Look Out for Wolves

I have been praying diligently over the past several months as to what I should be preaching before I retire. I've been seeking the Lord's face about what does the church need to hear from me before I go and I have very clear direction from the Lord, not a spoken voice or anything like that, but much like the prophets of the Old Testament would sometimes introduce their message with the burden of Jeremiah or the burden of Amos. God has just placed on my heart a pressing burden, passion to preach, first and second Timothy, two of the three pastoral epistles. And I feel and sense that as deeply as I have ever sensed anything in 43 years of ministry, that this is what I need to be preaching to you in these months. I believe as you prepare for the next pastor and as the search is beginning and ongoing, it would be good for us to sharpen our focus on what God says the church ought to be and particularly on what he says about the pastor and what and who he should be and how he should conduct his ministry. There are many who want to make the church after their own desires. There are many who want to shape the role of a pastor after their own desires. It is my passion to really focus once again on what God says the church ought to be and do what it's focus ought to be and what the focus and primary ministries of a pastor ought to be. So I'm entitling this series the church owners manual. It's not the title of today's message but it's the title of the entire series. The church owners manual. If you go buy a car you will get with that car an owners manual. Now in that owners manual you'll find a lot of weird stuff that you're probably not going to pay attention to but you'll find a lot of good stuff that will help you to understand how your car works and how you should maintain it and how you should treat your vehicle. Now you can do whatever you want with your car. You can choose to drive it, maintain it any way you see fit but if you do not read the owner's manual then you will probably be in deep trouble at some point and your car will not service you as efficiently as if you had followed the owner's manual. Well what we're going to look at really is the owner of the church Christ Himself who is the head of the church. He's the owner. This is the manual He has given us to know how to conduct ourselves in the church to know what the church should be doing and to know what the role of a pastor should be. So I want us to focus on these two letters. There are three pastoral epistles first, Timothy, second, Timothy and Titus. We're just going to take at least my intent at this point is to take first and second Timothy. So we begin this morning in first Timothy. These three epistles, these three letters from Paul were written to tell Timothy and Titus how to operate the church and how to conduct themselves as pastors. This is God's owner manual. This is what he says should be done. So I want us to focus on his design, not what we think is best, but on his design. Now I want to set a little qualifier here at the very beginning of this series of messages. When I talk about the role of a pastor, I'm talking specifically about the role of the senior pastor. Really in a sense that's the role that is envisioned in these letters to Timothy. Paul is writing to Timothy who will be in what we would call today, the senior pastor or lead pastor role in the church in Ephesus. The New Testament did not envision all of the specialization that we have in pastoral roles today. That's needed in order for the church to function in the culture in which we operate. But the New Testament doesn't really envision all of those kinds of breakdowns and not all of the cultural things that we face are addressed in the pastoral epistles. For instance, Paul is not going to tell us what style of music to use in our worship. He's not going to tell us how to organize our Sunday schools or Bible fellowships or even which one we should call them. He's not going to get to that, but the foundational basic principles are here. And when he addresses the role of a pastor, he's looking at the the one who is in the pulpit with the primary responsibility to care for the flock and shepherd the flock through the ministry of the word. Now we have several pastors on our staff. So I want to explain that some of the things I'm going to say about the expectation for a pastor is not applicable to some of the other men on staff. When Paul is writing this, he's looking specifically at the preaching, teaching, lead pastor, what are we going to call him, the one who's responsible to be in the pulpit, ministering the word of God. So when I say for instance as I hope to get to today that the pastor must be a theologian, that's not true of every pastor on staff. For instance, Pastor Nofsinger is hired for the express ministries of overseeing administrative responsibilities, particularly the building. And so he oversees the maintenance, the scheduling, and so forth of the facilities in a remarkable way. He also oversees all of the various music ministries. He also oversees our DMA fellowship. His role does not require him necessarily to be a theologian. Jim is very capable of opening the word, but his role does not require him to be a theologian. So when I say that I'm not talking about Jim, I'm not talking necessarily about Jim Simmons. Jim Simmons was hired 17 years ago to take some of the load of counseling and visitation off of me as the church was growing and had increased by a couple