"Laying on of Hands" 1 Timothy 4:14 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Amen.

First Timothy chapter four.

I'll read the paragraph that begins with verse eleven.

Command and teach these things.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers as an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching, but don't neglect the gift that you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council 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 and on the teaching.

Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

That's the word of God, and I pray that it is alive in our hearts tonight.

Ordination is a concept that stretches back into the Old Testament, back into the wilderness when Moses ordained Aaron and his sons to the priesthood.

There was a massive number of Israelites, of course.

They were broken into twelve tribes, and the Levites would be the priests, but particularly Moses ordained Aaron and the line of Aaron.

That's ascribed in Exodus 29, Leviticus 16, Numbers 3, verse 3 references it.

Numbers 3:3

And ever since then, God has ordained godly men to leadership.

That was true in the wilderness, as I mentioned, where Moses passed along the obligations to leading and ministering to the people, to the seventy that would be with him, and which expanded, of course, over time.

It was evident throughout the time of the judges, where God would raise up people to deliver the Israelites from captivity and from slavery and from their own sin and their own folly.

But it was definitely evident in the time of the kings, when God would raise up kings.

The kings were not prophets, the kings were not priests.

In fact, the kings were held into account by prophets.

And when the kings would wander, God would send a prophet.

He would raise up a man to go and confront the king.

He would raise up a man to go and bring his word.

We know that the lines, in a sense, were distinct.

You know, in our American concept, we have the three branches of government, the Israelite government, you had the prophet, priest, and king, and the three shouldn't mix.

Until, of course, the Lord Jesus.

But that's the pattern throughout the Old Testament.

You get to the New Testament, and Jesus does the same thing.

Jesus chooses twelve to be with him.

He brings them together, he prays for them, he teaches them, and then he sends them out into the world.

In fact, he tells Peter that based on his profession of faith in Christ, in Jesus, as the Messiah, as the Savior, as the Son of God, that he was going to build his church through Peter.

Through that confession that goes to the world.

And of course, in the book of Acts, the very beginning of it, step one in the book of Acts, Judas is missing.

They need a twelfth.

They cast lots, which is not a good way of choosing elders.

It is not.

And people want to argue that they were doing a good thing back then, to which I just say, okay, when has our church ever cast lots to find the next elder?

But that's what they did, because they knew they had to raise up somebody else.

Once the Holy Spirit empowers them, dwells in them, seals them, right away the church starts growing, and right away they start identifying men to be leaders in the church.

And as soon as they do that, they lay hands on them, they pray for them.

In fact, the first time you see this is Acts chapter 6, verse 6.

Acts 6:6

Remember, there's a the the widows are practically rioting over the food distribution.

The Greek widows and the Jewish widows were not sharing.

And you could contextualize that a little bit by like racial discrimination.

And if we heard in the atrium right now that we were handing out Christmas cookies or something afterwards, and we were separating people by race to get the cookies.

And one side wasn't getting cookies, and they were rioting, and somebody came in here and said, race riot in the atrium, come help.

Like that would be pull the fire alarm kind of travesty, right?

That's what was happening in Acts chapter 6.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

And so what did they do?

They raised up a group of men.

They give you the descriptions of those men.

They were men of good repute, is what the ESV says.

In other words, they had a good reputation.

You heard that guy's name, and you're like, oh, everybody trusts that person.

He can handle it.

They were filled with the Spirit, they were filled with wisdom.

And then they were appointed, that's the word in the ESV, they were appointed to the duty in Acts 6, verse 6.

Acts 6:6

What did appointed look like?

Well, the elders named them before the congregation.

The congregation affirmed them, and the elders laid hands on them and then sent them into the atrium.

I don't know if they had an actual atrium in Salma's Portico there, but that's the way I visualize it.

Of course, it was God who gifted them.

It was God, even in Acts chapter 6, it was God who filled them with the Spirit.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

It was God's Spirit that appointed them to ministry.

But it was the congregation who recognized them.

They had a good reputation in the congregation, and of course it was the elders who affirmed them and ratified it by the laying on of hands.

And that's going to be the pattern throughout the rest of the New Testament.

In Acts chapter 13, that's the church of Antioch that raises up the first missionaries.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Paul, at the time he was still called Saul, and Barnabas were there, and they were set apart.

Remember, all the prophets and teachers were there meeting in Acts chapter 13, and the Holy Spirit directed them to set apart Paul and Barnabas.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And the order is important if you look at Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

We won't do it tonight, but the order is important there.

Paul and Barnabas were set apart first by the Spirit, and then that was recognized by the prophets and the teachers.

