PASTOR WANTED; POLLYANNA NEED NOT APPLY I TIMOTHY 1:3-7

Transcription

1 PASTOR WANTED; POLLYANNA NEED NOT APPLY I TIMOTHY 1:3-7 PART II Main idea IT TAKES A GREAT DEAL OF STRENGTH AND HUMILITY TO BE A PASTOR. I. NOT PREPARED (VS 3-4b) IT SEEMS ALMOST NATURAL FOR PEOPLE TO MAKE UP THEIR OWN RELIGION. A. HANG IN THERE (3a) B. NOT TRAINED FOR THIS (3b-4a) C. REALLY NOT TRAINED FOR THIS (4b) II. PREPARED FOR THIS (VS 4c-5) PASTORS ARE PREPARED TO PREACH, TEACH, AND ADMINISTER THE WORD OF GOD SO PEOPLE CAN GROW TO MATURITY IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. A. THE WORK (4c) B. THE GOAL (5a) C. THE METHOD (5b) III. NOT PREPARED (VS 6-7) IT SEEMS ALMOST NATURAL FOR PEOPLE TO BE PROUD AND ARROGANT. A. TURNING AWAY FROM TRUTH (6) B. STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES (7a) C. LEADING OTHERS AWAY FROM TRUTH (7b)

2 Pastor Wanted; Pollyanna Need Not Apply I Timothy 1:3-7 Part II Last time we were together we studied verse 3 and the first two sections of verse 4. To summarize, we said that Timothy was dealing with three types of difficult groups in the Ephesian Church. The first group was the antinomians. Antinomian simply means against law. This is the group that said since we are saved by faith; and since the flesh is evil and the spirit good; it really doesn t matter what we do with our bodies. We can give into all our lusts and desires. It seems to have played itself out in sexual immorality. The second group was the legalists. Within this group were two different groups. The first group was the Judaizers. They were insisting that the Gentile believers keep all the Jewish religious, ceremonial, and dietary laws. They were saying that Gentiles had to be circumcised and keep the dietary and other religious laws in order to be Christians. The second group of legalists was those who also said that the flesh was evil and the spirit good; they took the view that we must punish and deny the flesh in order to bring it into submission. They wanted people fasting, abstaining from alcohol, sex, or anything that could satisfy or gratify the flesh. And then there was the third group. They were interested in studying the Bible and theology; not to change their lives but simply to discover those teachings they agreed with and to argue different texts. However, they did not study the Bible in order to know Jesus more personally or to change their lives. Timothy had a difficult job to command these groups to get it together and get on the right track. This young pastor had to go in and rebuke the lawless, the legalists, and the lethargic. How does a young pastor do that? Further we said that he was instructed to command these groups. That word command has the full sense of a superior military officer giving a command to a subordinate. Timothy was to command based on the authority he had received from the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ. Further we said that pastors don t learn how to handle these things in seminary. Let me give you an example. There was a young pastor conducting a baptismal ceremony for the church. There were six people being baptized. Just as the last person was being baptized, a drunk stumbled in, walked down the aisle, and stood next to the young pastor. The pastor noticed the drunk and asked him if he was ready to be baptized. Yes sir I am preacher, said the drunk. The pastor dunked him under the water and when he brought the drunk up out of the water the pastor asked, Have you found Jesus? No I didn t! said the drunk. The young pastor dunked him again and asked, Now brother, have you found Jesus? Again the drunk responded, No I didn t Reverend. I didn t find Jesus. Page 2

