Honor and Rebuke

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filcik preaches from his series,

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Blueprints for a Healthy Church, following the plan from 1 Timothy. Let's listen in.

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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filcik. I'm the lead pastor here. And I really want to thank you all for gathering in the name of Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. Really, all that we do here is centered on Jesus Christ and what he's done for us.

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And he has done all of it for us. How many of you are glad that Jesus died on the cross for your sins?

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Go ahead and raise your hand or give a hoop or a holler. I'm glad that he died on the cross for my sins.

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Without trust in his sacrifice for me and without his sacrifice for us, we would be hopelessly lost in our self -improvement projects.

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We might even be religious people. But we would be trying and trying and trying to please God on our own without really any hope or any knowledge of whether we'd done enough.

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And he has done enough for us. So praise God for that. In Christ, we have everything we need to grow up into maturity in a relationship with him.

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And this morning, our text is going to take us deeper into the way that we should respond to leaders. Now, the fact of the matter is

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I know that we come from a variety of backgrounds and a variety of expectations on what a sermon is supposed to be.

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Some of us think that a sermon is supposed to be kind of a pep talk for my week. It's supposed to be a rah -rah kind of thing.

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I believe that a sermon is supposed to be an explanation of the scriptures. And so sometimes we get into these kind of passages that are just going to give us some of the detail work.

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And you're going to walk out of here and you're going to go, well, wait a second, that was a message that kind of just felt like it was about the internal workings of a church.

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And that's absolutely right. Because God revealed it and he wants us to study it. He wants us to know all of his word, not just the parts that are encouraging to us.

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And I think you'll still find some encouragement, some challenge in any time that you contact God's word, even if it's kind of detailed stuff about how we live and move and breathe within a church body.

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And so I believe that God is going to meet us here in these moments. I would ask you and even encourage you just on every

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Sunday wherever you're at to just ask God to reveal himself to you through the pages of the scriptures.

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And I believe he will. He will meet you in this text, in this passage that if we were just reading through the

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Bible in a year might seem kind of mundane and routine and kind of just like church business. Let me give you a little bit of the outline here before we read it.

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The text this morning has really three movements to it. The first is verses 17 through 18.

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And it covers the honor due to church leadership that serves well. Honor to church leadership that serves well.

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The second in verses 19 through 21 cover the rebuke due to leadership that refuses to repent of sin.

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So I titled the message honor and rebuke because those are two vastly different things all focused on the same group of people, the leadership of the church.

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And then the text is going to wrap up in a third movement in verses 22 through 25 explaining why

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Timothy should be slow to put men forward for eldership or leadership in the church.

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Because the fact of the matter is we know as you've lived a little bit of your life sometimes people are hiding sin.

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So he says don't be hasty in the appointment of leadership. So this is once again a passage about the way that a church should work.

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Now many of you could stand up and testify to the ways that churches have worked in your past and it hasn't been that great.

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Some of you have had all kinds of broken experiences because we're broken people. And we don't always follow God's word.

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And so we're working and striving to try to follow these things. And I want to encourage you to lean into this and for God to show you how you ought to apply these things.

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Every one of these movements expresses a corrective to some natural human tendency. So let me express some of the things that might be going on in your heart routinely and you don't really think about it but they're there.

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And this text would seek to correct it. We are often not quick to honor our leaders.

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And I think that that's kind of a thing that is increasing in part because of the abuse of many leaders.

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And so we're not always quick to honor our leaders. The second thing is we're not always quick to rebuke unrepentant sin.

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We're a culture that shies away a bit from the public declaration that someone would live in unrepentant sin.

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That they would choose their sin over Christ. And so we struggle with that as a culture. And then the last thing is we are often quick to propel men forward into leadership for the wrong reasons.

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They're tall. They talk good. They grab our attention. They're dynamic.

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They're radical. They can be kind of stern. They can be kind of harsh. They can grab attention and hold an audience.

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And so what would be the reasons to propel a guy forward into leadership? And Paul says be careful here.

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Be careful here. We see because the reason this matters, church, is God loves us.

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God loves the church. And I want to be clear. God doesn't just love. A lot of times in our mind we think

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God loves the big C church. The gathering of all the redeemed of all times and all ages. But I believe firmly,

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Recast, that God loves us as well. He loves the local church. He loves

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Recast church. He loves us. And he cares for us.

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And he's concerned for the directions that we go. And so in telling Timothy there, in this text, he's concerned for the

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Ephesian church. And he's left Timothy there to fix it. And in telling Timothy how to fix the church in Ephesus, he's also giving us a blueprint for a healthy church.

