Let No One Look Down On Your Youthfulness

Our sermon this morning is carrying on in 1 Timothy chapter 4, and the past few weeks we've spent looking at what a pastor's job is, what his job description is, what is it that a pastor is supposed to do. Now if we were to ask that question to anyone on the street or if any of us were to give an answer, I imagine that there would be quite a bit of variation in what a pastor is supposed to do. What does faithfulness look like in a pastor? What's his job? And so we spent the last couple of weeks looking at that. And what scripture taught us was that a pastor is, if he's to be called a good servant of Jesus Christ, he's to teach and to remind us of God's truth. And in the course of his work, the pastor has to be discerning about what's profitable and productive, and he's to give himself and his time and his energy to that work. And he's to avoid spending his time on fruitless endeavors. He's not to spend his time on black holes, if you will. Being a pastor is a high calling, and one that James teaches us that not many should aspire to.

But for those who do aspire and are called to pastoral ministry, Paul speaks of more than just their job description. He speaks to their character and their testimony. And that's what our passage that we're going into this week to begin to study is addressing. It's Paul's warning Timothy to minister by example, not just by teaching. It's one thing to say what the gospel is and to proclaim it. But Paul, in a nutshell, tells Timothy, you can't just say it, you have to live it. These two things go together. And so this morning, we're going to be focusing on the example that Paul urges Timothy to be. Our text is 1 Timothy 4, verses 12-16. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation.

Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance by the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things, be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now to recap just a bit about Timothy. Timothy is a pastor, a young man, and from what we can gather, probably a fairly timid man, who was left at Ephesus by Paul to minister to the saints there, to the church at Ephesus. And this letter comes about ten years after Paul had planted that church. So this is the follow-up, a decade later. And we know at this time that Timothy is still dealing with the fact that he's a young man, whatever young is. We don't know how old he was.

But we do know that he's young and that he's supposed to do something that's very difficult for young men to do. And that's to not let anyone disregard him. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning. I want us to think for a minute about wisdom and where wisdom comes from. Where does wisdom come from? Where does it naturally flow from? Who do we look to for wisdom? I think generally we look to older people. We think that that would be appropriate. You're older, you're wiser. And I think that as people get older, the older people I've talked to, those who are older than me, they go, I don't know, I'm not as wise as I thought I was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It's as though I've slipped. I'm not as confident. I don't know as much. And yet we all defer to those who are older thinking they have wisdom. And that idea is not exclusive to us, nor is it wrong. It is appropriate that if you would consider yourself older, that you would be wiser.

than a young person. It's one thing if a young man acts foolishly, but if you see a man in his 40s or 50s or 60s acting like he's in his 20s, it's even worse, isn't it? Because he's lacking the wisdom that an older man should have. And yet here, Timothy, who's a pastor, is young. So how is Timothy supposed to be wise? How is he supposed to lead? What is he supposed to teach? And particularly, how is he supposed to handle older people? It's very difficult for a young man to handle older men, to know how to interact with them. The first time I learned this was long before I was a Christian. When I got out of high school, I went and worked for a tree company. I climbed trees for five years. And within those five years, by the time I left, I was in charge of men who had been doing tree work far longer than me. I was the boss. I was the crew leader. I was the one who went up to the door and talked to the customers. I'm the one who ran the jobs.

And that's a very difficult position to be in as a man in his early 20s, having to tell men in their 30s and 40s what they're going to do for the day. Now, some young men might be sitting here thinking, that would be great, I would love to just be able to tell people what to do. But that's only because you've never had to do it. It's very difficult. It's very difficult to lead other people in general, and it's especially difficult for a young man to lead an old man. You feel very insecure. You think, this guy, I would think, this guy's been climbing trees since I was in junior high, and I'm supposed to tell him what to do.

