“Pastor to Pastor Parting Words” October 6, 2013
1 Timothy 6:11-21
SI: Paul wrote this letter to Timothy.
Timothy was a pastor, apparently the new
pastor, of the church in Ephesus.
So it’s a pastor to pastor letter
on how the church should be organized.
This morning we come to
Paul’s final words to Timothy and our a last
Lord’s Day in this letter.
INTRO: Allison was a very attentive new
mother.
Whenever
she would leave her precious firstborn child with other people,
she would give extensive written
instructions about Adrienne’s care.
It would be taped to the refrigerator in a
very conspicuous place.
A
detailed schedule. When to feed. When to bathe. When to put to bed.
Details about how each of those things were
to be done.
There
would be all sorts of phone numbers—where we could be reached.
The pediatrician. Poison control. The National Center for Missing Children.
And
then, when the actual time came, and the babysitter had arrived,
and it was time for us to walk out the door—
there would be a last minute avalanche of
additional instructions.
Oh,
I forgot this, but there’s a little ice cream in the freezer.
You can give her some after she eats her
supper, I think she’s teething . . .
And
one more thing, she likes to be rocked when you read her bedtime story . . .
And
one more thing, when you do put her to bed, leave the closet light on . . .
Oh,
and just in case, let me write down her blood type.
I would be pulling Allison and saying come
on, she’ll be fine,
we’re going to miss the movie!
That’s
kind of how it is towards the end of most of Paul’s letters.
He’s dealt with the big issues, whether
doctrinal or practical.
But then, when he starts to end the letter,
lots of other things come to mind
and he says—Oh, yeah, and this, and this,
and don’t forget this.
He
does that in this letter to Timothy.
He’s clearly wrapping things up.
O man of God, he says—a very formal closing
statement.
He seems to bring it to a concluding
flourish with grand ascription of praise—
To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
Amen. That means he’s done. Right?
But then Paul says.
One more thing. And just one more thing.
Once
again, he uses that formal word of address:
O Timothy, he says.
Finally, he wraps it all up with a short
benediction. Grace be with you.
Sometimes
it’s good take each of these final comments by Paul and focus
on them separately and maybe preach a sermon
on each.
I’ve
been reading some 1 Timothy sermons by Dr. Ligon
Duncan, former pastor
of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson,
Miss—now president of RTS.
He preached five sermons on these
verses. That’s a good model.
But
sometimes it’s good to look at Paul’s closing instructions in a big chunk
and see if you can find a thread or theme
that ties them all together.
That’s what I want us to do. What’s linking these together in Paul’s
mind?
What’s
one big final faith lesson that we can draw from his closing words.
You
could have summed up all of Allison’s last minute instructions to the
babysitter in one sentence: Take care of my baby.
Take care of my baby or I will kill you.
So
what is it that ties all of Paul’s final comments together?
Well,
it has to be the thing that prompted him to write this letter in the first
place.
In his very first words, back
in chapter 1, he told Timothy that there is one thing
of supreme importance for the church—the
good news about Jesus Christ.
The Good News. The Gospel.
So anything in the life and
teaching of the church that detracts from,
erodes, or contradicts the Gospel must be
opposed.
Because if the Gospel loses
its preeminence, then the ministry of the church is over.
The church may continue institutionally, but
there will be no heart and power.
And if there is no heart and power, then
people will not be changed.
The reason God has saved us
is so that we will be changed.
Forgiveness is not just
release from guilt and freedom from punishment—
it is also liberation to live
righteously.
In fact, that’s the ultimate
reason we’ve been forgiven,
so we will have freedom to live as God has
made us to live.
So the church must be
organized and led in such a way that the Gospel is
adorned and magnified, so that people are
changed by God’s grace.
Paul addresses all sorts of
details about church life. We’ve studied
those.
Elders and deacons, the role of women,
relation to civil authorities,
attitudes toward money, widows and such.
