Good morning.
We are in First Timothy chapter four, the last verses of that, and then into chapter five this morning.
Good to see everyone here this morning.
Let's begin with a word of prayer.
Our gracious Father in heaven, we bow before your throne, grateful for the day that you've blessed us with, grateful for all the many gifts that you shower upon us, mindful of your
word and your will for our lives.
We pray that as we're studying this book of First Timothy that we might apply the things that we're learning to our lives that we better might.
ah or that we might better know both how to operate and to function within the body of Christ, which is the house of God, which is the pillar and the ground of the truth, that
we might know what to teach and what to admonish and how to be patient and long-suffering with those who are learning and growing.
Lord, we pray that you will help us to be focused on your Word.
to not give time to vain and profane babblings and doctrines that do not promote that which is godly.
Lord, we pray that we might always be diligent to serve you in a way that is right and acceptable in your sight.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.
em First Timothy chapter four.
Paul has said, verse 12, let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Now, when Paul gave that admonition to Timothy, is Paul telling Timothy that he's the only one in the congregation who's supposed to be an example of those things?
No.
He's not telling Timothy, you are the only example people should look to.
And even if that was the case, if they're looking to that example, shouldn't they eventually end up like the example?
If they're trying to follow an example, eventually they should become closer to it, at which point they're an example to someone else.
Paul's not telling Timothy, hey, because you're the preacher or because you're a minister,
Because you're an evangelist, you're the only example people can follow.
Rather, he is telling Timothy to set an example for people to follow.
He says, verse 13, "'Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership.'"
Meditate on these things, give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.
What are the things that Timothy is to give himself over to entirely?
Alright?
Progress in the matters in which he's to be an example.
So, he is to give himself over to being an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.
I mean, if those six things were the things that someone gave their life entirely over to being, would they be a person who was acceptable to God?
If they're first an example in word, in obedience to God's word, in both speaking what God speaks and then living out what God speaks.
If they're an example in conduct, it's not just the words that they speak, but the actions that they take.
If they're an example in love, if they're an example in spiritual matters, if they're an example in faith and in purity.
Would that not be a well-rounded Christian?
Absolutely it would be.
Paul says, do not focus on everything else.
If Paul had said, Timothy, what I need you to do is I need you to spend at least 90 hours a week studying, would Timothy have been an example in conduct or in love?
No, because he would have spent all of his time studying.
You spend any time around someone who works about 90 hours a week, and you're gonna find out they don't do much of anything else except eat, sleep, work.
So if he had given his time entirely over to studying, he wouldn't have been an example in conduct and in love.
He wouldn't have had time to teach anything he studied, because he'd just been studying.
But in addition to that, if he had spent all of his time fellowshipping.
just spending time with people, just enjoying and getting the opportunity to spend time with the Christians.
Would he have been the example that he needed to be?
No.
Because he needed to be an example both in those matters and in word and in faith.
uh There's a focus here of making sure that the entire individual
is growing and being that example.
But furthermore, you'll notice that as you look at this, in order for Timothy to continue to be an example, Timothy has to do what?
Does he remain static or does he have to grow?
He has to grow.
And one of the struggles that you have sometimes among teachers is they stop growing.
They're teaching everybody else, but they stop growing.
They stop challenging themselves.
They reach a plateau and they don't grow anymore.
And sometimes you find that the people who are following them
reach their plateau and then pass them and they have a hard time listening to them anymore.
It's hard for someone who has surpassed someone else to continue listening to the person who they used to listen to because they've, they're beyond where they're at now and
they're no longer challenged to grow by the individual who once was their example.
That happens not because someone is
older or different age.
It happens because the one who used to be the example, used to be the teacher, stopped growing themselves.
One of the things that Wesley Simons taught us when we were in school, he said, guys, it is the job of a preacher and the elders in a congregation that every year they go from
here to here.
so that the congregation can go from here to here.
said, you can't have elders and preachers expect the congregation to be up there with them.
If the congregation's up there with them, then that's because they haven't grown.
He said, every year, your goal is for you to go up and for the congregation to go up.
Nah, everybody's gonna go up at the same speed and also, you're gonna have some new Christians who start down here, right?
And they've got to start making it, but they'll grow faster, by the way.
The new Christians tend to make the Christians who've been Christians for 20 years look like they're turtles walking in mud, right?
