Well, let me start with a question this morning.
Think about this in your heart.
Should a man or woman aspire to leadership in the church?
Should a person aspire to leadership in the church?
And I mean that in a general sense,
not specifically about elders,
but about all kinds of leadership in the church.
Deacons, ministry directors, leading on the worship team,
children's ministry, becoming a discipler of others.
Should Christians aspire to leadership?
Should they want it?
Should they pursue it?
Is that okay?
Is that what God wants from us?
In my many years of ministry, I've found that so many
Christians are hesitant to step forward into leadership,
to raise their hand and say, I'm ready.
And there's a whole bunch of reasons for that.
Some folks just don't feel qualified or don't feel like
they'll ever be qualified at any point in their life.
Some are a little bit just passive in the approach to that
question thinking, I'm just, I'm absolutely fine with sitting
in the back and letting other people lead.
Let them sort of carry the weight of that.
And then others have counted the cost of leadership.
They see the hard work.
They see the responsibility and the weight of it.
And they say, no, thank you.
Still others are concerned about whether having an ambition
for leadership is a godly motivation or an ungodly
motivation.
Is it better just to remain humble and not seek that out?
So it's just something to think about this morning in your own
heart, where do you stand on that?
Should we have ambition to leadership?
So grab your Bibles.
We're going to start not in Titus this morning.
I want you to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and look at verse 1.
We are in the pastoral epistles, right?
Very important letters, right, from an older apostle written to
his younger protege, preparing them to sort of fill in because
Paul knows his life is coming close to an end.
So we've got Timothy and Titus who are being written to.
Now, there is no doubt a type of ambition that we should resist.
Let me make that clear.
The type that is self-focused, that is self-indulgent, that is
self-glorifying.
But according to this text, we're going to read verse 1 in a
second, there is a noble and worthy and honorable kind of
ambition that is actually required to be in the heart of
any man who wishes to serve as an elder.
He must have a passionate drive to serve the kingdom of God
into shepherd God's flock.
So take a look at verse 1.
It is a trustworthy statement.
If any man aspires, look at that key word, aspires to the office
of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.
So the first thing you see Paul writes to Timothy about
elders is they have to aspire to the office.
Now the Greek verb there, oregatai, means to stretch out
and grab onto something, which tells you what he's getting at
here.
The perspective elder has to want this, he has to desire it,
he has to reach out for it.
And what does God think of this?
Paul says it's a fine work that he desires.
Now in my opinion, the translation here, the NASB comes
out a little bit flat.
I prefer the ESV's description.
He desires a noble task.
And the Greek word there for finer noble, kalos, oops, there it is,
kalos, right?
It has this beautiful range of meaning to it.
It can mean beautiful, excellent, precious, commendable,
and more.
That's what Paul says about an elder who seeks to have
ambition, seeks to have godly ambition to become an actual
elder.
So as we look at this, we have to keep in mind the context
that Paul is writing in.
Think about this.
Taking a leadership position in first century Ephesus where
Timothy was, was not an easy thing to do.
Leadership in those early churches in Greece would bring
you things like trouble and hardship and rejection and
possibly real persecution.
So far fewer men back in that day were stepping into church
leadership to feed their egos.
That just didn't happen often.
For the most part, it was a daunting thing to basically
raise your hand and say, I want to be an elder and put a
target on my back.
So you see here in this text, Paul gives encouragement to
Timothy, tell the men that the church needs qualified leaders.
Let them know that in God's eyes, this is a commendable
thing to have ambition to church leadership.
Now what about today?
Not so much hardship and persecution to be in church
leadership today.
Today in far too many churches in this country where being a
pastor or a preacher carries prestige and privilege and
sometimes even wealth, you see men aspiring to the office of
elder and more likely to the role of pastor or preacher for
all the wrong reasons.
You see men wanting it for applause, for admiration, for
the love of titles and celebrity and all the perks that go
along with being recognized by not just the congregation but
by the wider world, the Christian world.
That's why they're there.
In fact, if you think about it, it's not that far off from a
passage you read several weeks ago in Matthew 23 where Jesus
says this about the Pharisees.
Now listen to this as you think about men who are in ministry
for the wrong reasons.
The Pharisees, they do everything to be seen by others.
They love the place of honor at banquets.
They love the front seats in the synagogue.
They love greetings in the marketplace and they love to be
called rabbi by the people.
Many men in Christian ministry today fit a similar description.
So this morning as we come back to our study of elders in Titus
1, let's make sure we get this principle right off the bat.
Having a passion to excel towards church leadership is not
wrong and in the case of elders, it's not only not wrong, it's
beautiful, it's commendable and it's required but here's the big
but, the motivation of the heart is the determining factor.
Always check the heart because where does God look?
On the heart.