And prophets is what we would just call preachers today, by the preachers and the teachers of the church.

In other words, the leaders of the church.

The Antioch Church apparently didn't have elders yet, but they had people who were recognized as their preachers and their teachers, and those people saw the Holy Spirit has set apart Paul and Barnabas.

So it brought them before the church.

The church affirmed that, and the elders laid hands on them, and the prophets and the teachers laid hands on them and commissioned them into the mission field.

And that's the pattern, like I said, throughout the Old Testament.

That God gifts people for ministry in the church.

He's building his church, Ephesians 4 says, by providing pastors and teachers and evangelists, elders, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

And he does that through giving of spiritual gifts.

That's always how God calls people to ministry, he calls them by gifting them.

Romans 12 is one of those lists of gifts, and it describes the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives: the gifts of prophecy, the gift of teaching, the gift of exhortation.

Those words you'll see over and over again through the New Testament, they're often linked because they're all different flavors of the same thing.

Prophecy is proclaiming the Word of God.

Exhortation is the public preaching of the Word of God in a way that compels people to obey it.

And then teaching is the more patient, the Dasco, the more patient, didactic explanation of the Word of God.

They're all tied together.

1 Corinthians 12, verse 10 lists prophecy as one of the gifts the Spirit gives.

1 Corinthians 12:10

And he builds the church by it.

It's superior to the speaking in tongues, Paul says, because by prophecy you know what you're supposed to do.

You know what God says clearly, powerfully, and you're supposed to respond to it.

He compares it to a trumpet that is blown and calls people to war.

In 1 Peter 4, verse 10, Peter gives you a shorter list.

1 Peter 4:10

I like Peter.

Paul is a rabbi and he's got lists and sublists and subheadings and all that.

And Peter's like two kinds of gifts: preaching and serving.

Go.

Peter's more my kind of guy right there.

Everyone called to serve Christ is called to serve his church.

But some are called to the gifts of preaching, exhortation, leadership, teaching.

And they're identified as the elders, the pastors, the teachers of the church.

And some of that are identified as pastors, those who will be ordained to vocational ministry.

And that's the key word.

That's what ordination is about recognizing somebody is being called to vocational ministry.

By vocational, I mean they're going to make their living from the gospel.

Those people are gifted in the language of 1 Peter 2, verse 9, to proclaim the excellencies of him who has called us out of the darkness into his marvelous light.

1 Peter 2:9

And the congregation recognizes that that person is gifted in the proclamation of the gospel.

The elders identify that man as a missionary or as a pastor and they lay hands on him.

And this is a very foundational element of the New Testament church.

It's foundational.

In fact, in Hebrews 6, kind of interesting passage.

Again, we won't turn there, but you can make a note of it and look at it your own some time.

Hebrews 6, the author of Hebrews lists for you some foundational doctrines of the church.

He calls them the elementary doctrines of the church.

He compares them to milk that babies drink.

And his list of doctrines, I don't know if you've noticed this before, but there's six of them on his list.

Like six foundational Christianity 101, brand new.

New believers should get these things.

First was repentance from sin.

Second is faith in God.

Third is baptism.

Fourth is ordination, the laying on of hands.

Fifth is resurrection from the dead.

And sixth is eternal life.

Those are the basics of the church.

And you know, which one of these is not like the other?

Probably the ordination one, huh?

I mean, the others are like, you know, repent from your sin, put your faith in Jesus, get baptized, believe in heaven, and that you're going there.

Also, the laying on of hands.

That the church is going to identify people who will be their leaders.

And that's because going back to Ephesians 4, that's the means by which God is using to grow the church.

In Hebrews 6, Paul says, if you want to become a mature Christian, you have to have those doctrines mastered, and the rest of the Christian life grows out of it.

That's because ordination is one of the main ways that God strengthens his church.

Paul E.

Crete is one of the slacker-loser churches in the New Testament.

I mean, they're filled with losers, those Christians.

They're all just drunkards and gluttons and liars and whatever.

You can even ask a Christian, they'll tell you that.

And Titus was sent there, and Paul told Titus, put them in order, and the way you put them in order is by appointing elders in all their churches.

Men who are qualified for pastoral ministry.

That's what the word ordained means.

We get that from Paul's command to Titus.

Set, ordain, appoint people into pastoral ministry.

That's ordination.

And I want to break it up even more basic than that as we get into 1 Timothy 4.

There's four steps to ordination.

Four steps to ordination.

As you take it together, you see them all described in this little paragraph here, verses 11 down through 15.