hundred folks per Sunday. The responsibilities of taking care of all of the counseling and all of the visitation were just getting overwhelming. So in order for me to be able to recognize who my family was and when I went home to say, oh yeah, I do have three daughters. I couldn't remember the third one being born. So to keep that from happening, we hired Jim Simmons and his responsibilities were primarily in the roles of providing pastoral care. He's the one who's going to do the bulk of the visitation, the bulk of the counseling. So his responsibilities does not necessarily require that he be the theologian in the church. So what I'm going to say about that doesn't necessarily apply to him. He has other passions that are very helpful and beneficial to this church and he's engaged himself in and produced ministries that are just amazing. But it's not necessarily his role to be the theologian. We have youth pastor, children's pastor, and they are probably more involved in handling the word. So what I'm going to say applies to them a little bit more than it does to maybe the two Jims and I have affectionately referred to the three James we have as first, second, and third James. But it doesn't apply as much to Jim and Jim, first James and second James, as it does to third James and Dan. But you get my point. What I'm going to say is primarily directed to this role of the senior pastor, the lead pastor, and the reason why I feel such a passion and burden to preach these letters is because you as a church, we as a church are in a position where we're looking for the next senior pastor. I want us to make sure that we have the right focus, that we understand what the Bible says because there's so many ideas. What do we want? Who do we want? What do we want him to be like? Well let's first of all start with this. Now this is this is the key. This is the foundation. This is the basics right here. And so that's what I want to do in these next 20 months. It's a long farewell discourse. These are like my closing words. It's a reason I feel so passionate about them and you might be thinking why don't you wait to your last Sunday? Well there's no way I could do first and second Timothy the last Sunday. It may take me 20 months if I finish before then I'll find some other closing words to give but this is the passion of my heart and the burden of my heart right now. I am not going to rush through these two books. In fact in the first service and I hope I can remember where I stopped. I didn't get through the message and so I'm going to try to do that again this time if I remember where that was so that I can start in the same place in both services next time but I'm not going to rush through this. This is too important for us just to kind of slide over. I want us to take our time and digest it and invite the teaching of these two letters so that we have this deep in our souls as we progress through these next months. Paul writes the first letter to Timothy. Timothy was a special special person to Paul. It was on his first missionary journey as he's traveling through what we know today as Turkey was known then as Asia Minor that he came to a city called Lystra and in that city he met this young man probably a teenager at that time. He had a Greek father and a Jewish mother which probably means his father was not a believer. His mother was a member of the synagogue where Paul started his ministry eventually came to know the Lord and Timothy also accepted Christ under Paul's ministry. Few years later when Paul comes through on his second missionary journey he takes Timothy with him. He is so impressed with how this young man has grown. He takes him with him on this second missionary trip and they got very close. Timothy was truly his son in the faith and the sense that he had come to know Christ through Paul's ministry but their hearts were so much alike in how they would minister and serve the Lord. After the book of Acts, when the book of Acts is finished Paul evidently was released from the imprisonment in Rome where he is in Acts 28 and when he is released from prison he makes a fourth missionary journey that is referenced a few times in some of the later epistles of Paul and it evidently is on that journey that he writes to Timothy and says I have asked you to stay in Ephesus as the pastor of the church in Ephesus and I'm writing this letter and he will write the second one also so that you know how to conduct yourself in the church at Ephesus. In fact we know that's exactly what the purpose of this letter was. Look at chapter 3 and verse 14 of 1 Timothy. 3:14 says although I hope to come to you soon I am writing you these instructions so that if I am delayed you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household which is the church of the living God the pillar and foundation of the truth and we'll get to that passage and unpack all of those descriptions of the church when we get there but I just want you to understand this is why Paul wrote this letter this is what he's saying to Timothy. Timothy you are in Ephesus I'm writing to you so that you as the lead pastor can help the church understand how the church ought to be conducted how people ought to conduct themselves in the local church and that includes you Timothy how you're supposed to conduct your ministry and so there are various instructions given about the church. Chapter 1 there is instruction about doctrine. Chapter 2 there is instruction about the worship of the church. In