Open your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 4. This morning we're going to begin in a verse 11. Imagine if you decided that you were out of shape and you wanted to go get in shape. You found the local gym and you went there and you paid your membership and then you said, I'm not really familiar with one of these places. I'm not sure how all the machines work. I'm not really sure what exercises I should do. And I'm just not really sure what to do. But I know I want to get into shape. And so you say, do you have any personal trainers here? Oh, yes, we have personal trainers. And you decided to hire a personal trainer. So you hire the personal trainer. You show up for your appointment. Let's say it's 7 AM on Monday morning. You show up for your appointment with your personal trainer. And your personal trainer is just walking in the door to start work to meet with you. And as he walks in, he's huffing and puffing out of breath and looks a little flabby. And then takes you to one of the machines and says, maybe this would be a good one to use. At a certain point, you'd be going, what am I paying for? You'd think, you know, I kind of expect my personal trainer to be fit, right? At least if you're going to teach me how to get in shape, I expect you to be in shape. Or again, if you were going to go to the golf course and take golf lessons, all right? If, you know, you showed up and the golf pro said, you know, Let me get my clubs. And he pulls out his clubs, and they're duct taped together. And he's got flip-flops on instead of golf shoes. And he's dressed more like a surfer than a golfer. You might think, maybe I didn't choose the best pro here. Why? Because you're seeing that there's something inconsistent with their lifestyle compared to what they claim to be teaching, right? In other words, if I want to pay somebody to teach me to play golf, they either need to be good at golf, or they need to have taught a lot of other good golfers. and therefore they're going to know what the part looks like, right? So I recognize whoever teaches men on the PGA Tour, they have teachers as well that give them lessons. Those men aren't as good as they are, but they've taught enough of those people to know how to help them, right? And so they look the part of a golf teacher. Now, one thing I want to make clear is that as we come to this passage, Paul is encouraging Timothy to holy living. In other words, if you're going to encourage others to be Christians, you should live like a Christian. But I want to make something clear. It's not merely about outward appearance. Our Christian testimony isn't that we look good enough. Our Christian testimony is that we've been changed by Christ. Alright? Our Christian testimony isn't, do we look good enough? It is, have we been changed by Christ? And so he says, these things command and teach, verse 11. What are these things? The things he's been saying in the book so far. Alright, the truth's about pastors and deacons, the truth's about avoiding false teaching, the truth's about how men and women should interact with each other, the truth's about all kinds of things in this book. He's saying command and teach these things. Now remember, Timothy was Paul's apostolic representative playing a pastoral role, although not probably specifically the pastor of the church there at Ephesus. He had gone to help the church as Paul's apostolic representative. He was representing the Apostle Paul. And then he says, "...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." Now what does he mean, don't let anyone despise thy youth? Let's talk about this word youth. This means somebody in their 20s or 30s, okay? So we're not talking about a teenager here. That's not what he's talking about. But generally, okay, if you're in your 20s and 30s, and we have many in this room that are in that age group, you could be a good example of a Christian. But there is the chance that people are going to look at you and go, hmm, it's a college kid. And I know when you're 35, you don't like to be thought of as a college kid, and you're not. But to somebody who's 80, you're a college kid sometimes. Okay? What does he mean, don't let anybody despise thy youth? In other words, even though you don't have the life experience, live such a clear Christian life that nobody can say, he's just a kid. That's what he's saying. Live such a clear Christian life that nobody can say, he's just a kid. All right? And again, we live in a culture that glorifies adolescence. I mean, adolescence is like the peak pinnacle of life. High school, that's like, you reached your peak. After that, it's all downhill. You get to 19, and you might as well, I mean, just recognize that all the good things in your life have already happened. I'm being silly, of course, but that is many, I mean, the way Hollywood prepares it, presents it, the way that TV presents it, you know, you drive down the street, look at a billboard, do those people, I mean, unless it's for a 55 and older community, do the people on the billboard look under, they look like they're under 30 in almost every case, right? Why, because that's, that is what our society