Making Ministry Personal

INTRODUCTION:

Context:

It is good to come back to our series through 1 Timothy this evening. It has been a month since Pastor Aaron took us through the first part of chapter 4 of this letter. You may recall that the Apostle Paul left young Timothy in the city of Ephesus to deal with some issues facing the church; issues that were causing the church to lose the focus of its ministry.

At the core of the problem are some false teachers peddling false teachings. We don’t know exactly what they were teaching, but we know from chapter 1 that their teaching was undermining the gospel itself. Timothy has been encouraged to stand up to these men, refuting their teaching by proclaiming the truth, correcting error with truth.

In chapter 2, Paul addressed the area of worship. For the church to have the proper focus, their prayers needed to be focused on the gospel. Furthermore, both the men and the women of the church needed to behave properly when they gathered for prayer and other aspects of worship. We were reminded in chapter 2 that what is said and done in worship is particularly important to God.

In chapter 3, since Paul was concerned about the demeanor of the people engaged in worship, he turned his attention to those who were to lead the public worship of the church. He gave Timothy characteristics that should be required of elders or pastors, and deacons. He also emphasized that the church collectively had the sacred duty to protect the message of the gospel.

As Pastor Aaron taught in August, Paul showed in the first part of chapter 4 that protecting the gospel sometimes involves standing against those apostatize or fall into heretical error. In order to have the spiritual strength do that, Timothy needed to maintain good spiritual discipline himself.

The last time we were in 1 Timothy, Pastor Aaron challenged us to take up a spiritual fitness plan. Timothy is not the only one who must maintain spiritual discipline; we must as well. Timothy was called to spiritual duties in Ephesus. You and I are called to spiritual duties in Sterling Heights.

Preview:

This evening, we are picking up on that idea, doing the work that we are called to do here in our multiethnic community of Sterling Heights. In the paragraph that we are going to look at this evening, Paul tells Timothy the things that he needs to know to effectively carry out the duties that he has been given. In fact, Paul tells Timothy very directly what he needs to know; our paragraph is full of imperatives—commands; ten of them in just six verses.

Illustration

How many of you have watched the TV show, The Greatest Loser? The Greatest Loser is a weight loss competition. Men and women compete to lose the most weight. They have personal trainers who help them. If you have seen any episodes of the show, you know that the personal trainers are very direct in their help. They will be down on the mat yelling at the contestant to do one more sit-up. They will cheer them on as they try to lift a larger amount of weight or run further on the treadmill. There is nothing passive about their encouragement. They yell and scream because they want the contestants to succeed in their weight loss and fitness goals and they yell and scream because they know that the goals are hard.

That is the picture that I get of Paul in these six verses. He is nearly screaming at Timothy to hang in there…but he is screaming in encouragement because he wants Timothy to succeed. Timothy has hard work before him; he must not give us.

Application

As I have pointed out before…Timothy is not here in Sterling Heights. Neither is the Apostle Paul. You and I are in Sterling Heights. The job of standing against apostasy, of communicating the gospel message with clarity, of ensuring orderly worship, of maintaining pure doctrine; these are now our jobs. But they are going to be hard…just like they were hard for Timothy in Ephesus. We need to hear Paul yell the same words of encouragement that he barked at Timothy so that we learn the same overall lesson: We must put out the effort required for ministry. We must put out the effort required for ministry.

Our paragraph tonight is an encouragement to put forth the effort paragraph. It isn’t really telling us details about what we must do in ministry…the rest of the letter does that. This paragraph tells us about the effort that we must put out in order to do the things that we need to do.

The way I would like to approach our passage tonight is to extract from what Paul tells Timothy the principles that will help us put the effort we need to into the ministry responsibilities that God has given us. We all have ministry duties, even if they are not exactly like the ones Timothy had. Paul tells Timothy ten things that he is to do. From those ten things, I want to extract the what, the how, and the why of our duties for us. We must put out the effort required for ministry.

