Well, I promise you, I promise you today for sure we're finishing our study of elders in
the church.
And if you're visiting with us, maybe you're here to witness a baptism or you're new here.
Sorry, you've dropped in on the very end of a mini study here.
We've been looking at the study of church elders, the importance of church elders over
the last four weeks.
We've only gotten through nine verses in these four weeks, but I think it's been really fruitful.
And this is such an important topic, you guys, for us not to rush through.
And I know that in the stage of life that you're in right now, maybe you don't understand
that just yet, but trust me, at some point in your walk with Christ, at some point in
your engagement with the local church, you will hopefully recall this series and it will
bear fruit in your life.
Will you trust me on that?
Here's why I know that's true, because it's played out in my personal experience.
Let me take you back just a little bit.
For quite a few years, back when Tanya and I were young marrieds, back in the Stone Age,
we really didn't understand the inner workings of what we call the backroom of the church.
And that's a real thing.
We didn't understand it.
That place where church leaders operate and where decisions get made.
We were pretty naive in our late 20s and early 30s.
We expected that everybody that loves Jesus operates with integrity and that all leaders
are fully trustworthy.
That was never a question.
And then the day came when that bubble got burst on us and we began to sort of peer into
the backroom of the church.
It started with the worship leader at the church we were attending when we were first
married.
He had an affair with a woman in the choir, which was then disclosed on a Sunday morning
and he had to step down.
Then it was the senior pastor who was fired by the elder team because of pride issues.
And as the news of all that trickled out, it became clear to those of us in the congregation
who couldn't see into the backroom that for a long, long time there had been a power struggle
behind the scenes between the senior pastor and the elder team.
And then once the elders finally moved to push him out, the entire mess just exploded
all over the church because you can only imagine the gossip began to fly and people began to
tell stories and there was whispering in the corners and everybody started picking sides.
You either supported the pastor or you supported the elder team.
And people were then attacking one another and defending one side.
It all depended on who you believe was telling the truth.
And the communication from the elder team in that moment was not good.
It was not enough for those of us sitting in the chairs to understand what was going
on.
So by the time Tani and I left that church, we had been there for 10 years.
It was just all so sad.
It was just sad.
We had grown up there as a married couple.
We had made lifelong friends in our Bible study.
We had dedicated both of our kids in that church and now it was tainted by the many,
many failures of the men in the leadership of that church.
So here's why I tell you that.
And I know I've already said this twice in the four weeks of the study, but I'm going
to say it again.
Almost certainly everybody in this room will at some point, hopefully not in the near future,
but at some point you will have to find another church home for whatever reason.
You relocate, you move to another area, and I don't want you to be uninformed or naive
about that what you're actually searching for when you look for that church home.
Listen, leadership is critical.
It matters.
Ecclesiology, how the church is structured matters.
The character and the integrity of the men who lead that church is going to matter.
So as we wrap up our study about elders this week, listen closely and try to make some
mental notes for if that day comes in the future where you have to look again.
So grab your Bibles.
We're going to not Titus, believe it or not, we're going to 1 Timothy 3 again this week.
Let's start there.
We're going to forget to Titus, I promise, because that is the series, but we are going
to start here and finish this section on elders in Paul's letter to Timothy.
Remember we talked about this, about the context, in his final years Paul wrote two lists of
elder qualifications to these young proteges of his, Timothy and Titus, so that they would
carefully appoint elders in their respective cities, Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete.
So Paul said, look guys, I know you're inexperienced, but I'm sending you out to be my representative
in these cities to provide oversight to the churches, so here's what an elder must not
be and what he must be.
And the two lists that Paul gives are very similar.
By my count, Paul gives to Timothy 16 character qualifications and he gives to Titus 15 character
qualifications and nine of them overlap.
In fact, here's the list of the nine that are found in both of these letters.
Above reproach is the overarching characteristic.
We talked about that I believe two weeks ago.