Because the growth is at the beginning point, it's kind of exponential.
They start realizing, wait a minute, I've to change this, I've got to change this, I've got to start doing this.
They start developing faster because they're starting at a different point.
When you start from a point of maturity, your growth is going to be slower, it's going to be more incremental, and yet it is more powerful, it is more effective growth if you
continue to grow.
Alright?
So now notice what he says.
He says, meditate on these things, give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.
Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine
Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
Before I get too far into verse 16, let me note something that's found there at the end of verse 15, especially for uh the preachers and the young preachers in the room.
Notice what he says, that your progress may be what?
Evident to all, does that imply that people are looking at you and judging you as to whether or not you are what you claim to be?
And they always will, okay?
And someone who is a little thinner of skin about being looked at and evaluated and judged by others is going to have a very hard time in ministry.
because people look at you, they make determinations about you, they judge you sometimes when they haven't known you for more than an hour, and sometimes when they've known you
for years.
But Paul is saying, Timothy, if you will give your attention to these things, if you will give yourself over and meditate and devote yourself to these things, then what people will
see is what they should see.
Now, they're not always going to see what they like, because some people don't want to see you growing.
Some people don't want to see you improving, because that makes them look bad.
But rather, they will see what they should see.
He then says, verse 16, take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.
Is it enough to be personally spiritual, personally pure and holy?
or do you also have to teach the right thing?
It's not enough to just live the right way.
You have to teach the right thing.
He says, take heed, pay attention to.
It is the individual who is the soldier standing on guard, standing on the wall, watching for danger.
Take heed, be watchful.
He says, take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.
Most of the times that I've experienced or that I've witnessed where someone taught the truth and then went off into error.
It was something in their personal life that got them to the point of adjusting the doctrine so it met their personal life.
The majority of the false doctrines in individuals who claim to be members of the church on the issue of marriage, divorce, and remarriage didn't come from them doing deep study
on the topic.
It came from them having a personal family member who was in a bad marriage, at which point they started teaching something different than they'd always taught.
Quite often when you find someone who used to teach that it's necessary to hear the Word, to believe the Word, to repent of your sins, confess the name of Christ, and be immersed
in water for the remission of your sins, and then live a faithful life, and that when you do that you're added to the church, and that there's one church, and now they don't teach
that anymore?
Usually there's somebody in their family, or in their close relationships,
their close associations who if they still taught that, they'd have to tell them that they're wrong.
And they won't do it.
So the first take heed here for Timothy is to yourself.
He says, you watch yourself.
Now why would a person have to watch themselves?
Thought we were looking for danger.
All right, you have to lead by example.
Over in Acts chapter 20 when Paul met with the elders from the church at Ephesus, in verse 28, who did he warn them that they would have to defend the church against?
The wolves who were on the outside.
and inside.
He warned them that even from among their own selves, and he's only talking to the elders, even from among their own selves there would be those who would rise up and try and carry
people away and carry people away to themselves and to their own teachings instead of to Christ.
So the first warning that Paul gives to Timothy is you watch your
self.
And then he says, and you watch the doctrine.
You watch the teaching to make sure that these things are what they should be.
Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
As Paul gives this instruction to Timothy, Paul sets a standard that says, if your doctrine is wrong, you can't do what?
save people.
You can teach all you want, but you can't save anybody, because you'll tell them something that is wrong.
You'll teach them to do something that won't save them.
So if the doctrine is wrong, you can't be saved.
So he warns Timothy, you take heed to yourself and to the doctrine, continue in them.
for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity." Timothy is in a position of
leadership.
And yet, Paul wants to be certain that Timothy knows how to use that leadership correctly.
That it is not the role, responsibility, or a good practice for a young minister to go about rebuking older men.
Now, over in 2 Timothy chapter 4, did Paul write to Timothy and tell him, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine?
Does Paul say in that passage, but you can only rebuke people younger than you?
No.
but as a practice, as a learning how to operate, especially given that at this writing, Timothy is younger than he is when Paul writes Second Timothy.
There's probably a decade in between these two books or close to it.
So there's a lot of change that occurs between those two times.
And yet Paul, as he's writing to Timothy, is telling him as a standard of practice, do not rebuke
An older man.
You're a young man.
He's an older man.
