Gospel-Shaped Leaders and Followers

And when we think of Eric, we think of the word humility. That's

true. Eric brings a lot of humility to his role on our elder team.

He brings a lot of humility as a man of prayer. Eric has

been a man of prayer for as long as I have known him, and

he brings humility as a student of and a proclaimer of God's word. He's

a man who lives under the authority of Scripture and wants to teach others to

live under the authority of Scripture as a man of humility. So please welcome

Pastor Eric. Good morning. I am so glad to be up here this

morning. It has seemed like it's been a while after being on sabbatical for

several months. I'm I'm so glad to be up here, and I'm so

glad for the opportunity for Pastor Josh and his family to experience some refocusings from

renewing and this morning as we get into it, I just praise God as

I've been studying this passage for some time, and tribes preached last week on

how we should live a Gospel shaped life, and today and we didn't coordinate

this at all. I'll be preaching on godly shaped leaders and followers. So

there is a message that God has for us in gospel shaped leading, gospel

shaped living, and gospel shape following. So if the ushers would would come

down, they'll be passing around bibles and and bulletins. If you need one,

just raise your hand and they'll they'll get one to you. Um and

uh, sister, would you come up and read our our passage. We're

going to be in First Timothy chapter four, verses six through sixteen this morning,

but we're going to read verses one through sixteen to get some context for

those verse few verses. If you'd please read for us, sister, Thank

you, thank you, You're good all right. Our sermon text this morning

is First Timothy of four. When we read one through sixteen. Now,

the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by

devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons, through the the insincerity of

liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that

God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected

if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holly by the word

of the God of God and prayer. If you put these things before the

brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus excising being trained in

the word of faith, the words of the faith and of good doctrine,

you will have you that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent

silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of

some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise

for the present life and also of the life to come. The saying is

trustworthy and deserving a full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strife

because we have hope set on the Living God, who is the savior of

all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example

and speech in conduct and love and faith and purity until I come. Devote

yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do

not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the

counsel of Elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, Immerse yourself

in them so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on

yourself in the teaching Persist in this for biden. So doing you will have

you will save both yourself and your hears This is the word of the Lord.

And then thank you. So have you ever tried to learn something new?

I want to. I want to take up this thing and start start

to learn it. Right, it can be a daunting task, right,

I remember when I started kind of getting into a little bit fitness a few

years back, Matt, there is so much out there on the right methodology.

Should I do? You know, high intensity interval training? Should I?

Should I just you know, work do weightlifting? And there's so many

people out there with their different methodologies. It's it's just like a daunting task.

And so as I went through and decided what I was going to do,

I picked this this one guy who who had a video and went through

an eight week training session of for each day you need to do these exercises,

you need to do how many of each exercise you need to lift weights

on on this day? And do cardio on this day, and man,

it was like, oh man, am I going to be able to do

this? But see on the video the guy on day one, he's like,

Okay, this is all you need to do. Just follow me.

I'm going to tell you everything you need to do so you get your weights

there, this is equipment you need, here's the proper form, here's the

proper way to do the exercises. Here's here's how you need to go about

it. Here's how you rest well, here's how you should eat well.

He gave me everything that I needed to train right. And so as I

continued on in the program, I started to learn more. I started to

learn how the exercises went. I started to get stronger, I started to

get more comfortable, to the point where I stopped watching those videos and I

just wrote everything down on my own and followed it because I knew it.

And so this guy was leading me and how to train right. And later

on some of my kids started joining me in working out right. So one

of my favorite things in the afternoons is when my kids and I we join

up in our family room and we're like, okay, today's leg dale and

that it's gonna be so brutal, and we just enjoy the fun of working

out and training together in the banter back and forth with one another. But

see, I had to learn from a leader to be able to lead and

train them. And okay, look, you're doing that exercise wrong. You're

bringing your elbows forward using your momentum, so you're really not going to work

your muscle if you if you're using momentum. And so the leader taught me.

I then began to teach them, and as different kids would come in,

they would have an understanding, be like, you know, I've been

doing this for a long time, and so this is how you do it.