It does cut across the grain. And this is the sort of situation you find Timothy in here. He's a young man. And you should know that young men, when they're put into authority, are going to be tempted to be meek. But it's not really meek. It's timid. They're going to be tempted to allow themselves to be disregarded because they're young. And so Paul tells Timothy, don't do that. The million-dollar question is how? How is a young man not supposed to allow himself to be disregarded? Well, I want to read to you a passage of Scripture, a whole chapter of Scripture, actually, from the book of Job. And I think it does a good job of explaining and demonstrating, sort of in a narrative, how young men are supposed to behave around older men and how they're supposed to lead. And we could continue on and read more than just this chapter because it goes on beyond this, but I've limited us just to one chapter. We're going to read Job chapter 32. So if you have a Bible,

Go ahead and open up to Job chapter 32. The book of Job, in a nutshell, is a very godly man, Job, who is also very wealthy, being stripped of all of his earthly belongings, meaning all of his wealth, his home, and even his children were all taken away from him. And by taken away, I don't mean they were taken off into captivity. I mean they were killed. And he was left with a wife who tempted him to curse God and die. And in that, Job didn't sin. And so then Job was afflicted personally in his body. He was given boils and sores in his flesh that oozed and dripped and were constantly painful. And so if you want to think of a tempting situation, we can think Job had a tempting situation. He was a righteous man, and he lost everything. And most of the book of Job is him arguing with three of his friends about how God had done him wrong.

And then the end of the book of Job is the Lord coming and saying, you shut up. Now that's not exactly what he says. It takes him three chapters to discipline Job and to tell him, did you make the heavens and the earth? Do you walk the sea monsters around on a leash? Who are you to question me? Because that's what Job's been doing the whole book. And so the whole book of Job is Job saying something, complaining, griping, grumbling, cursing, taunting, attempting God. And his friend's saying, well, you must have deserved this. You must have done something to deserve it. And then in the middle of the book, maybe two-thirds of the way through, this man that we have no knowledge of being there, speaks. His name is Elihu. And that's what we're going to read, is what Elihu, this young man, says. We're going to see how he speaks to all of these men who are older. He's probably, if I had to guess, the age of Job's children.

And here he is as a son, basically to a father, speaking to him with wisdom, not allowing himself to be disregarded. So listen to how he speaks. This is Job chapter 32. It says, Then these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. So these three men had thrown their hands up in the air and went, Job, it's hopeless. You won't listen. He's righteous in his own eyes. But the anger of Elihu, the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned. Against Job, his anger burned because he justified himself before God. And his anger burned against his three friends because they had found no answer and yet had condemned Job. Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were years older than he. And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of the three men, his anger burned. So Elihu, the son of Barachel, the Buzite, spoke out and he said, I am young in years and you are old. Therefore, I was shy and afraid to tell you what I think.

I thought age should speak, and increased years should teach wisdom. But it is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding. The abundant in years may not be wise, nor may elders understand justice. So I say, listen to me, I too will tell you what I think. Can you feel what it would be like to be these older men? Could you imagine saying this to older men? Behold, I waited for your words. I listened to your reasonings. While you pondered what to say, I even paid close attention to you. Indeed, there was no one who refuted Job. Not one of you answered his words. Do not say, we have found wisdom. God will rout him, not man. For he has not arranged his words against me, nor will I reply to him with your arguments. They are dismayed. They no longer answer. Words have failed them. Shall I wait because they do not speak? Because they stop and no longer answer?

I too will answer my share, I will tell my opinion, for I am full of words. The spirit within me constrains me. Behold, my belly is like unvented wine, like new wineskins it is about to burst. Let me speak that I may get relief. Let me open my lips and answer. Let me now be partial to no one, nor flatter any man. For I do not know how to flatter, else my maker would soon turn me away. So this is, we could go on. We haven't even gotten to what Job's saying. This is his introduction to saying, let me speak. You guys should have spoken wisdom. You didn't. Now I want to ask you to think back on what I just read to you. What was the overwhelming disposition of Elihu to all of the goings on here? How does the scripture describe him? Do you guys remember? Like four times it says he was what? Who was he? Speak up. Yeah.

