1 Timothy 3, Are You Following the Instructions?

1 Timothy chapter 3, starting in verse 1, read the whole chapter, hear the word of the Lord. The saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober -minded, self -controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

But if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that they may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double -tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first.

Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober -minded, faithful in all things.

And that could be translated to say here that could be the women literally in verse 11.

Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing his children and their own households.

Well, for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of Godliness.

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Will anyone notice anything different?

Yeah, I'm not wearing glasses. In fact, this would be the first time I've ever preached without glasses on. I'm pretty sure otherwise

I couldn't see before. This past Thursday, I had the LASIK procedure done. And so while it still takes a while, my vision is not perfect yet.

It takes a while for the eyes to adjust. That's, that's, is that Wayne in yellow?

Okay, see? Couldn't tell if it was Wayne or Mary. I'm pretty sure it's

Wayne. Anyway, I should be without glasses for now, at least, and for the first time since I was a teenager.

And while I'm adjusting, like for the next week, I should be careful to follow the post operation post -op instructions they gave me.

I do like eye drops every four hours and wear an eye guard while I sleep. And there's a list of things not to do.

No tackle football for now. For something as important as my eyes, I want to be careful to follow the instructions.

I don't want to mess up. Now I'm not usually the kind of instructions reading type, you know, get a desk to put together or something to assemble.

And I don't usually, you know, I could, I'll do it myself. And then if I get stuck, then maybe

I'll, you know, consult the instructions. What about you? You like that?

Ever bought something has to be assembled, like a piece of furniture, a bicycle, a computer system, whatever, and you know, got stuck, you're putting it together and then have to resort to that extreme drastic measure of reading the instructions.

That happens to me. And then I get frustrated, at least when I get stuck. And then maybe, maybe I read the structure. I can't figure them out.

And I don't like that. So I was, I was grateful that Mary and Wayne is there like six months ago, whenever they assembled that little desk in my, in my office there and let them take care of it.

I think, I think Mary said, Wayne actually follows instructions. Yeah. Wayne actually, Wayne is one of these who reads the instructions ahead of time.

So that's good. Many of us start with our preconceived preconceived notions. You get the box, put stuff out.

We look like I can put it together without having to look at that book, little booklet, how it preconceived notions, how it should go together and only go to the instructions that things go frustratingly bad.

A lot of people are like that when it comes to putting a life together, they'll do things the way that looks right to them, the way that feels right, how they marry, or maybe they don't marry at all, raise their kids and spend their money, you know, spend their time.

And they might even get pretty far in life. And then they get stuck sometime or later, they'll get stuck and frustrated.

And they wonder why life is not coming together like they thought it would. Well, they didn't follow the instructions.

And many people, particularly around here, I think are definitely this way when it comes to putting a church together, it'll start out with how they assume it should work.

Don't bother reading the instructions. After all, a lot of people around here have, you know, have been around at least what they think is a church all their lives.

And so they think they know how to put one together. You know, that's, of course, that is obvious.

We know how to do the church thing, but it's kind of like, I've been going to church all my life. What's the trick?

But that's kind of like thinking, you know how to do heart surgery because you've always had a heart. That's not very smart, is it?

There's a new generation now of church leaders who think they have a better way that, you know, they,

OK, they may be growing up with a church, but the old way they don't like they have a new way. It's maybe purpose driven.

Start out with the purpose of the church, which they think is about attracting more and more people and then practically shaping everything about the church to meet that purpose.

It's sort of like the way business is done, isn't it? Business, you have your business and you just ruthlessly design the business to fulfill its purpose, which is making money.

Right. You know, if you're going to open a restaurant, does this make money to sign out on the road?

Does this make money? I do. You know, it does. Getting new staff. Does it make money or cost me money? That's just the way you think of it.

That's how people think like that in the church. What is this church supposed to attract more people? So everything is designed around that mission.

The problem with that. One is I'm not sure they understand really what the mission of the church is, what the church is.

And they're not following the instructions. We have a lot of people today and over the last century or more who aren't reading the instructions when it comes to assembling a church.