They began to teach, right, And that's the same thing when we're

talking about striving and training for Godliness. Right, God has put in place

leaders to train us in Godliness. But those leaders who train others, they

take what leaders teach them, they learn how to do it, they become

proficient in it, and then they trained someone else and they themselves become leaders.

If you were to ask me ten years ago, if I were to

be on this platform as a pastor and elder of a church, I've been

like crazy, that's impossible. It's not going to happen. But there were

faithful men who were leaders in my life that trained me, that taught me

what scripture was and how to live right, and they modeled it. And

now God has put me in the position to do the same. See how

are you leading and how are you responding to the call to train towards godliness?

See that's what this text is asking us this morning. We look at

first Timothy. I know we're kind of dropping right down in the center of

this boy of this letter. And this letter is written by Paul to Timothy

who has been deployed into a crisis situation at the Church of Ephesus, and

there's false teaching going on and all this kind of stuff. And Timothy,

a young pastor, is there and Paul saying, Hey, Timothy, this

letter is for you. You need to watch out because there are false teachers.

People are teaching things that are going to be contrary to what the Gospel

should be taught. You need to be aware of how to live a godly

life with your conduct. And Timothy, as we as you work in this

church, you need to set some structure up right. You need to set

up elders and deacons. And here are the characteristics that you need to look

for in men who are elders. And these are the characteristics that you need

to look for for those who would be deacons. Let me get to this

section here, and Paul talks about training in godliness and modeling leadership. See

Gospel shaped leaders are called to call, to model, to teach, and

to shepherd towards godliness. Are you listening? So this morning, we're going

to take this this passage into two sections. The first section is Paul is

addressing Timothy to say, Timothy, you need to lead in this way and

you need to teach those who are following these things. The second section is

kind of more of a personal coaching for Timothy. Of Timothy, this is

how should you should lead, you should model, you should immerse yourself in

the words of God. So let's jump right into this first section here.

So Paul first says you need to train for godliness, and verse six it

says, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a

good servant of Christ Jesus. Being trained in the words of faith and of

the good doctrine that you have followed have nothing to do with irreverent, silly

miss, Rather train yourself for Godliness. For while bodily training is of some

value, godliness is of value in every way, as it hold promise for

the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy

and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive because

we have our hope set on the Living God, who is savior of all

people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. See

in this part we see kind of bookens of things. Right. Paul is

saying, Timothy, you need to take what I have told you and put

them before the brothers. In verse six and verse eleven, he says,

command and teach, like, take these things and tell them to the brothers.

And so he's saying, commit yourself to these things, Timoth, Yam,

you need to bring them before the brothers, because if you do,

you will be a good servant of Christ. They need to be aware,

and that, as Kelsey read, we see in verses one through five that

Paul is saying, Look, you need to be aware. Some people are

going to depart from the faith. They're going to teach things that are wrong,

and you need to be aware because the things that they say, they're

going to say you need to give up things, you need to not get

married. But Paul is saying, look, everything that God has made is

good and through prayer are made good before God. Don't listen to them.

So we need to learn how to train in the correct way. Is kind

of what Paul is saying, kind of continuing with the illustration of training.

My daughter Cares started training for the violin a while back, and I remember,

after she's been doing it for a while, she's like, hey,

Dad, you know, I was in her room listened to her, was

like, why don't you try it? Like, oh, that's not a

good idea. So she's like, no, all you have to do is

hold it this way and hold the bow that way. Okay, I'll try

it. So I did it, and man, when I put that bow

against that string, who not a good sound. Guys. But then she

takes it and she knows how to hold it, her teacher has been teaching

her and she plays it and it makes beautiful music. Right, And that's

the same with training for godless. We need to know how to do it

right. And that's what Paul is saying. You got to train in the

right way, and he's saying, Timothy, being trained in the words of

faith and good doctrine. You need to know the word of God. She

has believers. We need to know the value of training rightly for godliness.

Let's look at three things about how we need to train for godliness. The

first one is we need to train in the right things, and this is

in verses six in the first part of seven right train and good doctrine.

