Progressing in Our Walk with God

We're going to be in 1 Timothy chapter 4.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

We're going to finish up chapter 4 tonight, Lord willing.

This is easy passage tonight.

We've had a couple of tough ones the last few weeks in Timothy and some of the things

that he's dealt with and a strong warning in the passage last week to be on guard that

we don't give in to deceptive teachings of demons.

We want to always be on guard.

That's what we saw last week.

We want to be those who are trained in godliness.

He told us that we recognize that in a physical sense that training is good.

It makes us strong.

It makes us healthy.

It makes us live longer.

It helps us in a lot of ways.

Paul says if we recognize that physical training has some good in this life, then we need to

recognize that training in godliness has even better results because it helps us as we walk

in this life and those who are godly will see God in the life to come.

We saw that last week in the passage we looked at.

This week we will start in verse 11, 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 11.

1 Timothy 4:11

Let's pray and we'll jump in.

Father God, we come to you.

We thank you for your good word.

I pray that you would bless it tonight, that you would speak to us, that you would help

us to listen to you, dear Lord.

I pray that you would hide me behind the cross, that I'd preach and teach in a way that brings

glory to you and I pray that you'd free us from our worries and distractions for these

next few minutes.

In Jesus' name I ask it.

Amen.

1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 11, command and teach these things.

1 Timothy 4:11

Well that's pretty simple.

Paul has given Timothy a lot of things to teach here through these first four chapters

and he's going to give him some more things to teach as we continue on in the rest of

the book.

But okay, I've told you some things that you need to instruct these people in, the people

of Ephesus.

You need to instruct them.

You need to teach them these things, these things that I have already told you and these

things that I am about to tell you.

Verse 12, let no one despise your youth.

Instead, you should be an example to the believers in speech, in conduct, in wisdom, in faith,

in purity.

Now, we don't know exactly how old Timothy was.

We can conclude that he was young.

Perhaps when we think of the term youth, we may think of a teenager and while I suppose

it is possible, there's kind of a wide range of ages that people have kind of settled upon

that Timothy could have been up to about 40 years old.

He could have been up to about 40 years old, some say.

Some say maybe in his mid-20s.

We don't know.

He was probably considered a young man by those around him and so how old he was, it's

hard to know.

But Paul says, look, don't let anybody despise you because of your youth.

Now, it appears that Timothy was a godly man.

It appears that he probably was a pretty wise man and so we need to recognize that sometimes

that age is not necessarily an indicator of wisdom.

Now certainly age comes with some wisdom.

There's some basic wisdom you learn just from living life.

But good godly wisdom on how to live a godly life and obedience to God and to know the

way of God and have good discernment, those types of things and that type of wisdom doesn't

necessarily mean that you have to be old to obtain it.

There are certainly some Christians who have walked with the Lord for many years who may

not be as wise as much younger Christians who have only walked with the Lord for a short

period of time.

And so we may be tempted to see someone who is young depending on what your definition

of young would be.

Now, I'm 40.

I don't consider myself young.

But when I go visit somebody that's 80 or 90 and they say, how old are you?

And I say, I'm 40.

They say, oh, you're just a kid.

So I guess it comes with comparison.

It depends on who you're talking to.

And so maybe that's the same idea that we see here with Timothy.

And so even though he may have been viewed as younger by his audience, Paul says, don't

let anybody despise you because of that.

Don't worry about that.

You just do the best job you can do.

And so there certainly may be young brothers or sisters in Christ who are very mature in

the Lord, who are very wise in the Lord.

And so how do we know that?

Well, we know that by seeing how someone lives.

There may be other Christians that have been Christians for 40 years.

And maybe in their mind, they may be 75 years old and they think they are wise, but maybe

their actions speak to something other than that.

And so we have to realize that old age is not necessarily a sign of wisdom and youth

is not necessarily a sign of foolishness.

There are plenty of foolish old people and there are certainly a few wise young people.

I would say that to find a good, wise young person is probably somewhat rarer than to

find a foolish old person.

They're probably a dime a dozen.

So it's probably not something that often you would see someone who is young and who

is wise and godly.

But Timothy is one who fits that description, that call that Paul speaks of here.

So what does he do?

He says, don't let anybody despise your youth, but instead be an example.

He says, you should be an example to the believers in speech.

Okay, well, this is good instruction.

Now in the context, he's talking to Timothy here, who's certainly gifted and it appears

to be gifted in preaching and teaching and leading and instructing these people, kind

of pastoral qualities, what we would call pastoral qualities.

That seems to be kind of what Timothy's gift is.