He was angry. It says he was angry at Job, and he was angry at Job's friends, and he was just angry and angry and angry. And you think, you're putting Elihu forward as the sort of man we ought to emulate. And I say, yes, I'm putting Elihu forward as the sort of man you ought to emulate. He's the sort of man that Paul would have been thinking of as he was speaking to Timothy. You are a young man. Elihu was a young man. Consider what Elihu's anger led him to do. How did he speak? Was he disrespectful and rude? He sure wasn't. What he says to them in the middle of this, he says, but it is the spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding. And that's a very important statement for you to understand, because what he's saying in that moment is, you're old and I'm young, but it's God who gives wisdom and understanding to what's going on here. Not your age, but the Lord. And he goes on later in the next chapter, and he tells them, he says, test what I say.

If I'm out of line, prove me wrong. Show me my error. Show me my fault. But I'm going to speak now because he's burning with anger because of the sin surrounding him in Job and in his three friends. And so Elihu was a wise young man and a wise young man who spoke up. His age initially led him to defer to the older men, but it didn't keep him from speaking up and giving glory to God. Now why do I bring Elihu up? Well, I bring Elihu up because I think he's a good example of doing what Paul is telling Timothy to do here, let no one look down on your youthfulness. I think it's very common that young men will use their age as an excuse for their sin. Well, he was just a young man. What's a young man? Well, a young man's those guys sitting there in that row, and a young man is the guy standing up and talking, their dad. Are you young? Are you old? Excuse me. Do you use your age?

as a young man, to shirk the responsibility of being wise or speaking up. Paul tells Timothy here that he as a young man is to set an example of what it means to be a Christian. Don't just tell the people, show the people. And to do that, you're going to have to speak and they're going to look at your life and they're going to see. And so you young men, the first thing you ought to be thinking about is that you ought to seek wisdom and that you ought not to use your age as an excuse. Well, I'm not interested in those things yet. Well, that's not for me. That's the older men. My dad will take care of that. The elders will take care of that. Somebody else will take care of that. Young men instead ought to seek wisdom, and they ought to not shy away from speaking up. And I can tell you it's very difficult for a young man to speak up to older men. They get nervous. Dan told me a story or a comment lately. You were in a deacon's meeting, and what did all the deacons tell you about you? Scared of what? They were scared of him.

So all of you who were in that meeting, he's telling your business. You're all scared of him. And I want you to know if you were in that meeting that that's no excuse. Dan's not trying to scare you. I happen to know that I have a similar effect on people. People are afraid to talk to me. My wife tells me. Other people tell me. They're intimidated. They're afraid to talk to me. You're big. You're loud. You're something. Sorry. That's no excuse for young men not to speak up. especially if they think that God's glory is on the line and that there's something that needs to be said, there's something that's being missed. It's the young man's responsibility to speak, and yet he's not allowed to speak in whatever way he wants. He's to speak as an example to those who are watching. And you know what I think about teaching young men to speak up? I think that not only in our society, but also in the church, it's a work that we despise.

Furthermore, what I think is that young men are just despised. You look at young men and we just think, ugh, it really is the trouble. I don't know if you guys ever felt that growing up with your boys. But my wife feels that when she goes to the store and they find out, oh, you've got a bunch of boys, you poor thing. This is what people think of boys. There's no expectation that they would become men. And that if they are to become men, they're not to become any sort of biblical. Man, they're supposed to become very soft and very compassionate and very tender and very self-doubting. Anything but a leader. Anything but a man who would stand up and say no. Like Elihu did. Like Timothy's supposed to do. Like you're supposed to do. And so I think one of the most evangelistic things that a church can do, that we can do, is to teach our young men and those others that come around, to teach them wisdom.

and to encourage them to stand up and to speak the truth. I think you young men need to stand up tall, look people in the eye, and tell them who God is and what he's about. That was Timothy's responsibility, and it's not limited to a pastor to do that work. It's young men's work. We have the benefit as a church of being a fairly young church. Most of us are under 50. But even as I look around and I go, so who is the next crop of leaders in our church? Where are the next Sunday school teachers? Where are the next Awana leaders? Where are the next deacons and elders, small group leaders? Where are they at? Do you want that work? Some of you say, yeah, yeah, I want that work, I want that work. And some of you go, I don't want any of that work. And I say, we ought to want that work. And when you're asked to do that kind of work, it's a privilege. You're being asked to do something manly.

