So today we come to chapter five in 1 Timothy as we've been working our way through the book of 1 Timothy. Let me just do a little bit about where we've been, okay? Remember this letter written by Paul to his disciple Timothy was written sometime after the events of Acts. So realize, remember at the end of the book of Acts, Paul is imprisoned in Rome. This is the first of his two imprisonments in Rome. This first imprisonment wasn't as bad, if you could call it that. This was house arrest. He had a soldier chained next to him all the time, but he was free to receive visitors who came and went. The book of Acts actually says he was unhindered in the sharing of the gospel as he was under house arrest in Rome. After these events, Paul is released from prison. These are not recorded in Acts. But we know that Paul was released in prison and he very likely went on another missionary journey, his fourth missionary journey, probably to Spain as he had expressed desire to in the book of Romans. And then back around to the churches that he had planted before, back around to Asia Minor, to Turkey, and then through Macedonia and Greece, where unfortunately Paul was arrested a second time and brought to Rome a second time, where now he's in a dungeon and they can't find him, and shortly thereafter Paul is martyred. During this fourth missionary journey, as he's traveling around to these different places, he has his disciples with him, including men like Timothy, including men like Titus. And as he's traveling to these different places, he would tell them, you stay here, you stay here. Titus, you stay here in Crete and do this. Timothy, you stay here in Ephesus and do this. Paul's intent is to eventually come back to visit all of these guys and these churches, but we know from history he's not able to. So these instructions to Timothy are going to be very important in Timothy's ministry in Ephesus. If we could sum up the book of Timothy, it would be this. Paul commands Timothy to focus on two things. Focus on doctrine and focus on himself. Focus on faithful teaching and godly growth in himself. For example, look at chapter 1, verse 5. 1 Timothy 1, verse 5. where Paul says now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart from a good conscience and from sincere faith here Paul is saying the purpose of me giving you this command me giving you this ministry in Ephesus is this that you have a that you have love from a pure heart that you have a good conscience meaning focus on yourself grow in godliness and you have a sincere faith you know focus on good doctrinal biblical teaching. Again, in 1 Timothy 4 verses 12 to 13, this was a text that we covered in our previous sermon. Paul reiterates these focuses when he says, 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. Okay, so there Paul is telling Timothy, Pay attention to yourself. Be godly. And then he says, till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. So there you see the two focuses. Pay attention to yourself, pay attention to the word. Pay attention to yourself, and pay attention to the word. These reminders were not only for Timothy, who At the time when he was first placed there, Timothy probably thought he was just gonna be there for a little while, but eventually Timothy knew and understood when Paul didn't return that he's now the lead pastor of the church in Ephesus. And not only Ephesus, but many other churches around the area that Paul had planted churches in. These reminders are not only for Timothy, but as people reading God's word, especially as leaders in God's church, especially addressed to elders and deacons. But for all of us, these reminders are for all of us. And the reason I bring in elders and deacons is because in 1st Timothy you have that section where it talks about the qualifications of elders and deacons. And there you see the same two focuses. Elders and deacons must be godly men. They must have character and they must be able to teach. So these reminders, these two focuses, are not just for Timothy but for all of us. Now, those were the first four chapters. Today, in chapter five, our text gets into what you might call the nitty-gritty issues of the church, which is why the sermon title doesn't sound so much like a sermon title. It says, How to Treat Members in Church. I tried to come up with a more catchy title, but there was just no other catchy title. Paul, in chapter five, delves into these nitty-gritty, what you might consider, smaller, minutiae issues within the church. But because they are God's word, they are not minutiae. Okay. But yes, he delves into how to treat members in church in verses one and two. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. In verses one to two, Paul basically gives Timothy three commands. They're not, they're not three commands in terms of grammar. But basically, he gives him three Uh, things to do or one thing to not do and two things to do. Okay. Let's put it like that. First. He tells Timothy, do not rebuke older men. Then he tells Timothy to exhort. And then he tells Timothy exhort, but especially towards women in all purity. Okay. So we're going to talk about those three things. What do they mean first? If you look in chapter 5 verse 1, the first part of verse 1, the Bible says, do not rebuke an older man. Immediately we ask this question, why does scripture forbid rebuking here when in other places, in many other places in fact, it encourages us to rebuke? For example, In the same chapter in verse 20, 1 Timothy 5, verse 20, the