Persevere In These Things

So we're in the middle of 1 Timothy, chapter 4 even, and we spent the last couple of weeks in verses 12 to 16, and so it's been my habit to read a larger chunk of Scripture, these five verses, and then to focus on just one or two of them as it makes sense. So we've looked at verse 12, we've looked at verse 13 last week. This week we're going to be going through verses 14 through 16. So a little bit bigger chunk, but they're all of a fabric here. Last week, when we were studying verse 13, we learned that the Bible is God's word to us. That it's not some academic thing that we read and study and learn about. But it's actually his word to us, and it communicates to us the way of salvation. It tells us more about ourselves than we could ever come up with on our own. And the things that it tells us about ourselves are true. Whereas a lot of the time, when we think of ourselves, we tell ourselves lies.

But the Bible tells us the truth about ourselves, and not only the truth about ourselves, but the truth about Jesus Christ and the truth about his redemption that is offered to us through his death, through his resurrection. And so we saw that the word of God is central to our lives as Christians, and because of that, we're supposed to read it, we're supposed to study it, we're supposed to give ourselves to it, both publicly here in worship and privately in our homes. In addition to being... immersed in the word, both publicly and privately, we saw that we actually need to be taught what it means. That we're not doing ourselves the most good when we just sit down with our Bible by ourselves and think, I'll figure this out. But actually, it's beneficial to us and to our souls to have men who've been gifted and raised up by the Lord to teach us what it means. And then not only to teach us what it means, but then to exhort us to obey it. It's one thing to read it and go, oh, look at that.

And then it's another thing to say, oh, look at that. This is what it means. And yet there's one more thing, which is, oh, look at that. This is what it means. Now do it. This is what we studied last week. As I said, this week we're going to be carrying on in verses 14 through 16. And in these verses, Paul reminds Timothy of his ordination and the circumstances surrounding it. And in verse 15, Paul exhorts Timothy to give himself to this work and to not... So we're going to be studying Timothy's ordination. I want to tell you before we get into the sermon, I'm going to spend most of my time talking about Timothy's ordination. And then at the very end, I'm going to take the principles that Paul tells Timothy he needs to pay attention to, and I'm going to apply them to our lives. Because this passage isn't just for pastors.

This is something that Timothy needed to know and something that was supposed to benefit the people that heard him, the people that sat under him and that learned from him. And that's you guys here now. So at the end of it, I'm going to take the things that we learn and I'm going to apply them to you so that you're benefited, not just by learning what Timothy's life was like, but how you can apply those same truths to your life. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 to 16. 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 and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with 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 I want to start off and explain just for a second what ordination is. It's not the sort of thing that, unless you've been around church and maybe church leadership even, and you'd have to be paying attention to even know really what ordination is. Maybe at church you've seen an ordination service. Where the church will have some man come forward and they'll say, you know, Bill is here to be ordained to the office of elder or the office of deacon or the church got a new pastor and we're here to ordain him to this work. And then they talk about that work and they talk about his calling and they talk about what he's supposed to do. And then there's a time of prayer and during that time of prayer they lay hands on him. And a number of men pray, the officers of that church or that presbytery. And then the man stands up and there are some vows.

that are taken during this process, and then it's over. And then you had a man who was not an elder, and now you have a man who is an elder. Or you had a man who wasn't a deacon, and now he is a deacon. And you might think, well, what's going on here? What's this ceremony? What's this right where to come from? So what is ordination? It's a setting apart of a man for the work of gospel ministry. And there are a number of different things men could be ordained to do. I've mentioned some of them already, pastors, elders, deacons. A man could also be ordained to go and plant a church, and we might call him a missionary or an evangelist.

But what ordination is in its most basic sense is a church and their leadership or a presbytery, a group of pastors and elders getting together and identifying gifts in a man, recognizing them, and saying, we believe with the Lord's leading, after all of the work that we've done in examining you, which we'll get into in a little while, we believe that you're called to this work, and so we're going to set you apart. And so ordination is a setting apart, a calling to a confirmation, if you will, of a man to a particular work. You could think of it in terms of a signing of a contract. If you were to go into a workplace, you may have this talk back and forth where the employer is examining your skills, your aptitudes, your experience, your fitness for the job.

