Prescribe And Teach These Things #1

This morning, we're going to be continuing on in our study of the book of 1 Timothy chapter 4. We're moving on to verses 6 through 11. We're going to spend at least two weeks in these verses, if not more. And so I want to start by asking you a question. Have you ever thought about something or had something happen in your life and your response was, I need to remember that. I'm going to need that later. Some of you guys, if you've ever worked with Daniel Meyer, you know he doesn't even try to remember things. He just pulls out these little pieces of paper, these little scraps of paper, and he writes on them. And that's his brain. That's his memory. And he gets everything that's written on those papers done at some point or another. Because he knows he's not going to remember. And so I admire him because he writes stuff down. I don't write stuff down and I end up forgetting things. But all of us have thought at some point in our lives, many times perhaps, I need to remember that. And the trouble is, unlike Daniel, because we don't write it down, we don't remember. Remembering takes work.

And we forget all kinds of things for any number of reasons in our lives. Forgetting is easy and remembering is hard. I think part of the reason that remembering is hard for some of us is that we use the word remembering in place of learning. We say, I need to remember that, but really what we mean is, I need to learn that. Have you ever had somebody show you something and they want you to remember how to do a list of things? They're not asking you to remember something. They're asking you to learn something. And learning is hard. Learning takes work. And it's a process that's never over in our lives. None of us could say, I'm done learning now. I know everything that I need to know. Have you ever heard the saying that, speaking of someone who's older and wise, they say, he's forgotten more about this than I'll ever know. So does he just have an incredible ability to remember something? No. When you hear that statement, what you're hearing is a statement about the breadth of his knowledge and his mastery. And the reason he's forgotten things is because his...

His grasp of whatever you're talking about has exceeded where you're at so far that he doesn't even remember those building blocks that you're struggling with. And so learning is a hard thing. It takes discipline. It takes time. It takes effort. And it turns out that today, in our day, learning is not a popular thing. Opinions are popular. Declarations are popular. But learning is not popular. Instead... Entertainment is what's become the norm. Our days and our lives are filled with things to fill our minds, to fill our times, to fill our whole life with. But we don't learn the way we should learn. Now, why am I bringing all of this up? Well, I'm bringing it up this morning because our text deals with our need to be instructed, our need to learn.

And as Christians, this is not just our duty, this is something that's incumbent on everybody, but it's especially important for us as Christians that we would be instructed and that we would learn, that we would not be forgetful or ignorant. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 6 through 11. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. In pointing these things out to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ, constantly nourished on the words of the faith. and of the sound doctrine which you have been following, but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness, for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance, for it is for this.

We labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Prescribe and teach these things. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated now. So you have in this passage a bit of instruction for Timothy, to him directly. Timothy's being told by Paul. Paul's pulling back the curtain a little bit and saying, here's what a good pastor does, here's what he's like. And he starts out by saying, You need to point out these things to the brethren. And you might think, well, what are these things? These things are everything that Paul's written previously in the letter. They're also what Paul describes toward the end of verse 6 as the words of the faith and sound doctrine. And so what Paul is saying to Timothy is, everything that you've learned, everything that I've taught you, everything that your mother and your grandmother have taught you about the Lord Jesus Christ, about the Savior that was to come, these are the things you need to point out to the brethren.

And so this is what we should expect when we come to church. If this is the work that Paul gives Timothy, this is what we should expect to be happening when we come to church. Right? Make sense? The goal of our time together isn't to be entertained, but to be instructed in what God says in his ways. And so when we gather together, we come to worship a holy God, one who sent his son into this world to save us from eternal destruction. He is our primary focus. Everything we do is for his glory. And you should hear when I say everything we do is for his glory, you ought to think, well, I might not want to do all of the stuff that I hear about at church. And that's the point. That's why Paul tells them you need to remind the people, the brethren, of these things. Because they're forgetful. And so when we come to church, our expectation should be that we'll interact with the word of God. That we'll sing it. That we'll read it. That we'll pray through it. That we'll study it. That we'll encourage each other with it.