In both lists, that is the overarching qualification, above reproach.
Of one wife, we worked that through, go back online and listen if you need to understand
what that means.
To Titus, he says, children who are faithful, to Timothy, he manages his own household well.
Then not addicted to wine, no substance abuse, that's the same.
Not pugnacious is the same.
To Titus, he says, not fond of sordid gain and to Timothy, he says, free from the love
of money, very similar.
Same word hospitable in both lists and then to Titus, sensible or prudent to Timothy,
self-controlled in Titus and temperate in Timothy.
Now there's a handful of qualifications in Paul's letter to Timothy that are not found
in Titus.
And so I thought I'd touch briefly on those this morning so we can get the full picture
of what Paul requires.
If you look at your text here in 1 Timothy 3, everybody there?
You'll find the first one that's not found in Titus in the middle of verse 3, it says
an elder must be gentle.
He must be gentle.
And what that means is an elder has to patiently make allowances for the weakness and the fallen
nature of the sheep that he shepherds.
I mentioned this last week.
An elder can't get frustrated and angry at the sheep.
He has to be gentle with them.
Make allowances for their weakness.
Give them room and time to grow.
He has to be careful not to squash their spirit, but to teach them and correct them and exhort
them and encourage them with great tenderness and care.
That's critically important.
The second thing you see, and it follows right after gentle in verse 3, an elder must be
peaceable.
Now interestingly, that's a word in the Greek, amachas, which is found only two times in
the entire New Testament, both in the pastoral letters.
And what it tells us is that God does not want his under shepherds to be contentious
men, quarrelsome men, who are constantly at odds with the flock.
They can't be men who are at the center of every controversy, always looking to stir
up a theological fight.
Instead, they have to be seeking paths of peace, which allows the sheep to sort of rest
under their leadership and to feel a sense of calm and peace.
So those are two beautiful character traits of a church leader.
But there's also a caution that goes with these two words.
I think a necessary balance, because if you just isolate those two terms by themselves
without taking in the entirety of the pastoral letters, it might lead you to believe in looking
at those words that elders should be passive.
And I don't want you to get that idea.
In other words, they might end up being so gentle that they don't step in when a confrontation
over sin is required.
And I've seen that happen in churches where elders are like, well, you know what, I'm
just going to step back.
I'm not going to deal with that.
And what happens?
Sin runs rampant in that body and it spreads.
Not good.
Or they're so peaceable that they don't take a stand on doctrinal issues.
Choosing to look the other way, and what happens then?
You see heresy begin to spread and poison the body.
So while most of the time elders have to be gentle and peaceable with the sheep, as men
who are tasked to oversee the body and shepherd the flock, we cannot hesitate or be afraid
when confrontational issues come up.
And we should keep in mind that Christ himself modeled this, right?
Remember how Jesus describes himself.
I believe it's Matthew 11.
He describes himself as gentle or meek.
But at times we also see Jesus being very confrontational and actually drawing lines
of division, right?
We see him physically turning tables over in the temple.
We see him chasing out the wicked money changers with a whip in his hand.
We see him being incensed when the Pharisees accuse him of breaking the Sabbath when all
he's doing is healing people.
We see him get indignant.
That's the word that Mark uses when his disciples try to prevent the children from coming to
him.
He's indignant that his disciples would be so cold.
And of course, most of all, we see Jesus striding through the temple courts towards the end
of his life, condemning the scribes and the Pharisees with some of the most confrontational
language you can imagine.
Woe to you, teachers of the law, you hypocrites, he says.
You whitewash tombs filled with dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
Now do those things nullify the fact that Jesus is gentle and peaceable?
Of course not.
Because sometimes righteous anger and confrontation are required.
And on some occasions, that is true for church leaders as well.
Now when an elder does this, we're not Jesus, we're not perfect.
We have to be careful to guard our hearts as we confront sin because being an authority
in a church does not give us permission or license to sin in our anger.