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That's kind of what this whole sermon series has been about as we've been marching through 1 Timothy. In order for us to praise him well, church, we need to be well.

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In order to praise him well, we need to be healthy. And God gives us texts like this one to remind us that God has a standard for a healthy church.

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So if you're not already there, I encourage you to open in your Bibles, your devices to 1 Timothy 5, verses 17 through the end of the chapter.

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Again, 1 Timothy 5, 17 through verse 25. And this is

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God's holy and precious word. Recast, this is a word that he desires for us to take on, to study, to learn, and to know.

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And so let's get our hearts ready to sing his praises by hearing from his word. 1

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Timothy 5, 17 through 25. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of a double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

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For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages.

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Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear.

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In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.

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Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands nor take part in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.

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No longer drink any only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. The sins of some people are conspicuous going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.

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Also, good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you that you are so concerned for your church.

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You love us enough to give us very detailed and direct instructions about leadership and how we are to respond.

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And Father, I even just recognize how this is this kind of awkward elephant in the room is that I'm a pastor preaching about honoring elders and all of these things and rebuking elders and rebuking teachers and all of that.

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And Father, I thank you that you press this word into my heart, into the seriousness of the role that you have given to me here in this church that I take very seriously.

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Father, I know that I am not equal to this task. I know it is only your spirit working in me that anything good comes of this, that my words are empty and vain and lack power and lack authority without your spirit behind them.

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And so, Father, I pray that you would speak through me your words this morning with authority and power because it is your word, not because it is my opinion or my thought.

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And Father, it is this very word that reveals to us the glory of forgiveness and salvation in your son.

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It is this message that beats in my chest that I desire for all men and women who hear the messages here at Recast to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his saving work.

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Father, I pray that that would be a reality in our midst, that we would be a people ignited by the gospel and sent out, ignited by the gospel and able to worship you together right now in praise and worship and singing to you because you are the only one who is truly worthy.

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In Jesus' name, amen. I encourage you to get comfortable. Keep your Bibles open to 1 Timothy chapter 5, verses 17 through 25.

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Especially this week, I just want you to be able to see that the things I'm saying are not... This could appear a bit self -serving, especially at the start.

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And so I want to make sure that you see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word and not something I am saying.

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So, and then if at any time during the message, if you need to get up and get more coffee or juice, or it looks like there's just...

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Oh, wow. There's like two bags of donut holes back there. So, don't hurt each other running for...

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Oh, there's only one, Dave says. Only one left now. So, yeah, don't hurt each other running for that.

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But if at any time during the message you need to get up, you're not going to disrupt me at all. So if you need to use the restroom, those are out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side.

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But just whatever it takes to keep our focus on God's word in the remainder of our time together. This passage indicates for us that a healthy church knows how to honor their leaders.

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A healthy church knows how to honor their leaders, but also a healthy church knows how to rebuke their leaders as well.

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And a healthy church also recognizes that endorsing people to leadership is a serious thing. That requires added scrutiny.

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It requires us to be diligent and attentive and intentional and even being willing to weigh their leadership and analyzing and assessing.

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And so that's one thing that we need to take on, church. These are things that are real from this text that are injunctions and instructions on all of us.

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These are things that God desires everybody that attends a church, everybody that's a part of a church, it's a vital connection to a church to know.

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Now, Paul is giving Timothy encouragement to honor those to honor those who are serving well. And he's encouraging him to rebuke those who are not serving well.

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So the text begins with an encouragement, right from the get -go, really a command to honor elders. But not just any elders, but rather specifically the church should honor elders who rule, lead, or guide the church well.

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Let's be clear right from the get -go that the text doesn't say that the title, the title elder or pastor, by the way, interchangeable.

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So just to clarify, when I say elder, when I say pastor, I'll kind of use them interchangeably. They are the same thing in the text.

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And so elder and pastor are the same thing. We happen to have some paid pastors and some not paid pastors that are doing so on a voluntary basis.

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But the elders, I'm an elder, Spencer is an elder, and Ben will be eventually if things work out there.

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But continuing down that road, we use those words interchangeably. But right from the get -go, the text doesn't say the title, that if you possess the title, if you're given the title pastor, you're given the title elder, that that's where the honor lies.

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Those, there are those who lead the church well and those who do not lead the church well, and the honor rests in the leading well, in shepherding the flock well, in caring for people well.

