House Rules: Week 7, 1 Timothy 3:2 continued

Welcome to Celebration Baptist Church Podcast, where we help people connect with God and others.

Each week you'll find biblical teaching, practical encouragement, and conversations designed to help you follow Jesus in everyday life.

To learn more about Celebration Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, visit iCelebration.org.

Now let's get started.

So a lot of years ago, you all know we were Pam and I were serving in Ethiopia.

I do mention it to you a lot.

It was just an important time in my life.

And so we're there and we're going to be opening up this new work in an area that uh we'd not had any uh ministry in as the Baptist Mission of Ethiopia.

And we had about four or five churches that had emerged and been planted down in this area, and they needed some leadership training and leadership development.

That was my job, that was my responsibility.

And so I hopped in a four-wheel drive vehicle, drove five hours out in the middle of nowhere on terrible roads to get to this little group of churches that are out there.

We are in the countryside.

There's no hotels, nothing like that.

And a church member was kind enough to open their home to me.

And so I'm going to spend a week in this little rural Ethiopian house.

It happens to be a little three-room house.

I don't know where they put the kids who were normally in this room, uh, but they cleared them out and they gave me that room.

It was very, very gracious and very, very generous.

And so I'm sleeping there.

I wake up in the morning, and Ethiopians love breakfast.

I'm a breakfast guy, so good fit here.

And in particular, one thing about breakfast I'm really excited about is the coffee.

Now, if you don't know, Ethiopian coffee, in my view, is the best coffee in the world.

It is amazing.

And when you drink it in Ethiopia, especially in those rural settings, you all, it will change your life.

Okay.

It's also thick enough to stand a spoon up in.

I mean, that's okay, it's all good.

But man, you are awake when you drink some Ethiopian coffee.

And so I can smell it cooking and all that kind of stuff and ready to go.

Oh, I got to get down there.

So I go, I go around the corner and into the room, and they're making coffee, and it's sitting there.

I sit down, I'm gonna have this nice cup of coffee, and I look in my cup, and there's about a quarter-inch thick layer of melted spiced butter floating on top of my coffee.

Now, I had heard about places in Ethiopia that did this, but I had never had it before, I'd never seen it before.

And I looked at that cup, and y'all, I gotta be honest with you, it looked really nasty.

It looked like it looked like somebody just poured motor oil all over the top of the coffee.

It it didn't, that's not what you do.

It's a perfectly good cup of coffee.

So I thought, well, you know, I gotta try it, right?

So I take a sip, and y'all, it was it was nasty, is what it was.

It was just really bad.

It was really bad.

Now, one there's this fun thing about Ethiopians, they think of foreigners as weak and frail.

Okay.

And so I decided I'm just gonna play right into that.

So here's what I said to the hostess.

I said, listen, I said, I I so appreciate this cup of coffee.

But as you know, I'm a weak and frail foreigner.

And as a weak and frail foreigner, I cannot handle the butter on my coffee.

May I have a cup of coffee without the butter?

And she looked at me, she said, that is no problem at all.

And she picked up my cup from right in front of me.

She took her finger and she went just like that.

She said, Here you go.

And I said, Well, all right then.

And I remembered the missionary motto, where he leads me, I will follow what he feeds me, I will swallow.

And I drank that cup of coffee like a pro, man.

All right, now I'll, you know, I tell y'all that story.

That was, oh my goodness, how long ago was that?

That was over 20, 25 years ago, right?

I still remember being in that family's home.

I still remember, and not just because of the coffee, okay, but that lady was beyond gracious to me.

That whole family.

They treated me like absolute royalty the week that I was in their home.

They welcomed me as a member of the family.

They served me with incredible joy.

And you all, that family, they showed me the love of Jesus Christ over and over and over again that whole week long.

So much so that here we are all these years later, and I'm still thinking about it and still talking about it.

And as we're sharing the story right now, I can see myself back in that wonderful family's home.

If you were up here right now, could you tell your own story about the impact that somebody had on you by showing you grace and hospitality?

Can you think about it?

Okay, we've all been there, at least I hope we all have been there.

And it's not just because hospitality is a nice thing to do and someone was kind to you.