Show what?
What are you supposed to show instead?
honor and respect.
But does that mean Timothy's not supposed to tell an older person if they're doing something wrong that they're doing something wrong?
No, it's a process of how is he supposed to do it.
So what does Paul identify as the alternative to rebuking?
Exhorting.
What's the difference between the two?
Alright?
The difference between one and the other is to correct with strength, that's rebuke, and to correct from a position of strength.
And exhort is to educate, to teach them a better path.
Okay?
If you were to evaluate this perhaps in view of a shepherd,
you might see two different methods of guiding sheep.
One is the shepherd walks in front and continues speaking and the sheep hear his voice and they follow him.
That's exhorting.
He's speaking, they're listening, they follow.
When the shepherd would grab that staff with the hook on the end of it and yank that sheep's head so he didn't walk off the edge of the cliff, that's rebuking.
Paul tells Timothy, don't grab a staff and yank the neck of an older man.
Don't do that.
Rather, exhort them.
Give them the benefit of their age to realize when you are telling them the truth.
And allow them to change.
Allow them, interestingly, time to change.
Question, do older people change as quickly as younger people?
No, they don't.
And the older you get, the more you realize why.
And the more older people look at younger people who are going, they're like, oh, it's exhausting.
Just watching.
Because they're changing all the time.
There's no stability because there's constant change.
Is that constant change good inherently?
It If it's change towards good, it's good.
But one of the things that we realize, and one of the things that's important, and one of the reasons why elders are supposed to be older men, not younger men, is continuing in
something has great value.
One of the things that you find when people are younger is they change, they change, they, it,
illustrate it with a job.
Here's a guy, gets a new job every year and a half.
Every 18 months he's got a new job.
Works for a lot of different companies.
Do you think he learns a lot at those different companies?
Maybe, but you know, there's a lot you can't learn in a year and a half.
Well, what happens when you compare that to someone who's
joins a company and is in that company and continues to progress and grow inside that same company for 20 or 30 years.
He only knows about that company, but what he knows, he knows incredibly well.
Okay?
So there's some value to changing, and there's sometimes needs to change quickly, but there's also value in stability.
Paul is telling Timothy, you're going to have to handle older men different than younger men.
You're going to have to handle older women
different than younger women.
Do you walk up to your mother and say, you need to change?
Good luck with that as you're probably going to get the conversation.
Do you know how many hours I spent in labor to bring you into this world?
So, Paul tells Timothy, as you're dealing with older women, here's how you do it.
You treat them as your mother.
You're dealing with an older man, you treat him with respect and with honor, and you teach and you exhort and you're long-suffering and you give them time to change.
But then he also says that the younger men are to be treated as what?
As brothers, not slaves, not, hey, go do my bidding.
I'm the preacher, go do that.
But as brothers, there's to be community, there's to be growth together, there's to be working together.
How does he treat the younger women?
Not as dating prospects?
No!
Timothy, by all indications, was single.
He's not to be looking for going and using his time as a minister to look for a wife.
He's to be treating them as sisters with respect and with purity, as he says, with all purity.
Timothy had to watch his actions to make sure that his interactions were pure.
and right in the eyes of God.
He further says, verse 3, honor widows who are really widows.
Now, as Paul transitions here, he's giving, he's gone back to instructing Timothy on how to instruct those who are in the congregation.
And by the way, I don't think that is at all an exception in verses 1 and 2.
When Paul gives these statements about, not do this, he's not just talking to Timothy.
He's talking about this is to be the standard way that Christians treat one another.
Younger Christians should treat older Christians with honor and with respect.
Younger Christians should treat one another as brethren.
And so,
He now transitions, as Paul tells Timothy what he should be teaching, to honor widows who are really widows.
What is a widow?
Okay, in this context it's specifically a woman who has lost their spouse.
Okay, their spouse has died.
So what is the difference between a widow and a person who's really a widow?
All right, so what Paul is going to discuss here are the qualifications for a widow to be taken care of financially and physically by the church.
What is it that was the the general scenario for a widow in the first century and in that culture?
What physical situation was she typically in?
Say what?
All right, living with her children most likely.
Older, which is somewhat relative because the life spans in that time weren't as long as they are now.
So this could be somebody who's uh not as old as we typically think of someone who might be widowed.
