My son studied Kinesiology and double majored in sports medicine. So much for like father; like son. I consider sports to be a major waste of time. Nonetheless, my son’s goal is to be a personal trainer and one day own a health club that will put the rest to shame. Of course, I wish him well, if this is the career that God has chosen for him.
My son would tell you that you have to use it or lose it. You must continue to exercise or your muscles will atrophy making you lose anything that you had gained. You must also continue to increase your reps or intensity or you will soon reach a plateau. The same holds true in the spiritual world. A Christian must always be moving forward. A plateau or an extended rest stop is the first stage toward what we call backsliding.
People may build themselves up to the point where they look like Arnold or Arlene Schwartzenegger, but let them quit their routine and they will start to deteriorate. A Christian who loses his first love and neglects his spiritual training will do likewise.
Turn with me to 1 Timothy 4:11-16. Paul is instructing his son in the faith. In verse 11, Paul tells him that what he teaches Timothy, he is to command and teach. Timothy needed to use the authority of the Scriptures and of his position.
11 These things command and teach.
12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Timothy was only twenty-one and pastor of the First Church of Ephesus. This was quite an accomplishment and a rarity for the culture. In the Jewish mind, a boy did not become a man until he was thirty and married. Timothy was nine years younger and single. Timothy surely felt some stress from this and maybe even felt a bit inadequate.
He must have expressed this to Paul at some point or Paul discerned it. Some folks in the church might not have respected this young upstart. How could such a child minister to them? He’ll be too busy chasing a wife to be able to do the ministry. Besides, how can a single man understand and counsel me in my marriage? Makes you wonder if they were Baptist. C] ;-)}|>
When I graduated from college in 1982, I was too young for the churches. I was only thirty. I had spent eight years in the USAF. I had been married twelve years and had two children. I graduated with honors and had some good references. I had been serving in varied areas of ministries for seven years, but I was still five years too young. Also, I had not received any pay for my ministry and that bothered some folks. I guess volunteer service is not as qualifying as paid. I did not receive my title Reverend until a few years later and everyone knows you aren’t a real preacher without that.
I guess I understand why the Lord led Paul to write the pastoral qualifications down in 1Timothy 3. Although, I reckon many churches feel like God left a few things out so they were glad to help Him out and add quite a few of their own. Yep, poor Timothy had to deal with many issues just like preacher boys do today. "Papa" Paul had to encourage him to speak with the authority of the Scripture. If it was Scripture, then Timothy was to command/declare and teach it allowing no man to despise him because of his youth. (Vs. 12)
Now, he could not just swing his Bible in the air, bang the pulpit and tell them they could not go up against God’s man. He was to be an example to the believers. He was to stand out among them as a scar that cannot be hid. He was to model what he taught or as we would say, lead by example. He had to be that example in his lifestyle, which is what conversation means. We have reduced the word conversation to just our talk, but in that day it was your talk and your walk. Yes, he was to command and teach the word, but he had to walk the word. Tough at any age, but to be twenty-one and already an object of criticism before you ever say or do anything puts some pressure on you that only the power of the Spirit and walking in the resurrected life of Christ could relieve and achieve.
He was to be an example of love or charity. Here is another word that we have robbed the fullness of its meaning and reduced it to receiving financial relief or material goods when we are in bad times. We want to give charity, but we do not want to be charitable or loving. Charity was meant to involve the giving of your rather than the giving of things. He was to be available to his people as Christ is always available.
He was to do this in the Spirit and not in the flesh. That would be the only way it would be meaningful to Timothy and those he served. The glittering smile and limp handshake of feigned love will only make the giver and receiver ill or deceived.
It takes faith to allow the Spirit to move you to love. There is so much risk. How many Christians have been abused by pastors they loved and thought they loved them? How many pastors have been run out of town on a rail by the ones who only days earlier may have professed their love for this man and his work? Yes, love is risky. There can be pain, but then God sent His Son into the world to die for everyone knowing that there would be more people who would hate and reject Him than those whom would love and receive Him. He came in love and we by faith must allow the Spirit to move within us to love even when it is rejected.