Do you know that God has just kind of determined, he's chosen, that one of the primary tools that he's going to use to build the kingdom of God is hospitality.

And so today, what we've been doing the last few weeks, if you've not been around, we've been looking at the qualifications for a pastor.

They're found in 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

There are 16 of these qualifications.

And we're slowing down a little bit and we're just taking our time as we move through these because so many of them have direct implications, not only for what it means to be a pastor, but also what it means for us as followers of Jesus Christ.

Because so many of them are character qualities that we should have.

And as we look at the qualifications of a pastor today, we're going to focus in on two of that from that list of 16.

And the first one is hospitality.

And we're going to focus on it because God uses hospitality to open hearts for the gospel.

And then the next one we're going to look at, it's going to seem like they're miles apart.

They're not.

The second one that we're going to look at today is the ability to teach.

And so, how cool is this?

God uses hospitality to open someone's heart to the gospel, and then he uses the ability to teach to help someone to learn to live the gospel.

Does that make sense?

You see what we're doing there?

Okay.

So let's just start with hospitality.

Let's look at what Paul has to say in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 2.

1 Timothy 3:2

An overseer, that word overseer, it gets translated different ways, but you hear the word elder, the word pastor, even the word bishop, all of it comes from that word.

Okay, so it's all the same idea, depending on what tradition or so that you're a part of.

An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable.

We've already talked about all those.

And then you come up to the next word, and that next word is what?

Hospitable.

That's what we're going to focus today, and then able to teach.

We'll get to that one in just a moment.

Hospitality is a really, really big deal, and it's a big deal in scripture.

In fact, in the New Testament, there's a short story about a short man named Zacchaeus.

Y'all remember Zacchaeus, right?

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.

He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.

And when the Savior passed that way, he looked up in the tree and said, Zacchaeus, you come down from going to your house today.

All the young people in the room right now are looking at all the old people in the room and going, What is the matter with you?

Okay.

That was a song that we learned like in vacation Bible school way, way, way, way back in the day, okay?

And I bring it up here because it has nothing to do with the sermon, okay?

I bring it up here because I can't think about Zacchaeus without thinking about that silly little song from when we were a kid.

I just thought it would be appropriate that you'd have some fun kind of singing along right there, okay?

But anyway, Jesus is going through Jericho and Zacchaeus, that's where he lives.

And Zacchaeus is a tax collector.

And back in the day, a tax collector, it wasn't just simply the job of taking taxes, which you know we all get to pay and enjoy.

That's life.

It wasn't just that.

The tax collector, uh, frankly, they were notorious because they took advantage of their neighbors.

They were permitted by the government to take as much money as they wanted.

As long as the government got their cut, they did not care.

And so tax collectors were hated, they weren't respected, and Zacchaeus was no exception.

So because Zacchaeus is short and he's a tax collector, nobody wants to help him out at all.

And so, in order to catch a glimpse of Jesus going by, he has to climb up into a tree.

And this is what happens in Luke chapter 19, verse 5.

Luke 19:5

When Jesus came to the place where Zacchaeus was, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, because it is necessary.

Look at that.

It is necessary for me to stay at your house.

I want you to think about this moment for a minute.

Jesus and Zacchaeus, there they stand.

Could these two men have been any more different?

Right?

Zacchaeus was all about exploiting people.

Jesus was all about helping people, right?

Zacchaeus had become rich by taking advantage of others.

Jesus owned almost nothing.

Zacchaeus causes suffering.

Jesus relieves suffering.

And when the crowd standing around, these two men as they meet, as they have this encounter, when Jesus looks at Zacchaeus and says, It is necessary for me to be at your house today, everybody standing nearby must have been blown away because when you stayed at somebody's house or shared a meal, you were making a statement.

You were saying, I want a relationship with this person.

So Jesus is saying that to Zacchaeus.

Can you imagine how that invitation must have made Zacchaeus feel?

I mean, everybody else avoids him, right?

It's no wonder then that Zacchaeus doesn't delay.

Look at verse 6.

He quickly came down and welcomed him, that's Jesus, joyfully.

