Let us read that passage together this morning. Turn to 1 Timothy 4: 1-10.
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God. 6 In 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. 7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline 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. 9 It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. 10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.
An Excellent Christian for Jesus Christ
What makes a good minister of Jesus Christ? How do we evaluate the criteria say, of a good leader? Or a good pastor? Or in general, how do we evaluate say, a good Christian? I’m afraid we so often evaluate what is good on the basis of the wrong criteria. Just because say, one church is 3000 strong; and another is only say 50, is that the basis how we evaluate what is good – the size! If the church is big in numbers, your minister or your leader must be good ! Or we evaluate them in their popularity, or their educational background or the number of books they have written or the effective system they implement in the church cell group system! Do we judge what is good by our giving; do we judge what is good by just our loyal attendance; do we judge what is good by our church ministries we are involved in? While such things may have some significance, none of these are biblically valid criteria for assessing the man and women of God. The criteria are found in our reading this morning.
Notice in V6, you will be a good servant, or in the NIV a good minister of Jesus Christ. The word good could also be translated noble, admirable, excellent….. and the word minister, ( diakonos ) is used technically for the office of deacons but it is more general usage of anyone who serves in any ministry. That means all of us in some capacity. The word is important because the word servant of someone who serves has another word used frequently by Paul and that is doulos which often relates to a slave, or the idea of submission. A slave has no ownership. A slave cannot choose, a slave has no choice; Paul uses the word Diakonos which is found here has the idea of usefulness; someone who serves Christ with excellence and useful to the calling of Christ.
So no 1, an excellent minister of Jesus Christ must first of all, above all else, be an excellent servant.
Set a standard of excellence, set a standard of devotion, set a standard of conduct, set an example for others to follow. If you are an elder, a deacon, or a cell group leader, or a head of a ministry; set a standard of excellence for people to look up to; and by doing so, at least in this context, people under you will be delivered from heresies, you will be delivered from what is wrong and false; instead you are focus on the positive truth that makes them spiritually strong. You are strong so that they can be strong. It’s a very strong message that the spirit of the Lord is pointing out to those who are in charge, any whatever capacity you are in today. You know who you are in your respective ministry.
Go for excellence! Because by doing that, the people under you who are following you will not stray to what is false which comes to my second point.
Secondly, an excellent minister warns his people from error.
Notice again in V6, in pointing out this things to the brethren. The word pointing out literally means you lay before your
brothers and sisters through persuasion and reminders. It’s a continuous tense, in others words Timothy must continually warns, continually caution, continually inform and advise his people in Ephesus about dangers and false teaching. Paul was very concern in this area of false teachers among the brethren in Ephesus. Turn if you may to Acts 20:29. Here the apostle Paul warned the Ephesian elders in V29 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. You see the heart of Paul here? Come back to 1 Timothy 4:6 again. In pointing these things…. what are “these things”? These things are those Paul warned of in V1-5. Timothy is to warn of the danger of unbiblical, demonic doctrines taught by false teachers. Now we do not have the time to go through it all but in brief the church was being infiltrated by the agents of Satan being among leaders and teachers. False teachers are not going tell you I am false, they will tell you that I am one of you and they lay hidden in their respective roles ready to strike, Today Satan spends a lot of his time, not in the red light district, or in the bars or in the casino, that already is being taken care of, he spends a great deal of his time, believe it or not; in the church. Satan and his agents have concocted all manner of lying theologies to confuse and deceive. They are found today in sophisticated church programs, professors, religious teachers, pastors, clever writers and clever speakers. They are the victim of demonic spirits, sharing and telling lies from the depths of hell itself; and you have got to discern these things. All the apostles tells the same warnings in their letters..turn to 2 John 1V7 7 I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. 9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. 11 Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work. Warnings and warnings and more warnings from the new testament writers. The church must wake up to the dangers of demonic spirits that is now lurking within us. An excellent ministers of Jesus Christ warns its people of error. They don’t keep still and do nothing; or worse still treat things like nothing is happening. I remember falling inside a manhold while riding on a motorbike. If someone were to inform me, or there was a signpost to say danger; I would not have fallen inside. Same thing, an excellent minister warns, informs, advice and caution people from error.