So we have to guard our hearts very carefully.
But listen, this is true.
If you've been around Oak Hill for a long time, you know this.
In the 18 years that we've been gathered as a church, our elders have had to step in and
confront heretical ideas that came from men within our body.
That's happened multiple times.
Everything from just crazy wild eschatology to a man who denied the trinitarian nature
of God and was teaching that to others in the body.
And we had to step in, we couldn't be passive in those moments.
Other times we've had to initiate church discipline.
For those who were confronted over their obvious sin but refused to repent and return to us.
And then there have also been less serious times, but important times, when elders have
had to sit down with members and in love talk to them about sinful attitudes or actions
that have come to our attention or that we've personally witnessed.
And even in that confrontation, we have to be gentle in the way we speak to our flock.
Sometimes we have to step in and say, look, brother, you showed poor judgment there.
Or that was not the most godly reaction, was it?
Or to get involved in a marital relationship and say, look, you're not loving your wife
as you're called to love her.
Or you're not respecting your husband.
Those things have to happen as well.
Those are necessary functions of elder oversight.
We're to be spiritually mature men that bring our Bible knowledge, our experience, and our
wisdom to that situation in the hopes of producing in our members godly repentance and sanctification
in their lives.
We have to do that.
So all that to say with these two characteristics, a proper balance is required.
Striving to be gentle and peaceable but never passive in the face of sin or heresy.
And maybe the best example of the balance that we find is from the scriptures themselves.
In 2 Timothy 4, Paul tells Timothy to do these three things in the flock.
Correct, rebuke, and exhort.
We don't like that word rebuke.
Correct, rebuke, and exhort.
But then he says, do it this way with what?
Great patience and instruction.
So that balance has to be found.
Does that make sense?
Make sounds, please.
Yes.
OK, sounds are good.
It's OK to talk back in church.
OK.
The third qualification I'm going to look at this morning is back up in verse 2.
Toward the end of the verse, Paul says an elder must be respectable.
Respectable.
Now this connects back to the very end of the message from last Sunday.
I talked about how the congregation ought to honor and respect their elders.
And we talked about reciprocal relationships.
Shepherds do this and sheep respond this way.
And it's a beautiful synergy when both are doing those things.
Now Christ calls his church to respect its leaders.
And at the same time, he calls the leaders to be respectable.
And that's important.
Both sides are important.
What he means is elders live your lives as an example to the flock.
Let them see your life.
Live godly lives that put the sheep at ease under your care.
Because they see your life.
And they say, I can rest under his care.
I can respect him.
I can honor him.
I can follow after him.
Make it easy for the sheep to honor and respect and follow you, elders.
So it's beautiful, right?
Church, respect your elders.
Elders be respectable.
Both are necessary.
Amen?
Finally, in the letter to Timothy, Paul gives two final requirements of an elder.
And interestingly here, both are given in the context of a warning.
Look at verse 6.
He says an elder must not be a new convert.
And here comes the warning.
So that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.
So we should remember that, look, a spiritual realm exists.
Let us not forget that.
Right?
It's not just this physical realm.
But there is a spiritual realm.
And there is a spiritual enemy we know as the devil.
And as James tells us, he is constantly on the prowl.
He is seeking to devour.
And among his many targets that he has, leaders are the big game in the hunt.
Because if he can bring down a leader, he can bring down a church.
That's part of what Tanny and I experienced in our early 30s was this idea that leaders
were brought down.
And for young believers, immature believers, it rocked them.
You destroy a leader.
If the enemy can do that, you have immature believers that suddenly lose confidence in
their assurance.
You cause a leader to fall, and you can tear down the credibility of Christianity in the
minds of the public.
So leaders have a target on their back.
So elders have to be on guard.
So Paul says here, because of that, they should not be new to the faith.
Now that should be obvious, right?
Most of us would think that, right?