He's far less concerned with what you do on the outside than
He is what motivates you inside.
So we always have to ask the question, why do we do what we
do?
If we aspire to leadership, why?
What motivates us to step into that position?
Ambition that is focused on glorifying God and advancing
His kingdom is a mighty force for good.
We know that but beware, what is Jesus' standard for greatness?
Right?
It really doesn't have anything to do with prestige or
privilege or the applause of men or becoming wealthy.
For Jesus, it's about giving yourself to serve others rather
than inducing people to serve you.
And sometimes we get that mixed up in the church.
So here's what we're going to do today.
That's just sort of an entree to what we're going to get to in
Titus 1.
We are going to bite off two whole verses this morning.
Very exciting.
And it's funny, last week I came up here and I was half joking.
I said, hey, I didn't intend for this but this is week two on
elders, there's going to be a week three.
Well guess what?
I didn't intend for this but today's week three on elders
and there's going to be a week four.
Because the stuff is just pouring out of me.
I know it's only like five verses but there's so much that
needs to be talked about in the modern church culture about
ecclesiology and about elders in particular.
So I'm saving some really important truths for next Sunday
and Lord willing we'll be at the end of it at that point and
we'll move on.
I know Jessie, she's skeptical.
She's like, are you sure?
We'll see.
Now you might recall that I praised you guys last Sunday for
engaging so well with these sermons.
I really appreciate that.
Remember I invited you guys to ask any new questions you might
have and once again you did not disappoint.
So before we dive into our two new verses, I do want to talk
about the two main questions that came out of our
congregation.
Two questions that were actually mentioned by multiple people.
So I feel like the Lord was saying you've got to touch on
these things.
So let me deal with the two things and I'll deal with the
easier one first.
When we spoke last Sunday about the requirement of an elder's
home life, we looked at Titus 1.6 where it says he must have
children who are faithful.
And we define that as children who, they don't live perfectly
obviously but in the general course of life they live in
submission to the authority of their father in the home.
They don't live in a state of debauchery or rebellion, Paul
says, right?
So then the question came up and we'll answer this.
Okay, that's fine.
We see how important it is for a young child living under the
roof of his or her home for them to be in submission.
But what is the cutoff age for that?
What is the cutoff age?
In other words, what if an elder's son or daughter grows up,
becomes an adult and then turns away from their father's
instruction and discipline and begins to live a thoroughly
anti-Christian life?
Is that elder then disqualified?
Now I've personally seen this happen.
And it's one of the most, for a dad and everybody that's a dad
out there, you can understand this.
It's one of the most heartbreaking things you can
imagine.
But I would place this issue in the same category that we
discussed last week about whether or not a father in the
home can ensure that his child is an actual believer.
He can't, right?
He doesn't have control over that.
Confession is a supernatural act of God alone and it can't be
controlled by a parent, mom or dad.
And the same thing now is true about adult children.
Every child hits that stage of life where they have to
separate from their parents and begin to walk independently of
their oversight.
And when that happens, that adult child now has this thing
we call freedom of choice.
And they have to make a decision.
They have to determine for themselves if they're going to
walk in obedience not to mom or dad anymore, but to Christ and
to his word.
So it's that difficult stage of life.
I've been through it with two kids.
It's difficult.
18, 19 years old and that young man or young woman has to say
to themselves, okay, I'm following Christ not because my
parents tell me to, but it's my faith now.
I believe I choose to walk in obedience to God's word.
But sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they get a taste of freedom and off they run.
Now the good news is sometimes they come back when they see
the, like the prodigal, they see the foolishness of their
living and they come back, but sometimes they don't.
Sometimes they continue to reject the truth that they were
raised and instructed in.
But a potential elder cannot be held responsible for how an
adult son or daughter responds in those years.
You train and you instruct and let me tell you, you pray and
you live as an example in the home for your child.
And then what do you do?
You've got to let go.
And it is so hard.
It is so hard because you want to keep controlling them.
You want to keep like, no, don't do this.
You've got to let go.
It's like a bar of soap.
At some point it's going to slip out.
You got to let go.
It's really, really hard.
And here's the other thing.
You never feel like you did enough as a parent.
I could have done this better.
I could have done that better.
And when that feeling comes over you, what you have to do is you
fall back on your theology.
You preach to yourself what scripture says about salvation.
You open your hands and you entrust your child to both the sovereignty and the goodness of
God.
And then you keep praying.
And that's the long answer.
That's the long answer.
The short answer is no, an elder should not be disqualified because their adult child
has run off and is now making choices and actions that go against his teaching and instruction.
The standard of having faithful children should be restricted to that period of life when
an elder's kids are in the home and under his direct authority.
Okay, so that's the easy one.
Let's talk about the second one.
It's a harder question and that's the issue of divorce.