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I do not believe that the difference is found in strategic planning and administrative acumen. In other words,

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I don't believe in context that the difference between elders who rule well and those who do not is a function of administrative skill, as we might tend to think, especially in the corporate world.

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Well, who do you honor? Those who are good bosses, those who are able to take the organization to the next level, those who are able to make sure that the bottom line is looking really good.

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And so a lot of times, if we take the business idea of what it means to succeed and do well in the business world, and we apply that to the church, we often find guys in leadership who have, are bankrupt with character, but are really good leaders, administrators, if that makes sense.

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Does that make sense? And that's where we've got to be really careful and cautious in this. It is not a function of administrative skill.

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Leading well in the church has already been shown throughout the book of 1 Timothy to be about immersion in the word.

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Immersion in the word is what success looks like for an elder, a pastor, a leader. A commitment to study the word, to read the word, to exhort others to follow the word, to be an example, he said in a previous portion of the text, to be an example in speech, to be an example in love and in conduct.

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All of that shaped by an immersion and a knowledge and a study and hearing from God through his word.

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Now, I believe that you'll see, you see the phrase double honor here, and I believe it's a figure of speech in the text. Honor still retains a financial tone to it, just like it did in the previous section about widows.

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We mentioned that the word honor is kind of similar to our English word honorarium, where we would get that notion of some kind of financial compensation that's involved here.

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But the doubling has no counterpart in the text, so without a counterpart that we are supposed to be doubling.

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What's doubled here? A double honor. I believe that Timothy would have understood Paul to be saying this, generously aid and assist elders who are leading well and especially take care of those who labor in preaching and teaching, he says.

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Verse 17 teaches us something about the structure of eldership, something about the way that a church is structured in its leadership.

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We know all elders must be able to teach sound doctrine. We saw that earlier in 1

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Timothy. Able to teach sound doctrine, but not all did actually preach and teach in that ancient church, and we're not called that way here today.

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They are all able to. They all can teach. They don't all serve in that function, and so Paul, who preached and taught, called it a labor of preaching, and I would suggest to you that that's true, a labor of preaching.

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Preaching, if done right, is not an easy gig. If it's easy,

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I'm not convinced that you're doing it right. I think that it is a tough thing to let

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God's word filter through a human life and then try to express that in a half an hour message or maybe 45 minutes,

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I don't know, but to try to bring that truth to bear in our context requires a lot of study and a lot of work, and Paul quotes one

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Old Testament and one New Testament scripture to support his claim. He quotes Deuteronomy 25 .4,

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and then he quotes the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ found in Luke 10, verse 7, and I've always loved the word picture here about the ox.

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He basically calls me an ox. The apt illustration for a preaching pastor is an ox going around in circles, going around in circles, and I wanted to just clarify,

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I do tread the same grain often. I do follow the same message over and over again.

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I joke about being a one -trick pony. I've got the gospel, and that's what I have to offer. It's the gospel.

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It's the good news. I know nothing else. I know nothing else to preach, but Jesus Christ and him crucified for our sins.

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That's what I have to offer you, and I will keep going in circles, treading that over and over and over again, and not to read too much into the metaphor, but when the ox is going around, which by the way, the idea of this threshing, maybe some of you don't even know why in the world an ox would be going in a circle.

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They would be attached to a, affixed to a central post on a cement or a hard stone floor.

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The grain would be spread out on the hard stone floor without the husks removed yet because you have to break it up in order to get the hard outer coat off of it.

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That husk is hard, and so they would use their hooves, and they would go around in a circle, and that would crush the grain and break off the husk that would then, there was a process called winnowing where they'd toss that in the air in the breeze.

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The breeze would blow the hard shell away, and then you would be left with grain, and so that's the image that you have is that the ox or a team of oxen going around and around in a circle crushing the grain under their feet, and this is an argument from the lesser to the greater that Paul is making here.

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If God in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 25 -4 would say, don't muzzle an ox, don't shut his mouth and prevent him from eating while he is doing that process.

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Let him graze a little bit as he goes. Let him reap some of the benefit from that work, and so if he is concerned, if God is concerned for the benefit of the ox, maybe he would also want the preacher to be able to make a living off of his work as well, and so some whole denominations, by the way,

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I want to clarify, why does this even matter? There are whole denominations that are opposed to paying pastors anything at all, meaning that I would suggest to you some entire denominations, pretend this passage doesn't exist.

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I'm glad that Recast is not part of that, so personally, but a word of note on this point.

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This church has been extremely and very generous to my family over our short history, and I suggest to you that this passage would be very awkward.