Psalm 119, verse 105 says, And so the goal, Paul tells Timothy, is for you to take the truth of God and to set it before the people and to draw their attention to it and to make them consider these things that God has said, these things that God has done. Now those of you who have kids or have had kids in the past, young ones, they have a habit, and I think that it's... It's a habit in everyone's house, and it's a bad habit. And it's the habit of not listening, right? You call a child and you say, hey, Micah, come here. So Micah comes over and you say, Micah, I need you to do something. And as soon as you say that, he's starting to go to do it because he's eager to go do it. And you say, Micah, I need you to do this and do that. And by the time we get to maybe the third thing, Micah's around the corner going to do the first thing. And what's the problem with this situation? He didn't listen.

And what's the outcome going to be of his failure to listen? He's not going to do it, right? Because he's missed the instructions. He didn't want to learn. And then when I come and I say to him later, Micah, you didn't do this thing, what's he going to say? You never told me to do that. And you say, no, no, I told you to do that. So we do things at our house, and I'm sure you do these things if you don't, you might consider it, where you tell your child, come here. Look me in the eye while I talk to you. Pay attention. don't move until I tell you we're done. Because I want you to learn what I'm saying to you. I want you to remember it, right? Because our children, we can see it in them, and we go, they just can't remember things. But really what's going on with those children is they're in the process of learning how to learn. They have to sit down. They have to stop what they're doing. They have to give their attention to what's being said.

And by nature, they don't want to do that. Now, my question to you is, have we all outgrown that? You ever met adults and you look at somebody and you're like, yeah, you know Bill? And they're like, yeah, I know Bill. And you're like, you both kind of look at each other and you go, I think Bill's got ADD. Now, what are we saying about Bill? We're saying, well, Bill can't pay attention. Now, maybe Bill does have ADD. But a lot of the time, I think a lot of the trouble is that people were just never taught to stop and to pay attention and to listen.

They just kind of fly through life unaware of what's going on around them because they've not been made to learn what's set before them. And to be told, you're not going to move on until you get this part done. This is the sort of thing that happens every Sunday when we get together for church. My job is not, listen, my job is not to tell you some new thing you've never heard before, unless you've never been to church. And then it will all be new. But if you've been here, my job is not to tell you a bunch of new stuff you've never heard to do. I wouldn't be doing you a disservice if I did that. My job is to tell you the things that you have forgotten or the things that you didn't understand or the things you don't believe. That's my job. That's a pastor's job. That's what Timothy is being called to. Point these things out to the people. Why? Because they've never heard them before? No.

Have you ever thought when you're talking to somebody, I've said that to them before. Do you want to? Yes. You're a manager, you understand. I've told you how to do this, right? You never told me. And the thing you end up learning is, I have to say it again. And I have to say it again. And I have to say it again. And so, what are you going to say? Yeah. It's probably more Dan than me. It's his gift. Teasing you, Dan. But what Luis says is true. We have to be reminded over and over and over again. And then we can take hold of it, and if we don't continue to use that knowledge, we'll forget it again. I forgot how to do that. Not all of life is like riding a bike, where once you learn, you never forget. A lot of life is, if we're not constantly interacting with and putting into practice the things that we...

that we know and that we do, we will forget how to do them. This is who we are. And so Paul tells Timothy, you need to remind them, point these things out to them. Now, to go back to the example of a child, do children like being told, honey, you need to pay attention? And lo and behold, adults have the same problem. It's not the sort of trouble that we outgrow. We don't like to be told, hey, this thing. It's back in your life. It's trouble. We need instruction. We need to be reminded of the things that we already know. Because we forget them. Because we don't do them. How often do you come to church and you're in a conversation and something goes off in your head and you're going, there's a thing I need to do. I think he's talking to me and I think I need to have that conversation over here. And I probably have no idea what you're thinking. But you have that thought, I need to go do this thing.