And then you're learning and you're growing and there's this back and forth. But eventually what's going to happen if you're to take that job is you're going to come together and they're going to say, sign here on the line. This is the contract. These are the terms. And that's sort of what ordination is in the church. It's the church recognizing a man's fitness and gifting for ministry and then acknowledging that through having him come forward. telling everyone what's going on and praying for him and laying hands on him and praying that he would be fit for the work, that he would dispense his duties faithfully. And so it's a mark, if you will, that a man bears. So what has to happen before a man is ordained? If someone said, I want to be a pastor, can I just be a pastor? Maybe they go talk to their pastor and say, I want to be a pastor. And the guy says, yeah, sure, we'll ordain you and you'll be a pastor.

I think this is more common in Baptist churches where some of you may have come from than in Presbyterian churches. But typically what happens with ordination historically is you'll have a man who shows some interest in ministry. And he thinks, you know, I think I might be called to ministry, whether that's as a pastor or perhaps as an elder or a deacon. He thinks, you know, I think the Lord's calling me to this work. This is called an internal call. What has to go along with that, and this is at the very beginning of the process, is there needs to be some acknowledgement by the men that surround him that he actually is maybe called to that work. And so if a man in our church said, I think I might want to be a pastor, one of the first things that would happen is the elders would hear his desire and discuss amongst themselves and decide, do we think this guy is called to be a pastor? Do we think the Lord may be calling him to that work? If they agree, then that man would be trained.

And the training can vary in many ways. Obviously the training for a deacon is going to be different than the training for a pastor versus the training for a missionary. It's going to be varied training. But there's going to be a season of training and testing. For me, what happened was I went through the process of an internal call, an external confirmation of that call, and then I went through three years of theological training as well as practical training, which meant that in addition to reading and writing and arguing, in class, I had to work in ministry. And I knew that I had eyes on me, watching to see if I was any good at it or if I was just terrible. And so there's a period of training, there's a period of testing. And then at the end of that, the man would be examined. His theological beliefs and convictions are going to be examined. And you might think, why are we talking about all of this?

And I'm saying because Timothy was ordained. And I don't want you to think that men just decide they want to be ordained and that it's some sort of rubber stamp that's put on them by the presbytery. There's actually quite a process that we go through now to confirm that man's desire. And we'll talk a little bit about how Timothy's circumstance was similar and how it differed from what I'm describing to you now. Anyhow, after a man is trained, after he is tested, he's going to be examined. He's going to be questioned about his beliefs, like I said, about his convictions, about his practice, about his family, about his giftedness, about his sin. It's the sort of thing that keeps that man up at night, if you will. I've never met a man who has to go in for examination who isn't just terrified. He has to preach to all of his pastors and elders.

You know, in October, we're going to have a presbytery meeting here for our pastors and elders and the other people in Evangel Presbytery. And there's a couple of men who are going to be examined on the floor of presbytery. And what that means is they're going to stand up and they're going to preach to all the pastors and elders of the presbytery. And then they're going to get scrutinized about their theological beliefs that they've submitted in writing. They'll have to defend it in person. So it's a scary thing for them. but it's because the work that they're endeavoring to do is an important work, and you don't want there to just be a good old boys club that says, oh, yeah, no, it's fine, it's okay. No, we want to examine men to see who they are and what their character is like and what they're about. So after all of that happens, after there's a call, after there's training and testing and examination, then there's ordination, which is in the end a final acknowledgement, a public acknowledgement of all of the work and effort and energy that this man has put in and the calling of God on his life. It's worth noting that men can't be ordained to be a pastor if there's no church that wants them to be a pastor. You actually have to have some church say, we'll hire you. We want you to come and do this work or that work or whatever it is. And so,

This is what Paul reminds Timothy of. He reminds him of his ordination. Now there are a few things that Paul points out to him. The first thing is he says that there was prophetic utterance. Don't neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed on you through the prophetic utterance. What is prophetic utterance? Anyone want to take a swing at that? Prophetic utterance. If we were charismatic, we would know what a prophetic utterance was. It's a word from the Lord. You'd say the Lord spoke and said this man is supposed to be A pastor. And there are still those today who would speak in that way, who would say, the Lord told me I was supposed to be a pastor. Or a pastor might say, the Lord told me you're supposed to be a pastor. This is the sort of thing that goes on in churches still today. And yet, I would submit to you that this is an extraordinary thing going on here, and that this is not normative. This is not how pastors are normally called to pastoral ministry. There was some sort of a direct communication in Timothy's

coming up, that he was supposed to be a pastor. Normally, men go through a process like I've described to you already. And if those men are sustained through those, if the Lord grows them and cultivates them and they bear fruit in that time, then they would be ordained. So why was there a prophetic utterance for Timothy? Well, I think there's probably two contributing factors. One is Timothy's age. What do we know about Timothy? Well, we know that he's a young man. And typically, young men don't garner the respect and the honor, and they don't carry the authority of their office as well as an older man does. I ran into this when we came up here to plant this church 10 years ago. I was 28 years old. Now, how many 28-year-old pastors? Me and the guy came with both 28. And I didn't have one gray hair in my beard. And here we were, 28 years old, we're going to plant a church. And would you be surprised to know that our age was...