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It would be awkward to preach and awkward to bring to you, primarily in a context where it wasn't being applied, but I can joyfully preach this with a genuine heart of gratitude, church.

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Thank you, and I believe that over the 12 years that I've been the lead pastor here, you have indeed granted me a double honor, and I appreciate that, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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It's a truth, but it's interesting and worth noting that Paul quotes Jesus here and calls it scripture, and I think this is one of the only places in the

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New Testament that this is done. Paul uses the exact quote from the Gospel of Luke, which really makes me curious if Paul maybe had a copy of Luke's Gospel already when he wrote 1

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Timothy, or if he learned this quote from Jesus directly from the mouth of Luke, who was the traveling companion of Paul during his missionary journeys, but some way,

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Paul actually comes into a direct quotation from Luke and gives it word for word here in 1

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Timothy, basically validating that indeed, Luke's Gospel is scripture, but either way,

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Jesus said, a laborer deserves to get paid. A laborer deserves to get paid, and at the risk of being mildly self -serving, but also authentic,

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I want to just share with you guys a joke that I hear from time to time. It's the joke that I only work on Sunday mornings, and it's really cute, but it often makes me feel awkward.

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I will laugh if you say it, but I will also be awkward, and I've always laughed at it. I've never liked it, and I think it's much like maybe those of you who have served in law enforcement who get to see things nobody else wants to see and deal with and then gets jokes about donuts and coffee on Sunday morning, and it's kind of like that a little bit, and so I'm just bearing a little bit of my own heart here that I don't really love that joke a ton.

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But now, with the clear instructions to Timothy here, to honor the elders who serve well and teach and preach the truth, the text takes a super sharp turn in verse 19.

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It goes from honoring to accusing really quickly in the text. Not just honoring, but rebuking.

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How is the church to handle those who do not lead well? We know that the church in Ephesus did indeed have leaders who were not teaching or preaching the truth, and so the text is answering the question, what should be done with them?

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What do we do with a leader who is not leading well, is not teaching well, is not preaching the truth?

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And still on the side of grace, Paul tells Timothy something here. Do not entertain an accusation against an elder without two witnesses.

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Now, a little bit of clarity on this. This kind of sounds like, okay, if, I mean,

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God forbid, you know, obviously, maybe I just go crazy and go off the deep end and you see my car and you're like, that's

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Don's car and it's at deja vu. But there's not two of you. Can you bring an accusation against me and be like, dude, your car broke down there?

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Or were you next door? Or what was going on? Can you bring that to me? Do you see how that could be confusing in this text?

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You absolutely have the right to bring that. Absolutely. Don't allow this text to get in the way of concern for others, like the

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Matthew 18, go to the individual and talk with them. But now if that's going to escalate to the point of a public rebuke or something like that, you need to make sure that somebody else can verify that that's my character, that there's something else going on here.

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Does that make sense? So it's kind of like, you always have the freedom and the right to lean into my life if you see things that you think are out of sync or out of touch.

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It's not saying every concern that you have needs to, you need to go find somebody else to agree with you.

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By the way, that can be dangerous too, right? You know what I mean? You can manufacture witnesses, if you get my meaning.

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And so it requires some care and some caution here. But on the side of grace, he says, you're not going to publicly rebuke an elder without two witnesses.

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And let me state the obvious, protecting leadership may be far from our minds. Matter of fact, it might be really far from our minds in a world rife with leadership abuses.

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Any of you ever encountered some leadership abuse? Any of you reading about it? Any of you watching the podcast,

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The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill? Any of you? Like, and it's a really prominent thing right now, and it is all over the place, right?

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And so we are a culture that's increasingly doubtful about leadership. Every leader should be held accountable.

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I would suggest you subtly shifting into every leader should not be trusted. Do you feel that in yourself?

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I mean, I think that's the direction that our culture is leaning. Not that they should be held accountable, but you just don't even give them your trust to begin with.

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In a world full of sin, we should not blindly follow, nor should we blindly accuse.

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Do you see the balance? Should not blindly follow, nor should we blindly accuse. The requirement of two witnesses for the accusation of a pastor or elder is for the purpose of accountability.

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Pastors do indeed have a target on their back from both the evil one, but also I would suggest to you from hurting people.

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So let there be a reminder to take the vetting process for eldership seriously here. Elders need accountability, but they do not need to be caught up in a string of false allegations that keep the church from being able to move forward either.