Transition from introduction to body:

Let’s read our verses together so that we can begin thinking about what we need to put effort into. … <read 1 Tim 4:11–16>.

We must put out the effort required for ministry. Let’s begin by thinking about “the what” of our effort.

BODY:

I. The What

The what. From the verses that we just read, what are the things that we are to put our effort into. Verse 16 really summarizes the overall paragraph that we just read, and in that verse, we find two whats that we are to put our effort into so that we are able to do the ministry that God has called us to do.

Transition:

The first item under the what is…

A. Our life

Verse 16, “pay close attention to yourself” or “take heed” as the KJV translates it. The word that Paul uses literally means to “hold fast to yourself. The idea is to take care with your own spiritual condition. We will not minister effectively for God in any capacity if we are not holding fast to our own spiritual condition, watching out for our spiritual well-being.

Application

How are you doing with holding fast to yourself? Are you paying attention to your own spiritual life? What are you putting into your mind? Are you spending your time with things that build up your spiritual life or things that tear it down?

Illustration

A steady diet of fast food may fill your stomach every day when it starts growling, but we all know that it will not make us healthy.

Are you spending personal time in God’s word? Are you having quiet times of prayer? Do you read books about the Bible or watch shows about the Bible? You know, through the Faithlife channel that you have access to through our church’s subscription or through the Logos Bible software that you have access to through the same subscription, you have access to many resources that would build up your spiritual life. Yes, these things take effort…no doubt about it. But it is an effort that you should put forth to be strengthened for ministry.

Transition:

The first what of effort: our life. The second,…

B. Our doctrine

“Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching.” Teaching is the idea of doctrine. You need to put effort into making sure that you know the right stuff, what this book says and the implications of what it says. Doctrine. Theology.

Application

I have to admit that sometimes I am saddened when I run into people who have been Christians for a long time who I know have a good devotional life, but who remain very uninformed doctrinally. It has happened more than once. The thing that I have discovered as the common thread is that people in this mode avoid studying doctrine. They will faithfully read, The Daily Bread, each morning, but never move on to anything deeper. Let me be direct. If all you read doctrinally is The Daily Bread, then we need to rename it The Daily Crumb. One Bible verse with a sentimental devotional paragraph is not going to teach you doctrine. To learn doctrine, you need to find things that are hard to chew on at times.

Illustration

Bacon is chewy. It doesn’t go down as easy as apple sauce. But it is so worth the effort.

So is doctrine. Take the doctrinal Sunday School classes that we offer. Grab a theological book to read. Invite me out for coffee to talk doctrine; I would love it!

Transition:

We all need to work on doctrine. That is the second what item that we can extract from Paul’s commands to Timothy. Our life and our doctrine. We must put out the effort required for ministry. Do you hear Paul yelling these words of encouragement at you for your success?

Let’s move on to a second category after “the what.” I want to now look at "the how”.

II. The How

How are we to prepare ourselves so that we are ready to approach our duties.

Illustration

Think of this a bit like how a sports team prepares for games. They run drills so that they know their plays perfectly. The work on endurance so that they have the energy need.

How are we to approach our ministry duties. What effort do we need to put forth so that we are ready for ministry?

Transition:

First, we must …

A. Manage our example

Timothy’s age presented a bit of a challenge for him. He was probably in his young thirties, so many of the false teachers were likely older. In the culture of the day, respect for those older was important. How could Timothy confront them and rebuke them in their error when they were older?

Well, Paul says in v. 12 that the way to prepare himself for that duty was to show himself to be an example in all aspects of life. Living rightly before the people was something that he could do to win their respect. He was to set such a good example that any accusations against him would have no credibility. Surely Timothy was already setting a good example in “speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity,” but as things got harder and harder, Paul wanted to make sure that he continued doing so. In fact, this is part of the “take pains with these things” command of verse 15.

