First Timothy 4 13 This is again Paul the Apostle
his letter to a young preacher Timothy The Lord had called and
was using to to minister to his people And he says till I come
verse 13 till I come give attendance to reading to exhortation to
doctrine. Now give attendance there means
to dedicate yourself to. Within the definition of that
word is to be addicted to. It's something that compels you. Be dedicated to it in such a
way that there's a need. There's a need. And it's reading. Reading. I had a young man tell me one
time that he wanted to be a preacher. And he asked me how, what advice
I would give him in preparing for that. And I remember at clearest
day, I said to him, read everything that you can get your hands on.
Everything read everything What I probably should have said was
forget about it Because when somebody says they want to be
a preacher of the gospel, that's a that's a red flag. That's a
bad thing God's not looking for volunteers It just doesn't happen
that way it really doesn't But I said, you know read the Bible
most of all read the Bible know the Bible know the Word of God
and read good commentaries Read-good verse-by-verse commentaries on
the scripture that that can shed some light As you're comparing scripture
with scripture and I told him very specifically read Charles
Spurgeon It's very good on The scriptures read John Gill
is one that I still look at some and Matthew Henry read Robert
Hawker There's enough of that reading to last you a lifetime
and then some you would never read all of it And that's a good
thing And I said even read good fiction stories Because you have
to be able to communicate with people You have to, there's no
better way to improve your vocabulary and learn how to communicate
than reading, reading, reading. And you know what his response
to me was? He said, yeah, I'm not much of a reader. And the thing about it is, he
wasn't much of a preacher either. He wasn't a preacher at all.
He just pretended to be one for a little while. Read. Read. I can't say that strongly enough.
Give attendance to it. Have a need for it. That's what
that idea of being addicted to it means. Have a need for it.
And this, of course, is to a preacher, but I recommend it for all of
God's people, especially the scriptures. Don't take what I
said about fiction and just think that just, you know, reading
fiction is better than reading nothing, but it's got to be in
conjunction with reading the truth about the word of God. Of course, the word of God is
the truth. Somebody said, I've quoted this a million times,
I know y'all are tired of hearing it, but somebody said one time,
the Bible sheds a lot of light on those commentaries, and that's
the truth. We say we read commentaries to
shed light on scripture. The scripture sheds light on
the commentary. The scriptures, they are the light. They are
the truth of God. The commentaries are helpful.
They definitely are helpful. Not much of a reader. That's
not good. But there's something further
down in our text that we need to look at now because everything
about this text culminates in this, verse 16, save yourself
and those that hear you. Save yourself and those that
hear you, save. I believe the Lord had me read
a lot of fiction when I was young to prepare me to be able to,
I hope, plainly speak the truth of Christ one day. I know that
he, that he causes everything in our lives for a purpose, for
his glory. And that was something that just
came naturally to me, of course, because God caused that. And
I believe he did it that way so that someday, he did it when
I was very young, and someday, that he was going to have me
put coherent and concise sentences together to some degree. But reading fiction won't save
you. Reading fiction won't save you. The end result, the end
goal here is save yourself and those that hear you. So we need
to understand that. That's the end goal of your reading.
It's the glory of God, because that's where God's glory shines
the brightest, is in the saving of his people. The redemption
of Christ on Calvary. That is the salvation of his
elect. So only the scriptures are the
truth. Only the scriptures are the truth.
Our doctrine is the word of God. He said, doctrine, doctrine. Listen to 2 Timothy 3.14. 2 Timothy 3.14, but continue thou
in the things which thou has learned and has been assured
of Knowing of whom thou hast learned them and That from a child thou hast
known the holy scriptures Which are able to make thee wise unto
That's the that's the last part of our text, that's what it all
culminates in salvation Able to make thee wise of unto
salvation there's the point of it all and through faith, which
is in Christ Jesus. Just reading it, just learning
it, is not gonna save you. But it's through those means
that God gives faith in Christ, which saves you. Christ is the
Savior, but God uses these means. How shall they hear? How can
they believe on him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? How are they gonna call on him
of whom they've not believed? So faith is the way that God
saves, but he uses these means to bring us to faith in Christ.
You're not gonna believe on him of whom you've not heard. That's not the way it happens.