Now here at the very end,
with this avalanche of final instructions Paul says:
And Timothy, O Timothy, don’t
forget, this is also true of you as an individual.
You too must live in such a way that the
Good News about Jesus is adorned and
magnified.
It’s not just a matter of church life.
Must be true of you personally.
That’s Paul’s closing
word. Live in such a way that the
Gospel is magnified.
So, what does that look like? Three things.
I’ll give them to you as we go.
MP#1 A life
that magnifies the Gospel is characterized by strenuous spiritual
effort. We
might say it’s a life of action. It’s a
working life, a doing life.
If
there ever was a man who knew God’s grace, it was the Apostle Paul.
He
knew that his salvation and his standing with God and his eternal destiny
rested 100% on the perfect life and
obedience of Jesus Christ.
Paul
zealously guarded grace against any encroachment of works righteousness.
He
said: It is by grace you have been saved
through faith, and this is not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by
works so that no man can boast.
He
said that we are not under law but under grace, and by the works of the law
no man has been justified.
The
only time Paul cursed in any of his letters was when he addressed
those in the Galatian church who were
teaching that salvation is faith
in Jesus plus the works of the law.
For
Paul it was God’s grace alone from the first to the last that chose him,
saved him, and kept him. God set me apart from birth and called me by
his grace.
There
have always been Christians who say that because of God’s grace,
you magnify the Gospel in your life by
purposefully, intentionally not
doing strenuous things. By not striving to work and to do.
I
once read a critique of a college campus ministry.
This
particular ministry wanted to be set apart from campus ministries that were
supposedly legalistic because they taught
certain behavior and practices.
This campus ministry emphasized God’s
grace—which is well and good.
But
what the author of this article commented on was that in his interactions with
a number of college students in ministry, he
heard a great deal of foul language,
and saw some other behaviors that bothered
him.
He
asked them about it. And their response
was they were under grace, not law.
But
look at how Paul, this champion of God’s grace talks to Timothy.
He
doesn’t say: O man of God, just rest in
God’s grace
and you will automatically have a life that
magnifies the Gospel.
He
pours out an avalanche of commands for Timothy to follow.
Just
listen to the commands, strong imperative verbs.
O
man of God,
flee, pursue, fight, take hold, keep,
charge, do good,
be rich in good works, be generous, be ready
to share,
store up treasure for future, take hold,
guard, avoid.
Every
single one of those commands are calls to specific actions.
We
could spend a lot of time just working out the implications of each one.
Just consider the very first thing Paul
says:
But as for you, O man of God, flee these
things.
Fleeing
means running hard and fast in the opposite direction of your temptation.
One time when the kids were little I caught
a cicada, brought inside put on table.
They were all looking at it, when it
suddenly took off, with that awful noise.
Girls
screamed and ran to room. We were
laughing, but a few minutes later, asked
Where’s Will. He was gone.
Three years old.
Found
him in neighbor’s yard two houses down.
But when the bug took off and the girls
screamed, he fled.
Fleeing
means asking yourself: What are the
particular sins that I’m susceptible to?
What are the sins that have scarred my conscience
and done damage to my soul?
What are the occasions that set me up for
those temptations?
And
then the really tough questions: How do
I flee, and am I willing to flee?
Recently
read some comments by a man who said that Christian brother asked
for help because he was continually looking
at pornography on his smart phone.
Man
said he told friend: Well, why don’t you
start by getting rid of smart phone?
Oh, no.
I can’t do that. I have to have
it for this and that. That’s not the
issue.
Jesus
said, If your right hand offends, cut it off, if your eye offends, pluck out
We can always come up with lots of good
reasons not to flee because fleeing is
a strenuous spiritual discipline.
Same
could be said for Paul’s next command. O
man of God, pursue . . .
Righteousness, godliness, faith, love,
steadfastness, gentleness.
Pursuing
means following hard after something to try to catch it.
How are you pursuing gentleness if tend to
be harsh and inconsiderate in speech?
What strategies are you employing to guard
your tongue? That’s just how I am?