chapter 3 there is instruction about the leaders of the church. In chapter 4 there is instruction about some of the dangers that Timothy will face in the ministry of the church and then in chapter 5 and 6 Paul just summarizes various duties that he will encounter as a pastor like how do you care for hurting widows in the church and things like that just a miscellaneous duties that as a pastor he will need to take care of but his purpose is to help and see how he is to conduct himself in the Lord's house in God's church and how the church is to conduct its ministry. I want to turn our attention to the opening verses of 1 Timothy. Verse 1 of chapter 1 Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. Notice Paul begins by stressing his authority. He wants Timothy to know that what I'm saying to you is not just a suggestion. This is not just some church growth idea that somebody came up with that might work. This is from the apostle Paul. This is from the man who was especially chosen by God apart from the other apostles. Paul himself admits in 1 Corinthians 15 that he was like one born out of due season like one born early or late he's not with the other apostles in the sense that he didn't walk with the Lord Jesus on this earth and wasn't directly commissioned by him while Christ was on the earth but Paul was specifically chosen to be an apostle the last of the apostles actually and so he brings that authority to bear on what he's going to say. Timothy I want you to know this is not just something this is not a suggestion for you to think about this is coming from the one whom God especially chose as an apostle of Christ Jesus and this is by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope. I mean that puts some seriousness to this challenge in 1 Timothy. This is where it's coming from, from the one who's been specially chosen by God the Father by Christ Jesus to be an apostle. Now notice his affectionate address to Timothy verse 2 to Timothy my true son in the faith. You see Timothy was actually Paul's son, not biologically but spiritually a son in the faith. Paul had evidently won him to the Lord and had nurtured him and mentored him and discipled him and helped him to grow. He was like a child to Paul but in a spiritual realm. He had helped him to grow as a servant of God and so he says to Timothy my true son in the faith and then he gives him this blessing three things that Timothy will need in his ministry in Ephesus grace mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord Timothy will need all three of those things he will need grace he will need the grace of God the sustaining grace of God the enabling grace of God he will need to understand and communicate God's grace as he ministers he will also need mercy. Timothy will need to understand that he is the object of God's mercy of God's help and forgiveness and and God's enablement and that he then must communicate that same mercy and care in his ministry and then he will need peace he will need to be able to minister from a position of peace because just like everybody else maybe a shocker to you but just like everybody else pastors have problems really yes we do we have our own personal issues we struggle with physical problems family problems we have the same difficulties everybody else faces and so we need God's mercy and grace to deal with those but we also need his peace to be able to continue to minister when life is buffeting us just like it does you to be able to still focus on what God has given us to do so he prays these three things from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord grace mercy and peace Timothy will need them all. Now the rest of chapter one is given to this instruction about doctrine in verses one through eleven Paul is going to warn Timothy about false teaching false doctrine and about how to counter that in verses 12 to 17 he will give his own Paul will give his own personal testimony of his own salvation and what God did for him before in verses 18 through 20 giving Timothy a charge to keep the doctrinal truth that has been given to him as a deposit and and be a good steward of what God is giving him what I want us to focus on this morning is at least the first couple verses in that section of verses one through eleven or three through eleven that have to do with warning about false teaching Paul is going to warn him about heresy about false teaching and it's not the first time he's done this by the way. In Acts chapter 20 Paul was on his way to Jerusalem and he's at a seaport that is close to Ephesus and so he calls the elders the church leaders of the church of Ephesus out to meet him and he says probably the last time I'll ever see you so I'm gonna leave these departing words with you and he describes a lot of things to them about their ministry but this is part of what he says in in Acts chapter 20 in verse 25 he says now I know that that none of you among who have gone up preaching the kingdom of God will ever see me again therefore I declare to you today that I'm innocent of the blood of any of you for I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Now listen to this. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers be shepherds of the church of God which he bought with his own blood I know that after I leave savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them so be on your guard remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. Now this is early on this is before Timothy is there he's already warning the leaders of the church at Ephesus a significant church a church where Paul ministered for three years giving them sound teaching he warned them that wolves would come in and attack the flock and bring destructive heresies and just false teachings. So he's warned them about this before. So when he gets to writing Timothy the very first thing he says to Timothy is I have left you in Ephesus to deal with this issue of false teaching and that's how he starts the book I mean most of Paul's epistles have some kind of commendation and thoughts about how I pray for you and everything but Paul's getting right to the point here. There's none of that with Timothy. He just says I want to greet you you'll need grace mercy and peace now here it is Timothy the reason I left you there was to deal with false teaching so that is your primary responsibility. In urging Timothy to look out for heresy Paul mentions three signs to watch for we're just gonna deal with the first one this morning but there are three signs in verses three through eleven as to what to look out for with this heresy with these wolves that may come in and try to bring false teaching in. The first sign to watch for is a departure from sound teaching, a departure from sound teaching look at it in verses three and four- as I urged you when I went into Macedonia stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God's work which is by faith. Paul will later urge Timothy not to depart from the faith to guard like a treasure the deposit that God is giving of the the sound doctrine that Paul has taught. He's to guard that with his life but now he's saying I want you to to warn and guard the church against the encroachment of false teaching so a departure from sound teaching is the first thing that will be a problem. Now Paul is gonna describe this departure from sound teaching in three ways. You saw it there in verses three and four. Let's unpack that a little bit let's see what he's talking about there the first element of this departure from sound teaching is quite literally false doctrine you see it in verse three I urge you when I went into Macedonia stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer so the first element of this departure is false doctrine and Timothy is left there to deal with this. Evidently those who were introducing false doctrine were leaders in the church they were maybe elders in the church maybe other pastors in the church it may be the reason why Paul has such an emphasis in the pastoral epistles on making sure your elders are qualified and he'll address that in chapter three with Timothy. Make sure they're well qualified and they meet these qualifications between first Timothy and Titus he mentions twenty five qualifications such a heavy emphasis on that maybe because these false teachers were not really qualified to be in the position they were in so he urges him you deal with this Timothy. Those who are bringing in false teaching. It's clear that these people occupied positions as teachers in the church. Look down at verse seven he says they want to be teachers of the law but they do not know what they're talking about or what they so confidently affirm so it's obvious these people are teachers in the church maybe elders maybe other pastors but Timothy as the senior pastor or the lead pastor of the flock the one who is charged by Paul to guard the flock is responsible to make sure there's no false teaching in the church. Now as as we think as a church about what a senior pastor is to be and do this is a key. The preaching teaching pastor call it what you will lead pastor senior pastor whatever is responsible to set the tone for teaching in the church. That requires two things it requires that he first of all teach the word of God teach pure doctrine so that the flock is aware of what the truth is but it is also important in dealing with false doctrine that he be able to to spot false teaching and to make sure that it doesn't spread in the church . So whatever that requires the senior pastor is responsible for whatever is taught in the church. Now in church this size that's not an easy task it's one that's very difficult to keep up with so it requires that you have people who you can trust in various responsibilities of teaching the word and that you open yourself up as a senior pastor to being a sounding board for what they are teaching for questions they may have because it is my responsibility and the responsibility of whoever the next senior pastor will be to set the tone for the teaching of the church I remember someone saying to me one time they were moving to another area and they said they were a little upset about the fact that we're in a Bible fellowship and that a question came up that they weren't sure how to answer and someone in the Bible fellowship said well let's check and see what Pastor John says and this person was upset by that. Can't those teachers handle themselves? Why should they have to go to to you to find out what is right? Well certainly I am not the depository of all truth and I do not know all the answers but it is the responsibility of the senior pastor to be the one who sets the tone for the teaching of the church that's exactly what Paul's telling Timothy to do you have the responsibility Timothy to make sure that what is being taught is biblical so that means you've got to teach truth you've got to have a good grasp of truth and you've got to be able to know how to recognize error even small