brought up from time to time. Well, you guys are too young. You don't understand the sort of things we're going through. We have kids that are in school because all the kids we had, Joseph was, what, four or five years old, three or four years old when we came? We had young, young children. We didn't even have elementary school kids, let alone middle school, puberty, high school, dating. We were young. And there were older people who were like, eh, I don't know if you're going to be able to help me with my teenage daughter or my teenage son. It took faith for those of you who were older and have been here from the beginning to come along with and follow younger men. So age is a thing when it comes to pastors. And Timothy was young. More than that, the establishment of the kingdom of God was very, very new.

This was not something that was common practice yet. They didn't have a system or a process for planting churches. What you have is Paul, one of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, going around and planting churches all on his own. And when he got into too much trouble or there was a conflict that couldn't be resolved, they would appeal it to Jerusalem. But everything at that time in his life was in its infancy. Nothing was grown up yet. You know how when you grow carrots in your garden, in my garden anyway, there's carrots. And if you pull the little tiny carrots shoot out of the ground and you smell it, it smells like a carrot. But there's this weed that looks just like a carrot when it's little. And you pull it up and it has this really pungent, bitter smell to it. And you go, that's not a carrot. The church was this way. It was young. It was in its infancy. Everything wasn't as clear what was going on as it is now. And so in this time, the Lord often gave.

more direct or extraordinary confirmations of his will. Because everything was unsettled and changing. And so this prophetic utterance, this word from the Lord, was a confirmation directly from the Lord that Timothy, this young man, was in fact supposed to be a pastor. Because anyone looking around with their own common sense and their own eyes would say, this guy's too young and why would we do that? Aren't we supposed to have apostles be our teachers? They wouldn't have known what to think. And so we have a prophetic utterance for Timothy. This man is supposed to be a pastor. Something like that. Because we don't have that sort of communication to us now. We don't have perfect knowledge of what God's will is. Instead, what we have is the scripture. And so we make it our practice to learn from scripture how we're supposed to go about ordaining people. We're not going to sit around and wait for someone to say, I have a word from the Lord. But instead, we're going to take the things that were true of...

elders and pastors and deacons. Like Paul gave Timothy just a few chapters before in this very book. This is what an elder is supposed to be like. Look for these things. If the man has these things, good. If he doesn't, don't ordain him. Don't make him a pastor or an elder or a deacon. There are other places in scripture where we have other warnings. Paul tells Timothy later, he says, don't ordain a man who's too young, a new convert. Don't take men who are new Christians and put them in positions of authority and responsibility. Why? Because it will serve as their condemnation. Their pride will overcome them. And so don't make new men into new converts into the leaders in the church. And so we have instructions from scripture instead of a prophetic utterance these days to help us identify and cultivate leadership in the church. But here with Timothy, this stuff's all just being rolled out.

Paul is just writing these things to the church and to us in this very letter. And so instead of having all these things written down and figured out, instead there's a prophetic utterance. This man is supposed to be a pastor and the people accept that. And Timothy is supposed to remember that. The Lord himself said, this is the work that I'm supposed to do. The next thing they did was they laid on the hands. Don't neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed on you through the prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. And so as I said already, ordination is something that's conferred to the officers that are being ordained by other officers. This is something that those who have experience and who have already been called to that work have the responsibility of identifying other men who do the same thing. Later on, Paul tells Timothy, take the things that I've taught you and trust them to other men who will be able to train others. And so we see the responsibility of teaching and caring for

the flock of God, is something that's supposed to be passed down like a baton from the older to the younger. And that's what the laying on of the hands by the presbytery is. It's these older, more mature men confirming and acknowledging that this man is supposed to receive the baton and to carry on in this work. It's not something that just any old person can decide to do. In fact, in our Presbytery, the way that ordination would work is if we were to have a man become a pastor, if we were to hire a second pastor, you all would have a part in it, but the ordaining of the man would not be your part. Your part would be saying, yeah, we want him to come work here, and here's the responsibilities, and here's the pay, or here's the package.

