The Role Pastors Play in Your Sanctification

, let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. And I actually had 3 points for the message today again, but we didn't get to the 3rd point in the first service, so there's actually 2 points, and stay, come back next week and the week after, and we'll we'll get to where we got 1 point and then nothing. Just worship and go home.

First Timothy 4, for those of you that are visiting with us, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to verse 11. And my goal today, if the first service is any indication, we're just gonna cover verses 11 and 12. And the title of the message is the role Pastors play in Your sanctification, the role that pastors play in your sanctification. We've been learning a lot over the last couple of weeks on the subject of the pursuit of godliness.

and one of the things that we're going to be clued into today, is that the way God has designed it, that in your pursuit of godliness, pastors have a role to play in your life as you pursue godliness. And you're going to get to listen in this morning as God speaks to a pastor. And tells a pastor what he is to do in the lives of God's people as they are pursuing godliness. And so as you listen in in that way, you'll be learning something about not only what God wants your pastor to do, but I want you to hear that and say, OK, I'm learning what I need to let my pastors do in In my life, this is a little bit of an awkward message for me to preach because part of my agenda today is to try to convey to you guys that you need me.

that just feels weird. but, I'll have to get past that. And, as I thought about it, though, I, I realized that that shouldn't feel all that weird because I do that all the time as a parent, that as my children have grown through the years, I've, I've had to I've had to try to persuade them at times that you need me. You actually need your dad right now.

I know you don't realize you need it, but you need your dad and the wisdom and the insight that he might have to give you at this time. I've noticed that children don't just automatically wake up every morning just saying, man, I'm just so grateful that I have parents who can give me insight and wisdom where I have blind spots and they need 3 meals a day and their laundry done and they expect that. But in terms of leadership, direction, rebuke, insight, they don't just automatically feel the need for that.

And so as a parent you have to sit them down at times and make the case that you need me in your life.

This actually started, I noticed this with my oldest child, Brooke, who by the way turns 20 tomorrow. That's not good news. That's actually very sad, but Anyway, when she was about a year old, she learned to walk, and it was weird. I, I instantly saw a change come over her when she gained that, that new ability.

And the vibe that I got from her was like this. It was like, Dad, Mom, you guys have been great parents. And I have needed you. You guys have, thank you for the investment that you have made in my whole life leading up to this climactic moment.

But your services are no longer needed because I can walk on my own now. That was like her ticket to independence, and I'll never forget. Around that time, it was within the first week that she had learned to walk. We were out in a public setting.

She started walking down a particular sidewalk in a direction she should not have gone because it wasn't safe, and I reached from behind her and grabbed her, and she did this with her arm just like. don't really need your help here, Dad. I'm good enough on my own. Don't need your direction.

And I had to step in and crash her little party and say, no, no, listen, you do need me right now and I'm going to stop you. In the direction that you are going, and so I've just noticed over the years that I need to occasionally make the case to my children that you need me. I've noticed as a pastor that I have to do that. I remember years ago doing a counseling appointment with a man and his wife, and the man reached a point where in his mind the counseling appointment was done, and he ran out of my office into the parking lot.

The problem was I wasn't done with the counseling appointment. I still had a lot I wanted to say. I chased him through the parking lot and totally true story and caught up with him and let him know that I'm not done and you need to come back into the office because we've got some things to go over and he eventually came back in but I was trying to say, hey, you still need me. I know the 1st 30 minutes you think you've had enough of me and now you're done.

No, you still need me for the next hour or so and so in any Significant ministry where we're trying to make a difference in the lives of people. People don't wake up every day just really appreciating their need for you. And so sometimes you have to make that case. And so that's the spirit of the message today.

What you're going to learn is, and I have here on the screen 3 jobs, but we're just going to focus on 2 jobs that you need your pastor. to do to help you in your pursuit of godliness. If, if you're not a part of a church where the pastors or the elders are not doing these things, then it's going to impoverish your pursuit of godliness. Or maybe if you are a part of a church where pastors and elders are doing these things, but you're not letting them do these things in your life, then you will impoverish your own pursuit.

of godliness. All right, let me begin reading in chapter 4, verse 6. And then we'll pick up in verse 11. Paul says to Timothy and pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of The sound doctrine which you have been following but have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women.