But the key verse for us will be verse 14.

The gift that you have given to you by prophecy, which is a reference back to 1 Timothy 1, where Paul says that there was prophetic utterances given about Timothy that he would be a pastor.

So we don't have that.

That would be much easier if we had that.

But it wasn't just the prophecy that was given about Timothy.

It's again described in chapter 1, verse 18 or so around that area.

But it's not just that prophecy, but it's also the council of elders laid their hands on Timothy.

That's what we're talking about tonight.

What that means.

Well, the first step in that process is the Holy Spirit gifts the pastor.

The Holy Spirit gifts the person.

And you see this when you look at Timothy.

Timothy was gifted in pretty much every area of pastoral ministry.

He was gifted in speaking.

Paul tells them that earlier.

He was gifted in preaching.

He's going to tell them that in 2 Timothy 4.

He's gifted at teaching.

You see that back in 1 Timothy 3.

An elder is supposed to be gifted at those things, and Paul identifies Timothy as his co-laborer and gifted at leading.

That's the same category of gifts that Paul had.

Paul was gifted at speaking, preaching, teaching, leading.

He identifies to the Corinthians himself all of those categories of gifting in his own life.

This is why Paul is laying on the hands to Timothy.

He's expressing this continuity.

Jesus gave his Holy Spirit to the 12 or the 11 in the upper room.

Then the Holy Spirit comes on everybody at Pentecost, sealing the church, equipping the pastors.

They're now through the laying on of hands, demonstrating this church and the authority of Jesus Christ to forgive sins, demonstrated in Matthew 18.

That authority is spreading throughout the world through the church.

Paul receives that calling by Jesus Christ.

He has hands laid on him by Annias.

And Paul is separated to pastoral ministry and called an elder and a pastor, and he's turned off into the, you know, released into the church, into the world.

And he now finds Timothy, who he disciples and trains and raises up and lays hands on him to demonstrate that same gifting, that flow chart from Jesus to the apostles is now spreading to this really third-generation Christian.

Timothy was, in a sense, uh raised in a church.

His grandmother was a believer, his mother was a believer.

Apparently, the gospel came to their family when they were already married.

Timothy's mom was already married because there's no mention of his father being a believer, so it seems likely that conversion came to them later on.

But nevertheless, Timothy is raised in that environment.

Now he finds Paul and represents Paul's gifting, which comes from the Holy Spirit.

2 Timothy 1, verse 11, Paul identifies himself as someone who's qualified through his gifting as a pastor and an elder.

2 Timothy 1:11

In Titus 1, verse 3, he says that Jesus appointed him to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Titus 1:3

In 2 Timothy 4, verse 2, Paul tells Timothy, the same gift that Paul has, he's giving to Timothy through the laying on of hands.

2 Timothy 4:2

And Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, verse 2, because of that, your gifting is preaching.

2 Timothy 4:2

You better be ready to preach the gospel in season or out of season.

I don't know much about seasons, but you're either in or you're out, right?

That's an all-time preaching command.

So what does that gift look like?

Well, it's described in verse 13 here in front of us.

Verse 13 describes it as the public reading of Scripture.

That means he can, as it's kind of a low bar.

You can open the Bible and you can read it publicly in a way that makes sense to people.

And it sounds like a very low qualification there, but I'm sure you've all heard people read scripture publicly that it is hard to follow, isn't it, sometimes?

And it demonstrates a familiarity with the word.

Timothy's life is going to be gifted in the public reading of Scripture, which is going to give way to exhortation.

He's going to read the passage in a way that's intelligible, and then he's going to exhort or preach.

He's going to communicate what he just read to people in a way that motivates them to live in light of it.

That's exhortation.

And that gives way to teaching there in verse 13.

That's what the gifting looks like.

Timothy's able to handle the word of God, he's able to preach the word of God, and he's able to instruct others from the word of God.

Some people refer to this as an unction.

Somebody is gifted by the Spirit in a way that you can't quite articulate, but you can tell that when they're preaching, that they are gifted in that sense.

Now, every elder, of course, can teach.

When you go back to 1 Timothy 3, that's a qualification to be an elder.

They're able to teach.

Every elder is supposed to be able to teach, but not every elder is supposed to be able to preach.

Every elder is supposed to lead, but not every elder is supposed to preach.

Every elder is supposed to meet all the criteria in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention Titus 1 · chapter mention

But not every elder is ordained to vocational ministry.

You can just jog your eyes over, probably the next column on your page, chapter 5, verse 17.

Notice Paul's instruction there.

