WWUTT 637 Let No One Despise You for Your Age, Gender, or Race?

1 Timothy 4 and the Authority of the Word in Ministry

The Apostle Paul told Timothy let no one despise you for your youth, but we could also apply to this, let no one despise you for being old. Let no one despise you for being a man or a woman, or black or white.

But preach the gospel when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website www .wutt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of 1 Timothy chapter 4, once again, verses 11 through 16. The Apostle Paul says, command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

I want to come back to the same couple of verses that we were looking at yesterday, where Paul begins, command and teach these things. As he'll say to Timothy in another way, in his next letter, 2 Timothy chapter 3, starting in verse 16, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

When you speak the word of God, you speak a word that has authority. Now you, in and of yourself, do not have any kind of inherent authority, but the word of God has authority. The word of God has the authority to convict a person of their sin, that they might mourn over their wickedness and their sinfulness, their rebellion against God, so they would turn from their sin and believe the gospel, and by faith, in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, has risen again from the grave, sits enthroned in heaven.

By faith in Christ, they would be saved from the wickedness that they have done against God for which they deserve eternal destruction, and God is holy and righteous to destroy a person because they have sinned against him.

But he is good and merciful and just, and has paid for those sins that were committed against him through the blood of his son, Jesus Christ, who laid down his life willingly as a sacrifice for sins. By preaching that gospel, a person convicted of the wrong that they've done against God, when you show them the law, that they have been murderers in their hearts, that they've been adulterers at heart, and likely also with their bodies in today's culture, how easy is it to find a person who is not guilty of regularly committing adultery with their own bodies, that they are liars, that they are thieves, that they covet, that they lust for things that they cannot have, that they have elevated things to the place of God, when you show them the law and their sin is revealed to them.

By the preaching of the gospel, they would mourn over their sin and then rejoice in knowing that there has been a payment for their sin, and that has been through Jesus Christ. And so you preach the gospel, and the gospel has the authority to do that.

When you preach the word of God, that word has all the authority. And so Paul is telling Timothy here, there's no reason for you to be timid when you are going to Ephesus to do the work that I'm sending you there to do, because you're equipped with the word of God.

These men that you need to correct, those who have been falling into myth and vain speculation and have been causing division because they go beyond what is written, they don't have a leg to stand on.

They have no authority, but when you come with the word of God and you command and teach these things, there are going to be some people there who are going to despise you because of your youth. But don't let anyone do that, because your authority isn't based on how old or young you are.

It's because you are sharing the word of God. You are going because I have sent you to go. And remember, the word of an apostle was the word of God. It was the word of Christ in the mouth of an apostle.

And Paul, with that authority that had been given to him by Christ, was sending Timothy to go to Ephesus and correct some of the wrong ways that were being practiced in this church. So go with confidence, because your confidence is not in yourself.

It's not in your age. It's in the word of God and the authority that that word has. Let no one despise you for your youth, but show yourself as an example that you've been changed by the gospel. And here's what godly living should look like in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

Timothy’s Youth and the Example of Godly Speech, Conduct, Love, Faith, and Purity

Now, I want to do something a little bit different than I did yesterday. I'm going to take a little bit of liberties with this text, but give me some grace here. I'm not I'm not being a liberal theologian.

OK, so where Paul says, let no one despise you for your youth. We know that the context is Paul speaking to Timothy, who is young as an elder and the other elders of the church in Ephesus, you know, likely have experience on Timothy by a couple of decades.

So they're older than he. Timothy comes in throwing around the authority of God's word. And maybe that's a little crude. He's not throwing it around. He's doing it in an orderly and a right way. But he's he's coming in, telling the church in Ephesus to repent and return to the sound word that they were taught.

Well, some of these guys are going to be like, hey, who's this young pup who's coming in here and telling us big dogs the way that things are supposed to be? Paul says, don't let anyone despise you for your youth.

But because you have learned and received these things from me, then you know how to set a good example for them in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. OK, so we know that's the context. Paul talking to a young man.

Let's insert in there another word. Let's replace let no one despise you for your youth. Let's flip it around. Let no one despise you because you're old. In today's culture, would that not be something that you could most certainly come across that there would be somebody in a church who might be despised by the younger generation in the church because that person is old?

So that would apply here that you could you can take the liberty with this text and insert that word there and see that it just as much applies. Let no one despise you for being old. But if you're teaching the sound words of the gospel of Christ and doing this gently and with respect, not out of turn, not out of order, but but letting all things be done in a right way, because even when it comes to preaching the gospel, Paul tells Timothy and Second Timothy chapter two to correct opponents with gentleness, for it is God who grants repentance.

So you must do that as well. Say you're an older person, someone who is in their 60s, 70s. Do I have any listeners in their 80s? Praise be to God. But let's say that you are up there in your experience and there is a much younger generation that is kind of taken over your church and they're trying to do young person things.

