Timothy

Colossians 1:1-2

Col-007

Salutation number seven, Colossians 1:1-2 in your Bibles.

Living a life in the service of God does not come naturally to Christians. Most believers have lives filled with their own pursuits of one kind or another. Serving God with one spiritual ability is an unwelcome interruption of our temporal ambitions. Christians are regularly torn between the gentle appeals of the Holy Spirit and the call of the glamorous world system of Satan. Now this dichotomy was not a problem for the Apostle Paul who wrote the book of Colossians. His dramatic confrontation with Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, the Way and the Life, made Paul's divine mission the focus of his life. Some who were associated with Paul in missionary service fell by the wayside, but Paul never varied. Paul himself never wavered. Paul knew he was saved to serve, and he did it with great diligence in good times and in bad. Paul ended his life on the high ground of spiritual victory and with great eternal rewards for his service.

Paul writes to the Colossians

Paul and Timothy

Timothy was a Messenger of God

Brother

So, it was between young Timothy and the elder Paul; their spiritual gifts coordinated in a wonderful way to produce the success of their ministry to the Lord's glory. The mission was their life, and their eyes were on the Lord. At the very end of Paul's life, he wrote one more book which ended up in a New Testament. It's a book of II Timothy, and as he comes to the end of that book, his tender association with Timothy is once more seen in II Timothy 4:9-10, where Paul says, "Make every effort to come to me soon." Paul wanted Timothy to be with him in Rome because God had made it clear to Paul that here upon his second imprisonment, he would not be released. This time Nero would execute him. And so Paul knew that his entrance into heaven was near, and he wanted Timothy with him at the end. It is interesting to read that pointed statement in verse nine, "Make every effort to come to me soon" and then to follow it with verse 10, the love and the camaraderie for Timothy.

Demas and Mark

And there we have the other side of the picture. Here are the two men we pointed out to you last week. Demus is the deserter and Mark the flip-flopper, who decided to go home to his mother's good lifestyle, but then came to his sense. Paul here at the end says, "Mark has changed his ways. He's back on the team, I need him here. Please bring him with you." So that is a comfort to us to know that in Christian service we will have people who let us down, but we must always remember that that's not the final issue. That's not the final line of the story, because as long as people are still breathing and alive, God has a purpose for them, and they may come back and become valuable members of the team. You will also find that some people that you think could never amount to anything significant suddenly become mature and develop in the things of God, and they become people that are enormously important in the Lord's work.

So, we have to be careful how we evaluate people. We cannot be ninnies and not recognize the shortcomings and the weaknesses and the temperament problems that people have. But Paul said with all of the problems that Timothy had at the end, there was no one he wanted more near him than this young associate in the work. And at the same time remembering, hopefully, that those like Demos would turn around, as did John Mark. Paul urged Timothy in these letters to be bold in his work for the Lord. Paul appealed to Timothy the standby sound doctrine, which had been taught him by his mother and his grandmother from Old Testament Scriptures, and which Paul had expanded with New Testament truth. In I Timothy 6:20-21, Paul says, "Oh, Timothy, Guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. To wander off from doctrine is a terrible thing."

So, you young people as well as the older ones, take note here. Those of you who grow up in a Church like Berean where you are instructed in great detail of the word of God. You are given the deep things of the spirit of God. You are a privileged crew, and you should never slough that off. You should never treat that with content and indifference. We can give you a lot of case histories around here of young people who came to a certain point. They did not have parents either who taught them well, or if they were taught well, they did not have parents who could restrain them like Eli of old dealing with young Samuel who couldn't restrain his two sons who were actually in a priesthood and were vile men until God had to bring them down. I'm still amazed at the things that parents will do to their own children. The worst of things is enabling them, permitting them to act with prematurity in certain areas of life. Here we have these children who understand what it is to play the premature adult. And because they're children, they get into trouble and then the parents come back at us and say, "You're at fault because you're demanding a quality and a standard that makes them so different from the world that they understand that they stand for Christ and not for Satan's cosmos diabolical system. And we hold you responsible for the fact that you're making the demands that they want to go to where those demands are not upon them."

Timothy had parents who made a demand for godliness upon him. When he was with Paul, the standards were never lowered. It was an honor to rise to being a Christian. All around Timothy were his peers, and all around him was the pressure to act like a world system of his day and not to be somebody who wanted to be distinct and who did not take up the customs, the habits, and the manners of the world system. Somebody took me to task recently for saying that rock and roll music was not a good thing, and I specified that I'm talking about the lyrics of rock and roll music. Now nobody has more jumping and jive and bones than I do. And we have a really jumping and jive and Vacation Bible School theme song this year. And even for me, one of the most uninhibited characters on the face of the earth, I had to think twice whether we would use that song. It is jumpy, but its message was right, and the rhythm was not a problem. It's the message of rock and roll, which is corrupt and destructive as is the message of everything that comes out of the world.