The job description, that's the congregation's part. But the examination of the man and the questioning of whether he's qualified and fit for the work is actually the presbytery's work. They're the ones who will examine his convictions, his commitments, his belief, and they will choose whether that man is fit to be ordained or not. And so there's this collaboration between the people of the church and the presbytery in a man being ordained. But in the end, that responsibility of ordination belongs to the presbytery. It belongs to men who are ordained already. To be ordained is to have authority delegated to you. And that authority has to be given by those who possess that authority themselves. And so a man can't decide for himself, I'm a pastor, I'm a teacher, I'm going to plant a church. I know there are many men who do it that way, but it ought not to be done that way. Jesus said when he spoke of the centurion and the man came to him and said,

Will you heal my servant? And Jesus says, oh, well, I haven't found faith like this on the earth. Now, why did he say that about the centurion? Well, he said it because the centurion understood the authority that Jesus had. He says, you don't even have to come to my house. I have men that listen to me, and I have men that I listen to, and I understand who you are and the kind of power that you have. If you just exercise your authority, that'll be enough. If you just say that he'll be better, I know it's enough. And Jesus' response was, I have not found faith like this anywhere in Israel. A man who understood that authority was something that was not taken to yourself. It was not something that you claim and say, look what I've got. It was something that was given to you by someone else. And that's what goes on in ordination. Authority is something that is being conferred to and given to the man.

When we ordain officers in our church, whether they be elders or deacons or pastors, those men take vows of faithfulness and submission to our governing documents and to guide and to shepherd and to lead and care for us in the capacity that they're being called to. And then there's a vow for the congregation. Now, what's the congregation supposed to vow to the pastor or to the elder or to the deacon? They're to vow submission to him in his role as an officer in this church. They're to say, I will follow his lead. I'll do what he says. Because I realize in this process of him being ordained, he's being given authority to exercise and to wield in this church in the ways that we've delegated. And so no man can take that authority to himself and say, it's my job to make that decision. No, it's not. This is the sort of thing that is recognized and done by the presbytery, or if it's an elder or deacon, by the church officers in a local church.

This laying on of hands is always accompanied with prayer for the man and for the work that he's going to be called to do. Prayer that the Lord would confirm what's being done, that the process that the men have gone through in identifying and testing and training this man, that they're reading and seeing the truth of what this man is like and what he is, and that he is called to this work. They're asking the Lord's blessing on the work that they've done. They're also asking that this man would be finally and completely equipped to do the work. As I said, when men come up for ordination, they're often very insecure and very worried about their fitness for office. And so one of the things you pray for them as they're being ordained is that God would make them able to do their work. Because no man in his own strength is fit to do this stuff. You also pray that that man's sins would be forgiven. Back when Aaron, Moses' brother, was ordained, the Lord came to Moses and said to him, you're going to ordain Aaron and his sons after me. He establishes the priesthood.

And he says, you're going to bring in bulls and you're going to bring in rams. And what are they here for? Well, they're here to be sacrificed. And some of those sacrifices were for the sins of Aaron and for his sons after him. And what they did was they'd bring the animal in. Part of their ordination service was pouring oil on Aaron and doing different things. But when it came to the animals, they'd bring the animals in. And Aaron and his sons had to put their hands on the head of the ram or on the head of the bull as they killed it. And what they're communicating there is, this thing's life for my sins. It has to die because I'm a sinner.

so that I'll be fit and equipped for that work. And so when men are ordained to ministry, you're praying that their sins would be forgiven and that they would not be given into any gross, wicked sin in the future that would prevent them from being able to continue in their work or that would bring shame on the name of Jesus Christ because of their position in the church. So they lay their hands on the man. So there's prophetic utterance, just laying on of hands. But before that, there's something that's given that I want to draw our attention to. At the beginning of verse 14, it says, Paul says to Timothy, do not neglect the spiritual gift within you. And what I want us to see is that fitness for office is a gift from God. It's a gift that he gives to some men, and he doesn't give to other men. Only some men should be pastors or elders or deacons or missionaries. It's not for everybody.

It's not some sort of next level Christianity where only the real, real godly people get to be officers in the church. That's not actually how it works. It's often the case that pastors have people in their congregations who know the Bible better than them, who are better leaders, who are better teachers, who have more discernment or more mercy or more patience. And yet those people aren't the ones that the Lord raises up and says, this is going to be your work. Their work may be different. The Lord may have called them to something else. Hey, Nicodemus, you need to be quiet, honey. And so there's a spiritual gift that Timothy has, and he's to use that gift in service of the church. This is what Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12, verses 6 through 8. He says, Since we've gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly, if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality.