And as I dive into this, you should know that this could be an entire sermon by itself,
so I don't have time to talk about every nuance and every possible situation.
And in fact, this is one of those areas of practical theology where we should resist
drawing hard and fast lines that aren't explicitly found in the scriptures.
But we can start with some obvious things.
Number one, God hates divorce.
Right?
He says that clearly in Malachi chapter two.
God hates divorce.
Why?
Because it's a violation of a sacred covenant that two people have entered into.
He has joined them together as one flesh and now that's broken.
He hates that.
And Jesus addressed this in Matthew 19, didn't he?
He's citing Genesis 2 and he says, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.
So we also know that there are two concessions in the New Testament that give us permissible
reasons for divorce, not commands to divorce, not instructions to divorce, but concessions.
Meaning in some circumstances it's going to be permissible.
But we should always be careful about this.
Whenever you get concessions in scripture, what do people tend to do?
Justify their actions and point to that and say, well, I think I can fit my circumstance
into that concession.
We have to be really careful with that.
We always need to keep the overarching principle in mind.
God hates divorce and we should tremble at the fact, tremble at the fact that we would
consider breaking up what he's joined together.
So two concessions.
The first one is found in 1 Corinthians 7.
Paul says that when an unbelieving spouse abandons a believing spouse, that that believing
spouse is no longer enslaved or in bondage to the marriage covenant.
And that probably is related to what was going on in that time.
Remember the gospel is spreading into the Greek world and a husband and wife hear the
gospel.
One converts, the other says no thank you, and now you have conflict in the marriage
and the unbeliever runs off.
And in that case, Paul says the believer doesn't have to chase that person down to try to save
the marriage.
They're free then from that marriage covenant.
That's one.
The second one is given is to us again in Matthew 19 by Jesus himself and it points
to the breaking of the covenant due to sexual immorality.
The dissolving of the one flesh nature of marriage because of adultery where a man or
a woman has now joined himself or herself to someone who is not their spouse.
So any divorce that takes place other than those two areas of concession, we simply categorize
that as an unbiblical divorce and it is a serious act of rebellion that is contrary
to God's will and contrary to the clear teaching of scripture.
Make sense?
Now with that as our backdrop, you have to ask two questions related to the qualifications
of elders.
Can a divorced man ever again be considered the husband of one wife and can he ever again
be considered above reproach?
Those are important questions because we have to follow God's instruction.
We're going to structure the church and we're going to put men in important offices.
We ought to look carefully at what God says and treat it carefully.
First let's acknowledge that neither of those two qualifications, husband and one wife and
above reproach, explicitly mention divorce.
So as I cautioned last week, we have to be careful not to extrapolate 100% inflexible
dogmas that aren't explicitly in the text.
Now in an indirect way, those two requirements do, they do have a connection to divorce.
We can't ignore that either, but again we should be cautious about drawing inflexible
lines.
Let me give you two examples of why we need to be careful with this and not draw lines.
Examples where there might be, I stress that might be room for grace to abound.
Say a man aspires to be an elder, but years ago his wife who at the time claimed to believe
and attended church with him suddenly leaves him for another man, up and goes.
He does not want divorce.
He fights for the marriage, right?
He wants to work on the marriage.
She absolutely refuses.
She files for divorce and she abandons the marriage.
Is that man disqualified because of something he had no control over?
Because none of us can control the will of our spouse, right?
He had no control.
Is he disqualified?
My answer would be no.
And especially no if later on he built a long track record of devotion to a second wife
and that they were involved in doing ministry together as a couple.
So you'd want to look at all of those details, but this was out of his control.
What happened to him?
He was abandoned by a woman.
Another example, say a man aspires to be an elder, but years ago he divorced his wife
without biblical grounds, so he sinned, but he wasn't a believer at the time.
Are we going to hold him to a standard that he doesn't understand nor has submitted to?
And again, I would say no.
As an unbeliever, we can't hold him to that standard and especially no if later there's
a solid track record of new life in Christ and effective ministry in the church.
So all I'm saying here is this, without an explicit command that says no divorced man
can serve as an elder, I think we need to look at every situation on a case by case
basis.
We take all the nuances and the circumstances into account, we seek the Lord in prayer,
and then with the collective wisdom of the entire plurality of elders in the church,
we make a determination.
By the way, we would still err on the side of caution with this.
We're not going to just open it wide.
We're going to err on the side of caution and going slow with this.
By the way, a man's conscience plays into this issue as well.
Years ago at Oak Hill, I knew a man who had a sketchy divorce in his background.
It was when he was young in his 20s.
He was a believer at the time.
He knows it was sin.
And then by the time he had come to Oak Hill, he was in his 60s, so it had been almost 40
years since his divorce.