On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness or exert yourself toward godliness, for bodily exercise is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things since it holds. Promise for the present life, and also for the life to come. This is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance. For it is literally into this godliness that we are laboring and striving, because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of believers.

Now up to this point, Paul has been talking to Timothy saying, Timothy, this is what you need to do in your pursuit of godliness. This is what you and I do when he says we, he's at least talking about himself and Timothy. This is what you and I do, along with our colleagues. we are laboring and striving in our pursuit of godliness.

But then in verse 11, look what he says, prescribe and teach these things. What I've just said, prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. Man, there is a ton here.

first job, we'll focus on verse 11 here at the beginning. The first job that you need your pastors to do. to help you in your pursuit of godliness is you need them to challenge you and teach you godliness. You need them to challenge you.

And to teach you godliness. He says in verse 11, prescribe and teach these things. One of the fundamental roles of pastors is to train God's people in godliness. It is not our job as pastors to entertain you.

It is not our job to have dancing bears up here every week to just keep you. happy and, and laughing. It is not our job to give you warm fuzzies, although there are a lot of times where we're going to say things that are going to make you want to explode with joy and worship. One of our fundamental callings as pastors is to challenge you and to teach you godliness.

Look what he says. Prescribe and teach these things. When he says prescribe here, actually both prescribe and teach are authoritative words. The word prescribe means to order or to command.

He's not saying, Hey, hey Timothy, share these things with the brethren, deliver. the option of godliness for their consideration. No, this is more an in your face type of idea. Get in the face of God's people and command them, order them to godliness.

It's not our calling to suggest, certain options to you of godliness, but to, to deliver commands, to deliver direction, to deliver challenge even when that may not be what you want from us, and to teach, which is also an authoritative word that means to direct someone in doctrine and in practice. It is our job as pastors to tell you how to live. And to challenge you to be godly, to teach you the ways of godliness. Now look again at verse 11.

Prescribe and teach these things. You can draw a circle around the words these things, and everything that Paul is referring to is pointing back, I think, to verses 6. 10, everything I've just said about godliness, I want you to prescribe, and I want you to teach these things to God's people. So summing it up, that means that as pastors, it is our job to challenge you, the people of God, to pursue godliness, to be constantly nourished on the words of the gospel, to reject anything that is.

Contrary to godliness, to continuously exercise yourself toward, to challenge you to turn your life and face godliness and then exert yourself in a disciplined way towards godliness with a passion and discipline that an Olympic athlete has, who's pursuing a gold medal. And then also to challenge you to labor and to strive towards godliness, we need to prescribe and teach this lifestyle of pursuing and laboring and striving towards godliness. It's not an option. We prescribe this also in teaching these things, a part of what Paul is alluding to is that we're not just up here saying, hey, be godly, pursue godliness, but we're also prescribing and teaching things about the profit of godliness.

We're actually trying to make the case that, hey, profit or godliness is worth pursuing. It's a glorious thing. It holds much profit for this life and also for the life to come. Paul says to Timothy, you need to prescribe and teach these things.

Tell the people of God about how profitable, how glorious and how attractive godliness is. another way of saying it is one of the jobs of pastors is, is to be salesmen for godliness. to sell godliness to you, to, to really just say, man, take a look at this godliness and look at the profit that you can experience in your life here on earth and also in the life to come. And we try to make that case of how beautiful, how wonderful, how attractive godliness really is to where after we're done ministering to you, the goal is that you're looking at godliness saying, Man, I want to be godly.

I want this to be one of my biggest passions in life. I want to be godly. myself, I want to have a godly marriage. I want to have godly children.

I want to have a godly, God honoring home. I want to help others to be godly. And you're thinking that way, partly because of the influence of the pastors that God has placed in your life. We all have experienced the power of a good salesman, right?