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And so when a pastor is confronted by two witnesses for either false teaching or sin, and they are indeed moving in that direction, they have been given a gracious opportunity to repent.

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And verse 20 clarifies that the issue comes in when the elders refuse to repent, and they refuse to turn from their sin or their false teaching and turn toward God and toward his truth.

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Those who persist in falling short are to be publicly, this is shocking, publicly rebuked.

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Publicly rebuked. The word sin can rightly be translated missing the mark or falling short.

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When you see the word sin in scripture, especially in the New Testament, the majority of the time it carries that notion.

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It's like an archery term. So it's like you're shooting at a target and it always, always, always misses the mark or falls short.

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You're shooting an arrow, it doesn't reach the target. You shoot an arrow, it doesn't reach the target. That's the image of sin.

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It encompasses all the activities of a person that do not hit the target of God's desires as expressed in his word.

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That's how we define sin. Sin is a missing the holiness and the glory of God and the things that he's designed us to be and do.

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So an elder or a pastor who will not turn away from that missing the mark, who will continue to miss the mark and say, I'm just going to keep doing that, even when confronted, is to be rebuked in the presence of all.

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And a quick side note is helpful at this point. I want to clarify this. I've said this before, you know, we all sin, right?

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But unrepentant sin, when a person says, I will choose my sin over Christ, that cannot be tolerated in the body.

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When confronted, I mean consistently, consistently, scripture indicates that when a true believer is confronted with their sin, they choose

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Jesus over their sin and they repent, they turn to him. Does that make sense?

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So when we all sin, but the question is, how do we process that? Are we battling it? Are we fighting it?

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Do we love Christ more? And certainly we fail it at many points. And yet the operating system of our heart is to honor our

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Lord and Savior. And we're disappointed when we don't. We feel bad when we don't. And we want to get it right.

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We want to get it right. Now the need for two witnesses for accusing an elder should not make it more difficult to bring an accusation as an elder, as I said, but rather, it comes to nothing if after investigation it proves to just be one person's opinion.

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But when it's brought and not heeded, when the accusation is brought and not paid attention to, or ignored, or explained away, or justified, and I'm going to continue doing this, the discipline goes public very quick for a leader in the church.

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And know what Paul doesn't say here as your next step. He says, rebuke them publicly. How many of you are uncomfortable with that?

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Go ahead and raise your hand if that makes you uncomfortable. A public rebuke? Are you serious, Don? What does that look like?

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But what Paul doesn't say here matters. He doesn't say, hide it, church, so that Jesus' name is kept pure.

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He doesn't say, hide it so the church doesn't lose members. He doesn't say, hide it so that the church doesn't make the news.

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No, it is, rebuke them publicly. In the presence of all.

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The church doesn't get to choose the actions on this one. You see, we think we're allowed wiggle room to determine likely fallouts and then respond accordingly, but instead we are to follow scripture and trust the results to our

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God who loves the church more than we do, more than any of us. And unfortunately, many churches have gone astray on the false premise that we get to figure out what works best and then do that, especially when things go sideways for a leader.

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But the church is not a pragmatic organization just trying to figure out and feeling around in the darkness, trying to stumble upon a secret formula that will work for us to grow.

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We are an organization of obedience to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Would you guys testify with me that he's in charge?

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He's in charge. And he tells us here that when an elder or a pastor is caught in sin and refuses to turn away from it, in essence saying, no,

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I love my sin more than Christ, they are to be publicly rebuked. And there's a purpose behind the public nature of the rebuke even.

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It is so that the fear of unrepentant sin is felt among the elders and the congregation that the others may fear.

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It's intentional. In verse 21, Paul gives some of the strongest encouragement in scripture to follow these rules about leadership and to do so, he says, adding to it, make sure you follow these rules.

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I mean, he doubles down on this, triples down on this. Make sure, church, that you follow these instructions about leadership and do so without prejudging or partiality.

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Paul knows, what he's getting at here is he knows that we're gonna be tempted to prejudgment. We're gonna be tempted to partiality when it comes to a leader who has been loved by a congregation.

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So Paul invokes God. He invokes Jesus Christ. And he invokes the holy angel saying that these rules have their origin in heaven.

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That's the place that these rules are coming from. Not some synod over in Lansing, not some judicial body.

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These rules for the church come from heaven, do them. That's what Paul says.

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Now, how many times has this verse been ignored while prominent and famous pastors have clothed themselves both in success and sin?

