Qualities of an Excellent Servant, Pt. 5

1 Timothy 4:15-16

     Beginning in verse 6 of 1 Timothy 4, Paul writes: 

     If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, you shall be a good minister, or an excellent minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine unto which you have already attained.  But refuse profane and old wives fables and exercise yourself unto godliness, for bodily exercise profits little but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.  This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.  For therefore to this end we both labor and struggle because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe.  These things command and teach.  Let no man despise thy youth but be an example of the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in loyalty, in purity.  Till I come, give attendance to the reading, to the exhortation, to the teaching.  Stop neglecting the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the elders.  Meditate upon these things. Give thyself holy to them that thy profiting may appear to all, or thy progress may appear to all.  Take heed unto thyself and unto the teaching, continue in them for in doing this you shall both save yourself and them that hear you. 

     The key statement in this passage is found in verse 6.  It is the statement "you shall be an excellent minister, or servant, of Jesus Christ."  That is really the substance of the whole point of this passage.  Paul is calling Timothy to excellence in the ministry.  And he's delineating the elements of such excellence throughout this text. 

     The problems facing Timothy were monumental.  He had been left in Ephesus.  Paul had met him there after the conclusion of his imprisonment.  They met there to discern the state of that great church where Paul had given three years of his life.  They found that the church had drifted doctrinally and was literally filled with error.  They had found that the church was filled with sin and had abandoned its pursuit of godliness.   

     Wrong doctrine then and wrong living were rampant in Ephesus.  Tragically much of the leadership in the drift had come from pastors and elders, two of whom Paul himself put out of the church by name, Hymenaeus and Alexander, as chapter 1 verse 20 says.  

     But Paul left Timothy there needing to go on to Greece and said, "Timothy, I want you to set everything else in order and I want you to have an excellent and effective ministry here and on the basis of that, here are the ingredients necessary in your life."  And so, from verse 6 through 16, he clearly outlines what are to be the qualities of ministry characteristic of Timothy. 

     The congregation at Ephesus would demand the very best.  It had already been infested by the wasps of demonic doctrine and unholy living who were stinging the people with very very tragic effect.  It was in danger of losing its testimony, along with its theology and character.  The task called for the very finest kind of spiritual leadership.  And Timothy, of course, had to be the focal point of that.  And so the specifics of the excellence of ministry which Paul demands of Timothy become very instructive to us.  In fact, I would venture to say that though this was written from Paul to Timothy, what he says here in the main is normative for anyone who leads in the church. 

      Today in our churches, whether willfully or by neglect, we have seen the loss of commitment in the very areas to which Paul speaks.  The prostitution of the role of pastor has taken place before our very eyes in so many many cases and has led to the death of power.  And really, the restoration of power and impact in the church is dependent upon the excellence of those who lead the church.  And so, what Paul says here should pierce our hearts as well as it must have pierced the heart of Timothy. 

     Let's look to the text then and follow the list of excellent qualities of a minister of Christ.  Number one, an excellent minister warns his people of error.  Verse 6 says, "If you put the brothers in remembrance, or if you remind them, or if you‑‑ present tense‑‑continually lay before them these things, you will be a noble minister, an excellent minister of Christ."   

     "These things" has reference to verses 1 to 5 in which Paul has explictly identified false doctrine as demon teaching, coming from seducing spirits through lying hypocrites who have already done radical acts of apostasy to the extent that their own consciences are insensitive.  And he says if you want to be a good minister of Jesus Christ, you must be continually laying before your people the danger of error. 

     For three years night and day he had done that in Ephesus.  He says that in Acts 20.  But he also knew that after his departure, grievous wolves would come in and perverse men would rise from within the church and do everything they could to lead them astray.  And he was indeed a prophet.  It is essential that the man of God who would serve with excellence be continually reminding his people of the imminent reality of encroaching error.  And that people know that many who appear to be godly, religious, good, pious, pure, devout leaders of the church or religion may be nothing more than masked men and behind the mask is a seducing spirit.   

     The real culprit is not a seminary professor who teaches heresy.  The real culprit is not a liberal minister.  The real culprit is a seducing spirit who has found a willing vessel in a hypocritical lie speaker, as the terminology of verse 2 indicates, who will speak the teaching of demons whether wittingly or unwittingly. 