He who leads with diligence. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. And so Paul shows us in Romans that actually God's prerogative and his will is that not everyone would be a leader in the church, but only some would. And those that are supposed to be leaders in the church are supposed to be leaders in the church, not because they're somehow special, but because God has gifted them with that calling. Just like he's gifted all of the other people in that list with their callings. So what's that mean for us? Well, it means, one, that we shouldn't... think that I'm not a real Christian, I'm not faithful, I'm not holy enough if I'm not in ministry. If that were the case, then what will we do with all the women who aren't supposed to be pastors and elders and deacons and church planters? What are they supposed to be? Are they second-class citizens or just not godly enough to be officers in the church? No, that's absurd. They have different callings. That's not a calling that they receive from the Lord.

Same is true for the men who God doesn't call to this work. Are you somehow less godly and less holy? Is God less pleased with you? Has he blessed you less because you work with your hands for a living? Or you work at a computer for your life? Nope. Whatever you do, give glory to God. Whatever he's called you to, give glory to him. Don't think that you're somehow less holy because you're not a pastor or you're not an elder or you're not a deacon. And yet, if the Lord has called you to it, and you aspire to it, then that's a good thing. And yet it's not for everybody. And that's all right, because that's the Lord's prerogative and his will, not ours. So what are we supposed to do with the gifts that God gives us? Well, we're supposed to use them to build up his kingdom, to further his kingdom, to build his church, to edify his people. And so it follows that Timothy, who's been given this calling, this gift of ministry, that he's supposed to use it in service of God with the people of God. Have any of you ever wondered?

I wonder what I should do with my life. You're thinking about work. What's my life going to amount to? What am I supposed to do? I think often, sometimes you'll hear people talk about where your aptitudes and your interests intersect. That's where your perfect job is. It's right there at that cross. And I'll grant that there's some truth to that. But I don't think it's the right way to go about figuring out what you're supposed to do. I think a far better question, instead of asking, what do you want to be when you grow up, which is a question that men and women into their mid-20s and later even are asking, what am I supposed to be when I grow up? I got news, you're grown up. And it's all right that you don't know exactly what you're supposed to do. What I want to do is help you figure out what you're supposed to do. Instead of asking, what are my aptitudes and what are my interests and what do I like, I think you should ask, what are my gifts? How has God gifted me?

What am I good at? Because you're not good at everything. You're not bad at everything either, right? There are things that you actually are good at. It turns out that you actually tend to enjoy the things that you're good at. Not always, but most of the time you enjoy them. And so instead of looking simply at your desires and going, well, I want to be a professional football player when I grow up. Sorry, Runt, you're only five feet tall. You aren't going to make it. You should ask that kid. What are your gifts? What are your gifts? How has God gifted you? Don't worry about what work you'll do. If you can identify your gifts and you can cultivate them, it will lead to you figuring out what work God's calling you to do. The ministry is a strange thing because there are often men who aren't fit for office who want to be pastors.

They say, I want to be a pastor. I want to be a pastor. And they have compulsion or they have expectations, whether those are family or whether their pastor said, the Lord told me you're going to do great things for him. And what's a 13-year-old supposed to do with that? Like what? So you have men who think they're supposed to be pastors. And then you have men who are supposed to be pastors who don't want to be. Like Jonah, right? Jonah was told, you need to go to Nineveh and you need to preach. And what did Jonah say? Uh-uh. I want those people to burn. I want them to die. I want them to go to hell. I'm going the other way. And he wasn't able to escape the hand of the Lord, even in the belly of the fish at the bottom of the sea. He says, even here to the Lord, you're with me. There's nowhere I can go to escape you. So some men flock to the ministry who aren't called to it, and some men run from the ministry who are called to it, and it's quite a mess. How do you figure out who's supposed to be a pastor?