And then he says, exhortation. I love this word. We've talked
about this word so many times before. This is that Greek word
that means to call to one side. Exhortation. Reading, know what
you're talking about, and then talk about it. Exhortation. The reading has got to come first,
doesn't it? You're not much of a reader,
how are you gonna exhort? How are you gonna accomplish
that? to call to one side, to admonish,
to encourage, to use persuasive discourse. But persuasive discourse,
don't think of that in a superior, I know more than you way. That's
not how the word of God is taught. Paul said, in meekness instruct
those that oppose themselves, if God per adventure will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. There's a meekness
there because you're just like them. And there's a meekness
there because it's God that's got to give them repentance,
not you. There's a meekness there because they're never gonna acknowledge
the truth unless God does something. So we come in meekness. We're
not overbearing and we don't have that know-it-all attitude
that we're convincing people, I'm smarter than you and you
need to be as smart as me, so just listen to me. That's not
the attitude. That's not the way God teaches
his people. Telling people how wrong they
are and how much smarter you are than them is not gonna persuade
them. That word persuade. that we just
read. Persuade. That's the definition
of that word exhort. Part of it is to use persuasive
language. You're not gonna persuade me
of anything by telling me how stupid I am. God can tell me
how stupid I am, but not you. Don't do that and I won't do
that to you. If God says we're stupid, we're stupid. But we
communicate with one another as sinners in meekness. with a desire for both of us
to learn from God, not you necessarily learning from me because I'm
so smart. We want to hear from God. When that man came up and began
to worship Simon Peter, he said, no, no, get up. Don't worship
me. We're both here to worship him.
And that's the attitude with which we exhort. We call to one
side, let's walk together. Let's talk about this. And again, first, the reading
before you try to persuade anybody of anything, know what you're
talking about. Know what people need to be persuaded of, not
your opinion, the truth of God. That's what they need to be persuaded
of. Before you admonish anyone, know
what you're talking about, and if you don't know what you're
talking about, don't admonish anyone. That just needs to be said, doesn't
it? There are at least two things that cause people to admonish
others. One is simply the love of butting
into other people's business. That's a big one, isn't it? They
just love, just a buddy and just, they just need to hear from me,
you know, because they're just not doing things. They're just
not doing the right thing here. You just can't help yourself.
We just can't help ourselves. That's our nature, isn't it?
There are very few things more off-putting and despicable than
that. You're not gonna persuade anybody
that way. If they didn't ask for it, don't
give it. And the fact that you may be
right is not an excuse to just butt into other people's business.
The Apostle Peter warned against this now in 1 Peter 4.15, if
you wanna look that up later. He warned against that because
God knows our nature. And so it's in the word of God,
stay out of it. The other reason that once somebody
would exhort somebody else is because you love them. You love them. You love them too much to let
it go. And if that's actually true, if it's because you love
them, I believe you'll do it in the right way. You'll do it
in the right way. Our Lord upbraideth not when somebody needs him. When
somebody needs to hear from him, when somebody needs his blessing,
when somebody needs to learn from him, he upbraideth not. Let's imitate that. And most of all, People need
exhortation from the scriptures. When you call them to your side,
don't just give them your opinions. They're not worth that much. They need exhortation from the
word of God, not from you. So when you call someone to your
side, exhort them with the word of God. Nobody needs your opinion
on anything. Think about that for a minute.
That may sound like a really broad statement. It is. And it's
true. Nobody needs your opinion on
anything. Nor mine. We all need to hear
from God. I may want your opinion. I may
want it. I may ask you for it. but I don't
need it unless it's what God says. We need God's word and not our
cockamamie misuse of God's word. People love to throw scripture
around when they're trying to butt into
somebody else's business without love. That's despicable, absolutely
despicable. Paul said also to Timothy, the
young preacher, in 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given
by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. This. Now here's how we exhort. You wanna see an example of it?
The scriptures, are not full of a lot of definitions.
