Sermon Tone Analysis

*12 Marks of Excellent Pastoral Ministry*

*1 Timothy 4:6-16*

\\ \\ \\ In endeavoring to say a word of challenge to the men tonight and also to all of you who are here to give you a perspective of what lies before them and to put you in a position of accountability to hold them to it, I am drawn to a passage, not far away from one read earlier in the same neighborhood.

1 Timothy 4, and it seems to me that in this text from verses 6 to 16, there is a wonderful summary of what ministries should look like.

These are not things that the men do not know.

They are things they know very well.

They are certainly truths that most of you know very well.

But they seem to be rarely displayed today.

In fact, as I was thinking through this text, I was drawn to the fact that there are basically twelve things that the apostle Paul says to Timothy, twelve things, twelve essential features or elements of effective ministry.

And so, I thought this is kind of a twelve step program.

This would rival AA and all other twelve step programs which are very popular today.

Such programs have been developed for all kinds of human malfunctions and become very popular in the world and even very popular in the church.

In many churches you can find a plethora of twelve step programs.

But in many churches, the one who really  needs a twelve step recovery program is the pastor because he has lost sight of what he should be doing and become addicted to marketing cultural relevance, politics, social reform and other substitutes for the real thing.

So this is a twelve step recovery program for pastors that we hope none of you will ever have to enter because you'll never be in a position to defect from it.

The key phrase in 1 Timothy 4:6 is the phrase, "You will be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

You will be a good servant."

Diacanas - a good minister.

Good - callas.

And noble, admirable, excellent minister of Christ Jesus.

Timothy is not like the diacanas in chapter 3.

He is rather a pastor, which is also a form of service and a form of ministry, but different from a servant in the church who serves under the elders.

He has one of the elders serves in a unique way.

He is an apostolic delegate under Paul but still a servant as we all are - as Paul himself was a diacanas and even referred to himself as a doulas, a bond slave.

Both letters written to Timothy are concerned with how to behave in the church and that involves how to understand pastoral ministry which gives direction to every other kind of behavior in the church.

Paul's instruction here is not just for Timothy.

It is normative.

It is normative.

And what he says to Timothy is what the spirit of God wants said to all of us who minister.

The passage, starting in verse 6 and running down to the end of the chapter, provides a rich summary of all of the apostles inspired instruction for those who serve the church as ministers, as pastors.

And it all begins with the statement, a noble minister, an excellent minister, a good servant of Christ Jesus.

How do you define such a man?

What is it that marks that man?

Well, here are the twelve steps.

They are, for the most part, commands.

Number one, and excellent minister warns his people of error.

In verse 6, we read, "In pointing out these things to the brethren," the Greek verb means to remind, literally to place under, to lay down, in the middle voice to bring to attention, but to remind.

"In reminding the brethren of these things, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus."

Of what things?

What has gone before that in the later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons propagated by hypocritical liars who are unconscionable in their deception, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

Seems a minor detail, but any defection from what God allows and blesses is not minor.

When you point out error, you are a noble servant of Jesus Christ.

This goes back even to the beginning of this epistle.

I urge you, in verse 3, to remain on an emphasis in order that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines nor pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration or stewardship of God, which is by faith.

Some men have strayed from these things.

Turned aside to fruitless discussions, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

We must instruct men not to teach strange doctrines.

In verse 18 he commands Timothy again, he commands him to keep the faith, fight the good fight of faith, maintain a good conscience.

And if you hold on to the faith, you will be different than those who have rejected it and suffered shipwreck such as Hymenaeus and Alexander who've been delivered to Satan to learn not to blaspheme.

And so it goes, we get the same kind of direction in Titus.

We get the same kind of direction in the sixth chapter of 1 Timothy.

We get it all through 2 Timothy.

We hear it in 2 John, 3 John, Jude.

WE hear it in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.  The noble minister of Jesus Christ warns his people of error.

He understands the devastating potential of lies.

The second thing that the apostle Paul points to and in the same verse, verse 6, is that an excellent minister is a faithful student of scripture.

He says in verse 6, "The good servant of Jesus Christ constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following."

Constantly  nourished, a continual process awaits you men.

A continual process of self-feeding on the Word of God.

The words of the faith, I believe, refers to scripture.

And the sound doctrine refers to that which scripture affirms, the propositions that come from scripture.

We believe the scripture to be the word of God when accurately interpreted and when represented in propositions that are statements of fact.

You will spend your whole life mastering one book - one book, the only book that God has inspired in which he has places all of his truth.

The Bible becomes the sole content of your ministry, the sole theme of your preaching and it must saturate your mind and your soul.

You make a radical commitment to the Bible and to Bible study and to ____ Jesus.

That is being lost rapidly today in ministry.

Talking recently to people at Thomas Nelson Publishing, they were telling me that Bible sales are going down.

At the same time that supposedly 85 percent of Americans say they are evangelical Christians, Bible sales are diminishing.

And according to exit polls, 50 percent of the people who go to a Christian bookstore to buy a Bible, leave without one.

They aren't really sure just  how important it is.

For may of them, the only Bible they ever see is a verse, usually taken out of context, and slapped on a PowerPoint screen.

Many of them sit in an auditorium where it's too dark to read a Bible if they had one.

And if they had one, they would wonder why.

The Bible is, to many people who call themselves Christians, a book like a lot of other books, with some good suggestions about how to live your life that can be manipulated and twisted a dozen different ways to make them meaningful to you.

And so the publishers are saying, if we're gonna sell Bibles, we're gonna have to appeal to felt need rather than the revelation of God.

We can't any longer talk about this is God's revealed truth.

We can't any longer talk about this is inspired by God.

This is the word from heaven.

We can't do that.

We have to call the Bible, not the Word of God, but a message that will fix you.

We have to sell Bibles and they presented a full video presentation.

Are you lonely?

Are you unfulfilled?

Are you happy?

Here's a book that can change all that.

A man-centered approach to selling Bibles.

And, in fact, I was warned that a study Bible is an anachronism because people today don't even connect the two words "study" and "Bible".

But we understand what we are called to do.

We are to saturate ourselves with the teaching of scripture, the content, the words of the faith and the dedoscalia, that which scripture affirms propositionally.

I think of William Tyndale, one of my heroes, in prison shortly before being martyred, 1536, wrote the Governor in Chief asking for some consideration because he was suffering so greatly in prison.

This is what he asked for.

"Please sir, Send me a warmer cap, a candle, a piece of cloth to patch my leggings, but above all I beseech and entreat your clemency to be urgent with the procurer that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible - my Hebrew grammar, my Hebrew dictionary that I may spend time with them in study."

A man lost when he was separated from the word of God, faithful pastor, warns his people of error, is expert in handling scripture.

Thirdly, an excellent minister avoids the influence of unholy teaching.

In verse 7 he says have nothing to do with worldly fables stead only for old women.

Have nothing to do with them.

Peritaomi - refuse them, very strong, to excuse yourself, to decline, to avoid, to shun is the very word used back in chapter 1, profane, radically separate from what is holy.

The word is exactly that - non-sacred, unhallowed, profane muthas, myths, fables, the opposite of truth, refused.

Excuse yourself from it's environment.

Decline receiving it.