So Paul has already laid out the criteria for elders in 1 Timothy 3.

Now in chapter 5, 17, he's saying there's a subset of those elders.

A smaller group of those elders are gifted at preaching, and they're going to be paid by the congregation because of their preaching and teaching ability.

That comes by the Holy Spirit.

It is a spiritual gift.

A spiritual gift means the Holy Spirit is the one who gives the ability to do it.

The preaching and the teaching has the effect in the congregation because it's a spirit that applies the word of God to the heart.

You understand this probably if you've been a Christian longer than a year.

I would be impressed if you remembered this sermon on a Wednesday.

That would just make me feel great.

On a Wednesday, if somebody at work asks you, what did Jesse preach on Sunday?

If you're like, 1 Timothy 4, I feel like, yes.

But I recognize that that's not even very realistic.

Come Wednesday, you might not remember that.

Come Wednesday, I might not remember it.

What happens in the preaching of the Word of God and the reading of Scripture is the Holy Spirit is applying it to your heart and convicting you and forming you.

It's the experience that you're feeling while you're under the Word of God that is building a foundation for your Christian life as you go into the world.

That's what's happening through the preaching of the Word of God.

It is supernatural because it is the Spirit taking spiritual words, making them make sense to your conscience and your mind, then applying it to your life.

It's not about recall.

This isn't a university classroom.

There's no test you're going to take on Wednesday.

It's about the spiritual effect of the Word of God.

That's why preaching is a spiritual gift, because it's the Spirit who applies the words.

When somebody is gifted in preaching, they are gifted by the Holy Spirit.

And that gifting, when it is paired with the desire for pastoral ministry, that's what it means to be called to ministry.

You can look at 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 on my Bible, it's still on the same page here.

1 Timothy 3:1

The saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to the office of an overseer or an office of an elder, he desires a noble work or a noble task.

Notice it's the work that a person aspires to.

They're gifted by God at the preaching and teaching, but then they are drawn with the internal aspiration for vocational ministry.

The labor, the work of ministry.

They might aspire to be an elder or a pastor.

That's fine.

But the truth is, somebody who is godly, who's called by the Spirit of God, desires that work.

Now, we reject the secular-sacred distinction.

As good Protestants here, we say there's no, there's not some part of life that's secular and some part that is sacred, and the sacred is more special than the secular.

Like we understand that.

We understand that there is, we have what's called a doctrine of vocation.

We believe that God calls people to make their livings in the world in certain ways.

He calls men, husbands, to provide for their family.

He gives them ability to find a job to do that.

He gives them the fruit of their labor to provide for their family.

And we believe that all godly vocations, in a sense, are equal in God's sight.

The pastor is no more or less godly than the barber.

They're equal in God's sight because you're called to use the skills you have to provide for your family, to love your neighbor as you live in this world.

That's true.

All Christians are called to serve in the church, and a Christian, and all Christians, especially husbands, are given some skill to provide for their family.

All legitimate human occupations are equal in God's sight.

The purpose of every job is to love God and love neighbor.

That being said, inside of the church, there is a category for people who will make their living in the church.

That's what ordination is about.

That's the desire of the work in chapter 3, verse 1.

That's the worthy of double honor in chapter 5, verse 17.

And that's what Timothy is receiving in verse 14 through the laying on of hands.

Those who make their earthly living within the church, the New Testament refers to as the church's servants, elders, supervisors, messengers, heralds, ambassadors, shepherds, builders of God's house, friends of the bridegroom, and officers of the king.

They receive training.

They feel called to the ministry.

They receive training.

Jesus trained his twelve for years before sending them into Jerusalem and ultimately before the Spirit empowered them into the world.

Paul, when he was called, he had the scales off of his eyes, and then he spent, what, like a year in the wilderness being trained?

There's training.

You can't just say, I desire to be a pastor.

Okay, can you preach?

Yes, we'll lay hands on you.

No.

There's training that goes with it.

And that training is what the Holy Spirit uses.

He always uses means to equip people for ministry.

So first step, the Holy Spirit gifts the pastor.

Secondly, the church recognizes the pastor.

The church recognizes the pastor.

That's because the gifting isn't done in secret, it's not done privately, it's not some kind of Gnostic ceremony.

The gifting of the Holy Spirit is manifest to the congregation.

And the church is the best people to authenticate that somebody is gifted.

The church recognizes, oh, this person can preach.

This person would be a good pastor.

And when I say that, I don't mean his mom likes his preaching.

You know, he preached at youth group one day, and his mom was in the back row and was like, oh, oh, Johnny, you will be such a good preacher.