Bible says, those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest may also fear. And then in the next letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 4, verse two, the Bible again says, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season to convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching. So how are we supposed to reconcile these? Why does scripture say, rebuke, commands us to rebuke in some verses, but here it says, don't rebuke. Do not rebuke older men. Is it just about age, or is there some kind of difference between what the Bible is talking about? The answer is yes. There's a difference in what the Bible is talking about. These are actually two different words that the Bible is using. Just unfortunately, in our English, we don't have, sometimes when you're translating languages, you don't have the same range of words to describe different things, okay? But in Greek, The rebuke in our verse is different than those other places where it commands us to rebuke, okay? The word that's used here in chapter 5 verse 1, the word that's translated as rebuke here literally means to strike something, to physically hit something. Okay? Literally, that's what it means. When it's used in this context, it means to strike someone with your words. To insult them. To slander them. I don't know if you've ever heard this term, to make an ad hominem attack on somebody. An ad hominem attack is when you attack somebody personally and not the position they hold or the opinion they hold. You just go at it, you know, you know, attack them, chop them down a few blocks, cut them off at the knees verbally. Um, this is in general, this is, this is the main problem with social media. Right? Social media is a great way to get your news. It's a great way to connect. In fact, you know, when, you know, I was in, I'm old enough to say I was in college when Facebook first became a thing, just on college campuses. And the reason was so you could reconnect with your friends. Okay. But if social media has become toxic, why? Because of this striking verbally. People striking each other verbally. bullying, slander, insults. That's this word. Do not insult an older man. I would say by that definition, you shouldn't insult anyone in church. Okay? As opposed to that, the word that's used in other places in scripture for rebuke, for example, in 1 Timothy 5.20, in 2 Timothy 4.2, where it says, you know, be ready in and out of season to convince, to rebuke, to exhort. The word for biblical rebuke means to convince someone with solid evidence to expose their wrongdoing. It brings to mind an attorney who gets up and he knows the person on the stand is lying, but instead of attacking that person and slandering them, which never happens in the courtroom because you have the quorum, what does the attorney do? He brings up evidence. Well, you say this, but what about this? You say this, but what about these text messages? You say this, but what about this picture? Can you explain this? And oftentimes what'll happen if you ever see a court proceeding is, the person on the stand will keep denying and denying, and then the attorney will keep presenting evidence, and then at some point the judge says, okay, that's enough, I get the point, okay? So even the attorney doesn't bring the hammer down. He just presents evidence and presents evidence and presents evidence in hopes of convincing somebody that they've done wrong. That's rebuke. That's biblical rebuke. If I can put it this way, it's a dispassionate word, emotionless word. You're not doing it out of rage. You're not doing it out of anger or emotion. You are presenting evidence. I was having trouble finding a way to describe this. I would say it's a more merciful way of exposing wrongdoing. because you are trying to convince somebody rather than just condemning them from the outright. The best word I could come up with was mercy. And I'm not saying, you know, the person who's rebuking is watering down the truth, or shying away from the rebuke, or shying away from the evidence, but just in the fact that you are taking a process to convince someone by presenting evidence, instead of, you know, instead of utterly destroying them from the get-go, that's mercy. This is the reason why we brought up that passage in 2 Samuel 12. After David commits adultery with Bathsheba, he's obviously in the wrong, but somehow this holy man, David, is completely oblivious of this. So Nathan, the prophet, goes in, and Nathan has all right to utterly destroy David. And we know Nathan is not a slink, he's not a weakling. We know Nathan, and he eventually gets to this, he says, you are the man. right but Nathan before that he takes time to convince David you know I was having a hard I don't know what word to describe that I would just say that was mercy you know he's presenting evidence to David he doesn't shy away from the truth he doesn't shy away from the rebuke but He does take time to present the evidence to David, and then David is convinced, and he is struck. The word for proper rebuke is in fact the same word that Jesus uses in Matthew 18, that famous passage about church discipline. What Jesus says, moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his faults between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. That word, that phrase, tell him his faults, is that same word for biblical rebuke. Biblical rebuke is actually the same word describing the Holy Spirit's work in the world, John 16, verse eight. And when he has come, he will convict