1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 17 is where we will start. Last week we looked at some instructions
on who qualifies as a widow and there's certain qualifications there when it comes to supporting
the widows or as some of your translations may have said honor, to honor the widows.
And tonight we're shifting gears. We're talking about those who are elders or pastors. Timothy's
already dealt with that or Paul I should say has already dealt with that as far as the
qualifications for those who are going to be elders or overseers or we might call them
pastors. And here he's back on that giving some more instructions. So let's pray and
we'll get started. Father God we come to you tonight. We thank you for these words. Dear
Lord I pray that you would help us to understand what your word says. God I pray especially
for me as one who's leading this church that you would help me to hear these words dear
Lord and listen to them and to live by them dear Lord that I would do a good job. Dear
Lord should I fail that these people would hold me accountable to that dear Lord as your
word says here. So God I pray that your word would be good for us tonight and it will.
I pray that your Holy Spirit would just speak to us and free us from the worries of the
world and hide me behind the cross that I may preach and teach in a way that brings
glory to you tonight. And I ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. All right. First Timothy
chapter five verse 17 the elders who are good leaders should be considered worthy of an
ample honorarium. Some of your translations may say double honor especially those who
work hard at preaching and teaching for the scripture says do not muzzle an ox while it
is treading out the grain and the worker is worthy of his wages. Now here he's talking
about those elders that is those who are leading the church position and we might be more familiar
with calling pastor. That is the one who's going to preach the one who's going to teach
the one who's going to be a leader. And what he says here is that the elders who are good
should be considered worthy of an ample honorarium are of double honor. Now it could just be
speaking of honor in a sense of respect. However it appears in the context that it's speaking
of support that that is there is some obligation for brothers and sisters in Christ that meet
together to support those who are leading them those who are good leaders those who
are doing a good job those who are being faithful to the ministry those who are preaching and
teaching and doing the work that comes along with being an elder or being a pastor and
Paul says for those who are among you it is good to give them double honor to give them
an honorarium. That's a word you may hear sometimes is honorarium. You may perhaps maybe
we're most familiar with that in terms of a wedding or a funeral. Now sometimes people
say how much do you charge to do a wedding or a funeral and I say nothing. I don't charge
anything. I don't expect anything. I don't need anything. I don't want anything. Now
I suppose some pastors have a fee as this amount of dollars is that amount of dollars.
But but an honorarium is something that's not required. It's not it's not something
that's established that I'm charging X amount and you owe me for this. An honorarium is
something that that that that is is is meaning that it's not something that's being charged
for it's just something that's being done. It's something that the person wants to do
that the pastor wants to perform a wedding ceremony for example or or do a wedding for
example. There's no money expected. There's no money required. Sometimes however people
would choose to give money to a pastor. They would say here take this. We want to give
this to you and that would be considered an honorarium. I suppose that in the grand scheme
of things generally speaking I suppose any pay that anyone gives to a pastor even when
it comes from a church body I suppose that that would even be considered an honorarium
as well something that's maybe not expected. Perhaps a good example of this is Brother
Ernie. Now Brother Ernie's not able to preach anymore but he was a faithful servant to this
church for years and Lord Lord knows he would love to be here today. He would love to go
see people today. He still would go visit people if he could but he's not able to but
the church still gives Brother Ernie money every month. I would consider that an honorarium.
That's something that we have acknowledged and recognized that he is a good leader. I
say he is. I don't say was because even though his health is declining and his mind is declining
he is still a man who's strong in the faith. He's still a man who prays and he's still
a good leader for us. He's still a strength for us as a church and so we respect that.
We respect his years of service and what he has done and we continue every month to give
him an honorarium. Some of you may not know that but that's something that we voted on
years ago and we have continued to do praise the Lord and so that may be a good example
of this passage that's being spoken about here and he gives an example. He says it's
good to give this honorarium. It's good to support those who are in the ministry and
he says because the scripture says do not muzzle an ox while it is treading the grain.