holds up, this is the ideal, here's somebody who's beautiful, young, vibrant, and we thank the Lord for that. But there's also a great advantage to having age and maturity. And so for certain things you want age and maturity. So when someone is younger, like Timothy here, I mean in his 30s probably, it's going to be expected that if you're going to do this as a young man, you better be prepared to behave like more mature than you are, and with a clear spiritual maturity. So when I have had the opportunity to teach pastors in China, Pretty much the house church pastors have told some of our contacts over there, don't send anyone under 30. Because the house church pastors are not going to listen to anybody who's under 30 years old. We don't care. I mean there are men out there who have 29 years old, they have their PhDs in theology. So could they teach theology to these pastors? Of course they could. But all those pastors are going to go, you're a kid. All right? And so here's the point is that don't let anybody despise that youth by behaving youthfully. And our society, you know, glorifies youthfulness. And what it does, what that does sometimes is in our society is it encourages people to live like they're younger than they are. Which is not necessarily a healthy thing. Years ago, when I was a youth pastor, and I also worked in a Christian school, I'd sit down in the lunchroom, and I see this guy. He looks fairly young, but I can tell he's not a high schooler. And he's sitting there, eating in the lunchroom with some of our young people in the Christian school. Now, you don't just do that. You have to go through the office to do it. So I'm thinking, who is he? So I go over and introduce myself. You know, he's got a jester hat on, like a jester would wear from the Middle Ages or something. And I introduce myself to him and he's like, dude. And he's all cool and everything. And I find out he's the youth pastor from another church down the road. What we don't need from youth ministers is for them to act like teenagers. We need youth pastors to be mature so that the young people can see what a mature Christian looks like. They know lots of cool people. They don't need more cool people. Okay? Wearing a jester hat doesn't help people believe in Jesus. It might make the kids think, oh, he's kind of neat, he behaves like us, but that's not what young people need from a pastor. And here was a man who was behaving like he was in his teens when he was in his twenties. I know there's a temptation to do that, but sometimes you see people doing this when they're in middle age. And you think, why are you doing that? Because our society exalts it. But the Bible calls on us to be examples. I don't mean that you can't be more active. That's not what I'm talking about. But I mean the kind of thing where you're trying to keep up with the youth trends. At a certain point, the youth look at it and go, why is that old guy dressed like that? And so what he's calling on Timothy here to do is to be mature. Don't let them despise thy youth. That doesn't mean don't tell people, hey, don't despise my youth. Just because I'm young, I have something to say. That's not what he's saying. He's saying live in such a way that they won't despise your youth. But be thou, see the contrast is, but be an example of the believers. Let the believers see you as an example to them. If they want to know what does it look like to be a Christian, they can look at your example. But be thou an example of the believers in what? In word. In how you talk. This isn't talking about your vocabulary in the sense of whether it's intelligent, highfalutin and stuff. What it's talking about is, are you cursing? Are you gossiping? Are you running people down behind their back? Or are you an example of a Christian who has your speech always seasoned with salt, as the New Testament would say? In other words, do you talk about the word of God? Do you encourage people? Do you build them up? When somebody comes to you with gossip, you say, hmm, I don't think you should be sharing that with me, but let me go talk to that person. Maybe they need me to pray with them. You know, if you tell somebody who's gossiping to you that you're gonna go talk to the person they just gossiped about, they'll stop coming to you. Okay, so in word, in the things that he says, he's supposed to be an example of the believer. And in conversation, this is lifestyle, the way he lives. In other words, he's living a life that is fulfilling his obligations, that's righteous. He's not skipping out on debts. You hear about these kinds of things. I remember I was visiting a place one time and they pointed out this fancy hotel. They said the most expensive suite in this hotel was $10,000 a night. So I booked it. No, I'm kidding. I did not. $10,000 a night. And they said, but on one occasion there was, and they named the person who was very wealthy, and they said, this person came and stayed three nights and didn't pay the bill. And it became a known court case around, you know, in the news. Well, they had millions of dollars. They could have afforded the $30,000, but why? It was kind of fun. You know, we can