3 By now the young pastor was getting frustrated. This time, he dunked the drunk and held him under the water for 30 seconds. He said, Good Lord man, have you found Jesus yet? The old drunk gasping for breath and wiping his eyes said, Are you sure this is where He fell in? I have to confess, we were never taught about dealing with problems in the church and I was as clueless as most rookie pastors. We said the main idea that governs both last week s message and this week s message is the same. IT TAKES A GREAT DEAL OF STRENGTH AND HUMILITY TO BE A PASTOR. Last time we discussed the things pastors are not prepared for. This week we will start at Roman Numeral II on your outlines. II. PREPARED FOR THIS (VS 4c-5) The third section of verse 4 and verse 5 lay out clearly what we were prepared for. PASTORS ARE PREPARED TO PREACH, TEACH, AND ADMINISTER THE WORD OF GOD SO PEOPLE CAN GROW TO MATURITY IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. In other words, we are prepared to be the theological and Biblical resource person in the congregation. Further, we are trained in Spiritual Formation to help believers in their spiritual journey towards maturity. The last section in verse 4 lays out the work. What we were trained to do is to help believers live out Ephesians 2:8-10. Remember, this was contained in Paul s letter to the Ephesian Church. Paul said this in that letter: 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Page 3 Ephesians 2:8-10 / The New International Version Notice how closely our text this morning resembles this. We are to advance God s work in faith. First of all, we must remember that we have been saved by faith and we are commanded to live by faith. If we indeed have salvation; it is only by the grace and gifting of God. None of us deserve it. It is a personal gift from God. It is a precious gift from God. We have also said in our study through the Psalms that salvation is past, present, and future. We were saved by faith when we submitted to Jesus as our Lord. We will be saved when we arrive in heaven either through death or rapture. At that time we will receive resurrection bodies to go along with our redeemed souls. For now, in this life, we are being saved. In other words, if Jesus is our Lord, then we need to be living according to His commands. Jesus commanded us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. And further we are to love one another the same way He loves us. Think about this for a moment and how if the people who called themselves Christians in Ephesus truly believed Jesus was their Lord, it would solve all their problems. In other words, there is to be no separation of body and spirit. We will spend eternity in heaven bodily. We will not spend eternity as disembodied souls. Our bodies will be redeemed with our souls. God formed our bodies and breathed the breath of life into us. Right then and there, that should stop those who separated the body and spirit; whether they thought they could abuse their bodies with immoral acts or whether they thought they could abuse their bodies by harshly

4 treating them. We are called to honor God with our bodies. Listen to what Paul wrote to the Romans: 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God this is true worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2 / The New International Version This process of being saved in the present is called sanctification. Every day we are called to submit to God the Holy Spirit so He can make us and mold us into the image and nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are to live our lives as Christ lived His. There is no way we can do that unless we reject all these manmade rules and self-made religions. We need to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed to us in the Bible. That means we need to study the Bible with purpose. That purpose is so that we can be convicted of our sin, confess, repent, and change our lives so that our wills agree with God s will. We spend too much time trying to convince God that His will should be in agreement with ours. Instead we need to take seriously the line in the Lord s Prayer that says, Your will be done. If in Bible study we are not looking to conform our will to God s then we are wasting our time. The only thing Bible study does if we are not being conformed to God s will is we are becoming proud, arrogant, puffed up, and dangerous to ourselves and to others. We asked this last time. When was the last time you were deeply convicted in Bible study? We ought to be being convicted almost every time we do serious Bible study. We are to be advancing God s work. In Paul s letter to the Ephesians we just quoted what God s work is. God has prepared all sorts of good works for us to accomplish. He has created us and prepared each one of us uniquely through our experiences in life. There are all sorts of good works He has for us to accomplish but maybe we can t discern His will for us because we are not listening or because we are being conformed to the patterns of this world rather than being transformed into the image of Jesus. That thought alone should convict us of the pathetic thing we call Bible study. Paul lays out the goal clearly to Timothy in the first half of verse 5. Again, here is that word for command that carries with it the full force of authority. Jesus commanded this. Paul didn t make it up and neither did Timothy. God gave this command to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy 6. Jesus summed up the Law and the Prophets with this command. And Jesus raised the bar with the Disciples when He commanded them to love like He loved. Let s take another test. If our spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend treated us like we treat God; would we feel loved? If our spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend paid attention to us like we pay attention to God; would we be satisfied? Can you really say that you love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? If our spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend spent time with us like we spend time with God; would we be happy? That s how we love God. And how are we doing at loving one another like Jesus loves us? Are we holding grudges? Are we unwilling to forgive? Do we really put other s interests before ours? How do we treat one another in church? Do we talk unkindly to one another? Do we gossip? Page 4