So, yes, I tell young people rock and roll is not quality music. Who enjoys listening to the same line of lyrics? "Oh baby, I love you, love you, love you baby. Oh baby, I love you. Yeah, baby, baby, love you. Love you baby." It's not hard to learn the song. You just learn one line, man, you got it if you can hang out at the melody. When I did that in summer camp, the boys rolled on the floor with laughter. They thought it was really stupid because it is. That's not quality singing. That's not quality music. And then when you think about Iced Tea and Too Live Crew and all the low life that is represented by the performers. Don't tell me that we are amiss when we tell kids rock and roll is a bad scene and you should not imitate it in any way.

And when we as a Christian organization say we don't imitate it, don't come down on us and then say, "God bless you, brother. Thank you for standing up against the crowd." My little kids up in junior department knew, and I asked them, "What is the greatest problem that makes you do what is wrong?" One kid popped out "peer pressure." I only learned the phrase myself recently, but he knew it. Peer pressure. Why not pressure them to do right instead of telling us to let the world pressure them to do wrong? Timothy is a great example. Your children should learn what kind of a young person he was. He wasn't the great big athletic football type, but he was a man that could stand up in the breach and do the fight for righteousness that has carried him into eternity as great trophy, as a great example, as a great trophy of the grace of God.

Paul called upon Timothy, therefore, to be a pace setter. Timothy, stay with doctrine. That's reality. Don't turn your back upon what you've been taught in your youth. Don't go for all that wordy empty chatter. Do you ever have an experience of talking with somebody about religious matters and you know they're just blowing off nothing from their empty heads and trying to be official and impressive sounding? Paul says to Timothy not to even talk to people like that. What they have is a knowledge which is falsely so called. They don't have a knowledge, they have nothing. And when they profess to have that kind of superior intellectualism, they've gone astray from the faith. And I've warned you before that all of this arrogance that's out there in our societies because people think they're all so smart, they're intellectually superior, but they're not intellectually superior. And without the training of the doctrine of the word of God, nobody's mind is capable of doing right.

Knowledge

The difference between what the average Christian who sits in Church and gets "gnosis" that plugs into the mentality of the soul and what happens when that is converted to "epignosis," the full knowledge in the word of God residing in the reservoir of your human spirit so that all of your soul is now tied in the mind, the emotions, the will to the functioning of doctrinal principles and you don't even have to think about it. And then impurity, the right use of your body and soul. Moral cleanness, that's very tough for a young person. It is so easy for a young person, especially if he gets off or she gets off into premature activities, to start chasing the tail of some attractive little girl and everything else gets thrown overboard. Or she starts chasing some little longhaired ring in the air twit because she feels he's so cool. Now, you should pity your children if they grow up with such corrosive low-quality taste, but they will. At least you should take comfort that you taught them better and that you never said, "Sure go ahead, imitate the world, be part of it. That's cool. You don't want to stand out and look like you're some goofy different kind of character that can't fit in." You will never look back, and they will insult you for it. But you will never look back and say, "I'm sorry that I didn't go along with the gang one time."

And I don't tell you this to glorify myself, but I think it illustrates the point. One time when I was a teenager, I must have been like 14 years old and I was associated with all these wonderful teenage kids, my peers, at the Church, the place I was born again. And one day I was invited to a party for one of the girls. My association with these kids had been within the context of our Church activities. We had a club called the Friday Night Club. Every Friday night all the teenagers gathered with the pastor at somebody's home, and it was a great time. We played games, talked about things with the Lord, and it was an interchange of thinking of Christian thought, and we were people of God. And so, I was invited this party and I got my little gift, and I walked into this home where it's being held and gave my gift and then sat down and we had a circle and here's all these kids that are most of them from Church, same kids I knew, and they played a game called Spin the Bottle.