Even if you were running a business, you wouldn't hire some amateur to take on a heavy position.
But how many times have we seen churches blow this?
That churches making really poor decisions.
Why?
Well, they see a man, and they're like, oh, this guy's got a real passion for the Lord,
and he's super gifted, and maybe he's got a strength of personality.
So let's go ahead and put him in leadership.
But he's a new convert.
Well, guess what?
If he's a new convert, he cannot be spiritually mature.
He can't be, because spiritual maturity takes time, and it takes experience, and it takes
study over years and years and years.
So we ought not do that.
We should, there should be a track record of faithful service in a man that's put into
leadership, not a new convert.
Because if you put a new believer in leadership, now suddenly he gets all this honor from the
congregation, he gets all this authority, and it's too much for him to handle, because
his heart isn't yet fully developed.
He doesn't understand his heart well enough, and guess what?
That makes him vulnerable to attacks from the enemy.
The enemy knows exactly where to strike a man like that.
So churches ought not put new converts into the place of leadership.
Okay, I'm behind.
Here we go.
Number seven, or last one here, in verse seven, it says he must have a good reputation with
those outside the church.
And then another warning, so that he will not fall into reproach or disgrace and the
snare of the devil.
So a spiritually mature man by definition will have a good reputation among the unbelievers
that he lives around, because he's spiritually mature.
He will carry himself with maturity in all settings in their presence.
And honestly, even though there's all kinds of formats for this.
I remember when I was a young pastor, my son played little league at heart, and we knew
every single time we sat in those stands that I had to be really careful to make sure that
my testimony in front of unbelievers was firm.
Those things are important, right?
Because even the world is a people when they see the life of a spiritually mature man who's
an elder in a church, even they can see that that man is worthy of respect.
If he walks with integrity, if his testimony is going to lend credibility to the gospel,
and not only that the gospel saves, but that it transforms a life, that character is transformed
by the work of the Holy Spirit in him.
By the way, the flip side is true as well.
If unbelievers see him acting dishonestly, if they see this man acting inappropriately,
and they know he's an elder in a church, what's the result going to be?
They're going to say you hypocrite, right?
If they see you, let's say you're at that baseball league and you just lose your temper,
or you use foul language, or you're inappropriate with a woman that's not your wife, imagine
the world's going to say what?
You hypocrite, and rightfully so, and rightfully so.
So an elder has to have that solid reputation.
How many times, by the way, has this happened?
You turn on the news one day, a high profile church leader has fallen, moral failure, and
it gives ammunition to the world to say, see, see, that's not true.
That is not true, and it affects all of us, doesn't it?
When a leader falls, it gives the world ammunition to smear every single one of us.
So an elder's reputation and example in the world is crucial, and it's required.
Make sense?
Okay.
Now for three weeks, we have now talked about the character of an elder, and rightfully
so, because Paul makes it very clear.
In both letters to Titus and Timothy, the character is of the utmost importance.
But there's one outlier in the list that he gives to Timothy, one outlier that we need
to talk about before we wrap up this study.
Here's what I mean by that.
There's one qualification in Timothy that is a skill and not a character trait.
A skill, not a character trait.
Fifteen character requirements and one skill.
Now what's really cool about this is this same skill is reflected in Paul's letter to
Titus in the very last verse of his pericope where he talks about elders, and we'll get
to that in just a moment.
But first, look at the very end of verse two here in 1 Timothy 3.
What does Paul say?
Very end of verse two, Paul says an elder must be able to teach.
You see that there?
That's the one skill in this long list, and it's interesting.
Paul sort of buries it in there, but it's really, really important to pull that out
and say, oh, interesting.
Not only does he have all this in character issues, but he's got to be able to do this
one thing.
And this makes sense, doesn't it?
Christianity has always been rooted in the propagation of divine truth by what?
By teaching.
It's built on that, so it makes sense.
Jesus himself was a master teacher.
That's why we study his words so carefully.
And when he gave his disciples what we call the Great Commission, he gave them a mandate
to do three things, right?
One is what?
Make disciples of all nations.
Two is what we're doing today, baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
The third thing always gets overlooked.
What is it?
Teach them.
When you make disciples and you baptize them, then teach them to observe all that I've commanded
you.
So Jesus taught men that he expected then that they would go out and teach others.
And then as the apostles were writing the words of the New Testament scriptures, their
words became the foundation and the source of all the church's teaching from that point
forward, all the way up until today.
Teaching, teaching, teaching.
So Christ has called men to serve in the local church and appointed them in the local church.
They've got to be equipped to teach.
They've got to be effective at teaching and they have to have a love for teaching.
And that's what our elders have here.
Any local church elder or pastor, we talked about that, elder is a more common word, but
same office, elder, pastor, teacher, they all have to have the ability to teach.
And by the way, that doesn't matter if they're on paid staff.
We do this, right, in the church.
We create these categories.
Oh, this guy's paid.
He's on staff.
This guy's not paid.
He's what we call a lay elder.
It doesn't matter.
They all have to be able to teach.
And I'll go a step further.
They have to have a passion for teaching.
He's going to have a passion for teaching because if you're an elder, if you're a spiritually
mature man, you already know what the Holy Spirit can do in the heart and the mind of
a man or woman who hears the scriptures read, hears it exposited, and hears it applied to
their lives.
Spiritually mature man will know that.
So that means he's going to be eager to get out there and teach.
They should be eager to instruct the congregation.
And that means they've got to put in the time and the energy and the patience and the discipline
to do it well, to do it with excellence.
Now when we hear the phrase able to teach, what's the first thing we're tempted to think
of?
Preaching.
Because that's the most visible sort of manifestation of this thing we call teaching.
It's the most common thing in modern day churches.
By the way, preaching did not look the same in the first century as it does today.
That's for a historical study on another day.
But still, you see this concept of preaching throughout the New Testament.
Notice though that Paul doesn't give Timothy a particular context or format here.
He just says able to teach.
He doesn't tell us where.
Now the Greek can help us here because the New Testament uses three distinct words to
talk about teaching.
So when you see the word preach or preaching in the New Testament, it's one of two Greek
verbs.
Kairous is the most common one, and that means to act as the herald of a message.
You're a proclamer of a particular message.
And you see this word used most often in the missionary activities of the early church.
So when Jesus sends out his 12 to do missionary activity, he says do this.
Then Paul and Barnabas go off into the Gentile world.
This is the word that gets used most of the time for teaching or for preaching.
Then the other word, yon gelizo, means to bring good news or glad tidings.
That's the specific meaning.
So that's where we get the word evangelism from, and that's the setting that's most often
where this word is most often used in the specific evangelism of the lost world.
So those are two key words when you see the word preach in the New Testament.
Now when you see just plain old teaching in the New Testament, it's the word didasko.
And that word carries a very specific meaning to instruct or to impart knowledge.
So it's a much more general term than the other two.
And when we talk about where this teaching takes place, the most common places where
the early church was teaching was in public spaces, oftentimes along the road as they
traveled and met other followers, and in private homes.
They didn't have big NPRs like this.
We are blessed.
They didn't have these things.
Although I will say there is one place, if you really want to defend why we meet in the
school, Acts chapter 19, it says that Paul rented a, what, a school.
And there he reasoned with all who came to him with questions about the gospel.
It's the closest thing to what we have here at Oak Hill.
No church buildings in the first century, but there is this one example, if you want
to write it down, it's Acts 19, 9, the school of Tyrannus.
Paul retreats there because he's sort of being abused in public, retreats to this school.
He must have known this man Tyrannus.
And there he reasoned from the scriptures.
Fascinating.
So able to teach applies to all kinds of formats.
It applies to all kinds of settings.