They're full of a lot of examples, aren't they? That's better. That's
the way God teaches. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
five with me. Here's how we exhort. Give yourself to exhortation. 2nd Corinthians 5 17 now this
can be applied as friend to friend as teacher to listeners as preacher
to congregation as parent to children Therefore if any man be in Christ
he is a new creation Old things are passed away Behold, all things
are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry
of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, seeing that that's
true, seeing that Christ is the one that reconciles sinners to
himself. He makes that very clear. But we have the ministry of telling
about that. Telling about the Lord Jesus
Christ, who imputes not trespasses to sinners. And we're fixing
to see how that happens. but it's Christ's work that we're
talking about. It's what he does that we exhort
people concerning. Now then, as ambassadors for
Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's
stead, be reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Because of what happened on Calvary,
we come and tell you how that God reconciled sinners to Himself
by the precious blood of His Son, by substitution, by the
redemption that's in Him. That's us exhorting one another. And remember who you're an ambassador
for. Not yourself, you don't just
speak on your own, you're speaking for somebody. And so it always, and if somebody
wants to argue with you, make sure they're arguing with God
and not you. It's very easy to do that, to
just make sure that they're not arguing with you. You know how
you do that? Tell them what God said, not
what you think. If they want to argue with God, I'll take
about 10 seconds of that and then I'll walk away. Because
it's not, the gospel's not up for debate. It's not up for argument.
Somebody don't wanna hear it, then so be it. The Lord said, shake the dust
off your shoes. But if they will, oh, if you
can call them to your side, if they'll walk with you. What a
blessing and a blessed privilege. Speak to a sinner about the reconciliation
that's in Christ in his precious blood What a privilege that is And then doctrine Doctrine this
is so misunderstood that You know, just about in my lifetime,
probably 99% of the time that somebody has
used this word doctrine in conversation with me, they weren't talking
about the Bible. Can you think about that? People
talk about doctrine, doctrine, you know what they're talking
about? They're talking about some facts that apparently man
came up with. Some man, some, because he's
old and dead means, you know, he must have been right. Deductions,
you know, reasonings that men have mused upon concerning the
word of God. In other words, they presume
to tell us what God meant by what he said. I'll tell you this, if I had
something to say to you, I wouldn't want anybody telling you what
I meant by what I said. Listen to what I said. I'm quite
capable of saying what I want to say. I believe God is too. I really do. Doctrine. It's not the Philadelphia confession
of faith or any other confession of faith or a body of divinity
or any of that, as useful as those things can be. What is
doctrine? The word simply means teaching.
But what is our doctrine? What is the doctrine that we
give ourselves to? Look again at the same verse
that I just quoted, 2 Timothy 3.16. Think about this again.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for
doctrine. What is? What's profitable for doctrine? What is not profitable for doctrine
is your brilliant deductions regarding what God meant by what
he said. It's just not. The word of God is just assumed
in the text, the doctrine. It's just assumed that that means
the word of God. It's talking about teaching the
word of God, as opposed to just reading it And as opposed to
exhorting people in life with it, now we're talking about a
third thing, which is preaching it, teaching it. That's the word,
doctrine, teaching. But it's assumed that it's the
word of God. All three of these things, reading, reading the
word of God primarily. Exhorting, exhorting what? The
scriptures are profitable for that. Doctrine, what is doctrine? The same thing that he's talking
about in all of these things. It's just assumed that we know
that the doctrine is the scripture. This is our confession of faith. Think about how all encompassing
the word of God is in the life of a believer. Reading, exhortation,
doctrine, profitable for everything we need. Be addicted to it. Give yourself
to reading and knowing it. Sharpen people with it. That
word exhortation has that idea too. As iron sharpeneth iron,
Proverbs 27, 17. And teach it. Timothy was to
be a preacher of the gospel, but we're all teachers of scripture. But you see how the word doctrine
is used. Your doctrine itself is not something other. It's
just talking about another way that the word of God is vital
in the life of a believer. By teaching. Teaching it. Teaching
it to your children. Remember the Lord said when they
asked, tell them, it's the Lord's Passover. Tell them about how
sinners are set free from the bondage of the law by the blood
of the Lamb. And notice the wording in verse
16, the doctrine, the doctrine. There's just one doctrine, the
doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of God, it's called, the doctrine
of Christ. In other places, the doctrine,
if you see the word doctrines, plural, in the scripture, it's
talking about the doctrines of devils. There's just one God and there's
just one truth. One gospel The doctrine your doctrine had
better be the doctrine The doctrine of Christ crucified Christ the
propitiation for sin Christ the one sin offering that God will
accept for sin Christ our righteousness Christ the effectual redeemer.