And the worst ones, the worst offenders in this, I think it seems to me are like us, the ones who call themselves

Baptist. You know, I've seen good defenses. I can show you good defenses.

I can respect, even though I may disagree with them, I can respect defending the

Episcopal system of church organization with a bishop and no norm, like a hierarchy structured down or the

Presbyterian system of church organization. I've seen those or like us with elders and congregationalism like that.

But I've never seen a Baptist try to defend the system that is developed.

And I think unthinkingly developed, it seems to me in Baptist churches over the last 100 plus years, which is usually a single pastor with a board of so -called deacons.

Where in the world do you get a board of deacons? I defy you to go through the New Testament and find board of deacons anywhere in the whole, in the whole

Bible. It's as though they, I don't even think they've even considered the idea of reading the instructions.

Now here in first Timothy three, we have some of those instructions that people aren't reading.

And here again, the theme as in last week in chapter two is summed up in verse 15, how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God. This is how to behave. Now, how do you behave? Well, there's instructions telling us how his instructions tell us that there are leaders and they break down into two types, two types of leaders, which we see in this chapter.

He calls them one overseers elsewhere. They're called elders or deacons.

Those are the two types. He begins that being a leader or overseer in a church is a good thing.

Uh, and notice by the way, carefully in verse one, that the task is good.

The role is good. Being an overseer, uh, not necessarily desiring it is good.

He says, the, the, the second structure, if someone aspires to the office of overseer, he denied it.

He desires a noble task. The task is good. His aspiring to it, man, that's may or may or may not be good.

That's not what he's saying. It is good. It might be, or it might not be because some people aspire it for the wrong reason, but just, and so, but just because someone aspires to it, wants it, doesn't mean he should have it like in an army leaders have to meet certain qualifications and no respectable army would make a general out of just any of the volunteers.

Would it, you know, get all the volunteers together who wants to be the general who wants to be in charge? Somebody raises their hand.

Okay. You won the world. Uh, think what that says about any organization that allows anyone to be a leader with no qualifications to enter, no standards to keep an organization that will allow just kind of any warm body to be a leader as well.

They lost all sense of itself, of its mission, what it's about. If it were the military, we'd say that his morale was low, that it's a spree to core was flagging.

It would have no sense of his nobility of no sense of his calling of the exalted nature of his calling.

And much more is this the case with the church, the church, God's household, the inspired apostle list over a dozen qualifications.

And I'm not going to go through everyone, you know, explaining everyone, because some of them are self -explanatory, but at least a dozen qualifications for a man to be a leader.

And what he calls an overseer of a church. Uh, there, there are three things to notice though about these qualifications.

He's starting with the letter S one is self -mastery second service.

And third, there's one key skill listed here, self -mastery service and skill.

So first the virtue of self mastery, the self -control is very prominent in these instructions.

Many of these qualities listed here are really just different ways of talking about self -control of describing someone who has the power to control himself.

He's mastered himself. For example, the one woman, man, that's what literally that term, the husband and one wife is literally

Greek. One woman, man is, is a man who is able to properly control his sexual desires and keep it in the confines of marriage.

The temperate or sober minded man is, is free from forms, you know, going in and often to excess and to extremes, extremes, say of a passion or of rashness, uh, maybe of like, he can control his drinking.

So he doesn't get drunk. He's, he can control his eating. So he's not a glutton. He doesn't, he can control his spending.

So he doesn't go into unnecessary debt. The fourth one is generally described as, uh, you notice the word self -controlled, which is sort of what we all, many of them are talking about, but, but it has there, the fourth one that, uh, self -control, but it has a specific meaning.

It refers to a, a wisdom or prudence, a thoughtfulness that produces self -discipline.

The kind of man who should be a leader in a church is wise enough to see the long -term consequences of his actions.

The message that his behavior sends, but it may be particular to his family, but to himself, what will this mean for myself if I keep doing this, living like this?