A number of years ago, we had a vacuum cleaner salesman come, come by our house. And who was really good at what he did. He brought an amazing machine by. This thing had an amazing power to clean, and you could almost do your ATM banking from this vacuum cleaner.

it had that many bells and whistles, and we were just in awe. We would have certainly bought it if we actually had the tons of money that that thing cost. But that was the only thing that held us back. We were like excited about it, but we ended up having to tell the person no, and so they left quite dejectedly.

But the amazing thing was that after hearing that sales job, after this salesman left, we looked at our vacuum cleaner that we already had, and it was like we never looked at that vacuum cleaner the same. It just we became discontent with that. This thing doesn't really clean, at least not like this one this guy brought by, and suddenly we weren't impressed at all with the vacuum cleaner that we already had. And what that's like as a pastor, that's I want that so badly.

I want to be such a salesman for godliness, for all of us as elders to be such a salesman for godliness that you see godliness as man, I'm willing to sacrifice anything and everything like an Olympic athlete to go after this godliness and to have a god. life and a godly marriage and a godly home. And then you're so captivated by this attractiveness of godliness, that you then turn and you look at the sin and the fluff that you used to really love. And suddenly you see it all differently.

Wouldn't that be awesome. In fact, part of the reason that so many Christian people in our culture today are so enamored with sin and the fluff and the nonsense of this world is because there aren't pastors that are doing a good enough sales job for godliness. It is our calling to prescribe and teach godliness and to show you how compelling and glorious and profitable godliness is. When Paul says prescribe and teach these things, he's, he's saying challenge God's people to pursue godliness, show them, convince them of the prophet of godliness, and then also take them to the fountain of godliness, which is God.

Paul says, we pursue godliness, because we fix our hope on the living. vibrant, lively, moving, dynamic God, who is the Savior of all men and thousands of ways. He's doing saving sorts of things in the life of every single human being every single second. But he is especially the savior of those who will lock their faith onto Him.

And Paul then says, Hey, Timothy, prescribe and teach these things. In other words, don't just tell people to be godly. Don't just show them how profitable godliness is, but take them to the fountain of godliness, which is God. Take people to God and show them God.

God, because there is enormous motivation and passion that comes into their life as they behold the Lord. They see sin in themselves like they never saw it before, and they see the ultimate end of the gospel, which is God Himself. Our job as pastors, above all else, is to present to you God, to point you to Him. In Him.

He is the living God, the Savior of all, and he'll save you from ungodliness, not just from hell, but from ungodliness from day to day. If you put your trust in Him, He is the fountain of everything. And what a difference it makes if we begin our train of thought and if we as pastors begin our ministry to you by taking you to God and letting you behold Him. John Piper in his book, The Supremacy of God and preaching says this.

Listen to what he says. I love this. Talking to pastors, he says, if we do not spread a banquet of God's beauty on Sunday morning, will not our people seek in vain to satisfy their inconsolable longing with the cotton Cotton candy pleasures of pastimes and religious hype. If the fountain of living water does not flow from the mountain of God's sovereign grace on Sunday morning, will not the people hew for themselves cisterns on Monday, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

what a responsibility is ours as pastors to, to be advocates for godliness and to show you the profitability of godliness and to take you to the God who is the fountain of godliness. And as you behold Him and His glory and His love and His amazing grace, that is the spring from which your pursuit of godliness emerges. We don't want to be guilty of just giving you rules saying be godly, but we don't. Present God to you.

God is at the core of all of this. There are pastors and churches today, unfortunately, that, we've got our ways here at Cornerstone that we need to grow and even as pastors that we need to grow, but unfortunately we've got, we've got pastors and pulpits today that their agenda is not to promote godliness. It's actually to make people feel OK about themselves. Their goal is to make people feel good or entertained, but not to be godly, so they don't want to say things from the pulpit that might Make people uncomfortable.

They're afraid to speak the truth. At Cornerstone, may God give us the grace to speak truth and your pastors to be promoters of godliness who prescribe and teach these things even when you may not on a particular day want to hear these things. Charles Spurgeon said this about godliness. He says urgently, do we need a revival of personal godliness?

