69_First Timothy Lesson 23 continued
1 Timothy · Mike Doyle · Jun 8, 2025
1 Timothy
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261939406585

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So even though Courtney couldn't find Lesson 23, that's where we are. Lesson 23 is 1 Timothy 4, verses 14, 15, and 16. And verse 14 reads, do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance, with the laying on of hands and by the presbytery.

So we talked about a gift. Where do gifts come from? And we were kind of in the middle of question three. When given, is the person who received it now under greater obligation? And I put see elder qualifications in chapter three, one through seven. Answer is yes, he is. Because now, it isn't that all believers shouldn't aspire to and live like the tenants of chapter three, verses one through seven, but specifically as an elder, there's an obligation there because you have been designated by the Spirit of God and by the recognition of the the body of believers that you belong to, that you are now an elder. And an elder has a title description, and it should be, explain exactly who you are and what you are and how you function.

So yeah, it's important. He is under obligation. We're greater obligation though, Oh, you're talking, okay, from a legal standpoint? So let's do this, rather than speculate. Chapter three, verse one. It's a trustworthy statement that if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.

So it's a work that he's gonna do that not the ordinary Christian is gonna do, okay? Yeah, an overseer must be above reproach, a husband or one wife, temperate, prudent, responsible, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own house, how will he take care of the church?

I think I'll stop there. What's interesting, any of you guys been to Casa Bonita? We went Friday night. What an experience that is. But what's interesting was, we were here, and right over here were a table of two families with young kids. totally out of control. I mean, a family with young kids, totally out of control. Kids running all over the place, parents trying to track them down, not even getting their food down, throwing food around on the floor.

I mean, it was just, and I said to Don, I said, you know, they need to go to church. So the elder, This list of responsibilities, most of them have to be visible and identifiable before they're ordained. However, once he is ordained, then I think what's interesting is that the obligation to live like that is even greater than it was before because people are watching. You know, you've got the big E on your back. Yeah, we're watching you, Mike. Yeah, I know.

I know, you'd be surprised who they are. So who were these Presbytery people? Who are these people that ordained them? Elders. The word Presbytery is from the word Presbyteros. An older person One advanced in years. Somebody look up Luke 22, 66. When he was saved, the council of elders of the people assembled, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away to their council chamber saying, So the Jewish system had a council of elders. The simple way to put it is our God is one of organization. change of command, things in order. It isn't random. It isn't dictatorial.

It starts with Him and it works its way down and people are in positions of responsibility all the way down to no matter who you are in the body of Christ, you have responsibilities. If you're a mom or a wife or a husband, If you're a single young man or woman, you have responsibilities as a believer. And it's interesting that elders, the term elder is used. Elder just in your mind, you think, well, they've been around a while. They have experience. They faced a lot of different things. And they've learned from that as opposed to you know, a really cool Christian young man graduating from high school. He has no experience other than with his peers, you know.

So the Presbytery is just a board of elders, and there may, you know, in some cases with Timothy or with Paul, he did the appointing of elders when he started a new church because he, like with, he was in Ephesus 18 months and appointed elders. And they were, I mean, the people in Ephesus, the only two that the Word talks about is Priscilla and Aquila. You think that they were elders? Well, they actually followed Paul around to different places sometimes.

So being an elder means that you're responsible for, like one of the things that I have a bit of a bone to pick is, If God puts you in charge as an elder in a church, you can't spend 35% of your time doing Bible conferences, because your job is them.

That group of sheep, not the ones that are in Virginia, or wherever you go. It isn't that you can't go, but you can't spend a whole lot of your time doing that, because God gave you a responsibility for what's right in front of you. It's like Miles Drager used to be a sheep herder. Well, he never took care of a guy's sheep across the road. He always took care of his own. Here it's used, the word elder is local church. These church officials charged with responsibility of supervising the spiritual welfare of the local body of believers. Spiritual welfare, okay? Okay, question five. How would a believer neglect their spiritual gift? By leaving some other person's flower. Okay. But notice the third word in the verses. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you.

So, how would you do that? And that's imperative, it's not a suggestion, it's a command. Don't do that. And what's interesting is because it's a present imperative, it negates the action that's already going on. Some of these people, some of these elders, were neglecting their gift. or people in the church were neglecting their gifts. So what he's really saying is stop neglecting. Stop doing that. So I think you look around in any group of believers and there are people that are gifted that neglect their gift because they're too busy doing something else. One has, Newell says, one hesitates to translate. Do not keep on neglecting the spiritual endowment which you have.