Now that's a quotation from the Old Testament from Deuteronomy chapter 24 and the idea of
being there is okay the ox is treading the grain and he's doing the work but the ox
also can eat a little bit of the grain and there's nothing wrong with that. That's the
way it needs to be. The ox needs to be able to eat a little bit of the fruit of the labor
and that gives the ox strength. If you just made the ox work all day and you didn't feed
him then the ox wouldn't do very good but it's alright the scripture says. The ox needs
to eat a little bit of grain along the way and it's okay for the worker to eat from the
fruits of his labors and this is the illustration that Paul is giving here. And then he gives
a quotation of Jesus from Luke chapter 10 verse 10 where he says the worker is worthy
of his wages. Now in this passage Jesus sends out 70 or 72, depending on your translation,
disciples to go out and do the work and Jesus says look if you go to a house go to it and
bring peace. Speak peace on the people and if they invite you in, if they give you a
place to stay, if they give you a food then eat it, partake of it. That's a good thing.
You're doing the work of the Lord and it's okay to partake of those things. That those
would be kind of the fruits of your labors that the Lord has provided. You're not going
asking people for anything but if someone wants to support the work of the Lord then
that's a good thing for those who are doing the Lord's work. Now certainly there is some
difference of interpretation and difference of opinion among Christians as to what this
should look like in churches. Now some would say that pastors shouldn't take any type of
pay from a church, that they should be willing to preach free of charge and I think that
that's probably a good belief. I think that that should be the heart of a pastor. Some
would say that you know what it shouldn't be the job of a church collectively but anyone
who wants to support the pastor could do so and that may be by giving them groceries or
giving them food or giving them money or whatever it may be and let the Lord provide that need
as it sees fit. Some would say that it's wrong for a church body to pay a pastor. Some would
say it's not wrong that the church collectively says hey we see that there's a man who's serving
us and serving our community and preaching and teaching to us and we want to give that
and we choose to give that and so you can decide for yourself what you think is right
or what you think is wrong. There's certainly differences of opinion there but I'll tell
you as a pastor for me it's a blessing to be able to serve. It's a blessing to be able
to get to go see people. Now some would say a pastor needs to work a full job and preach
on the weekends and maybe that's correct. However I'll say as a pastor that it's a
blessing to be able to not have to work a full job during the week to be able to be
at the hospital with people and to be able to go where people are sick and to be able
to help people when there's a need. I think that there's a need for that too. I think
that that's important and so I think it's good for pastors to serve in those ways if
they can. Sometimes pastors have to work a real job if we can call it that. Other times
pastors may not have to be bivocational but I think that the Lord provides and I think
that that's what Paul is saying here that it is good for the people to support those
if they see them doing the Lord's work. If you don't see me or whoever may be here in
the future doing the Lord's work then it doesn't need to be supported. You don't want to support
those who are not doing the Lord's work, who are not preaching and teaching, who are not
taking care of those in the community. But Paul says do support those who have been good
leaders and are being good leaders. Offer support to them. It's good for the church
to do that. Verse 19, don't accept an accusation against an elder unless it is supported by
two or three witnesses. Now elders probably being in that position to be an elder, to
be an overseer or be a pastor, you kind of set yourself up for attack to some extent.
If somebody is not happy with what you're doing or somebody wants to do something or
say something to try to tear you down if they don't like you then you're kind of a prime
target because you're kind of in the spotlight so to speak as a pastor. All eyes are on you
so if somebody really wanted to hurt you then they could say anything or they could come
up with some accusation. Well what does Paul say here? Don't pay attention to every accusation.
Somebody might come up with an accusation against a pastor that they don't like. There
are certainly plenty of people in the world that don't like a pastor for whatever reason
and some would use their dislike or even hatred of a pastor to say things to try to tear them
down or to spread rumors or say things that aren't true. So what does Paul say? He says
look, if you hear somebody that just comes out of the woodwork and says something then
pause for a second and make sure that it's true. Let there be two or three witnesses.