Let me just ask, when do you think the last time that somebody wanted to spend time with Zacchaeus had been?

Maybe like never.

Nobody liked him.

He overcharges for taxes.

He he collects on behalf of a government that everybody hated.

Nobody liked the Romans.

So his town, they they tolerate him because they have to, not because they want to, right?

A lot of years ago, I met a guy, we were live, it was in seminary, and we were living down in southeast Louisiana.

And a guy in our church was an auditor for the IRS.

Okay?

And he had the best name in the world.

His name was Cy Fungi.

Isn't that awesome?

And Cy was this tall, thin guy, and he carried a gun and a badge.

I asked Cy one time, I said, Cy, I gotta be honest with you, man.

You're an auditor.

You work for the IRS.

Why do you have a gun and a badge?

He looked at me and said, Seriously?

Nobody wants to see me coming, David.

I'm the last guy anybody wants to see.

So yeah, I carry a gun and a badge.

And suddenly it made sense, right?

Doesn't that make sense?

Right?

That's exactly where Zacchaeus says is.

Nobody wants to see him coming.

And Jesus says, I'm coming to your house.

And somewhere between that invitation and that meal and the evening and everything, it all changes.

Look at verse 8.

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, Look, I'll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord.

And if I've extorted anything from anyone, I'll pay back four times as much.

Today's salvation has come to this house, Jesus told him, because he too is a son of Abraham.

Now let's just break that down for just a moment.

Does the meal save Zacchaeus?

Now Jesus is the one who does that, right?

But do you see what happens?

The meal, the hospitality, it becomes the setting where Jesus is able to change Zacchaeus' life.

And what was true back then is still true today.

You all, when you share a meal or open your home, your dining room table, it becomes a mission field.

And you just don't know what God's gonna do when you choose to open the front door and let somebody come in, right?

That's a key way that hospitality is used in the hands of the Lord.

And that's not the only way.

There's another way.

God also uses hospitality to strengthen and build the church of Jesus Christ.

When we show hospitality one to another, we just weave the church body together into like this fabric that becomes knitted together more and more tightly.

In fact, it's so effective that the church calls, the Bible rather calls on the church to practice hospitality over and over and over again.

Let me just give you the lightning round of just a handful of passages that tell us to practice hospitality one with another.

Look at Romans 12, 13.

Share with the saints.

I like that word.

You all are saints, right?

Share with the saints in their needs, pursue hospitality.

Or how about here we are in 1 Peter 4, 9.

Be hospitable to one another without complaining.

Wow.

That might be one to put on the fridge right there, right?

Okay.

Or what about Hebrews 13, 1 through 2?

Let brotherly love continue.

Don't neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.

Some of you right now are going, well, that's weird, right?

What is that about?

Okay, it should get your attention.

What does it mean by showing hospitality?

Some people have entertained angels.

Well, the writer of Hebrews is just reminding the Jewish people to go back and look at the Bible.

He's basically saying, hey, if you look at the Old Testament, some unbelievable things happened around the idea of hospitality.

I mean, think about Abraham in Genesis 18.

Three strangers arrive at his tent, and Abraham welcomes them with over-the-top generosity.

And before the day is over, he realizes he's been entertaining the Lord and heavenly messengers, and God renews his promise that Isaac, his son, will be born.

It's a big deal.

And then in the very next chapter, Abraham's nephew Lot welcomes two strangers into his home in Sodom.

Y'all know what happens to Sodom and Gomorrah, right?

And those strangers turn out to be angels who rescue Lot and his family from God's judgment before it falls on the city.

And then there's Gideon in Judges chapter six.

He welcomes what he assumes to be an ordinary traveler, only discover that it's the angel of the Lord.

So once again, hospitality becomes this way that someone encounters God, right?

So the writer of Hebrews is saying, hey, listen, man, be hospitable.

And you might say, Well, is he saying that if I show hospitality, I'll get to meet an angel too?

No, that's not what he's saying.

What he's saying is that God, when you look back at the Old Testament, God accomplishes extraordinary things through ordinary hospitality.

And through it, he's brought messages of hope and protection and deliverance.

