Title: The Shepherd's Responsibility
Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:2
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
After his resurrection, but before his ascension, Jesus met with his disciples one more time on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias. Over breakfast, they talked and engaged in fellowship, but at a certain point in the morning, Jesus turned to Peter and said, Simon, son of John, do you love me? This was a shock to Peter because just recently, not too long before, he had denied Jesus three times. Yet Jesus would give Peter three opportunities in that encounter to declare his love for him again.
Three times Jesus asked Peter, he said, Simon, do you love me? Three times Peter replied, yes, Lord, you know that I do. But wrapped in each of these replies was the Lord's charge to Simon Peter to shepherd my sheep, to tend my lambs, to feed my sheep. And so we know that in this passage, not only was Jesus restoring Peter to fellowship with him and to forgiveness, but he was also charging him with a stewardship, with a responsibility to feed his sheep.
Of course, this had not been the only time the Lord would have been concerned with this. It had been his concern for centuries, but sadly, the spiritual leaders of Israel had abdicated their responsibility to feed and care for the Lord's flock. In fact, in the indictment of the Lord through the mouth of Ezekiel, we read in Ezekiel 34, the word of the Lord came to me, he says, saying, son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to those shepherds, thus says the Lord God, woe shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves, should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock.
Those who are sickly, you have not strengthened, the disease you have not healed, the broken you've not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost. But with the force and with severity, you've dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd.
They became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains on every high hill. My flock was scattered all over the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.
Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my flock has become a prey, my flock has even become food for all the beasts of the field for lack of a shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but rather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed my flock. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against the shepherds and I will demand my sheep from them and make them cease from feeding sheep, so the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore, but I will deliver my flock from their mouth, so they will not be food for them." Terrifying indictment from the Lord God to the shepherds of Israel in the early years, the 6th and 7th century BC. But what is the indictment for the shepherds of Israel? It's a lack of feeding, a lack of teaching, a lack of loving, a lack of caring that brought the judgment of the Lord. But then we see the true shepherd arrive in the person of Jesus.
And what did he do as the true shepherd, the good shepherd? Well, he loved the people. He ministered to the sick. He comforted the hurting.
He fed the hungry. But more than ministering to felt needs, the Lord Jesus Christ, he fed the people the very word of God. And when he departed from them, he left behind under shepherds who would take his word and minister it to his people.
And he commissioned them in Matthew 28, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And then he says this, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And so after Pentecost, at the birth of the church, the assembly of believers, they gathered together in Acts chapter 2, verse 42.
And what were they doing? Luke records they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching. And as the apostles began to pass from the scene, they entrusted their teaching to other faithful men who would continue the blessed responsibility of feeding the sheep, feeding the flock. And so when the apostle Paul penned the first letter to Timothy, he was spelling out the biblical qualifications for shepherds, for pastors, for teachers.
But he included that very same responsibility of shepherding the flock through a very specific and notable task, the responsibility of teaching. So if you haven't already turned there, go to 1 Timothy chapter 3. That's going to be the context of where we are today. We've been seeing this for several weeks now, and we've noted that elder qualifications or shepherd qualifications, pastor qualifications, they're nothing more than Christian qualifications.
The caveat is this, what God desires for all believers, He requires for church leaders. And so as we're going to see, there is one distinctive that is particular to pastors and elders, and that is the ability to teach. And so that's what we're going to see here.
We're going to look at where we are in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. The apostle Paul writes, it is a trustworthy statement, if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. An overseer, then, must be above approach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.
But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God, and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil? And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. And so, as we've been working through this passage, we've seen here so far the shepherd's aspiration in verse 1, how it is a fine work that he desires to do. It's a faithful, good work in ministry.
And then we looked at the shepherd's marriage in verse 2, how he must be above reproach as the husband of one wife. He must love his wife as Christ loves the church. And then last week, we looked at the shepherd's character in verses 2 and 3, examining nine of ten key markers of faithfulness.