So for him, the disciplines of the Christian life, like Bible study and prayer attendance at worship, or even the sort of the generic disciplines of, you know, watching one's diet monogamy, you know, whatever you're spending in line, those aren't just grim duties that you got to do to achieve your goal.

Uh, but they are profitable ways. He can see that doing these things is profitable.

It's a good way of investing my time. Uh, and so as someone with prudent foresight, he, he, he can see, okay, maybe

I don't feel like maybe I want to spend a bunch of money on this expensive sports car, but I can see the consequences of that on the longterm.

And he can see that disciplining himself like that will give him in the longterm more joy than whatever distraction it is that is tempting him at the moment.

At the next, the fifth term there in Greek is, is related to the term we get our word cosmos from.

Uh, it is usually translated respectable. It's to be respectable. Uh, and that is a good, he looks good to those outside as in our word cosmetology, you know, the art of looking good.

It's what's cosmetology is the art of arranging things. If somebody's hair or makeup, whatever to make them look good, or it can also mean orderly, just like nature is orderly.

The rotation of the earth, the orbit of the planets, the regularity of the seasons is all orderly. All of creation is orderly.

And so the discipline man is, is orderly. He, he is where he is supposed to be, where he is supposed when he is supposed to be there, just like a planet in space.

And that's respectable. You can just, he does what he's supposed to be doing. He's not easily swayed by feelings or deterred by obstacles.

And you can respect that, right? He only a person who was able to rule himself can be given rule over others.

Now, one key way of seeing if someone has self mastery is to examine his family life.

When it comes to family life, you notice the apostle stops because he's just listing a lot of things, one word at a time.

But for that one, he stops and for two verses emphasizes it. He really bears down on that.

This one is especially important. He's saying, and one of the best ways to see where one's heart is, is to see who they marry.

The fact that I tell Mary, it makes me feel very good about myself. It makes me kind of wonder about her though. Let's go for that.

But you know, I've heard of people, I've heard of it. I'm know of young men who've said that they have a heart for missions. They want to go into missions and preach the gospel to other nations.

And then they end up marrying a woman who has no desire for missions. Okay. Something wrong with that. Your desire for missions wasn't so important to you that it determined who you married.

Well, literally here, verse four says he must rule his own household well and having his children of subjection with all gravity.

And notice the overseer must rule. He's the one in charge, his family.

He's the spiritual leader. He's not the kind that's, you know, dragged to church by his wife, right?

He rules it well. And one way to see if he is really doing that is whether his children will, if they respect him.

Most of the time, you know, sometimes you get children who go off wild. We understand that. But if they respect their father, that's a good sign.

Children will respect a father who does what he says and says what he does, who doesn't make wild threats when he's angry.

I'm going to skin you alive, you brat. And only to back down when he's not. And when he's, when he's calm and he's in a good mood, he'll just let the kids do anything they want.

You know, he, he, he, he, but you know, he's not an unreasonable ogre shouting demands like a drill sergeant, you know, ruling his household like that.

No, but neither is he a soft touch, kind of easily manipulated by tantrums.

He'll give into any wild tantrum or by tears. Daddy, I want that. Okay. He's not so easily manipulated.

A father who rules himself isn't easily manipulated. So we can rule his house and perhaps the church too.

And Paul bears down on this particular qualification. If anyone does not know how to rule his own household, how will he care for God's assembly?

Imply against God's household, right? That, that is, this is the standard that all overseers, including myself must be held to.

If we cannot lead and gain the respect of our own family, we can't lead in the church, which is

God's family. In verse six, there are, there's another qualification Paul elaborates on.

The overseer must not be a recent convert. Here, the church has suffered for not following these instructions.

Sometimes, sometimes young men are, you know, by being, if you're young enough, you're going to be recent convert, you know, just for the sake of your young, uh, young men are sometimes put into leadership simply because they have a gift for preaching.

They can speak well. They're entertaining. They're energetic. They're lively because they're young. They have the right demeanor.

They have an apparent anointing. Some people call it, or, or they have, maybe they have money. They have a good career. They've just graduated and there are, you're a young doctor or whatever.