What's the success rate? How often do you get it done? Probably much lower if you don't write it down like Daniel. We sit here and we think, I need to. Yes, that's a good thought. Yeah. And then we go away and we forget. And so here we are needing to be reminded time and time again of the same things so that we have hope of putting them into practice in our lives. This is what Paul is telling Timothy to do. Point out the people's obligations and their duties to God. Remind them. that they are not their own, that they were purchased with a price, that they need to serve God, that they need to love him. Point out his faithfulness to them. As we saw in our scripture lesson this morning, point out to them that God is faithful and that those, even in the midst of difficulty and hardship, if they sow by faith, they will reap what they've sown. And so don't give up and don't quit, even when times are hard. Remind them of that. Point it out to them. Point out their need to repent and to trust Jesus Christ.

The end of this section, Paul says simply, prescribe and teach these things. This is the pastor's manual. Tell the people the things they already know, time and again. Do it with patience. This is your job. Now what's your job? Your job is to listen. It's a hard job, isn't it? That's your job. There are times when you don't want to listen. I remember when our church first started, not to pick on Luis, but we used to go for walks. You remember the walks, Luis? Luis always knew that when, what would happen was, if I went out, we didn't have a building, I don't even think we were having worship yet. Or maybe we were, but we had one small group. Our church worshiped in the morning, had a small group, all of us got together again, had a meal. And we'd say, hey Luis, I want to talk to you, let's go for a walk, and Luis knew what that meant. And he'd grumble and he'd complain in his heart, and it'd come out the crevices of his face that he didn't want to go for a walk.

Because he knew that there would be some follow-up on some conversation that we'd had previously. Luis, did you change that? Did you fix that? Have you found a real job? Have you done... Ask Luis what he did when he met us. He wasn't who he is now. And he knew. We were just going to say the same thing to him again. It was no new thing. It was just the same thing over and over again. This is what we need. And we don't want to hear it. That's why Paul warns us that... In his second letter to Timothy in chapter 4, he says the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Remember, he says that in our passage, you're going to be constantly nourished on the words of faith and sound doctrine. But then in his next letter to Timothy, he says there's going to come a time when the people won't endure that. They won't listen to it. They will spit it out of their mouths and say, who are you to tell me that? And my answer is, or your elder's answer is, we're your pastor. We're your elder. It's our job to tell you those things.

I'm tired of you telling me the same things. And I remember Charles Spurgeon saying one time, they said, why do you preach so much about fornication and adultery? He says, well, I'll stop preaching about it and you stop doing it. That's why we talk about it all the time. And so when we come to church, our expectation should be that our pastors and our elders and the older men and women in our church and our Sunday school teachers are going to point out things to us for our good. And the way that we know that we've learned the thing they're teaching us is when we've put it into practice.

See, coming to church is not an exercise in you growing your head knowledge and you getting a bunch of more information. That's not actually the goal. The goal is that you would take the things you learn and the things you know and that you would put them into practice in your life. I have a thing that sometimes I say to people if I want to make them a little uncomfortable. I do it when you come and say, that was a good sermon, thank you, it was helpful. I've done this to some of you. Don't mind. And some of you have not told me that I've had any more good sermons. But when people come and they say, that was a good sermon. Thanks, Pastor. I never know what to say to them. What am I supposed to say? Thank? What'd you like about it? Like, tell me the highlights. You know? I mean, it's awkward. And so what I say is, how are you going to implement it in your life? And they don't know what to say. But you realize I'm trying to teach them in that moment what they're supposed to do with the thing that was helpful.

Yet I wasn't trying to give you a helpful thought. I'm trying to give you something that will change your life. In some small way, each week, you'd go away saying, this is what I need to work on. I've been given a mission this week. Here's something for me to pay attention to that's fallen out of my mind, something I'm not aware of. I need to get it off the shelf, dust it off, and use it. This week, that's my job. That's what I want you to take away from the sermon. So as you're saying, helpful sermon, or I appreciate that, or thank you, I want you really to be thinking. If you want to know what I want when you tell me that, what I want you to tell me is, here's what I think I need to do. Because that's the goal. And pointing out whatever it is I'm pointing out to you, the goal is that you would be changed by it and that your behavior would change. That you would repent where you need to repent, that you would grow where you need to grow, and that in the end you'd become more like Jesus Christ. That's the point. And so I point things out to you. Your elders point things out to you.