But now today, we're going to dip back just a little bit into verse 2 again, and we're going to discuss this one key qualification for elders, that he must be able to teach. Now, in the Greek, this is one word, didaktikos. It really only appears here and in 2 Timothy 2.24, and it refers to a person who is skillful in teaching.
Some translations render this an apt teacher. Now, even though this is specific only twice here in that word, the word usage, the root of that word is everywhere. Words like didike and didaskalia, a lot of these words have the same derivative, and they appear all throughout the New Testament, this imperative of teaching.
And the imperative is that the body of biblical teaching is being effectively communicated to God's people. That's what it means to feed the flock, by the way. You can feed and shepherd through care and through ministry and counseling, all kinds of things like that.
But the ultimate form of this and the corner of the stone, if you will, the foundation, the cornerstone of all of this is the ministry of the Word of God. Everything else is periphery. Everything else is less important if that is not first recovered.
But let's back up a little bit here, because Romans 10.17, Paul declares, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. And so, in the context of that passage here, it's a call for effective gospel preachers. Now certainly, people can come to saving faith by reading the Word of God.
Some of you might have come to faith through reading the Scriptures, but more likely, most of you have come to faith because you've heard the gospel. There's something about the hearing of the Word of God being declared, either spoken to you, sung to you, preached to you. There is something about the hearing.
But more than just salvation, even in sanctification, Jesus declared in John 17.17, sanctify them by the truth. Then He says to the Father, Your Word is truth. And so, sanctification, growth in holiness comes through a steady diet of biblical teaching.
Why are so many churches struggling and limping along today? Why are so many believers sluggish in their spiritual growth? I would contend that it's a lack of biblical exposition in churches abroad or a lack of intentionality or focus on biblical teaching. We want everything else under the sun. We want new words from God.
We want to watch movies about Him and read other books that are about Him and not from Him. There's so much peripheral discussion, so much focus elsewhere, but really what's missing, what's most important to us is biblical teaching. One quick anecdote illustrates this.
It comes from Acts chapter 8, when Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch on the desert road. This man is a high court official, and he's traveling on the back of a chariot, and he's reading a copy of Isaiah. And as he's reading, Philip hears what he's reading out loud, and he sort of catches up to the chariot and walks alongside for a second.
And he yells up, and he says, do you understand what you're reading? And the Ethiopian eunuch, he kind of bellows back. He says, well, how could I unless someone guides me? He didn't understand. He's reading Isaiah and has no idea what it means.
And so at that point, Philip hops up on the back of the chariot with him, and after he explains the passage to him, which is Isaiah 53, about how it refers to Jesus, at that point, and only at that point, the man believed the gospel, and then he was baptized, and then he went off. And so again, we need teachers who are able to communicate God's sanctifying truth clearly. Therefore, as Ephesians 4 11 says that God gave gifts to the church, gifts to the church in the form of pastors and teachers who will be able to equip the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.
The ultimate goal is not just to put on display the teaching and preaching of the Word of God. This is not just a show. The purpose of preaching and teaching the Word of God is so that the body of Christ will be built up.
And he says, for the work of service, so that you would not only just be built up and matured, but also active, and serving, and ministering. Romans 12 7 regards teaching as a spiritual gift. It's something the Lord grants to people.
Again, all believers are called to teach in some form. We call that discipleship, whether it's husbands and wives to one another, whether it's parents to their children, or evangelizing your friends, or your family, or the lost. I mean, all of us are called to give some sort of lesson or exposition in teaching or discipleship to somebody.
Believe it or not, folks, I mean, we're called to know this book, and we're called to share the contents of this book. I remember hearing about this woman years ago who, when she was a new Christian, nobody really did anything to teach her or disciple her along the way. So when she began to grow, and another young lady came alongside and says, I want to learn the Christian faith, she didn't know what to do.
So you know what they did? They got together, and they just read the Bible together. And so they got together, and they just read the passage out loud, talked about it, they found some resources, began to listen to teaching, and they just learned the Word of God together. And I know those two women, and they're actually faithful disciples even today.
