Back To School-Be A Good Example Series

(Based on a sermon preached at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO; not an exact transcription.)

Introduction: We’re continuing in our “back to school” theme this morning, today taking a look at Paul’s instructions to Timothy. Last week we saw how Paul was encouraging Timothy to preach the word at all times and so on. That message was from Paul’s last letter. Today, we’re looking at, really, an earlier instruction that was in the first letter to Timothy.

It’s hot so let’s get going with the message today. We’ll take a look at this one verse of Scripture and see what we can find:

Text: 1 Timothy 4:12, NASV: 12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.

<Opening prayer>

1 Paul’s first instruction

The first part of this verse has Paul’s first instruction to Timothy, namely, to stop letting people look down on his youthfulness. Now, some of this couldn’t be avoided—Paul was a human dynamo or maybe the closest thing to a “perpetual motion” machine ever made! Think about it: about the only times when Paul wasn’t preaching, teaching, or writing was when he was in jail!

Another reason was that Timothy was, well, a lot younger than Paul. Paul was already a grown man when he met Timothy at Lystra (Acts 16) and by now, a good number of years had come and gone. Guessing Paul was in his mid-30’s when he met Timothy, and guessing Timothy was 18 or so (of course, we have no idea or indication), he’d be in his own mid-30’s. That was still young in Paul’s eyes and Timothy must have needed some of this encouragement.

Think about it: Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus, which was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire at the time. Ephesus also had a good amount of believers, plus, one of Paul’s letters (well, that one may have come later but still, Ephesus was a happening place). Timothy may have felt overwhelmed at the job Paul had given him and, you know, I can feel the same as old Tim in that regard.

It’s been a few years but when I was interim pastor at another church, one of the men came to me after the service and told me he could see me as pastor of a church with 200 members or so! Stunned, I waited a second or two and told him he clearly had more faith in me than I had in myself! He laughed with me and to this day I consider him one of my true friends. May the Lord bless you really well, G!

And part of that, I have to say, is that I’ve always been a small-church kind of guy. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the size of any congregation but when it’s smaller, there’s more of a chance to get to know one another, relate somewhat to each other, and truly minister to one another. I can only hope you folks have received something from me, as I can tell you, you’ve all done more than you think for me. God bless you all.

So, maybe Timothy needed this word to grow into his position. I doubt he was nearly the “force to be reckoned with” that Paul was, and, you know, there’s not one word of Timothy’s recorded in the Scriptures. He stayed faithful, both to Paul and to the Lord, and it sure seems to me that he heeded these first words of Paul.

But there was more Paul had to say, so let’s take a look at the rest of the verse.

2 Paul’s final instructions

We saw in the first instruction, the first part of the verse, that Paul wanted Timothy to stop letting people look down on him because of his youthfulness. I almost forgot that many of the people whom Paul had led to Christ were about Paul’s age or older and they may have wondered how this young pup could do the job like Paul had done. I think Timothy got the message, but Paul wasn’t quite done yet.

He now tells Timothy to be an example of believers in five different areas. The first of these that Paul emphasized was in speech. Of course none of us can keep from making verbal mistakes, slips of the tongue, and so on but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do our best. I mean, none of us can ever un-see what we’ve seen and we can’t un-hear what we’ve heard. I’m reminded of an old saying, “Watch your tongue, as it’s in a wet place and it’s easy for it to slip!”

James, writing years before Paul, also had some things to say about the tongue. I won’t go into them at this time, though. When you do get a chance, take a glance at the Letter of James. Lots of good stuff in that book.