And he said, he said, Jeff, I don't think I can ever be an elder.
My conscience will not allow me to serve because of my past.
And I respect that.
I respected that principled stance that he had taken.
So that factors in as well.
So there's a lot going on with this question.
And if you've just been raised in this place, if the D word is there, a person cannot serve,
just test that.
Test that and make sure that you're not drawing lines that God doesn't draw.
Amen?
So great questions, you guys.
Really good questions.
And again, I appreciate hearing from you.
Maybe you'll give me some more this week and we'll end up with five weeks on this.
No.
But the fact that you're taking the issue of elders seriously is a great encouragement
to the entire team.
So let's move on.
Let's go to Titus chapter one now.
By the way, can I just mention this?
I know a couple weeks ago I talked about whether or not you should call me Pastor Jeff.
You guys are hilarious, by the way.
I keep getting texts and emails, dear Reverend Jeff.
And then, you know, smiley face.
Or I got one, Saint Reverend Father Jeff.
So, don't do that.
But listen, look, colloquially, I understand why you're calling me Pastor Jeff and I appreciate
it.
I'm not going to get mad at you.
I'm not going to deny it and go, who are you talking to?
The point is more important than what you actually call me.
The point is that I'm one of seven elders and that's an important point.
But if you want to call me Pastor Jeff, that's absolutely fine.
Okay.
So last week we looked at two requirements for elders in verse six, right?
The overarching qualification of being above reproach and then two sub-requirements of
being above reproach, which is being a godly father and husband in the home.
Now we look at verses seven and eight today.
What we're going to see are five character traits that cannot be found in an elder's
life, disqualifying, followed by six character traits which have to be found in an elder's
life or he's disqualified.
So again, Paul's laying out a very high standard here and for good reason.
We talked about this last Sunday.
Leadership is the number one thing that's going to set a local church on a path towards
spiritual health or away from it.
So the high standard we should all praise God for.
It's very, very important.
And again, I mentioned this the first week.
This is not only important because you should be sort of examining what's happening at Oak
Hill, but there may come a time in the future where you hit a different life stage and you
move out of the area or you go to another church.
And this is, guys, this is in the top one or two things you need to look very carefully
at before you commit yourself to a new church family.
Leadership.
You've got to ask good, hard questions.
How is your church structured?
Is there a plurality of elders?
Does one pastor dominate and control the church?
By the way, they may not admit it in leadership, but you've got to ask other people.
Do you feel like there's one guy who dominates and controls everything?
Who are these men who lead?
Have they been appointed based on their character and integrity or according to some other standard?
These are important questions whenever you settle on a church home.
Now, I'm going to shock you with something here before we go on.
Yes, the passage that we're about to walk through specifically deals with the character
traits of elders, but the truth is all Paul is doing in this text is describing what a
spiritually mature person looks like.
That's it.
So what does that mean?
That means, surprise, everybody's involved in this.
This list that we're about to go through is what God wants for every single person in
this room because we all want to move towards spiritual maturity, right?
So we're getting a really good description of this.
Man, woman, I'm not talking about becoming an elder.
I'm just saying becoming a spiritually mature believer.
So I don't want you to check out this morning because I know we all have a tendency to go,
this doesn't apply to me.
I'll never be an elder.
No, pay attention to this because we all want to see these things develop in our lives.
And of course, when we talk about moving towards spiritual maturity, can I encourage you?
It requires patience and diligence.
Both are required because maturity takes time and it takes commitment.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could have some mountaintop dramatic experience one day and
wake up the next day and be spiritually mature?
That would be so nice, but that's not the way it works.
That's why Paul actually commands Timothy, discipline yourself, young man, for the purpose
of godliness.
He uses an athletic metaphor.
He says, look, if you want to see progress in these things, you've got to train for it.
And we all know that principle, but sometimes we forget.
If we want to move towards spiritual maturity, we have to train for it.
And by the way, Tani could do this, but I'll do it this morning for myself.
Let me give you a testimony to this truth.
If you had known me back in my late 20s and you said, you know what, Jeff, could you ever
be an elder in a church?
Could you ever serve anywhere in a church?
I would have said, absolutely not.
I would have laughed at you based on where I was at that time.
So never be surprised by what God can do if he marks you out and says, nope, I've got
a job for you to do.
Amen.
Okay, so let's go to verse 7 now.
Here we see Paul expanding on this idea of above reproach, but now he's talking about
it in a new area, not the home anymore.
He's talking about the church.
For the overseer must be above reproach as what?
As God's steward.
God's steward.
Now, two things to note here.
First, Paul just switched, you know, switched terms and we talked about this the last couple
of weeks, he moved from presbyteros, which is translated elders in verse 5 to episcopon,
which is translated overseer here in verse 7.