Now we may not all be gifted in that way.

We might not be all called to serve in the same way that Timothy is called to serve.

But nonetheless, this advice and these instructions, I believe are good to all Christians.

And so what does he say?

Be an example in speech.

Okay.

So the things that we say make a difference.

What do we say?

Do we talk about people?

Do we use foul language?

It's not necessarily about just the words you say, but sometimes maybe kind of the way

you say them.

That is to say, you may not say what we consider a dirty word, but then maybe we gossip a little

bit or maybe we kind of say things or hint at things or kind of talk about people in

such a way that's not good.

And so we need to watch our speech in all ways.

Now the obvious way is, well, I'm not going to say any curse words.

Okay.

Well, that's a good place to start, but maybe there are other ways where our speech kind

of gets us in trouble and we need to be aware that, hey, our speech is an example.

And so we want to speak in such a way that brings glory to God.

So sometimes maybe we need to think, and it's hard to do this, but maybe we need to pray

that God would help us to think for just a second before we speak.

Maybe we say, man, if I say this, is it going to hurt somebody?

Maybe it doesn't seem so bad on the surface, but if I say this thing and somebody finds

out I said, is it going to hurt somebody?

Is it going to be a negative thing?

So there might be lots of ways in which we need to kind of look at our speech to say,

okay, is my speech being a good example?

Is my speech building up or tearing down?

Because sometimes we kind of tear people down or we tear things down.

We talk about maybe people we know or maybe even people we don't know.

Maybe it's leaders of our country or whatever it may be.

There may be times that we see those people and we kind of tear them down, but maybe we

need to be reminded to build people up with our speech.

And that's hard to do.

It certainly requires a lot of help from the Lord.

So he says, be an example in speech, in conduct.

Well, that's pretty easy.

The way that we conduct our lives, the way that we live, people are watching us how we

live, whether we like it or not, good or bad.

We don't do anything to be seen by people or at least we shouldn't.

But regardless of whether we are living to be seen by people or not, we will be seen.

And so whatever you do is going to be seen, whether it's good or whether it's bad.

There is always somebody watching, always.

We may think that, man, nobody's going to see about this.

And maybe on occasion we slip by, but there's always someone that's going to be watching,

even the most minute things.

And you may be surprised at some of the least things that you do for the glory of God when

people see those things, what impact it might have for the kingdom of God.

And so we need to be aware of our conduct, both our good conduct and our bad conduct,

that we do more of the good and less of the bad.

So we need to be able to conduct ourselves in a way that's going to be a good example.

And we can think to ourselves, okay, is this the type of things that other brothers and

sisters in Christ need to be doing?

Is this the kind of thing that I could say, okay, what I'm about to do, y'all look at

me and y'all follow my example?

Quite frankly, if we're honest, there are some things that we would not want anybody

to know.

We wouldn't dare say, please follow my example, because we know it might not be the best example.

So Paul tells Timothy, and it's good instruction for us too, to lead your life in such a way

that you're a good example.

He says to be an example in love, in the way that we love other people, the way that we

love or if we love at all is obvious in the way that we treat people and the way that

we interact with people and the way that we speak with people.

Now love is not a feeling, it's not just a word, it's an action.

And so if we say we love, then that is going to be acted out in some way.

If we say we love people, then that's going to be reflected in the way that we interact

with them and the way that we treat them or the way that we help people who are in need.

And so we need to be an example in our love, that we're not just those who say, I love

you or I love God, but we are those that our actions speak louder than our words, that

our actions show that example that we love God.

It says that we are to be an example in faith, that our faith needs to be strong, that we

need to be those, that when tragedy strikes, when life is difficult, that people can look

at us and say, man, your faith is strong.

And we can say, yes, it is.

My faith is strong in God because God is good and he is gracious to me and I trust in God.

I'm not going to doubt God.

But what kind of example would we be if we say we love God and we say we trusted God,

but it's the first sign of trouble, we begin to question God and we begin to doubt God

and people say things about God and say, I don't want anything to do with God.

Well, that's not a very good example.

That shows that our faith is not very strong.

And sometimes God, I believe allows us to go through certain things in this life to

strengthen our faith.

And indeed it does for those who are in Christ, when we really get in a hard time and we really

go through a tragedy, what do we do?

Well, hopefully we begin to pray.

We really begin to pray more and seek God more and read God's word more.

And what does that do?

It strengthens our faith because what we are doing is we're trusting in the Lord with all

of our heart and we're not relying on our own understanding.

We're seeking him in all of our ways so that he will guide us on the right path.

Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six.