Don't use your age as an excuse. Don't give those around you occasion to despise you, to look down on you. And so I think it's ground zero of evangelism in our day is teaching men how to be men. That's what Paul's teaching Timothy here. He's saying, stand up and be a man. I know you're young and I know it's hard. Don't let them despise you. Show them what a Christian is. So that even if they look at you and go, he's young, they can't go, he's an idiot. You'll see the wisdom. He goes on later on in weeks to come. We'll look at it. He says, take pains with these things. Be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. He speaks to a young man and he says, your life should be a testimony of the power of God. That's your work. That's your calling. Lead the way. You know what I think's behind all of this stuff about young men, at least in our day, is that we're afraid of men because they can't be controlled. At least that's what we think.

And there is a sense in which it's true. You can't control a man. You can lead a man, but you can't control him. And I think that's especially hard for mothers. They look at their sons and they go, I don't want him to get hurt. I don't want him to do something foolish. Like go head first off of a chair like that. When I was at their house a few weeks, he pulled his high chair down on top of him. The first boy in the house. Thanks, Peter. But I think we're afraid of boys becoming men. What we want to do is, without even thinking about it, especially with mothers, we just don't want them to grow horns. They're supposed to grow horns. I don't know what else to tell you. Boys are supposed to have horns. They're supposed to fight. They're supposed to defend. They're supposed to protect. They're supposed to provide. They're supposed to work hard. They're supposed to sacrifice. They're supposed to die. And they're not taught to do that because we're afraid that it'll be hard for them. But the hard part is what they need.

They need to be told to stand up and to bear responsibility, to not resign themselves to sitting and staring at their phones and serving their lusts. So mothers are afraid of men because they don't know what a man is, and they don't know how to control the boy because he's got temptations and urges and energy and strength that are foreign to her. It's scary. Then you come to fathers. Fathers don't know how to cultivate it. We don't know what to do with boys. And this is as true of me as it is of any of you. I struggle to know how to cultivate boys into men. When is it a boy and a male principle, and when is it rebellion or laziness or selfishness? It's hard work. It's hard to know. And so the church steers men away from it. We despise young men.

Paul tells Timothy, don't let anyone look down on your youthfulness, but there's a corollary message to us, that we would not look down on young men, that we would not make their work harder, that we would not write them a pass and say, you know what, you are worthless, and you don't have anything to contribute. So just go do what you're going to do until you're 25 or 30, and maybe then you'll have something to contribute. That is to despise them. And if Paul tells Timothy, don't let them look down on you, he's also telling us, don't look down on them. And you think, well, young men are going to screw stuff up. And I say, I know. I've done it. And the sweetest thing as a young man is to have the opportunity to fail, to be given enough rope to really do some damage, and then to mess it up and to not be harped on and told you failed and to have all of your responsibility taken away. I'll give you a couple of examples. When I was new in the church, what, 15 years ago, I was given the work of working with high schoolers. And I loved my time working with the high schoolers.

And I was put working with high schoolers. I didn't have a clue at all about what I was doing. No clue. There was no training other than, would you want to start coming to the meetings and work with the high schoolers? And so I did. And so one of the things that I had to do was I had to plan an overnight retreat. It was a segregated retreat. The boys go one place, the girls go another place. And it was my job to plan it. Well, having no experience, I spent like 500 bucks on an overnight retreat. And if any of you have ever planned something like that, that's not in the budget. Now, no one had told me that. And I got the guy over who was actually in charge of the youth group in all kinds of trouble because we spent hundreds of dollars that we shouldn't have spent. They were thinking more like 50 bucks. I spent 500. We had a great time. And my boss paid for it. I failed. Someone said, do something. So I went and did it. And I messed it up.