or rebuke the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And so biblical rebuke is actually what God does with us in convincing us of sin. And so one other thing we can say about biblical rebuke is it has to reflect how God treats us, right? The same way that God treats us, even in our sin and disciplines us, even in our sin should be the way we rebuke others. Not a rebuke in the sense of insulting them and destroying them, but it has to be filled with compassion, love, and mercy. Do we properly and biblically rebuke in church? Or do our quote-unquote rebukes more resemble social media or the comment section in social media? I think the reason why people I'm not an expert in social media, but I think the reason why people, their first instinct on social media is to like slander and insult is basically pride. They want to make a name of themselves by saying something witty and cutting and viral, and that's how they do it. Whereas proper rebuke, by the definitions that we've given, proper rebuke removes yourself from the situation. because your emotions are not in it, you're only presenting evidence which has nothing to do with you, you are showing mercy to the person, and you are ultimately trying to bring the person back to God. Right? Jesus says in Matthew 18, if your brother sins against you, go and rebuke, right? Go and tell him his faults between you and him. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. And so biblical rebuke has at its end repentance and restoration with God. So nothing to do with you. So I wonder when churches get into fights and splits and things like that because of things said, because somebody has slandered and because somebody has insulted. I wonder in those situations, who's important, God or you? So we're not to insult, we're not to rebuke, quote unquote, in that way, in order, man, I would say, the Bible actually expands this out to everybody, okay? Because if you continue to look at what the Bible says, look at verses one, the second half of verse one to the first part of verse two. Do not insult like that, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters. That word for exhort, we actually spoke about the same word in the previous sermon. That word for exhort is the word parakaleo, which is the word that we use to associate with the Holy Spirit. And so to exhort, is to replicate what the Holy Spirit does for us with others, okay? And so actually, the word to exhort, pericleo, means not only to command people to do things, admonish people, but it also means encourage, and comfort, and come alongside, and advocate, okay? Exhortation is what the Holy Spirit does in us. Therefore, our exhortation should resemble what God does for us and in us. And we know that even when God disciplines us, when God rebukes us, when the Holy Spirit rebukes us, God does it because of love. And He rebukes us, He disciplines us as sons. And so there is mercy, there is grace, there is always love. You know, Just this morning, my son had a meltdown. Just random meltdowns. I don't know how to protect them. They just happen. You know, sometimes when he's well fed, he has a meltdown. Sometimes when he's hungry, he has a meltdown. Sometimes when he's full of energy, he has a meltdown. Sometimes when he's tired, he just happens because he's two. All right? And I discipline him. I rebuke him. But I'm never seeking to utterly destroy him. That would be abuse. I'm not trying to crush him. I'm trying to love him. And I'm trying to bring him to not only recognize his faults, but repent. And as soon as he's done that, he's done that. Everything's okay. Everything's good. Not just with him and me, but with God. Likewise, when we exhort, even if that exhortation is an admonishment, even if that exhortation is a biblical rebuke, okay, in the biblical sense, it should be always full of mercy, full of grace, full of love, and never set on utter destruction. It's telling that in Nathan's rebuke of David, You know, Nathan basically says, you are the man. And David has this really tepid response. Did you notice that? He says, oh, I've sinned against the Lord. Really? That's all you can muster, David, is that you've sinned? And it's very telling that as soon as David has even that tepid response, Nathan actually says, your sins have been forgiven. Okay, but there's going to be these consequences. Okay, Nathan doesn't dwell on trying to utterly crush David. This is the reason for the familial metaphors that you see in this section. Okay, exhort an older man as a father, exhort a younger man as a brother, exhort older women as mothers, exhort younger women as sisters, because we all have this instinct. And when I'm not just talking about Christians, just even pagans have this instinct of loving and protecting and preserving those who are in the family first. Okay, and we're talking about in this fallen world, where we are today, even in this fallen world, there is this instinctual, I would say, that's common grace, right? There is this instinctual desire to love and protect and preserve one in your own family. And that's exactly scripture's point. We read 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, where Paul describes his ministry to the Thessalonians. And what's interesting there is twice, two times, Paul says, I was like a mother. I was like a nursing mother to you. I was like a father to you. And even when I was convincing and exhorting and teaching you, I was like, I did it as a family member. I treated you as children in a good way, okay? Can