A Good Servant of Christ Jesus (Part 4 of 4)

In his first letter written to Timothy, the Apostle Paul offered wise counsel to this young pastor. In just a few paragraphs, Paul identified the character traits and personal disciplines that are a part of every pastor's job description. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg continues our study of 1 Timothy 4 with a message he's titled A Good Servant of Christ Jesus.

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.

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. 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 or behavior.

Now, the false teachers were clearly concerned about conduct and behavior. 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. Stand 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. Set the believers an example—speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. So having reminded him of character, he then comes to this matter of his work. And he says, Until I come, while you're in the position you're in, it's important, Timothy, that you do this—that you devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. And what Paul is asking Timothy to do here is essentially to continue the pattern which was the pattern of the synagogue. You remember, for example, when in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus is invited to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he reads from it, and then he sits down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue are fastened on him, waiting to hear what he's going to say when he moves from the public reading to the exhortation and the teaching which comes from it. And you can find that this pattern—the reading of the law and the prophets and then the apostolic writings—is in the New Testament. You'll find it, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 5, 4.

And Justin Martyr, in his first apology in the middle of the second century, identifies the fact that this was happening. He said, On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. Then, when the reader is finished, the president speaks, instructing and exhorting the people. So what place do we give to the public reading of Scripture? The question as to whether it is read, and then if it is read, how it is read.

I don't want to belabor it. But again, coming back to Derek Prime, he never missed a beat in reading the Scriptures. Christopher Asch, who was with us a couple of years ago in that very excellent use of English, he wrote slowly and clearly.

Slowed it down, so that we would understand how important it is. Now, not simply the public reading but also then the exhortation, so that the Scripture that is read is to be preached. I have a friend here at Parkside who gives me old books, and one of the little books that he gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago was a book—it's not often seen by Horatius Bonar—and it's called God's Way of Peace. It's a book for the anxious, he says. And at one point in the book, he says this, The Bible is a living book, not a dead one, a divine one, not a human one, a perfect one, not an imperfect one.

Search it, study it, dig into it. Then in a little footnote, he quotes Luther, who writes, We must make a great difference between God's word and the word of man. A man's word is a little sound, which flyeth into the air and soon vanisheth. But the word of God is greater than heaven and earth, yea, it is greater than death and hell.

For it is the power of God and remaineth everlastingly. For we ought diligently to learn God's word, and we must know certainly and believe that God himself speaketh with us. The privilege of exhortation combines with the responsibility of teaching. Read it and exhort or preach and teach. You have the distinction between preaching and teaching in the Acts of the Apostles. At least, in a couple of cases, Luke tells us that Paul and Barnabas taught and preached the word of the Lord.

So there is a distinction between the two things—the twofold approach, that is, the responsibility that falls to us, that fell to Timothy. In teaching, we are seeking to give people an understanding of God's truth. In our preaching, we are then making an appeal to people's wills as well as to their emotions, urging them to respond to the word that they have now understood through our teaching.

But it is irresponsible for us to call upon our listeners to act without having first provided a proper understanding for them for the basis of the very action to which we call them. If it was a different context than another time, we could do a side consideration here on what this means in terms of evangelistic preaching. And I recall somewhere in the last three days somebody reminding me of someone who had gone to church listening to a previous speaker here from our conference in years gone by—also from Scotland, as it turns out—a wonderful, wonderful expositor of Scripture and with a passion to see people come to know Christ. And someone had gone to church, and they said, well, he was a very nice man, and it was a good sermon, but he didn't do the gospel. He didn't do the gospel. And what they meant by that was that he didn't have that little P.S. at the end, where you can be languishing in 2 Kings, you know, trying to work your way through, and then all of a sudden at the end you say, And by the way, there's some of you here that don't know the benefits of the gospel, and there's others of you who don't realize the dangers in neglecting the gospel.

So let me urge you to get that sorted out. The person's sitting there going, What are you talking about? First of all, we didn't understand 2 Kings, and now we don't understand this! Because we can exhort people to receive the gospel, warn them about rejecting the gospel, and never actually tell them the gospel. So we have to tell people that before you say to people that Christ will come and live in you by the Holy Spirit, we have to tell them that Christ came and died for you in the historical context and so on. Some of us are better at the exhorting, some of us are better at the teaching, but together we can make progress.