     And any minister who will serve with excellence must have a warning ministry.  He must be able to understand, to warn his people against error. 

     Secondly, in verse 6 we find that Paul says if you are to serve with excellence you must be an expert student of Scripture.  At the end of verse 6, he says, "Nourished up...or literally, being continually nourished up...in the words of the faith and of the good teaching which you have closely followed," is perhaps a better rendering.  You have a great foundation, you've closely followed the proper teaching.  You've closely followed the Word of God.  Now you must be continually begin nourished up in those words of the faith and the good teaching. 

     The "words of the faith" refers to Scripture.  The "good teaching" refers to that which Scripture affirms.  Or that which Scripture teaches.  You are to be an expert in the Word of God, continually in the process of feeding yourself, continually in the process of nurturing your own soul on the words of Scripture and good teaching.  You had a great beginning.  Lois and Eunice, your mother and grandmother, wonderful people who knew God and taught you the scriptures.  The opportunity to be a part of the church in Galatia, the opportunity to be discipled by the Apostle Paul, the opportunity to be influenced by other godly elders who even laid their hands on you at your ordination, all of these influences, Timothy, bring to bear upon you a very great heritage.  You have already laid the foundation, now build on it with a constant nurturing in the Word of God. 

     A great Bible teacher of the last generation, Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, said, "If I had only three years to serve the Lord, I would spend two of them studying."  It's a great statement.  The man understood the impact of a ministry that is deep and rich in the Word of God.

      And if it is true of every believer that they are to allow the Word of Christ to dwell in them richly, how much more true is it of the one who stands in the place of teaching that truth?  Yes, the love of truth is basic to ministry.  And somehow some way and for some reasons, that has in many cases been set aside in ministries today.  Perhaps we need to refresh ourselves with what went on say 300 years ago or so.   

     If you were being ordained into the ministry in 1662 in England, this is what you would have heard, this is part of the exhortation given to every ministerial candidate, and I'm quoting:  "Seeing that you cannot by any other means compass the doing of so weighty a work pertaining to the salvation of man but with doctrine and exhortation taken out of the holy scriptures, and with a life agreeable to the same, consider how studious you ought to be in reading and learning the scriptures.  We have good hope that you have well weighed and pondered these things with yourselves long before this time and that you have clearly determined by God's grace to give yourselves wholly to this office where unto it has pleased God to call you.  So that as much as lieth in you, you will apply yourselves wholly to this one thing and draw all your cares and studies this way and that you will continually pray to God the Father by the mediation of our only Savior Jesus Christ for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost, that by daily reading and weighing of the scriptures, you may wax riper and stronger in your ministry," end quote. 

     To be an expert student of Scripture certainly puts us in a position to warn people of error, as well as to affirm truth.  

     Thirdly, in the qualities of an excellent minister, we find that an excellent minister avoids the influence of unholy teaching, verse 7, "Refuse," he says, is a very strong word...much stronger than the word "refuse" in the English can convey.  "Refuse profane," and that word simply means a radical separation from what is holy.  It means unholy.  "Refuse unholy and old women's tales."  You probably could put "old women's tales" in quotes because it was a somewhat familiar epithet at the time in which Paul wrote.  It was a sarcastic reference in philosophical circles to some idea or concept that was infantile, ridiculous, incredulous or stupid.  They would say, "That's an old wives' tale."   

     And what he is saying here is stay away from anything that is unholy and stay away from spending your time on anything that is silly, stupid, incredulous or a fantasy.  Don't let your mind, that precious thing you possess, be cluttered with things, as chapter 1 verse 4 says, that only minister questions and do not edify.  Guard your mind.  Philippians 4:8, "Think on these things, set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth, let the controlling factor in your life be the Word of Christ dwelling there richly."  Be biblically dominated in your thinking and do not allow that which is error and unholy error to intrude upon the precious territory that must be reserved to occupy the Word of God.  Things that confuse, things that produce questions have a way of sucking out our confidence, sucking out our courage, sucking out our conviction and watering down our message. 