skip out and not pay and all of this kind of thing. You know, that's not righteous. That's not what a Christian would do. You owe a debt, you pay it. You say to your employer that you're going to do a job, you do it. You are a good neighbor to your neighbors. Basic decency kinds of things, and then beyond that, consistent Christian living. Purity. Honesty. Integrity. In word, in conversation, in charity. This is the word for love. In other words, be an example to the believers what it looks like to love one another. You have a person in the church who has a need, you try to help and meet it. You show them kindness and love. That is, in word, in conversation, in charity. Be an example of love. What is that going to mean? Obviously, that goes back to some of the words we say, but it also goes to our actions. That is, how do we love one another? We show hospitality, okay? We help one another in sickness and distress, as our church covenant says. Somebody's sick, we pray for them, right? We inquire how they're doing. We help them if we can. We show love toward one another in spirit. In our spiritual life, we're to look like Christians. In other words, Christianity isn't just something he's to do on Sundays. It's something that throughout the week is a part of his Christian life. He is a growing spiritual testimony in faith. Here's a man of faith. Now, what do we think of when we think of somebody of faith? It's somebody who their faith in Jesus informs their life. So what this means is there's going to be times that the world's going to say, you can't do this. And you say, but Jesus said I had to. Or the world's going to say, you should do this, which is evil. And you say, but Jesus said not to. Or there's going to be other times that you're going to say, you know, I'm doing this for the Lord, and people are going to say, oh, you can't go. Let me encourage this. So we have people in here, and the Lord may be working in your life, and you think, you know, I think the Lord is going to lead me to go serve him on a mission field somewhere. You know what? I can't predict the future, and I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I can tell you this. Somebody, a relative or a friend, maybe even somebody at church is going to say to you, you can't do that. You know what that country's like? You can't go to that place as a missionary. You know, they don't have the conveniences that you have here. You know, it could be dangerous. You can't go to that place. How does any missionary go anywhere? By faith, right? They go and they say, this is what God has called me to do. I'm going to go do it. I know there's some dangers in it. I'm going to trust the Lord and preach the gospel. He told us to go preach the gospel. A friend of mine, he's been a pastor for a long time, but when he first told his parents he thought that the Lord was leading him into pastoral ministry, his father was unsafe, said, you can't do that, there's no money in that. In other words, his father didn't believe in Christ and didn't, he's just like, you're not gonna make a good living? I didn't raise you to do that, I raised my sons to be successful. How am I gonna explain this to the family? Thought I was gonna have a CEO on my hands, but instead I've got a pastor. Well, there's going to be people who tell us you can't when we know that God can. And we live as examples of faith and faith in purity. And here we see moral purity. Here he's calling on the young man, Timothy, to behave in a pure way. Alright? In other words, be an example in your moral character. He's not supposed to be a womanizer chasing the women of Ephesus around. There were plenty of opportunities for this in Ephesus. You could still travel to Ephesus today, to the ruins of ancient Ephesus, and still the ruins bear the marks of what immorality went on at Ephesus. I've had a friend who's been there, and he told me that there are still on the excavated walkways, which are like mosaics and sidewalks, what we'd call sidewalks, there are footprints. And they go from the port to the brothels. They were painted there by the brothel owners, so all the ship sailors knew where to go. So this was not a city that was like, quaint, hometown, wholesome place. This was a place that had the same vices that our culture has today, but probably more overt. And so he's calling on Timothy to be pure in his life and in the way he behaves toward men and women. So he's to be an example. You see, if we're going to be teaching others about the Word of God, if we're going to tell others about Jesus, our life needs to look like Jesus has changed us. That's what this is saying. We're not doing this because we're trying to establish our own righteousness. We can't do that. We know that. There's not a single good work you or I could do, nor a group of good works that you and I could do, not a single religious act, nor a group of religious acts that you or I could do that will save our souls. Each one of us is a sinner. We're all lost by nature. We're born spiritually separated from God, alienated from God. But the good news of the gospel is, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. When we were in rebellion against God, doing things our own way, and there was no hope for us, and our sins were there and unforgiven, and there was nothing we could do to pay for our own sins, there was no recompense that we could make, when we were there. