve probably all done this. Don’t pretend you haven’t. You get in an argument with someone. You take out the Bible, whether it’s your wife or your husband, your children, whatever.

Well, I got to find where I’m right in this Bible. Well, what have you done? You see, you’ve gone to the scriptures to justify what could be sin on your part. Now, I’m not saying we don’t have a set of understanding of God’s word. We’ve developed and we don’t turn to God’s word for an explanation of that. But I’m talking about an improper looking for a defense of our positions in the scriptures. That’s obvious. That’s a high-handed sin. But things are not so obvious all the time. And so we need the positive exhortation to our moral sense and then intellectual attainment. But we need it in the context of the word of God as being the source and the spirit working through that word.

These things are to be in proper balance with a proper dependence upon the word of God.

Now doctrine is mentioned here. It’s mentioned several times in this text in this area of the scriptures and doctrine refers to the systematic body of teaching in the scriptures—has the sense of teaching, a systematic teaching. And so when Richard, you know, every week puts the different catechism material in the orders of worship, that’s doctrine. See that’s a systematic attempt to teach you doctrine based upon the scriptures in a systematic form. It’s a good thing to do.

I was asked by a young man last week if I could prepare a kind of an overview of what he should know as he’s entering into adult life in terms of his understanding of the scriptures. A series of questions kind of helping him to think through where he’s at. He wants—I think what he wants if I understood him correctly—wants a systematic understanding of God’s word. Where do I fit in? What is my theology? What’s my system of doctrine? He wants that systematic understanding of God’s word. That’s a proper thing to desire and it’s a proper thing to prepare for our children.

Another illustration: the Sabbath school materials that we use are from Great Commission Publications, originally written for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And what they try to do is a scope and sequence kind of idea where if you take the kids through the first three or four grades, whatever it is, they’ve taken them through a systematic teaching and instruction of the doctrine of God. See, it’s laid out that way. Now, we don’t really end up doing too good here because we kind of skip about and some teachers use the curriculum and others don’t. And that’s okay. But what I’m trying to get across to you is that they’ve done that because they understand, as conservative reformed Christians, that the scriptures place a stress on the systematizing of doctrine in our instruction.

And so they try to do that even with the youngest agents, where they have a series of lessons over three years produce an understanding of the doctrine of God or the doctrine of Jesus Christ. You see what I’m saying? And we want to be systematic that way. I’ve got a problem in this area myself personally. You know, my kids are always jumping here and jumping there. What takes my interest is where I go to. Well, you know, that’s fine for me. But you know, the children need something else. They need something a bit more systematic because I’m jumping here and there and everywhere based upon the systematic truths that God has built already into my life. See, so we got to be careful that way to remember who we’re dealing with and the church, new members at the church, we’re trying to think through and begin to implement in small ways and hopefully this will be another way in which we mature.

How do we bring people into an understanding of what this church believes? How do we get that systematic approach? Okay, uh there are little books through this by Calvin that I’ve been pulling out. I’ve had another young man want me to work with him, disciple him some. And so I’m looking at materials for that. So you want to think in terms of that systematic instruction and doctrine. That’s what Paul says here Timothy is to attend to. Okay. Okay. So Timothy is to do that. He is to go through this process of the public reading, exhortation and teaching. A stress on doctrine, a stress on the moral and intellectual sense.

All undergirded by the reading of God’s word.

Now, the second thing he’s supposed to do is to defend himself to men with proper defenses with God’s defenses. He was between 35 and 40. And remember though that this is not a pastor ultimately we’re talking about here. He did involve himself in pastoral duties, but he oversaw the churches in Asia Minor where he was. So he was at Ephesus, but he had a responsibility broader. He was sort of like a bishop. My understanding of what’s going on with the life of Tim is at least. And so 35 or 40 may not seem all that old for an elder or pastor, but it is young rather to be somebody superintending a lot of other ministers. Okay.

But what did we read? We read in Psalm 119 in the responsive reading we read that I have more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients. Why? Because I keep thy precepts. You see, by the way, did you notice there again, the same emphasis we’re putting on both the exhortation and the instruction. I meditate on the testimonies and I keep the precepts. I know what these verses say. I chew them over to understand them and I keep them. See, it’s a two-fold emphasis.

Revelation, blessed are those who hear these prophecies and who keep them. And in the next two chapters—first three chapters of Revelation—there’s instructions, there’s commandments. Not a blessing just to know the Bible. In fact, it’s a positive curse to know the Bible and then to act in disobedience to the increased knowledge you have. See, know and keep. And that’s what the constant theme throughout this text is—to know and keep. And so, Timothy was not to let men despise him.

But why? How is he supposed to do this? Well, it’s very interestingly the way the text says to do this. I mean, he is to defend his position in the context of the institutional church, the role that God has called him to. But he does this by how? Be thou, verse 12, be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity or in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. You see, Timothy was to defend his office primarily.

The first defense that God talks about here is who he is, kids. You see fathers, how do you defend your fatherly authority of the family? Well, you lay down the law. No, that’s not how you do it. I mean, you do have to instruct and you do lay down the law. But the way you really, at least by way of application of this text, the first way Timothy doesn’t let men keep thinking lowly of him is to be an example to him.

Huh? So, fathers, you reinforce your authority in the family by being an example to your household. And men who run businesses, you already know this because if you don’t know this, you’re not in business very long. It’s a built-in system. You know, you know that the way to be have good workers is to be a good example to the workers. And the way to encourage sloth in your workers—to be slothful yourself, great example.