Gospel
is magnified when a person who was once harsh becomes gentle.
We could go on and on. Fight, take hold, keep, guard, avoid.
This
is the life that magnifies the Gospel, O man of God.
MP#2 A life that magnifies the Gospel is concerned
for the spiritual welfare of fellow believers.
Paul
says: Timothy, make sure you attend to
the rich people in your church.
If
they are haughty, call them on it.
Charge them not to be haughty.
If
they are putting their hopes in their
money, call them on it.
Tell them they aren’t trusting God enough.
Tell
them they need to loosen the grip money has on lives by being more generous.
Tell them that if they do that, going to be
storing up treasure for the future,
and it will help them really grasp the
Christian life.
Wow. Would you ever dare to tell someone in Christ
Covenant,
a fellow church member—I think you’re
haughty? Here’s how I see it in you.
I
think you’re putting your hopes in something wrong—in your money,
or in your success, or in the admiration of
the wrong people.
I
think you need to make some changes in your life that are going to require
you to give up some of your money or
something else you are holding on to
very tightly that’s not doing you or other
people any good.
Saying
those sorts of things very hard, very hard to say correctly.
But
if you did, what response might you be afraid of getting?
How dare you judge me. You’re being judgmental.
Then they would quote Mt. 7:1 Judge not, that you be not judged.
Probably
the most misunderstood and misused verse in the Bible.
Is
that what Jesus is really saying. That
you shouldn’t judge?
If
he is, then Paul is completely wrong,
because that’s clearly what he is telling
Timothy to do.
Make
judgments about what certain believers are doing and challenge them on it.
The
very first rule of Bible interpretation is to read the context.
You can’t understand a sentence in isolation.
Read
the context of Matt 7:1 and it’s clear that Christ is not forbidding Christians
from making judgments—He is teaching us how
to judge.
He’s impressing on his disciples the
seriousness of judging.
Christ
says in the very next breath:
For in
the way you judge, you will be judged,
and with the measure you use, it will be
measured to you.
As
usual, the Lord is talking about our hearts.
If
you judge someone with evil purpose or a dark intent, jealousy, hatred—
then one day, when God judges you, that
motive will be exposed.
But
if you judge nobly, honestly, and with the good of person in mind—
then on the day of judgment, that motive
will be exposed as well.
If
you judge with exaggeration and harshness, you will give an account.
But if you judge with fairness and
compassion, you will be rewarded.
Just
take a good concordance some time and look up the word judge, judgment.
You will find that over and over instructed
to judge, particularly in the church.
The reason God has saved us
is so that we will be changed.
The good news of Jesus Christ is not just
forgiveness and escape from hell—
the good news is also liberation to live
righteously.
In fact, that’s the ultimate
reason we’ve been forgiven,
so we
will have freedom to live as God has made us to live.
That starts by turning the
focus on yourself—as we saw in the first point.
Strenuous spiritual effort fleeing,
pursuing, fighting, taking hold.
But it’s not just a matter of
looking after your own spiritual growth.
God made you for community.
He’s saved you to be a part of the family of
God.
That means you must have a
deep, genuine, heart-felt, careful concern
for the sanctification of our brothers and
sisters in the church.
You must want to see them
successful and happily growing as Christians.
Fighting the good fight of the faith along
side with you.
And that means, at times,
speaking very careful, patient, gentle words
that sting and are uncomfortable to say and
hear.
Proverbs says: Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Wounds.
Pain. Stings.
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me—it is oil on my head.
My head will not refuse it.
He hit me, but was kind. He rebuked me. It was oil.
If your brother or sister is willing to say
things, as averse as we are to conflict,
then it’s very unlikely his or her motive is
jealousy or hatred of you.
The Gospel is magnified when
God’s people live together in community.
When that involves concern for one another’s
sanctification.
O man of God, remember that.
MP#3 A life
that magnifies the Gospel is motivated by the great spiritual realities.