     Fourthly, Paul says an excellent minister is disciplined in personal godliness, or holiness...disciplined in personal holiness.  Verse 7 says, "And exercise yourself unto godliness."  The word "exercise" comes from a Greek word gumnazo which we get gymnasium from, gymnastics.  It means training, disciplined training.  They were into athletics, the Parthian games, the Isthmian games, the Corinthian games, the Olympic games.  And the physical bodies were of great concern to them and participation in athletics was of great concern to them.  They were into the body quite extensively.  Many of them philosophically were into that.  Others were into it because the culture was.  There was in that time, like there is today, a great tendency to be preoccupied with physical fitness to the rejection and sadly the dissipation of the spiritual part.  And so the Apostle says if you're going to exercise, if you're going to train yourself, train yourself to be godly.  And that word "godliness" is a major key word in the pastoral epistles.  We have looked at it in the past as we've worked our way through 1 Timothy. 

     The mainspring of ministry, the heart of it all is the virtue of life...the virtue of life.  I was sitting here and I said to Dewey Bertalini(?), I said, "Isn't it sad that so many churches call a man on the basis of personality rather than virtue when the power is not in personality, the power is in virtue?"  If you're going to train yourself for something, train yourself for holiness because if you seek to stand in the place of spiritual leadership and lead other people to godliness, it is necessary that you be there, as well.  When one is less than godly and seeks to lead other people to godliness, he is described by Spurgeon in these words, "He is a blind man elected to the professorship of optics, philosophizing on light and vision while he himself is absolutely in the dark.  He is a dumb man elevated to the chair of music.  He is a deaf man fluent on symphonies and harmonies.  He is a mole, professing to educate eagles.  A snail elected to preside over angels.  An impossible contradictory task. 

     "It is better to abolish the pulpit," said Spurgeon, "than to fill it with men who have no experimental knowledge of what they're teaching because the hand that means to make another clean must not itself be dirty."   

     And so, the pulse...the pulse of vital godliness has to be strongly and regularly in the life of one who is an excellent minister.  Spurgeon also said, "I question, gravely question, whether a man who has grossly sinned should be very readily restored to the pulpit.  Open immorality in most cases, however deep the repentance, is a fatal sign that ministarial graces were not in the man's character," end quote.  The life of godliness is the priority.  And if it is the priority then it is that to which we must train ourselves. 

      And in order for us to understand by contrast what he has in mind, he says this in verse 8, "For bodily exercise," which was the big pursuit then as it is now, "profits a little."  A little what?  A little time and a little effect...it produces a little effect only for time, that's all.  You get a little benefit for a little time.  "But godliness is profitable unto all things because it contains the promise of the life that now is‑‑that's time‑‑and that which is to come‑‑that's what?, eternity."  So why would you spend yourself exercising for a little effect for a little time when you can spend yourself exercising for something that brings eternal benefit?   

     In fact, this is so obvious, this is so patently obvious, this is so clear, this is so axiomatic that it became, as verse 9 says, a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance.  Which is a statement used five times in the pastoral epistles, each time to refer to a common saying known to the church.  Everybody knew this and this was common understanding and perhaps a common saying.  Bodily exercise profits a little, godliness profits unto all things because it not only deals with the life that now is, but the promise of the life which is to come.  An excellent minister disciplines himself to holiness. 

     Number five, an excellent minister works hard‑‑and this is vital‑‑in view of eternity.  He works hard in view of eternity.  Look at verse 10.  "For to this end," the Greek says, "for to this end," here's our purpose...what end?...eternal life mentioned back in verse 8..."For to this end," that is the life which is to come, that's the antecedent of that, "because of the life which is to come, we work to exhaustion and we agonize and struggle."  We give everything we have because we understand the eternality of the consequence of our effort.  Why?  "Because we trust in the living God, not a dead idol." 

     The eternally living God is implied.  We are serving an eternally living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe.  He is saying we work because we understand the life which is to come.  We work because we understand we have a living God that lives eternally.  There is an eternal heaven.  And there is an eternal hell.  And awareness and knowledge of those places compels us to a maximum effort.  We work to exhaustion.  We struggle, agonizomai, we lose sleep, we forfeit pleasure, we experience loneliness, we experience weakness, deprivation, whatever.  Whatever goes with the task in view of eternity is a small price to pay.  Paul put it this way, what...why do we worry about what we suffer in this life when we can see ahead the things that are to come?  No suffering in this life is worthy to be...what?...compared with the glory which shall be revealed in the future. 