Sometimes just because they're willing to volunteer. When the church has an opening, they say, yes, uh, people are happy because someone's taking the position.

If he's eager, as many young people are, he starts out. Well, he's lauded with praise. Oh, he's the greatest

Sunday school teacher ever. We love hearing him. He's complimented and offered more positions. And soon, just as Paul said, he gets a swell head puffed up conceded.

And the Greek word there describes people who live in a kind of self -centered fantasy.

He thinks he's just so great because everyone's told him how spectacular he is and is speaking and singing or whatever it is.

And they began to believe all the high praise and began to think that the best thing to happen to the church since Pentecost, just like Lucifer, who stopped looking at the ultimate source of beauty and glory kind of, and then fell in love with himself, with the reflected beauty and glory coming from himself.

So such a young untried puffed up person gets deluded, just gets his head filled with, you know, just, just ideas of his own perceived greatness and forgets where all his gifts came from.

So God judges him in a similar way as the devil. I think how God judged the devil, cast him down.

He says rules over there. He has his little domain. He may think he's great in the end though. It won't turn out so well for him.

One of the strongest and most stealth drives we all have is our pride, our satanic delusions of grandeur and sure, aspiring to be an overseer can be a noble task, but sometimes men desire it for selfish reasons.

The task itself is noble. Sometimes the reason people aspire to it is not sometimes they aspire to it for selfish reasons.

They want to be the teacher. They wanted to be the center of attention. Maybe they don't care about the money so much. They got that taken care of.

They don't, they're not really just after the cushy job, you know, no heavy lifting required. That's nice. But, uh, they're just puffed up.

It can appeal to a person who just likes to hear himself talk. He craves the kind of person who just craves spouting his own opinion, who just, who just loves to be the center of attention.

They may want to be a great teacher, the word, whatever you want to call them. So we, so don't push a young man into being a pastor or elder too soon.

Let them mature. Maybe let them get a spouse who doesn't take them so seriously. Experience a few failures, learn the self -mastery called humility.

The second thing to see about the instructions for the church is service, the missionary purpose, the reason behind these qualifications.

Look at the first one in verse two, an overseer must be above reproach or reproach from who? Well, basically from all kinds of people.

That doesn't mean perfect, of course, or else no one would be qualified, but it does mean that we could call a public meeting, invite the whole town, right?

All our neighbors around say, Hey, we're, we're thinking of putting this person up for being overseer of the church. What do you think? And while people may remember some bad things,

I remember when he used to run around town 40 years ago, you know, something like that in the distant past, no one would be able to point to ongoing behavior.

Now that currently makes that man who would make that man an embarrassment to the church. If they're fair, anyway, maybe it'd be some unfair people have unfair things to say, but fair people would not be willing to say he's continues to do this.

Blah, blah, blah. Even outsiders would say, yes, he's a good man. He's a decent neighbor. And that begins the list above reproach.

And then look how he ends the list. Cause I think he comes back to the end to where he near where he started.

Verse seven, he must be well thought of here, particularly by outsiders. People should not be able to look at the church and think, you know, if that's the kind of people they have as leaders, guys like him, man, their standards must be awfully low.

We give Satan ammunition and his malicious eagerness to discredit the gospel. He does his best to discredit the ministers of the gospel.

So let's not put up people that were easily discredited. We care what our neighbors think of us because that's because we care about our own reputation, but because we, we care about the reputation of the gospel, but the reputation of the

Lord that we represent. And so we need people who are well thought of. Paul says in verse seven, when we make someone a leader, we say, you know, he's, he's someone he's who represents us.

He exemplifies who we are. This is the kind of life the gospel creates.

And we understand that perfectly. No one's perfect, but look, the grace of God has been a work in his life and in a way that we respect.

So here he is. And if, if someone sees that, and the person we're putting up is, and it's someone that the neighbors know is not reliable.

Maybe he's not a person of integrity. He makes promises he doesn't keep. He breaks his commitments. He's driven by ego, whatever.