Thirdly, and we are still in V6 . In V6 constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.
No 3 An excellent minister of Christ is an expert student of scripture.
Excellent Student of Scripture
This is a very, very important quality in the ministry of the church. The saddest part of church life as I see through the years is how pulpit speakers became communicators rather than preachers of the word. People preferred contemporary preaching, stories, experiential testimonies, pictorial presentation with just a minimal commitment to the study of scripture. Before time it will weaken the membership. Sometime ago I was given a list of topics to speak in a church, and all of the topics were contemporary in nature; eg how to have a balance family life; how to use your money wisely; how to be a good citizen, how to make the most of your investment…. I called the deacon and said, how is it that there is no real preaching of the word; or even the gospel truth; he said well the leadership decided that the people can’t comprehend scriptural teachings, and people won’t come, so we decided to change and dwell on topics they want to hear instead. How sad ! The result is : these weak sermons would fall on harden hearts that has little impact. Are you a student of scripture ? Do you love the scriptures ? O I pray we will hold dearly the word of God close to our heart and spend the rest of our lives as God allows, to study and study and study the scriptures. The leaders of the 17th century English puritans like John Owen, Richard Baxter, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas brooks were not only pastors, they were above all student of scripture, not merely communicators, administrators and counsellors; they were above all of that, an expert student of scripture who love the scriptures dearly. William Tyndale, the 16th century English reformer and bible translator, just before he was martyred in prison, he wrote a letter to the governor as a last request, “Sir, may I have a warmer cap, a candle, a piece of cloth to patch my trousers.. but above all, I beseech and entreat your clemency, to be urgent with the warden that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew bible, Hebrew grammar and Hebrew dictionary, that I may spend time with that in study”. Imagine, he loved the scripture to the end; he wished to study the scriptures until his final hours.
Paul called Timothy to be an expert student of scripture. The word constantly nourished is a present tense participle, in other words, there is a continual experience of being nourished, and being nourished and being nourished by God’s word. An excellent minister of Jesus Christ must read the word, study it, meditate on it, master it and lived on it continuously. Dear friends, if i am speaking to you today and you have lost the desire and the love and the passion for God’s word, I urge you to rediscover your love for it. It is very easy to tell whether or not one loves the scriptures. One cannot give out what he does not take in. One cannot give when he has nothing to give. It is something you have to evaluate ourselves. Are we a student of scripture?
No 4 – an excellent minister avoids the influence of unholy teaching.
V7 have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. An excellent minister who is committed in the study of scriptures is usually uninterested in and unwilling to have anything to do with ungodly teaching. Have nothing to do with it… is a very very strong word from Paul… the translation could mean to outright reject and put away. And here Paul sarcastically describes them as fit only for old women. I don’t think Paul is trying to say something disrespectful. Culturally speaking, in those days, it is common that women were not usually allowed the educational opportunity like the men, so this phrase comes from such a situation. It expresses the common idea of something lacking in credibility and appeal only to the uneducated, and perhaps worst still appeals to senile old maids and matrons. There is not a single credibility in it, no educated people would want to hear it and the Ephesians members would have understood what Paul was trying to say.
Guard your minds
What Paul’s intention in doing this is purely simple? Guard your minds. Your mind is a precious thing. God expects those in ministry to have a pure mind, one that is completely saturated in God’s word. There is no place in our minds for foolish, silly myths. The excellent minister of Christ is focus, he maintains his convictions, he is clear in his mind, even though he is assaulted by all kinds of lies and deceit. He is stable, he can stand through the test of times. He is not tossed to and fro; He is not affected by the influence of unholy teaching.
No 5 – an excellent minister disciplines himself for godliness.