And Paul says that if you do this to Timothy, you will be a good servant of Jesus Christ. And I want to say to you that that's the best title a pastor could ever have. Good servant. You did a good job. It's the best commendation. There are many things a pastor can do or say to gather a group of people together. But his job is to teach and to disciple those people in the words of the faith and sound doctrine. 2 Timothy 4, just before the passage I read to you, it says this in verse 2. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. Why? He goes on, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they'll accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. And so what that means for a good servant, a good pastor, a faithful elder, is that they realize some of the things they say aren't going to be popular to the people who hear them. They won't be well received. They won't be thanked.

They'll be scorned. They'll be slandered. But Paul tells Timothy in this passage, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Whether the people are wanting to hear the truth or not wanting to hear the truth, your job is the same. Tell them the truth. And so whatever season a pastor finds himself in, he's to teach the whole counsel of God, whether it's popular or not. He's supposed to be helpful to his people and to teach them the gospel, to remind them of the things that are unsavory to them. I think they don't want it. Some kids don't like squash or green beans. It might be good for them, but they say, I don't like that. We all have truths of God that we treat like green beans. And we say, I don't want that. That's not a pleasant happy. If I believe that and do that, well, do you know what will happen to me? Do you know what people will say or what they'll think? Yes, I do. In pointing these things out to the brethren, you'll be a good servant of Jesus Christ.

It turns out that pastors need the same teaching, same instruction. Timothy was nourished by this instruction, even as he taught it to the others, even as he received it from Paul in this letter and others. I remember reading, you know, you think in your life that the things that go on in your life, in your time and in your age, it never happened at any other time, that you've got it as bad as it could be. And so I was thinking as I was reading about this, about kids that grow up in the faith, who've received the truth and what they do with it. And I think, It's very sad, having not grown up that way myself, to see Christian kids forsake and neglect the truth that they've been given. Because they don't know what it's like to live outside of God's kindness and his blessing. That's how I came up. And so when I see Christian kids, when I was a youth leader years and years ago, and I'd watch them just kind of like, I thought, you don't know what you're throwing away. I know what you think is wonderful and new and shiny and fun. I've been...

I've had that. I've been in it up to my elbows, and it is not what you think it is. And so it's one thing to receive the truth, to be taught the truth. It's another thing to follow it. And we're told here that Timothy follows it, that he's constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine, which you have been following. Now, who taught Timothy? You guys know who taught Timothy? Long before Paul, his mother and his grandmother. Now, how many of you have sons, and you think, my son doesn't listen to me? I think every mother who has a son thinks this.

My son doesn't listen to me. How many of you sons think, I don't listen to my mom? Amos, move up here. And so you sons who don't listen to your mother. Timothy did, and it did him well. A few mothers who think it's hopeless to get your sons to listen to them. Timothy did, and you teach them. Don't give up on it. Timothy didn't only receive the truth from his mother and from his grandmother, but he followed it, he believed it, he obeyed it. And then Paul met him. It most likely is the case that Timothy's mother and grandmother were Jewish, Israelites, and that his father was a Greek. They didn't believe. Presumably his father was around but didn't believe. And it's very common for sons to become like their fathers. But in this case, we have hope for the child who doesn't have a father, me, didn't grow up with one. Some of you are that way. That God will be merciful to you and that will change you.

But to those of you who do have fathers and do have mothers and have grown up in the church, been instructed in the faith, it's a great sin of yours to neglect and to fall away from the instruction you've been given. It's very dangerous. And so Timothy persevered in the truth. He knew what had been instructed, what he'd been taught from his childhood, and he persevered in it. And so Paul here is encouraging him to continue to persevere in it and to teach other people this same thing. And so everything Paul's aimed at with Timothy is you need to be fruitful for God. You need to produce fruit. You need to tell the people the truth. Plant the seeds so that they grow in the people and in your own life, just like you've been doing. That's your job. It doesn't happen overnight any more than planting a cornfield happens overnight. It takes time. You plant the seed and then you wait. And God grows the corn or the beans or the whatever, the tomatoes. And so Paul tells Timothy, your job is to be fruitful.