They hear him shouting at his wife all the time from his house, that kind of thing. Then the world says your gospel is irrelevant.

That's what the gospel does to somebody. We care about the reputation of our leaders, not just because we care because we want to be a reputable organization, but because we want the gospel to be reputable, to be well thought of.

We have a mission, a mission to commend the gospel to the world and whom we select as leaders impacts that mission.

So we select leaders then who serve that mission.

That's the second, the third thing, the third final characteristic of that list. Notice there's one vocational qualification.

In today's world, we would probably think if you're structuring the church to meet the mission, we want to grow. You probably make it all about qualifications.

He's got to be an excellent orator. He's got to, you know, be good looking. He's got to be put on a good manager, blah, blah.

Look at the way most churches today put out ads for pastors. Most of them will list those kind of, all kinds of things they can do.

But here there's only one thing there, one vital practical skill listed at the end of verse two, able to teach.

Now, I think they could be either able to teach one -on -one, which is one kind of teaching. There's different kinds of teaching.

There's preaching and there's kind of a lecturing kind of teaching, but there's a one -on -one kind of teaching. They can sit down with someone and people feel very comfortable talking to them one -on -one and they can instruct people one -on -one give and take, and they're very good at that.

Or there's, of course, just speaking before groups like what I'm doing right now. There's different kinds of teaching, like there are different kinds of athletic skills, but an overseer, an elder, a pastor must have some kind of teaching skill.

Someone who just puts himself forward as a candidate for leadership in the church might be a really nice guy, might be likable and warm and sincere.

He might meet all the other characteristics we find here, but if he can't teach, if he can't effectively communicate the word of God, then he's kind of like a surgeon who can't use his hands.

That's kind of a disqualifying for a surgeon. Or maybe like a lawyer who messes up his words all the time.

That'll get you in trouble in court. Or maybe he can communicate, he's a great teacher, but he doesn't have the knowledge.

He could be a great orator, he could be very entertaining to listen to, but he's just not grounded in the word of God.

He lacks the skills to discern sound teaching, maybe from subtle heresy, and he can't show others the difference between the two.

Then he's kind of a surgeon, maybe he has good hands, good dexterity, good coordination, but he doesn't know the heart from the stomach.

And you don't want him poking around inside you. He can't be a pastor or an overseer of a church.

And that fact, the fact that there is only one, think of that, there's only one practical skill listed here. They can take different forms, but there's one thing that's effectively teaching, and that tells us a lot about how

God leads and nurtures his church. You know, he doesn't do it by warm personalities, right?

Or he doesn't do it by rituals that don't have to use words you don't understand, right?

This is why I will not be speaking Latin when we start the Lord's Supper, right? You need to know what we're doing.

He doesn't do it through us, you know, maybe singing the same shallow chorus over and over and over again.

No, he doesn't do it through the emotions of a man who can offer a lot of heat, but no light.

No, he does it through his word. Faith comes not by feeling, but by hearing.

Faith comes by hearing and not simply hearing sweet personal stories.

Man, that guy can tell a story about his past, about anything, but by hearing the word of Christ, right?

That's how faith comes. And this is the one main qualification that is only listed here regarding, you notice it's only about the overseers, what he calls overseers here, not about the deacons.

You can be a deacon without being able to effectively teach. There are plenty of areas in the church where we need people who practically serve, even if they aren't gifted to teach or preach.

You know, some people get the idea, particularly in this culture, if you're a real Christian, you're a preacher. No, that's not true.

Really, all the other virtues listed here are qualities all Christians should have. All of us are expected to have these, except for that one about teaching.

You're not expected to be able to teach. There's no moral fault. There's nothing necessarily wrong with you spiritually if you're not gifted to teach or preach, nothing.

It's just not the gift God gave you. It's fine. You just, you can be a great member of a church, but you just shouldn't be a pastor or overseer.

But there are other very noble ways that you can serve God. You could, for example, be a deacon.