The grandmas of the church are like, oh, this guy can bring it.

No, it's more than Johnny's mom.

It's more than Johnny's grandmother.

It's that the congregation as a whole finds his ministry compelling.

What does that mean?

It means that his ministry, his preaching, his reading of the word of God, his exhortation, his teaching of the word of God is drawing people heavenward.

And the congregation recognizes that.

The pastor is inviting people to come up the mountain, so to speak, and have a better view of the Lord.

And the pastor doesn't get to follow you home and, you know, look over your shoulder in your quiet time in the mornings or anything like that.

It's something that happens when the saints are gathered and the word is read and the word is preached and the word is taught, that you have a better and more clarifying vision of the Lord.

And of course the vision fades throughout the week, and you come back next Lord's day and it happens again, and that's a continual pattern or sanctification throughout your life.

And you recognize that this person is gifted in providing that.

This person is gifted in drawing our hearts heavenward.

Now I know we live in the DC area, we have government workers here and military people here, and you know they want like objective criteria.

What does it mean that a person is gifted to preach?

Well, I have an Excel spreadsheet with seven columns.

We listened to his sermon, we ranked his introduction, his exegesis, his cross-references, his illustrations, his applications, and his conclusions.

I guess that was six columns right there.

And we ranked each of those and we gave him a score, and so now we're going to take the median of those scores and everybody above it, that person's gifted to preach.

Oh no, please no.

May those spreadsheets burn.

The simple question is does his ministry draw your hearts heavenward?

Is it compelling?

That's it.

Does he drag me up the mountain to see the Lord?

That's it.

That's a very common question.

As you look at these words here, what's the difference between preaching and teaching?

Those are the words in verse 13.

What's the difference between preaching in verse 13 and teaching in verse 13?

And the oft-given answer is that if you have to ask what the difference between preaching and teaching is, you've never heard preaching.

Preaching is from the pulpit and it's compelling you, it's exhorting you, it's motivating you through the word of God.

To use the IBC analogy, preaching is from the pulpit and teaching is in the ABFs.

And you know this, every elder is supposed to be good at teaching, but not every elder is gifted at preaching.

But God gifts some to be preachers, and the church recognizes that.

You know, in the SBC world, in the Southern Baptist world, the old school Southern Baptist worlds, not the current multi-site Southern Baptist world, skinny jeans world, not that world, but the old SBC world, if somebody said they were called to ministry, do you know what happened to them?

They felt they were called to ministry, they got invited to an evening service.

And anybody, any any guy could preach at basically any evening service by saying he felt called to ministry, and you put the guy up there and he would preach, and then he would leave, and his mom would leave, and then the congregation would vote on if they think he's called to ministry or not.

And, you know, there's part of you that hears that and kind of rolls your eyes, right?

I hear that and kind of roll my eyes a bit.

But there's another part of me that's like, man, how many boring and bad pastors would the church be saved from if we had that basic threshold?

Like, just put it open to a vote and be done with it.

Spurgeon was a big proponent of that approach to ministry.

In his book, Lectures to My Students, he writes, quote, that hundreds have missed their way and stumbled into a pulpit is sorrowfully evident from the fruitless ministries and decaying churches which surround us.

It's a fearful calamity to a man to miss his calling and to the church upon whom he imposes himself.

That mistake involves an affliction of the most grievous kind.

Host virgin.

Now, of course, being gifted for pastoral ministry is more than preaching.

You can look at 1 Timothy 3 and see that.

It's also leadership, it's sound decision-making, it's firmness, it's tenderness, it's compassion, it's evangelism, it's all of those things, of course.

But the one that Paul keeps coming back to eight times in 1 and 2 Timothy, he keeps coming back to can the person preach?

Can the person preach?

And if he can, and he has the desire and he matches the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3, and he's been trained by the Lord, and the preaching and his gifting is recognized by the congregation, that's who gets ordained.

In the Catholic Church, ordination is a sacrament.

And if you were to ask a priest anyway, it's arguably the most important of the sacraments because it's through the sacrament of ordination that the other sacraments have their efficacy or their power.

That's not the way it is in the church.

In the Christian church, it's not a sacrament per se, but it's a recognition that we found a person gifted by the Spirit for pastoral ministry, vocational ministry, and we're going to pay them for it.

So when I say the church recognizes the pastor, I don't just mean, yeah, that guy can preach, he looks gifted to me.

But the church backs it up by paying for it.

Paul describes this in 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

There he says that someone who's ordained to ministry, quote, has the right to earn a living from the gospel.