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Clothed themselves in success and sin. And we go, I think we'll take a pass, a hard pass on these instructions,

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Paul. I think we'll just do things our way. We'll handle it internally. God forbid that we would ever become a people who excuse sin because of quote unquote good fruit.

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The proof is not in the pudding, as grandma would say. We are not merely a pragmatic people who celebrate what works in ministry.

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We must be a people who celebrate godliness in ministry. A life of good worship in ministry.

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Above all things, a character that loves God first. And that includes repenting of our sin when it's brought to our attention.

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That's not a call to perfection among your leaders. That's a call to humility among your leaders. That's a call to say,

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I don't always get it right, but I want to, I want to. And when

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I see where I have gone astray, I will seek to ask for forgiveness, confess it, and move forward.

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Paul identifies two prominent temptations that all churches will face. I believe all churches face this.

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It's prejudging and partiality. And in context, this is saying, Timothy, you're gonna be tempted to not rebuke some leaders because of who they are or how you feel about them.

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But hear me carefully, church. Nobody, nobody, nobody is above correction.

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It doesn't matter the fruit from their ministry. It doesn't matter what title they hold. It doesn't matter if they lead 50 people to Christ every single week.

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If they will not repent of their sins when confronted by two or three witnesses, they are to be publicly censured.

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How much pain and heartache would the American church have been saved if this had been followed?

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I think a lot. You guys agree with me on that? I think there's a lot of prominent big name preachers who if this would have been followed early in their ministry, we would barely know their name.

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They might still be in ministry. They might be successful today if somebody had leaned into them early on and helped to correct them.

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Or they might be out of ministry because they would have had to be publicly rebuked and censured. Paul instructs

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Timothy that a healthy church will not make up their mind before they hear the facts. That would be prejudging.

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And they will not ignore the facts simply because of the person who is being accused. That would be partiality.

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No prejudging, no partiality in the church recast. So a healthy church honors leaders who do well and teach the truth.

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And a healthy church rebukes leaders who persist in missing the mark in both teaching and in their lifestyle. And lastly, a healthy church is slow, therefore, for obvious reasons, to appoint leadership.

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Now verse 22 is a command to Timothy to pump the brakes on leadership appointments. The laying on of hands is a metaphor in this text for the appointment of leadership.

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And interestingly, the verse implies that those who endorse a person in leadership also share responsibility for the sins that they commit.

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Hastily appointing a person to the office of pastor or elder is a way to stain the entire leadership with impurity.

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All the elders will be held culpable for the sins of the one man we would appoint beyond his character.

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We must take that seriously. And so the instructions to keep himself pure leads to an aside from Paul and Timothy because he says, keep yourself pure, but let me clarify.

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He says this thing that seems so out of context and it's kind of like stark in verse 23, but it's because obviously

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Paul was fearful that Timothy was gonna misunderstand what he meant by the word pure as if that meant don't drink any alcohol.

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And so he needed to clarify that. And so the instruction to keep himself pure,

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Paul clarifies that by instructing Timothy to keep himself pure, he doesn't mean live an ascetic lifestyle.

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It is clear that Timothy has chosen to abstain from alcohol for some particular reason in his culture and in his context.

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And here, Paul outright discourages Timothy from keeping up the practice of drinking water alone.

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He prescribes a little wine to clear up a stomach issue Timothy has that's been plaguing him. He says, you're being too ascetic on this.

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It's okay. And a couple of worthwhile observations about this aside because it can be kind of a lightning rod issue in some churches.

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The first thing is that Paul, I wanna just point this out because this is kind of interesting from a different perspective. And that's that Paul didn't heal

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Timothy. Did you think about that? Paul who healed many people did not heal

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Timothy. And that just shows us what I think we already know. And that is that healing comes from the

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Lord and from his will. It does not generate with any man. I mean,

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Paul healed many people, but he's not able to just send a handkerchief to Timothy and say a prayer over it and then send it to him.

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And when he touches it, he's healed. He says, no, drink a little wine for your stomach issue. It's been plaguing you. And it implies in the text that it's an ongoing issue.

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You got a lot of ailments, Timothy. And a lot of it's probably because you're drinking the water. How many of you know, when you go to Mexico, you don't drink the water, right?

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But he's drinking the water. So God is in charge of healing. And God chose to leave

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Timothy with a fairly significant stomach bug. Some issue with his stomach.

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A second observation would be, you would have a stomach issue too if you were left in Ephesus to deal with all of these broken relationships.

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Okay, I just think it's kind of like, yeah, all the stuff that's broken in Ephesus, that all of these things that Timothy has left there.

