AND WE ALL NEED JESUS

Pastoral ministry is serious business. Refuting error. Promoting and protecting the truth of the gospel. Shepherding God’s redeemed people and keeping watch over their very souls. The letter of 1 Timothy has made it clear that people need pastors to perform this serious and weighty work. But Paul’s instructions in 1 Tim 5:17-25 reveal that while people need pastors, pastors need people too. The leaders of the church are weak, ordinary, and imperfect men. Beggars telling other beggars where to find bread! For this reason, Jesus - the true Senior Pastor of any church - has positioned his people to serve as instruments of grace in the lives of those who lead her. Calling them to support the work of pastors by honoring them (5:17-18) and holding them accountable (5:19-25).

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RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR NATURAL & SUPERNATURAL HOUSEHOLD

1 Timothy 5:3-16 concerns the proper care of widows in the church. Out of everything we've encountered in this letter, this passage might seem like the most irrelevant or unfamiliar instruction to the church today. But, it's a word that strikes at the very heart of who God is and at the very center of who we're called to be. Because, a healthy church that stands strong and lasts long will be a church marked by compassion for most vulnerable among us. As believers, we ought to feel a godly responsibility to give ourselves to those in need just as Christ has given himself to us. To the parents, children, grandparents, and relatives in our natural families. To the brothers and sisters we’ve been set side by side with in the family of Christ. To the neighbors we’re praying would soon join us in the household of God.

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DISCIPLES WHO MAKE DISCIPLES

1 Timothy 5:1 begins a section of the letter concerned with how the pastor should relate to different groups within the church. Paul provides instructions for how Timothy should minister to: those of different ages and genders (5:1-2), widows (5:3-16), other elders (5:17-25), and slaves (6:1-2). All of this is important not just for Timothy but for each one of us. Because, “as go the pastors, so go the people.” There's something for the entire church to learn from the way the pastor relates to every group within the church. First and foremost, 5:1-2 makes it beautifully clear that Pastor Timothy needs to relate to the different groups within the church as he would to family. We, along with him, live in this same family and are called by God to live together as brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. Encouraging one another. Mentoring one another. Engaging in discipleship together. Striving together so that each of us would increasingly take on the shape of the Savior. 

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A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

1 Timothy is a letter from one pastor to another written for the good of the entire church. If we could sum up all of Paul’s instructions for Timothy, back then, and for every pastor since, 1 Timothy 4:16 would provide us with the essence of what a faithful pastor must do: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” Watch your life and watch your doctrine because it’s a matter of life and death. Pastors in the church must watch their life and doctrine so that the people of the church would watch theirs as well. This is significant, because we’re all being watched! People watch pastors. Children watch parents. Co-workers watch fellow employees. Our neighbors watch us all. What do they see when they see us? What should they see when they see us? Lives marked by godliness and gospel truth. The church ought to be a gathering of people who look like, love like, and live like Jesus Christ. But, the church cannot grow in Christ, be like Christ, or reflect the beauty of Christ to the watching world apart from the gospel which makes us who we are. Apart from this truth, the church ceases to be the church. Apart from this truth, we have no message of life to offer our neighbors. But according to this truth, we “have our hope set on the living God” and live lives now that increasingly take the shape of the lives we’ll be living in “the life to come” (1 Tim 4:8, 10).

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BY EMBRACING GOD’S GOOD GIFTS

The church is God's home. The place where he dwells with his people. Those who delight in, declare, and defend the goodness of life with him in a world full of competing claims. In this way, the church serves as a pillar and buttress of the truth. Holding it up for all to see and resisting the external forces that press up against it. But is resisting the pressures of the world the only way the church relates to the world? What about the many pleasures of the world? 1 Timothy 4:1-5 comes to us to say that while our life together is certainly marked by resisting bad beliefs, it's also meant to be about receiving God’s good gifts. Relieving us from the uneccessary tension between loving God and enjoying life. Because, the joy that’s found in Jesus is a joy that includes and is even intensified by glorifying God through enjoying what he’s made.

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GOD’S OWN HOUSEHOLD

We come to the beating heart of Paul's letter. A passage which brings us to his primary purpose for writing as well as the main idea he wants Timothy - and us - to lay ahold of. Above all else, 1 Timothy has been written so that we’d know how to act at church. Just why is it so important how we act at church? Because of what the church is! The very household of God, a pillar and buttress of the capital "T" truth. But what makes the church what it is? What is the essence of the truth we're called to promote and protect? What creates the house, gives it life, and brings us home to God? It's the gospel we're founded upon. The "mystery of godliness" and grand story of the Savior's work. Any home is only as good as its foundation is strong. Therefore, to be a church that builds today and lasts long we must be a church that remains firmly fixed on the gospel of Christ. 

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HOW DO THEY BLESS THE CHURCH?

In the church, God has purposed to extend his shepherding care to his people through his people. To perform this work, he's appointed pastors as a gracious gift for his people. But 1 Timothy 3:8-13 teaches us that they're not the only gift that he has to give. Pastors cannot do it alone. In the building project that is the church, he enlists special servants called deacons to support the ministry of pastors, strengthen the life and unity of the body, and meet the needs of members in tangible ways. Our Chief Shepherd's "earthly ministry was mighty in both word and deed (cf. Luke 24:19), and he continues this two-pronged approach [in the church] today in large part through the offices of elder and deacon. As elders serve with words and deacons serve with deeds, Christ’s holistic ministry carries on" (Matt Smethurst).

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WHAT SHOULD YOU EXPECT OF HIM?

Christ is the head of the household that is the Church - the Chief Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (Eph 5:23; 1 Pet 2:25). But in his grace he gives qualified leaders to communicate his care, equip his people, and build up his house. These leaders are called pastors. But what is a pastor? What should he do? What kind of man must he be? Listen to the sermon to learn more about what you should expect from your pastors and be encouraged by our Great Shepherd’s good design for our church.

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE

LIVING OUT GOD’S GOOD DESIGN

In 1 Timothy 2:8-15, we come to what's arguably the most-controversial topic in all the letter as far as our contemporary culture is concerned. In the ordering of God's household, Paul has particular instructions for how men and women should act at church. According to God's word, our sexuality is significant. Our gender matters. It's not a social construct, but a creational one. Because of this, we must reject the bad beliefs that men and women are basically interchangeable, that biblical gender roles are ancient norms we were always meant to move on from, and that our growth in Christ is gender-neutral. In order to build up God's house, we must be who he created and redeemed us to be. We must embrace the masculine and feminine strengths bound up in God's good design. We must seek God's grace for the particular masculine and feminine temptations we face.

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BECAUSE PRAYER ENTRUSTS THE SHAPE OF THE CHURCH & THE WORLD TO GOD HIMSELF

Is there anyone you don’t want to pray for? Anyone you believe is beyond the bounds of God’s reach? Or, maybe, any areas in the world or segments of society you believe God just won’t work in? 1 Tim 2:1-7 confronts our bad beliefs, cynical outlook, and hard hardheartedness by calling us to pray for all kinds of people - no matter how different they are from us. In order for the household of God that is Cross of Grace to be a healthy one, we must not only pray for those “inside the house,” but “outside” as well. For every kind of neighbor. Every kind of sinner. Every sort of person - from the homeless neighbor, to the difficult co-worker, all the way to the president of the United States. We can and should pray for all kinds of people because God desires to save all kinds of people through the person of Jesus Christ.

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE