Dove Creek Bible Church's Podcast

One of the reasons a Christian should strive to be a workman approved when it comes to the word of God is so that they can be better used according to the purposes of God. An informed, well-grounded but humble believer will be of more use than an ignorant, belligerent, and opinionated false believer or carnal believer, but the mystery and surprising thing is the false or carnal believer may still be of some use which is what the text discusses today.

In essence, Paul makes two main points today: There is a way to use the Bible as a club that is unproductive, divisive, and leads one away from true godliness. And there is a way to use the Bible as a tool that is deserving of recognition and approval because it builds unity and leads to spiritual maturity.

Most scholars believe this text contains an ancient creedal statement a baptismal candidate recited before baptism. Today's sermon explores what they said, what it meant, and why they said it.

Many Christians view grace primarily as a gap filler meaning they believe they are supposed to work as hard as they can and then grace will fill in the gaps of their insufficiencies. Yet God wants grace to be our sole source of strength not a gap filler, so Paul encourages Timothy to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,

Paul writes what is essentially the last will and testament of his gospel message. If you should know one day when the end of your life is near…time for you will become a most precious thing…you will want to use it wisely. You will want to remind those you love one last time of what’s really important in life. Whatever life lessons you have learned you will want to pass on. Paul had spent a good many years building his life into a young man named Timothy…the closest thing he would ever have to a son.

In this text, Paul exhorts Timothy to flee, follow and fight. What is he to flee from? What is he to follow after? Whom and how does he fight?

In this text, Paul explains to Timothy why our work attitude matters to God, but cautions that being consumed with attaining wealth through our work will never satisfy...only godliness provides lasting contentment.

Paul wrote to Timothy that elders who were teaching pastors were worthy of double honor (respect and financial compensation.) However, any elder or teaching pastor who had dishonored the Lord through disqualifying sin will need to be confronted and rebuked if there are two or three witnesses. Due to the nature of their high profile, Timothy and the congregation of Ephesus would be well-served to be cautious in taking their time in elder selection.

The question of who is responsible for caregiving to the elderly, and in particular widows, is not a new one. It had to be dealt with in the 1st Century as well as the 21st Century. Today we see Paul advising Timothy how to relate effectively to individuals who make up various age groups in the church. We begin with Paul’s more general advice and then move to his more specific instructions involving widows.

Many pastors call this section of 1st Timothy the “Ten Commandments of Ministry” because in the space of six verses Paul commands young Timothy to do ten things. It’s interesting that Paul would select as a protégé someone wired so differently from him in temperament. Paul is an older man with a notoriously bold and assertive personality. Timothy had a low-key unassuming more laid-back temperament. Someone working with a Paul-type might have to occasionally exhort them to relax, but Paul, with reference to Timothy, had to exhort him to stand up and be more assertive.

We live in a society that suggests there is a quick fix to every problem. We’re suckers for anyone claiming to offer a proven way to lose weight or tone muscle effortlessly because we like quick easy answers to tough long-term problems. What doesn’t work in the physical realm also doesn’t work in the spiritual realm either. Just like there are exercise and diet fads there are occasional spiritual fads. Our problem is we’re shopping for an easy way to get what the Bible clearly states comes only through discipline. The key to being a disciplined Christian is to be a motivated Christian. But how do we stay motivated to discipline ourselves for godliness?

In my over thirty years of being a pastor, I have experienced people leaving this church and Christianity on occasion. Some were people who had been in church all or most of their lives who just decided one day they no longer believed in God...that they had been duped by their parents...by their churches...by me...that their heads had been filled with lies and nonsense. They become Ex-Christians or at the very least Exvangelicals. They start posting on social media or in their blogs anything that in their minds debunks and ridicules Christianity or at least Evangelical Christian values and this type of thing very much appears on the rise...how do we explain what is happening? Today's text addresses why this happens.

When we think of the Protestant Reformation we typically only concern ourselves with two of the three main tenets that caused Martin Luther to post his 95 theses (complaints) against the medieval Roman Catholic Church. However, we are less aware of the Protestant Reformation's third tenet, which was to encourage congregational singing. You see Luther believed that music was second only to God’s Word in terms of its ability to cheer and influence. Today we will look at one of these early hymns sung by the church as Paul references it in his letter to Timothy

In this sermon we transition from the qualifications of elders who lead and teach to the qualifications for deacons/deaconesses who carry out, under the elders' oversight, some of the more basic but essential tasks of the church so that the elders could give their attention to their primary tasks of prayer and teaching. The specific tasks of a deacon/deaconess are not well-defined and perhaps that is because they served in so many different kinds of ways it was hard to define exactly what they did. Their primary ministry seems to be to meet the practical needs of the local congregation…whatever those needs may be. Men who became elders, no doubt, were first deacons who proved themselves trustworthy.

In this sermon we get to the third and final area that Paul says an elder candidate must be above reproach in…his parish life. A man can be a good husband and father, he can have a good reputation with outsiders, but the place where the rubber really meets the road is how do his fellow parishioners feel about him? Is he the type of man who will help facilitate and demonstrate genuine love and acceptance or will he be a polarizing figure that sows discord and causes division?

In this sermon we get to the second area that Paul says an elder candidate must be above reproach in…his public life. A church with a leader who has a bad reputation in the community will find its testimony to that community hindered. Paul has said that it is a noble ambition to set your desire on becoming an elder. But should we be wary of those who exhibit a lot of personal ambition in their public lives? The dictionary defines “ambition” as an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power or as a desire to achieve a particular end. The question is…is it Christian to be ambitious? The answer is “yes” and “no”.

Guest Speaker, David Welch, from Rocky Point Church in Exeter, California discusses how to become an unforgettable Christian from James 1:21-25.

Paul writes that an elder candidate needs to be evaluated in three primary areas: His private life, his public life and his parish life. Today we will concentrate on the first of these: His private life.

In Chapter 3 of 1st Timothy, Paul gives the criteria for elders, who seem to have the main responsibility for teaching and leading the church. Yet we find that many churches all reading the same Bible have come to very different conclusions about how the church is to be governed and who is supposed to be doing the governing. Where does the buck stop? This sermon gives a basic overview of different approaches to church government before we get into the actual text of 1st Timothy 3:1-7.