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. When we were sinners, Christ died for us. God, this Father, sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. The Son, the second person of the triune Godhead, took on human flesh. and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death on a cross. He died for your sins and for mine. The only hope we have of eternal life and of our sins being forgiven is through Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross for us. That is the good news of the gospel, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the scriptures say that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That if we turn to God with repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, as Acts 20.21 says, that if we'll turn to God in repentant faith, we will have eternal life. that it's available to us only through Jesus. It's not because I've been baptized, not because I've done good works, not because I've taken the Lord's Supper, not because I'm a decent person, not because I did something really heroic even. Because none of those things undo my sin, but only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and my turning in repentant faith to God do I receive eternal life. And so this was not for Timothy to earn eternal life. This was because the Spirit of God had changed him and this is what it looks like to be changed by the Spirit of God. Now he tells Timothy, until Paul returns, here's what Timothy is to do at Ephesus. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Okay? What's the first thing here? Reading. This is the public reading of Scripture. We do this every Sunday morning. The New Testament commands us to do it, to read the Scriptures publicly. Unfortunately for some of you, that's the only time you hear the Scriptures. They sometimes only had that opportunity because many of them couldn't read. Most of them didn't have their own copy of the Bible. So when they were going to hear the scriptures, they had to hear it read publicly at church. Now, it's a joy to be able to hear it read publicly at church. The New Testament commands us to do it. But we also have an extra privilege, and that is any one of us can get a copy of the Bible. If you have a smartphone, I can point you to dozens of apps that will get you a free copy of the Bible. If you want a paper copy, and I'd encourage you to get a paper copy, We'll give you one as a church, free. You want one? Come see me. I'll be glad to give you a Bible. We've got lots of them. All right? Think about this. Most of us have stacks of Bibles at home, and we don't read them. We neglect it. But here, Paul says to Timothy, one of the most important things you can do is read the Bible so people will hear it. Now, this is important because this is public worship as well. This is beyond our private Bible reading. It's important. It's a good thing for us to come together and hear the Word of God read. to hear it publicly read. Second to exhortation. What does this mean? The Bible is read and then what happens is that someone gets up and says, the Bible says this and we're not doing it. Or the Bible says that you shouldn't do this and we are doing it. Or the Bible says you should believe this and you're not believing it. There's a place for the application of the word of God to life. That we need the Bible applied to us. So he's telling Timothy, read the Bible out loud and apply it to the lives of the people at Ephesus. To exhortation and to doctrine. What does he say here? Here's teaching. In other words, yes, apply it to people's lives, but there's also certain areas in which people just have a misunderstanding. They yet haven't grasped certain things. It's very hard to apply Bible truths you don't know and don't understand. So there's a place to explain as well, teach. Now this is one of the central things of the ministry of a local church. Timothy's not specifically the pastor of the church, but as an apostolic representative, he's to help the pastors there, and it's a young church, and he's to help them by being an example, but also by reading, exhorting, and teaching, so that they hear the Word of God. This is really important. Now, I don't want us to misunderstand. There's lots of things we do in a service. Read the Bible publicly. Preach, like we're doing right now. Sing. They're all important. They're all part of what God has called us to do. But for some reason, in our day and age, the modern concepts of what church should be are most likely to neglect the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. That's the thing that gets minimized. That's what gets minimized. They're made shorter. I heard a person teaching one time, and he said that in a modern world, the way you preach the Bible is you get up, you have to tell a really interesting story. So you find some human interest story, and you get up, you tell this 10, 15 minute story. It's really