This is indeed the secret of church prosperity. If we're going to as a church be everything God wants us to be, if we're going to impact this city. The way that God wants us to impact this city, it's critical that we be a godly people. You guys agree with that as pastors that we're promoting that and that all of us in this congregation are Growing in our ability to say no to sin and yes to godliness so that there's something different here so that when people out in the world who are burned out on what the world has to offer them come into Cornerstone, they find something very different here, a breath of fresh air drastically different than what they've been getting out in the world.

Out in the world there's no one promoting godliness, so it is, you guys think of all the media that you've been exposed to, all the influences you've been exposed to this week just making your way through this secular world. Our thinking as pastors is, man, we've got to seize every opportunity to promote godliness. Because Hollywood's not trying to show you how attractive godliness is. We need to be doing that as pastors, we need to be doing that for each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Now, by the way, let me say one other thing about this, prescribe and teach are both present tense. So Timothy, be continuously prescribing and teaching. You are to be always doing this. This isn't just one Sunday out of the year.

We're going to have a godly emphasis Sunday. And then after that, we'll go to a million other topics. No, we need to be pounding this. In fact, go back to chapter 1, verse 5, where Paul says the goal of our instruction of any instruction that we deliver, the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

In other words, he would say the goal of everything we say is godliness, to promote godliness in the lives of God's people. And doing that, we know we're going against the world and the flesh and the devil and all the messages coming from them. There are some believers that are pursuing godliness, but they quit because they reach a point of despair and frustration. They need pastors saying, come on.

Pick it up. Let's pursue godliness. Some believers just get lazy and they stop pursuing godliness. They need pastors to get in their face and challenge them to pick up their efforts and to pursue godliness because it's so profitable.

Some Christians become arrogant and think I'm godly enough, so they stop pressing on towards deeper and deeper godliness, and they need pastors to tell them you're not as godly as you think you are, and there's a long way to go, and you need to press on. Some believers want to be godly, but they're overwhelmed and they're confused. I was talking to a person in our church yesterday who's in the midst of a really tough situation, and she wants so badly to be godly. But she said, there's so many, I'm, I'm angry, I'm frustrated to such a degree that I, I can't even relate to God.

I want to relate to God, but I'm so frustrated and angry. And so I was happy to tell her, listen, we'll, we'll set you up with one of the pastors to unpack what's going on and figure out what's going on in your heart so that you can, can be godly in this situation as you want to be. Sometimes believers, Turn away from godliness into outright sin. And they need pastors to prescribe and teach godliness to them, to show them the prophet of godliness and the God that they can be drinking from and living for rather than the broken cisterns of this world, so.

The thing is, it'd be nice if in pastoring if God told me, Hey Milton, being a pastor of Cornerstone, take the first month to preach a series on godliness. After that, everyone's going to be godly perpetually for the rest of their life. And then after that you can focus on other things like ministry to others or whatever. But just a passage like this informs me that no.

Given the congregation here at Cornerstone, you're going to have to always repeatedly be prescribing and teaching godliness, because they're going to need these reminders all the time. And by the way, I need those as well. Now, look at what Paul says in verse 12. I want to tie the very beginning of verse 12 to verse 11, because, because it relates.

Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, Timothy is probably like a 35 year old guy. and by the way, think about Timothy's situation, who founded the Ephesian Church? Paul, and how long was he there? Anyone know?

But It's 1 more than 21 less than 4. Good, good. there for 3 years. So imagine having the apostle Paul as your pastor, a guy's probably in his 50s.

he knew his Bible well, in fact, God gave him a Bible, just, when he spoke, it's inspired literature and when he writes, it's, it's scripture. And not only that, he's one of the apostles. on top of that, he's planted a ton of churches already, a seasoned veteran in the ministry who suffered greatly for the cause of Christ. In addition to that, Jesus has made personal appearance appearances to Paul on the day of his conversion, and then even after that at times would just make a special appearance to deliver Paul a message.

And on one occasion Jesus even took Paul up in the third heaven to show Paul stuff that he wasn't even allowed to tell the rest of us about. All right, so imagine having this guy as your pastor. And then he leaves and at some point later, Paul sends this 35-year-old somewhat shy, easily intimidated young man, comparatively Timothy, to be the pastor essentially or the overseer of the Ephesian congregations. How would you handle that?