     So we live in the hope of eternity because we serve a living God who is able to give life now and give life forever.  And has proven it because He is the Savior of all men, and especially of those that believe.  What does that phrase mean?  In what sense is God the Savior of all men?  Well, in some sense very much like He is the Savior of those that believe, that's demanded by the adverb malista, it demands that all men enjoy to some degree the same kind of saving that believers enjoy.  Well, in what sense is God the Savior of all men and also the Savior of believers?  And the answer is that He is the deliverer, He is the deliverer.  Not in a redemptive sense, but in the sense of a temporal deliverance. 

     Put it this way.  Every sinner deserves instant death.  Every sinner deserves constant pain.  And every sinner deserves permanent deprivation.  Instant death, constant pain and permanent deprivation because of sin...the wages of sin is death.  There's in us no good thing.  We all deserve hell.  We deserve it instantly.  We deserve pain and we deserve it constantly.  We deserve to be separated from God and deprived of His blessing forever and ever.  We all deserve it...we all deserve it immediately.   

     But God delivers men from that in common grace generally because of God's goodness and His tender mercy.  God saves the world from instantaneous wrath, constant pain and permanent deprivation.  And God allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.  God brings into the life of unregenerate sinners love and joy, in romance, in the birth of a child, in the warmth of a family.  He brings into their life the wonder of beauty, the joy of human experience, the thrill of all that life can bring to bear of good things.  He delivers them from a just judgment by His grace.  The unregenerate in the world are then delivered, they are spared, they are saved from death in the sense that they don't instantly die.  It comes inevitably but there is a time in which God delivers them from that.  In the same sense that He was the Savior of the whole nation Israel, delivering them out of Egypt, yet was pleased with only a few of them. That is He was the deliverer of all of them but the true Savior in the salvation sense of only a few of them, so He is the deliverer of all men in a temporal sense but especially is He the deliverer of those who believe in Him in a spiritual sense. 

     And so what Paul is saying is we know God to be the eternal God and we know that He will be able to deliver and to save those who believe in Him eternally because we have seen His ability to save temporally.  The same God who is gracious and merciful on a wide scale in time gives evidence of being a God who will save on a narrow scale His own in eternity.  In that sense, He is the Savior of all, especially of those that believe.  That's why we work hard.  Because our God is alive and because the consequence of our ministry is eternal.  He has the power to save eternally.  We have seen it manifest temporally. 

     And so, we then work hard.  And I think we have to get a grip on the fact that that's how it is in the ministry.  I like what Adam Clark said, he said, "Kill yourselves with work and then pray yourselves alive again."   

     Charles Haden(?) Spurgeon wrote in 1876, "If you have any message to give...rather, if I have any message to give from my own bed of sickness, it would this, if you do not wish to be full of regrets when you are obliged to lie still, work while you can.  If you desire to make a sickbed as soft as it can be, do not stuff it with the mournful reflection that you wasted time while you were in health.  People said to me years ago, you will break your constitution down with preaching ten times a week and the like.  Well, if I have done so, I'm glad of it.  I would do the same again.  If I had 50 constitutions, I would rejoice to break them all down in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.  You young men that are strong, overcome the wicked one and fight for the Lord while you can.  You'll never regret having done all that lies in you for our blessed Lord and Master.  Crowd as much as you can into every day and postpone no work till tomorrow.  Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."  Good advice. 

     Richard Baxter gave us that great line in his poem, Love Breathing Thanks and Praise, when he said, "I preached as never sure to preach again as a dying man to dying men."   

     It's a matter of effort.  He works hard, the excellent minister. 

     Number six, an excellent minister teaches with authority.  Verse 11 says, "These things command and teach."  We teach in a command mode.  We teach in a confrontive way.  We teach in a demanding way, a commanding way.  We are not called to some chit‑ chat behind the microphone.  We are not called to stroke people to make them feel good about themselves no matter how bad they are.  We are not to be vaccilating, passive, non‑confrontive, but we are to move in the power of sovereign authority out of the Word of the living God.  "And we are to teach all men to observe whatsoever I have commanded you," Jesus said.  We are always in a command mode.  That's the great commission, Matthew 28:20.  We are to teach in the church, not to get the applause of men, said Richard Baxter, but to set in motion the groan and the tears of the hearers are our praises.   

     It's not always popular.  It's not always popular to be confrontive.  Not always