Text: 1 Timothy 6:20-21 Title: O Timothy! Truth: The pastor is a spiritual sentinel for himself and the church. Date/Location: Sunday December 2, 2012 at FBC

Introduction Last week we learned that part of the pastor’s responsibility is to direct wealthy believers away from pride and trusting riches and instead to do good with the means God has given them. Another pastoral responsibility—and one very high on the priority list—is for the pastor to keep careful guard over the truth and the set of responsibilities that has been entrusted to him. Doing these things is part of being a good minister. I. Summary of 1 Timothy The book of 1 Timothy is all about how the church is supposed to carry on its affairs in the world if it is to be a successful pillar and ground of the truth. The church is to be the best advocate for the truth, both by proclamation and practice. It must do so in light of three areas: A. External Threats to the Church Deal firmly with false teachers who pervert the law and the gospel. Maintain the spiritual battle, and have faith and a good conscience. Warning against false teachers again and some of their destructive doctrines in chapter 4. Twice repeated exhortation to teach the believers the truth and to reject false teachings in chapter 4. In chapter 6, revisit the subject of false teachers, expose their main motivations, and strongly warn Timothy against being trapped in those sinful things which include pride and the love of money. B. Internal Organization, Ministry, and Conduct of the Church Instruct the church to pray; the men to live holy lives; the women to attire themselves properly and conduct themselves submissively. Set in place the proper qualifications for elders and deacons. The basic gist of chapters 2 and 3 is that the church must know how it ought to conduct itself. How to treat various groups of people, with an emphasis on purity and on how the church should care for widows, elders, and ordination candidates.

All Scripture is from the NKJV unless otherwise noted. 1 Reminder for servants as to how they should treat their masters. Reminder to the rich as to how they should conduct themselves and diversify their riches into good works and heavenly reward. C. Pastor’s Personal Watch and Responsibilities To maintain his own spiritual watch-care and live in accordance with the teaching that he gives to others. II. Guard – Now to Verses 20-21 A. Timothy is to “guard” the stuff he was given. Whatever Timothy was to guard, it was a deposit or property of another person entrusted to him to keep safe and sound. Timothy is the “banker.” This word is used of God’s keeping of what Paul entrusted to Him—his very eternal life was the deposit—and the confidence that Paul has in God that what he has entrusted will indeed remain safe and sound (2 Timothy 1:12). That is far better than FDIC insurance, which is an earthly deposit guarantee. The same word is used of the treasure that was entrusted to Timothy— the sound words that Paul gave to him (2 Timothy 1:14), which God had given to Paul (Galatians 1:12). B. Just what is it that was committed to Timothy’s trust? 1. The Greek dictionary calls it “the spiritual heritage entrusted to the orthodox Christian.” In Timothy’s case it is a little more than that. 2. In addition to guarding body of truth that we call the Christian faith, Timothy had a specific commission from the start of his ministry (1 Timothy 4:14, 2 Tim. 1:6). Paul had given Timothy particular commands in the letter that have to do with Timothy’s faithfully carrying out his ministry assignment. His charge included a core which is the Christian gospel teaching, but the gospel is surrounded by and augmented by other teaching as well. All the responsibilities that we saw in the book have to be considered here as well. 3. This quantity and quality of “stuff” was handed over to Timothy. Paul had to count on him to propagate it to the next generation (2 Tim. 2:2) so that after Paul was gone the gospel would flourish. 4. Note the two-way entrusting that is going on here. The minister has entrusted his life to God through Jesus Christ; and God has entrusted to the minister the gospel message and the whole counsel of God. A fair trade? Likewise, every Christian has put on deposit with God his eternal life…and God has deposited with us a stewardship to maintain the gospel as well. 2 III. Avoid A. Becoming entangled in some things represents a real danger to Timothy’s responsibility to keep the deposit that was entrusted to him and to his hopes of being a faithful minister of Christ. B. Avoid means to turn away from, and the verb indicates this is a constant activity. This could be a literal turning around and walking away from a conversation. It could be ceasing to read certain books; it could be stopping the watching of programs or reading of blogs and forums online. It could be refusing to get into debates with false teachers because it is a waste of time. C. What is Timothy to turn away from? Profane babblings means pointless or worldly empty talk. Contradictions are statements that involve discrepancy or inconsistency. Popular philosophies are full of this sort of stuff. The babblings and contradictions are ‘dumb stuff.’ You cannot even dignify some of it with a response. D. The contradictions and empty talk come out of something that is called knowledge. This is the thing that the false teachers profess to have. We cannot pinpoint precisely what this knowledge was about. But it appears that the false teachers believe they have great wisdom in spiritual things. The fact is that their knowledge is not real knowledge at all, so knowledge is really a pseudonym. 1. There was not yet a full-developed “Gnostic” system in the first century. But there were early pointers to it in Colossians and 1 John. 2. The KJV renders this word as science. But it actually is from the Greek word knowledge. This verse does NOT prohibit a Christian from being involved in scientific investigation or the reading and use of science. The Christian, however, must put the scientific method and its discoveries under the authority of God’s Word and recognize that the world being investigated does belong to God and comes from God. IV. Recognize the Danger of Straying A. “Profession” of something means that the person makes a claim to something, or says he is an expert (maybe like a ‘guru’?) B. What is “it” that, when professed, causes people to stray from the faith? It is the thing called knowledge from verse 20. Though the specific identification of the knowledge-thing may elude us, we can certainly say that this removes the person from that which is true knowledge,

3 wisdom and understanding, which is the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of His word. Knowledge tends to make one arrogant (1 Cor. 8:1). Knowledge of the Word of God should make us humble. We should profess adherence to the content and authority of God’s word and not to some “expert” status. C. Straying means to deviate or leave a set of spiritual standards. The standard in this context is the body of truth we call Christianity. It is narrowly conceived of as the “gospel” but really entails the entire counsel of God in the Bible. D. There is an extreme danger of moving away from the faith and the right path. It is mentioned in so many NT books that we must acknowledge the threat. Someone who once apparently was a Christian can walk away from the faith and deny it. Sometimes it is a person that you would never expect. It wouldn’t be you, would it? Consider: 2 Cor. 13:15 (examine); Heb. 6 (falling away); 1 John 2:19 (going out from us); Gal. 1 (another gospel); Matthew 7 (I never knew you). Conclusion “Grace be with you. Amen.” This is a typical way for Paul to close his letter. It is a closing prayer that the unmerited favor of God would continue to be present in Timothy’s life. That grace is needed for salvation, and also for continuing in the Christian life every day after meeting the Lord. It is worthy of note that some manuscripts have the grace going to you singular (Timothy) while others have it going to plural you (the church in Ephesus and perhaps other churches that were to read the letter). Though there is a question as to the precise Greek spelling of ‘you’ which makes the difference between singular and plural, there is no question that the plural is used in the ending of 2 Timothy and Titus. What is the point? That even though Paul wrote to Timothy, this was not a secret or private letter. It was an official communication that he expected the church to read. By reading it, we are not eavesdropping on a private conversation. Rather, we are hearing instruction from God so we can work with our Timothy and the rest of the church, so we can see the dangers to the church, and we can carry on church ministry in a God-honoring way. Forget the church growth gurus and the experts on this and that. Back to the Bible as our church manual! MAP

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