That's what we want, right?

We won't guidance.

We won't help.

We won't strength as we go through times of trouble.

And that is found in God.

And so we need to be those who are an example of the faith.

And sometimes you could probably think of an example right now of somebody that you've

seen really go through something and you say, man, their faith has been rock solid through

the midst of the most difficult disease that they battled or loss of a loved one.

They continue to praise God.

And when you see faith like that, that is a good example.

And I believe that that's the kind of faith that Paul is talking about for Timothy and

for you and I, that we need to be an example in purity, that we need to be pure.

We need to be clean.

We need to keep ourselves clean from the things of the world, from sinfulness so that we won't

be stained with sin.

We need to kind of check our life sometimes maybe to see, okay, am I living a pure life?

Am I living a godly life?

So he gives Timothy a lot of examples here.

He says, look, don't let anybody despise you for your youth, but let your walk with God

be obvious is what he's saying.

And it needs to be obvious by these examples.

Now anybody we see with these examples, whether young or old, if we see people living their

life in such a way as a good example in these areas, then that's a good sign.

So we can look at people, whether they are young or whether they are old and kind of

get a good idea if they're living a godly life, if they are living in wisdom or not.

And we can check our own self against these things and say, okay, am I being a good example

in these areas?

And maybe you'd go through this list and you say, I'm doing awesome.

Well read it again, double check.

Maybe you are doing awesome.

But then again, maybe there's a couple of things on it and you say, ah, maybe I need

to clean this up.

Maybe my example has not been too great here.

But that's why we read the word of God so that we can, as we saw last week, train our

self up in godliness so that we can seek God in these ways so that we can be a good example.

Verse 13, until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching.

Okay, so Timothy is to lead the people.

He's to preach to the people.

He's to teach to the people publicly.

He's to probably similar to what we're doing now, stand before them and tell them the word

of God and the commands of God, the things that Paul has taught them, the teachings of

Jesus Christ, the things that we would call the Old Testament or the New Testament.

It would be Timothy's job to address the people of the town, of the city and say, okay, here's

what's going on here.

Let me tell you the word of God.

Here's some encouragement for the word of God.

Here's some correction from the word of God.

Here's some strength from the word of God.

And this was Timothy's job.

And Paul says, hey, do this until I get there.

Now, when was Paul going to get there?

I don't know.

But Paul says, look, I'm going to get there and until I do, then it's your job to preach

to these people and to teach to these people.

Verse 14, do not neglect the gift that is in you.

It was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of the

elders.

Now, we don't know exactly what that gift is that Timothy has.

It's never explicitly told to us.

Now, I believe it probably is what we just talked about in the last verse, what Paul

commanded him to do, to preach and to teach in that way, to exhort to the people publicly.

Perhaps that is the gift.

Perhaps it's not.

Perhaps there's some other way in which Timothy is gifted.

It's not specified for us here.

But regardless of what the gift was, what does Paul tell them?

He says, do not neglect the gift that is in you.

Now, I think this is good instruction, not just for one who may be a preacher or a teacher,

but for any of us who are gifted in some way.

And I would say, I believe that everybody is gifted in some way.

Now, what those gifts are, I don't know.

We may look at some things and say, well, that's not a gift.

But maybe you're gifted in a way that you're overlooking.

Maybe there's something you're good at and it's something that God has blessed you with,

some ability and some gift, no matter how big or how small it may seem.

If that's something that God has given you that you're good at, that's a skill that you

can use for His glory, then don't neglect that.

Then use that skill, whatever it may be.

If it's preaching, preach.

If it's teaching, teach.

If it's picking up groceries for your neighbor because they're not able to go do it.

Whatever it may be, I think there are some of us that are gifted in certain ways.

Some of us notice things better than others.

I think that's a gift.

I think Michelle's got this gift.

We'll be going through a parking lot or something and she'll say, oh, here's an old lady over

here.

Let me go help her put her groceries in the car.

I would never see that.

I don't notice stuff like that, but she notices it all the time.

Oh, that lady's having a hard time putting her groceries.

She goes over there and helps her.

Well, that may seem kind of trivial, but I believe that that's a gift to be able to kind

of see those things and be aware of those things and notice those things.

We might be gifted in certain ways to do certain things that are a blessing to people that

may be very small.

To put three or four bags in the trunk of a car for somebody is probably not a difficult

task for most of us, but it may be a huge blessing to the person you do it to.

If the Holy Spirit leads you and you have a gift in some way that you have some ability

to do something or maybe just the ability to notice things that maybe others don't,

well, then whatever our gift may be, then we need to use that gift for the kingdom of

God.