But in addition to that, was it typically the case that a woman could get a full sustaining income through labor?
No.
Did a woman have the same standing under the law?
No.
Could a woman in some scenarios even hold and own property?
Sometimes no.
And so as a result, her situation is different than a widower.
A widower has lost a spouse
But as a man in that culture, in that day, in that time, he's in a very different scenario than if he's the one who dies and his wife remains.
Okay?
So.
The first thing to realize is that the widow in this context and going all the way back in the Old Testament is considered in a completely different light than a man whose wife has
died.
Secondly, we see that Paul's going to list uh a set of qualifications for a widow in order for the church to actually take over supporting that widow.
He says, honor widows who are really, wait a minute before I go further.
How do we know he's talking about physical help and support before we ever get out of verse three?
Alright?
When you go back to Exodus chapter 20 and you look at the Ten Commandments and you read, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long on the earth.
Jesus over in Matthew chapter 15 and Mark chapter 7
makes it quite clear that the discussion of honor has to do with providing for your parents when they are old.
Now,
It certainly entails that you should show respect to them when you're young and when they're older than you and when you're growing up, but it really does not pertain to just
the idea of showing respect.
It pertains to providing for them because they are your responsibility.
as they are older, they provided for you when you were a baby, when you were young, when you couldn't take care of yourself, it is your turn to provide for them.
Okay?
So the context of this is moment he says honor, he's dealing with caring for, providing for their physical needs.
He says honor widows who are really widows.
But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents.
For this is good and acceptable before God.
First thing that Paul says in regards to widows is, if they've got children or grandchildren, they are not to fall under the responsibility of the church for their
physical support and for their physical provisions.
That is the responsibility of those children and of those grandchildren.
Now does that mean
that if Sister so-and-so needs some milk brought over to the house because she ran out of milk that somebody from the church can't go grab that for her?
Does that mean if she needs to visit the doctor's office somebody can't pick her up and go take her there?
Well, no.
Her children have to do that.
No.
It's not what it means.
And we understand that that's not what it means.
But we're talking about
giving the provision for daily life.
This is taking care of horse cart and all the needs of this widow.
And Paul is telling Timothy, you are not to allow the church to absolve the children and the grandchildren of their responsibility to their parents.
Now go back to Matthew chapter seven, sorry, Mark chapter seven.
Mark chapter 7 and verse 8, for laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many such things you do.
He said to them, all too well, reject the commandment of God that you may keep your traditions.
For Moses said, honor your father and your mother.
And he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.
But you say, if a man says to his father or mother, whatever profit you might have received from me is Corbin, that is a gift to God, then you no longer let him do anything
for his father or his mother.
It was the practice, and one indirect violation of the Word of God, it was the practice of the Pharisees and the scribes that if an individual came to the temple or came to the
leadership and said, I am going to dedicate all my goods to the Lord.
then the Pharisees would say, that's fine, but that means you can't support your parents when they're old.
You can't use your funds to help them because that belongs to the Lord, not them.
Can't be used for them.
Now, interestingly, they would still let them keep it as they were getting older.
right?
So they could keep all their stuff.
If they said it was dedicated to God, didn't mean they gave it away.
It was just that all of it would eventually go to the Pharisees, to the scribes, to the temple.
And so it couldn't be used for anything else, including helping their own parents.
Paul says the exact opposite.
He says if they've got children or grandchildren, those individuals need to first learn to show piety at home, to repay their parents.
Believe it or not, whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not, whether you get along with them or not, if you've got parents, you owe them something.
And Paul says it's the responsibility for them to do this, for this is good and acceptable before God.
Interestingly, what was the punishment that Jesus described of one who instead of aiding his parents, cursed his parents?
Death.
God is very clear.
You have a responsibility to provide for and to care for your parents.
Does that mean, you know what, I can't be possibly inconvenienced with mom and dad, they're getting older, let me call the nursing home and get them shoved in there and then
I can go about my jet setting life?
Is that what that means?
No.
But does it mean that they could never have a physical need or a medical need whereby they might need to be put in a care facility?
No, you got to keep them at home.
You got to take care of them personally because they're your parents, so if they need a nurse, you better be the nurse.
No, it doesn't mean that either.
It means they're your responsibility to care for.
They're your burden to repay.
They're the debt that you owe because they provided for you when you were young.