You need to know good doctrine, Timothy. You need to tell your people

to know the scripture. The only way to know something is to experience it,

to spend time in it to know it right. You don't get strong

by looking at the weights and the exercise bike. That doesn't happen. You

have to get on it. You have to experience it, you have to

lift it. There's some effort involved, no good doctrine, Timothy. So

we need to open God's world. We need to begin to understand it.

We need to take the things that God has for us and put it into

into our souls so that we can live alive. He calls us to.

Paul also instructs Timothy. Says, Timothy, you need to watch out right,

watch out for the silly myths, those things that they're saying. You

need to be aware of them. They're going to take you off course.

And he's if you look at chapter one, he's talking about Himeneus and Alexander.

Right, Like Himeneus and Alexander, we're some We're a false teacher.

And they were teaching things contrary to to the Word of God, to the

Gospel. And Timothy or Paul says, hey, they have shipwrecked their faith,

they have turned their faith upside down. Don't be like them. You

know, if anybody has ever been on a diet, right, there are

things when you're on a diet that are tempting. Right. And one of

the things in my household that we do sometimes is called a sweet challenge.

Right, We're just take a period of time where we're not going to indulge

in suits. And after doing this several times, I have learned the things

that they need to be aware of, that I need to watch out for.

And one of those things is Grace. She makes these amazing cookies,

these perfectly soft chocolate chip cookies. And if I'm on a sweet challenge,

I'm like, like, you can't make those? You can't do it.

Otherwise I'm going to take one or five of them and just gobble them up.

Right, So after time I've realized the things that I need to be

aware of. And that's what Paul is instructing here. You guys need to

know the word of God so that you can be aware of the things that

cause you to potentially stumble. You need to be alert. See, the

world wants you off course, it wants you sleepy, It wants you weakened

and unaware of the things of God. It is by the grace of God

that He has provided his word for your benefits. Second Timothy three sixteen says

all scripture is breathed by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for

correction, and for training in righteousness, that the Man of God may be

complete, equipped for every good work. It's for your benefit, so that

you may be complete, you may be striving for righteousness. That's the only

way is by the word of God. Paul realized the importance for gospel shaped

leaders to focus and to set their foundation on the Word of God, and

he's telling Timothy, look, you need to tell this to them. You

need to first model it, and then you need to tell it to the

congregation. So leaders, are your ways marked by a foundation on God's word

and a continued commitment to it, to training in the right things and to

leading others to do the same. If you're a follower, are you listening,

are you watching and putting into practice those things that godly leaders are calling

you? To take training for godliness seriously and keep growing in your knowledge of

God, training God's word and the things He has given you, or you

might find might find yourself entangled by the lies of the world and your faith

shipwrecked. So Paul tells Timothy to train in the right things. He also

tells him to train with the right focus. In verse eight, see train

not just for today, which is there's value in physical training, Paul is

saying, but train for the eternal. Focus and motivation matter. See there's

value in training for things of today, right, there is, But the

value pales in comparison to what it is for training for righteousness and training for

the eternal. It's so easy to get that tunnel vision of the things that

are going on in our lives or jobs, the situations that we're going through,

and to really focus on those things, but really those things pale in

comparison of eternity. Do you have the right focus? Are the things that

you are treasuring in the right balance? Train because your hope is set on

the living God. As a Christian, your ultimate hope should be set on

the Living God. See, the hope that we have is based on what

Jesus has done for us. Right, Jesus died on the cross so that

we could have hope and freedom from our sins. That's why it gives us

a desire to train. That's why we have hope. To set our hearts

and say, look, we're going to train not for the things for today,

but the things for tomorrow. Non Christian, if you don't know the

Lord that same hope is for you, put your hope in Him, not

in the fleeting things of this world. Paul says, to train in the

right things, to train with the right focus, and the train ready to

toil and to strive. As we see Universe ten. Training takes effort and

requires motivation with the right focus. As we just saw, I look at

the things that I've trained for in my life, for the things that I

haven't. But I was going into the army out of high school I was

concerned with my physical fitness. I was a wrestler, so I was already

in good shape. But I really put an effort and a focus into training

for basic training so that I would be physical and mentally ready to go.