I want you to think about that. It would be difficult to not compare, right? And imagine being an elder and man, you were led to the Lord by Paul. You were discipled by him.

You were used to responding to his leadership. You had so much respect for him and now he's gone and here's this 35-year-old guy who's saying, Hey elders, I've got a vision, and, and, here's my vision for what I want us to do and he's just not saying it the way Paul does. He's not. quite as knowledgeable as the apostle Paul was, and it's just, it'd be hard in your mind to not make those comparisons, and then to end up thinking little of what Timothy is saying on account of the fact that he's not as old, not as mature, not as seasoned as the apostle Paul.

And so Paul's telling Timothy, prescribe and teach these things regarding godliness. And then Paul's imagining, I know as Timothy is going to do this, I know that there will be people who look down on him, who despise him, not in the sense of hate him, but they think little of him on account of his age. So Paul says in verse 12, Let no one look down on your youthfulness. I want you to prescribe and teach these things, and I don't want you to let anyone.

think lightly of what you're saying about godliness on account of the fact that you may be younger than I am, younger than they are, or not quite as mature and sophisticated as I or someone else might be in our ministry. Don't let anyone look down on you on account of your youthfulness. Now this word for youthfulness would speak of anyone who was under the age of 40, roughly. So technically a 35-year-old person would be referred to.

As a youth, according to this Greek word, so even though 35 seems like a fully grown man, it was still a youth, and so Timothy would not get all of the respect that he should have received on account of the fact that he was in his 30s rather than beyond. I want to take just a few minutes if I can to just make a few points from this. You see this on the screen. Number one.

You want to learn from this to never look down on someone younger than you. Don't ever despise or think little of what someone is saying or the degree to which God might be trying to use them in your life on account of the fact that they're younger than you are. Some of the most amazing lessons I've learned from my children who are like 25 years younger than me, and I'm very aware in those moments, like, OK, I see what you're doing, Lord. You You had something to show me and you chose my daughter to pass this on to me and I just, I love the way God's economy works.

So don't ever look down on someone or the contribution they can make on account of the fact that they're younger than you. Secondly, don't ever look down on someone younger than the person you would prefer be ministering to you. This is especially a challenge for someone who, well, like here at Cornerstone, Jim Brown was the founding pastor of Cornerstone. I think he was in his 50s when he left and seasoned, mature in the ministry, and then he left after 10 years, and then I came.

I was fresh out of seminary. I was 27 years old, and the elders were like, You're the guy, and I'm like, I don't think so. And, and they're like, No, we think you are, and And I said to them, I said, if you guys will be patient with me and give me room to grow, I'll do this. But I'm sure they never really gave any indication of this, but I'm sure that there were moments where they're like, Man, he's just not quite doing this exactly right, and we're going from a 55 year old to a 27-year-old.

When you're in situations like that. You want to be careful that if you're accustomed to being ministered to by someone more mature, seasoned, or older, and suddenly that person is no longer there and there's someone in their place that is younger. You want to make sure that you don't disrespect them on account of the fact that they're younger than the person you would prefer to be in that spot, ministering to you. And then also, I want to give a challenge to the kids.

So, any of the kids here, please listen up and listen carefully to what I'm going to say. One of the things you can learn from this is don't even look down on yourself because of your youthfulness. Sometimes a child can despise himself or herself or the contribution, think little of the contribution they can make on account of the fact that they're younger than they think they should be before they can make a valuable contribution. You want to be careful to not do that.

You don't have to wait till you're older to make a great contribution in the lives of adults. You can do that now. In fact, a couple weeks ago, I had an adult in our church. Who was doing something here on the church property and there was a 12 year old girl who was watching him trying to handle the things and he noticed her out of the corner of his eye just watching him and eventually she said to him, can, can you use some help?

And he was like, oh yes. And so he told her what to do and she helped him with what he was doing. That adult man was so impacted by the kindness of this 12-year-old that he went home. He told his family about how blessed he was by the kindness of this child, and then when I saw this guy two days later, he was raving to me about how blessed he was by the kindness of this child.

