Timothy's Charge

Hey everyone,
This is my new blog. My name's Scott (you probably already know me if you're reading this), and I've been meaning to start a blog that the people in my church can read, as well as any visitors that we get. I used to do notes on Facebook all the time, but I sort of got out of that, and this will be the new norm. Hopefully I'll keep up with it.
As a new Senior Pastor (in my third month) I've spent a lot of time contemplating what it means to be a Church in the city. I recently moved to Pittsburgh to preach at an inner-city church called Hazelwood Christian Church, and we're (my wife Kate, and I) having a blast. The people in the community we live in are wonderful and the people in our church are even more wonderful. I love it. Anyways, I've spent a lot of time contemplating what it means to be a Church in the city, and how I as a pastor fit in/assist in that call.
In a nutshell, here is where I've felt God moving me over the last year or so, regarding my calling: I've felt that the Holy Spirit, which has wrought salvation in my heart to draw me to God through the finished work of God's Son Jesus Christ, has been working on me to a) assist a church that needs help, b) work with and disciple that church's leadership, and c) proclaim the glory of God expressly revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. I believe that as I do this (and I'll be the first to tell you I have no idea what I'm doing), God is going to move.
Let me break down our church's identity as two-fold: First, we are a Christian Church, descended from the Stone-Campbell Movement. Secondly, we are an inner-city church, in a rough and poor community.
As regards the former, the Stone-Campbell Movement (named after Barton Stone and Thomas Campbell and his son Alex) was a movement of American churches in the 1800s that simply wanted to move away from any sort of denominational ties, and get back to being the New Testament Church, where creeds weren't depended upon, baptism by immersion is emphasized, and Christ is proclaimed as holy and glorious. Since it happened to "restore" the Church back to the NT Church, this has been called the Restoration Movement.
As regards the latter, we are part of the minority of inner-city churches in poor communities of big cities that are still alive, kicking, and proclaiming Christ. Many have closed, are still closing, and many will continue to close.

Now let me share with you the temptation both of those characteristics have to face:
--In the Restoration Churches, there is a growing sense of discontentment with the fact that churches are shrinking, closing, and people in the Church don't really seem to care. Thus, when books like Francis Chan's "Crazy Love", David Platt's "Radical", or Kyle Idleman's "Not a Fan", all of which emphasize that Christians are to leave their comfort zones (almost to fault, as leaving the comfort zone seems to be an ends to itself--but this isn't a book review blog; it should also be stated that there aren't many bigger David Platt fans than myself), pastors and preachers in Christian Churches snatch them up and say, "THIS is what we're all about, Church. Do THIS," which is 90% of the time met with closed ears. So the Restoration Churches, which has always prided itself on being theologically conservative, begin to preach the latest books instead of the Scriptures that Paul tells Timothy to preach from alone--we'll get to that later. ("Conservative" should probably be defined, but I'll save that for later--let me just say, many Christian churches aren't as conservative theologically as they like to think).
--Inner-city churches also have temptations. Typical of inner-city neighborhoods are problems with crime and violence, drugs, lack of resources, and lack of care from the city government and law enforcement. Thus, when a church considers itself to be primarily a meeter of needs (which many do), the church will give itself to events that promote stopping the violence (which they certainly should), recovery programs for those in drugs (which they should), programs to facilitate economy such as buying clubs (which they should), and campaigns to promote the goodness of the neighborhood for the city to see (which they should). Obviously, the common denominator in all of these is the fact that ALL of them are good, noble, and should be practiced. The temptation comes in when a church looks at all of those needs, and begins to give ALL of it's time, energy, and resources to fixing the problems, and neglects it's primary calling as a Church: to proclaim the Gospel and make much of Christ to the people who have not knowing Him as their REAL disparity.