we say the same thing in the way we treat one another in church? That we treat each other like family members. And especially, especially when there are contentious and maybe even sinful situations that arise in church. You know, I'm not just talking about the peaceful times. It's easy to treat one another respectfully and as fathers and brothers and things like that, when times are good, things get tough when you start to, you have some contentious issues. And I'm not just talking about addressing someone as fathers and brothers. Every, every, every speech in the, in the GA, right, begins with fathers and brothers, as though those two magical words cover over whatever else you have to say later on, or in whatever email you have to write. It doesn't count. You can't address an email and say fathers and brothers, and then end with in Christ, love, and then in the middle, insult and slander all you want. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way, and yet how many Right, Mark? How many of those have we seen? The command to exhort is broad and expansive. Remember, notice how verse one begins with, do not rebuke an older man. but exhort him, okay? It begins with older men, tells us not to insult them, but to exhort them. But then after that, it begins to broaden out to include the whole church. Exhort younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters. So I would say what's happening is, even though our text begins with a little group of people, how you treat older men, immediately it kind of broadens out and says, this is how you treat everybody. Don't insult them, exhort. Exhort how, not as how you might exhort as a sinful person, exhort how God exhorts you. Last, and especially when the attention turns to exhorting older women and younger women, women, the Bible teaches Timothy, you need to do this with all purity. Purity is simply a word that means chaste, chastity. In other words, this is talking about sexual purity. This command about being sexually pure in regards to your relationship with or timothy's relationship to women and i would say this applies to everyone in church but especially the men who are leaders in church timothy to whom this letter is directly addressed elders and deacons to whom this letter talks about too okay this is especially a warning for them be pure be chaste do not have any sexual temptation when you are engaging with women in church. There's actually three ways in which this idea of purity is emphatic. It doesn't have to be, but Paul, just for whatever reason, adds three things to this teaching to really emphasize it for Timothy. First, Paul says all purity, which is redundant. You don't need to say all purity. When you say purity, you mean all purity. When you go to the store and you buy pure water, you're assuming it's 100% pure water. If you buy something that's not 100% pure water, it's not pure. It's impure, just by definition. You can't have 99% pure. So if you go in the store and you see a label, all pure water or 100% pure water, that's unnecessary. You don't need that. It's just there for emphasis. So when Paul says, treat women with all purity, it's saying there can't be any room for temptation no foothold for this type of temptation because it's so dangerous the second emphasis again that use of the family metaphor emphasizes this idea that you need to treat women with all purity you know it's with the sexual revolution that's been going on in our world we've crossed many frontiers, many bad frontiers, where, you know, not just homosexuality, not just transgenderism, not just multiple partners, but now they're legitimizing minors, you know, pedophilia, and they're saying these are minor attractive persons. So they've crossed that boundary. They are soon crossing the bestiality boundary, okay? And that's happening in some areas. What's interesting to me is incest has not been crossed yet in terms of that revolution. Not yet. Okay, not yet. It might happen, probably will happen, but not yet. Because there is just, again, this goes back to common grace, there is some kind of instinctual a pervert, you know, instinctual way we respond negatively to incest and, you know, sexual temptations and relationships within a family. That even the pagan world hasn't crossed that foundation yet, frontier yet. I'm not saying it won't. But I'm saying, that's the idea that's presented here, why Paul uses the familial metaphor. Is that, stay away from this, as far away from this, so that you treat women as family members. The third emphasis. Remember, Paul's writing this to Timothy. Timothy, who is an honorable and trustworthy servant. Timothy was not a bad character. He was not a sexual predator. He was not a reformed sexual predator, where Paul's like, well, you were showing this tendency towards this type of sin before, I gotta really warn you against this now. Okay, no, Timothy is an honorable man. And yet, Paul still finds it necessary to put this warning in bright, shining lights, say, treat women with all purity. So I think if Paul says that to Timothy, I think that's a warning we need to heed ourselves. And I would say, I'm a less honorable man than Timothy. Okay, I don't think it's controversial to say that. If that's a warning good enough for Timothy, that's a warning good enough for all of us. You know, reading about purity made me think about the Billy Graham rule. I don't know how many of you have ever heard of the Billy Graham rule. Billy Graham rule saying he would never be in a room alone with a woman unless