Don't just listen to one person that comes out of the woodwork but give your elder the
benefit of the doubt. If he's been a good leader, if he's been a good pastor, if he's
been a good elder then he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If there's no history of him
doing a bunch of crazy stuff and you hear something that's pretty crazy then give him
the benefit of the doubt. That's not to say that maybe he didn't fail or do something
wrong. It is certainly possible that sometimes that pastors will fall in some way or fail
in some way. But generally speaking, if somebody comes with an accusation kind of out of the
blue then you might not want to put too much emphasis on that. If two or three people come
forward and say hey, here's something I've seen, here's something that's going on, well
then we need to pay attention to that. We need to deal with that. And that's what Paul
is saying here. Look, pastors and elders need to be good, faithful men of God that are above
reproach. We've already seen that in the qualifications. And so he's holding him to a high standard
but he's also offering a little protection here. He's giving the people a little instruction
here. Look, pay attention and be careful when somebody comes against your elder and make
sure that the charge they're bringing against them is a legitimate charge. Verse 20, publicly
rebuke those who sin so that the rest will also be afraid. Now this passage is kind of
an interesting and difficult passage in a sense. Now it would seem as though in the
context that he's speaking of elders here when he speaks of rebuking those. However,
you could argue that he's speaking generally of anybody. And this is a scary passage because
this is one of those you could kind of just pluck out of context and just take by itself
and you may get yourself in trouble. Cause what does it say? Publicly rebuke those who
sin so the rest will also be afraid. So does that mean that if we find out somebody's sinning
among us that Sunday morning in church and announcements when I say, does anybody have
anything to say that you stand up and say, sister so and so has been sinning in this
way? Well, I don't think that that's the way that we should handle it. I don't know that
that's appropriate. Now, perhaps, perhaps there is occasion for that. As the scripture
says, look, if somebody sins against you, then you go to them. If they keep sinning
against you and they don't change, then take somebody with you. If they still continue
to sin against you, the scripture says, bring it before the church. So perhaps there is
a time that things need to be brought before the church, but always in a very prayerful
way. This is one of those passages that we probably never, we never, we never carry out
or very seldom carry out. And, and, and maybe rightfully so it's probably good that we don't
carry this out very often. If we come in here every week pointing people out for sins, then
we would have a lot of trouble on the flip side of that. There may be other times that,
that maybe there is sin that's going on in the church and people know that that sin's
going on, especially with an elder. That's, that's serious. It needs to be addressed.
It needs to be dealt with. And I think in the context here that Paul is speaking about
elders that it needs to be made known, Hey, look, the leader of this church has been living
in sin in this way and it's not acceptable. And we are not going to support that. Now
we'll help him. We'll try to restore him, but he is not fit to lead this church. And
sometimes churches have to do that. There, there are times and you may have known of
churches or pastors that have failed in some grievous way. And the church had to say, look
brother, we love you, but this is not acceptable. And there has to be times where you have to
stand up and say, brother, so-and-so is not fit to lead right now. And, and maybe that's
what it's talking about here because to be a pastor, to be an elder should be held in
the highest regard. It should be something that should not be taken lightly for those
who are going to serve in that way. And so this just adds a little more, a little more
seriousness to it. Hey, if you fail, this, it's going to be a big deal. And this is how
Paul says to deal with it, to publicly rebuke those who sin so that it, the rest will also
be afraid. And so when it comes to rebuking those who sin, we want to be careful. We never
want to be those who just go around pointing the finger at everybody else and using a passage
like this at justification. Certainly we're all sinners, but in the same, in the same
vein, sometimes we know as brothers and sisters in Christ, that there are other brothers and
sisters that are sinning and it's not right. And sometimes out of love, we have to sit
down and say, look, what you're doing is not right. You don't need to do this. And so oftentimes
we don't like to hear that. We take that as an attack. We respond with who are you to
call me a sinner? You're a sinner. But sometimes maybe we need to listen to what people are
saying. When we, when we tell somebody, I love you and I'm worried about what you're
doing, we're not implying that we're perfect. We're not saying, I'm telling you this because
I'm perfect and better than you. We all as brothers and sisters in Christ, we kind of
sharpen each other and there are all, for all of us, there are times maybe that we need
somebody to say, look brother, look sister, I'm worried about you. You know, this isn't
a good way to live. And I don't think that there's harm in that. I think that there is,
there is love in that, but we just have to be careful about how we do it. And we have
to be very prayerful about how we do it and when we're going to do it and let the Lord
lead us and he'll give us the words to say, should those times come. Verse 21, I solemnly
charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels to observe these things without
prejudice, do nothing out of favoritism. So we might be tempted sometimes if there's somebody
we really like to let them get away with a little more, but we don't want to show favoritism.