And so I gave it my all. I would train sometimes multiple times a

day, doing push ups, doing sit ups, getting ready for what they

might throw at me, to the point where I actually got out of shape

while I was in basic training. But contrast that with my motivation to train

for math like I had. You know, I knew math was important,

but I didn't really understand why I would want to learn the things that you

know, trigonometry and calculus. They were going to be beneficial to me.

So I put very little effort. You know, I did what I needed

to do, but there wasn't any effort behind. Like I really want to

focus on this. See, when we find little value in things, we

rarely desire to pursue them, let alone to train them. In them,

you treasure the hope that you have in the Lord enough to labor towards a

life of godliness, because there will be labor and toil required. If your

value and your hope is misplaced, then your worship businessplaced, and you will

find the challenges in toiling for Godliness unappealing and not worth it. See,

maybe your hope really hasn't been set where it needs to be. Maybe you're

caught up in the things of the world. Are you ready to heed Paul's

warning to watch out, refocus your hope on the Living God, do it,

and ready yourself to toil and strive for the eternal. So the good

news is that when we set our hope on the Living God, we set

our hope knowing that we're not good enough, we can't do this, and

we set our hope on the one who has paid it all for us.

All we have to do is set our focus on him and rely on his

strength to do this because we can't do it in our own. So we've

seen Paul's message as he encouraged Timothy to follow and teach right. Says Timothy,

you need to do train for godliness in this way, and you need

to tell the church to train for godliness in this way. And now we're

going to take a look at kind of a little more personal advanced leadership training

for Timothy as a leader. So Paul is saying, Timothy, you need

to model christ Like character in verses twelve through fourteen. Let no one despise

you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct,

and love and faith in purity until I come to vote yourself to the

public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the

gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the Council of Elders

laid their hands on you to Paul outlines some key aspects here. As a

leader, he's encouraged them as to train for godliness. And now he's saying,

now you model it, now you lead. You got to do it

this way. Don't let anyone tell you that you're too young. Just go

out and model it, go out and lead it. You have what it

takes because you have Jesus. So let's look at three ways that leaders set

the example. Paul saying, leaders set the example in their actions. Leaders

are to model christ Like character in every area of their life. Paul's two

aspects here of character you can kind of see. The first couple on this

list are aspects of of their conduct towards one another. The last couple items

are his conduct towards God and how he should act towards God. So the

first one in speech see words matter matters so much that in chapter three,

where Paul is outlining how pastors and elders should be qualified in their characteristics,

he says, they should be self controlled, they should be gentle, they

should be they should not be quarrelsome see most often are words that are are

not humble, that are that lead to quarrels. Are are because that we

don't have a heart of gentleness, that we don't have a heart of self

control, and that's what leads to quarrels. And so Paul saying, Timothy,

look watch your speech. Let your words be self controlled and filled with

gentleness. That's how we should he have conduct ourselves with one another. That's

how leaders should lead in conducting conversations with gentleness. He also says, in

your conduct, so leaders actions should model godliness, and that this is what

he's been saying the whole time, Timothy, model this, model this,

and how you act. On several occasions in the New Testament, Paul exhorts

his leaders to imitate him. Paul says, and first Corithians eleven one,

He says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. See.

The focus is, yeah, imitate Paul, but not because of who Paul

is. Imitate Paul because of whom he is imitating. He's imitating Christ.

Leaders, is your conduct modeling that of Christ? Can you say, friend,

be an imitator of me because I'm following Christ? Is that your goal?

Is that your attitude as your leading say, man, follow me because

I am following Christ. See. That is the bar that God has set

for leaders that are in a Gospel shaped leader to lead as an imitator of

Christ and in love. Gospel shaped leaders lead out of a motivation of the

love of Christ and the love of others. We think, Matthew twenty two,

love the God with all your heart, all your soul, and all

your might. And love your neighbor as yourself. That's the love that Paul

is saying here, Love them as I as Christ loved you. And character

towards God and faith. See. Leaders should have their trust and their confidence

in God as the pinnacle aspect of your lives. Because God is the one

who entrusts leaders to leadership, and if their focus is not on God,

it's they're not rightly leading in a god fearing way. So he said,

set your faith in the one who you need to so you could lead well,

and also in purity. See the goal, as we've been talking all

day, is godliness, and godliness is attainable through Christ and only Christ.