Application

One of the things that we need to recognize is that we live in a society that has largely lost the ideal of a good example. It is not being pursued by most of our celebrities, activists, or leaders.

Illustration

The presidential debate this past week showed that reality fully as none of the men directly involved strove to manage the example of conduct displayed. Frankly, most of the discussion following has not had a concern about the example either.

Friends, we are to be different. We are to manage our example and not allow our behavior nor our words to devolve into the type of conduct we see on frequent display in the world. Are you managing your speech, making sure that it is always edifying? Both verbal and written…even on social media? Are you managing your conduct? And so forth. We need to recognize that any lapse in the area of our example damages our ministry. Not our reputation, our ministry!

Transition:

The first how regarding putting out the effort required for ministry is to manage our example. Second, …

B. Devote ourselves to worship

Verse 13 is about one core aspect of worship that Timothy had to focus on in Ephesus—the ministry of the Word. Most of you are not responsible for making sure that they pay attention to the ministry of the Word—the reading, explaining, and applying—is a core focus of our worship service; you have rightly delegated that responsibility to me as the pastor. But, I don’t believe it is too much of a stretch to extrapolate from Timothy’s unique concern in his role to the parallel concern that you should have—devoting yourself to worship.

Application

By-the-way, the command “give attention” there in verse 13 does carry the idea of devotion. Are you devoted to worship?

Illustration

I know a lot of things that many of you are devoted to. We have sports devotees, and crafting devotees, and gaming devotees, and movie-watching devotees, and so forth among us. Most of you know that I am devoted to good cups of coffee.

Are we devoted to worship? Do we plan our weekends around worship? Do we make sure that we are here? Do we make sure that we have had had enough sleep? Do we come prepared to sing and to listen? How can we possibly point others to a love of God if our love for Him is insufficient to generate devoted worship in us?

Transition:

How to put out effort for ministry? Devote ourselves to worship. Third, …

C. Use our spiritual gifts

We see this clearly in Timothy’s case in Paul’s negative command in verse 14, “do not neglect the spiritual gift within you.” We shouldn’t take from this command that Timothy was shirking his duties at the moment. No, Paul wants to encourage him to keep going as things even when things become difficult.

Illustration

How many emotional movie plots revolve around a person with the ability to lead a team to victory becoming discouraged through several setbacks and misunderstandings. The star gets down and decides to give up. But the coach or a parent or a girlfriend, someone comes along at just the right moment and gives the pep talk needed to get the star back in the game, to not quit.

Application

Are you in the game? God has given each one of us spiritual gifts—gifts bestowed by God’s grace that enable us to minister to and through the church. All of us. God has promised that every believer has spiritual giftedness. If you are not doing something to make this church stronger in some way, to serve God through in this church, then you are not using your spiritual gift. Your gift may be such that only you and God see it being used, something like hours of prayer that you spend in private for this church. It might be something that most people never see, like phone calls you make to other church members who are struggling with discouragement. Using spiritual gifts does not necessarily mean that you are going to have a public ministry. Using spiritual gifts means that you are using the abilities that God has given you to strengthen His church.

Transition:

The third how; use our spiritual gifts. Three hows: manage our example, devote ourselves to worship, use our spiritual gifts.

We must put out the effort required for ministry. Effort. Ministry takes hard work. We have looked at the what of that effort and the how. I want to finish up tonight by considering the why.

III. The Why

Why should we put out such effort? Why should we engage in what is hard? That is a natural question to ask. We ask it all the time when it comes to things like why should I pass on the third helping of my favorite cholesterol-loaded dish or why should I set my alarm clock tomorrow morning when I really want to sleep? Why should we put out the effort required for ministry?

Transition:

As Paul wraps us this paragraph, he gives Timothy two reasons in verse 16, reasons to take pains and to be absorbed and to pay close attention and to persevere. One, …

A. Our salvation

“For as you do this—persevere in all of these commands—you will ensure salvation for yourself.”