God doesn't show favoritism. And that's what Paul tells Timothy here. Don't, don't show
favoritism in that way. Verse 22, don't be too quick to appoint anyone as an elder and
don't share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. Well, this is good advice. You don't
want to just pick somebody out of the blue that you don't know very well and say, Hey,
would you be the pastor of this church? Would you, would you come? We want you to be our
elder. We need to get to know people a little bit. You need to be able to kind of gauge
them for years and years and years, probably some long period of time. You need to be able
to kind of know who somebody is to kind of understand whether or not that they really
are somebody who's living for the Lord. And, uh, I think that's important. If, if, you
know, sometimes people from other churches, uh, might, you know, if they're looking for
a pastor, they may say, Oh, you know, what should we look for or what should we do? Or
we're not sure. I always advise them first and foremost to look for somebody local. Now
you can get a stack of resumes for people from Timbuktu, but you don't know them. You
don't know them at all. But if you find a man of God that is local, that you know, that
feels called a preach, then I think that's the best place to start because you got a
good idea of who you're looking at. You got a good idea of what their life is and how
they have lived their life. And that's important. So don't be too quick to appoint somebody
to be your elder, to be your pastor. If you don't, if you don't know them, if you don't
know a little bit about them, if you don't know if they really are living for God or
not. Okay. So don't be too quick to point in one and don't share in the sins of others.
Keep yourself pure. So perhaps if you are an elder and you see other elders around you
that are sinning in some way, you may want to justify that. You may want to say, well,
you know, other, other preachers are doing it. So maybe it's not that bad, but we shouldn't
justify sin. Whether we're a preacher or not, we should never justify the sin of those around
us. We should strive to keep ourselves pure. And I think that's super important for those
who are going to be elders and those who are going to be pastors to keep their self pure
and to try in every way to do that. Billy Graham perhaps is a good example of that.
And he was kind of in his prime. I think this was back in the seventies. Uh, I forgot what
they call it. Uh, it was some name that he and the group that was, he was ministering
with called it. But, but anyway, they, they came up with these, these rules that they
gave theirself about when they were out doing all these evangelism tours, that they would
never be alone with another woman. They would never eat a meal with another woman. There
were all these ways in which they were trying to protect themselves from any temptation
they may have. And from anything anybody might try. There's a famous story about once, and
I've heard this story multiple ways, uh, that either Billy Graham had got on an elevator
and there was a woman on there. And as soon as the door closed, she took her clothes off.
And when the doors opened on the next floor, there were people there to take pictures.
One version I heard she was in his hotel room. I'm not sure which version of that is true,
but that was one of Billy Graham's rules is he would never ride an elevator with anybody
else. He'd ride it alone, especially not a woman unless his wife was with him. Why? Because
he was trying to protect himself. He wanted to remain pure. And even if he didn't have
any temptation to sin, he didn't want anything that someone else may do to take away from
his ministry. That's a good example of if you got, if you got something like that, that
happens. Well, take a long look at somebody's life and somebody's ministry. What are the
odds that they're going to do that? Well, in his case, it was probably pretty slim.
So that's easy to figure out that there was somebody kind of out to get him. But anyway,
he and the group that was with him, they had all these rules for this reason so that they
could remain pure and that they would never give anybody any kind of reason to doubt the
work that they were doing. Verse 23, don't continue drinking only water, but use a little
wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. Now, this is an interesting thing
to kind of throw right here in the middle of this. It seems a little out of place. Now,
maybe it's just in the middle of rightness. Paul just happened to think about this. He
said, Oh, you're having some trouble with your stomach and the water's probably not
good. So mix a little wine with it and that'll, that'll help purify the water. That'll help,
that'll help clean it up, kill anything that's in it. Maybe it just popped into his mind.
Some have suggested that, that maybe Timothy was trying to refrain from, from drinking
any wine whatsoever. And maybe Paul is saying, look, it's okay to drink a little wine is
okay. To be a drunkard is not okay, as we have seen in the previous chapters, but having
a little wine is okay. And maybe, maybe he's just telling Timothy, it's all right. You
know, you're sick and a little wine in your water is not going to hurt anything. Now it
has been suggested by some that the water in those days was not always pure, that it
was not always safe. And that it would, it would have some things in it that would cause
you to get sick. But by mixing your water with a little wine, it would kill whatever
was in there and it would make it safe to drink. And there are still, as best as I can
understand some places in the world today that do this same practice, mix a little wine
with their water so that it will be safe for them to partake of. So he gives, he gives
Timothy this instruction here for whatever reason, he just kind of, he kind of throws
it in the middle of this passage. And then it seems like he gets back to the point and
that is elders, verse 24. Some people's sins are obvious going before them to judgment,
but the sins of others surface later. Likewise, good works are obvious and those that are
not obvious cannot remain hidden. So when you're looking for those who are going to
be elders and those who are going to be pastor, there are some people that you could write
off off the bat. You could say he is not qualified. He doesn't meet the qualifications. You see,
you see the sin, you see the troubles in his life. Other people, however, you got to be
patient because some things Paul said they could remain hidden for a little while, but
ultimately they're going to rise to the top. They're going to, they're going to kind of
work their way up.