And so when you practice hospitality, you just never know what God is going to do.

He can use an ordinary meal to change somebody's life.

Now listen, I want y'all to understand there's so many, is the case with so many of these 16 qualities that we're looking through right now.

The admonition, the mandate to show hospitality, it's not just for pastors.

This is for every single one of us.

And I understand, man.

I I get it.

I know how homes are designed today, right?

And you go into a lot of our neighborhoods around Tallahassee, and and the home has windows on the front and windows on the back and not a single one on the side.

We're not looking over there.

There's nothing to see there at my neighbor's house.

So we just block it off.

We drive in, the garage door opens, we drive in, it shuts, right?

And that's it.

And we go into our little capsule that we call a home, and we hibernate there until we have to go out and face people again the next day at work, right?

You know, that's our life.

The idea of sharing hospitality, opening the door of our home, it makes us uncomfortable.

And maybe you're thinking, David, I don't know about you, but but the inside of my house, it does not look like a showpiece, okay?

It does not look like it belongs on a magazine cover unless that magazine has something to do with like the CDC or something like that.

You know, my home is not spotless, it's not perfect.

I don't know about this, right?

Maybe, maybe you're that person who, you know, you've always got sourdough bread going in your house, it's always spotless and immaculate.

And if that's you, go for it.

Have at it.

But if that's not you, I just want you to know you don't have to go over the top.

Okay, hospitality is about opening the door and opening your home to somebody.

Several months ago, uh, Pam mates a lady here at the church, and they'd been attending for just a few weeks.

And so as they're chatting a little bit, she invites Pam and her husband to come to her house for dinner, which is awesome.

But she did not know that Pam was my wife.

Okay.

And so, you know, Pam comes home, she says, Hey, this girl invited us over to the house, you know, this date, this time.

Can you make it?

I'm like, Oh course, sure, let's go.

And so we show up, right?

We knock on the door, and the door opens, and you should have seen the look on the lady's face when she goes, Oh, it's you.

And you could see the moment of decision, right?

So, well, come on in, you know.

I'm like, Oh, thank goodness, I'm welcome.

You know, y'all, we had the best time.

It was so much fun.

And and and that family goes from just like being this new people that we really don't have a relationship with to people that we really love and really care about and really appreciate.

And you know, it's just it's been so much fun.

What did God do there?

God used hospitality, right?

To build a kingdom friendship right around the dinner table.

So here's what I want you to do, man.

This week, just take the chance and invite your neighbor or your coworker or a family from church.

You know, all of us have got that family from church, right?

Y'all know the family I'm talking about.

The family from church that you see them every single Sunday, and you've seen them every single Sunday for like, you know, five years, so much so that you don't want to ask them their name.

You know what I'm talking about?

You know these people, right?

And so when you see them, you're like, hey, you, you know, and that you because you don't know who they are.

Just go ahead, just this week, go to that family and say, Listen, I got a I got a true confession, okay?

I'm embarrassed to say this.

I have no idea your name.

But would you come to my house?

Because I want to get to know your name and the names of your wife and your kids and everybody, and I want to get to know you.

And just take the chance to invite them in, knowing that your family doesn't have to be perfect, your your house doesn't have to be perfect, just take the risk.

If you really want to walk on the wild side, invite one of the pastors, who knows what happens then, right?

But just open your home and see what happens.

Because when when we open the door of our ordinary house, God does extraordinary things.

Amen?

Crazy things happen, right?

Do you see why why Paul would say here, hey, an overseer must be hospitable?

Does that not make sense?

Makes complete sense, doesn't it?

All right.

So let's go back now to 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 2.

1 Timothy 3:2

Take a look at it again.

And we come after hospitable.

What's next?

What is it?

Able to what?

Able to teach.

That's the very next one.

And this one stands out in this whole list because most of all of this list, all but two, are character qualities, right?

Things like hospitable, right?

Things like above reproach, right?

So that it's mostly that kind of stuff.

But then you come to able to teach.

And this one is a skill rather than a character trait.

And it's a skill, and we're going to explain why in just a moment.

It's a skill requirement that's unique to pastors, right?