Feigned love is not pure. It has motives that are not rooted in love. A potential pastor may say all the right things to get his opportunity to serve in the right church that will help him on to bigger and better. He will speak of long-term commitments to the flock when the length of his term will be determined by the how soon the next church shows an interest and its size and importance. A church may promise a pastor complete support to his leadership knowing they will only use him until they can lure a better man there. It is easier to fill a pulpit that has only recently been emptied than to fill one that has been empty for an extended period of time. Feigned love is a plague upon the Church and a shame to the Cross.
13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
Paul was going to come there and he did not want Timothy to be idle or treading water until that time. As Paul is known to do, he gives Timothy clear direction on how to minister and make himself a more fit vessel. Paul was also known to get into a person’s face when they were wrong. Just ask Peter. My guess is that when he arrived he would also be giving some clear direction to those who were giving Timothy a hard time. I’ve been chewed out a lot in my life, but I am glad that Paul is not around when I mess up. What do you say to a man like him who is right? He had enough scars that it would be silly to offer any excuses. Best just to ’fess up and move on. Actually, it is still best to do that even though Paul is not here because it is no use making excuses to any person of the Godhead. Stay straight and ’fess up if you mess up!
Timothy was to apply himself to reading the Scriptures. He had a responsibility to his people to know what the Scriptures said. Before you breathe a sigh of relief, remember that you are to study to show thyself approved unto God also. The preacher has a responsibility to God and to you, but you also have a responsibility to God and the brethren and the lost. We all need to apply ourselves to reading.
The more you read and the more you heed the more you can exhort. We have looked at this word before and know that one of the Holy Spirit’s functions is to exhort. When you are hurting, exhortation can be the words of comfort and consolation that you need. When you are doing well in your Christian life, exhortation can be like cheer leading to motivate you to even higher ground and also a balancing to make sure that you continue to look to Christ and not fall victim to pride and call your victories self achievements. When you have fallen, it is that passionate entreaty or pleading to return to the Lord for healing and restoration.
He was to pay attention to doctrine. We have split this word also. When we think of doctrine, we think only of creeds or systematic theologies. The word in its fullness also means the practice of teaching as well as the results of the teaching or the formalized doctrine in our thinking. He was to teach, but he was also to commit that teaching unto faithful men which means the teachings became doctrinal statements that would be passed down through the generations.
There are folks that think doctrine is not important anymore. I was trying to understand a co-worker’s theological views and did not respond to them for some time though I knew he was in some doctrinal error. I was listening and learning. He mistook my lack of immediate rebuttal to mean that I had none to offer. He told me that he liked me because I had no doctrine. Well, Katy bar the door!!! To tell a Baptist that he has no doctrine is like sticking a knife in his heart with a twist. I lovingly corrected his perception. He meant it as a compliment, but I would have been insulted had I not taken the time to hear his position.
Doctrine or teachings are very important. There are true and faithful doctrines and there are false doctrines. We are to try the spirits and see if they are of God and we do that primarily by their teachings of who Christ is and what He did and what that does for us. However, Paul spoke of those who taught that the resurrection was past or that there was no resurrection. Those teachings or doctrines are false. There would be no such things as legalism or heresy if there were no false teachings. If the teaching were not important than there would be no way to mark a man as divisive since we would accept any and all teachings as valid in the name of tolerance. Doctrines are important and like Timothy we must be diligent in learning the true doctrines and teaching them.
14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
2 Tim 1:6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. (KJV)
Paul was leading up to this point. Besides all the other things we have mentioned that are good reasons for heeding the previous exhortations, we get to the use it or lose it part here. Neglect means to not be careless or make light of his gift or to hold it in no regard. The words stir up means to rekindle the gift of God. God lights your fire, but you have to keep it flaming or else it will die down into just embers until the coldness of your heart and failure to stir it up causes it to go completely out.
Remember we are talking about gifts here and not salvation. Salvation is not earned or kept by our works, but we can lose the joy of our salvation and rewards. Know any joyless Christians? God does not take back your spiritual gift or your mission, but you can let it go out to where you are not using the gift and you are miserable because you are not fulfilling your calling. Repentance will cause God to light your fire again. If he can light a fire on an altar saturated in water, he can do your heart no matter how dry or all wet you are. He lights it. You respond to the Spirit’s fanning and you flame!!!