Now I remember when we first bought our, our house, there was a spot right out there that
it was just grass. And lo and behold, after almost three years, there's some roots that's
kind of boiled up to the top of the ground. I didn't know they were there before, but
over time they kind of boiled up to the top of the ground. Well, that's how it is with
our sin. Sometimes we can kind of keep things hidden, but, but ultimately if somebody's
got some trouble, give them a little time, watch them and you'll be able to see things
that aren't right. Now that's not to say again, that there are not going to be times that
a pastor's got going to say something or act in a way that he shouldn't have acted in.
But, but when you see those things rise to the top, if you see those things be pretty
persistent, you see a pattern of those things. Well, that's what Paul's being telling us
to look out for. He said, you can't hide those things forever. But on the flip side, he ends
with a positive. He said, the good works are obvious as well. So sometimes good works are
obvious. You just see somebody and you see that they're doing good works of God. Maybe
you don't see those good works. Maybe there's somebody you're thinking, man, maybe that
needs to be our next pastor. And you look at him and you say, Oh, I'm not too sure.
I don't see, I don't see anything bad, but do I really see any evidence that they're
working for the Lord? Well, Paul says, eventually the good works will rise to the top. They
won't be hidden either. So the point being, I think is time will tell the tale. And sadly
in our, in the kind of in our, in our church structure today, in the way that things are
laid out and the way that churches call pastors, very seldom do they know who the pastor is
very seldom do they have other than a resume and maybe a few people they call. But, but
I believe probably in these days that the elders and the pastors that are being spoken
of here were people from the community, people that, that the congregation would know and
people that they would choose and say, all right, we think you, you have what it takes.
We see the way you live your life and, and, and laying on of hands and appointing people
to be elders. And I suspect that maybe some of our churches would be better off today
if the people of the church knew who the person was that they were going to call. So Paul
gives some good instruction here for Timothy and some good instruction for elders too.
It's good for me who's in the ministry as a pastor, and it's good for you as a church
to look at these things. And, and we want to make sure as a church that, Hey, hold me
accountable. Am I doing a good job? We, I want to make sure as a pastor to look at passages
like these and say, Hey, am I being obedient to the word of God in the future? Should you
go to another church or when the time comes that I leave this church, we want to remember
these things so that as a body of Christ, wherever we may be that we are, we are under
a person who's going to be a good leader and who's going to serve God, not one who is hungry
for money. That should always be a red flag that, that if somebody says I want X amount
of dollars or I'm not coming, well, I would tell them, thank you. Have a nice day. We
don't want you to come, but everybody's got to do their own thing. But we don't want people
who are, who are greedy for money. I think it's good. Praise the Lord. If churches can,
can, can provide for a pastor and allow them to do the work, that's a good thing. But those
who are seeking money and seeking more money, well, that's not a good sign. And so Paul
says, look, there's an obligation to support the pastor, but make sure that they're doing
a good job. Hold them to a high standard. And if they're not held to a high standard
or excuse me, if they're not doing right, then address that. And so Paul gives us kind
of some hard instruction here, but it's good instruction nonetheless. Let's pray. Father
God, we thank you for these good words. And I pray that you would help us to be a church
who is faithful, dear Lord. You would help me to be a faithful leader, that you would
help us as a church to be faithful in all we do, dear Lord. We want to be about your
business. We want to be about your work. And so I pray God that we would all work together
to accomplish that goal. I pray that we would take passages like these and kind of let them
simmer and to dwell on them and to know how we need to respond and how we need to react
and how we need to deal with certain situations, dear Lord. And I pray that you would help
us to be careful. If we ever try to restore a brother, dear Lord, we need to look at the
log in our own eye before we take the speck out of our brother. So help us to examine
ourselves so that we will be fit, dear Lord, to help restore someone else. So God, let
us never have a heart of being judgmental, but let us only have a heart of love that,
God, we would seek for others to be restored as you seek for us to be restored, dear Lord.
I thank you for your word and I pray that you just bless it. And I ask these things
in Jesus' name. Amen.