interesting about something that happened in somebody's life. You get everybody listening, hanging on, and then at the end, you quote a verse of scripture that illustrates the point you want to make. So in other words, preaching becomes telling an interesting human interest story and then just quoting a verse at the end. But that's not what he's calling Timothy to do here. Read the Bible. Exhort people from it and teach them doctrine. If our churches neglect the teaching, preaching, reading, exhortation of the Word of God, what will happen is they will be weak and immature. This is a necessity for our souls. Then he says to Timothy, Now we don't know specifically what the gift was. It was a Holy Spirit given gift. He received it when the presbytery, that's a funny word, we don't use it in Baptist circles that often, but the word for an elder in Greek is presbyteros. So a presbytery is a group of elders. So when the elders of the church laid hands on you and there was a prophecy made that God had gifted Timothy to do this work, he's saying, remember, God gifted you to do this work. Remember when the elders laid hands on you and when a prophecy was made over you that you were called to do this? Don't neglect that. God called you to this. No, don't neglect that. God has called you to this work. Don't neglect the gift that is in you. It was given you by the Spirit of God. And this gift involved what? Being an example of a Christian, exhorting in the Word of God. All of these things are part of the exercise of that gift. Verse 15, meditate on these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all. Meditate on your calling and on the things God has called you to do, reading, exhortation, doctrine. Read on them and give yourself wholly to it. Years ago when I was a youth pastor, again, I remember there was one young man and he had really had some significant spiritual growth. And one of his friends said to him, you know, Steve, this is good and all, but aren't you taking Christianity a little too seriously? It is not possible to take Christianity too seriously. Almost all of us take it not seriously enough. In other words, what this person was saying is, yeah, it's okay, have a little Christianity as part of your life over here. But what God is saying is, take up your cross and follow me. That means it dominates your life. Okay, don't misunderstand. We're not saying that you, you know, some of the caricatures we think of when people are acting in kind of silly ways and excusing it on Christianity, that's not what we're talking about. Many times what you see is an unbalance there. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, the kind of thing where, you know, somebody decides to dress up like Jesus and carry a cross around. That's not what this is calling us to do, okay? It's not calling on us to be obnoxious. In fact, that's the opposite of being meek and humble. It's not calling on us to be judgmental and self-righteous. We can't take care of our own sins at all. The only hope we have is Jesus. We're sinners saved by grace. It's not calling us to any of those things. That's not taking Christianity too seriously. Taking Christianity seriously means I forgive others. I'm gracious with others. I'm meek with others. I'm loving toward others. That I let the Spirit work in my life. We give ourselves wholly to it. You have to work at holiness. Not because holiness is your work. But because it's the Spirit's work, and you have to let the Spirit work in you, and not resist the Spirit, not quench the Spirit. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. You see, again, if you see spiritual growth in his life, and we've seen this in young men, you can think of people, I'm not saying they're Timothy, but you can think of a young man, you can say, wow, he has really grown spiritually. Look what God is doing in his life. He's really given himself to the Word of God. and the profiting may appear to all. Verse 16, take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Two things he wants Timothy to do. Take care of your character and take care of what you preach and teach. Continue in them. Don't give up on it. Don't give up on it. Continue living like a Christian and being an example to others. And then continue in the doctrine. Continue teaching the word of God. There's a temptation to stop doing one or the other. To say, you know, the Christian life is hard. Yes. But God gives you the power to do it. To say, you know, if I say that, don't think this doesn't happen. This does go through pastors' minds. If I say that from the pulpit, they will be mad at me. Someone will complain. Somebody who gives a lot to the church will leave. This is why I don't like to know what people give. I tell the people who count the offerings, don't ever tell me what somebody gives. Because I don't want to minister to somebody based on what they give. So, if somebody leaves, I don't know if they give a lot or not. If they stay, I don't know if they give a lot or not. Because I want to try to minister to the whole flock. But, you know, this is a temptation. How will we pay the lights if that person leaves? Well, the fear of