And then I had to watch the guy who was in charge of me get raked over the coals for failing to teach me, to lead me, to give me any instruction. And you know what was the sweetest thing about it? He never came to me and chewed me out. He just said, we're not going to do that again. That was the wrong thing to do. But then I got to plan four more years of week-long or longer summer retreats for the youth group. One of the years, I don't know, did you go to Canada? Taylor went with me when I was his youth leader. We went to Canada. We were gone for 14 days. I took a group of teenagers to another country, and I brought them all back. And we saw bears, and we saw moose, and we went swimming in lakes with leeches. We had a great time. I know, no one got any leeches. Why am I telling you all that? I'm telling you all that because that was very helpful to me, being trusted, entrusted, not just with work, but with people's children. And at that time, in the church I was in,

the vast majority of the pastors and elders had kids in that youth group. They all entrusted their kids to me, to take them to Canada, to be gone for two weeks. It's a big responsibility. And I'm really thankful for being trusted and being told, go do the work. And I wasn't despised when I failed. I learned, I was encouraged, I was taught, and I was instructed. That's what we have to give to men, to young men. We have to give them work to do, and then when they fail, we can't go, I knew you were going to fail. You have to teach them. You have to cultivate them.

You notice that Paul doesn't tell Timothy how to keep them from despising him. Keep them from despising you in these very ways. All he tells them is, live like a Christian, basically. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. Paul says the solution to all of this for you young men is if you will live like a Christian in every area of your life, you will make progress. If you won't do that, He won't make progress. And so Timothy is supposed to be an example. He's supposed to fortify his teaching, support it, with the testimony of a faithful Christian life. So what do we expect of young men? Young men, what do you expect of yourselves? When will you turn it on and say, I'm going to grow up now. I'm going to do hard stuff. How long will you make excuses? I want you to grow up. Our elders want you to grow up.

And not only do we want you to grow up, we want to help you grow up. We want to see you become a man. We want to see you take on responsibility. We want to see you get married and have children. We want those things for you because we've done them, and we can know the kindness and the goodness of God and the growth that it's caused in our lives. We want that for you. Timothy's supposed to show himself as an example. You know, it's often said of pastors that they live in a fishbowl, and there's some truth to it. Everybody looks at you, everyone watches you, everyone pays attention to your kids, and you're supposed to be the best Christian people in the congregation. You're supposed to be the most godly. This is not what anyone says, but it is a lot of what people think. It's also very common for pastors and their families to despise the fishbowl. But here Timothy is told, you live in a fishbowl. Show them how they're supposed to live. Very simply, don't tell the people not to look.

Since they're looking, show them what it's supposed to be like. Very helpful words. But not only for pastors, for the rest of us. Did you go to work? Go hang out with your family? Show them what a Christian is. Don't just tell them. Show them. How? Well, Paul gives us five very simple things that we ought to give our attention to. Our speech. Our speech is important. It's especially important for young men. Young men like to run off at the mouth. They like to speak foolishly. They like to curse, and they like to speak with vulgar speech. This is very common. Common of men in this room. It cuts against, it degrades your Christian witness if you don't guard how you speak. You remember that Elihu was angry, but you heard how he spoke. And he didn't speak with anger. He didn't speak with malice. He didn't speak with contempt. He spoke with fear of God, and he spoke by faith. So you young men, you do the same. Speak by faith.

Don't curse. Don't say foul things. It does not increase your stock in anyone's eyes that you ought to be concerned about. What about conduct? Sort of a catch-all broad. Show yourself an example in your conduct. Well, what it makes me think of is how does a young man handle himself in conflict and confrontation? I think that would have been ground zero for Timothy in terms of difficulty. The conflict and the confrontation of being a young pastor. Has he learned to communicate? with grace and mercy? Have you learned to communicate with grace and mercy? Or are you a young man who's always right? And by saying that, the other option is not to say, well, I'm always wrong because I never know what I'm talking about. The other option is to engage in the discussion and figure out what exactly is being said, what exactly is going on, and don't be punchy in the way that you talk, in the way that you behave. What do you spend your time on? What do you spend your energy on? Paul says, when I was a child, I used to think like a child, act like a child.