And as I listened to him sharing that, I was thinking if a 35-year-old or 40-year-old guy said, Hey, you need a hand. He wouldn't be going home raving to his family about how blessed he was, probably not. He wouldn't be coming to me saying, you're not going to believe what happened. And I was so blessed by this.

and so I want to say to you kids, That you actually have a special power that a lot of times adults don't have, you can bless in a unique way. When you do something like that, it often means more than if an adult were to do something like that, and it can bless someone. Even more than if an adult were to do the same thing. you adults know this is true.

How many of you have had a child like really bless you by something they said, something they did in some way that that seemed to bless you more than if an adult had done exactly that same thing? Raise your hand. All right, kids, be encouraged by that. Just going up to an adult, giving them a hug, and maybe expressing thanks to them, writing a note of appreciation.

offering to help in some way, just giving a smile, asking them how they're doing, how can I pray for you, or I prayed for you this week, letting them know that. there's countless ways that for some reason. Coming from you, it can often mean even more than that same thing coming from an adult. So in your care group setting and in any other setting, don't, don't ever look down on the contribution that you can make even into the lives of adults, if you're just faithful to let God use you.

But nonetheless, back to what we're talking about this morning. Paul is telling Timothy, prescribe and teach these things continuously. And Timothy, don't let anyone look down on your youthfulness who thinks little of the content of what you're saying simply because you are younger than they are, or you're younger than the person that they would prefer to be in the position that you are in. So prescribe and teach godliness and don't let yourself be disregarded.

That leads right to the second job that you need for your pastors to do that Paul wants Timothy to do to help God's people towards godliness, and that is you need your pastors to be an example of godliness for you to follow. You need them to be an example of godliness. No one wants a pastor or an elder who prescribes and teaches godliness with his words, but then lives in an ungodly manner with his life. You don't want that.

In fact, that's extremely dangerous and does enormous damage to the cause of Christ. Just, I'll try to keep this real brief. When I was back in the early 80s, I went to a youth conference at a church where the pastors there, I really respected. I, I got their sermon tapes every week and listened to them and my dream was I want to, I want to learn to preach like these guys.

Now I look back and I'm like, what was I thinking? But then I was really pumped about, about these guys and went up to a youth conference and They were there speaking and, and, and preaching, and this particular youth pastor, it was a mega church at the time, about 10,000+ people, thousands of kids at this youth conference, and this youth pastor who was the keynote speaker, just, he, to this day, he's one of the most compelling communicators that I've ever heard in my life and just, he, he could move you in whatever direction he wanted to move you, and his messages, the content of them were always really good, and at the end of the conference, he grabbed his guitar and everyone was sad anyway that the conference was coming to an end, but with tears in his eyes, he sang this beautiful song about purity.

about godliness and the title of the song was I Dream, and he just sang this song seemingly from his heart of this is what I dream for all of you young people. And he sang over us, and some of the lyrics that I remember is this I dream, I dream of what you will be.

I dream, I dream that you would be clean. I dream that God's word would be your life's theme. I dream, and oh, he's crying. We're all crying like, man, this, I'm listening to that going, Man, I want to be pure.

I want to be holy. I want to be godly. I want to give my life to preaching the word like this man is. 2 years later found out that this man He had been involved in multiple sexual affairs with women in the church, multiple, not just one incident, multiple.

He ended up being asked to leave that church and amazingly became the pastor of another church. And after several years there, it came out he had been involved in multiple affairs with women at this second church, and to my knowledge, this man is out of the ministry today. This is a man who prescribed and taught godliness, and then lived the opposite. And it was devastating to me when I received the word of the immorality of this man and who knows the damage.

that it has done in the lives and the hearts of people. Paul doesn't want, God doesn't want pastors who prescribe and teach godliness, but who don't themselves pursue godliness and model it. Paul would say, Timothy, you want to know how to earn capital with the people that are looking down on you because of your youthfulness. Here's how to do it, not by getting in their face and rebuking them for the fact that they don't think highly of you, look what he says, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.

Be an example. I want you to help people to godliness. And to do that, you need to prescribe and teach godliness. But also, you need to be an example of godliness so that they hear your words, see your life, they match up.