You have been in your life. Now your job is to take to those people and to make them fruitful. Tell them the truth. The things that they've forgotten. The things they don't listen to. The things they don't want to hear. Tell them this is what you need to hear because this is what God said. And this is what he's done. And then he makes this comparison. So far we've talked about everything that Paul has told Timothy. This is what your teaching needs to be like. This is how you need to instruct the people. And then comes in this part about old wives tales. And it's kind of distracting. But I want to explain it to you. What he's doing is contrasting.

something that's fruitful and productive with something that's not. And he says that old wives' tales are not productive. They're fruitless. They don't produce any profit. It doesn't produce godliness in the hearers. And so Timothy's supposed to have nothing to do with it. Now, is anyone offended by him saying old wives' tales? If you didn't know that that was scripture, would you be offended that he said, don't be like old women. Don't talk like them. None of you will tell me that you're offended. You might be offended for somebody else. Think of it this way. Who's the most susceptible to phone scammers, and emails about your accounts messed up, or they have calls from the IRS, all this sort of stuff. Who do they target? It's typically older people. And so their weakness is something that ought to be covered up, that ought to be protected, that ought to be cared for, they ought to be tended to. One of the things I was thinking about as I was preparing is how much I like to talk. And that this passage actually tells me to be careful about how much I talk and what I talk about.

Because as I'm reading it, and I'm thinking, well, Timothy's a pastor, and I'm a pastor, and he tells Timothy not to have anything to do with old wives' tales. And what he's telling him is, don't have fruitless discussion. Don't say things that don't have a point. Because your people aren't going to be benefited by it. And I was thinking, how do I do that, and where do I do that? And I've realized I do it more than I should. And so that's something that I'm going to set my mind to being aware of, things that I'm saying, things I'm doing. Why are you smirking at me, Nick?

But I don't want you to get off thinking, oh, well, this is just important for pastors. No, it's important for you too. Here's a question for you. Do you want to be lied to? Are you sure? Why are you sure you don't want to be lied to? I think for some of you, it's probably because you have been lied to and you've seen the fruit of being lied to. And you go, eh, it's sort of like cotton candy. It's just not satisfying. It makes you kind of feel sick. Over time, you say, that's not good for me. I'd rather have the pain of the truth than the...

dissatisfaction of the lie. Tell me the truth. And so your first, your first order is that you would not want people to lie to you and to flatter you and to tell you that what you, in fact, what you believe already is right and true and good and pleasing to God. Have you ever told somebody that they're wrong? That something they believe is wrong? And I don't mean in a fight and I don't mean in a nasty, passive-aggressive way, but I mean, have you ever told somebody that has a sincerely held belief that they're wrong? How's that go? The Sands are going, uh-uh. So we know what their marriage is like. Teasing you. The Mormons. Okay. It's a very unpleasant business. And you remember the warning earlier that we would want to accumulate people who tell us, that teach us in accordance with our own desires. We realize it's a real danger that we want to be lied to. That we get weary of being told the same things again.

And Paul tells Timothy, have nothing to do with it. And if Timothy's to have nothing to do with it, then I'm to have nothing to do with it. And if I'm to have nothing to do with it, then you're to have nothing to do with it. And so it means two things. One, you ought to weigh out the things you talk about and the things you say. Here's an example. When the worship service is over, we're all going to talk and hang out throughout the building, outside. Make your conversation fruitful. Doesn't mean every conversation has to be a counseling session. That's not what I'm saying. But make your conversation fruitful.