So there's something about the importance of disseminating what you're learning from God's Word to other people. All of us are called to teach and disciple one another, and yet there are some who are called specifically and gifted especially with teaching. First Corinthians chapter 12 verses 28 to 31 places teaching into a group of greater gifts, the Bible says, to be used in the service of the church.
Because if faith and sanctification come by hearing and learning the Word of God, then we need effective gifted teachers who can communicate it. In this way it's how Christ's church is fed, or as Ephesians 5 26 expresses, that the Lord might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. And so every sermon is supposed to be a spiritual bath, so to speak, to minister God's cleansing truth to you.
Now, at this point we might do well to explain and distinguish the difference between preaching and teaching. I get asked that question more often than you'd think, believe it or not. What is the difference between preaching and teaching? One pastor I heard said the difference between preaching and teaching is that preaching is louder.
I'm like, all right, that works. And so yes, they're similar to one another, but they're not exactly the same. And truthfully, you know the difference between a lesson and a sermon.
If I were to press you, you would know the difference. But even in the scriptures, these two are delineated. For example, 1 Timothy 5 17 pronounces a blessing on elders who work hard at preaching and teaching.
So there is a distinction in scripture. And so if I could delineate between the two, it's simply this. Teaching is the effective, clear communication of information to the student.
So to get up and work with somebody who's learning and just give them the information in a clear and effective way. It's highly focused on content and accuracy. Again, bad teaching is not clear, not accurate.
Good teaching is both clear and accurate. So that's just teaching. Preaching, however, is teaching on steroids.
Martin Lloyd-Jones says this, preaching is logic on fire. That's what preaching is. He also called it in another place, theology on fire.
We see this in places like Acts 4-2 where there's a difference between the faithful teaching of the Word of God and the proclamation of it. See, preaching involves more than just communicating facts and information. Preaching involves passion.
It involves rhetoric. It involves argumentation, entreaty, direct address, challenges, even pleading. It's a different delivery system than simply a Bible lesson.
And again, you know when you hear preaching versus teaching. And so we might say it this way, all preaching is teaching, but not all teaching is preaching. Make sense? All preaching ought to be faithful, clear, accurate teaching of the Word of God, but then you take that faithful, accurate teaching and you ignite it with passion, with rhetoric, and with delivery.
And so shepherds, elders, overseers, pastors, they must be able to teach, able to teach, and yet we know that some will be skilled in preaching. But the teaching component, that is what is key, that we're able to teach to communicate clearly and accurately the Word of God. In fact, that's the key distinction between the qualifications for elder and deacon.
The main qualitative or the qualitative difference is not the issue of character, it's not the issue of their household, it's not the issue of their marriage. The key issue is whether or not one is called to teach versus the other. Well, why? Because again, overseers and elders and pastors are responsible.
We are responsible for stewarding the doctrine of the church. And so for the time we have remaining, I want to explore three key disciplines of teaching, three key disciplines that I think are very important. Because when you ponder, again, a word like this, literally one word in the Greek, I want to make sure that we understand why this able to teach qualification is there.
So one, two, three, we're going to go right down the line here. Number one, what is one key discipline of teaching? Number one, that you understand what is being taught, that you understand what's being taught. See, here's the thing, if elders need to be able to teach, the natural question is this.
Well, what are we to be teaching? There's lots of things I could teach you. I could teach you how to tie a tie. Not very well, but I could do it.
But that's not really very important. You don't care about that. What do you care about? Do you care about my political opinions? I could teach you all about politics from my perspective.
Not helpful. I could teach you all kinds of just silly trivia. Culture, movies, music, whatever.
None of that's important, and yet that is the content of many sermons in the world today. It's a sad state of affairs, but we are called, first and foremost, we are called to teach God's Word, the Bible, Scripture, 66 books, Old and New Testament. This is what we're commanded to teach.
See, without the Scriptures, and mark this, without the Scriptures, the best we will ever be able to offer is good advice or best practices. That's it. Sadly, too many pastors offer nothing more than Sunday morning TED Talks.
I listen to them all the time. It's sad. It's so hard to find a church where someone just gets up and teaches the Bible.