But you say you got to do this through purity. Is your life marked

by a pursuit of purity? And when you fail, and you will,

are you quick to repent and rely on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. See

that's a leader. Leaders are perfect. But leaders are the one who said,

look, hey man, I've messed up and I need to make it

right before one another and before God. That's a leader. Are you quick

towards repentance when you missed the mark? So? God shaped leaders model christ

like character and their actions, and in their work Verse thirteen, devote yourself

to the public reading of scripture, exhortation, and teaching, so the focus

of the work is towards godliness, God's word exhortation. Commitment to teaching.

Teaching also is another qualification of a pastor elder saying, look, these are

these are things that leaders should be doing. They should be teaching, they

should be exhorting. They should continue to have a foundation on God's word.

See, your leaders have been called to a special work, and that work

is to bring focus to Jesus to their followers. Leaders, is your work

marked by a focus on the work of Christ? Or are you more desire

to be appreciated and approved by them? And also, leaders modeled Christlike character

in their gifting. In verse fourteen, Timothy's gifting is God given and publicly

acknowledged. They laid his hands on him. We see here that Timothy had

a special gifting from God for the work that he was called. Leaders,

don't neglect the gifting that God has given you. Instead, fan the flame

into it, pursue it, pour into it, use it for the glory

of God and the good of your followers. Leaders, pastors, and elders

have a unique gifting for the work. You honor your leaders in receiving their

message and exhortations and teachings, or do you just shrug them off. Honor

your leaders and your Lord by following well. Leaders, Are your ways marked

by these characteristics? Followers? Are you following the right leaders? It's like

there's a message here. This is the leader This is the characteristics of the

leaders that you should be following and looking for to follow. Do you can't

see these characteristics in your leaders? If so, follow them, learn from

them and model the same conduct that they are modeling. Because who you follow

often leads to who you become. Pick your leaders wisely. So we've seen

how modeling christ Like characters leaders is key towards driving for godliness. How else

does Paul instruct Timothy. He instructs him to him immerse himself and the things

of God verse fifteen. Practice these things, Immerse yourself in them so that

all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the

teaching Persist in this, for by doing so, you will both save yourself

and your hearers. See, Timothy, you need to walk in an example.

Do the things I have just reminded you model godliness. Be devoted to

the work, and people will see. They'll see the progress in your life

because your life is now modeled after God, and God will do his work

in you. Paul ends though with a warning, watch out, stay alert

because it's beneficial. It's beneficial for yourself, and it's beneficial for your hearers.

Right and there, it's for the saving or the protecting and the preserving

of those who would hear him. That's why the work is important, because

it protects, it preserves, not only Timothy as he maintains his right focus,

but also those who would hear and put into practice in their own lives.

I I'm reminded of here in Texas. You see those high water warnings,

right, watch out, turnaround, don't drown. How often do we

see like, man, I've got I got this nice high rise truck.

I'm just gonna, you know, push right through, or you know,

like me, I'm gonna take my nice hybrid Ford Fusion and drive right through.

And most of the time people it's fine, right, But there's those

times you see on the news where the people push through and you see their

car swept away by the powerful waters. Right. And see that's what Paul

is saying here. Look, often you're you're probably gonna be fine, but

there's going to be the time when you're not heed my warning. See are

you listening to the warnings of scripture to keep a close watch? Do you

immerse yourselves in the things of God or are you more interested in the things

of this world? God has provided leaders to encourage, to exhort, to

guide you in His word in this life, and he has provided the tools

you need for a gospel shaped life. Are you listening to the right leaders,

the right people, or are you listening to those who would see your

faith shipwrecked. The good news is if you sit here this morning and your

heart is telling you have not trained that your hope is set not on the

things of God, but instead you're caught up with the things of the world.

So we'll have a chance here shortly to reflect on that as we get

ready for communion. The thing about the Christian walk is that it's not about

perfect, instant obedience, but a reliance on the grace of God and his

work to grow in gospel understanding as we grow in Godliness.