Now, when you come to this, you say, well, why would a pastor need to have the ability to teach?

What's the reason for that?

Over in 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy that it's the pastor's job to patiently and gently teach God's word so that people can come to repentance and knowledge of the truth, right?

So that's the reason why the pastor needs to have the ability to teach.

Now, can we agree that sound teaching is a critical function of the church?

Can we agree to that?

I would say so, absolutely.

And and remember, it's particularly important in the church that Timothy has been sent to restore because they had a real problem with false teachers, right?

Uh, these teachers were confusing people, distorting the gospel, leading believers away from the truth.

And so we we find here that Paul's been employing a solution in chapter one.

What does Paul do with the false teachers?

He he kicks them out, right?

He gets rid of them, but that's not enough.

Paul realizes that they also need to replace those false teachers with teachers who have the ability to live and teach and know God's word.

Now let me just ask you do we still need solid teaching in the church today?

Do we still need it?

I would say it's absolutely essential.

I would I would say that the greatest tool that a pastor possesses is not just their personality or or their leadership skill or their charisma, it's the word of God.

That's the most important thing.

And where does this ability to teach, where does it come from?

Is this something that you you developed because you worked really hard?

No, it it comes from God.

Romans 12 tells us that teaching is one of the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit gives to build up the church.

And so it turns out that this skill, this ability, it's a gift from The Holy Spirit.

But we also learn as we look through the Bible that this particular skill isn't given to everybody.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul asks the question, Are all teachers?

And the answer is no.

So you have to wonder, well, why not?

Why is it that this particular gift is only given to some?

If you look at James, James says, well, those who teach the word of God face a stricter judgment.

So you realize as you put all this together that wait a minute, this gift is not for the person.

This gift is for the church.

And if someone seeks to exercise, to use that gift, they fall under a greater judgment.

So this is a sacred trust.

And when God gives somebody that trust, or that gift rather, he's entrusting them to become a pastor who's expected to faithfully proclaim God's word and protect the church from error.

You all, this is a big responsibility.

And to meet this responsibility, a pastor is to use his ability to teach to faithfully explain God's word.

And y'all, that's essential because on his own, without God's word, a pastor's got no authority whatsoever.

I'll be honest with you all, if I got up here and just spent 30 minutes just telling you all my opinion, you would be free to ignore every word of it.

Okay?

You would be free to ignore every word of it because I, my opinions don't have any authority.

My opinions can't change your life, okay?

But when we come in here and we gather around God's word and we carefully work to explain it and apply it, you all something supernatural takes place, okay?

The word of God is meant by the Holy Spirit of God and it changes who we are.

And because the word is so essential and deserves to be taught with great clarity, a pastor is expected to know it well.

So when you encounter a pastor who has the ability to teach, who has that gift, that pastor then has a responsibility to meet it with really hard work.

They've got to get on the grind.

They've got to know sound doctrine, they've got to know scripture, they've got to learn how to communicate.

So a God-given gift of the ability to teach doesn't eliminate hard work.

What does it do?

It creates hard work.

You've got to match that gift with true diligence.

So a faithful pastor just keeps on studying, keeps on learning, keeps on sharpening that gift so that he can communicate the word of God with the church most effectively.

All right?

Now, right now you might be thinking, well, we're talking about the ability to teach.

We're saying that it's really a qualification for pastors, so this one doesn't apply to me.

I can check out and I can begin to place my order for lunch.

Okay?

But you can't.

You can't, not so fast.

Because while not everybody is called to teach in the church, every single one of us, every single believer has the responsibility, the sacred obligation to make disciples, every single one of us.

And one of the primary responsibilities of a pastor is to prepare, to equip you to share the gospel and help other people grow in Christ and to teach other people then to do the same thing.

Jesus gives this to us in one of the most famous pieces of scripture in the entire New Testament.

It's known as the Great Commission, right?

Take a look at it, be reminded of it.

Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 and 20.

Matthew 28:19

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Wow.

Did Jesus give this command only to pastors?

No.

Jesus gives this command to every single one of us, everybody who loves the Lord, every single one of us has an obligation, okay, to make disciples.