5 Again let s take a test. Would we be happy to have God treat us like we treat other people? Do we want God to judge us like we judge other people? With this command, Paul has just shattered all three groups. There is no room for people to make up their own religion. Jesus is absolutely clear in the Gospels what He expects of people who want to be part of His Kingdom. There is no room for the legalist, the lawless, or the lethargic in God s Kingdom. The second half of verse 5 describes the method by which we can fulfill this command of love. We do it through a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Jesus said the pure in heart will see God. A pure heart is someone who simply wants to know, hear, and obey Jesus. There are no hidden motives and agendas. Isn t that what we desire; to know Jesus? We don t simply want to know Him as a historian knows a person s biography. We don t want to know Jesus as a scholar knows Scripture. We want to know Jesus as He knows us; as an intimate friend. Jesus promises that if we seek Him we will find Him, see Him, and know Him. We come to fulfill the command of love by knowing Jesus and the love He has for us. Secondly, a good conscience is our friend in our pursuit of loving God and others. A soft conscience tells us when we have hurt God or another person. When we observe ourselves thinking, speaking, or acting; all we need to do is ask if this is what Jesus would have us do? If our consciences are not hardened; we should know what s right. Right thinking married up with right behavior leads us to peace. In addition to a pure heart and a good conscience, Paul tells Timothy a sincere faith is needed. This is translated perfectly but if I translated it literally it may make even more sense and convict us even more deeply. The phrase is a non-hypocritical faith. This takes a great deal of humility to live out. Too many people come to churches every Sunday pretending to be faithful Christians. The word hypocrite means an actor in the theatre. The people in the Ephesian Church were going through the motions. If they wanted to be authentic Christians; they could have been because they had a string of awesome Christian teachers, preachers, and evangelists come to them and minister to them. It takes a great deal of humility to be genuine and honest. It takes hard work to take a good hard look at ourselves and measure us up according to the life of Jesus. The only way we can live up the commands of love given to us by Jesus is to come to Him with pure hearts, good consciences, and sincere faith. These are the things we were taught in seminary. We are to use Bible study, spiritual disciplines, and intentional living as tools to bring us into the presence of God so that we can know Him personally. Remember the goal is not to simply learn more things about God; the goal is to know God and then live out His commands of love. PASTORS ARE PREPARED TO PREACH, TEACH, AND ADMINISTER THE WORLD OF GOD SO PEOPLE CAN GROW TO MATURITY IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Let s sum up where we are in Paul s note of encouragement to Timothy. Timothy was clearly not prepared to deal with people who felt comfortable in making up their own religion. He was not equipped to confront false teachers and confront immoral behavior. Timothy, like most pastors, was trained to preach, teach, counsel, comfort, and move believers towards spiritual maturity. He was also trained in leading unbelievers to faith in God. Now we come to another people problem. Page 5

6 In verses 6-7 we can see that pastors are really not prepared for this. IT SEEMS ALMOST NATURAL FOR PEOPLE TO BE PROUD AND ARROGANT. Have you ever listened to sports radio or read sports articles written in the newspapers? There is a really interesting phenomenon that goes on. People who never played college sports or advanced sports of any kind, get on the radio and lambast the coaches and players. I have heard people refer to players as garbage and the team should get rid of him. People call up and say they should fire the coach or call the coach an idiot. A lot of time this type of talk comes from the radio hosts themselves and they encourage it. Whoever calls a player garbage should go out and play against them. For example, if I was to call a particular pitcher garbage; that would assume that I could go out there and hit any pitch he throws me. If I call a hitter garbage; then I should go out and pitch against him and strike him out. What really baffles me is when callers call up and say that this manager doesn t know what he s doing or especially when the radio hosts say those kind of things. It s one thing to be stupid; but it s a whole new higher level of stupidity to be stupid and not even know you re stupid. If these callers and radio hosts are such good players; why don t they go and try out to make the team? If they re so smart; why don t they go apply for a manager s job? The reality is that if one of these callers or radio hosts had to go out and face a major league pitcher; they would wet their pants at the first curve ball or 90-mile-per-hour fast ball came at them. No respectable owner would hire them as managers because they have no idea what it takes to manage a team. Where do we get the idea that we can sit back and evaluate people in professions we know nothing in reality about? Our culture has imbedded this attitude in our consciousness. We have come to believe we are experts at everything and we have an opinion about everything. It s no different in church. Most pastors have an undergraduate degree then go on to spend at least four more years of post-graduate studies to obtain a Master of Divinity degree. Then he or she has to go before examination boards to get ordained. And yet, people in the congregation who barely read their Bibles think their opinion is as informed as the pastor s. How can that be? If that s truly the case, then we should stop offering a Master of Divinity degree and simply ordain anyone who wants to be ordained. I guess in fact that s true today with the advent of the internet. Anyone can get a degree and be ordained online. But that s not the case with an authentic denomination or ordaining agency. If local churches want to hire a genuinely educated and ordained pastor; their assumption ought to be that the pastor knows more about the Bible, theology, and spiritual formation than they do. Otherwise hiring a pastor is a waste of money. Timothy was trained at Paul s side. He couldn t have received any better training. Paul was familiar with Greek philosophy and was a top of the line Bible scholar. Paul was directly commissioned by Jesus and Timothy was commissioned by Paul. Timothy was brought up in a home that studied the Scriptures. This church in Ephesus had the best. The question is, Why didn t they seem to listen to him? III. NOT PREPARED (VS 6-7) Verse 6 describes them a turning away from the truth. Paul tells Timothy that one reason the message may not be getting through to them is that some have turned away from the truth and turned towards meaningless talk. They have turned away from the truth because they were not pure in heart, did not have good consciences, and did not have a sincere faith. So hypocrites who have all sorts of personal agendas and seared consciences don t really want to turn to God because Page 6