That word effectual, we use that a lot. That specific English
word is not in the scriptures, but the idea of it is. It means
he got the job done. That's the way my old preacher
used to say it. Effectual just means he gets
the job done. Christ died to redeem you, he
redeemed you. That simple truth. The primary difference between
the gospel and a false gospel He got the job done. It's that
simple He accomplished what he came to do to save his people
from their sins Here's our doctrine listen to
Romans 1 1 Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an
apostle, called by God to be an apostle, separated unto the
gospel of God. He was addicted to it. He was
given, give yourself separated by God unto the gospel of God,
which he had promised to for by his prophets in the holy scriptures
concerning his son. The gospel concerns God's son,
Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh, born of a woman, born under the curse, born to be made a curse for those
who are under the curse, born of a woman that he might redeem
them that were under the curse, and declared to be the Son of
God, made of the seed of David, but declared to be not the seed
of David, the Son of God, with power, according to the spirit
of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. So, Give yourself, be addicted
to, have a need for reading. Reading with the end in mind
of salvation. Salvation. Exhortation with the end in mind
of salvation. Doctrine with the end in mind
of salvation. There's only one doctrine that
saves, it's the gospel of Christ. Able to make you wise unto salvation. Verse 14 now, we'll just cover
a few verses. Neglect not the gift that is
in you, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on
of the hands of the presbytery. Now this is, it's an outline
already, isn't it? It's the gift and it was given
you two ways. And first word though there is
neglect not. This because that's our tendency
now to neglect, neglect. It's not that we don't know as
believers that we should do these things, that we should exhort
people that we love, It's not that we don't know that, it's
not that we don't know the truth and are unable to say it, we
just neglect it. We neglect it. We know we ought
to, but we've got too many other things to do. We got so much to do. A gift from God that's neglected
is a tragedy. And there are a lot of ways to
neglect God's gift. Most commonly, people are just
taken up with the things of this world. Remember, it was the cares
or concerns of this world that choked out the word of God, choked
out the seed that was sown by the wayside. Is that what we
are then? Seeds sown by the wayside? Many
neglect the gift by getting distracted by relatively good things. They're
all about charitable things, which we know we don't teach
against that. Be charitable, be helpful in
every way that you can, especially to those who are of the household
of the faith. But you can neglect the gift
by focusing on good things. Martha, what are you doing, Martha? Well, the Lord is at my house.
I'm trying to fix a nice meal, what's wrong with that? Nothing
wrong with that. But one thing's needful, and that ain't it. That ain't it. You can neglect the gift by getting
distracted as a preacher, which Timothy is, that's always kind
of the tenor of this exhortation from Paul to Timothy. is as a
preacher of the gospel, we can be distracted by getting on a
soapbox of some kind. Somebody makes us mad, and for
the next five years, we're preaching against them instead of preaching
the gospel. And notice, it's a gift, not
an attainment. no matter how hard you studied,
and no matter how much time you spent, and we ought to. That's
just the means by which God gave you the gift. What do we have that we didn't
receive? Then why do we glory as if we didn't receive it? It's
a gift. Here are the means by which God
gives the gift to speak for Him, to teach, to exhort prophecy,
You learn the word of God by hearing the word of God. He gave
you this gift how? By prophecy. You get the gift
of preaching by preaching. Somebody else's preaching. Not
by going to seminary. You don't get it that way. God
may use that for one person and not another, I don't know. I've been to seminary, but I
learned the gospel from my dad and from Jack Shanks and from
Henry Mayhem and from Don Fortner. And I'm learning it now primarily
from Todd Nybert. I listen to a lot of his messages,
a lot of them. Look at this wonderful passage
of scripture with me, 2 Timothy chapter two. Also again to Timothy. Of course, a lot of the letters
to Timothy apply to this letter to Timothy. 2 Timothy 2.1, thou therefore my
son, my son, my pastor called me that. He called me his son
in the faith and that was a great blessing. What a privilege to
be that. Be strong in the grace, that
is in Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard of me among
many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall
be able to teach others also. Isn't that beautiful? You've got four generations there,
don't you? Paul taught Timothy, who he said,
you teach others, And they'll be able to teach others also.