This idea may catch us a bit by surprise. We know our doctrine well enough, I hope, so that we know that we do not save ourselves by doing anything no matter what it is. So what does Paul mean here? The idea is very similar to the idea that Paul expresses in Philippians 2:12 when he tells us there to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling” and then in the very next verse adds “for it is God who is at work in [us].” We are not to work for our salvation, but we are to work because of our salvation. And as we work because of our salvation, our work makes our salvation operational in our lives. We will have the experience of salvation, experience such as our progress in sanctification. We will come to understand our salvation more fully and we will come to appreciate it more fully.

Application

So, let me ask you; are you working for your salvation? If you treasure what God has given you, you will use it. You will display it. You will experience it.

Illustration

I mentioned earlier my love for good coffee. For those of you who don’t know, I like to roast my own coffee beans so that I can experience a really good cups of coffee. My children know this, so several times for Christmas or birthdays, they have purchased unroasted beans from me from various parts of the world. Now, wouldn’t they be disappointed if I took those beans and set them on a shelf and never roasted or drank coffee from them? They expect me to roast the beans. They enjoy hearing of my enjoyment of the various flavors…as long as I don’t drone on too long with my report. They want me to use the gift they have given me.

Our salvation is a gift that is intended to be used. In fact, one of the ways we are ensured that we have the gift is through our use of the gift as we see God work in and through us in ministry.

Transition:

Why should we put effort into ministry? The first why is our salvation. The second reason that Paul gives is …

B. Other’s salvation

Verse 16, “you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” For the past month, I specifically challenged us that there are people in our surrounding cities who do not know our Savior, but who are image-bearers of God, nonetheless. They come from various ethnicities but they all bear the same image and they all need the same salvation. Our ministry, if it is a ministry that is in focus, will bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. And that is done through our efforts. God is not going to write it in the sky above the church. We must do the hard work of letting people hear about Jesus, taking the message with our lips and our lives to them. Their eternal destiny depends on us doing the work that has been assigned to us here in this corner of the world. That is a pretty powerful why for putting out the effort required.

Application

What is leading to your exhaustion each night? What is consuming your energy? Is it the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Is it the eternal destinies of the people around you? Or are you putting out your effort into things of much less significance?

Illustration

I know I have told the story before of how God brought this truth home in my life. I was sitting in a van next to our missionary riding back from Sorocaba Brazil to Sao Paulo so that I and the rest of the group that had taken a trip down there could come back to the States. At that time, I was quite content working in the business world. Things were going well, and I liked the steady and growing paycheck it offered. Yet we had just spent the week helping build a church for people who had just learned about Jesus Christ. We had gone along into homes of people who were hopeless without Christ and into homes of people who were poor in the earthly sense but filled with joy because they had Christ. I remember being struck with the disconnect. I was about to go back to the States and help a corporation earn more money so that it could help more people pursue money hoping that such would fulfill the emptiness of life. Why was I spending my life in that way when I could spend it for ministry, for other’s salvation?

Now, I am not trying to say that you should leave your jobs like I did and enter vocational ministry…although you should consider it if God gives you similar thoughts to what He gave me that day in Brazil. What I am saying though is that all of us should be putting effort into ministry for the salvation of others. What are you doing to share Christ with others? It is insufficient to put money in the offering so that you can pay me to preach about Christ, hoping others will hear. It is insufficient to invite people to church on occasion for special events. What are you doing that requires real effort from you?

Transition from body to conclusion:

Why should we put effort into ministry? The second why is other’s salvation.

CONCLUSION

We must put out the effort required for ministry. We must put out the effort required for ministry.

Ministry is hard work. We need to know what we are to put effort into, how we are to put forth the effort, and why we are doing so. Tonight, we have seen 2 whats, 3 hows, and two whys. They collectively guide us into the effort aspect of ministry.

We must put out the effort required for ministry.