That's his phrase.

And I know that in much of the world, like European churches especially, they don't believe in paying their pastors.

They don't find it a biblical model, but I mean, in my mind, 1 Corinthians 9 is a very persuasive passage.

Those who are gifted at it, those who are gifted at it, have a right to earn their living from it.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul sarcastically asks, who serves as a soldier at his own expense?

And some of you are going, me.

Who plants a vineyard without eating its fruit?

Who tends cows without drinking the milk?

So, of course, if you find someone gifted for ministry, you'll pay for him.

The point is that those who are ordained as pastors should be paid by Christians for their ministry.

And this goes all the way back to the Old Testament where Moses said in Deuteronomy 25, verse 4, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, when it's threshing out the grain.

Deuteronomy 25:4

You know, the grain floor, it's elevated usually.

You can see one of these at Mount Vernon, and that's not entirely different than they have all over the Middle East.

You have those elevated floors, you have the slots in the floor, the wood that goes across it, you throw the grain on there, and you get the ox and a walk in a circle and he threshes, and all the grain falls through the bottom.

That's the way you thresh out the grain.

And Moses said, in Israel, you are not allowed to muzzle the ox when he's doing that.

If the ox wants a little snack, he can eat a little snack.

And so you read that in Deuteronomy 25, and you think, okay, fine, we won't muzzle the ox.

Great.

Paul returns to that in the New Testament.

And he asks, Did you think God was concerned about the ox?

I remember the first time reading that going, Yeah?

I did.

I thought it was about the ox.

That's not about the ox.

God is speaking for our sake, he says, because the one who threshes the grain threshes in hope.

The one who plants a fruit tree plants it in hope.

That's 1 Corinthians 9.

When you ordain a pastor to ministry, you're not.

You're supposed to pay him because you're planting a fruit tree.

What do you want if you plant a fruit tree?

You don't want shade.

If you wanted shade, you'd plant a poplar tree or something like that.

You want a fast-growing tree if you want shade.

If that's your goal, plant a tree that grows fast and has big branches.

That's what you do if you want shade.

No, if you want fruit, don't plant an oak tree.

If you want fruit, you plant a fruit tree.

And that's what pastoral ministry is in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul says.

You're sowing in hope, hope that it will produce spiritual fruit.

And that's why you pay your pastors because they're laboring in hope.

Third.

The elders lay hands on the pastor.

That's what's captured in verse 14.

Don't neglect the gift you have, which was given to you by prophecy.

We talked about that earlier.

When the council of elders laid their hands on you.

This is the act of the elders that confirm one and two.

One being the Holy Spirit has gifted the person.

Two, the church recognizes that.

Third, the elders are validating, expressing in a public way the will of the congregation that has recognized the gifting of the Holy Spirit.

It's a public affirmation of the man's calling.

Now, this is something that shouldn't be rushed.

1 Timothy 5, verse 22.

1 Timothy 5:22

Again, it's probably in my Bible, it's on the same page.

Do not be hasty in the laying of hands or take part in the sins of others.

In other words, don't lay hands on somebody who hasn't been trained for ministry, who hasn't spent time training and studying and being equipped.

Yeah, I know the guy got saved a couple years ago and has a really compelling testimony and is very energetic and charismatic and all that, but that doesn't mean you make him a pastor.

Slow down there, Tiger.

Take a breath.

I mean, how often I've seen in my life so many times churches have been too eager to lay hands on somebody at too young of an age or without training because they have a compelling story and their gregarious personality and all that, or they're related to the senior pastor.

You know, that doesn't work.

It flames out, doesn't it?

And that's what Paul says.

Don't be hasty in doing this.

Calm down a little bit.

But second, the laying on of hands should be a serious thing.

Serious because it's God who imparts the power of the ministry, it's the elders who confirm it, and there is strength in that confirmation.

So much so the point of 1 Timothy here, Paul is trying to encourage Timothy to be strong.

Most commentators would surmise here that Timothy has some element of fear or trepidation.

He's pastoring in Ephesus, which is a strong, vibrant church.

So maybe it's not the right match for him, he might be thinking.

Maybe the people in the congregation are godlier and more mature than he is.

There might be some truth to that because notice in verse 12, he says, don't let people look down on you for your youth.

I mean, I'm sure he wasn't 20 or something.

Nevertheless, he appears to be younger than many of the people to the point where he starts to second guess himself.

And Paul says, Don't let that happen.

And then he encourages them to set an example for the congregation.

And what he stakes that on, both here and in 2 Timothy 4, he stakes that on the fact that you had hands laid on you by the elders.