Is he talking to Timothy? He is talking to Timothy. And as we've talked about before, moving up to this verse, Timothy is encouraged to be bold, to speak out, to study, which means all of those things he wasn't doing. Don't be intimidated by the older guys, that kind of thing. So he starts by telling him, stop neglecting you, Timothy. Stop neglecting the gifts you have. You're neglecting it because of peer pressure. Of course, I look around and none of you have ever stopped doing something because of peer pressure.

If Paul were merely warning Timothy against such an act, he would have used the aorist subjunctive with the proper negative. So he means more than Timothy, but Timothy is the target. Timothy, while a good young man at heart, was rather hesitant and needed periodic prodding by the Apostle Paul. I'm one of those. I'm a Timothy in that people need to prod me all the time, need to challenge me. to give you a different translation, Wyss translates it, do not keep on neglecting the spiritual endowment which is in you, which was given to you through the prophecy in connection, truth, prophecy in connection with the imposition of the hands of the elders. That's a pretty strong statement because it assumes that Timothy has been neglectful in some things.

And primarily, I think, it was his timidness that got him in trouble. Whether you like to or not, there are days you have to stand up. Any questions about that? Do you think his gift was that he was neglecting? I think the main gift he had was that of teaching because that's the main gift an elder has. But I also think it's leadership. I figured teaching because all this whole chapter has been on him teaching, but I think it's also exhortation or a pastoral end of it. but definitely teaching, but I think there's others that he may have neglected, which is the exhortation because he's afraid or, you know, these old guys. So he's probably, you know, not saying everything he should be saying because, you know, and exhorting them.

Isn't that interesting? You know, what we're going to do in the next hour is continue on and maybe finish up with, don't cause your brother to stumble. You can cause your brother to stumble by not doing what you should be doing. You might be the stronger believer, but because you're a little bit timid, you won't say anything or you try to soft sell it that you don't get the point across.

There should be, I think there should be an expectancy within the leaders of a church that people should, or they should lead by example. That they study, they read, they teach, they exhort, they do all these things so that everybody else can learn and watch and see how it's done. and maybe at some point they assume the mantle of an elder. But yeah, it's one thing to learn from the word. It's another thing to observe it being played out in somebody else's life, you know? Okay, next verse is 15. Interesting words.

Take pains, is that what yours says? Take pains that these things be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. That's pretty intimidating, isn't it? I'm gonna call each one of you aside over the next week and the first thing I'm gonna say to you is take pains. And then I'm gonna tell you what you need to take pains about. So take pains is the word melateo. How would you translate it? Yeah, that's a good word. I think mediate, to care for, to attend to, to carefully, to practice, to everything that he says.

In other words, Timothy, You need to be engaged here. You need to take pains that all of these, that the gifts that you have, gift and gifts that you have been given, that you take pains with them. You know, when Paul says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, he's talking about that this new life in you isn't just in there like a seed that never, falls apart and blooms, he's talking about working it out so that it's visible.

People who can't read need to see. It's like the Lord Jesus. You think people ever question whether he was a hard worker or that he was a lover? No, why? They wouldn't dare, look at them. You know, he falls asleep on a boat with a storm, but he's so wiped out he's sound asleep. They have to wake him up. And then they chastise him and say, don't you know we're drowning? Can't you do something about it? He was on the back on a cushion. This word was used by the Greeks on the meditative pondering and practice of orators and debaters.

In other words, if you're an orator or a debater, you need to pay attention to that, what you do. Was it John Darby said that he didn't really think he did a good job with a sermon until he had priested 45 times. I haven't preached any of my sermons more than once.

First indicates that the meaning here is that Timothy is to carefully attend to the public reading of the word, to exhortation and teaching. That's what he's saying to him. You need to be specifically paying attention to the public reading of God's word. Most people couldn't read, so that's how they heard it. And pay close attention to exhortation and teaching. That's really the spiritual job of an elder, right there, those three things.

So, you think Timothy was really involved with all this, or was he slacking? Let me ask you this. Do you begin to see that here's this young man, Timothy, who's gifted, loves the Lord, studies, hangs out with Paul, and you would think this kid is a superstar.

Yet over here are all these older guys that are always trying to put him down because he is a young guy. And they're old guys and they think they ought to be making decisions. So he's in the company, and not only that, is he in the company of those people, he's the one in charge. So he's got a dilemma. How does he function, even though he's young, diligently about what he's been called to do, and also at the same time, deal with these guys that are naysayers.