It might mean being in the pulpit on Sunday morning.
It might mean teaching in a community group during the week.
It might refer to small group discipleship with a few people.
Teaching also happens in one-on-one biblical counseling.
That's all teaching.
It doesn't have to be preaching like I'm doing today.
Because here's the thing, there are many godly men out there who serve as elders and they
are great teachers, but they don't feel called to stand up here and preach to the entire
church on Sundays.
And that's fine.
There are men who love the word and know the word and they do instruct from the word in
various settings.
And by the way, that is, we make that a requirement here at Oak Hill.
Every one of our elders has to be able to teach in some setting.
And that happens again in C groups.
It happens when we lead communion.
It happens not in the main time here on Sundays, but in other places like leading and baptism,
things like that.
They're all teaching in some form, but it's not always as visible as what I do here on
most Sundays.
And let me go a step further.
An elder who's able to teach doesn't have to be, you know, Joe master communicator.
He doesn't have to be.
He doesn't have to be the, you know, that guy who can captivate an audience with his
stage presence and draw big crowds with his wonderful storytelling and his eloquence.
That is not what Paul is calling every single elder to be.
That is actually a sort of a sad modern day understanding of what a preacher or teacher
should be.
That he's got to be that, he has to be that type.
In fact, so many immature believers are drawn to personality.
They're drawn to celebrity, not to just basic good teaching.
And I guess that's part of human nature, right?
But they're drawn to that.
They want their preacher to be, you know, attractive and charismatic and entertaining
and funny.
That's what they're, I've literally heard people say a hundred times, can he keep my
attention?
That's what they're looking for.
What they basically want is an inspirational Ted talk on Sunday mornings.
It's not good.
Better to have a basic steady sound teacher with good character than a big name, big draw
teacher with a sketchy life, right?
Because a steady teacher isn't going to ruin a ministry, but a sketchy life that leads
to a moral failure will destroy a church.
So keep that in mind.
The fact is some men who look and sound really impressive in the pulpit act like pagans in
other settings.
Did you know that?
It's a bit of an act on Sundays, but that's not the truth about their character.
So when you look for a church leader who teaches or preaches, look beyond what's on the outside.
Do what God does.
Look to the heart.
Look inside.
Yes, you got to find men who can teach, but you also got to find men who love their wives
and serve their families and cultivate unity and practice hospitality and have a love and
a passion to shepherd people.
That's what you're looking for.
By the way, speaking of style, keep in mind that Paul never boasted in his eloquence.
And I think everyone here would say Paul was a pretty good teacher.
In fact, he explicitly says in 1 Corinthians 1 that he pursued clarity over style.
He says, Christ did not send me to baptize, which is interesting, but to preach the gospel
and not in cleverness of speech, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Because guys, the big lights and big show and the big charismatic guy who's up here
doing the TED Talk, he can distract from the truth of the cross.
He can distract from the actual essentials of the faith based on his own personality
and his desire to reflect glory upon himself.
So just know that.
Just know that that's true.
Now flip side, does that mean, okay, well, my goal in preaching is to be really boring?
No, absolutely not.
So don't get me wrong here.
The first thing a preacher strives for is to be sound in his teaching, sound, to point
the congregation to the truth contained in the scriptures by reading it, by explaining
it, and then by helping them apply it to their lives.
That's number one.
But second, yes, he should try to do that in a way that is engaging.
He should.
He should do it in a way that draws people in and leaves them wanting to hear more about
the truth of scripture.
Not wanting to hear more from him, but about the truth in scripture.
And a good teacher or preacher can do this in a number of ways by organizing his lesson
well so that the congregation can track with him.
He can be clear in the way he digs out the meaning of the text.
He can take his hears below the surface and show them the deeper truths that are contained
in God's word.
He can draw vibrant word pictures that the text is trying to communicate.
And he can put maps on the screen.
And that's the ultimate sign.
Just kidding.
