19) The Centrality of God's Word
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today is the last weekend of 2024. Another year has gone by and as it comes to an end it is common for us to reflect on the previous years and turn to what lies ahead of us for the next year. Businesses do this at the end of the years. They will tally us the margins and the profit and make projections and goals for the next 12 months.
Starting next week the lines at the gym will get longer and the parking lots will be packed as people prioritize their health. At least for a couple of months. People will look to get rid of bad habits and attempt to put on new ones.
Many look back and see what was accomplished and are motivated to add to the next year. Others look back and almost feel defeated by another year that has slipped away. Goals and plans unfulfilled and almost look forward to more disappointment.
It is something that we tend to do every year for many different reasons. for good or bad it is a mindset that has become normal for us.
We have spent time this month during the advent season to slow down and focus on Jesus. To help us draw our minds to him as we traverse through the holiday season. We turn from the celebration and remembrance of Jesus’ birth to looking forward to the celebration and remembrance of his resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Before we took a break for Advent we have been teaching through the book of 1 Timothy. I find it fitting that for the next couple of months we will finish this letter that will primarily focus on areas of the church in Ephesus that needed direction and correction. Areas that are still relevant to us today. Areas that people tend to drift from being proper in church.
If we turn back to 1 Timothy 3:15 we recall why Paul wrote this letter.
15 But if I should be delayed, I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
As the church, us, the gathering of believers is the pillar and foundation of the truth. The truth that has been entrusted to us to share with the world, we work through areas that can get in the way of holding onto the truth, sharing the truth and living out the truth.
If you would like to turn with me to 1 Timothy 4:13 I will read our scripture for this morning. Scriptures that really give great direction for us today. As we look out into next year we can hold onto the encouragement and instruction that Paul gives to Timothy.
13 Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching. 14 Don’t neglect the gift that is in you; it was given to you through prophecy, with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. 15 Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all. 16 Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Paul has just written to Timothy about multiple areas of his life that he it to be an example for the church. And now he speaks to what he must do and the result of that.
Devote Yourself to the Word
Devote Yourself to the Word
It is very clear that Paul is expecting his young friend to lead as he was called to lead. To do the work that he has been charged to do and so he gives Timothy the practical foundation of his ministry to the church. He tells Timothy what he must do personally as a Good Servant of Christ.
The first is he must devote himself to the sharing of God’s holy Word.
13 Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching.
Give your attention. This is more than just wake up and pay attention, this is to give his full attention to these things. As the primary leader of this church, he was to devote himself to preaching the word of God. In 2nd Timothy he gives the charge directly.
1 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: 2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching.
Preach the word was Paul’s command to Timothy. To be a good servant and to fight the fight well, he was going to have to preach it and it alone. Why? Because it is the power of the word that changes a person. Faith saves a person when they believe in the gospel of Jesus, and the word continues a work in a person through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The goal of a shepherd is to have a healthy flock and here the goal of a pastor is to help God’s flock grow and mature.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The food he is to feed the sheep is the word of God. His truth. He is to preach the word and he breaks it down into three parts of preaching. He is to lead the church with preaching that includes public reading, exhortation and teaching of the word.
Public Reading
Public Reading
The early church maintained some of the practices of the Jewish synagogues. As they would gather each week there would be a time of reading of the scriptures. This would have originally been the old testament but would eventually include the letters of the apostles as they became regarded as scripture as well.
15 Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. 16 He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.
Public reading of scripture is seen throughout the old testament. We see Moses command them to gather the people and to read the scriptures.
10 Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of debt cancellation, during the Festival of Shelters, 11 when all Israel assembles in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he chooses, you are to read this law aloud before all Israel. 12 Gather the people—men, women, dependents, and the resident aliens within your city gates—so that they may listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and be careful to follow all the words of this law. 13 Then their children who do not know the law will listen and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
There are other times and moments that the people would gather to have the Law read to them and explained. It would eventually come to be one of the practices in the the synagogues each week.
16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.
There were not copies and copies of bibles laying around homes so there was a need to continue to bring the word before the people so that they can be grounded in the word. There would also be a time of explanation and instruction on anything that needed to be clarified for the people.
Literacy was an issue for many in bible times. Written scrolls and bibles were not available so they relied on spoken words, hymns, and spiritual song. We may scoff at all of the songs taught in Sunday School classes to little kids but for them this was how you were taught the scriptures. So the practice continued into the early church as the average person would not have access to or the ability to read the scripture.
Today we have the word available in many different forms but we are so far removed from their culture, location, time, and other factors that, even though we have the word at our finger tips, we still need much of it to be explained and clarified for us.
We might even say we are nearly completely literate in words and shamefully illiterate in His Word. We are in a time when there is no excuse for knowing what the bible says. Not even getting to the point of understanding it but just knowing what is contained in the Holy Word of God. Literacy is at its highest.
68% of Americans consider themselves Christians. But only 4% have a biblical world view......