And they spin the bottle and whoever it stops on, you kiss the person the opposite. You go off in another room to kiss the person. Then they played a game in the dark where you can't get caught kissing your friend, and they put you girl, boy, girl, boy. Now about this time I'll be sweating. And this, I see, is not my territory and not my natural climate, and the lights come on. And if you get caught kissing a girl, then you get penalized something. And after a while, Jane who was sitting next to me, somebody said, "Jane's not having any fun at all." And Jane looked at me and said, "Can I help it if I have such a poor partner here?" I'm a 14-year-old boy, I didn't know what I was by that time. A 14-year-old boy and this gal is chewing me out because I don't want to kiss her. I don't even know her. She might have kissed her dog before she came to that party. How do I know? And she was just indignant that I treated her with that kind of respect. I treated her with a quality that I would want anybody close to me treated. But you have to make your decision and take it on the chin. And some of you are gutsy kids. You're going to grow up to be godly boys and godly girls, and some of you are not, but at least we're giving you a chance to know better. Some of you're going to go chasing after the world, nobody's going to jerk you back and that'll be too bad. But we are going to alert you that there is a better way. Now Timothy, be an example in your speech, in your conduct, in your mental attitude love, in your faith, your confidence in the word of God, and in your personal purity.

Well, the result was that Timothy did all these things. He advanced in spiritual maturity structure beyond many who were his seniors. And Paul called Timothy to the hard life of Christian service. He called like a soldier into service. II Timothy 2:3, Paul says, "Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." It is not easy to serve the Lord. "Suffer with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." II Timothy 2:8-10, Paul himself has an example. "Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, descendant of David according to my gospel for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not imprison. For this reason, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with-it eternal glory." Paul says, "I do the suffering of soldiering so that I may bring these people into eternal life." Timothy was told he used to keep on the job even in the face of rejection and of negative volition response. II Timothy 4:5, Paul says to him, "For you be sober in all things and do a hardship, do the work evangelist, fulfill your ministry." Keep on the job even if others might desert you, you be faithful still. And Timothy was to take it furthermore. Paul told him to take steps that he needs to be able to keep up the capacity to do the job. It takes a physical capacity. And Timothy had some kind of physical ailment that seemed to keep reoccurring.

Drinking

On one of my visits to some of my friends, on one occasion not too long ago, they brought out the wine bottle, and when I didn't drink, they wanted to know why. So, I said, "Well it's Proverbs 31:4-5 that closes me out of that." Proverbs 31:4-5 says, "It is not for King's O Lemuel." Here's Lemuel's mother giving instruction to her son the king: "It is not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to desire strong drink unless they drink and forget what is decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted." So, I said here, the Bible forbids all politicians from using alcoholic beverages. Politicians are forbidden by the wisdom of Proverbs from drinking. You shouldn't do it. It perverts your judgment. And if a politician should not drink to pervert his judgment, what do you think a minister should do who can cause infinitely greater harm to a person than a politician ever can? After a politician is through beating out your brains with his socialist system and his welfare state, you go on out of this life. But if the minister gives you a wrong direction, you're going to go out into a life and eternity that you have missed the step and you'll never change it. So certainly, it is not proper by my conclusion that a minister should drink if a politician shouldn't drink.

Furthermore, the word of God, the word of God's wisdom here in Proverbs even reiterates that here in Proverbs chapter 23 in a very splendid way. Proverbs 23:29, the classic passage 29, "Who has sorrow? Who has woe and who has sorrow?" Now I want to read this to you because we were talking about this in our junior department, the use of alcoholic beverages. And one boy would you believe it raise his hand and said, "The Bible does not forbid drinking only getting drunk." And I said, "You're absolutely right, but are you also aware of the fact that the Bible warns you against drinking because it's a deadly threat always to getting drunk?" If you don't want to get drunk, the best way is not to drink alcoholic beverages. When you do that, you are really out of the will of God. Here's the Proverbs on it. Who has woe and who has sorrow? Who has contentions and who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has woes? Who has sorrows? Who has mental problems? Who has contention and who has complaining? Who has social problems? Who has wounds without cause? Who gets beaten up because you're drunk? Who has redness of eyes? Physical results. Those who linger long over wine. And this is alcoholic wine. Those who go to taste mixed wine, strong alcoholic wine kicked up. Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly at the last, it bites like a serpent, and it stings like a viper. And your eyes will see strange things and your mind will utter perverse things. And you will be like one who lies down in the middle of the sea or like one who lies down on the top of a mass. You'll be weaving, waving back and forth. They struck me, but I did not become ill. They beat me, but I did not know it. You're so insensitive. They can even beat you physically. When shall I awake? I will seek another drink. Now when I come to the alcoholic, one wants another drink. Maybe he was genetically inclined to it. So when someone comes in real sophisticated and sachets, you've invited him to dinner and they got a little bottle of wine, don't think that that's cool. Don't think, gee boy, this is where it's at. The upper crust. The upper crust is nothing, but a bunch of crumbs held together by their own dough and their bad habits to begin with.