If you're busy with, I love maps.
I love to put maps on the screen.
I'm sorry.
But in pastoral ministry, we call this the discipline of homiletics.
It's the art of both preparing and delivering a sermon or lesson.
And yes, it does matter.
Because here's the thing.
The Bible is not boring.
Not by a long shot, right?
So if you're going to teach and preach it, your lesson should be inviting and exciting
to any believer.
But it's so important that a congregation is drawn to teaching for the right reasons,
right?
Because of the content of the truth in the word, not because the guy up front has made
himself the object of attention.
Amen?
Okay, good.
I know I'm beating that horse, but it's again, someday you're going to have to go out and
find a church home other than this one.
And you got to look carefully.
Okay.
I want to wrap up our study by going back to Titus chapter 1.
We're actually getting back to our legitimate text here.
Titus chapter 1, and we're just going to look at verse 9.
Because we have gotten all the way through verse 8, right?
Good.
But verse 9 connects to what we just talked about in 1 Timothy 3.
Verse 9.
Here's a few more details to this idea of being able to teach.
Verse 9, overseer must hold fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching.
Ha didake, interesting language here in the Greek.
The teaching.
So an elder has to be a man of the teaching.
What does that mean?
It means that a positive truth that has been handed down to the saints by way of the special
relation of God to his people.
The same teaching that's been handed down in the written word.
This is what an elder has to hold to or cling to.
It has to be his personal anchor of truth.
And so the ultimate test of a faithful elder in Jesus' church is does he stick to the word?
Make sure you hear that.
Not does he tell good stories?
Or you know, is he entertaining?
Does he hold fast to the faithful word?
Or does he stray when he teaches?
Have you seen these guys who drift off like, and you can find them all over YouTube, where
he'll, you know, the introduction's 20 minutes, he's not even opened the text, or he's opened
the text, he's read one verse, and now he's off in this land doing his thing and doing
his shtick, and you're like, were we working on a verse or what's happening here?
Does he hold fast to the word or does he stray as he teaches?
Does he bring in his own ideas?
His own brand of worldly wisdom?
Or as Jesus reprimanded the teachers in his day, does he invalidate the word of God for
the sake of his traditions?
Which was happening.
By teaching traditions, the word of God was being invalidated in front of the people.
And Jesus is furious about that.
This is why here at Oak Hill, we staunchly and proudly retain the identity as children
of the Reformation.
Because in the Reformation, we moved away from this long list of unbiblical ideas that
had seeped into the church, seeped into the teaching over centuries, and somehow over
time became dogma in the church.
The Reformation did was it moved us back to the centrality of the written word, the only
infallible source that God has given mankind to be anchored to.
And we talked about tradition two weeks ago.
Tradition can be very helpful, but it has to be held up, ultimately, to the standard
of the scriptural text.
And so ultimately, this is the standard by which the works and deeds of an elder and
a teacher will be tested.
Did you hold fast to my word in your life?
First of all, that's important.
In your personal life, did you hold fast to the word?
Second, did you then rightly handle my word when you taught others?
And then third, did you build up my church through consistent shepherding and feeding
of my sheep by my word?
So elders have to be men of the word.
And to do that, we have to give time and energy and study and growing in our understanding
of God's word.
Because if you're going to hold fast to the word, you have to understand it.
And friends, it doesn't happen by accident.
This is a newsflash for everybody here.
If you want to grow in your understanding of God's word, it will not happen by osmosis.
It will not happen by accident.
And elders have to study it as a habit of life.
And that habit is lifelong.
It never ends.
Because you'll never get to the bottom of the beauty and truth in Scripture.
It's a lifelong pursuit.
So I'm going to say this clearly.
If a man doesn't have a fire in his belly to study God's word, he can't be an elder.
He just can't serve.
He's not qualified.
I might even go beyond that.
Not only a fire to study the word, but then to go beyond that and to be studying books
and blogs about theology and just immersing himself in the beauty of the truth that God
has given us.