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And I think all of us would be kind of like developing an ulcer too. So there's something going on there. The third thing is I read a book that I've referenced before in previous sermons called

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The History of the World in Six Glasses. It frames history through six beverages that were the beverages that were common during certain eras and epochs of human history.

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And it's a quick, kind of intriguing read. It was a New York Times bestseller, which might actually make you not want to read.

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I don't know. But the author's conclusion is that it's really, it really is only in modern times that water has been able to rise to the place it deserves as the beverage of choice.

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Although it would always be ideal for the human body to consume water, it has not always been ideal for humans to consume water because of the lack of purity.

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So water was hard, pure water rather, was really hard to come by in the

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Roman Empire, as you can imagine. The fourth observation is that this passage does not say that everyone must drink alcohol.

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I've heard this text actually abused in that direction, saying, well, he told Timothy to. All of us should.

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No, it's not saying that at all. It is saying in a particular context to a specific individual, hey, this would probably help your health.

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Stop drinking only water, have a little bit of wine. So after his aside to Timothy here in the text,

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Paul concludes by explaining why we ought not to be hasty in the appointing of people to leadership in the church.

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And he does so in two verses, verses 24 and 25. Verse 24, he says, some sins are obvious and are out front, leading us towards judgment.

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And this is always helpful when a person's character is clearly discerned. How many of you like it when somebody just plays their cards on the table?

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It's just like, okay, I just know who you are. I know where you're at. I kind of like authenticity a lot.

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But the sins of others, they're hiding it well, and those sins come up later.

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So give it some time when you're appointing leaders to see what comes out of their life first.

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The fact of the matter is, I think we all know that some people hide it well. And I would rather know in advance what a person is struggling with than have them pretend to me that they are not struggling with anything.

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The one who never sins is the one that I keep my eyes on. The one that never sins is the one you should be watching out for.

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The one who says, I am perfect. I got it all together. I don't struggle with anything. Yikes. Timothy tells us here that the church will have our sad and fair share of situations like that of Ravi Zacharias.

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How can we be shocked when the word here actually tells us that some sins will only be discovered later?

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It says it. It predicts it. It says that sometimes you won't know until the end what the person was really doing, what their life really looked like.

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The depth of the sin of Ravi Zacharias didn't come to light until after his death. And Paul says the sins of some will indeed appear later.

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And verse 25, good works work the same way. Praise God for that. It's not all just on a down note, but it will be proven over time when a man is doing well and serving well.

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Bad behavior cannot stay hidden, but neither can good behavior. I'm glad this text ends on a positive note, and I love how the text is balanced.

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Honor, rebuke, and deliberate caution, observing, cautious observation, and observing the lives of those that we would appoint to leadership.

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And so our applications ought to follow that structure too, to some degree. The first is weird to say, but it's a straightforward application from the text is honor those who lead well.

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And application is always there where things can get awkward in a passage like this that is so full of my own vocation.

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But let me leave it as pointed as I can while leaving plenty of room for the Holy Spirit in your life here. Jesus says a worker deserves his wages.

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Paul, quoting the Old Testament says, do not muzzle the ox while he is treading out the grain.

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My salary, stated directly, my salary, Spencer's salary, Ben's pay is contingent upon the generosity of this church.

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And with the hope to bring Ben on after a year of not being hasty and with that goal and desire to call him pastor eventually,

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I would love to see the money there at the end of this year to bring him into a salaried position if that works. And that requires a level of generosity on our part.

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Giving is always between you and God, but this passage, as awkward as it is for me to say, he has it here for pastors to preach.

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It's about your giving to the church as part of obedience to 1 Timothy 5, 17 through 18, and I would encourage you to read it and consider if you are participating as God would have you.

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Again, I do not, I know some of you, this is your first Sunday here, and everybody, raise your hand if you would say,

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I rarely talk about finances. I just don't. It's not something that is like super close to my heart.

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As a matter of fact, it's awkward for me. And so I don't stand up here and say give, give, give. I actually say, that's between you and God.

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It's none of my business. And I mean that sincerely. I don't say that as, I'm not afraid of saying that it's a spiritual thing.

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I'm not afraid to talk about finances. I just think it doesn't need to be what the church is known for.

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And I fear that sometimes in the church, churches are known for give, give, give, give, give, and that's not us.

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So, but I would encourage you between you and God to determine whether or not you're doing what he's calling you to do regarding your support of the local church.

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The second thing is that pastors and elders are set forth as examples and yet we are not perfect. And I think you guys already knew that.

