MUSIC First Timothy 4 and verse 11. 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, 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, immerse yourself in 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. Well, if someone had asked Timothy if he could summarize Paul's exhortation to him in this particular chapter, I don't think there's much doubt but that he would have used the opening part—the first sentence, as we have it in English—of verse 16. Namely, Paul has been encouraging me to keep a close watch on myself and on my teaching.
Or, as J. B. Phillips paraphrases it, keep a critical eye both upon your own life and on the teaching you give. Or, as many of us grew up learning it in our youth in the authorized version, or in the NIV, watch your life and doctrine closely.
So, in a sense, we have come almost full cycle from where we began. This, again, this paragraph is another LDS paragraph. He's tackling the issue of his life and his doctrine, and all with a view to salvation. And what he's done is he has given to Timothy what is a vital reminder, not only for Timothy but for all the Timothys that follow behind him. It's important, I think, and helpful for us, to acknowledge the fact that while this is a personal letter, it is directed to Timothy, but it was not a letter that would have been exclusive to him in the sense that it would have been read publicly, so that the congregation would have been aware of, and purposefully so, of the exhortations and encouragements that the apostle had given to his young lieutenant. And in that, of course, there is a great challenge. It would be one thing for Timothy to take this letter, written directly to him, take it away into his bedroom, as it were, and read it all by himself.
The challenges would be real. But for him to sit there, perhaps as someone read the letter, in his hearing and in the hearing of the congregation would have a salutary effect, in the sense that it would make the congregation aware of the challenges that Timothy was facing and also of the responsibilities entrusted to him. And not least of all, they may have sat up in their seats when they came to verse 11 and Timothy command and teach these things. Here we are at these things again. Eight times it comes in the letter.
What are these things? Well, they are the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the teaching that accords with godliness, as we've seen. If you like, we could think of it—since we have at least one military man with us, as we know—we might think of it in terms of standing orders. You have a responsibility to convey these standing orders. Now, the standing orders are used in medicine, they're used in politics—in Parliament, in Britain, I know—but they're also military in their emphasis.
So a standing order is a military order demanding that it be retained irrespective of changing conditions. So here he says to Timothy, this is what you're going to have to convey. The situation may be different for you, the context may change, but you are going to have to do this. Now, when you think about how he began his letter in chapter 1, he had urged him, in light of the fact that certain persons were going to teach different doctrine, they were going to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies and so on. And what he's saying to Timothy is, Timothy, you're going to have to be prepared to say to folks, you must not believe this. You must not believe this. You're going to have to be prepared to say, this is false teaching, and if you're going to come up with this stuff, there is no way that you're going to teach a home Bible study group here in Ephesus.
Why not? Who do you think you are, Timothy? I'm the servant of God. I'm entrusted with the standing orders of God, which rules out falsity and demands that I encourage you to lay hold of these great and precious promises.
Now, there's an amazing sort of juxtaposition between verse 11 and verse 12, isn't there? Command and teach these things, and then immediately let no one despise your youth. So it's a tall order for a young man, especially when in his congregation, as in our congregations, there will always be those who are older than us, perhaps more experienced than us, and so on.
And yet the responsibility that is entrusted to the pastor and the teacher is to do just this. I can remember being young. I can remember the start of it all. I can remember when I was sent on my early visits to the hospital by Derek Prine back in the autumn of 1975.
And as I was reflecting on this, Let no one despise your youth, I recalled a particular incident where I was dispatched to visit a lady, the wife of a doctor, who had just had a baby, and then she had subsequently had gallbladder surgery, her gallbladder removed, and I was supposed to go along. So I went along. And I went into the big ward. There were beds on either side. And when I got to the bed, she was asleep. I didn't really know what to do. So I just perched on the bed.
I didn't sit on it entirely, but I rested on it. And as I was sitting there, she woke up. And with a start, she saw me. And she said, Who are you? And I said, I'm the assistant to the pastor at Charlotte Chapel. She said, Really?
They're sending boys? My first funeral, which I conducted wearing a clerical collar as by the directive of my boss, I almost destroyed the funeral, where there should have been tears. There was significant laughter. People said, Is this a joke? Is this a Halloween party?