That's what Paul tells Timothy here.

Now he says, it was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council

of elders.

Now, I don't think that he's saying there, okay, so the reason you have this gift is

because it was prophesied and people laid their hands on you and therefore you have

a gift.

So all we have to do is have somebody prophesy and we'll lay hands on them and they'll have

a gift.

I don't think that's what it's saying.

I think the gift certainly comes from God.

It was prophesied that Timothy would have this gift and we saw that earlier on in the

book, whatever the gift may be.

It was certainly prophesied about Timothy and we don't have a copy of that prophecy

in scripture.

We don't know exactly what the prophecy was other than, hey, this is what you're going

to do, Timothy.

This is what's going to happen.

And so since he was gifted in that way and it was prophesied about him and it was obvious

to the people, to Paul and to others, that Timothy had this gift and was a godly man,

as a result of that, the elders laid hands on him.

And so we see that today when we ordain a pastor or a deacon or elders or whatever it

may be, we kind of see this idea of laying on of hands.

That's in a way kind of acknowledged.

It's not that there's some power that comes from us like, okay, we hold a gift and we're

putting our hands on you and placing it in you.

The Holy Spirit puts the gift in us.

God puts the gift in us, but it's kind of an affirmation to those who have been chosen

to, okay, you're going to serve in this capacity and a little bit of accountability.

Okay, here's this group of elders that's laying hands on you, that's praying for you, that's

acknowledging that you have this gift.

And it's kind of an accountability thing too, I believe, that we have to kind of hold one

another accountable.

So he says, look, this was prophesied that you were going to be gifted in such a way.

And in whatever way that was, Timothy was gifted in that way.

And that was affirmed by those who saw the way he lived and laid their hands on him.

Verse 15, practice these things, be committed to them so that your progress may be evident

to all.

So he gives some good instruction in particular here, probably the best instruction for us

to consider are those list of examples that he gave earlier on.

So what does he say?

Practice these things, the things that I've told you, the ways to train in godliness,

the good things that I have pointed out to you.

He says, practice these things.

Okay?

We need to be practicing these things.

We need to be practicing the things of God.

What does that mean?

To live them out.

It's no different than if you want to learn a sport, what do you do?

You practice, you say, okay, here's this skill, I want to be able to do this skill.

I want to be able to catch the ball better, or I want to be able to throw the ball better,

or I want to be able to hit the ball better, or I want to be able to throw the ball through

the hoop better.

And so there's a certain way that those skills are attained.

There's a certain way that you hold the bat or a certain way that you throw the ball or

a certain way that you catch the ball.

And so what do you do?

You begin to practice those things.

You put those things into practice so that you can master those skills.

And so that's what we need to do with the things that we see in scripture, the things

that God calls us to.

We need to practice those things.

We need to be committed to them, as he says there in the next verse.

Be committed to them.

Now some of you may have done this, or maybe you've got kids or grandkids that have done

this.

I want to play this sport.

I want to... They see somebody on TV, a great baseball.

I love baseball.

I want to play this sport.

I'm going to be the next Ken Griffey Jr.

But then they get out there and they realize it's hard because you got to practice and

you got to be committed.

And a lot of times we don't want to practice because that's hard and we don't want to be

committed.

We just want to be the best we can be.

We want to be the star.

We want to be awesome.

But what we have to realize is that those who are up here, they didn't just wake up

one morning and become awesome.

It's a lot of hard work that goes into that.

Same way with people who are wealthy.

We all want to be wealthy, but oftentimes when you see people who are wealthy and you

read their stories or hear their stories, they worked for years not making any money.

They worked 100 hours a week.

They worked night and day.

And finally they became successful because they worked hard, because they were committed.

The people who are good are often those who work the hardest.

So if we want to be those who grow in the Lord and who are mature in the Lord and who

are wise, we have to be those who practice the things that the scripture teaches.

We have to be committed to them.

And guess what?

It's no different than baseball practice.

Sometimes it's hot and sweaty and dirty and nasty and we're tired and we don't feel like

it and it's hard.

But boy, doesn't it feel good after you exercise?

You feel good.

It's hard in the moment, but after a good exercise, you feel good.

And that's the way I think it is as we begin to practice God's word and read God's word

and live out God's word and be strong in the faith.

Boy, once we live that out and we really trust God, even if we go through the difficulties

of life, it feels good to know that we've trusted in God.

So we need to be committed to the word of God.

He says, practice these things, be committed to them so that your progress may be evident

to all.

Progress report.

