Introduction
The Lord has chosen the foolish things of this world, to shame the wise. At the creation of the world, after all the splendors He had made both celestial and terrestrial, God tops it all off by making…a guy. Really God? You’re turning this whole planet over to this finite creature of dust? What might have been a let-down for the angelic host was actually the great and glorious mystery of God’s purpose in the creation and redemption of the world.
The Text
But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
1 Timothy 6:11-16
Man of God
Consider that first phrase––man of God (v11). At creation God crowned His work by placing in the midst of it a man. Adam was placed in the garden as a minister. He was to tend and guard it. His sin brought great ruin. For a time, it was necessary for angels to mediate between God and man. But this was not God’s original design. The OT takes us on a winding story where we see God create a new thing and then raise up a man to be a minister of that new thing.
Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David are all like new Adams. God raises them out of the dust to be the anointed man. The prophets, beginning with Moses, are frequently called the “man of God”. On Mt. Carmel, Elijah declares that the vindication that he was indeed the man of God would be that fire would fall upon his sacrifice. God would raise up these men of God to minister over some new working of His covenant of grace.
Yet all of them were imperfect messengers of a perfect message. While they were ministers of the covenant of grace, they themselves stood in need of that same grace for they were impure men in need of the purifying waters of God’s mercy. In all these episodes, we see over and over again God making some new and glorious thing and then raising up a man to minister over it. This seems foolish to the wise. Just let the angels do it.
But in the fullness of time, when all things had been prepared for our redemption, God does the most astonishing thing and sends His son in the likeness of…a man. Not just any man. A servant. That isn’t what the wise would have chosen. But then the God-man lives righteously, dies a public death, is buried, and is raised back to life and to imperial glory at His Father’s right hand.
Then to herald the fact that a resurrected man now was king of the world, the Lord Jesus gathers His troops together and says, “Here’s the plan to get the whole world on board with this New Creation, you men are going to go tell them.” You live in the New Creation work of Christ, and His means of ministering that is by means of men set apart to the ministry of grace and peace, men set apart and ordained to be heralds of these glad tidings. The church is the restored garden of God, and He has raised up a second Adam to tend and guard it. The means whereby He guards this garden is not by the flaming sword of a Cherub. He defends His Church by men who wield the flaming sword of His Word.
Flee & Pursue
Since the exalted Son of Man, Jesus Christ, has ordained “men of God” to represent and herald His New Creation work, we’re left with two questions. What instructions is the man of God given? Second, what does this mean for the flock? Paul answers those questions here. The young pastor, Timothy, is charged by Paul to flee three things and pursue three things.
- Flee from teaching a false Gospel and perverse disputing (vv3-5).
- Flee from discontentment (vv6-10).
- Flee a particular kind of discontentment: the love of money (v10).
- Follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Or we could simply say, “Imitate Christ.”
- Fight the good fight. This is warfare not craft time. Thus, the man of God must remain physically, mentally, and spiritually capable of fighting against the evils of worldliness, compromise, and heresy.
- Keep these commandment by maintaining fealty to the glorious message of the Gospel. The centrality of Christ and Him crucified ensures that the man of God does not get enticed by sin, distracted by alluring conspiracy theories, or compromised by worldly pleasures.
How to Make Use of Your Pastor
While God has appointed men of God over His Church, this does not make the rest of the people of God into second class citizens of the Kingdom. Rather, as a pastor labors in the midst of the Church, he does so in order that farmers, doctors, mechanics, teachers, students, parents, and kids all imitate the Lord Jesus in every domain of human society.
When the man of God does what God has commanded him to do, he is worthy of imitation. Paul commands Timothy to be worthy of imitation, so that by imitating your pastor as he imitates Christ, both are brought to revel in the glories of the Gospel (vv13-16). Your pastor is given to you by the Son of Man to lead you to worship God rightly. This passage tells you why God gave you a pastor, and how to best make use of his ministry. I borrowed that phrase “making use of your pastor” from RM M’Cheyne. M’Cheyne, in giving advice to a congregation receiving a newly ordained minister, he offered a few ways to make use of their minister. One sub-point is worth sharing: “Be brief. Tell your case. Hear his word and be gone. Remember his body is weak, and his time precious. You are stealing his time from others or from God. I cannot tell you what a blessing it will be if you will be very short in your calls.”
His vocation is the ministry of the Word and Sacrament, and your vocation is to live in light of the New Creation which those covenant words and signs established. Should your pastor flee from evil so that you can stay in it? Should your pastor be courageous so you can be a coward? Should your pastor labor in doctrine and in prayer so that you can be easily duped and negligent in prayer? No. Jesus loves you so greatly that He gave you a pastor that is tasked to be like Jesus so you can be more like Jesus.
The Blessed & Only Potentate
The Gospel is the good news that the God who created the world has now redeemed the world that Adam lost by the Last Adam, your Lord and Savior Jesus. Your pastor’s job is to make the Gospel that Christ is the blessed and only Potentate known to you. When your bills pile up, when your health is failing, when you miscarried that baby you’d been praying for years for, when you lose your job, when you fall into foolish sin, the pastor’s job is to help you see that Jesus came into this world to save sinners, and is now the blessed and only Potentate. And by the light of this glorious truth, you are equip to be a king and priest unto God that in your own vocation you might make this good news known by word and deed to all the earth. Remember, God chooses the foolish things––your pastor and you––to shame the wise.
Here is a pastor. Here is the Bible. Here are the Sacraments. Here are the saints. Here is how Jesus, the blessed and only Potentate, is ruling the world with truth and grace. Here is how your sin is being subdued. Here is how your guilty conscience is being relieved. Here is how you are being given courage to face dark days. Here is a man of God ordained to declare to you the liberating and life-giving good news of the Son of Man, crucified and exalted. Here is the message: Christ and Him Crucified. All of this is foolishness. The sort of foolishness that by God’s grace will fill this world with the glory of the knowledge of God, as waters cover the sea.
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