Same office, right?
Interchangeable terms for the same office.
The word episkopos does come with a sort of a distinct function.
When you look at a presbyteros, an elder, it in general means a spiritually mature man
who leads in the church.
But episkopos refers to a manager, somebody who administers, somebody who oversees.
So it's a more functional title, but it's all the same office.
The other thing to note here is the word steward, oikotomos in the Greek, and that refers to
a household manager.
And it really is the perfect word to describe the practical functions of elders in the church.
A steward was a household manager in Greco-Roman culture.
It was, now get this now, a steward was a servant who acted on the interests of his
master.
He acted on the interests of his boss.
And in a normal Greco-Roman household, the master of the house would look at all of his
servants or you can say employees, whatever you want to say, and go, I'm going to pick
the most trustworthy one to be my steward because I want him to go out there into the
world and do business for me, represent me with all integrity.
So the most trustworthy one makes sense.
And of course that steward then would be accountable to the master for making sure he's taking
good care of all the things that are entrusted to him.
Now think about that in terms of church elders.
That is exactly what we do.
The house does not belong to us as elders, right?
We are servants chosen by our master to take care of the things that he has entrusted to
us.
And this is why God requires that his stewards be the most trustworthy in the body, right?
Therefore qualified based on their character and integrity so that they represent him well,
so that they do all that he has commanded of them.
And yes, someday, and we'll get to this in Hebrews 13 later, we will give an account
as elders.
It's one of those reasons why we would be cautious about this.
We will give an account to the chief shepherd for what we did as under shepherds.
So this idea of steward is a beautiful picture of what church elders are.
And so if you connect the ideas in verse 6 and 7, you get to see Paul's logic here.
If an elder is to be a good steward and a good overseer of God's household, which is
the church, it logically follows that first he better prove it in his own household with
his wife and with his kids.
Make sense?
Okay, very logical passage.
Right.
Let's keep going in verse 7.
Let's look at the five negative character flaws that must not be present in an elder.
These things would disqualify a man from serving.
Now, again, I'm going to remind you what I said last week.
The standard here is high, but it doesn't mean perfect or sinless.
Okay?
Elders sin just like you do.
But when any of the following five things become a consistent defining feature of a
man's life, he is no longer considered above reproach and he's disqualified from holding
the office.
That make sense?
So it'd have to be a consistent defining aspect of his life that these are the things that
mark him.
And friends, as we look at this, these are serious warnings.
Okay?
Serious warnings for, I'm looking at the six other guys that serve as elders here, serious
warnings for us, but also again, serious warnings for any time you ever search for a church
home that these are the type of men you're looking for.
Number one, it says that an elder must not be self-willed.
Okay?
There it is.
The Greek term orthodes, and it means to be arrogantly set on self.
Arrogantly set on self.
And if you think about it, we've all known people like this.
This is the type of man who always insists on getting his way.
He always maintains that his opinions are best, that his right to make decisions is
greater than anybody else, that his feelings about a subject matter, matter the most.
And then he tends to dismiss other people's feelings and other people's opinions because
his are always best.
This is the type of man that loves to accumulate power, loves to assert his rule over other
people.
And in doing so, he will often have a tendency to be ungracious and condescending and often
hostile to anybody that disagrees with him or anybody that gets in the way of his self-will.
So he's not a team player.
And let me tell you something, as a member of an elder team, that team player aspect
of being in a plurality of elders is essential to a healthy elder team and to a healthy church.
And this is not one of those guys.
Over the time, a man like this is going to create divisions in the body because he's
going to play favorites.
And you know who's going to be his favorites?
Whoever agrees with him.
And he's going to make enemies, the people that stand in his way.
So ultimately, he's going to scatter sheep because they're going to recognize this man
is power hungry, he is overbearing, and he is uncaring.
Beware of self-will.
Number two, he can't be quick tempered.
The Greek word here just means one who is prone to anger.
I like the CSB ads, hot tempered.
And interestingly, this one goes with the first one, right?
Because when an arrogant, authoritarian man doesn't get his way, he often gets very angry,
unrighteously angry.
And we know from other parts of scripture that man's unbridled anger is a hindrance
to the work of God.
James talks about it, right?
He says, let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger
of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
So an elder can't be hot tempered.
One of the things I was told very early on by a mentor when I was so green in ministry,
this was great advice.
He said, look, Jeff, you're going to get frustrated at times by the sheep.
People in your flock are not going to respond well to your leadership, but here's what he
said.
You cannot be angry at your sheep.
You have to be gentle, you have to be firm, and you have to be patient.
You keep teaching, you keep correcting, and you keep caring.
You don't get angry, and you let the spirit do that sanctifying work in them.
And that was great advice.
Ultimately, friends, an angry elder is going to destroy the peace and unity of the body.