What is this? In fact, the elders were concerned about my youthfulness when they offered me the opportunity to become the assistant. The report that came from the elders' meeting after I'd gone there went something along these lines. The elders had a long discussion about your visit to us last weekend. And we concluded that on account of your youth that you would not be much help to Mr. Prime, and that because of your youth, you would gravitate only to the youth and therefore would not be able to serve the congregation. I'm reading the letter. Then it said, However—so I'm saying to myself, So you're saying there's a chance. However, Mr. Prime said that with guidance on his part and a good attitude on your part, that this could be a happy and successful relationship. And so on the strength of his willingness to take the risk, and on the basis of my willingness to love him, serve him, never second-guess him, never, ever speak wrongly about him in front of any member of the congregation, God in his providence, to this very moment, has marked my life by the influence of that man.
And many of you could stand and testify to the same. You see, the difficulty with the youth is—well, there are many, aren't there? One is that the young person thinks that they will be able, by one gigantic step, to reach the place where older men have arrived as a result of many, many, many steps. And so the temptation for a Timothy is to—aware of his sense of youthfulness, of natural inadequacy, of, look at what everybody else knows—the temptation is then to sort of become a kind of bossy little character, or to assume a false authoritarian perspective, or perhaps to shout or do something, or even to begin to use terminology in the pulpit that we have never earned the right to employ. This young man is not here, therefore, and I'm not going to tell you his name, but I remember not long after he was part of our internship program or whatever it was, I noticed that he began to use one of my words that I use with a congregation. I heard him saying, in the course of sentences, "'Beloved.'" Well, that was very nice.
But he hadn't become his beloved. He just heard me saying that. And he thought, That's a nice thing to say. And it is a nice thing to say. But you know whether you're beloved or not. And your congregation know whether they're loved or not. And the use of the language, without the reality of the relationship, just comes across as insincere. So what is he to do?
What is the answer? How do you handle this? Let no one despise your youth. Don't let people look down on you, he says. Well, how will we handle this?
Well, see that they look up to you, because you're an example to them. And then he gives to us these areas that are, if you like, a kind of exposition of training yourself for godliness in the earlier paragraph. Five areas, if you like. I'm not going to belabor them.
I'll say more about three than I will about all five. But essentially, this is his outworking of train yourself for godliness. I want you to make sure that you are clear on this, Timothy. Don't let the people look down on you. Make sure they look up to you.
The way they will look up to you is if you set them an example in these areas. Number one, speech. Speech. Words. It's all been about words. The Word of God, the way that God uses our words in the proclamation of his Word. The great mystery of it all. And right at the very outset, speech.
That it would be true, kind, purposefully helpful. Words are our tools. That's why it's important to read widely. That's why it's important to have a decent vocabulary. Because we need words. We don't just need words' words. We need the best words. We need the right words at the right time. And we know from school—and some of us were talking about it just before we were reminiscing about some of our schoolteachers and how we used to say in the playground, Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me. But we know that's not true.
We've long recovered from any stick or stone that reached us at any point on the perimeter of our person. But I was telling them, I had a teacher who told me one day in front of the class that I had a turnip for a head. And then he had me stand up in front of the class, and he said, Begg, tell the class what you have for a head. And so I had to say, Well, I have a turnip for a head. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that, because of the way e-mails circulate and so on.
And I would hate to have to live it down all over again at this late stage in my life. With our tongues, as James has said, we have the capacity to enrich and explain and impart that which is strengthening and encouraging. But conversely, our tongues are also, he says, the tongue itself is like a restless evil full of deadly poison. He says, We're able to bless God, and we're able to curse others. He says, Brethren, these things ought not to be.
Don't you find it so challenging that in the area of what might arguably be said to be our greatest gifting, we are confronted hourly by the great potential for failure? I was driving my grandchildren to school this morning, and I realized this. There was a lady driving in front of me with her flashers on. Everything was flashing. Why it was flashing, I don't know. And the more it flashed, the more frustrated I became. And I'd just stopped myself from launching into, you know, a verbal dissertation concerning the nature of her driving. Why did I stop myself when it was so attractive to me? Well, because I knew I'd have to give this talk, and then I'd feel bad. But also because I remembered another occasion when it was my children, not my grandchildren, when I was in the exact same position when I was a youth. And I was in the same thing, and I was saying, Oh, come on, drive the car, get in your own lane. What kind of deal is this? What?