I wish that I could remember the verses that I used for my very first sermon. The title was Privileges. I know point one was that God gives us privileges. Point two was that God gives us those privileges with responsibilities and point three was that God withdraws those privileges if they are not used or are abused. It was one of my shortest sermons and I stuttered and stumbled through it. I still stutter and stumble; I just take longer to do it. C];-)}|>
I thought the preacher was going to be out of town and since I was leaving the next day for Bible College, I thought I would rebuke the folks for the way they were treating our pastor. I was not quite as bold as I am now. I wanted to do a hit and run. Now, I just duck. I was shocked and unnerved when he walked into the sanctuary.
Anyway, the church had run off the pastor who led me to the Lord for trivial things and now they were not supporting this one. They wanted an evangelistic program. Bro. Newkirk had a love for souls and an evangelistic fire like few men that I have known over the past twenty-five years. So, who shows up for Visitation? Just the pastor and me and I was sure that I had committed the unpardonable sin. I had to admit that I had to struggle with self-righteousness as I wondered where all the saved and knew it people were when the "lost" guy was out soul winning. You can’t really blame the preacher for sitting there weeping when he sees the lack of support and all he has is a guy that is not even sure he is saved as the most faithful person he had for the work.
He developed a problem with his eyes and had to have some sort of drops twice a day, which put him in severe pain for several hours at a time. This really cut into what he could for the church. I told the church that God had given us the privilege of having this man who loved souls. He gave us this man with a responsibility to support him. We did not support him and now his eye problem may be the way God will remove the privilege that we abused. Furthermore, I "prophesied" that it was entirely possible that after God takes him from us he will be healed, go down the road fifty miles, and start a church that will prosper. The scary part is that is exactly what happened.
The same thing applies to our spiritual gifts. They are gifts to give us the privileges to work with Him in the Kingdom. If we neglect them and the responsibility that comes with them, He can take them away in the sense that we will not prosper in them until we learn to value them and seek His power and renewal. Then we can go further down the road and overcome our failure with success. He will never change His mind about our having our gifts, but we may need to change our minds about them.
Maybe you have never lost the fire that burns within you because you have never neglected your gifts. Well, praise the Lord! However, if you are like most of us, there have been times when the flame faltered. Maybe you got down to where there were just a few embers left. Then, by the grace of God, the Divine Wind of the Holy Spirit blew across your heart. Your burning tears of repentance extinguished the flesh’s flames and allowed the new man to rise in Christ’s victory from out of the ashes of rebellion.
15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may
appear to all.
16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this
thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. (KJV)
You keep you gift stirred up by doing the reading, the exhortation and the teachings. Being obedient to the gifts and callings of God given to you will make you too excited to neglect them. Obedience brings blessings and blessings motivate obedience.
It is just not light reading that you are commanded to do. You are to meditate on these things and all things that are in Scripture. The word means to revolve in your mind. You dwell on the truth. You discuss it with God continually to make sure it is clear and embedded in your soul. God is not interested in speed reading and highlighting what you perceive as the essential points of Word. All His points are essential points. I believe in verbal plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. That means that God meant every word in its fullness of meaning to be there so it must be important. Therefore, we must learn to rightly divide or interpret the word of truth. We must strive to be unashamed workmen.
That takes some dedication. A five-minute skim does not get it. We must give ourselves wholly to His commands and our gifts. Not only must we agree with what is commanded, but we must also give ourselves completely to those commands. That is how our gifts flourish. They must become our prime reason for being. At twelve, Jesus was astounded that His parents would not have known that He would have been about His Father’s business. The temple should have been the first place to look for Him, not the last. It is to be so with us. If we were "missing" where would people say we would be? Where would be their first place to look? If it is not where we would be about our Father’s business and exercising our gifts then it is the wrong place. Too many of us are in the wrong places of shiftlessness being about monkey business instead of being in our places of giftedness being about our Father’s business.
Until your Christian life becomes your whole life, no one shall see the profit in being a Christian. Timothy was to give himself wholly so that others could see what God would do in a person that is completely His. Yes, Timothy would be blessed with wisdom, peace, and power, but that would not be the primary purpose of receiving those things. The Corinthians erred because they thought the purpose of their gifts were to make them happy and the flashier the gift the happier they were. They wanted to draw attention to themselves and serve themselves. They not only missed the boat; they sunk like a rock when they hit the water! The gifts were meant for service to others and to attract others to Christ! That is what thy profiting shall appear to all means not that you will be King of the Hill held in awe by all who meet you. Kissing your ring will profit them nothing. Kissing the King they see at work with you will profit them forever!