And maybe they're starting to fall into that seeker sensitive movement or things are starting to get a little charismatic and based on feelings rather than centered on the truth of the word of God. And yet you can try to bring everybody back to the sound words of our Lord Christ.

Let's not forget who we are as a church and the word that the church is founded upon, which is the word of Christ. There are going to be some that are going to be upset at you and will probably make fun of you for being old.

So the things they're going to be upset at, they're going to dismiss what it is that you say, because, oh, that's the old way of doing things. Yeah. Pops here. He's just trying to take us back to the Stone Age of the stuff that they did in church.

You know, things like that. Don't let anyone despise you for that. Don't be discouraged from preaching the gospel because someone might hurl insults at you that way. Let no one despise you for your age at all, whether you're old or whether you're young, but set the believers an example in conduct, in speech, in love and faith and impurity.

Let me add another word to this. Let no one despise you for being a woman, but set the believers an example. Don't you believe women that you can also set an example for the men in the way that you behave?

Yes. In fact, when Paul says in Ephesians 522 that wives are supposed to submit to their husbands as to the Lord, the wife is a picture for the whole church as to how everyone in the body of Christ is supposed to submit to Christ, who is the bridegroom and the church is the bride.

So the wife is an earthly picture of that submission. The way that she submits to her husband is the way that the church is supposed to submit to Christ. Peter says this in 1 Peter 3, likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.

Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing that you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

That's a way that a wife can be an example to her husband, to her unbelieving husband in the context of that instruction from Peter. And a wife is to be an example to the entire church when it comes to her role in submission.

We have already read in First Timothy, First Timothy 2 .11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. So that's all women within the church, meaning that a woman should not put herself in the position of elder or teacher because I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

Rather, she is to remain quiet. So all of the women of the church show submission in that way. And they are a picture of how everyone is supposed to submit to one another, which is also an instruction in Ephesians 5.

That's Ephesians 5 .21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. All women can be examples to one another in that way. And sisters, you also can correct your brothers in the Lord. You see a brother that is going astray, that is leaving the path of righteousness, that is following after sin and temptation, and you know that he needs to be corrected.

You can do that. Just make sure that it's done in a right way. Don't be inappropriate, like going in a room alone together and then telling your brother without any accountability around you or yelling at your brother or scathing him or putting him down or something.

You know, you can correct, but do it in a right way. Even the women in the church can be this way. And don't let anyone in the church look down on you because you're a woman. Now, because I had preached from 1 Timothy 2, there's somebody that might look down on me who would say, yeah, well, you're telling women, you know your place, ladies.

You need to submit and you need to be quiet. If you think that's what it is that I'm saying, then you don't understand. And there are people that are looking down on me because I would be a biblicist in that way, holding true to what the Word of God clearly states, that the role of an elder is supposed to be filled by a man.

Men are supposed to step up and lead in the church. And I'm not going to let anybody call me names and discourage me from preaching what the Word of God clearly says on that matter and in the ways that the church is structured as God created it to be.

Now, even though the men are supposed to be stepping up and filling those roles as elder, as leaders and as the primary examples in the church, ladies, you can still be a good example in sound doctrine.

There may be some of your brothers who are following after those myths and vain speculation and they need to be looking to their sisters in Christ who are sound in their doctrine. Yes, ladies, you can abide by the sound, true words of our Lord Christ and lead your brothers in that example.

Even you can do that in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. So don't let anyone look down on you because you are young or old, because you are a man or a woman. Let me also add this, 1 Timothy 4 .12, let no one despise you for being black, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

Now let me clarify this a little bit more. Perhaps you live in an area where there happens to be a little bit of racism. God forbid it's even going on in your church. And there are people in your church who might look down on you because you are a different skin color.

Well, don't let that discourage you from preaching the gospel and setting an example for others on how to live according to the gospel. Now, if there is racism in your church, those persons who are being racist need to be disciplined.

That is heresy to treat another image bearer of God as less than you. That's heresy to behave that way. I mean, this is this is basic stuff when it comes to exercising the gospel. There should be no racism or bigotry going on within the church.

We should show no partiality to one another, not just based on skin color, but background and socioeconomic status and so on and so forth. Let there be no despising of anyone. But we are all equal recipients of grace, men and women, rich or poor, black or white doesn't matter.

We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift. So let that be understood among all the members of the body of Christ. I hope that you don't attend a church that is racist.

But even in the event that you do, and there are people that are looking down on you for that, you still need to set an example. You still need to hold forth the gospel and show what godly living is supposed to look like according to the gospel.

But let me set this another way. Let no one despise you for being black, including other black people. There is a certain way that we are expected to behave within our specific ethnicity. Is there not?

White people expect to behave a certain way. Hispanics, when they get together with other Mexicans or Hispanics, they have a certain culture that they live according to. And blacks, there's black culture.

And so if you're preaching the gospel and you're setting an example in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, and you're not going along with the social justice propaganda, you're not raising a fist and you're not speaking out on the same issues that all the other black people expect you to speak out about.