Come on! You know, stuff like that. And when I'd finished, there was silence, and then a little voice from the back seat said, And that's another kind word from your pastor.
Do you know the old poem? If all that we say in a single day with never a word left out Were printed each night in plain black and white, It would make strange reading, no doubt. And then just suppose ere our eyes should close That we must read the whole record through. Then wouldn't we sigh, wouldn't we try, A great deal less talking to do?
And I more than half think that many a kink Would be smoother in life's tangled thread If half what I say in a single day Were to be left forever unsaid. Speech not only in the public arena, Speech in the privacy of our cars, Under the breath speech, Speech with our wives. Speech, an example. Then in conduct—you can tell that I have to move more quickly—in conduct or behavior. Now, the false teachers were clearly concerned about conduct and behavior.
That's why they had all these regulations that had to do with their diet, and particularly concerning the negation of marriage. So Paul is not suggesting to Timothy here that he kind of adopts that kind of external approach, but rather that as a result of the Spirit of God at work within his heart, that he would then have his behavior increasingly like that of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father's desire and the Spirit's work is that those who love Jesus would be conformed to the image of Jesus. As a boy in Scotland, we used to sing a song. It went, I think, Earthly pleasures vainly call me. I would be like Jesus.
We used to affirm this, although we didn't know what we were saying. Nothing worldly shall enthrall me. I would be like Jesus and then be like Jesus.
This my song in the home and in the throng. Be like Jesus all day long. I would be like Jesus. I would like to be like Jesus. The problem is I am so unlike Jesus. Command and teach these things.
Don't get up on your high horse, Timothy. Have them look up to you, and to look up to you, because they hear your words and they are able to observe your behavior. Love, affection, commitment. I think of all the things that were said yesterday in the non-didactic, monologual presentation. The thing that Sinclair said yesterday in answer to one question, when he said, Our wives, every day, at least six days a week, prepare the meals.
Whether they are excited about it or not excited about it, they do it. I've told my congregation here, You will know I've quit loving you when you come to the table and there is nothing that I give you that is worth eating, that I have not done what you've asked me to do, what you have set me apart to do, so that the language that has been primarily given to me is a language that is formed in secret, that demands often isolation, in order that when we come to the table on the Lord's Day, we express our love in that way, and our faith too—our progress in the faith, our faithfulness, and so on. We could turn it into an entire series. We daren't. Set the believers an example—speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. In verse 2 of chapter 5, you will notice, Treat the older women as mothers, the younger women as sisters, in all purity. And down in 22, Keep yourself pure. How many false and failing ministers have misused secluded pastoral situations to embark on sexual adventures to the shipwreck of their ministries and to the shame of biblical Christianity?
Sadly, many. And what is the antidote? Well, the Bible, the work of the Holy Spirit, the clarity of the book of Proverbs. This is Charles Bridges. Here you go. Tender, well-regulated domestic affection is the best defense against the vagrant desires of unlawful passion.
Now, I don't want to be funny on it, but when you go home, you've been away for a few days, you tell your wife that you have been looking forward to some tender, well-regulated domestic affection. And the anticipation of it was part of the means of grace that enabled you, when confronted by that attraction and the danger of that preoccupation, from actually becoming another one of the statistics in the sad story of pastoral ministerial declension in this realm. Let the one who thinks he stands take heed, lest he falls. You're listening to Truth for Life and a message from Alistair Begg called A Good Servant of Christ Jesus. Helping pastors, church leaders, and church members become good servants of Christ Jesus is what we're all about here at Truth for Life. In fact, one part of our mission is to strengthen local churches.
But in order to make our mission a reality, we are dependent on the prayers and donations we receive from truth partners and all who support the ministry of Truth for Life. We always stand ready to say thank you for your donation by inviting you to request our featured book. And for just a few more days, you can request the book Epic, an around-the-world journey through Christian history. This is a creative book written by Pastor Tim Challies. It looks back through the centuries at faithful believers and some of the objects they left behind. We'd love to send you a copy of the book Epic.
Call 888-588-7884. And if you'd like, you can also see a sample of the book and request your copy when you go to truthforlife.org. As a young man, Timothy was blessed to receive wise counsel from an older mentor. I'm Bob Lapine, hoping you can join us tomorrow as we learn more from the Apostle Paul's instruction to his young protege. Alistair will conclude 1 Timothy chapter 4. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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