1 Cor 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. KJV
Take heed to thyself is a necessary admonition. Pride will cause us to major on the gift instead of the Giver. It will also cause us to think that we gave ourselves the gift and that we really do not to have fellowship with the Giver. That is when we fall. We can be in a place where we do not value the gift given us and thus neglect it. We can also be in a place we value the gift more than the giver and thereby neglecting to properly care for that gift and misuse it for our own flesh. We are flesh and can be deceived by the flesh if we do not take heed unto ourselves.
Again, we are exhorted to take heed unto the doctrine or teachings. We have a "live and let live" attitude about doctrines, but it is not so with God. We are to be people of truth and to speak as the oracles of God. (1 Peter 4:11) There are no gray areas. God is black and white. People are gray because we look through a glass darkly, but God sees all and to Him "there is no variableness neither shadow of turning" on an issue because there is none of that in His very being. (James 1:17)
Good men disagree and good men can be wrong, but know for sure that if two men take opposite sides of an issue, one of them or both of them are wrong. The issue is not gray. Men just have trouble seeing the light from time to time. You are to study to show yourself approved unto God, not men. Your theology may dovetail with your peer group and denomination, but be sure it dovetails with God’s theology. He gives the final exam.
When you find the true teachings you are to continue in them. It means to stay or abide in them. We are not to be tossed about by the winds of doctrine. (Eph 4:14) I have told you before that I like my theologians to be dead at least a hundred years. What they have written they have written and they will not change their minds with the winds of the current generation. They are not caught up in the emotions or movements of my day.
It at times amuses me and at other times it angers me when our current batch oft theologians come up with a "new’ thing especially when it goes against commonly held centuries old positions. I fear that a great many of our Greek scholars are more revisionists in clerical garb than interpreters. Neither Jesus, the Apostles, the Reformers, or any other theologian that they could not hold a candle to came up with these teachings, but these old boys have the answer. I’m sorry, but I may well be living in the last days and those days are to be days of great apostasy therefore I am suspicious of the Athenians that are seeking to hear the new thing and want to rock my foundations. (Acts 17:21,Psalm 11:3)
If tradition is truth, then treasure it. If tradition is just tradition, then trash it. However, do not just trash tradition for the sake of trashing tradition. You are at risk at losing truth for the thrill of paradigm changing. New is not always better.
We are to be set free by the truth, not free ourselves of it to fit into our society. Continuing in the doctrine of truth will deliver us from error. The word save does not always refer to the salvation of our souls. Sometimes it means to deliver us out of or to protect us from some danger or error in this present life. If we are not careful to make the distinction, we can seriously err.
A woman’s soul is not saved through childbirth, but she can be saved/delivered or protected from physical complications and even death if she continues " in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety." (1 Tim 2:15)
In this context, by continuing in sound doctrine we shall deliver/save/protect/preserve ourselves from error. When we fall into error the only thing that can heal us and restore us to wholeness is to return to sound doctrine. The word translated here as saved takes in all those concepts. Have I expressed sufficiently the importance of doctrine and the need to have sound doctrine?
I hope so. I am striving to save myself, but I am responsible for saving you from error as well since you are hearing/reading me. I cannot have my own opinions. I must have God’s opinion and all the more so as I am a teacher. I am not only responsible for my own final exam, but partly responsible for yours. I say, partly because even if I am as sound as sound can be in my doctrine/teachings, if you fail to heed then it is not my fault if you fail that part on your exam. Even if I gave you unsound teaching, I am only partly responsible because you are require to be studying to show thyself approved unto God.
One day, you might say in this life or the next, "Shucks, I wish I would have listened to that Ole boy, he knew what he was talking about." However, you will not be able to use the excuse, "Lord, I listened to that preacher at the Ole Country Church. I can’t help it he was wrong." You might not be able to help it if I was wrong, but you can help it you are.
Study for the exam. Stir up the gift you are neglecting. Give attendance to reading, exhortation, and doctrine. Meditate upon these things and continue in them and your profiting will appear unto all as you deliver yourself and others from error and into the hands of God as fit vessels for His use!