In that one brief statement, four generations of people that
know the gospel and will be able to proclaim the gospel. How? By hearing somebody that preaches
the gospel. That's how I learned the gospel.
I went to seminary, but I didn't learn the gospel there. What a beautiful passage. And
then look what he said in verse three. Thou therefore endure
hardness. Not gonna be easy. As a good
soldier of Jesus Christ, no man that woreth entangleth himself
with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath
chosen him to be a soldier. That's so beautiful. And then
you were given this gift by the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery. This is not something that's
obsolete now. This is not something that they
did back then that doesn't matter anymore. Think about this. This
laying on of the hands of the Presbyterian, and the apostles
laid their hands on people to confer gifts of the Spirit. And
that may have happened at the same time, but this is something
else. This is the laying on of hands of the presbytery, which
simply means the body of elders. The pastor of the church was
called the elder of the church. And there would be elders appointed
for different tasks or just to help the pastor with things that
have to be done in the church. Remember when the apostles said,
we will give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.
And so they chose elders to do all the other stuff. And so that's what this is. The body of elders, including
the pastor, they laid their hands on someone as a confirmation
of that person, attesting that they had witnessed and can vouch
for that person being gifted. Read some of Acts chapter six
about that too, I believe the beginning of Acts chapter six.
But they could vouch for they were witnesses of the fact that
that person was gifted to teach and preach. It was kind of an
inauguration into the ministry in that sense. And this is very
important. Nobody is just to decide that
they want to be a preacher and just start preaching. That's
not how God does that. It doesn't happen that way. Somebody
that knows and preaches the gospel comes to trust a person to speak
for God based upon observable evidences of the gift of God.
That's how Stephen was chosen and the others that were chosen
with Stephen. If you read about that, it was
evident to them. They had observed that God had
gifted him And that's a lot different now
than somebody just saying, I'm a preacher now, you know? And
I believe it is the beginning of Acts chapter six where there's
some teaching about that. But I've known people who just
sort of made themselves preachers. It's not good. It's not good.
God still uses the, and I struggled for words here. I've got the
word endorsement in my notes. It's hard to describe what it
is, but it's an acknowledgement of those that God has gifted,
and he still uses, I believe, the elders of the church to identify
those that he's gifted and will use. Don't discount that. I wanna spend more time than
we have this morning on these last two verses, but notice this. Notice that this exhortation
begins with reading and ends with salvation. It begins with reading and it
ends with salvation. We neglect the simple exhortations
of scripture to our eternal peril. And let me just say this about
that. Salvation is not an accumulation of enough facts. It's not something
that you attain to by knowing enough. I know a lot of people
that preach that. You've got to know this, this,
and this, and you're saved. You got to know somebody, I know
that. You got to know a person. Salvation's a person. And likewise,
our reading, our study, our meditation upon the word of God is not for
the purpose of knowing more things. It's not for that purpose. It's
for the purpose of knowing Christ more. You think about that. I'm gonna say that again for
myself and for you. Our study and meditation and
giving ourselves to the study and exaltation and preaching
of the doctrine of the scriptures is not in order to know more
things. It's so that we might know him
more. Paul said that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. Listen to the turn to this scripture
with me. We'll just close with this 2nd
Peter 317 This is my prayer for all of
us 2nd Peter 317 Ye therefore beloved Seeing you
know these things before I Beware, lest ye also, being led away
with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
It's a danger, as I said, we're exhorted over and over to beware. Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. Beware of those who preach the
error of the wicked, which is They don't run around saying
Satan rules, and Satan lives, and let's worship Satan. They
run around saying God is love. They run around saying God loves
everybody. They run around saying Christ
died for everybody. That's who we're to beware. Don't fall from your own steadfastness. But what's the opposite of being
deceived and falling into error? What's the opposite of that?
grow in grace and in the knowledge of a person. In the knowledge of our Lord,
my Lord and my God and my Savior, a just God and a Savior. Oh,
that I may know thee and the power of your resurrection. To
Him be glory. To Him be glory. And Paul and
the Apostle Peter, both, I love the way they said this, let's
give Him glory right now. Such as we are in this body of
sin, such as we are, let's give Him glory right now and from
now on into eternity. or maybe then he'll receive the
glory from us that he deserves. May God make it so.