You guys, what's the heck? One of my favorite movies was an Eastwood movie where he played in the Second World War, and they were going behind the lines, they were gonna rob a bank, and one of the guys, that was in his company, was a tank driver, and his name was Moriarty. And every time Moriarty had something to say, it was always bad. So, he used to say to him, Moriarty, always with the negative waves, always with the negative waves.

Well, that's what Peter, or Timothy's dealing with. How do you deal with those guys? And they're kind of on the same level in terms of authority. And Timothy's a young guy, but Paul is focused on him, not those older guys. So kind of an interesting box to be in. So how involved do you think Timothy was in these things?

Question seven. The three things were exhortation, reading the word out loud, and teaching. And so, take pains with these things. Then he says, be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. So, would you say, obviously, Timothy wasn't absorbed in them? or wasn't absorbed enough? I think it's probably the latter. He wasn't absorbed enough. I see Paul as a mentor, the father figure, encouraging his dead child in the Word.

It's like, be absorbed, come on. Suck it up, Buttercup. Get it going. You're doing it. Don't be put down. It's like a coach encouraging him. Don't be put down by these guys. You're better than them, type of thing. Or you're at least their equal. Or as a reminder.

I think the Lord does a lot of that. Then the word is removed from who they are and what they've been called to do. So I think of it more as an encouragement because we were studying earlier in 13, you had said that that was to continue giving attendance to reading exertates. So he was doing all those things. So I guess my thought was, it didn't seem like he's chastising him. I think he's just reminding him. Well, you're talking, here's the thought.

I thought, well, we've been teaching the Book of Romans here for how long? Two and a half years? So I got up there two weeks ago and say, well, here's what Newell says about the Book of Romans, that you should read it all the way through at one sitting, and you should do it 30 days every day. I'm thinking, I don't think I'm, if I got that letter in the mail, I'd think, boy, what a slacker you are.

But what's interesting is that Newell's right. He is right. That's the kind of information that if you actually, Wayne came up to me and said, well, I read it through one day this week. He said, wow, what a difference it makes. I said, well, you only got 29 days to go. But it shows you the importance of reading the Word.

And I don't know, it's difficult because a lot of times, especially as I empathize and identify with Timothy, because you haven't been down this road before and you don't kind of know what's enough. And I've had guys, Miles Stanford for one, take me aside a couple of times and just say to me, you need to read more, you need to study more, you need to do this more. and I thought I was kicking it, you know. Here comes the old guy with all the wisdom, says, you need to kick it, man. You need to get off your horse and get busy.

But he did it in such a way that it was really encouraging. The notes I have is that exhortation is to give yourself wholly to them be absorbed in them, be constantly in these. The meaning is that Timothy is to throw himself wholly into his ministry.

So, like Mike was trying to make a law out of this, And it's not. I do think, and have thought for a long time, that believers are like tender plants and they grow. Is there something in this room? I was waiting for anger to start coughing. Thank you.

That as you grow as a believer, you never ever arrive. Maybe say it that way. You never arrive. You don't have it all. You're not the goat. You know what a goat is? The greatest of all time. You're not that. Because the Lord Jesus is the goat. How do I say this? In that job, as the elder, you're up to your ears in the work. You know? Because they're just, I mean, it's fun to sit and listen to stories from Miles Dredger about sheep herding. How stupid sheep are and how, Like you're trying to get them in a barn. Imagine trying to get 300 sheep in a barn door at night.

And they all go, and they funnel them down to the door. And they get right to the door and they stop. And you can't force them. Because if you push them, they'll turn around and go the other way. So you have to just patiently wait until the first one goes through. And when the first one goes through, they all follow him.

But he said, to tell you how dumb sheep are, if two sheep are, a hundred feet away from the flock, they're lost, even though they can see the flock. They're lost. And all that kind of stuff, I'm thinking, gee, all the things that he would describe, like, you get everybody to the door, and unless somebody goes through, they stay at the door.

You know? So be absorbed as an elder. Hard to do in today's society. And then here's an interesting thing. Notice that the verse says, take pains in these things, be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. The word, I can't find the word.

It means that these things ought to exist in you, Timothy. This is what you, where you should live. Could you say that Timothy's whole existence revolves around doctrine? Doctrine's one of those seminary words that people think, oh gee, how about, would Timothy be, his whole life is around seeking the truth? Or I'd even add to that, that seeking intimacy with the Lord Jesus who is the truth? Yeah, yeah.