But let us say this as we move on. The primacy of preaching and of Bible teaching is actually to be the defining mark of the gathering of God's people. Deuteronomy 4. Assemble the people before me to hear my words. Why are you coming here? We are coming here together to hear God's words. Therefore, if we're here to hear God's words and we're entrusted with a responsibility, then let's make sure that we are absolutely devoted to the public reading, to the exhortation, and to the teaching of the Bible, so that the Word of God may become the driving force that shapes the life of our congregations. Timothy is then encouraged once again by being reminded of the fact that he has a gift that has been given him that was accompanied by a prophecy that had been made when the council of elders laid their hands on him. Now, we don't have the details of this. We might think of it in realistic terms as a kind of ordination—that he had been called, that he was equipped, and that he was set apart to this task.

Now, remember that this is being read publicly. So the congregation understands a number of things. Number one, Timothy was not a volunteer. He was a conscript. He was not sitting around during the week trying to think up things to say, but he was a servant of the Word of God. The equipment that he had received had been given to him by the Holy Spirit for the express purpose not of drawing attention to himself, but of edifying the saints so that they in turn may be enabled to do the works of ministry. He was not operating on the basis of natural talent. He was God's man in God's place, enabled by God's power in order to serve God's people.

And since the sovereignty of God's purposes and his provision had been granted to him in such manner, it was Timothy's responsibility then to make sure that he did not neglect the gift that he had been given—that he didn't neglect it. I don't really know American sports. I love all sport. So I can't use illustrations from there, even after all this time. But I could give you illustrations of people in the football world, somebody like Ferenc Puskas from Hungary, who was a little portly, but he'd never neglected his gift and was phenomenally successful.

I could tell you of George Best, the best soccer player that I ever saw in person, who died as a young man, not because he was immensely talented, but because he simply neglected the gift that he'd been given. That's why when Paul writes in his second letter to Timothy, remember, he says to him, Kindle this gift that you received at the laying on of their hands. Make sure that you make progress in these things. Don't simply drift along with the tide, Timothy. Don't just go with the flow.

Set yourselves with this destination in view. Don't shipwreck like some that I've had to mention to you back in chapter 1. Fan this into a flame. Don't neglect the gift you have. It's a very straightforward word, isn't it?

How would we neglect it? Well, I guess by indolence. Perhaps by saying to ourselves, This gift doesn't seem to be as good as someone else's gift.

There's all kinds of ways. But God has made you as you. He's the one that gave you your DNA.

He's the one who has providentially ordered your steps and brought you to where you are. I was smiling to myself as Sinclair said, you know, you could find yourself in difficulty as you go away from here. You might think of Parkside, and we might want to come to Parkside. Works the other way too. I drive out here through Amish country.

I see these tiny little places that can hold about a hundred and ten people, and I'm saying to myself, Now that's the kind of place I'm looking for. And I don't want to say it in front of my congregation, because they may send me there. But it's not our context that's the issue.

No. Don't neglect the gift. While our time is gone, I just leave you with the imperatives that are there.

You can do the homework on your own. What do you want me to do? Timothy might have said, Well, practice these things. Practice these things. Put them into practice so that they become second nature to you. Immerse yourself in them. Your mind is to be immersed in these gospel truths just in the way that the body is immersed in the air that it breathes.

And why? Well, so that all may see your progress. It's a challenge, but it's also terrific. So that all may see your progress. It doesn't say, So that all may see your perfection.

No, perfection is the Lord Jesus. Our progress is towards the Lord Jesus. You remember in Philippians, where Paul is writing so amazingly, perhaps he's dictating it, and he goes on this amazing burst of things. I used to be this, and I used to be that, but I've counted it all for loss, and that I might be found in him, that I might know him in the power of his resurrection, that I might share his sufferings, that I may become like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead. Now, I imagine that if his secretary is there, as he pauses at the end of that sentence, the secretary says to him, This is good stuff, Paul.

I mean, this is under the direction of the Holy Spirit, you understand. But this is good stuff, Paul. But you might want to just, you know, you might just want to add another kind of sentence.

Well, what do you think? Well, how about something like, Not that I have already obtained all this, or am already perfect. I think that would be a big encouragement to the people. He said, That's a terrific idea.