People hear about it. You teach the Bible at your church? Yeah, what else would I teach? It's shocking. That didn't used to be the way.
From the time of the Reformation on, it's always been the Bible and some catechesis of doctrine, but it's always been Word-centered, and yet we've gotten away from that. But we are called and commanded, commanded. Why do I say commanded? Because 2 Timothy 4 says, preach the Word.
Be ready in season and out of season. That means anytime, anywhere. You wake me up at three o'clock in the morning, say, pastor, I need a sermon.
I have to be able to do it. Don't do that, please. But if you did, I would be obligated to the Lord to preach you a sermon, and I would preach it for three hours so you wouldn't forget, don't call me at 3 a.m. In season and out of season, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any text.
Be ready. And then he says, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. And so we're not just told to do it.
I'm not just allowed to just get up here and blast you with the Word of God. I'm also called to reprove, rebuke, exhort, but to do it patiently, carefully, and with good instruction. See, it's not our stories.
It's not opinions. My opinion does not matter. It's not advice.
It's not my ideas. It's not my musings about things. You want that? Go somewhere else.
I am not here to do that. Rather, it is the Word of God that transforms people at the heart level. God's Word will change you in a way that me or no one else could ever do.
God's Word, it's His inspired, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient Word that does the work. We read in 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture, all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. He says all Scripture.
And you think about that for a second. You say, well, that seems obvious enough. But then you go to hard places in the Bible.
You go to some of the laws in the Old Testament. You say, all Scripture? Yes, all Scripture. What about the genealogies? Yes, all Scripture.
What about prophecy? What about poetry in the Bible? Yes, all Scripture. But those are hard to understand. Well, that's why we have to do the work.
But if you're being challenged or if the Bible is difficult to you, I heard one pastor say, if the Bible is boring to you, it's not the Bible's fault. The Word of God is powerful, it's useful, it's applicable. We're the ones with the obstacles.
But it is the Word of God's job to minister to your heart. That's why we need Bible teachers. We must be able to teach the Bible.
But we must also teach doctrine. Doctrine. Well, what is doctrine? Well, doctrine is simply this.
It is teaching that is derived from the Scriptures. Teaching that is derived from the Scriptures. Now, why is that important? Well, because there are some doctrines that we hold to be orthodox, and yet maybe the words themselves might not be found on the pages of Scripture.
Let me give you an example. The doctrine of the Trinity. How we understand the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We know and believe that God exists eternally in three distinct persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each one of them is fully and truly God.
And yet the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, but the collective teaching of the Godhead certainly is. And so to understand that collective teaching, that orthodox teaching of the triune nature of God, we have to teach theology. We are told, for example, Titus 2.1, to speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.
1 Timothy 4.6, we are to be constantly nourished on the words of faith, he says, and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. Furthermore, we are to discern and reject false doctrine. He says that in 1 Timothy 6.3, different doctrine that does not agree with sound doctrine and does not conform to godliness.
He said there are doctrines that people teach that don't conform to Scripture and actually will lead a person into ungodliness. In fact, one key marker of false doctrine is the effect. When you look at heresy that's being taught, look at the people who are teaching it.
Look at the followers of heresy. It will never lead them into more godliness. It will always lead them into less godliness.
It will lead them into wickedness. Now you also might be getting to a point where you're studying things in church history, apologetics, counseling, current events, Christian ethics, worldview issues, all kinds of things. There's lots to study in the Scriptures, but they should never take the place of the and of sound doctrine that is derived from the Scripture.
And so this is what we are required to teach. And so we must understand that. We must know the difference.
If you're called to be a pastor or an elder or a Bible teacher, you have to know that you're going to be required and accountable for the doctrine and the Scriptures themselves. So important. But that leads us to another question.
Well, how do we learn this content? This is a big book, isn't it? How do I learn this content? How do I understand and learn how to communicate that content? That brings us to the second discipline of teaching. Number two, diligence in learning the content. Diligence in learning the content.