There’s a real danger with
everything we’ve looked at so far.
That’s because we’re all
Pharisees at heart.
Works-righteousness is the default setting
of our souls.
Everything we’ve said so far,
about pursuing and fleeing and fighting and guarding
ourselves, and about charging and
challenging one another, as good and biblical
as it is, we can twist in a heartbeat.
Strenuous spiritual
discipline can very easily become pride.
We become satisfied with
ourselves.
I’m going good. I’m checking things off the list.
I’m fighting the good fight. I’m keeping the rules.
Especially easy if things
going well in your life. You might not
say it out loud,
but you feel that your life is going well
because you are doing right.
You compare yourself to others and it makes
you feel good.
The flip side of
self-righteous pride is self-righteous despondency.
Self-hatred.
Spiritual depression.
What a bad and terrible
failure I am. I can never live up to
God’s law.
I can’t believe I did that again.
It’s self-righteousness because you think
that you earn God’s favor if try hard.
It’s especially easy if
things aren’t going well for you in some important part of life.
Your inherent self-righteousness makes you
feel it’s because you aren’t living up.
You also compare yourself to
other people, but it makes you feel horrible.
And criticism crushes you.
And concern for the spiritual
welfare of fellow believer can very quickly
become scolding. It can become oppressive.
What keeps you from the
spiritual pathologies of self-righteousness—
either pride or self-hatred? What keeps you from being a discouraging
scold?
Your motives. The things that drive you.
And right smack dab in the
middle of Paul’s parting words to young pastor
Timothy is a magnificent statement of
Gospel-driven motive.
It’s grand.
It’s sober. It touches on the
great spiritual realities.
Let’s read it again, starting
in verse 13.
I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all
things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made
the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from
reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at
the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and
Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,
whom no one has ever seen or can see. To
him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
O Timothy, remember that
whatever you are doing,
and wherever you are doing it, you are
acting under the gaze of God.
There is no place so remote that can escape
his penetrating gaze.
That has to be a constant
thought and motive. I am living before
the face of God.
O Timothy, look at Christ
Jesus.
Look at how faithful he was before Pontius
Pilate, made good confession.
Out of everything Jesus did
for us, why did Paul pick that? Why not
cross?
Because for Timothy, in his position as
pastor, saying things to people, speaking,
was his greatest challenge. The place he would stand or fall.
Paul’s point is
profound. Everything Christ did, he did
for you.
In his life is your great example—way talk
to people, money, prayer, purity.
He lived perfectly for you. His example more than an example—
it can become for you a conduit of spiritual
strength.
O Timothy, remember the
Second Coming.
Brings to mind all the sober realities of
the day of judgment and rewards and
Christ’s eternal kingdom.
Then Paul gets carried away
with himself and he tries to do what words can’t do.
He lifts us and expands our vision, and
gives us just a glimpse of God and heaven
and eternity, and give a hint and a rumor of
greater and more wonderful things.
O Timothy, use your
sanctified imagination.
Use it as a prism to see yourself and other
people.
What does this look
like? I want to close with some words
from CS Lewis.
Here is a great man working this out in his
dealings with people.
For him, had his close friends, but really
could be terribly dismissive.
Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk
to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly
tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if
at all, only in a nightmare.
When you deal with people, remember the great spiritual realities. Christ’s return,
the judgment. Heaven and hell. This fellow believer who you are concerned
for.
Remember that one day he
or she will be glorious and perfected.
or, if doesn’t know
Christ, will be horribly disfigured in hell.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or
other of these destinations. It is in
the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the
circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one
another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. But it is immortals with whom we joke with,
work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
No ordinary people. Every
person you talk to is immortal. Has an
eternal destiny.
People you joke with
people you snub.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play.
But our merriment must be of that kind which exists between people who
have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority,
no presumption. And our charity must be
a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we
love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as
flippancy parodies merriment.
Serious merriment. No superiority. Real, costly love.
Where does this come
from. Great spiritual realities.