So beware.
Number three is pretty obvious.
An elder must not be addicted to wine.
The ESV puts it plainly, he cannot be a drunkard.
Now we've said this publicly from the pulpit here at Oak Hill.
The Bible does not prohibit drinking alcohol, but it does warn us repeatedly about the danger
of being drunk.
Repeatedly.
Why?
Because first of all, in that state, you are no longer under the control of the Holy Spirit.
In that state, you are now controlled by the substance that you've taken in, alcohol, drugs,
whatever it might be.
And in that state, you are way more likely to make sinful choices that are both self-destructive
and bring shame to the name of Christ.
So don't do it.
Secondly, the New Testament talks about consistent drunkenness as one of the things that marks
an unbeliever.
One who will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So this is a serious thing.
Any sign that an elder has a substance addiction is grounds for disqualification because ultimately
he's not reliable, he's not trustworthy, he's not respectable as a leader in Christ's church.
Amen?
Number four, an elder cannot be pugnacious, plictase in the Greek, a very interesting
word.
The root of that word means to strike.
So Paul's suggesting that this is a man who lacks control of his emotions.
He is prone to lashing out physically because he's not in control of his emotions.
In fact, the ESV renders this violent and the CSB renders it as a bully.
So he's prone to both verbal and physical combative nature.
He's combative.
And this becomes a huge problem for elders because sometimes we have disagreements and
we cannot fly off the handle at each other.
We cannot get verbally or physically combative.
Sometimes we handle tense situations in the body, interpersonal conflicts among church
members.
And with a pugnacious elder, he's more likely to throw gas on the fire than water on the
fire.
He's going to make things worse, not better because of his temper.
And from the flock's perspective, they will see a man like this and they will feel treated
roughly by him and possibly even live in fear of him, which is the last thing you want for
a shepherd.
So beware, a pugnacious man.
Last one, an elder must not be fond of sordid gain.
Simple way of putting this, he cannot be greedy.
This describes a man who finds his way into positions of authority and then wields that
authority for his own personal gain.
And oftentimes as he does that, rejects any sense of financial accountability.
These are dangerous men in the church.
How many preachers out there have done this?
How many stories do we know of pastors and preachers who have built massive churches?
And in the process of that, accumulated for themselves, I mean, just massive luxury homes
and car collections and private jets and, you know, they've got a personal designer
choosing their clothes and their shoes as they go out to preach.
They're greedy.
They're in it for the wrong reasons.
And it's not new.
In the New Testament, we see Jesus condemning.
It's interesting.
He condemns, first of all, the scribes and the Pharisees because they devour widows'
homes and they keep the prophets.
And the Sadducees ran the sacrificial system in the temple like a mafia, getting kickbacks
from the merchants, charging exorbitant taxes on currency.
History tells us that the priesthood in Jerusalem were the wealthiest people in that society.
Shameful.
And so in 1 Timothy 3, 3, Paul says an elder must be free from the love of money, not free
from money, free from the love of money.
By the way, that doesn't mean that an elder must be poor either, right?
Because money itself is not evil.
It's like a handgun, right?
If it's just sitting there, no problem with it.
But it can be used for good reasons.
It can be used for wickedness.
And the same thing is true with money.
But those prosperity preachers, those multi-campus mega church pastors of our day, and you know
some of their names, they have brought shame and disgrace upon the church and upon the
name of Christ because they're greedy.
They have used the sheep and the ministry as a means of fulfilling their own financial
desires.
Beware of such men.
So quick summary.
You see them all on the screen.
Now challenge your own heart.
How are you doing in those same five areas?
If it's your desire to move towards spiritual maturity, how are you doing with your self
will?
Are you one of those who are stubbornly insist on having everything go your way?
How are you doing with your temper?
Are you quick to listen?
Are you quick to react?
Are your habits regarding alcohol or some other substance, is there a problem there?
Are you pugnacious?
Are you always looking for a fight?
Are you prone to lash out at others when things don't go your way?
And what's your perspective on money?
Is it a healthy perspective?
Do you love money?
Only you can answer that question in your heart.
Do you love money?
Okay.
Good.
All right.
Let's move past the negative.
Should we look at the positive?
Good.
Let's look at verse eight.
Let's look at the things an elder must be.
Number one is hospitable.
Philoxenos.
He must be hospitable.
And that word is used in Greek literature to describe somebody who is loving or generous
towards strangers or guests.
All right?
And in my mind, this is one of the core essentials of what it means to live within the community
of faith.
An elder has to have a welcoming spirit.
An elder must be a welcoming man.
He's got to be friendly and warm towards church members, towards visitors and guests, towards
his neighbors, towards anybody that God puts in his path.
A welcoming spirit.
I mentioned this last week.