Believe it or not, no one learns the Christian faith by osmosis. You don't just hang around the church people and just get sound doctrine. Now, you might pick up a little bit, but you're not going to learn faithful biblical understanding just by hanging around long enough.
There has to be some work done. Furthermore, you can't just take your Bible software, plug it into the side of your ear and learn it all in one day. It doesn't work like that.
No, you have to study. You have to read. You have to examine.
You have to meditate the way that the Scriptures describe the way that a cow chews its cud over and over and over again. You must learn and memorize and meditate on the word of God. What does this verse mean? How do I understand? I want to bring some help in.
I want to grab teachers who understand this, who are experts in the language and experts in the grammar and experts in the culture. What do you mean? Oh, Lord, then you pray, Lord, give me understanding. Help me to know.
Help me to apply. Well, that sounds like a lot of work, Pastor. It is.
But what else would you give your time to that is worth more than that? Nothing. To know what God says, to know what God intends for you to do, to believe, to know, to rest in. What else would you want to give your time to than to learning the word of God? But pastors, preachers, teachers, elders are required to know the word of God with some level of proficiency.
When I'm talking to new or young ministers, pastors, I don't do it all the time, but I do rub up against some younger guys than myself. And one of the things I tell them is you need to master the Bible as close to humanly possible as you can. We'll never master this book completely.
That's impossible. But to do it as much as you possibly can to push the boundary of it. It's great to go to seminary, take classes, do all kinds of other things and learn everything else under the sun, but become an expert in the word of God.
Devote yourself wholly to learning this Bible to eat this Bible for a shameless plug. There's a reason I wrote that book. I want you to eat and digest and know this Bible so it grows you from the inside out.
That you would know it with such proficiency that you could explain it to somebody else. But again, pastors are called to do this. 2 Timothy 2 15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately, literally the Greek, it's rightly dividing, cutting it straight, handling accurately the word of God.
There are many men and women who fancy themselves to be teachers who have no business teaching at all. In fact, this was the problem in Ephesus. If you remember in your mind back to chapter one, there were certain men who were teaching strange doctrines, turning aside to fruitless discussion, verse three, verse six.
That was a problem that Paul was addressing right off the bat. But there were there were men who were teaching things that were they were not supposed to be teaching. And Paul adds to this, they were wanting to be teachers of the law, they fancied themselves to be Bible teachers.
He says, even though they do not understand either what they are saying, or the matters about which they make confident assertions. There are lots of people, lots of men, lots of young men, I was one of them, who eyeballed the pulpit and says, Oh, I want to do that, who had no business whatsoever until you learn the Word of God. Everybody wants to do this without doing this.
It is absolutely essential that you must understand what is here. But these men in Ephesus, they hadn't been diligent and study to learn the Bible to learn sound doctrine to the point where if they were to speak, it would be shameful. This is why pastors and elders must undergo training, personal Bible study, mentoring classes, even seminary training, if necessary, whatever it takes to get as close to mastery as humanly possible.
There's a ministry that we've recently been working alongside. It's called XL Ministries, XL, Excellence in Leadership. And the entire focus of this ministry, it has one objective.
This ministry exists to come alongside churches and help them to develop elders, teachers, pastors, and missionaries. And so they come alongside and they work with the church's current doctrine. They don't violate their doctrine and say you got to go do this or do that.
They work with the church's doctrine to give them a track to run on, a curriculum to help develop pastors and leaders. Because ultimately, again, we are responsible for stewarding the church's doctrine, which is why the Apostle Paul exhorts in 1 Timothy 4.16, 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.
I have this verse tacked up on my wall in front of my desk in my office to remind myself to guard my life and my doctrine. If you don't guard your life, but you have good doctrine, you will disqualify yourself. If you have a faithful life and don't have doctrine, you'll lead the church astray.
And so we must constantly be focused on guarding our life and our doctrine. This is a serious responsibility. Everything stands or falls on doctrinal clarity and faithfulness.
And that brings us to the third discipline. Number three, being faithful in the responsibility. There are several areas of responsibility which require faithfulness.