They're not just hearing about godliness, but they're seeing godliness on display. And that combination is a powerful. Combination. In fact, one writer says, example is the most powerful rhetoric.

Example is the most powerful rhetoric. If you're trying to figure out how do I say something to my kids or to someone I'm ministering to, to make godliness compelling to them, What do I say? What are exactly the right words? That's actually not a bad thing to pursue.

But the most powerful rhetoric is your example before them. What example? Look what he says, but rather, In speech and conduct, you can put those two words together because they're categories of human behavior in the category of speech and in the category of conduct, actual deeds and behavior. In the categories of speech and conduct.

Be an example of love, faith, and purity. So look at the bottom of the screen. What he's telling Timothy is be an example of love in your speech. Be an example of love in your conduct.

This word faith could be translated faithfulness, so you can go either way, but he's telling Timothy, I want you to be an example of faith in your speech. I want you to set an example of faith in your conduct that all would see that you are someone who trusts God and are faithful to Him both in your speech and your conduct. And then also, Set an example of purity in your speech. Set an example of purity in your conduct.

We need to be very careful as Christians that first of all that that we are sexually pure. That's what this word emphasizes, and that means that we push ourselves away from anything that is sexually impure, that we don't engage in sexually impure behavior. We renounce that. But we are also careful to renounce impure speech that we seek to be an example of godliness.

purity in the words that we speak. Sometimes there are things that we as Christians would never think to engage in because they are sinful, but we can make light of and we can joke about. That's, that's not being an example of purity in our speech. So Timothy, be an example of love in your speech and conduct.

Be an example of faith in your speech and conduct. Be an example of purity in your speech and conduct. All right, now I want to share one thing with you in verse 12 that's a great encouragement to me. And that gives perspective because you might think that all right, so I guess Timothy has arrived and he's the perfect example in all of these areas and Paul is like, Man, I just wish everyone could see how great Timothy is in all these areas so he can hold himself up.

As a beacon for everyone to follow. and so, hey, Timothy, what, I want you to be an example, a perfect example of purity and faith and love in your speech and conduct. That's not actually the idea here. In fact, On the screen we have it, and then I want you to look with me at verse 12 1 more time.

The word that is translated show yourself is the Greek word gennamai, which means to come into the state of being. It speaks of becoming, it's present tense denoting a continual process of becoming. So literally what Paul is saying is, Timothy, I want you rather in speech and conduct. in love and faith and purity to be continuously becoming an example of those who believe.

Paul is not looking at Timothy as a finished product, and I want to put that on display. Timothy is someone who is pure. He is a man of faith. He is a man of love, but he's not perfectly so.

He hasn't arrived at his final destination. And Paul is saying, yes, Timothy, I want you to be an example of faith and love and purity. But I also want you to be an example of becoming an example of continuously becoming more and more loving and faithful. And pure in your speech.

And conduct You guys see the difference there? If this were a call to Timothy to be an example of perfection, then I would not be in the ministry today. But when I hear Paul say to pastors, I want you to be continuously becoming an example. I'm like, what, by the grace of God, I can do that.

I can do that by God's grace. See, we can be an example of progress, an example of growth. See, you don't need examples of perfection. OK?

You already have that, that's Jesus, #1. Number 2, if, if one of your pastors was perfect, it would freak you out. and if, if every one of the elders was perfect, then a couple of questions for you. Who would model confession of sin?

If every elder had already arrived and was perfect in every way, shape, and form, then who would model repentance? How could they model repentance for you? If they've already arrived and they're done with their journey, they're perfect in all these ways. And that's all they were an example of, then how, how can they model growth?

And the Lord. So implied in this is the fact that Timothy is not perfect and arrived in every way, shape, and form. Paul's like, Timothy, I want you to grow in front of these people. I want them to see you grow and develop.