man brings a snare, Proverbs 29 says. But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. So, as a pastor, I have to say what God wants me to say. And if you don't like it, I'm not trying to make you not like it. But I'm not being faithful if I say, I know God said that. But if I say that, people won't like it. See, I have to continue both in taking heed to myself and to the doctrine. Continue in them. For in doing this, thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee. Now, we know Timothy doesn't save anybody. Jesus saves. But Timothy could be the instrument through which, by his continually following Jesus, it's clear that he has salvation, and that example can work in such in the lives of other people that it helps them continue to follow Jesus, and they have salvation. Not because they've earned it, but because they've been pointed there to Jesus by Timothy. They've been pointed there by Timothy. In other words, this will save your soul and those that you teach. Not because Timothy saves them, but because the Spirit is using it in his life and the life of his hearers. This is one of the things that's a benefit of being in pastoral ministry, and that is that, yes, I don't hear sermons that often, but I'm preparing for them. I'm thinking about the Word of God all the time. And so it helps my own soul. Some of you, even though you may not be a pastor here, you might teach Sunday school or maybe teach Awana or something. When you prepare for those lessons for the children, you know it helps your soul. It helps you too. When I know that other people are gonna be dependent on me, I'm more faithful in things, right? You know this. Many of you have had children. When you were single, And you didn't have to go to work and nobody was dependent on you? Did you care if you slept in, if you got out of bed? It's fine. You're free to do it. But guess what? When you're a new parent and that baby's crying at 3 a.m., you can't go, oh, well, I just don't feel like getting up. No, the baby needs you. You have to go do something. In the same way, when we know other people are dependent on us to help them spiritually, it helps us spiritually. It helps us spiritually, and that's what he's saying to Timothy. And so he's calling on Timothy here to live a life that's consistent with the gospel so that Timothy can be a help to others. Notice what he's saying here. Paul's saying, I taught you some things. I want you to go teach this doctrine, read the scriptures, exhort, teach. I want you to go teach the people at Ephesus so that your godly example and your teaching will help them. God's calling on all of us to do something like this. We're not all pastors, none of us are apostolic representatives, but God's calling on all of us to have ministry in people's lives. Satan loves it when churches believe that ministry is only something done by the people that get paid to do ministry. Guess what? That really limits the ministry of the church. There's only a couple of us here that get paid to be in ministry full-time. Not a whole lot's going to get done. Some will, but not a whole lot, especially when you have to measure in all the other things that you have to do. Because yes, there's times I'm ministering to people and ministering the word, but there's also times I've got to worry about insurance and all kinds of other things. And that's just part of it. I recognize that. But guess what? If each believer in our church would say, hey, I can minister to somebody else, it'll be good for my soul to prepare to have a discipleship time with somebody. That will sharpen me. You know what? When you're in a discipleship relationship with somebody, you grow too. You grow too. I've encouraged us this year to find somebody to read the Bible with, Galatians and Philippians this year. Just sit down, have lunch with them, maybe meet for coffee, maybe meet for breakfast, maybe not even over food at all. Just find a time to meet with them and read through the Bible together. You know what? That will be good for your soul, and it'll be good for the person that you meet with. In doing so, thou shalt save thyself and them that hear thee." But if you're going to do that, then you have to be working at being a Christian too. It's not going to work very well if you're kind of careless about being a Christian. You're not going to be able to disciple somebody else. And so what he's calling on us here to do is to live lives consistent with the gospel. Yes, proclaim the gospel, but live lives consistent with the gospel. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Just like if you went to the gym and you look for a personal trainer, and the personal trainer was flabby and out of shape and out of breath, you'd say, I want a different trainer. Likewise, if you were to go To look for somebody to disciple you, you want somebody else who knows the Word and is growing. A person doesn't have to be a theologian and deep, but somebody who loves the Lord, who you know will walk next to you as a Christian. And so God is calling on us to be people who take heed to ourselves, to our Christian walk, and to the truths of the Word of God. Let's bow our heads.