Don't think that that is smooth and cool. This is wisdom, this is reality. This is a word of God. This is where it's at. And you can listen to it, and you can obey it, or you can beat it out of here and flee and say, "I won't listen to that." But this is real wisdom, and who's responsible for it? Not me, thank God. What you do with it is your responsibility. Mine is to let you know; yours is to act upon it. So, Timothy here is a great man in the service of God. He understands the principle of saved to serve and Paul is trying to maximize that capacity on his part. Paul uses his own example of staying in service under hard times, staying in the face of being accepted or rejected, keep on telling the word of God as it is, and he is to keep himself physically capable of staying in the battle.

Now this is true in military combat on earth. You cannot, cannot stay in battle if you are not physically well in combat. It is the utmost importance that you don't get shot down or that you don't dissipate your troops by getting them shot down because they have not been properly trained, prepared, and alerted. Now this is God. This is Satan's standard technique. When a work is really doing God's work and is sounding forth the truth and is cutting the edges of people sin nature, then Satan has this opportunity to come in and thin out the ranks of those who are in divine good service and to bring them out of it and take them out there to swell the ranks of those who are engaged in human good. They'll go from the Church of quality down to the fun Church which doesn't resist the world and doesn't make them face the issue of their being different from that system. It is not always possible for leaders to prevent the losses as Paul himself found out with John Mark and with Demas. But restoration is always possible.

So, Paul the Apostle speaks to the Christians in the city of Colossae gathered in a variety of house Churches. He speaks to them with his Apostolic authority, and he includes under that authority his friend Timothy, a man worthy of respect and a man recognized for his Christian service is determined to stand for what is right. In verse two we read to the saints. Now we touch another significant subject. The word saints looks like this. In the Greek Bible it's the word H A G I O S hagios (hag'-ee-os). This word means holy. It's all it means. In a Greek language, it was a word used to dedicate something to the gods. When something was dedicated to the gods, it was called hagios, it was holy. So, the idea here basically is to set apart, and you must get this definition clear, or you'll get far straight. The word Haas means set apart. That's all it means, does not imply anything else. It just means to set apart. It means to set apart to something. Here's a few examples. In Old Testament times, places were called holy here in Exodus 29:31, "And you shall take the ram of ordination and boil its flesh in a holy place." Here a place is holy because it is set apart to a specific divine purpose. And in Exodus chapter 28:3 you have a thing that is called Holy. Exodus 28:2, "And you shall make holy garments for your brother Aaron for glory and for beauty." Here a garment is called holy because it is set apart to a specific divine purpose. So the idea here is not some moral quality but being set apart to the purpose of God.

Holy Ones

Supererogation

Now you can see the paganism of all that, and it is all dependent upon a group of people called the saints. The saints produce the extra grace, the extra works, and it makes it clear that salvation in the Roman system is clearly by the works either your own or by the works of someone else. And what Jesus Christ does is just make it possible for you to earn the works to benefit by His death for you. Now the New Testament makes it clear that every person who is born again is a priest of God. Every person is a priest of God apart from his personal conduct. That is stated for us in I Peter 2:9. "But you Christians are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, holy nations, a people of God's choosing and so on. You Christians are a royal priesthood." That means every believer is a priest. Now if you'd say, well what about a Christian who does not act very godly? Here, the book of I Corinthians 1:2 gives us a little clue. I Corinthians 1:2, Paul is speaking to this group of believers in Corinth. In chapter one verse two it says to the Church of God, which is at Corinth. So that's referring to a local Church to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. Saints by calling with all who in every place call upon a name of our Lord Jesus Christ their Lord. In ours he's telling us that the people in Corinth, the Christians there are saints, but the Christians in Corinth had some very serious moral breakdowns.

It was an extremely sinful place. This whole book is dealing with one sin after another. Here's an example in I Corinthians 5:1, it is actually reported. Paul said that there is immorality among you here in your congregations. An immorality of such a kind is does not exist even among the Gentiles that someone has his father's wife. In I Corinthians 5:11, "But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother." Verse 10 says, "When I told you not to associate with immoral persons, I wasn't talking about unbelievers." In verse 10 he says, "If I was talking about unbelievers, you'd have to get out of the world." That is because when you get on the local streetcar, the bus, it's going to be driven by an unbeliever, an immoral type of person. You do business with them all the time. Paul says, "I'm not talking about not associating with them. But in verse 11 he says, "I wrote to you to associate with a brother; if he should be an immoral person or covetous or idolater or reviler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one." And what Paul is saying here, here in your Church at Corinth, we have these terrible moral breakdowns, and you should not condone it. You should not smile and say it's okay. You should say that's wrong, and the ministry should be condemning these actions. And you should not be saying, "Sure, it's all right for you to go ahead and be like the world." They do this. Everybody in Corinth does this. This is the lifestyle. We don't want to look different. We don't want to be weird appearing.