And by faithfulness, I mean all aspects of the teaching responsibility that require consistent and tireless effort. And there might be a few of these times when, for now, let me back up. I missed what I said here.
There might be a few times I'm losing my place here, guys. I'm sorry. I must be distracted.
Let's focus on steadfastness. In his charge to the elders in Titus 1.9, the apostle Paul insists that they are to be holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching. An elder's responsibility is to hold fast the word of God.
We are to keep the word of God. We are to cling to the word of God. We are to guard it with our life.
We are the stewards of the word of God in the church. And so to be steadfast in this, the apostle Paul expands on that responsibility, that we are to be holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching. And then he says this, so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.
And so there are two aspects of faithfulness in teaching. Number one is exhorting the church in sound doctrine. That's preaching, teaching, applying, comforting, encouraging, all elements of exhortation to give the church the word of God.
But there's also the flip side of that, which is refuting those who contradict sound doctrine. That means correcting, explaining, defending, rebuking, and warning. And frankly that's hard to do.
It's hard to do. Well why? Well because nobody enjoys being on the receiving end of that. Peter certainly didn't relish the experience of Paul opposing him to his face in front of the Galatians, but it was necessary because at that moment Peter was compromising on the truth of the gospel and condemning himself by way, by the way he was doing it.
And so Paul undertook the responsibility of refuting Peter's errors of which he later repented. But again this is difficult. It's difficult to tell someone that they're wrong about something they believe or espouse, which is why the second part of faithfulness is important.
So the first aspect of faithfulness is steadfastness. The second one is this, courage. Courage.
At first glance this might not seem like an important aspect of pastoral ministry, but it's vital to faithfulness. Because we're always tasked with saying and doing hard things. We're reminded in 2 Timothy 1-7, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and power and discipline.
All throughout 2 Timothy, which Paul was writing on his way to being killed, he encourages his young disciple in these sorts of ways. He says, do not be afraid. Do not be ashamed.
Join me in suffering. How would you like that for a pastoral sweetener? A young guy comes along to be getting into ministry and he says, all right come suffer hardship with me. Sounds good.
But that's essentially what we're doing is we're signing up to suffer for the sake of the gospel. All ministry involves an element of suffering. He says, suffer hardship with me.
There are things in ministry that you do that are difficult. Not everything is easy. There is a level of hardship in ministry, in all aspects of ministry.
And so he tells his young disciple, endure hardship. Fulfill your ministry. This takes courage.
Because we don't like to do hard things, but courageously must. Of course we understand that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather it is action in the face of fear. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid.
Courage means that you're willing to obey the Lord. Well how does this relate to teaching responsibility? Why do you need courage in preaching and teaching? Well because there's times when you're going to have to say or do things that are not popular or difficult. You will have to confront sin.
You'll have to stand against wickedness. You have to teach challenging truths that people might not like. Now when he exhorted Titus in his letter, Paul told him in chapter 2 verse 15, speak these things, exhort and reprove with all authority, let no one disregard you.
In other words, don't apologize for God's Word. Don't be shy when it comes to confrontation. Don't abdicate your responsibility to correct.
Again we are to do so graciously, but we are called to be faithful. Well how do you let no one disregard you? How does that work? Well I believe that happens so that you speak in such a way that the hearer has to respond. Because there are times when you might avoid the confrontation or avoid the verse or avoid the difficult truth because you don't want to put someone in a position they have to deal with that truth.
But as a preacher of God's Word, there's a reason by the way beloved, that we go verse by verse. Not only so that we'll get the entire body of God's teaching, but also so that you can assure, be assured that I'm not going to skip a verse because it's uncomfortable. I'm not going to cherry pick a verse or go around a truth.
We cover everything in any given point of scripture that's essential to doctrine. I don't care what it is. If it's in God's Word, it's important I'm going to teach it.
But there are some things that are not popular to say. I know many of you were praying for me when I was teaching on the role of women in the church. It was fun.
Well, why? Let me tell you why teaching three sermons on the role of women in the church was fun. Why I enjoyed it. Because this is God's Word.