As I've thought on these things, what I see is that those pursuits are NOT bad things. They arise from good motives, and typically yield good fruits. Pastors preaching against comfort?--Jesus did it. Churches in poor communities meeting needs for those who have nothing?--Jesus taught it. Of course these are necessary in the life of the Church.
But as I read the opening of Paul's letter to Timothy, I see something that is even more important.
1 Timothy 1:3-5--"As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." (ESV)

In a nutshell, Paul is telling Timothy that if anyone in the church is preaching messages that promote only speculations and cause divisions, do away with it. Of course, we don't have a problem with "genealogies" today. You won't typically visit a church and hear someone arguing, "Well my great-grandmother was a member of this church for 80 years, since the time the church was founded, and SHE wouldn't agree with what you're preaching, and neither would my mother who doesn't come because she can't walk but she STILL wouldn't believe in it, so I don't either!" Okay, never mind, maybe we still have a problem with genealogies in the church.
However, I'd have to say that the bigger "genealogy" right now is young Christians, myself included, looking at the Church which appears happy the way things are, then noticing empty pews, then noticing people in the world hating the church, and then speculating that EVERYTHING has to change.
Of course, the mother of invention is need, and many of these young Christians look around and see a need and say, "We need to do something about this." And they're right--we do.
But at the end of the day, if your "calling into question everything" leads to a division and argument that screams louder than the Gospel of Christ: justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone, as He died the final sacrifice for all sins because God is holy and just in wanting a final sacrifice, and the only person who's ever lived a holy life of perfect obedience before God is Jesus, who WAS God, so HE makes the final sacrifice because even though God is holy and SHOULD wipe us out for our disobedience and rebellion but He doesn't because He loves us anyways in spite of ourselves and this is cause for complete reckless abandon in worship of Him who is obviously worthy of worship and one day will GET worship from all people but until then humbly gives people chance after chance to come to Him through Christ--if your arguments end up being louder than THAT message, which is the Church's message all throughout the New Testament, then you need to sit down and be quiet. And on the same token, pastors, if your "stand" on comfort screams louder than the simple and profound and glorious message of Christ's atonement for sins, maybe you need to sit down, too. I'm only saying this because I love you and because I believe God HAS called you to proclaim the Gospel in His Church. Proclaim it. But if you're not going to proclaim it, don't proclaim anything.
At the same time, I believe the reason why many of the inner-city churches close down these days is not simply because their neighborhoods are bad and make it impossible to live there, as though God needed a good and affluent neighborhood to work, nor is it because they haven't worked hard to meet needs in the community. Rather, it's because they've allowed the felt and SEEABLE needs to come up in front of the greatest need, which is that people hear and believe on Christ. I pray daily that I wouldn't fall into temptation to put the community's felt needs first, but that I'd proclaim the message of Christ's work first, and THEN felt needs which flow from that. I'd ask you to pray for me in that endeavor as well.