shades of it that could lead down a wrong path Timothy you've got to be able to spot false doctrine and I'm leaving you there for this reason I mean this is the primary reason that Paul starts with why is leaving Timothy there which indicates to me it is a primary responsibility of the senior pastor to be the one who's responsible for what is taught in the church. But there's another element of this departure from sound teaching that he needs to address. I'm gonna call it myths and wild symbolism. It's found in verse four he's to command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer that's verse three- now four or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies I'm gonna phrase that just a little differently but I think you'll see that it's in line with what Paul's saying here as an explanation of it. We're talking about myths and wild symbolism that you somehow get out of the Bible one of the elements of false teaching or teaching that could lead someone down a wrong path is dealing with myths fabled stories that are concocted out of thin air and loosely based on scripture or endless genealogies he says. What in the world is that talking about? Well it was a factor in Jewish teaching in the first century and evidently some other people in the church were enamored by it and that is they would go back to the genealogies of the Old Testament. You know those passages like Genesis 5 and the first 10 chapters or so of First Chronicles. So and so beget so and so and so and so beget so and so. So just lists of names basically and Jewish teachers and evidently some people in the church were doing this too they would take those names and start spinning off these wild fables and stories of exploits that they did not based on scripture at all but it was it made for great preaching. Wow it's so exciting, got a lot of amens but it wasn't founded in the scriptures and there is a lot of that kind of feeble myth wild symbolism being pulled out of places in scripture that still happens today. And the senior pastor has to be the one who sniffs that out and who says that can't happen in this church. I love what Kent Hughes in his excellent commentary on the Pastoral Epistles says about this passage he begins by quoting John Stott whose commentary I also have on this this book he says John Stott says there were certainly speculators they treated the law that is the Old Testament as a happy hunting ground for their speculations I love the way he says that and then Hughes goes on to explain it this way- says it was not so much that they set out to be heretical they simply wanted to go deeper into the scriptures they wanted to go beyond the simple explanations of Paul by giving people and events symbolic meanings. Simple stories would reveal fantastic truths. They did not set out to abandon the gospel doctrine that salvation is by faith alone but in fact the progressive additions smothered the gospel and he goes on to talk about how appealing that is to people. The style and approach is timeless it is spoken softly with a distant heavenly look in the moist eye. What you believe is good it's a good beginning point but there is more that those of us who have paid the price of meditation and study can reveal to you. Whenever I hear something like that, I've got all kinds of buzzers going off in my heart and mind because that approach is the same idea Paul's talking about. Now I just want you to know nobody in all of church history has ever seen this in this passage but through deep meditation and study I have discovered... Oh come on give me a break you mean Martin Luther never saw this John Knox never saw this come on he goes on to describe how some of this happens today and it does he gives an example that I remember back from my early years of ministry in the 70s people would take the mark of the beast the number of the antichrist 666 and they would try to figure out by assigning numerical values to the letters and people's names who the antichrist might be and some people said well it's Caesar some people said it was Napoleon some people said it's Hitler that was very popular in World War II some people said it was Stalin there were many who said it was Mussolini and I've read how they took the letters of his name and gave them numerical values and it all added up to 666. You know what was the common one back in the 70s when I first started into ministry? Henry Kissinger! Some of you are blank. You know remember he was he was the Secretary of State back in the day and did a lot of globe trotting and a lot of people were suspicious of him in the Christian community of being a one-world organizer and so they took his name and the letters of his name and applied numerical values and it came up 666. Oh he's the antichrist give me a break! A more recent one has been the book entitled the Bible code which was a best-seller so interpretation of the Old Testament that claims that an Israeli mathematician Dr Elijah Hugh Rips has decoded (now there's a dangerous word- decoded the Bible) and the Bible is written in a secret code. Really he's decoded the Bible with a computer formula unlocking 3,000 year old prophecies in other words he took the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and found certain patterns that he through his computer he thought the Bible was prophesying events such as the Kennedy assassination the election of Bill Clinton the Holocaust the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima the moon landing the