And Timothy has said first of all that the first system of godly defense of his position is to give this attention to these five-fold areas here in terms of his life. Now in the King James here we actually have word, conversation, charity, spirit, faith, purity. Spirit is not in a lot of the manuscripts which leaves us with these five, this five-fold designation. And so I’m going to restrict myself to those five.

The first is speech. This refers to personal conversation. I don’t think this refers to his instruction of the word. That’s a different moment. But what he’s talked about here is that the minister has to defend his reputation as a minister by being careful in his speech. There’s lots of ways to err in our speech. To grumble is an obvious way. To lie in our speech is another obvious way. What do we receive earlier in First Timothy about speech in terms of office candidates?

Double tongue. If you tell person one thing, this person something else, you know what? Whether they should or shouldn’t makes no difference. They’re going to eventually compare notes. That’s the way it works. I spent a lot of time the first few years of this church trying to not get people to improperly talk about other people. And I’ll continue to try to exhort people that way. But you know what? They’re going to in the providence of God. People are going to compare notes on what you said. And if your speech indicated is indicated to be double tongued, it’s a way to tear down. It’s a way to leave [people to] despise your office.

And if in your speech as a minister you grumble about things, you grumble about people, you grumble about things going on in the church to people, you grumble about your family members, your friends, whatever it is, [that’s] way to cause men to despise you in your office. You tear down their estimation of who you are as a minister of the gospel by improper speech. If you talk too much. What does that say? What do the scriptures teach about people who talk too much? They’re proud. They think they know a lot. So, if you talk a lot to people, you’re going to reduce their understanding, their appreciation for you as a minister. They’re going to despise you.

But you can also talk too little. And if you don’t say anything to people, then they think you’re diffident. You may not be diffident. You may not be standoffish and aloof in your character. But if you don’t properly train your tongue to reflect your proper involvement in the lives of people. They’re going to think you’re aloof and standoffish from them and you’re going to not do what you’re supposed to do here. You will have failed in applying godly defenses to your ministry.

Now, you know, it’s not hard to make application of this right down the line, is it? You got the ministers and then you got the other church officers, the deacons, and maybe we could talk then about prayer group leaders, men exercise influence among other men. Then we can talk about the heads of households, the men. We can talk about the mothers. We can talk about the older siblings again and the younger ones. Well, I guess maybe down there at the end there’s not much direct application. But to everybody else here, there is a lot of application here.

You want little brother to look up to you more. You be careful what you say to little brother about your parents. And you be careful what you say to little brother about your sisters. See? And you be careful what you say about the friends and what you say about the church and you try to glorify them. I didn’t plan this for today, but in the providence of God, I put this on a shelf long time ago, but I brought it back out a couple weeks ago. The heart I made for one of my daughters to remind myself to give her glory in your speech. Children, give glory to the little children by speaking with them, by showing you care about them. Don’t talk too much to them because then they’re going to see that you think you’re a know-it-all.

As they get older, fathers, watch your speech. It can be a tremendous tool from God to defend your authority as a father or a mother or in the church. And yet, it can be the tongue can be a tremendous problem for us. It tears that down.

Well, I shouldn’t spend this much time. Conduct—the way you work. Speech is one thing and you know, sometimes fair speech is easy, but the what you do in terms of your life is another thing that presents you as an example positively or negatively. Your customs, your habits. What do you do, what do you listen to, what kind of music, what kind of things do you read, what kind of movies do you go to? See, your customs and habits can be a problem in terms of saying people, yeah, he’s a good minister or no, I don’t think he is a very good minister. They may or may not be justified in their evaluations, but the point is some people have said, and it’s, you know, it’s not true really, but it’s certainly there’s a lot of practical wisdom in this—that perception is everything.

Perception is reality and for the way people act a lot of times that’s true. And so you got to be very careful—the perception of your speech and your conduct.

And then third, love, charity. What is charity? It’s really a summation of these first two. Charity, love, according to 1 Corinthians 13 is patience and it’s kindness. That’s what it is. And then there’s negative things. A lot of negatives listed in 1 Corinthians 13, ways you’re not patient and ways you end up not being kind. Love is patience and kindness. Love is fulfillment of the obligations of God’s commandments. Beginning with the great commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And then to look at the Ten Commandments that tell us more instruction on that. And then to work through the case applications of all those things.

See, that’s how you love people. And the minister must have love. Agape love is talked about here. He must demonstrate to the flock a positive attachment to them and a concern for their well-being. That’s really what it means—a patience with them and a positive deeds of kindness to them. In terms of his tongue and his life, the way he’s lived, it must have an element to it that is personalized to the person in the pew.

Okay. Under his flock. And you know there’s limit to that in terms of time. we’ve talked about that in terms of heads of households here. Each of your children should individually receive attention and love and concern, proper tongue and proper conduct toward them. Now, I don’t think God wants us to have two kids so we can do that. And we shouldn’t have churches where you got 10 families and that’s it. No.

If the if you have 10 kids, it means there’s less of that in the providence of God that’s required for each of those kids. You’re not supposed to quit your job and spend all your time with your kids. You see, so there’s limits to that. But the point is there should be love and charity demonstrated in kindness and patience and in deeds and tongue in the context of the congregation. And that’s God’s defenses for the minister. That’s God’s defenses in terms of the smaller prayer groups. That’s God’s defenses for your reputation as a head of household or as a mother or as an older brother, etc.

And then we’ve got faith. Faith is the exercise of God’s gift that he has given to us. His gift is faith. Okay, we exercise faith, however, and we’re built up in that. And that really is the root of the love. In a way, it’s kind of going back…