Now, for Timothy to be an example, Of this continuous becoming means that he needs to always be growing himself, but it also would indicate that Timothy needs to be somewhat transparent with the people that are observing him, being transparent about his weaknesses, being transparent. About sin, and I know there's extremes, and I'm not talking about the extremes. I don't want you to go to the extreme and then use that to discount the validity of what I'm saying, but that there is a level of transparency, transparency about weaknesses and about sin and about where Timothy is on his journey, about where he's been and where God has brought him to now so that people see progress and then even where he is now, where are the weaknesses, where are the issues, and that he's transparent about those things and And sharing, this is what I'm doing.

This is what I'm praying for God to do in my life to grow me.

And then, and then they watch Timothy over the weeks and months ahead become someone different than he was a few months ago. They see a man on a journey, a man who is becoming daily more and more godly. in this way, and for Timothy to do that means he's got to be in process, progressing in godliness, but it also means that he needs to have a level of transparency so that they can observe that and witness what God is doing in his life. And then also involved in this is that Timothy would need to live visibly in relationship with other people, not to where no one has anything to do with him, and then the curtains open up and he appears in the pulpit on Sunday morning.

He preaches and then steps back and the curtains close and no one sees him for another 7 days. If that's all it is, then he would never be able to be an example of continuously becoming. All right, Paul's saying to Timothy, I want you to live in relationship with other people so that in that context they can see you grow. in 2 Timothy, look at what he says.

This is a good word for all of us. He says in 2 Timothy 2:22, now flee from youthful lust and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. And a lot of times we focus on that. Yeah, flee from sin, pursue godliness, but then look at what he says next with those who Call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Literally, Timothy, flee from sin, pursue godliness, and do so in relationship with other believers that are calling on the Lord from a pure heart. Do this, Timothy, because you'll have much to gain from these brothers and sisters. But I also want you to live and pursue godliness in relationship with these brothers, so that they can see you. So they can see you grow in that pursuit of these things.

No matter how much they look up to you, they should see you as a man in pursuit, a man who has not arrived, and do so in relationship with them. Don't try to be a model of perfection, be a model of pursuit, a model of progress to where you can then say to God's people what Paul says in Philippians 4:9, where he says to the Philippians, the things which you have learned and received and heard, And seen in me practice these things that brings it all together, doesn't it? The things you've heard me teach and prescribe and the things you've actually seen in me.

Paul must have been living closely enough with them to where they could see these things in him.

He says, practice what you've heard. Practice what you've seen in me. I know you kids have blanks to fill in. So let me just give you the third blank, and we're going to pick up here next week.

Lord willing, the 3rd job of pastors is to give the scripture continuous attention and continuously administer it to you, the people of God, but we'll, we'll come back to this in And pick up here. Well, let me ask you about your head's, We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads. If you're here today and you've never put your trust in the living God, man, just a life of godliness, living under His care and relationship with Him is It's The profit of it is, is something that is phenomenal in this life, and then in the life to come, we can't even begin to imagine what awaits us.

I would encourage you to call upon this God for salvation. Ask him to make you a godly man. Put your trust in Him. Talk to me afterwards.

We'd love to speak with you, how you can come to know salvation through faith in Jesus. God, I just right now pray for all of us as a people. We've, we've got so far to go. We've got so much to learn and we thank you for your grace.

I thank you for the fact that you, you call us, not just as pastors, but even as parents and as brothers and sisters for one another. You, you call us to be examples. of continuously becoming And the lives of those we seek to lead and those we seek to bless. May we be a church in progress, and what we're progressing towards is godliness.

Help us as pastors to be champions of godliness who are Helping the people of God genuinely to be godly. Help us to pray faithfully to this end, to minister with this aim in mind in everything we say and do. And I thank you, Lord, for all the ways that you've used, not just our example in their life, but all the countless ways that you've used the example of these people and the lives of the pastors here to instruct us and to help us see the beauty of godliness. Oh, how much I've learned and all of us as pastors have learned from the precious souls that are here.

So thank you Lord for church, church life, the privilege of being a part of the household of God. To grow together in community with one another. Continue to teach us, Lord, as we open up your word week by week and see what you have for us, that we might be a godly church and experience the spiritual prosperity that comes from that godliness. Bless this offering as we give it to you also, Lord, and we ask these things in the name of Jesus.

And all God's people said,