collision of a comet with Jupiter. Really? Are you serious? You mean God intended the Bible to be a secret code and not a revelation of who he is and his plan and purpose for mankind? That's a bunch of garbage but it's the kind of thing that sells books and gets all kinds of people excited. Someone gave me a book recently to look at and thankfully he was a little suspicious of it and wondered about it and wanted me to read it so I did and I'm gonna offend some of you here this morning, but what are you gonna do? Fire me? It was a book written by Jonathan Khan called the Harbinger some of you read it some of you really like it. I don't know a whole lot about Jonathan Khan I've read about him and his ministry in New Jersey a Messianic Jew and so forth and I think he's a good-hearted man who has a probably a very good ministry but that book was garbage. You know why? He took one verse out of Isaiah chapter 9 verse 10 which describes in context a prophecy of an attack on Jerusalem that they had not paid attention to and not recognized was God's judgment. It was a minor attack by other nations around them and because they did not listen to God's voice of judgment he was going to send a larger invading army which would end up taking them into captivity and from that one verse very cleverly very ingeniously I thought- the book was well written it was intriguing it kind of sucked me in but he mishandled that verse as the foundation of the book and so all the rest of it was wrong. What he tried to do was take the elements of that verse and apply them in a very ingenious way to what happened on 9-11 and said that that verse was a prophecy of what happened in America and how America would respond in the next few years and there were a lot of amazing coincidences and events that seemed to parallel what he was talking about. A lot of what he was taking from Isaiah was out of context and was twisted to fit the scheme of what happened in America but that's the kind of thing that everybody gets excited about. Paul calls it myths and endless genealogies taking a little piece of scripture and spinning off your own ideas to get some wild fantastic symbolism out of this verse or this passage and that's what Paul is saying. Timothy you need to recognize this stuff is going to happen in the church it is happening and you need to, to quote dear old Barney Fife- nip it in the bud. That's your job Timothy you need to recognize myths and endless genealogies. Now my friend that's part of the job of the pastor I certainly do not expect nor would it be reasonable appropriate to expect that everyone in the congregation who gets the buzz about this brand new book all this new thing on the internet or this new preacher on TV how wonderful this is I would not it would not be reasonable to expect that you've had the opportunity to have the kind of theological background and training that would equip you to recognize what's going on there but that is the job of the senior pastor. It's part of his role it's a primary role according to what Paul tells Timothy it's the reason I left you in Ephesus. You've got to straighten out this stuff that's going on by way of false doctrine and myths and wild symbolism. But there's one other element of this departure from sound teaching and that is focusing on needless controversies and really this is the result of the other two. Whenever there is false doctrine and myths and wild symbolism being spun off of Bible verses then you're gonna have needless controversies everybody's gonna start arguing their points and debating with one another about is America in prophecy where's America in the Bible and so forth. But notice what Paul says about this. He says in verse four devote themselves to myths and genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God's work which is by faith. What he's saying is you get involved in all these wild things that are happening doctrinally and get involved in them and excited about them what you end up doing is spending all your time debating those little issues of teaching rather than doing what God told us to do- God's work. And by the way the word for work here's a word which means God's ordering of things. Exactly what he's writing Timothy about what the church is to be and do and we get our eyes off of the goal of doing the work of God which is to reach the lost with the gospel and to build up believers to be better evangelists and servants of God to impact our world. That's our mission-love grow serve- but when you get involved on wow did you know America's in Isaiah 19 and 9 11 is in Isaiah 19 and you get all caught up in the controversies and details of that you forget all about reaching the lost and you forget all about building up believers in the true teaching of the word of God. It's the job of the senior pastor to keep that focus on the main work of the ministry. That's what he's saying. It is your job Timothy to make sure the church doesn't go off in those directions and that's why the senior pastor must be a theologian by that I mean he must know the Bible he must be able to teach the Bible and he must be able to root out and rebuke false teaching it's clear that that's what Paul is going to communicate over and over and over again in these chapters of 1st and 2nd Timothy now again I'm not saying that every pastor on staff is charged with that responsibility the other pastors are doing things that free me to be able to focus on this kind of thing but the senior pastor must be a theologian.