Don't be discouraged by that. They're going to tell you, hey, you're not you're not sticking up for your brothers and sisters in the way that they use that term. Brothers and sisters is not brothers and sisters in Christ, but brothers and sisters of the same skin color.

Your skin color does not surpass your identity in Christ. I so appreciate something that Tony Dungy shared on Twitter this past week or it was over the weekend. You know, Tony Tony Dungy is right. Super Bowl winning coach with the Indianapolis Colts should have been the Super Bowl winning coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

That's an argument with another time. But anyway, Tony Dungy said the following. He said, I'm sorry to disagree with you, but Christian is always going to trump everything else in my life. I'm proud of my African heritage.

I'm proud to be an American. But my first allegiance is to Jesus Christ. So doing it in the Lord's way is always the most important to me. Well done, Tony. I sure appreciate him saying that and and sharing about who he is in Christ before he's talking about who he is as a black man.

There's a fellow by the name of Ron Haygood on Twitter said that he went to see the Black Panther movie. So, you know, the new Marvel film that's out in theaters, which some people are acting like it's the first superhero film with a black lead.

That isn't true. But anyway, I'm not going to talk about movies or give my endorsement of the film. I actually haven't seen Black Panther, but Ron Haygood went and saw it and he said, here were my observations.

Number one, it was a great movie for what it is, a movie. Number two, it was not life changing or transcendent. Number three, people seem to forget it's fictional. Number four, paganism was the religious thread in this movie.

Number five, the narrative of the movie did not empower me. Number six, I didn't leave out feeling any sense of black African pride. He didn't come out of the theater feeling any sense of black African pride because Ron himself is black.

If I didn't mention that. Number seven, he says God was conspicuously absent from this film. Praise the ancestors. That's a phrase in quotes was not apparently the character said that a lot in the movie, but not praise God or thank God.

No, praise the ancestors. Number eight, my identity in Christ was firm going in and leaving out. Amen. Amen to that. Ron, don't let anyone look down on you because you are a certain race. Certainly don't don't be discouraged from preaching the gospel because somebody would be bigoted towards you.

But don't let don't be discouraged from preaching the gospel because somebody expects you to act a certain way because you are that ethnicity. Even people within your own ethnic group were saying things like, hey, this is the narrative we're adopting right now.

This is what you need to be saying. You need to be united with us on these things. Hey, I'm all for speaking up on rights and equality. I speak up for the rights of the unborn because abortion is murder.

But one of the things that I don't hear coming about in the churches that have adopted the narrative of the social justice movement, I don't hear anyone teaching their Christian brothers and sisters, James one, two through four, count it all joy.

My brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

We need to have that down before we start going out in the world and harping for social justice, which isn't isn't even really a thing. As Votie Bockham has pointed out, there's no such thing as social justice.

There is justice and there's injustice. But social justice isn't even a thing. By the way, it was something that was made up by the Roman Catholic Church. They're the ones that first coined that term social justice.

But it's not a thing. There's just and there's unjust. As Dr. James White has said, all of us are going to receive either mercy or justice. In the end, no one is going to receive injustice. We will all get either mercy or justice.

If you have followed Jesus Christ, if you have turned from sin and you follow Christ, you will receive the mercy of God at the final judgment. But if you do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, then you will be condemned by God's righteous judgment and consigned to hell, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

Because in life, you followed the lies of Satan rather than the truth of Christ. So tell me, which message is really more important here? The message of the gospel of Christ or the message of the world's social justice cause, which really can't save anyone or provide anyone with anything substantial?

It is only the gospel of Christ that saves. Only the gospel delivers us from sin into the perfect, imperishable kingdom of God, which is much better than than anything that can be portrayed in any kind of special effects film.

Amen. So that's the message that we must preach. And if you are going to be persecuted in this world or ridiculed or mocked because of the gospel that you preach, don't be discouraged. Let no one look down on you because of the gospel that you preach.

But set an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity, especially in the church, but also in this world. Our Lord Christ himself was also reviled, but when he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

Instead, he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly, his heavenly father. And so we should follow that example and do the same. Let's pray. Our Lord God, we thank you for this message of the gospel that was delivered to us and by the gospel, by what we were told and shown through the word of God.

We were convicted of sin. We repented and we worshiped Jesus Christ. You had mercy on us when we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. What a wonderful love you have shown to us. What a great price that Christ has paid, which we could never pay back.

But since we have been bought with so great a price, we owe him our lives and so convict us to walk in holiness, to grow in godliness, to set an example to our brothers and sisters in the Lord and also before this world that we don't behave and act like the world.

We don't adopt their narrative. Instead, we have the word of Christ, the only word that saves, that delivers us from judgment and promises us a kingdom if we endure to the end, the kingdom of God. Amen.

Glory. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Help us to have cheerful hearts when we face trials of various kinds and count it all joy, giving glory to our righteous God, knowing that he is using even this trial that we are going through to shape us more in the image of Christ.

In whose name we pray.

Amen. This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.