An elder isn't allowed to hide from the flock or to hide in his home on his block.
He's to be an example.
He's to be out there among the people.
We find that sometimes the elders try to say, well, I'm shepherding from a distance.
That doesn't work.
It just doesn't.
Well, you cannot love and care for people from a distance or hidden behind the door
of your home.
You've got to be out there.
And by the way, oftentimes this idea of hospitable gets really practically expressed in opening
up our homes.
And our elders are so good at this.
How many church events happen at the homes of our elders?
All the time.
Over and over and over again.
I remember when Tanya and I first moved to Castaic, this was 24 years ago, 24 years ago,
we bought our home and we prayed over it and we literally said out loud, God, this is not
our house.
This is your house.
And so help us to be hospitable.
Help us to open our door to whoever we need to minister to and just use this house as
a tool and a resource for ministry.
That's how an elder needs to relate to the resources that he has.
And the fact is if elders are not open and generous with their lives and with their homes,
the entire church is going to reflect that indifference and that lack of warmth.
So elders set the pace in this regard.
Hospitable.
This is a very general term, must love what is good, philagathos, general term, one who
is willingly and with self-denial seeking to do good, to be kind to others.
This is a spiritually mature leader who is always ready to do what is best, not for himself,
but what is best for others.
So this elder is helpful and kind and generous with his time and with his resources, whatever
people need, he loves what is good.
Number three, he's got to be sensible.
Now this is an interesting word, sophron in the Greek.
And that root of that word carries the idea of wisdom here.
It means to be of sound mind, to be prudent, especially in your decisions.
And man, is this not lacking in so many areas of our culture today?
Common sense, right?
Common sense is so uncommon these days.
This is an elder who is able to exercise good judgment.
And man, elder teams need this.
Exercising good judgment.
He has a mind trained to practice wisdom.
And so he makes sound decisions for the sake of the body.
He's not impulsive, that's important.
He's not reactionary.
He doesn't race into change or swing the pendulum from one end to the other, things that cause
the flock to feel like things are unstable.
He executes good judgment.
He's not reactionary.
And when elders act wisely and with discretion in the way they handle things, you know what
the sheep tend to do?
Settle in and relax and follow their leaders.
And that's the picture that Paul wants for his churches.
Sensible, very important.
Number four, he's got to be just.
Now I prefer the ESV translation of upright here, or the CSB says righteous.
Now not that this man is perfect or sinless, but he strives to live in accordance with
God's standards.
He sets out to practice righteousness.
This means he's consistently fair and equitable in his dealings with others.
He weighs the facts of a matter and then he doesn't show favoritism.
He's objective about it.
And he doesn't do just whatever is popular or whatever is expedient.
He lives by his principles.
He makes fair and sound decisions on behalf of the sheep.
Very very important.
Number five, an elder must be devout.
The Greek word here can also mean holy.
Again, not that he's fully perfected or sanctified, but this does speak of his moral purity.
Elders need to have a level of moral purity that's an example to the flock.
He must be devout.
That means he is consistently committed to the things of God.
He keeps himself from wickedness and he doesn't waver when the tides of culture shift.
This is the type of elder who models godly commitment and the flock notices that he's
committed and they will tend to follow such a man.
He's devout.
And then finally, and this one may be the biggest in my mind, he's got to be self-controlled.
Egg krates in the Greek, which means having power over, having power over self, being
self-controlled.
ESV, I like how simple it is.
He's got to be a disciplined man.
Paul uses the same word in 1 Corinthians 9 to talk about that athlete that exercises
self-control in all things.
Why?
So that he might win the prize.
Self-control.
In other words, the athlete restrains himself from choosing anything in his life that's
going to get in the way of that goal that he's searching for, to win that prize.
And this should be true of an elder in Christ's church.
He has to be disciplined to shut out things that are going to hinder his calling to lead
and shepherd the body with integrity.
Shut him out.
Bad habits, harmful desires, compromising temptations, anything that is going to cause
him to be easy prey for the enemy.
Because listen, without self-control, a man or a woman are exposed to attack from the
enemy.
And elders can't have it.
Can't be that way.
That's how the enemy picks us off one at a time.
So he's got to be disciplined and self-controlled.
Okay, again, quick summary and challenge.
How are you doing in these six areas?
Would you say that you're a hospitable person?
Are you open and welcoming and warm to everyone?
Do you love what is good?
More importantly, do you then do what is good?
Are you sensible in your choices?
Do you employ wisdom, biblical wisdom, or do you just react impulsively?
Are you just in the sense of being fair in the way you deal with others?
Or do you shift the scales in a way that is going to suit your desires?
Would you describe yourself as devout in terms of how committed you are to the things of
God?
And then how's your self-control?