But even the position of deacon is not just for any warm body. They will volunteer. Paul begins the list of qualifications for deacon with a telling, you know, likewise,

I like being an overseer. Sure, it's a noble task, but there are, but like being an overseer, there are standards.

There are instructions to follow. Deacons must take, he says, their responsibilities seriously as the people that take care of the practical affairs of the church.

Maybe it's budget, his bank account, his property is dealing with other outsiders outside. Maybe the leading music, like Justin does the sound system, like Alan does.

I mean, we suffer when they're not here. Even dealing with people in the church, deacons must not be, he says, double -tongued like you could say to face.

That is, they tell one person or one group of people what they want to hear. Another person, another group of people, what they want to hear.

And there's two different things. People don't know what to believe after a while. That kind of talk is easy to do when you just want to immediately please everyone, but eventually it promotes division and suspicion as people don't know what to believe.

Hey, he told me this. Well, he told me the opposite. Deacons exist to promote unity. Believe it or not, the office of deacon appears to have been created in Acts chapter six to settle a divisive dispute.

You think of Acts chapter six, you remember what was going on there. There was a controversy really between two ethnic groups, the

Greek, at least educated and the Greek speaking group and the

Jewish of the Hebrew speaking group and tension between them because they felt that they were being treated like second -class citizens in the church.

They're ignoring us. They're ignoring our needs, the Greek speakers were saying. And the unity of the church, it is

Christ who holds the church together, not ethnicity, right? The white people are getting treated better than the rest of us.

No, that should never be it. If that happens, we need to resolve that somehow. Maybe deacons do resolve it.

It should be Christ who holds the church together, not ethnicity. And that's so important. The office of deacon was created originally to maintain the unity and heal the divisions, but the apostles who were also the overseers of the pastors of the church there in did not want to be distracted from the work of preaching and teaching.

And so they selected seven men to serve as deacons and they resolved this controversy.

They stopped a growing rift in the church in the way they served as deacons.

And that's part of what the deacons should do. Deacons have a special responsibility. So it'd be shock absorbers in the church forces for unity and harmony.

They must hold notice that in verse nine, they must hold and not just know because he could say they didn't know the mystery of the faith.

They must know the gospel, but he didn't say that. He says, hold, he chooses that word in particular. That is securely grasp the mystery of the faith.

That is that great gospel. He must firmly hold onto it.

That they was revealed by God. They must know it clearly. They have a strong conviction of it.

So it's not just for someone who will do the task. It's, it's someone who strongly understands the essentials of the faith of the gospel.

And then can they do this if they are not, if they're not, even if they're not responsible for vocalizing the faith that is verbalizing teaching, defending the truth, they must not be people that would embarrass the church by being easily led astray.

Hey, wasn't he your deacon now he's over the Jehovah's witnesses. Oh yeah. That looks bad. Doesn't it?

Uh, they must firmly hold what has been revealed. That is that, that mystery that we are to have faith in.

And he'll explain what that is at the end of the chapter. And once again, not just any warm body will do.

And it may be in verse 11, that there were women deacons that were there translated in the SV as wives can just as well be translated women, women, deacon to deaconesses serving the

Lord by practically serving the church, promoting peace in the church, not talking down people behind their backs, fulfilling their obligations, reliable, and being a good example to those outside.

And do all this without pay. It's without pay.

Why, why would you do all that without pay? Because in verse 13, there's a reward, a good, a good reward of a good standing, a step upward toward God for sanctification, a richer spiritual experience growing in grace to be like the

Lord, since it being nearer to God, sharing in the nature of the Lord, Jesus himself, who stooped and washed the disciples feet, who said he was among us as one who served.

That's the reward being like him. That's the reward for being a deacon serving with the right heart, um, not out of some burden, some religious duty that can give you a feeling of satisfaction.

Even if no one sees the pleasure of doing something practical for the church and doing something that needs to be done for the poor, we serve the one who serves by serving.

That's why we have opportunity to serve here. You know, in a way that's one of the reasons we run

Jim and Jim jr. And other things we do is to give you opportunities to serve.