or an elder, or a deacon, or who should go plant a church, well, I think what we need to do is devalue their desires a little bit and increase our examination of their gifting. No man in his own strength is fit to be a pastor, or an elder, or a deacon. And every man that I know who's gone through the process toward ordination feels this increasing burden and weight on him about what he's walking into. And that is as it should be. Because scripture tells us that there should not be many teachers among us. Because we know that those who are teachers will be judged with a stricter judgment. We know that deacons who dispense their duties faithfully will receive a crown of glory. And so we ought to look at our gifting. When you think of men coming into wanting to be a pastor, you ought to look at their gifting. In times gone by before we had things like this, one of the things they looked at with men,

was whether or not they had a voice that suited being a preacher. Many men in Spurgeon's time would come to his college and they wanted to be pastors. And if they couldn't project their voice far and wide outside, now I don't do it because I've got a microphone on, but if you have been around me, you can hear me far away if I want you to. But some men don't have the ability to do that. And Spurgeon would say, you're not a pastor. You can't be heard. People can't hear you. Very spiritual, isn't it? Your voice isn't loud enough. You don't know how to speak from your belly. You don't have a belly. We ought to look at men's gifts when they come into ministry and say, do they line up with what pastors have to be? And if they don't, then the man shouldn't be a pastor or an elder or a deacon or whatever he's being ordained to. And so we have to police it. We have to be vigilant of it. We have to look at his giftings. You have to cultivate his giftings. You have to see.

Does this thing grow when you pour water on it? So this is ordination now. Why is ordination important? Well, I've mentioned it a little bit earlier that I want to come to, but I want to draw your attention to the last verse of our passage. Paul tells Timothy, he says, pay attention to your teaching and yourself. Why? Because if you persevere in these things, you'll ensure salvation for yourself and for those who hear you. And so his work as... A minister is to proclaim the gospel and to ensure not only his own salvation, but the salvation of all those people who hear you. So if you ever wondered if preachers have a burden on them, they do. Because here it is. So much as it depends on him, it's his job to ensure the salvation of his hearers. And that's hard work. And it's not glamorous. It can be enjoyable. But it's not always. Turns out that you guys don't always like being told.

that you need to prioritize your salvation over your lusts. And so Timothy's supposed to take great pains. He's to be absorbed in it. He's to make his progress evident to all. Because if he'll do those things, that hard work, he'll ensure his salvation and the salvation of those who hear him. So Paul tells Timothy that his soul and the souls of everyone that hear him depend on his faithfulness. Remember that. That's what Paul's telling him. Remember that. Don't neglect the gift that's in you. Remember what the Lord said. We laid hands on you. Give yourself to this work because if you don't, your soul and the souls of the people who listen to you will be condemned. But if he's faithful, so much as it depends on him, he can be mightily used of God in the salvation of all of his hearers. And to a pastor of that, that's the carrot. That's what's attractive. That's what elders want. They say, if I can do somebody's soul some good, sign me up.

But if he's unfaithful, he'll have their blood on his hands. So it's imperative that not many, as I said already, become pastors because those who do must be confirmed by other men who know what the work is like and what will be required of that man so that his soul and the souls under his care don't perish. Why else is ordination important? Well, I've already touched on it a little bit. I want to come back to it. Ordination identifies and confirms a man's fitness for his work. The teaching and exhortation that he's called to just in the verse before these. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture and to exhortation and teaching. This is Timothy's job description. In short, this is your job. This is what you're to do. It's hard. And you'll meet with opposition. When Paul writes to Titus, he says this to him. He says, There are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be what? Silenced. Silenced.

Because they're upsetting whole families teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. And so what's Titus' job? Put down the rebellion in the church. Put down the rebellion. The men who think that they're teachers but have not been called to this work, who are upsetting whole families for the sake of money. Your job is to silence them. They are not ordained. They have not been given the authority to say and do the things that they are doing. They are rebels. You are not. And your job... you man of God, is to put them in their place. That's what happens at ordination. That man's enlisted in the army. You get to lead the fight now. And when there's a problem, you better be leading the charge into the battle. In our day, we do still have men who do this, who come into churches and who want to teach and assume authority to themselves.

And so the pastors and elders have to be vigilant of that in the local context. You should all know that when people come or when you come, there is an awareness of whether or not you're trying to create division. Not that we're on a witch hunt, but we are aware of the fact. If someone seems to be at the center of a bunch of problems, putting two and two together, we go, you know, I think that guy might be a problem. I do this with my kids. I have certain children of mine who are disproportionately involved in the conflict of our house. And I think there's something to that. And you go to the kid that's causing the problem, or you come to the man in church who's raising a stink in his small group, and you say, hey, you're causing a problem. What's the problem? Well, there's no problem. No, there is a problem. I'm telling you there's a problem. You are causing a problem. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. I'm telling you you are.