Now, some of you probably got those in school.

We'd get them like halfway between each six weeks is what we had when I was in school.

I don't know what it is now, nine weeks, who knows?

But we would, in the middle of whatever, ever how many weeks it was, we'd have a progress

report that'd be sent home.

Now, what was the purpose of that?

So that your parents could see if you were doing okay.

Now if you're halfway through and you bring the progress report home and it's full of

a bunch of Fs, then your parent has to sign that so you can take it back.

And if your parent sees those Fs, then they'll say, boy, what are you doing?

No more video games for you.

You ain't going nowhere.

You ain't doing nothing.

You better get your homework done.

And that's it.

Don't, you're done.

You're grounded.

Oh, that ain't fair.

Well, that's what a progress report does.

A progress report lets you see your progress.

Well, sometimes we have to test ourselves in our lives.

We need to kind of take a progress report.

We need to see if we are progressing.

What does Paul tell Timothy here?

He says that you need to be committed to the teachings of God so that your progress may

be evident to all.

So how's our progress tonight?

Well, I don't know.

You may know your progress better than somebody else or then again, maybe not.

Maybe you say, well, I don't know how my progress is.

Well, ask your husband or ask your wife or ask your close friend.

Ask somebody that knows you.

Say, hey, I need you to give me a progress report.

That's a hard thing to do, by the way.

We don't, because if we see something in somebody's life and they come up to us and they say,

hey, I want you to tell me what you see, it ain't easy for us to say, well, there's this

area where I see you doing bad.

And we don't like to say that because we know that there's areas that we doing bad and we

don't want them to tell us those areas.

And so we need to realize though that when we love each other as brothers and sisters

in Christ and we hold each other accountable, it's not about being judgmental.

It's not about, let me point out your flaws and us to say, oh yeah, well, you pointed

me, you got three fingers pointing back at yourself.

That's not even what it's about.

There are times as brothers and sisters in Christ that we need to be mature enough that

we can give each other a progress report.

And perhaps we need to be strong enough to ask somebody who's close to us because oftentimes

people see things in us better than we see them in ourselves.

And so we want to make sure that we're making good progress.

And that's what he tells Timothy here, be committed to the teachings of the Lord so

that you may be progressing in these things and that it may be evident to other people

that other people may see that we are growing in the Lord and the way that we are serving

him.

Verse 16, pay close attention to your life and your teaching, persevere in these things

for by doing this, you will save both yourself and your hears.

Okay?

Pay close attention to your life and your teaching.

Now maybe by paying attention to his teaching here, maybe he means in a couple of different

ways.

Maybe he means be careful what you teach, pay real close attention to what you're teaching

or maybe he means it in another way.

Okay, the things you're teaching, they're instructions for you too.

That is to say the preacher is not just preaching to the congregation, the preacher preaches

to himself as well.

And so what does he say here?

Pay close attention to your life and your teaching.

So pay close attention to how we live.

Think about what we do.

Sometimes we just live life willy-nilly and we don't really think about the things we

do.

And maybe we should think about the things we do.

Maybe we don't like to think about the things we do because we know that they're bad or

maybe we just don't think about it because we don't think about it.

But he tells Timothy here to pay close attention to his life and to his teaching.

Persevere in these things for by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

So persevere in what things?

In the teachings of God.

I suppose specifically the things that he's told him so far and will tell him, but generally

speaking, all of God's word.

We want to persevere in the things of God's word.

Why?

Because there's salvation in the word of God.

Why?

Because it points us to Jesus Christ who is the word who has become flesh.

And so we want to be those who persevere in the word of God because it is the source of

our salvation.

It points us to Jesus Christ.

The reading of the words doesn't save us, but the words point us to Jesus Christ who

saves us.

And so we want to be those who persevere in the teachings of God, in the word of God,

so that we ourselves will be saved through Jesus Christ and those that we preach to and

that we teach to and that we live an example of our life to, that they would see the goodness

and the graciousness of Jesus Christ, that they too may be saved by him.

Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you for these good words and I pray that you'd bless them tonight.

I pray that you would help us, dear Lord, to check our lives and to see if we're being

a good example and help us to be honest.

Maybe we kind of like to sugarcoat our life and the things that we do, but help us to

be honest, dear Lord, to see if there are ways that we are not progressing in the way

in which we should.

Help us to see if there are ways that we're not being a good example and help us to strive

to be a good example, dear Lord.

Help us to be committed to your word and to living for you, that we would be those who

persevere, dear Lord, that we would be those who trust in Jesus Christ and through our

example lead others to Jesus Christ.

I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.