You can help with a building. You can go out with Joe and George and as they reach out or none of those, none of those fit me, but we have this building here.

I think we underuse it. You want to do something else, feel free, think of something else to do.

And then finally, Paul tells us, it tells Timothy in verse 14, that he wants to see him soon. Think of this, starting in verse 14.

This is not just remark. He wants to see him soon. He's planning on personally meeting Timothy.

Otherwise he's going to go visit him. But in the meantime, he fears he might be delayed.

And so he writes this letter to convey what he says is the most urgent and important matters.

The instructions, that's important to keep in mind because you remember, he could have just waited to tell

Timothy all this when he goes to see him soon, but he didn't think

Timothy could wait. You know, I've heard people dismiss all this talk of the elders and deacons, what's called polity.

Oh, it's so boring. It's so unnecessary. I mean, they'll say maybe for themselves to say, I'll serve us.

I don't need titles. We don't need structure. We don't need all this organization. And that sounds noble and it probably is well intended.

And actually here for a while for deacon to say, let them be tested, which means you probably let them serve for a while without an office, without a title.

And if they do that faithfully, then you give them the office, the title later. But some people just kind of blow off the whole idea that we need elders and deacons and membership and polity and the structure and organization.

We don't need all that. What's the purpose of it? Well, you see right here, it's in the instructions.

Some of it is these instructions. What you got to ask them, what about the instructions? Why don't you follow them?

They don't think they're important. Well, maybe as long as the job gets done, who cares about position to qualifications? But here,

Paul says that these things are so urgent. These things are so important. I can't wait to get to you to tell them to you.

I've got to send it to you now. Timothy, you must know this now. I know this may not be the loftiest, most inspiring part of the

Bible. Talking about elders and deacons and stuff like that. But this is the instruction manual for the church here in first Timothy.

This is how we ought to live together in God's family, God's household of the church.

Paul compares him to word pictures in verse 15. He draws two pictures, two comparisons for the church.

He says, first, it's a pillar and then to a buttress or to be a bulwark, part of a fort.

Paul was writing to Timothy in Ephesus. Paul knew Ephesus. It's been a long time there. In Acts chapter 19,

Paul's preaching first caused a riot in Ephesus as the citizens, the pagan citizens there, especially the silversmiths who made a little idols.

They were in the idol making business. So they had, they had a money issue with him that he was cutting into their, he was cutting into their income.

But they saw, they rightly saw that Paul's message undermined the

God Artemis and her outstanding temple. And so they came out into the street and shouted for two hours, the mantra, great is

Artemis of the Ephesians. Maybe it rhymes in Greek. I don't know. It doesn't rhyme in English, but that was the way they were chanting, shouting against Paul because he was preaching there.

Now, there's one thing to know about Ephesus. Ephesus was the headquarters, sort of the Mecca of Artemis worship.

Artemis was a Greek God, female God, goddess, I guess. And, and her temple there was one of the seven wonders of the world.

It's just a magnificent temple that just, of course it made, it made Ephesus such a respectable as this is, you know, this is, this is what we have to show off what we have to feel proud of this great temple of Artemis.

We have here with us, it had 100 grand, huge, we call ionic columns, these tall, thick pillars that held up the temple.

And Paul by here, by comparing the same, the church, you are the church, you're the, you're the pillar, the church, a church like Timothy's here in Ephesus or ours here, you're a pillar of truth, just like those grand pillars held up the

Artemis's temple. So to the church holds up the truth, that truth of that great mystery, great indeed.

That's how great it is. It's not, it's not, indeed it is great. That great mystery that was revealed in Christ, what we call the gospel, the church depends on the truth for its existence.

Okay. We didn't make up the truth that had come from us. We've been given the truth, but then the truth depends on the church for its proclamation.

That is just like those pillars held up the temple.

We, the church hold up the truth, this great mystery of the gospel.

We rest on the truth before God, but before the world, the church holds up the truth for all to see.

The church is God's chosen instrument to hold up his truth.

