1 Timothy 4 New International Version (NIV)

1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

Ever since the time of the Prophets, there have been people who claim to speak for God but do so for personal gain. In the Old Testament days, you could possibly get yourself killed for falsely speaking on God’s behalf. But even when you jump forward to the time of the writing of the New Testament, Paul had very harsh words for false teachers. There have always been false teachers. Why would we assume things would be any different now?

What makes things even more difficult today is that we have access to more teaching than you could consume in a 1,000 life times. The internet gives us access to virtually limitless information. Sorting through the clutter can be extraordinarily difficult.

This is why we as a church continually push you to read your Bible for yourself. This is exactly why we decided to read through the New Testament together as a church and write these blogs. This is why in our student ministry our high school D-Groups are also doing the New Testament read through.

Learning to discern truth is one of the most important things we can do as believers. In time where there are so many conflicting messages, knowing what God’s Word says it’s critical.

6 If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.

We live in a time where people offer tolerance as a cheap substitute for grace. Instead of calling sin, “Sin,” while still offering grace, we’re told tolerate their behavior. And when someone clearly teaches false teaching, we’re not supposed to call them out on their falsehood.

The problem with this thinking is that it’s blatantly contrary to the teaching and example of Jesus and The Apostles. They called out false teaching and they instructed us to do so as well.

In the past few weeks there was a video of a nationally famous Christian which went viral. The 30-second clip was widely regarded as false teaching amongst evangelical Christians. Therefore across social media evangelical Christians shared the video with comments about it’s falsehood.

Soon afterwards there was a backlash against the behavior of Christians calling the teaching false. While some of the backlash was against the mean-spirited and grace-less calling out of a false teacher (which is a fair criticism), but some of the other backlash was simply saying it was wrong to call her out public teaching publicly as a false teaching. Unfortunately, Jesus and the Apostles clearly instructed and modeled this type of calling out of false teaching.

We must stand up for truth, but we must do so with love and grace.

12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

Working with teachers, I probably teach this verse in some setting at least once per year. While Timothy most likely was significantly older than a teenager, the principle of the passage remains.

No matter how young or old you are, set an example for other believers with your words, your actions, your love, your faith, and your purity

One of the most exciting things about being a youth pastor is that I get to see our students do this. Each Summer we have 50 teenagers give up two weeks of their Summer to be trained on how to share the gospel, poured into spiritually, and then sent out into our community to lead Bible Clubs. For them the week of Backyard Bible Clubs consists of 13 hour days in the hot sun running around and sharing the gospel. They truly set an example for the rest of our church.

I grew up attending a church in our association of Hill Country Churches. So as a teenager I participated in Backyard Bible Clubs. One year before we left for our training camp they presented all of the students to the entire church. One man in the service (who is a prominent member of Williamson County) saw teenager after teenager walk to the front committing weeks of their life to serving Jesus. He was so humbled by their example that as soon as the service was over he asked how he could serve that Summer. From that Summer onward he served on the student ministries mission trips to Mexico, and he served in other capacities. Their example led to change in him which led to a change in his behavior!

No matter how young or old you, BE AN EXAMPLE!

Sean Chandler | Associate Pastor

Sean has been a part of the association of Hill Country Bible Churches for over twenty years. He received Christ as a youth while attending Hill Country Bible Church Austin. He attended Hill Country Bible Church NW from 1989 to 2002. At that time he began attending HCBC Pflugerville. He served as a student ministry intern there for two years. In 2008, Sean graduated from Columbia International University with a double major in Bible and Bible teaching. Sean married his wife, Jennifer, in 2006. Their first child, Liam, was born in 2012, and their second, Chloe, was born in 2014.

He blogs regularly at seanchandler.net.