Notice what Paul says at the end of verse 4, which he says is contrary to 'endless genealogies that promote speculations': "..rather than stewardship of God that is by faith." Going on in verse 5 he says that the aim of our charge is "love that issues from a pure heart and good conscience and sincere faith."
In a world where things make less and less sense each day, and in communities where kids are growing up as confused as I am when I try to think of ways to train my dog to stop pooping everywhere, they need to hear the Gospel, because it's the message of grace (which promotes undeserved forgiveness) and it's the message of God's sovereignty (which promotes trust in Him who is bigger than all of our problems). Paul says that when we hear this, we are to be good stewards of it by exercising faith in this Gospel in every area of our lives. Thus we won't make Christ's sacrifice void by continuing on in the sin He died for, and we won't make God's grace void, as we a use the freedom we've been given in Him to continue to worship ourselves. The opposite of speculations and arguments is living in light of the work of Christ, which humbles us and changes our hearts to make us want to worship Him, no matter what anyone does or says to us. This is because our identity is found in Him and Him alone. This is what we were created for. You could simply read Paul's letters to the Romans and Ephesians to see him carry out this idea practically even more.
Finally, Paul says the aim is simply love which is ONLY possible through having a pure heart which comes from having a good conscience and sincere faith. Ironically (and it's not ironic at all), these are all things that come through having faith in Christ's work on the Cross. HE purifies our hearts (Hebrews 1:3, 1 Peter 1:22-23--prophesied in Ezekiel 36) by humbling us up underneath God's Lordship as we see His glory and power, alongside His love for us. HE gives us a good conscience (Psalm 103:11-12, John 15:3-5, Hebrews 10:12-14). HE changes our hearts so that we have a sincere faith (1 Peter 3:18, 1 John 2:1-6).
At the end of the day, Paul's message to Timothy, a young church leader (like myself), who was entrusted with a ministry that was beyond himself (also like myself), to preach a Gospel that was beyond himself and his own understanding (like myself too), was simply to preach Christ. He says it famously in his second letter to Timothy, in 4:2, "I urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word." The Word is Jesus. Preach Jesus. God's Word is also Scripture. Preach Scripture.
Pastors (the few of you that have had time to read this--I know your busy guys doing God's work in the Church), set the latest "uncomfortable" book down, and preach the Word. Preach Christ. Preach the Scriptures. If it's uncomfortable because you feel inadequate to the task, then you're a Gospel preacher. God only truly uses those who realize that in and of themselves, they have nothing to offer. You don't, and we BOTH need to recognize daily that we are dust and worthless--but God deems us conquerors (and MORE than conquerors) (Romans 8:37), and how? Through Him who loved us. We're not just conquerors. We're conquerors IN HIM. Don't attempt to "conquer" your neighborhood or your church or whatever; instead, preach Him who has conquered the grave and conquered the world. That's the only way you become a conqueror. We mustn't pretend we can conquer or achieve anything as though the verse said, "We're more than conquerors" and that's it. The verse says we're more than conquerors IN HIM. Woe is us if we divorce it and make Him not be at the center of everything in our endeavors.

I've had a lot of this addressed at pastors and church leaders, and I don't even know how many of them will read this. Really, this message is for anyone, pastor or not, church leader or not. YOU need to trust in Christ, and when you do, YOU need to preach Christ, in both word and action so the people in your world see and hear it. I can't tell you how many people I talk to all the time that talk of how they've been "doing well" in their "spiritual life" and "prayer life". If at the end of the day, you're "doing well" but it's not causing you to proclaim the glories of God who is glorious, you're not doing as well as you think you are. You're reaping SOMETHING, but it's not fruit. It's just an illusion of fruit. God's Word reaps a worship of, zeal for, and humility toward Himself. And when we experience the blessing of His presence, our message isn't, "I've been reading and praying a lot better"; it's "God's been gracious and He's been drawing me to Himself."
To put it another way, may we use Paul's words for the young preacher Timothy, that we have love that issues from our pure heart and good conscience and sincere faith. These only come from coming up underneath the Gospel and letting God do the work HE wants to do. Don't set goals in your spiritual life, but rather let Christ ALONE be the goal. May you echo Paul in Philippians 3 when he says he counts his past life as rubbish for the sake of KNOWING Christ. Too often, we read that passage and focus on the fact that Paul has been transformed. "See? Paul's been transformed!" We forget that the point isn't that he's been transformed. The point is what he's been transformed to. Knowing Christ Jesus. Do you understand? Honestly, most don't. I'm the one typing it and I don't even understand. But praise be to God, He justifies me, sanctifies me, and one day will glorify me. It's all through the Word (John 17:17). Let the Word do it's work, and let God define the goals and take you there. THIS is how a Restoration Church in the inner-city is to do the ministry of Christ: Preach the Word. This is how ALL Restoration churches are to do ministry, and ALL inner-city churches are to do ministry. Let's preach the Word, and let's have pure hearts and sincere faith, issuing from Christ's glorious work on the work on the Cross and out of the Tomb. Praise be to Him, Amen.