there was somebody else there with him. So he would never, in his evangelistic outreaches and travels, he would never find himself in the same room alone with a woman who was not his wife, okay? And if there was, there had to be a situation where there was a, you know, somebody working with him or like a person who needed a counsel that needed to be, that needed to speak with him, he would have another person, okay? Just for research, I googled Billy Graham rule. Some of what I found was expected, but I will say I found a lot of disappointing responses to the Billy Graham rule. The Washington Post said this about the Billy Graham rule. That rule doesn't honor your wife. It actually demeans her and it demeans all women because it over-sexualizes all women. Kind of saying, if you warn against sexual temptations with women, you're actually over-sexualizing them in the first place. And that's just, that doesn't make any sense. Okay, but that's the Washington Post. Okay, you expect that from the Washington Post. What was disappointing was, and I wasn't expecting to find this, what was disappointing was finding conservative and evangelical sources, Christian sources downplaying this idea of purity. The Gospel Coalition wrote, Gospel Coalition, Tim Keller, et cetera, et cetera. Gospel Coalition wrote, the Graham rule is not explicitly commanded in scripture. While that fence may be helpful, it isn't authoritative. Okay? So, all right, semantically, no, the Bible does not have Billy Graham's words in it. But it does have this command to treat all women with all purity. That's certainly authoritative. That's in God's word. How are you supposed to work that out practically? Tell me. And it can't just be guard your heart. Because the Bible also says your heart is deceitful above all else. So practically, tell me how you're supposed to carry out this authoritative command. I actually think Billy Graham's rule is very consistent with this authoritative command. It's one way, it's one really good way to prevent somebody from falling into this sin, falling into this temptation. Desiring God, John Piper. We do well to remember not just one infamous Billy Graham rule, but all four resolutions. Billy Graham actually had several rules about ministry, but it called Billy Graham's rule infamous. Is this command really infamous? Or should this command be famous? It's such foolishness. It's when the church falls into this sin that we become foolishness and we become infamous, right? And it's keeping this command that actually honors and preserves the name of God. Nathan talked about it when he told David, this is your consequence. Okay, you've been forgiven, but because you've sullied the name of God, this is what's going to happen to your son. And the son became ill, right? Nathan talked about that. What should we do then? Well, for starters, I think the Billy Graham rule is a good rule. It's not the only thing, but it's a very good rule. How can we be pure? This is the reason why we brought up Psalm 119. I know I've used Psalm 119 before, Mark, but I thought, let's just use it again. Psalm 119, verses nine to 16, where the Bible says, let's do this. Beginning in verse nine, how can a young man cleanse his way? That phrase, cleanse his way, is in some translations translated as keep his way pure. How can a young man keep his way pure? Would love to know the answer to that question. Well, here it is. By taking heed according to your word, with my whole heart I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander from your commandment. How do you keep yourself pure? By keeping the word of God close to your heart. It is telling that in all these scandals where you have immorality and unfaithfulness by the pastor or elders in churches, one of the very first things they say when they get interviewed later on is, I stopped reading the Bible. I stopped fellowshipping with God. And XYZ happens and here I am caught in this mess. Okay, I don't I don't think that's coincidence How can a young man cleanse his way keep his way pure by by by treasuring the Word of God, but but also realize This is a psalm. So it's a prayer Okay, so you treasure the Word of God and you pray and we know the the way prayer works and we know the the way psalms work is this is man's prayer to God, but God intercedes for us by His Spirit. So this is Spirit-wrought prayer with Spirit-wrought fruits of the Word of God working in our lives to help make us pure. You might not like that answer. What is the secret to being pure? The Word, prayer, and Holy Spirit. That's it. That's what the Bible says. You might not, that might not be good enough of an answer for you, but that's the answer. That's the biblical answer. And it's the thing that people who fall into this sin, it's the thing that they discard first. May God give us the grace and the ability to keep his word in our hearts, to treasure it in our hearts. May God give us the grace to be pure in our relationships, in our relationships in church. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this text, even though it's short, even though it might be glossed over, but it has such overarching and comprehensive effects on the way we interact and the way we relate and treat one another in church. God, may you grant us the ability to not be harsh, to not cut down. but to exhort and to do it in a way that preserves all of our purity, each and every one of us. Help us, oh Lord, by your word, by your spirit, and through prayer, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.