Saints

I know a man, he used to be with us here at Berean Church, a faithful Christian. I don't doubt he's born again whatsoever. Now he's in one of the most pagan systems on the face of the earth, the Roman Catholic Church. And he takes great pride in the fact he is now a Catholic, and he thinks he has found greater enlightenment. But what he has found was nothing. What he has found was that from the time he stepped into that system, his eternal rewards and heavens stopped bingo. And the quality of his life has gone down, and the quality of his eternal rewards has been greatly diminished. So he is a saint though his Church doesn't consider him one, but he is not faithful because he deviated from sound doctrine to a Babylon Nimrod system.

So, this is not a small thing for Paul to say to these Colossians, "I recognize you as saints, you're going to heaven. You've been set aside for that eternal purpose and you're a faithful brethren." He calls him brethren, which is a term of affection. Fellow Christians, they have a camaraderie, a closeness in their fellowship with Christ despite their differences of culture, their social status, their education, their race, their wealth, their ethnic backgrounds. They are all bound in love for Christ in one spiritual family. So they're brothers and sisters. The brethren in Colossae are saints and faithful ones. Now the word saints and faithful you recognize are theological terms. This is the way theologians speak, and this is the way Paul, the theologian speaks. People who are brothers in Christ are technically saints, and they're technically faithful, if they are true to doctrine. They are holy ones, saints, because they're in Christ. They're faithful because they know doctrine and they stay in temporal fellowship. Their known sins are confessed. If you do not teach your children to stay on top of confessing. They're known sins, they're going to get out of touch with spiritual reality, and they will start fighting you and straying away from you. And they are to be found in Christ, they are saints, and they're faithful brethren in Christ. In Christ is a theological term. This is a term for what the Bible calls the Church. This is the spiritual union of all believers In this Church age. The Church is formed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit that took place the first time on the day of Pentecost. I Corinthians 12:13, "for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews are Greeks, whether slaves are free. And we were all to me to drink of one spirit."

The Church

An organism is a living thing. The Church is also an organization. This is the Church universal, the invisible Church. This is the Church local and visible. And the two are distinctively different phases, but you cannot have a true organization unless the people are part of the organism. You cannot have a true local Church as an organization representing God if those people are not part of the body of Christ, an organism. Therefore, if you have a liberal group or people are all unsaved, you reject Jesus Christ or you're Jewish or you're Roman Catholic where it's a work system. You have an organization, but you do not have a Church that includes the organism, the living body of Christ. It is no small thing to say that I am in Christ and trusting in Him for salvation. That is what brings on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and places you in Christ the Church as an organism.

The Church is an organism that cuts-across all denominational lines, but everybody in every denomination is in Christ on one basis. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. And they've accepted the principle that no man comes unto the Father but by Me, Jesus says, except through Him. If you reject that Jesus Christ is the only way in the salvation, you are out. That's why Muslims don't go to heaven. Catholics don't go to heaven. Mormons don't go to heaven. Hindus don't go to heaven. The religions of the East don't go to heaven. They all uniformly reject Jesus Christ as the only way, and Jesus says, "I am the only way." He is the narrow door into the sheep fold. He is the way, the narrow way into heaven. And that's what Jesus meant when He said, "Most people don't go to heaven because the gate is small, and the way is narrow."

That verse doesn't make any sense until you understand the principle of being in the organism in Christ. So many people are in religious organizations, they think they have it made, but they're in for a terrible surprise. Now, it's necessary for you to understand the nature of the Church invisible. If you do not understand this, you're going to do like a friend of mine recently at the Social Event who was worried about what kind of meats to eat. If you do not understand the Church, as the Church invisible as a distinct creation of God from the day of Pentecost on, you're going to be reaching out into the Old Testament and seeing all the things you can bring over of the holy days of the ceremonies, of the rituals of everything under the sun that belongs to Judaism as its way of life and has nothing to do with Christianity and this way of life. And which, as a matter of fact, is an insult to Christ. To do. You have to understand that we Christians are distinct new species, and we shall look at that next time.

Closing prayer

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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