Is your life disciplined in a way that daily you're striving for that prize to be more
and more Christ-like in your life?
Those are really, really important questions.
So do you understand what I'm saying?
These are the qualifications for an elder.
No question about it, but they just describe a spiritually mature person, male or female.
So it's good for all of us.
So, okay, running out of time.
Let me wrap up with just a couple thoughts.
Now last week I wrapped up with two quick concepts.
I said, first of all, can we just stop and praise the Lord for the men that he has called
to eldership at this church?
Right?
And we did, and that's awesome.
They're incredible guys.
They're qualified.
We love each other.
We love shepherding this body.
And then secondly, I said, as an offshoot of that, they need prayer.
We need prayer.
Right?
Because enemies, the enemy is always going to go after leadership first.
Because if they can bring down leaders, they can bring down a church.
So I asked about prayer.
Can you pray that we have continued unity and love on our team for wisdom, for strength,
to endure this task that we have been called to?
Now my closing thoughts for this morning are these.
Two more things, and both of them speak to how the Bible instructs you guys, the flock,
to relate to your elders.
And the first one is showing them honor.
By the way, both of these passages, they might seem self-serving because I'm an elder, but
really I'm just trying to put the scriptures in front of you to say this is how you should
relate to your leaders.
First of all, showing them honor.
Right?
1 Timothy 5, 17.
The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who
work hard at preaching and teaching.
So you see in both the passages that I'm going to show you, there is a reciprocal nature that
happens in the church.
A beautiful cycle where the elders serve you, the flock, and you, the flock, respond.
So in this case, what are church leaders called to do?
To rule well.
That means they're a shepherd and to oversee and to care for the body.
And in return for that, the flock is called to honor them for the hard work that they
put in.
And let me just say, look, I'm the only full-time elder that gets actually paid for this, so
don't worry about me.
But these are, no, I shouldn't say that.
But I get paid for what I do.
The other guys are volunteers.
And they put in long hours.
And they do a lot of work, so they should be honored.
And maybe we can flesh this out later about what that means practically.
But just for today, just I want you to walk away with that heart set or that mindset to
have this attitude to show honor to those who are serving you.
Amen?
And then Hebrews 13, 17.
This was in our call to worship this morning.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who
will give an account.
Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.
Again, reciprocal nature.
What does the elder team do?
Keeps watch over your souls.
Anybody think that's important?
Yeah, that's kind of important.
And in return, the flock is called to obey, or really the word there is to yield, yield
to the shepherds and trust them and follow after them.
And then the author of Hebrews here finishes with this incredibly wise statement.
He says, look, if you become a stubborn sheep, a stubborn, ornery sheep who's a pain in the
neck to your elder team, it actually doesn't profit you anything.
It hurts you.
Because you're causing your elder team then to groan under the weight of shepherding you.
So if you want the best, both for your walk with the Lord and for the encouragement of
your leaders, yield to them and follow them and trust them.
Now we have to earn that trust as well, right?
And hopefully we have it, Oak Hill.
You've seen our lives.
We're opening our lives to you guys so that you will trust and follow.
And we have found that this church has been a beautiful, reciprocal relationship.
So love your shepherds, encourage them, bless them, let them serve you with joy, with joy.
And we do.
I can ask all six guys and we would say it is a great joy to be able to serve you guys
at Oak Hill.
So the picture of ecclesiology that Paul draws here for us in the pastoral letters, isn't
it beautiful?
Isn't it beautiful?
Isn't it so logical and so common sense?
And so I pray as I close here that all of us, whether you're a shepherd or you're a
sheep, that we will hear the Lord's voice in this and that we'll obey.
We'll say that is the best thing for all of us.
And so I want to obey.
Whether I'm caring, whether I'm serving or whether I'm following and yielding, that we
would obey God's word.
Amen?
Let's bow our heads.
Father as always, we thank you for time spent in your word.
Is there anything better than searching for your voice in the scriptures?
To hear from the guy of the universe, to know even on a super practical level what it is
you want for your body, the church.
Father, I thank you for how practical it all is.
What you have called the shepherds to do, what you've called the flock to do, what you
want us all to be in our character and integrity.
And so I pray for myself.
I pray for my fellow elders.
I pray for every person in this room that we would continue to grow in spiritual development.
That we would have a desire for that, a passion to see more and more spiritual maturity in
our lives.
Lord, we know we can't do that on our own.
We can be diligent in this, Lord, but we need your spirit to do that work in us.
So help us to yield to your spirit.
Help us to yield to the commands that we see in scripture.
And Lord, do a great work in us.
As we train as athletes, do a great work in us and call us to whatever role you have for
us, Lord, we would have open hands for that and that your will would be done in our lives.
So thank you again for this morning, for the gathering of the saints.
We love you and we praise you in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.