And God knows better for you than anyone else does. And a pastor once said, and I heard it, I'll remember it forever. When you go to the pulpit, you make sure that you unburden the church that day.
And so many of you are walking around carrying burdens that were not from God. And whenever a preacher gets to unburden you from things that don't belong there, that's a good day. And so even though it's difficult to hear, even though it's difficult to say, it is imperative that we say what God wants us to say and be encouraged by that.
There's nothing to apologize for. There's nothing to be embarrassed for. And I don't care if it's men, women in the church, men's responsibilities, issues of sexual morality, politics.
I don't care what the situation is. If God speaks about it, we are to repeat that and teach with full authority. And he says, let no one disregard you to the point where you're going to have to deal with the text, either in repentance or in rebellion.
One of the two, pick one. But sadly, so many leaders fail to do this because they're cowards and they fear men more than they fear God. And that's wrong.
But consider what Paul says in Galatians 1.10 after he anathematizes false teachers, he says, for am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Those are my options. I can either please men or I can please God, but I can't do both. Am I now seeking the favor of men or of God, or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
It's very clear in his mind. And yet there is a difference between courageousness and contentiousness, between being bold and being a bully. Know the difference.
True courage is when you're willing to obey God in whatever he commands, regardless of what it costs you on earth. And the church needs more courageous men. Men who are willing to say what's true, graciously but truthfully.
The last aspect of faithfulness in pastoral ministry is what I'm calling entrustment. Entrustment. So we've talked about steadfastness.
We've talked about courage. The last one is this entrustment. Where do I get this word from? 2 Timothy 2 verses 1 and 2. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses.
These entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. See, it is not enough to fulfill a long ministry and then just go home to be with the Lord. I could be here for 40 years, do my job, and leave to be with the Lord in glory.
But if I have not passed this on to anyone, if I haven't entrusted this to anyone, I've failed. And so we are entrusted with the responsibility of passing the torch to the next generation. And here in verse 2 we're caught up in this four-man relay.
You can see it right in the text here. Four-man relay. Paul is handing off to Timothy.
Timothy is handing off to faithful men. And these faithful men are going to be handing off to other faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And so what's remarkable about this is that every pastor in history is part of that group of faithful others who've been able to teach also.
Every single pastor, elder, teacher in church history is in this verse. And we must keep it going. Frankly, if this teaching ministry dies with me, then I have failed as a preacher and a teacher.
And we have failed as leadership in this church. And so we have to be able to pass the torch on to the next generation. And this next generation, they're not going to have, they can't drop it, and they can't let it flicker out.
That's, I'll tell you, beloved, personally, that's something that's in my mind. I'm not just thinking about the next 30 years of my personal ministry here. I'm thinking about the next 100 years.
Historically, churches don't tend to last for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years in faithfulness. There are one or two I've heard of that have the torch of the testimony handed down for 400 years, but it's super rare. That's a bummer, by the way.
I wish it was longer. But 100 years seems like a good goal for us to aim at, doesn't it? We want to make sure that we entrust not just to the next generation, but for the next generation after that. So that my kids and their kids and then their kids have the gospel witness being preached from the Reverend Isaac Smith Memorial Pulpit.
If we don't do this, then what is the point of planting a church? There's lots of old white buildings that are dead because they've jettisoned the gospel. They've jettisoned biblical exposition. Shame.
We have to entrust what we have. And it's not just the preacher, by the way. You have been entrusted with this truth.
And so you must also hand this truth off to your children, to other children, to the next generation, to others around you, discipleship. We are charged with the body of this truth to hand it off and to pass it down. And so Paul qualifies here.
We are to entrust the teaching to faithful men. Again, this is elder qualification, faithful men. They have to be qualified as a faithful man of God to be entrusted with this specific preaching and teaching ministry.
Well, again, how do we gauge what's faithful? That's why we're in 1 Timothy chapter three. We must find faithful men. And secondly, we must find out that those faithful men are then able to teach others also.