I like to sometimes joke with my sons and if Isaiah is listening he'll appreciate this.
I'll look at them and say, I expect you to do really well in life because someday I'm going to live with you.
You've to take care of me when I'm old.
Alright, so he says, now she who is a widow and left alone
trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.
Now, second qualification is not just that she is not one who has family.
Alright?
She's got family?
Family's supposed to take care of her.
Secondly, she is to be one who is, when she is focusing on, or when she is being provided for by the church, that her focus is on spiritual matters.
She is to be one who trusts in God.
She is to be one who continues in prayer, in supplications, night and day.
She is to be focused on spiritual things as one who is being supported by the church.
Secondly, or thirdly, he says, verse 6, but she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
If there's a widow who's being supported by the church and all she does is spend her life in pleasure and just doing the things that she enjoys and nothing spiritual at all, and
yet she's being supported by the church?
Paul says she's got bigger problems than money.
She's got a problem with her spirit, with her soul.
He says, and these things command that they may be blameless.
Now here is an occasion where remember Paul just said to treat older women as what?
Mothers.
Here we are seven verses later and Paul says you command this to be the case.
This is not negotiable.
These individuals who are being provided for cannot carry on in a lifestyle of carefree, pleasured living.
They are responsible for spiritual concerns.
and he says you are to command this to be the case.
verse 8, if anyone does not provide for his own, going back to the discussion of the one who has children or the one who has family members, Paul's going to expand, by the way,
the children and grandchildren to a wider arc of those who have responsibility to a family member.
Notice what he says, but if anyone does not provide for his own, especially for those
of his own household.
He has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Paul, as he gives this instruction, says if you've got a family member that is in need and you do nothing, if you
have a family member that needs the support that you can provide and you don't give it,
He says, you are worse than an unbeliever.
Why would Paul say that?
Okay, we need to be taught.
But why the comparison to being worse than an unbeliever?
Okay.
Consider what Jesus said when Jesus was asked about the greatest command in the law.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.
And the second is like unto it.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Now you go forward to an example that be found in book of Ruth, and you find Boaz.
And what was Boaz to Naomi?
a near kinsman.
He was a nephew or a, you know, twice removed, who knows, but he was a family member of Naomi.
He wasn't the closest one, by the way.
But he was a family member of Naomi.
And as such, he had a responsibility to Naomi.
He had a responsibility to make sure that she was provided for.
And he did that through making sure that his men allowed Ruth to be able to glean in his uh fields.
So there you find an example.
Now, did ah Boaz immediately take Ruth and Naomi and just move them into his house?
No, but what he did do was make sure their needs were supplied.
He didn't put them in a lap of luxury, just, oh, well, you're a family member, oh, you're a widow, here.
But rather, he allowed Ruth, who was a younger widow, to work, to labor, to provide what they need, but in an environment where there was a guarantee she would be able to provide
for what they need.
So you see an example in Boaz, in the account of Ruth, of someone who provided for Naomi as a widow who was truly a widow.
Now this specifically is saying you are to make sure that if you have a member of your household, of your family, and the household there, the idea is not direct house, not
direct parents.
This could be an aunt, this could be a grandmother, or this could be uh someone another step further off than just their parents.
But you're their only living.
or you're their only source of potential provision from within the family.
He says you've got a responsibility to them.
You have a responsibility to take care of them.
And if you refuse, it goes back to the idea of cursing.
To say I see your need and instead of helping you, I'm refusing you.
That is the same as cursing an individual that is in need, that is poor.
that is desperate for support.
Got it.
So in this context, the discussion is about widows who are Christians.
Okay, the context is those who are inside the body of Christ.
ah Not to say that they didn't support or work with or help those who were not Christians, but the context is within the body.
Okay?
Correct.
So maybe I should adjust to make it clear.
When Paul is giving Timothy instructions about honoring widows, the discussion here is about widows who are within the assembly of the church.
It's not, hey, you need to set up a home to take care of every widow that's in the county.
Okay?
The discussion in view here is the church.
Now, every individual who has uh a widow, a grandmother, a mother who is in need of being taken care of, it is that family's responsibility.
You'll notice um on the list of people discussed in this entire text, the government's not in the list.
We'll save that for another discussion.
All right.
Thank you for your attention.