And I think that's what's missing in Christianity is that You read The Hungry Heart this morning? That guy said that in the first, the very first, how did he put it? He said, see if I can get it up quickly here. You guys have it on your phones? Oh, right, oh, here we go. And I think T. Austin Sparks said this, the written word is meant to reveal the living word, not to hide him. Many know prophecy better than they know the prophet.

I thought that boy, that's like, yeah, isn't that? Yeah, that's where it is. And that's what this encouragement to Timothy is all about. That also goes back to that same song Bruce Carroll has, like that it's, I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day. And that's, I think, what's here. You can say it all day long, but if you don't live it, how is your message received? And I think that's, you know, take pains that your progress will be evident to all of them. So it's- Well, think about that.

The rest of this paragraph, our father gave us his written word that we might know his son, not only as savior, but as our very life. That's why he gave it to us. So that's what he's really telling Timothy to do. The Colossians and the Ephesians letters speak to that, that you're not going to be able to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus unless you have some sort of intimate acquaintance with him through the word.

It isn't just the word. It isn't memorization. It isn't, you know, prophecy. It's the prophet. It's the person of Christ. And without him, that life doesn't show up. Because what really shows up, you're trying to imitate that life and you can't do it. I'm running out of time again. I still have two pages to go. Okay, question eight. The simple word progress, when it's looked at in Greek, is more expansive than just progress.

How else would I do it, say that, explain? I'm defining word with a word which is according to cardinal sin. It's a compound word made up of pro, P-R-O, which means before. and kopto, K-O-P-T-O, which means to cut. The word is used for the opening up of virgin territory or blazing a trail, profiting to cut forward, to blaze the way, to make a pioneer advance. So when he says, So that no, this is this is the Greek from Weest When he says so that your progress will be evident to all he's saying to him So that this virgin terrier territory that you're blazing the trail for You're a pioneer in this people will know that that's what you're doing See that Weis translates it this way, diligently attend to these things, be constantly engrossed in them in order that your advancement may be evident to all.

So let's say, and you have to answer. You wake up tomorrow morning and you read this and you say, you know what, that doesn't describe me. Lord, I'm honest with you, that is not who I am. What do you do about that? Nothing? What do you do about it? The reason I think that's an important question is, I think we all wake up in the morning sometimes and think, boy, either I have the attitude I'm a strong believer and the rest of those guys are weak, or really I'm not diligent enough to do what the Lord has called me to do.

It's just go to the word and prayer. Those two seem like, you know, it's a down day or whatever. It's either get into the word or just spend time talking with the Lord. Okay. Let's keep expanding on that. Anybody else? Wait, you must be sick. You're quiet. It's just developing the intimacy with him. Well, um, to grow in the grace of knowledge. I'll ask an ancillary question.

Whose job is it to conform you to the image of Christ? Is it your job? It's the Holy Spirit's. It's the Holy Spirit's job. So when you pray, you recognize, wait a minute, the Holy Spirit must not be doing his job. No, I don't think it's his fault. So what's the solicitation when you pray to the Lord about this? Lord, make me like this. I want to be like Christ, which means it isn't going to happen unless I know Him. So that conformity process, that principle has to be in play.

And you find yourself over time doing God's will that you never supposed you ever would do. And it's easy. It's because the Spirit of God has done his work. And what was your job? The best way for me to say it is you let him do his job. You believed him. Does that make sense?

So I think that's what, the meaning that Paul is trying to get across to Timothy, it's not, you know, you gotta get up an hour early and go to the gym and do spiritual pushups for an hour. That's not what he's saying. What he's telling him is that to do thee, to live this way, you have to grow in the Lord Jesus. You have to grow in the word, read it out loud, deal with your brother, exhort him, her, and teach.

What's the biggest benefit about being a teacher? What's the number one thing that every teacher says, wow, am I glad I'm a teacher? What do you think it is? Yeah, it's the prep time. That's twice as cool as the talk time. It is. So that's part of this, I think. And I think that the way that the Spirit of God puts it together, but Timothy, Paul doesn't hold back on Timothy here at all. But he also is laying out, helping to lay out the pattern. He said, you've been gifted by the Spirit of God. And don't let this happen and don't let that happen, but here, do this and do this and do this.

All right, we gotta stop there. So, we'll finish next week and maybe I can get JD to talk next week. Speaking of the devil. Then he left. No, I'm here, sorry. Yeah. Yep, I can teach next week for sure. Okay. Let's close. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for how careful you are with us, who are your sons, and how you keep us moving, moving towards the Lord Jesus and allowing your Spirit