So we do still have that sort of thing go on in church today, but there's a whole new way that this happens today. And it's much harder to fight against. And it's that men have access to you. They don't have to come here to have it. They get access to you online. You read what they write. You listen to what they say. And nobody's promoted them to this work. No one set them apart for it. No one said, you know, we think it would be good for you to do a podcast. They just decide. I think I got something to say. I think I'll say it. And here we all are listening to them, being taught by them. What's the fruit of it? Oftentimes, what's the fruit of it been with masks and all of the stuff surrounding this pandemic and many, many churches? You know what the fruit of it's been? Dissension in the local church. The people listening to those who are not their shepherds and who do not have any responsibility for their soul are causing dissension between the people.

and the leadership of the church. And those men are not ordained to speak to you and to exercise authority in your life in that way, and you ought not allow them to, says our elder, who has to clean up the mess. I said to a man recently, he came to me and says, you know, I was reading this thing online, and it was right, and I shared it, and you know, there was all this blowback from my friends, and I didn't know what to do. Like, they all thought I was this monster, this ogre with my knuckles to drag on the ground, that thought my poor wife was just, The most miserable woman in the world because I thought men were supposed to lead and women were supposed to follow. And he's like, I don't know what to do. And he comes to me. And I said to him, why did you come to me? Why don't you go ask the guy that wrote the thing? He's not taking any responsibility for the things he says. He doesn't have to clean up any of the messes he makes. No, the pastors and the elders have to clean up the messes. And the messes we often have to clean up are the messes of men coming in and telling you that we don't know what we're doing. Now is it true that we can make mistakes?

Yes, and I'll go further. It's not only true that we can make mistakes, it's inevitable that we do make mistakes. Nevertheless, those that you're listening to, those that you're following, those that you're feeding on are sowing seeds of division in your heart. What I found is that when men do call the guy online or email him or FaceTime or whatever, the guy's too busy for him. He doesn't have time to take responsibility and to do the work. And so my contention is that you shouldn't listen to people who don't care about you. And you should listen to people who do. Especially those that have been ordained to the work of caring for you. They're the ones that ought to be able to bend your ear. They're the ones who ought to have your affection. And if I can put a fine point on it, they're the ones who should receive your money. The warning that Titus has given is that these men do all of this thing, these empty talkers and these deceivers, they do it for sordid gain.

They do it for money. They want your money. And all the podcasts you listen to and all the things you read, there's always a plug. Premium content. $5 a month on Patreon. Or wherever. This is worth $5 a month. So you buy the premium seeds of division. I want to tell you something about truth. Saying things that are true is easy. Unbelievers are capable of telling the truth. Right? Jordan Peterson can tell you the truth about... Men, hey guys, clean your room. Hey guys, pick up your socks. It's true. You should do it. But you don't have to be a believer to be able to come up with that little nugget of gold. Saying true and helpful things is easy, especially when you steal it from those who've done the hard work of the work behind what makes it true and why it's true and why it's good.

And so if you don't want an unbeliever, or an unbeliever that could do the job just as well, keeping watch over your soul, then you should value ordination and the men that God's placed in your life who are supposed to do that work. And when you have troubles, you should come to us. I tell you the story earlier, and I said the man came to me and said, I made this mess, this thing online. And I laughed with him, and I said, well, why don't you call the guy who... just as running roughshod through the internets. But then I said, well, here's what I think you should do. But along with here's what I think you should do, I cautioned him, just like I'm cautioning you now about him paying attention to those men. Because that man can say, I don't know. And that's the end of his investment. But it's not so with those who've been ordained to care for your soul. So we've seen how Timothy was set apart for this work. We've also seen what should expect when men are called to this work. It's hard work. It's humble work. It's tiring.

A lot of it's unseen. So I want to step back out of the particulars now, and I want to apply to you. How does this apply to you? Other than that you ought to value and honor those that God's called to do this work among you. Other than that, how do you apply this text to your life? I think what we need to do is take out the principles that lead up to ordination and apply those to our lives. The first thing that you ought to do in your own life, as Timothy was supposed to do, was identify your gifting. What is it that you're gifted to do? And I want you to remember that your gifts were not given to you for your own pleasure. Though you will enjoy using them, that's not the end. The end of the gifts that God's given to you is that you would build up and grow and bless his people. James 1, 16 and 17 says, Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above. Coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. And so however God's made you, whether you're young or whether you're old, whether you're a man or a woman or you're married or you're single or you're a child, God's made you. Fearfully and wonderfully, he's made you. And he's given you gifts so that you would be able to glorify him with those very things. So you need to figure out what they are. To be a Christian is not to spend your life doing everything you're bad at. Daniel Meyer is called to be an elder, but he's called to be a computer programmer. I am not. My eyeballs would bleed if I had to do what Daniel does. That's how bad I would be at it and how much I would hate it. That's not true for Daniel. He enjoys it. He loves solving those problems. He gets that language. That's him.