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I would rather have, and I mean this with sincerity, within limits, but I would rather have a short leash with frequent opportunity to repent than a long leash that provides the opportunity to get tangled and entrenched and falling short.

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Does that make sense? And I would pray that for all of you. I hope that that's your desire as well. I pray regularly,

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God, keep me on a short leash and jerk it if I'm going off the rails. Like feel free to, you know, give it a nice tug.

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But I don't want to stray far from my Lord and Savior. I'm confident that you don't either. And yet we all know that we stray, but I'm like,

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God, give me a soft heart that is quick to repent, is quick to see my faults, is quick to see that and turn back to you in a moment's notice.

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Praise God that he takes us back. Everybody glad for that? Praise God that he is quick.

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When we turn to him and repent and say, God, I'm sorry. He says, I know. He brings us back in. I know.

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Oh, praise God for that. Don't rush to accusation, please.

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But certainly feel free to let me or any of the elders know if you see sin or false teaching here at this church.

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And make sure it isn't your own personal ax to grind, please. Not your own personal ax to grind, but don't forget that the standard is that others will also agree with your accusation that you need to not be alone in your understanding.

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By the way, side note here, nothing is worse than the fictional. A bunch of people feel the same way.

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You ever hear that? I mean, I talked with a handful of people and they feel the same way as me. Who are they?

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Are they real? Or do you see them now? Are they in the room? Do you know what

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I'm talking about? Like, I mean, who are you talking to again? Are these invisible people? Are these your special friends?

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You get what I'm saying? And I mean, if you have something to bring to one of the leaders here at this church or myself, if you have something to bring to us, don't lead out with the fictional group of gathering of people that you have, please.

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But a leader in the church must be humble and open to correction. Lastly, when it comes to hasty appointments, please, please, please take this seriously, church.

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Take the time to get to know our elders. There's one on duty every Sunday. You can strike up a conversation with them.

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You can get to know them. That's part of the reason that they're back there. And seek to get to know candidates when we put them forward as much as possible.

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Fill out the elder evaluation forms when they come around. Those elders are appointed for two -year terms and then they are up for a reevaluation.

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Every two years, they can serve a total of four in a row. And so sometimes we have those are new people coming on the board.

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Sometimes it's an affirmation of them coming back on. But fill those out. Take the process seriously.

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Engage in the process. Engaging in that process might require you to invite a candidate over for dinner or to take them out to eat or get to know them better in some other context.

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But I would encourage you to get to know those people that are being put forward in leadership positions. We are a church family, recast.

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God is interested in being sure that we have leaders who are committed to living for him. Once leaders who teach the truth.

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Once leaders who are humble and quick to repent of sin. Once leaders who are accountable, who are not falsely accused and who are tested before they are appointed.

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And so we come to communion each week to be really in part to be shocked back to the reality of what a church truly is.

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We are a gathering of people under the blood of Jesus Christ. We are his people. And if you are indeed his by asking

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Jesus to save you and you've asked him to be your king, your master, to call the shots in your life, then please come to the table to remember his body that was broken for us.

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And take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.

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And let's not lose sight of what he wants to do among us. He is bringing us all more and more into the likeness of his son, despite the many ways that we may miss the mark.

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Let's all go out from here with gratitude for the way that God has brought us into his community of faith.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the way that you have indeed blessed us as a congregation with godly men.

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We have a godly board of elders, a godly group of guys who really do work through things.

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We have a plurality here of men who are calling the shots. There is accountability in that board.

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There is accountability in relationships here. Father, I pray that you would indeed, as I just talked in this message, to keep us on short leashes.

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Give us all soft hearts to conviction. I pray that your spirit would speak regularly into our lives, showing us where we fall short and that we would be able to bring those to you for freedom, bring those to you in apology, bring those to you in repentance and turning from sin.

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I pray for power and strength to overcome sin in all of our lives. And I thank you for this congregation that is seeking to do things your way.

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I pray that we would, again, it has not happened yet that we've had to rebuke an elder and had to do so publicly.

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I pray that that does not happen here. I pray that we would be able to continue forward in keeping those conversations on the side and we would be able to continue to move forward with your grace and repentance.

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Father, we thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ. We thank you for his body broken for us and that's really the center of it all.

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So I pray that even as this message is felt somewhat detailed and oriented towards internally in the church,

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I pray that you would deal with each one of us as individuals now, corporately, as we celebrate together what you have done for us that has united us in Jesus and it's in his name that I pray, amen.