Remember that.

So don't feel inequipped for ministry, don't feel inadequate for ministry because you had all of the elders of your church put hands in you and say, We think this guy can do it.

So much so that later, when Timothy is starting to get a little shaky, Paul says, remember that.

Remember that.

That's what it's meant here.

Timothy, draw from the well.

Remember, you were quit by the Holy Spirit, the congregation recognized that, and the elders affirmed it by laying on of hands.

Forth.

Fourth here, the pastor should persist as a pastor.

So the Holy Spirit gifts the pastor, the church recognizes the pastor, the elders lay hands on the pastor, and forth, the pastor persists as a pastor.

In other words, no quitting.

No quitting.

It is so common in the world for people to change jobs all the time, and that's that's fine.

I would usually recommend to people not to quit a job until you have the next one lined up.

But it shouldn't be common in the church.

You know, when you take a new job, the elders don't lay hands on you to confirm that calling in your life.

There's a certain amount of Christian freedom that every individual has in where they work and what they do, and that's that's great to have that kind of freedom in this world.

But that's a freedom that people give up when they get ordained.

This is what Paul says back in 1 Corinthians 9 again.

Do I have freedom?

Am I an apostle?

But then he says, I give that up for the sake of the gospel.

I give that up for the sake of being a pastor.

He says, I have the right to be paid even.

I'm not going to take money from the Corinthians, those villains.

But he says, I have the right to be paid, I give that up.

Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 9 about how he surrenders his rights.

When a person becomes ordained, they are in a very real way forfeiting that right to chart their own course.

This is something you don't have to explain too long in the DC area because we are familiar in the military concept.

Like when you enlist, well, you're giving up your right where to go.

Like you enlist, and you're like, yeah, they told me I would be stationed in Hawaii.

Why does my plane ticket say 29 palms on it?

Yeah, I see that nodding right there.

I mean, and what are you gonna do?

Complain?

Like I was promised beachfront property.

Yeah, no, you weren't.

You're now an employee of the Army, you're an employee of the Marines, you're gonna go where they send you, and you will rejoice in it.

That's a fitting analogy to pastoral ministry.

When you're ordained to vocational ministry, you in a lot of ways are forfeiting your right of self-determination.

You're forfeiting your right to, you know, then re-evaluate this in a few years.

You know, the evaluation process is what has been happening throughout your training.

The evaluation process is what is is capstoned when the elders lay their hands on you.

You don't get to quit.

You don't get to go work for Delta Airlines or something.

No, you're locked in, my friend.

You're called to the ministry, recognized by the congregation and affirmed by the elders.

There's no plan B.

It's Cortez style, you know, when the elders lay hands on you, your ships are burned, man.

Your ships are burned.

You're locked in.

And that's why Paul's telling Timothy, you don't get to quit.

Practice these things, verse 15.

Notice all of, in fact, if you go through this paragraph here, there are so many intense, persistent, continuous, active verbs in here.

He's supposed to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture.

Practice these things.

Devote a second time.

In fact, the second time devotees used it so that he gets better at it.

Notice the word then, you know, practice in verse 15 so that everyone can see your progress.

Immersed yourself in them in verse 15, going under, devote, practice, devote, immersed.

Keep these things in verse 16, keep a close watch on them, then persist in verse 16.

These are all very intense, long, you know, long-standing progressive words.

Persist, keep, devote, practice, immerse, devote.

All the way to the finish line, man.

All the way to the end.

All the way, notice what he says.

When does Timothy get to quit being a pastor?

This cracks me up.

The end of verse 16.

Keep a close watch on your teaching and your doctrine.

Persist in this.

For by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Timothy, you've got to keep preaching until everyone who's listening to you is in heaven.

Then you can retire.

You keep going, man.

You keep going.

You persist in this for their salvation.

All the way till everyone who's around you is in glory.

You immerse yourself in them.

This doesn't mean that when you're ordained, you're as good a preacher as you'll ever be, because notice the phrase at the end of verse 15 there, so that all may see your progress.

Hopefully you're getting better.

Hopefully you're getting better.

Hopefully, my sermons have gotten better in the 12 years I've been here.

Yikes.

I re-listened to one of my sermons from early on.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

That's all I can say.

Hopefully you improve so that everyone can see your progress.

There should be growth.

There should be growth in the pastors.

He is using the word practice.

Notice this kind of words, practice.

Persist, immerse.

You have to keep improving.

You're keeping a close watch on yourself, on your life, and on your doctrine.

You're not called to look horizontally at other people to emulate in ministry.