When you go back to small group, make your conversations fruitful. Don't just sit and talk about politics and about sports and about the weather and about your work. Not only those things. Talk about something that's fruitful and productive. If you're having trouble in your marriage or in your work or wherever, talk about it and ask for help. Because these conversations that we go away from saying, oh, yeah, that was great. We had a good time. What did you talk about? Oh, I don't know. Nothing. That's what Paul's warning against here. He's warning Timothy and saying, don't have anything to do with conversations. And at the end of it, you say, what did you guys talk about? What did you accomplish? What spiritual work was done? Nothing. That's what Timothy's to avoid. That's what we're to avoid. And it's hard not to talk about pointless things. It should go without saying, but it really doesn't. It's really hard not to talk about pointless things. Have you noticed that? It's really, really hard. And that's why Paul...

warns Timothy here, warned him earlier in this same book, in chapter 1, verse 4, he says, don't pay attention to myths and endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God, which is by faith. Because Timothy's job is to further the administration of God, which is by faith. Point these things out to the people. Help them to grow. That's your job. Do that work. Don't get distracted in it. How are you supposed to do it? You're supposed to do it with your small groups. You're supposed to do it with your children. You ever have things with your kids and you think, you know, we need to talk about this. There's something I need to talk to my kid about that. Do it. I need to talk to my mom about that or my dad about that. There's this thing. Do it. Our conversation and our interest in the things of God should always be aimed at how we can grow in grace and in obedience to Jesus Christ. You know, when you come to church, remember I said, my goal is not to tell you anything new.

And so you might wonder, well, why am I supposed to come to church then if there's not going to be anything new to learn? And I'd say, well, because you haven't learned the old lessons first. And so instead of coming and thinking, I wonder what new thing I'll learn today, as your attention is drawn to things that you already knew but aren't doing, you ought to be thinking, how can I love Jesus Christ better? How can I serve him more? What's keeping me from growing in this area? Why has this fallen out? Why am I not doing this? Why haven't I had that conversation, really?

Why don't I read and pray, really? And so our work is to identify where we're failing in our own lives, to love and to honor and to obey God. And then our work is to remove whatever's entangling us. This is how we learn Jesus Christ. This is how we grow in grace. We put forth effort. We don't wake up in the morning and all of our struggles are gone, or even one of them. Not usually. The way that we grow is to take things that come up in our lives that are... opposed to God and to his word, and we go, that's something I have to fight against. That's something I need to repent of. This is the meat and potatoes of the Christian life. We say no to sin more and more each day in our lives. We walk and say, that's a thing I need to stop. That's a thing I need to start. That's a thing I need to not quit doing, even when I get tired. So what are you supposed to do this week? My hope is that you have things in your mind and you're going, eh.

I know that that's not something I should be doing. Or, I know that's something I should be doing, but I'm not. What's the takeaway for you? The takeaway is identify that thing and then do it this week. You say, man, next week's not going to look like last week if I do that. And I go, that's right, that's the point. The point is that next week wouldn't look like last week. Whatever sins you struggled with, whatever temptations you faced, wherever you fell, say, how'd I get there? What happened? What do I need to do for that not to happen again this week? And then apply yourself to that and pray and trust God to help you in that work as you fight against it. This is what Christians do. We repent of our sins. We turn away from them. We don't love them. We don't justify them. We don't ignore them. We say, that is nasty. And God sent his son to save me from that nasty. And so I want to be done with it. And this week I'm going to endeavor to be done with it.

I'm not just going to get it off the shelf and look at it and go, yeah, that's a bad thing, and then just put it back on the shelf and go on with my life. You might think, well, I've got so many sins, I don't even know where to start. And I say, just start. Just start with the first sin you struggle with. The thing that's on your mind right now, where you're going, I'm not loving my wife. She's driving me crazy. My husband's really impatient, and I don't feel like respecting him. I've told my kid that a hundred times. My boss is a jerk.

You're dealing with lust. You don't want to get out of bed in the morning. What is it? What is it? Start there. That's the whole message today. Start there. Come back in a week, and we'll pick up our study about the profitability of godliness. But first, you have to start with saying, what's wrong? What is fruitless? What is not turning a profit for Jesus Christ in my life? Identify it and start to work against it. We'll come back next week. And we'll pick up our study of this passage. Let's pray.