There are lots and lots of faithful men character wise, but if we're not able to teach effectively, then you have to be able to find men who are able to teach to hand this off. Well, how do you know if they're able to teach others also? Well, the very, very simply we ask, are they currently doing it? How do you know if there's a faithful man who's able to teach others also? Is he teaching anybody right now? Is a man of God teaching and exhorting his wife with the truth? Is he instructing his children? Is he discipling anybody in the church? Is he teaching at all? If a man comes to me and says, I want to be a preacher or a teacher or an elder. One of the first questions that need to be asked is, well, are you doing this with anybody else? And if they say no, then I have no way to know if they're able to teach and they're faithful to teach others also.
But when you find a man who is already doing the work, already discipling someone else, already leading a Bible study, already faithful in teaching, then you know that he is faithful to teach others also. But here's the thing. If you're faithful in little, then you'll be faithful in much.
Start small. And that's not just to prospective elders and pastors. All of you have a responsibility and an opportunity to teach others also.
It might be your children. It might be someone else who is just a little bit behind you in the faith. You can come alongside.
Because some of you, I know, don't feel like you're able to do any of these things. But I promise you that you're wrong. I promise you that if you can hold God's Word in your hand and read it and think through it, and you've been a Christian for any length of time, you can grab someone else next to you and say, let's do this together.
And guess what? You can learn with them. Bring someone else along with you. It doesn't have to be formal.
You don't have to walk up and say, let's enter into a discipleship relationship. Just call someone on the phone and say, you want to get together and just study the Bible together? Sure. I used to do it all the time.
I used to run men's ministries, young men's ministries. We'd just get together in my buddy's basement and we'd just grab a Bible and just start working through it. We'd share.
We'd each take turns teaching a lesson that week. We would just exhort and encourage each other. I led two of those groups.
I wanted to lead groups. I wanted to lead men into teaching and understanding the Word of God. That's not a me thing.
That's an us thing. We can do that, folks. There's nothing stopping you from coming alongside somebody else and showing them the way of Christ.
But here's the thing. If a man is not able to teach, then he is not able to shepherd the flock of God. And so let me exhort you today.
Learn God's Word like the back of your hand. Learn it. Learn it cold.
Study doctrine and theology. Seek to be mentored and discipled by somebody else. Seek to disciple or mentor somebody else.
But above all, learn the gospel and learn how to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the cornerstone of all of this is the saving message of Christ. And what is that message? It's the message that even though all of us have fallen short of the glory of God because we've sinned against God, all of us inside of ourselves by nature and by cognizant choice have sinned against God and broken His law.
And because of that, all of us are worthy of death and judgment. And yet God in His mercy and kindness chose to send His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is truly God and truly man. He came as God incarnate, walked on this earth and lived a sinless, perfect, flawless life and then took that life of perfection and righteousness and offered it up on the cross to pay the penalty for sins.
And when He died on the cross, our sins were nailed to the cross with Him. He died to pay the penalty for sins, absorbed the wrath of God and the judgment of God against us, was buried in the ground and then rose the third day to bring life and hope and resurrection to all who would believe in Him. And so what must you do? Repent of your sins.
Turn away from your sins and trust in Jesus Christ. And the Bible says you will have everlasting life. He's promised it to those who believe in Him.
And so if that's you, if you've never trusted in Jesus Christ today, maybe you've been at this church for five years, 10 years. I don't care how long you've been here. There might be some of you here that do not understand or believe or live out in response to that message.
Turn away from sin, trust in Jesus Christ and you will have life and salvation. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessed opportunity of looking into your word today.
And Lord, I want to thank you personally for the joy and responsibility and stewardship of preaching the word of God week to week. Lord, it's a special relationship that we have with you, with one another and with your word, by your spirit. Lord, we don't take this lightly.
This is not something we enter into without cost, without consideration. But we're grateful to you that we have this ministry here at this church. And so, Father, I pray that you would bind this word to our hearts, transform our minds, transform our understanding, keep us, Lord, from all sin and all ways of wickedness and conform us to the image of your son.
We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.