The younger a person, the less likely they are to be an Integrated Disciple (i.e, have a biblical worldview). Among adults under 30, just 1% have a biblical worldview. The incidence rises to 3% among people in their 30s and 40s; 5% among those ages 50 to 64; and peaks at 8% among adults 65-plus.
Let this sink in. 45 million people / 234.4 Million Professed Christians / 9.3 Million base their view of the world on the bible.
Public reading of scripture has dwindled over the years. It used to be common for large portions of a worship service to be public reading of scripture. With that going away it affects the next one. Along with public reading and explanation comes exhortation. What do you exhort if you are not reading scripture. Philosophy and the thoughts of man.
Exhortation
Exhortation
Many of the letters written in the New Testament will have in them or end with an exhortation. The author of Hebrews claims the entire letter is an exhortation.
22 Brothers and sisters, I urge you to receive this message of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.
They would emphatically urge the church to apply what was taught to their own lives. This could be an encouragement to continue down the right path or a warning to turn from the wrong path. It is intended to engage that part of the person that affirms the correct way to live and condemns the person when they live in error. The conscience of a person. It sets the word of God before the person and shines it into their lives so that they must interact with their own convictions.
Teaching
Teaching
Timothy was to devote himself to the public reading and explanation of the word, exhortation urging them to follow the word, and the task of teaching the word. Explaining the word’s of God to people.
This likely encompasses the range from the public (sermon) to the personal (discipleship). It referring to the task of helping Christians learn what the text is saying. It is the continuing work of the great commission.
19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The church is to make disciples, baptise them and then teach them to obey everything that Jesus commanded them. Did anyone here on the moment of their salvation come to know everything that God wanted in your life and then lived it out? No, when we come to confess Jesus as lord and savior our journey just begins and many times we need others who have been given the task to teach to help us to live out our lives in obedience to God’s commands.
Timothy is to devote himself to the passing on of sound doctrine and application of that doctrine to others. So that they can pass it on to others as well.
The gift of teaching may have been part of the encouragement that Paul gives him in the next verse.
14 Don’t neglect the gift that is in you; it was given to you through prophecy, with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.
Paul will encourage him to use his gift in his second letter as well.
6 Therefore, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands.
We do not have a record of the gift or of the event that Paul is speaking of but it can be assumed that his gifting has to do with the leading of this church and the encouragement that he is receiving. He is reminded that this group of men called here the council of elders affirmed his gifting by the laying on of hands.
As for the prophesy, in the early church there were times where God would specifically set apart men for specific works, like what we see in acts.
2 As they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off.
The specifics of Timothy’s gift, prophecy, and the laying on of hands is not clearly defined but the point that Paul is making is that he is to remember that he have been called to this work which includes all of the instruction that he has been giving him.
Jesus was an example himself of public reading of scripture. He would routinely go to the synagogues and read. We see him quote scripture in his time with people as he went along in his ministry. He exhorted people to follow the scriptures. He would teach what they ment as well.
Practice the Word
Practice the Word
Though Timothy was to pay attention to these in his life he was not perfect in them.
15 Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all.
Though Paul commands him to stand before the church and to read scripture, exhort, and teach. He is to be a man who is also growing from the truth he reads in the word, the encouragement and correction in the word, and the knowledge of God’s will in the word. He is to be an example of one who is growing and changing as he himself is engaged in the word himself.
There is no perfect Christ follower in scripture. The only perfect man is Jesus himself. But there is a call for men and women to be pursuing Jesus and making progress. Paul would write to the Philippian Church.
12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
To progress is to go from one place to another. It was used to describe and advancing army, or the growing of knowledge and in other ways to describe something moving forward. Timothy was to be a man that was moving forward. Advancing in his walk. Making progress that could be seen by the church and the people around him.
He would need to be an example like the author of Hebrews point too.
7 Remember your leaders who have spoken God’s word to you. As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith.
This means that church leaders and pastors should never be expected to be perfect but they must be growing and changing as a result of their practice and commitment. A church cannot hire or find a perfect pastor. What the church should look for is a pastor that meets the qualifications of scripture today and has a reputation and testimony of growing in his maturity and walk.
This is one of the great dangers of quick sermon guides, sermon kits, of sermon writers, and now of AI generated sermons.
I went online this week and I found places where I can buy sermons, illustrations, outlines, packaged media all with a promise to expedite the sermon preparation process.
On one page I found that for $15-150/hour I can hire one of 27 freelance ghost writes to write my sermons for me.
AI brings an interesting dynamic to Pastoral Ministry. Currently 89% of pastors are comfortable with using AI for church related activities. To be honest I have not really jumped into AI for much of anything whether at work, home, or church. So I am not trying to be biased here and I do believe their is potential benefit from AI.
But what concerns me is that already 43% of pastors are comfortable with using AI in preparation of their sermons. Though AI may pull from some of the great sermon writers of all time and could fast track great references, there is a very slippery slope to letting the software do the work for you.