Every single one of us has the responsibility to help somebody else learn what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

And whose job is it to make sure that you learn how to live out the Great Commission?

The pastor.

God gives pastors the responsibility of teaching God's word so they can equip God's people to teach other people what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

One of our pastors here has got him Doug Bedgood, Pastor Doug.

Pastors are in charge of our group's ministry.

And you all, I want you to know it is Doug's heart to make sure that everybody in our church has the opportunity to learn what it means to make disciples.

He is passionate about that.

And so this fall, we talked about our groups a little bit earlier, a moment ago, right?

Remember that?

This fall, man, we've got a class called Zume.

I know it's a weird name, it's a Greek name, okay?

It's written, it's developed by a friend of mine, a guy named Curtis Sargent, one of the smartest people that I've ever met.

Phenomenal disciple maker.

Zume is all about helping you learn what it means to make disciples.

Okay, we've got a multiplication class from the North American Mission Board.

I'm doing a study on the book of Acts that's a part of our ministry training institute to help people get ready to go a little bit further in understanding the Bible so they can help others learn what the word is all about.

And y'all, every single one of those classes has the same goal.

It's to help you grow in God's word more deeply and to learn and follow Jesus Christ more faithfully so that you will be better equipped to make disciples.

Do you get it?

Do you get it?

So let your pastors teach you, let them equip you, let them challenge you.

Because the better you know God's word, the more effective you're going to be at helping other people follow Jesus Christ, and the more faithful you'll be able to be to share the gospel and to help others come to know Jesus Christ.

Now, if you take hospitality, right, and you put it together with the skill of making disciples, and then you plant that in the heart of someone who takes the Great Commission seriously, you know what you got?

You got a powerhouse.

I mean, just look out because that person is going to advance the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

And that person should be who?

That person should be you.

That person should be all of us.

And who has the responsibility of helping you, of equipping you so that you can be that person?

Your pastor.

A pastor who opens his home and so that working through it, the Holy Spirit can open the heart.

A pastor who's gifted and who works to open the word so he can fully equip the saints and get them moving on mission.

That's how this is designed to work.

And you all, every one of us, every one of us can open our homes.

Every one of us can grow in our understanding of God's word.

Every one of us can help somebody else take a step in following Jesus.

And all of us, we're blessed, you all.

We've got a wonderful group of pastors here at Celebration who want to help you do it.

So don't you see how today, while we've been talking about two qualifications for pastors, we've actually been talking about far more, right?

We've been talking about the kind of church God is calling us to become.

So this week, this week, open up your home, invite somebody for dinner, invite somebody for coffee.

Don't put butter on it, but invite somebody for coffee.

And then open the Bible with somebody who's younger in their faith, right?

And invest in them.

And then just ask God to use your ordinary faithfulness to accomplish something extraordinary that only he can do.

And you all you'll see it happen because that's how God often works, right?

He opens hearts through open homes, and he changes lives when we open the word.

That's just what God does, right?

And he's building his kingdom one person at a time, and he wants you and I to be a part of it.

All right?

Let's take a moment and let's pray together right now.

Father, we are so grateful for the fact that you're so passionate about seeing the kingdom advance, you give us a piece to play in it.

And we're so thankful that you call people to be pastors who have a particular skill set, or who actually live the skill set that you call all of us to have.

Every single one of us is supposed to be above reproach.

Every single one of us is supposed to be hospitable.

Every single one of us needs pastors in front of us who are leading us, helping us understand what it means to live a life that points other people to Jesus Christ.

So, Father, we thank you that we have those pastors in our church.

And I just want to pray for this congregation that every single one of us just develops a burn, a hunger for knowing what it means to live the gospel faithfully in front of others.

Thank you, Jesus, for your word.

Thank you for its power.

Thank you for its truth.

We love you, Lord, and we pray all of this in the precious name of Jesus Christ.

And everyone agreed and said, Amen.

Thanks for joining us on the Celebration Baptist Church podcast.

We hope today's conversation helps you take another step in your faith journey.

For more resources, upcoming events, and to join us live, visit iCelebration.org.

Until next time, keep connecting with God, connecting with others, and living on mission.