You're not called to be John MacArthur or Rick Warren or whatever.

You're not called to be those people.

You're called to be faithful in the ministry God has given you.

And sometimes pastors forget that.

Sometimes pastors start deviating, sometimes pastors start getting frustrated in church and wanting to go back to civilian affairs.

And this is why Paul says over and over again stay away from civilian affairs.

A soldier doesn't get entangled in civilian affairs.

What do you do if you're a Marine and you go get a job at Starbucks?

No, you don't get entangled in civilian affairs.

Mike Mentor, longtime pastor at Reston Bible.

I just finished reading one of his books on Pastoral Ministry called Stay of the Course.

And he says his best advice he can give to pastors is to keep an uncomplicated life.

Do all you can around your church.

Do all you can around people from your church.

Just live in that world.

An uncomplicated life.

And he talks about it in his book do people have the freedom to lead a more complicated life?

Sure.

But you forfeit it when you get ordained.

When I decided to go to seminary, I went to my pastor and asked him if he would sign my uh application for seminary.

And he looked at me, all 23-year-old Jesse, and said, hmm, hmm.

And he said, Why don't you go do your second choice?

What would you do?

If you didn't go to seminary, go do that for two years.

Because I was like, I I I feel called to be a pastor.

And he's like, okay, I believe you.

Go do whatever the second choice you feel called is to do for two years, and then come see me.

And so that's how I ended up teaching high school Spanish for two years.

And at the end of two years, the Lord made it very clear to me.

Sometimes pastors forget that.

They can get frustrated in their ministry, they can get discouraged, and they can start to look elsewhere.

And when that happens, you remember that you were ordained to the work of the ministry.

You weren't ordained to happiness, you weren't ordained to an easy ministry.

You were ordained to one thing: serving the Lord Jesus Christ through vocational ministry.

JJ and I this year read a book called Calvin's Company of Pastors.

That was a phenomenal book for a lot of reasons.

But it early on in the book, it describes this man, Jean Desier, who was a French-speaking pastor in Geneva, who was ordained by the Genevan Company of Pastors.

You know, there's 60 little parishes in Geneva under Calvin.

He was ordained by these men, installed as one of their pastor in one of their churches, and he lasted five or six years there.

And then he decided he was going back to France.

Going back to France.

Word came to Calvin and the company of pastors that he was packing up his house.

I don't know what that looks like in the 1500s.

There's a moving van or whatever.

1600s at this point, there's a moving van, but he's packing up his house.

So they confront him and demand to know why he's leaving his ministry.

He writes them a letter.

He says this about his congregation I'm so angry and frustrated with my parishioners that I would go completely crazy if I stayed here a moment longer.

Plus, my mother-in-law is ill, my health is poor, and my family business needs me.

Alright?

The church in Geneva excommunicated him, revoked his calling to pastoral ministry, told people to treat him like an unbeliever.

And the note they sent back to him said, quote, Pastoral ministry is a hundred times more precious than all of those excuses that you have made us listen to.

It is an exceedingly sacred and honorable charge that cannot be taken up or laid aside without divine permission.

That is the weight of ordination.

God, we're thankful that you have built your church for two thousand years.

You've done so by raising up pastors, teachers, evangelists to strengthen the church.

You've never left your church wanting.

So many men that you have raised up for ministry over the years here.

So many.

You've blessed our church with younger pastors.

You have blessed our church with more seasoned pastors.

We think of some of the pastors here with just decades of wisdom and leadership.

We think of Pastor Steve and all the trials he has navigated through Mango Baba Church over the decades.

We think of Pastor Tom and his bold leadership and his heart for serving the saints.

We think of Pastor Bob, who has poured his life out here for so many decades as well, faithfully guarding our teaching and our instruction.

Our church has been so blessed.

We're so thankful for that.

And we know that our church is not static.

There's always people coming and going.

And the same is true in the ministry.

You're always leading new people here through the seminary.

You're always pushing people out around the world.

We think of those that we've sent out just even in the last few years.

We think of Davis and Algeria.

We think of Jordan and Italy.

We think of all the different ways that you have gifted our church around the world.

We're so thankful for that.

We pray for JJ tonight and are grateful for him and his faithfulness in serving our church the past several years.

We're so thankful for him and how you have blessed our church with his presence here.

His wife Alyssa, their kids, we're thankful for them.

I pray tonight that you would take these words, seal them in our heart.

We're thankful for how you build your church.

It is your work, it is your building, it's your people.

It's your spirit you've delivered into our hearts.

We're so thankful for him.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.