The church is also, we're told a bulwark or which is an especially impregnable part of a, of a fort to fortress or a citadel, or it could be translated a buttress or reinforcement like a column.

I don't know. Some of these things up here are probably called buttresses. I'm not sure which, but some of these steel girders that hold up the building, the church then defends like that, like a, like a bulwark and a fort, the truth, supports the truth, reinforces it, holds it up.

So we don't succumb to the falsehoods of the world. The rest of society might get swept away by the lies that become popular at one time or another by waves of immorality or fads, just fantasies that they think they can deny reality, like so -called homosexual marriage, but the church should be immovable.

Like, you know, you ever seen a rocky seawall and the waves just crash against it, but the waves break and pound, but they never get through.

And so the world may be rage at us, you know, for sticking to truths that they've abandoned and they may call us bigoted or backward or whatever, but we're an unconquerable fortress of truth because we're founded on Christ himself.

Right? Assuming, assuming we stay on his foundation, we're unconquerable. The pagans in Ephesus had the grand building.

You went to Ephesus, who had the building? The pagans did. Imposing pillars, an impressive structure, one of the seven wonders of the world, can you imagine?

The Christians, the church had no building, no pillars, no structure.

Probably just met in each other's homes. Maybe they met in a gym, but it was God's building.

It was his church where he ruled. It was the pillar that held up the truth and it can be again today if we'll follow the instructions.

They're important. They're urgent. It's important and urgent that we follow the instructions beginning with our own lives, you know, not, not just following a list of instructions that will save us as, as though, as though this is why some people think the great mystery is just a matter of rule keeping.

Maybe you've been keeping the wrong rules. Someone else come along. Oh no, the great mystery. These are the new rules that you need to keep.

No, that's no mystery at all. Certainly not great indeed. Some people reduce the

Bible. Some people reduce our faith. These are the rules you need. If you keep them, you eat the right things. You go to the right church on the right days, blah, blah, blah.

You say the name of God the right way. You understand the right name. That's the mystery, but no, that's, that's not it.

That's just another list of rules. All, you know, almost every other religion, every other philosophy offers some kind of list of rules that they think is how you get it done, but that's not of how you, they offer a list of rules, how you please

God and how you be like the gods of how you get them on your side. Follow these instructions.

They say, that's not what we say. The mystery, not another list of rules, instructions to follow to get to God, the mystery, something revealed by God.

It's not figured out by man. Notice it's great. Indeed is that God provided for the salvation of his family.

God did it. What did he do? He was manifested as made obvious.

So you could see him. You could touch it in the flesh, manifested in the flesh.

He was God from eternity past, and he was born and lived as a human being. He was God theological word incarnate.

He was vindicated by the spirit vindicated means shown to be right. The, the

Holy spirit gave people new hearts. So they knew who he was. So they had faith in him.

They confessed him. He opened their spiritual eyes so that they could see that. Yes, indeed. Jesus is

Lord. He was vindicated. And he, we, we, if that's happened to us, we we've been made to see the rightness of Christ.

Even the angels witnessed him at his birth at his temptation, at his agony and Gethsemane and his triumph at the empty, empty tomb.

The angel saw all that from Pentecost on the nations, not just one, but all nations began to hear him proclaimed.

And when the word of Christ went out, people had faith. They believed him.

They saw him. They saw in their hearts and eventually in their pilgrimage to him in heaven, people saw his glory and you can too.

Has he been vindicated in your heart? Are you one of those who believe in him?

Will you see him in glory now? If so, hear his word, which we, the church is holding up for you, which holding up by God's strength.

Now the mystery isn't that you, you get to him by following the instructions, but that he came for his family.

And now if you're part of his family, well, here's his instructions and your heart has been changed so that you want to follow them.

Here's how to live in his house. Don't think you can put a life together the way that seems right to you.

Maybe if you get stuck, maybe later, if you get stuck, then you'll go read the instructions. No, follow the instructions.

First, believe in your heart that that mystery, that great indeed mystery that God became a man vindicated to vindicate you.

Be one of those in this world who believe him. Be a servant of the servant.