V7 – on the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Discipline here in this verse is used for the
Committed to discipline and training
Greeks for the term they use in gymnastics. It means to train; it means to exercise. The Greeks use this word that speaks of rigorous, strenuous, self-sacrificing training as what the athlete would do. How many of us would ever think of a Christian life like that? You know you go the gym, and you see a group of people, all sweating it rigorously collectively; some would be running; some would be walking rigorously; and they do that every day, disciplining themselves for the purposes of health and to get a better shape. Beloved, how many of us think of our Christian life like that? Our attitude must really change. It is a spiritual gymnasium where we are to exercise our life towards godliness. This is where we can tell who is fit and who is not? By looking at our spiritual shapes and sizes? Are we in good shape or not? An excellent minister discipline himself; trains himself; sacrifice himself, his time, in rigorous training. Why are we doing it? Paul says it is for the purposes of godliness. Friends, the key is godliness; the key to the heart and soul of a Christian and the aim of all these is godliness. During my university days, one Christian brother of mine was suddenly given a pornography picture as a prank joke by a group of friends; you know they shove in front of him, because they knew he was a Christian. He jumped up and cried out with a loud voice and covered his eyes with his hand as though he saw a ghost. He said later on : you know, it really hurts ! This man of God has discipline his mind unto godliness. Do we train ourselves vigorously unto godliness on purity, on what is good; on what is lovely…..???
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24 – do you not know that those who run in a race, all run, but only one receives a prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. The fear today as I foresee, is when the people of God lack the spiritual discipline; and this primary reason is why so many Christians are so weak. They fall into a comfort zone, they fall into laziness and finally they fall into sin. When we see how a person trains and push themselves over the limit in sports for a glory that cannot last; and they push themselves everyday, dieting themselves properly, making sure they are well nourished, ensuring their bodies are ready for the final sprint to glory; how much more when our spiritual training is for a glory to come that is eternal. Beloved, we discipline ourselves for godliness because of its eternal value.
Finally, V10 an excellent minister is committed to hard work.
Committed to Hard work
V10 For it is for this we labour and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of believers.
No one is saying that when we become believers in Christ, we will all be waiting and waiting till heaven comes. If that is our plan, we got it wrong. In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. For now, we just wait and wait till we die. NO. This ministry of excellence is not only looking toward heaven; it is an earthly task that demands hard work. We labour – a word meaning to work to the point of weariness and exhaustion; we strive – meaning we agonised; or we are to engage in a struggle. Hey you know, we are going to appear before Christ. You know that right? Turn quickly to 2 Corinthians 5:10.
So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Paul gives us a very, very important reason why we should be labouring and striving. We are going to meet him and we are going to give an account to him. Don’t we want to see all our rewards? Don’t we want to see his smile? Don’t we want to hear his words, well done, good and faithful servant?
The missionary to India, Henry Martyn wrote: Now let me burn out for God”. The missionary to the American Indians David Brainerd, because of his diligent hard work gave his whole life to the work of God that he was dead before he reached 30 years old. The point is, there are people out there who are labouring and striving for God to the point of exhaustion. Osward sanders wrote: if a man is unwilling to pay the price of fatigue, he will always be mediocre…. spiritually godliness always exacts a heavy toll on the whole man, the more effective the man is, the higher the price he has to pay. An excellent minster is committed to hard work. Not in the power of the flesh, but in the power of the spirit that indwells in. Paul says in Col 1:28 we admonish every man and teaching every men with all wisdom, that we may present every men complete in Christ. For this purpose I labour, striving according to the power which mightily works within me. Let us be excellent ministers that is committed to work hard, striving and labouring for our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
You know the great Olympic runner Michael Johnson sets a word record for the 200 & 400 meter race. To do so, he wrote, for some ten years he trained himself to cut a mere second or two every 1 year. He says as quote “ success is found in much smaller portions than most people realised. A hundred of a second here and a hundred of a second there can determine the fastest man in the word. It separates greatness from mediocre. Life is often compared to a sprint; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments ( hundred of a seconds) in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best. You know, an excellent minister of Jesus Christ resembles that. The road of obedience and discipline; punctuated by many, many brief moments of excellence; where we can be better than the last time; and be even better than the last time. God’s message is simple and clear. We labour and strive to be better than yesterday; and then to be better than the day before. I want to be a better husband for my wife; I want to be a better leader from now onwards, I want to be a better co-worker in my office, I want to be a better student of scripture….. most of all; I want to be a good excellent minister of Jesus Christ! Let us pray.
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