Speak like a child. But when I became a man, I did away with childish things. Have you done that? Have we done that? Are we doing that? Show yourself an example with love. Is your love for God? Is your love for your neighbor? Is your love for the truth? Is your love for the church evident to those around you? It should be. It needs to be. If you're not sure, ask one of the men in the church that you're close to. Do you know that I love God? Is it apparent? How could I demonstrate that better? How could I love my neighbor? How could I love these people better? What can I do? Does this young man live by faith? Young men always have the answers. I always have the answers. I still struggle with it. And it's a sweet time whenever I finally go, I don't have the answer to that. I think we ought to pray. And I don't know what we're going to do just yet. It doesn't happen nearly as often as it should be. Yet young men ought to set an example of faith. And finally,

Purity. And I think this is probably the one in our day that is most difficult. It's assumed in our day that men have lusts and that they will just give themselves to it. And that it's okay. That nothing can be done about it. And it's a difficulty because I recognize that men have temptations and that they have lusts and that they're real. And I don't mean to say, no, they're not real. I know they're real. But Christian men must be different, particularly in this space. They must be different than unbelievers. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. That is, he sums up their sanctification in this one thing, that you abstain from sexual immorality. That each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who don't know God. And so Paul draws a distinction in 1 Thessalonians and says, the division between the believers and the unbelievers and how they handle their lust. And so to the young men, I say, you're to behave as a Christian with regard to your lust. You're to be pure. The question is not, what are we allowed to do? What is okay for me to do? That's not the right question. The right question is, is this pure? Is this a pure thought? Is this a pure desire? Is this something I would want others to know I have thought or have done?

And if you think, no, that's not what I want them to do, then you ought not to do it. And if you think, I don't really care, then you're in a worse spot. What I find is that men, when they get a hold of purity and they start fighting in that area, they have all kinds of energy to do other things. All kinds of desire and all kinds of time. They want something to do. And it's very sweet to see. And I've seen it from men in this church. To see God's work. So you young men, don't use your age as an excuse for ungodliness. You have opportunity. I grew up outside of the faith. Didn't start going to church until I was in my 20s. I lost a lot of my life and a lot of my time doing things that I never should have done. But many of you, that's not the case. Don't squander the time you have and don't use your youthfulness as an excuse for ungodliness.

Wisdom comes from the Lord, not from age. Proverbs tells us to seek wisdom, to get understanding. That's what young men are supposed to do. And if you'll do that, then how to keep people from despising your youthfulness will become much less difficult because you'll have gained the respect of those around you. And so young men, you ought to pursue this. You ought to demonstrate your godliness and you ought to prove that you have faith in your speech, in your conduct, your love and faith. and purity to the rest of us don't despise the difficult work of becoming a man it's hard it's been it's hard and it's especially hard in our day and so when you find that you don't like the sins of men the struggles of men the temptations of men remember that god's words tells you not to despise youthfulness but to cultivate it because they're not going to be young forever we want them to grow up and to be godly men who love and who serve

And who fear God as they ought to. And they want them to bring others into God's kingdom. And so we have to cultivate that. And you don't cultivate that by cutting it all the time. When you think of cultivating, the goal is growth. We cultivate a garden. We cut down weeds. And so we can't treat our men like weeds. To be cut down all of the time. They will never grow and bear fruit if that's what we do to them. When they have a wild hare or a twisted branch, we do need to cut that off. while being careful not to emasculate them and to ruin them or exasperate them. So this is the work that Timothy is supposed to do. It's hard work. It's good work. And it's work for us to do today. And you might think, well, why has this whole sermon been about the men? And I say, because if the men will do this, the women will have a space to be women. But if the men won't do this, the women will never get to be women. When men learn to be men and start acting like it and behaving like it,

The women will appreciate it and become more feminine. But the men have to lead. Let's pray.