What was even more concerning was that already 12% of pastors are comfortable with AI generated sermons.
How do you practice these things and have them change you when all you are doing is allowing others to provide a manuscript for you to memorize and deliver. The pastor position becomes a hired orator and speaker. Can I say an actor? Is a pastor that has some one or something write their sermons any more a pastor as an actor is a superhero in a movie?
What if I was on a sports team and the coach told me to go and practice but I sat on the bench and sent out hired guns to do the work for me?
Practice. That word hits me very personally in my path to being a pastor. I have never been good at English or speaking. I believe God made me an engineer from birth. I was so bad at reading in high school that in order to stay up with the reading my wonderful girl friend (who you would know as Tricia) would read me books like Hamlet and the Odyssey because she could read them faster out loud than I could myself.
I have never taken an English or writing class that wasn’t required. I actually found a way to get through 6 years of collage at WSU without ever taking an English class. I like math, it makes sense to me, I excel at it naturally.
What I did not know is that God would use my first job out of collage to prepared me to study and write. My first boss was adamant that an engineer who cannot communicate was pretty much useless. He believed that one of the greatest skills I could grow in was technical writing. That was what I was hired to do. So I wrote and he corrected. I do not know how many red pens he went through but I kept writing and he kept correcting. For 20 years I have been practicing and growing.
I typed with two fingers, having never taken a key boarding class. So I practice.
My greatest fear was public speaking and many times my nerves get the best of me but I practice.
God took everything I though was useless and a waste of time, uncomfortable, and forced me to practice.
Paul is not talking about the technical things like writing and speaking but the principle is the same. Except he is speaking of the practice of being in the word and growing in it. He is to be committed to them for the long haul. Not on and off. Not just for his early ministry but his entire life.
You may not have seen my growth, but my high school English teacher does, my wife who used to read me books does, and my first boss does.
The church should see evidence of the growth over time of their leaders. This means that there is recognition that there is room to grow and also accountability for growth. This progress takes time and openness between the leaders and the church.
Paul concludes this section with the following summary.
Endure in the Word
Endure in the Word
16 Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Every challenge and encouragement that Paul has made to Timothy is summed up in these two areas; his life and his teaching. This is what he is to paying attention to. To open God’s word and to use it as a magnifying glass, mirror, and a light to reveal the areas of his life that must change and endure.
He must persevere or continue and persist in them. This must be a way of life for his own life and the lives of his hearers depends on it.
Timothy is not the one who does the saving, that is the work of God and God alone but he is to be a minister and agent that God uses to save people to the end.
By being faithful to the word, a pastor/elder will not only continue to hold fast to his salvation but will also give the church what it needs for those who hear the message to be edified and grow into mature believers.
11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.
Enduring to the end is a mark of a true believer.
14 For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Paul’s encouragement to Timothy is firmly centered on the word of God. Words breathed out by God himself. He encourages him in his life and in his ministry to to devote himself to God’s word. To practice and commit to God’s word and to Endure to the end, paying attention to the effect of God’s word in his life.
Many are not and will not be called or qualified to be an elder in the church like Timothy. But Paul’s instruction here applies to us all. We are to have the word of God placed in the center of our lives as well.
We are to devote our lives to it. It should direct our thoughts and our actions. It needs to be central in our homes. This can feel like a daunting task but start by just reading scripture out loud to your family at different times throughout the week. Then encourage your children and each other to follow it. To hear from it and to respond to it. Eventually you will come to understand the scriptures as you learn from bible teachers and each other. What you have learned teach it it to each other.
Read Deut 6:1-6 this week. See how scripture is to be a common part of our lives.
Lean how to practice. Just like an athlete, put in the time and energy it takes to train in righteousness. Do you practice these things? Are you commited to them?
Pay attention to your life and your teaching. The reality is that we are all teaching all the time. We teach what we believe by how we live, what we say, what is important in our lives. We teach by how we spend our time and our money. Pay attention to your life and your teaching.
As you look to 2025. My encouragement is to make small continuous steps forward in these areas. Commit to be under sound bible teaching, commit to be a reader and proclaimer of the word. Commit to live it out in your life.
We need to come to see our need for his word and come to see it as our delight.
And as David says in Psalm 119
Psalm 119:16 “16 I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”
Psalm 119:24 “24 your decrees are my delight and my counselors.”
Psalm 119:35 “35 Help me stay on the path of your commands, for I take pleasure in it.”
Psalm 119:47 “47 I delight in your commands, which I love.”
Psalm 119:77 “77 May your compassion come to me so that I may live, for your instruction is my delight.”
Let us Delight in God’s word. It is not a burden or a chore. It is a blessing to those who read it and are effected by it.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Communion
Warning
Children, Lost, Sin
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Prayer
Song
Closing
Blessing/Benediction
Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice.