Let's put that in. Not that I have obtained all this, or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Jesus Christ made me his own. I am not the finished article, neither as husband, father, grandfather, pastor, friend, whatever it is. I am flawed. You are flawed. But our congregations, hopefully, can see a wee bit of progress.

For example, I don't want to use myself as an illustration, but I'm the only illustration that I have. I said something in one of the sermons last week or the week before—I don't know what it was—but I said, If somebody says this to you, just say to them, Sit down and shut up. Now, when I was thirty-five, I wouldn't have thought a moment about it. But as I stood back in the closing song, the Holy Spirit in my mind says, Hey, Al, you don't want to be telling your congregation to say stuff like that. I replied, Hey, wait a minute. I said it. He replied, I told you what I told you. I replied, Well, what do you want me to do? Just go up and apologize for it?

That's exactly what I want you to do. So… Then I did. And I think at least one elderly lady must have nudged her friend and said, A wee bit of progress out of that. Any progress that the Ephesian congregation saw in Timothy they would have ascribed to the grace of God. And any ability that he made to struggle through to victory they would have ascribed to the grace of God.

And so, together they received the word of God. They, as the congregation who love their pastor and want him to become all that God intends for him to be, and he himself, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Don't get into the trap of parading any apparent successes, because pride always comes before a fall, nor fall into that strange notion of sort of seeking to impress people on account of our failures. No, watch your life, watch your doctrine. Persist. Just keep going. For by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

How does that work? Well, the only way we're saved is through the gospel. Salvation Army girl is on the train in London years ago, and she gets into the compartment, and into the compartment comes an Anglican bishop.

And he has a mitre, and he has one of the special hats, and he's all clobbered up and ready for business. Salvation Army girl makes a deduction on the strength of this and sees it as an evangelistic opportunity. And she says, "'Scuse me, bishop. Is you saved?"

And apparently this was Bishop Lightfoot, the Greek scholar. He said to her young lady, "'Do you mean, have I been saved? Am I being saved? Or will I be saved?'"

And we don't have the record of her response, understandably. But the three tenses of salvation are all there, aren't they? They taught me at Sunday school, I have been saved from sin's penalty. One day I will be saved from sin's presence. But as of now, I am being saved from sin's power. And what are the means that he's given his word by the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to do what he calls us to do. In just a minute, Alistair Begg will conclude his message with prayer, so please keep listening.

This is Truth for Life. Each year during the month of October, it's our tradition to observe Pastor Appreciation Month. It's the reason we're presenting this current teaching series called The Pastor's Study and a variety of helpful resources designed to strengthen local churches and their leaders. For example, in addition to these daily programs, you'll find on our website at truthforlife.org a recommended reading list for pastors and church leaders. Our team has carefully compiled a list of some of our favorite books on the topic of pastoral ministry. So if you're a youth leader or a pastor or if you teach a small group Bible study, we want to invite you to take a look and hopefully find a title that piques your interest. Visit truthforlife.org slash pastor or view the list on our mobile app. Tim Challies is a pastor who often addresses relevant topics that strengthen local churches. Today is one of the final days we are making available his new book called Epic, an around-the-world journey through Christian history. Tim traveled the world taking pictures of 33 different artifacts that tell the story of our Christian heritage.

His book Epic presents an interesting collection of photographs of objects that belong to Christian leaders from the past, people like Hudson Taylor, David Livingstone and Amy Carmichael, along with an explanation of what each of these artifacts represents. We'd love to send you a copy of the book. It's yours when you give a donation to support Truth for Life. You can request the book when you go to truthforlife.org slash donate or click the book image in the mobile app.

You can also call us right now at 888-588-7884. Now here's Alistair to lead us in prayer. Let me pause and use Calvin's prayer after he has preached. Now let us cast ourselves down before the majesty of our good God, asking him to forgive our sins and renew us in the image of Christ and fulfill all his purposes in us and through us. In the name of Christ alone.

Amen. By God's design, there is a unique role that church leaders play in the life of a local church. Within this structure, there are responsibilities shared by everyone who attends the local church as well. Be sure to listen Thursday as our study about church leadership continues. I'm Bob Lapine. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.