7 He will expose them for who they really are. They turn to meaningless talk. To be sure all this talk sounds religious and they can even fool people who are not regularly studying and living out Scripture. They use words like prayer, righteousness, holy, and all sorts of other holy words. This word translated meaningless means devoid of any force, truth, or result. The information is totally useless and has no purpose. I m so glad we have been studying through the Psalms. We came across that word hebel. It means vanity or meaninglessness. I want to read two passages from the book of Ecclesiastes. It is another Old Testament Wisdom Book and it was written by Solomon, King David s son: 2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2 / English Standard Version That s how Solomon started out the book. He went on to demonstrate that when we chase the idols of this world such as wealth, power, money, notoriety, pleasure, etc. we come up empty. It s all vanity and meaningless. It leaves us empty. He ends the book with this conclusion: 13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 / English Standard Version When we turn away from our task to know and love God and to love one another; there is nowhere else to turn but to things that are meaningless and useless. Again let me just warn us all of this because we are all susceptible to it. Don t practice spiritual disciplines just to be able to say we do them and don t study the Bible just to get knowledge. This leads to spiritual pride; vanity and meaninglessness. Please let s not ever go down that road. Remember our goal is not to just learn stuff about Jesus like a historian or scholar. Our goal is to know Jesus. The first half of verse 7 is described in a quote by another great philosopher, Forest Gump, Stupid is as stupid does. The interesting thing to me about stupid people is that they always have an opinion about everything and they feel they must share their wisdom with others. Do you know anyone like that? There are people who have opinions about everything; even things they know nothing about. And the other interesting thing about stupid people; they feel the calling to teach others about their stupidity. They have no idea what they are talking about and yet they want to teach. Look, we all have to be careful. None of us is immune. I ve shared this with you before and I ve been working at it. I ve actually been getting better. I ll be talking away and my brain will say to me, That s the stupidest thing I ve ever heard, but my mouth just goes right on talking. When we get on a stupid roll, it s hard to stop and hard to get off. A good dose of humility will solve that. It s not bad enough to be stupid and make a fool out of ourselves; but it s extremely dangerous to the health of a church when stupid people start leading others away from the truth as described in the second half of verse 7. These people strongly assert themselves and end up leading people astray. In the end they have the potential to ruin many lives. Here is how it works. People do a little studying or listen to a particular sermon, listen to a particular radio or television program and build a belief system based on that. Then they want to spread the word and make everybody believe the way they do. The problem is not necessarily that what they believe is incorrect; the Page 7

8 problem is that there may be many other ways to interpret the particular passage or doctrine. Good solid evangelical Bible teachers disagree on some doctrines. If we are going to teach a particular doctrine, then we ought to be aware if other evangelicals believe something else. An honest teacher will present all the acceptable views and let their students decide which they believe. I can t begin to tell you how many times I have urged people to read differing positions about what they were teaching but they refused. Some have said they don t have time to read or study. Others have said they don t care what others believe; their way is right and that s what they ll teach. That has potential not only to ruin the teacher s life but everyone he or she teaches. I have begged people to read but it seems that people would rather hold on blindly to what they believe rather than put in work to really understand the issue from a broader perspective. Timothy has two problems in regards to this. First of all he has to spend time arguing against the false teachers and secondly to make sure they don t lead any other people astray. If one of these false teachers happen to lead you astray and cause disaster in your life; please don t blame God. They don t speak for Him. IT SEEMS ALMOST NATURAL FOR PEOPLE TO BE PROUD AND ARROGANT. As I did in Part I, I d like to share my heart with you here at the end of Part II. In Part I, I shared my weakness. This morning, I d like to share my pastoral strengths with you. First of all, when I preach, I stay away from storytelling because I think I m not very good at it and I don t want to lead anyone astray. That s why I stick to blue collar nuts and bolts preaching. I stick to the text and try to show you how the text is put together, what it means, and different possible interpretations. I hope by the time you leave the sermon on Sunday morning; you will understand yet another portion of Scripture. Secondly, I try to keep up on reading so I will often recommend books for people to read. I try to get people to read authors that take a different view than they do to broaden their knowledge. Third, I am heavily trained in the area of spiritual direction and formation. I really thrive on seeing Christians grow to maturity; where they can learn to discern God s voice and God s will for their lives. I love to see people come to know Jesus. Lastly I try to model humility in the Christian life. Every year I try to get involved in a particular area of study and prayer so that I can grow personally and hopefully pass that on to all of you. Nothing would excite me more than to see our congregation grow to such unity of love in Christ that we become mature and measure up to the complete standards and commands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I want to see us fulfill all the potential we have in Christ. IT TAKES A GREAT DEAL OF STRENGTH AND HUMILITY TO BE A PASTOR. I m up to the task. Are you? Page 8