He has gifts that lend itself to that sort of work. I don't. So you need to figure out what your gifts are. And don't be too humble to acknowledge that God's gifted you in ways. It actually gives glory to God for you to say, look at this work he's done in me. Look at how he made me. This is how he's gifted me. Whatever gifts you have are God's kindness to you. And you should be obliged to serve him with those gifts just like Timothy was. Don't neglect the spiritual gift that's within you. I should also say that as you go along looking for your gifts, you're also going to find your weaknesses, what I'm not good at. The sort of attention to detail that is required of computer programming is a weakness of mine. And it's a weakness not just if I had to program, but as a pastor. I don't like details. I don't like spending my time in them. I don't like seeing that all the check boxes are checked. That is not what I'm good at. It is not what I enjoy. It is what I do some of the time.

But as you find your gifts, you're also going to find your weaknesses. Cultivate your gifts. Strengthen your weaknesses. That's your first thing. Second, remember internal call, external call? I want to be a pastor. Presbytery agrees. Ask people about what your gifts are because there is a certain level of blindness that each of us has about ourselves. Because it's very hard for us to distinguish our desires from our gifts. We want something bad enough. We can really convince ourselves that that is what we're good at. You know, you ever seen a little kid that just thinks he's just, he is a basketball player, but he's not. And the sooner he figures it out, the better. Same with you. Have your gifts examined or questioned. You know, you can ask your elders and the older, tightest two women in the church or me, what do you think I'm good at? You know me. And then listen to what they say. And when they say, here's what I think you're good at, don't be like, no, I'm bad at everything. Because God didn't make you bad at everything.

He gave you gifts to glorify him and to build up his people. So seek counsel and advice. Other people have a different perspective on your gifts as well as your weaknesses. And I should also say that seek out people who actually give you good advice. Don't ask your girlfriend. Don't ask your boyfriend. Why? Because they want you to like them. So they may not tell you the truth. They might have the same blinders on that you do. Tell someone who loves you and knows you. And the final thing I'd tell you is trust God then with how he's made you and do the work he's called you to.

Take pains with it. Be absorbed in it so that your progress will be evident to all. Don't neglect the spiritual gift that God's put into you. Gospel ministry isn't the only spiritual gift that God gives, and so whatever gift he's given to you, identify it, cultivate it, ask others how to do that, and then trust God to bear fruit from your labor. This is how you serve God as a Christian. You don't come in with your conclusions already drawn. You come in with humility saying, Lord, use me how you would use me. Do with me what you will. Only help me to know what it is. And then give me faith to do it. You do this with finding a job. You can do this picking spouses. It might seem strange to you for me to say it. You can do it with picking spouses. But I think it's essential for those of you who are single. You ought to know what your gifts are. And you ought to know what the gifts and weaknesses of your prospective mate are.

because they might not line up very well. Not just any two Christians will get married and have a great marriage. Some of them will have a really miserable time of it because of the way their gifts and their weaknesses line up. And I'm not saying they shouldn't get married. I'm just saying it would be helpful for them to know ahead of time that it's more like a cross-cultural marriage than not. Finally, I tell you, you should be doing this work with your kids. Your kids want to know what they should be when they grow up. Don't you want to know what they should be when they grow up? I'm sure you do.

Help them. What are their gifts? What do you think? You're their parent. You spend all day with them. You hear the things they say and see the things they do when they're all alone. Sort it all out and see what their gifts are. Cultivate them. As a Christian parent, cultivate the gifts of your children. Encourage them in the things that God's gifted them in. We like sports in my house, but I also know that not all of my kids will be good at sports. And I know that some of them will feel the pressure to... Do what the whole family does. But I know that as they get older, some of them are, sports aren't going to be, you know, that's not going to scratch them where they itch. That sort of competitiveness, that sort of leadership, that sort of exertion, that sort of sacrifice, that's not going to do it for them. And that's okay. They don't have to be good at sports to be an abusara. We have to know what their gifts are and we have to cultivate them. Let's pray.