He cannot be an elder.
Because there's the thing.
Able to teach is not a static skill.
It has to be trained for and it has to be worked at.
It's like an athlete.
You can look at an athlete in a particular moment and you can say, man, that he is fine.
He's physically gifted and he is fit and he is fluid.
But guess what?
If he doesn't keep training, what happens?
It eventually falls away.
And every athlete gets too old and you see what happens, right?
He's got to keep at it or that fitness and that fluidity are going to drop off.
So what determines the long-term success of an athlete are his daily habits, his routines,
how committed he is to practicing and putting in the hours to train.
And it's the same thing with teachers and preachers of God's word.
Their knowledge base and the skills they've cultivated over years and decades, they have
to keep going.
And a preacher should be getting better over the years.
A teacher should be growing and getting better at this the more he trains and the more he
disciplines himself.
I once heard a funny story.
I don't know if you know this.
If you know who John Piper is, he admitted once a very embarrassing thing.
When he was a young man in his 20s, he went to seminary, he got a C minus in his preaching
class.
He got the lowest grade in the entire preaching class.
And yet he preached into his mid 70s and just retired fairly recently.
And he got better and better as the years went by.
That is discipline, that is a habit, that is training, that is practice.
And by the way, in scripture, Timothy is given to us as a great example of this principle.
In 1 Timothy 4, Paul gives him this advice.
He says, until I come, Timothy, give attention to the public reading of scripture.
Give attention to exhortation and to teaching.
Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you.
Look at this.
Practice these things.
Hey, young men, you feel called to be a teacher?
Practice these things.
Be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all.
And then later in 2 Timothy, he writes this.
Rekindle the gift of God in you.
Fan into flame what God has put in you.
You got to train for this.
You got to be disciplined for it.
You got to practice it.
You have a gift, Timothy, but you can't neglect it.
You got to get to work.
You got to immerse yourself in these things, right?
And as you do that, the saints under your care will see your progress.
They will see you growing in maturity.
And I hope when the day comes that I retire from preaching that people will come up and
say, you know what, Jeff, over time, I actually saw you get better at this.
I hope that that's true, that we saw that your progress was evident to all of us, and
because of your faithful teaching, we were drawn in not to you, but into the text of
Scripture.
OK.
Now, you see a term there on the screen, which I have to address before we wrap up.
Spiritual gift, the spiritual gift within you.
So as many of you know, there are several lists of spiritual gifts laid out in the New
Testament letters.
And what they are are descriptions of supernatural abilities that the Spirit of God empowers
in certain individuals.
And we all have one.
We all have them.
Some of us have multiple gifts.
It's a supernatural ability that the Spirit of God gives to us in order not to glorify
ourselves, not to say, look how great I am, but to build up the body of Christ, to build
others up.
And one of those things is the gift of teaching.
And that means that certain men on an elder team are going to have particularly effective
skills in that area of ministry.
And so in most churches, the men who preach regularly on Sundays are those that have been
recognized as the ones who have the spiritual gift of teaching.
Other elders may not have that gift.
Still, they have to be able to teach, and they will teach in other venues.
They're not going to preach on Sunday, but they're going to excel in other places.
They're going to have a gift, perhaps, in certain areas of oversight and shepherding.
This is true of our elder team here.
Really, there's three of us that are consistently up here in the pulpit.
Myself, Jeff Part II, and Adam.
Right?
The three of us.
And most would say we have the spiritual gift of preaching.
But we have four other guys who do teach in other settings, but they excel in areas where
I don't excel.
Or Adam doesn't excel.
Things like discipleship and counseling and worship and hospitality, so many things.
And what you want to look for on an elder team is not a bunch of carbon copies who all
do the same thing, but a variety of gifts and skills.
A well-rounded elder team that can do all of those things.
I don't do everything well.
None of us does everything well.
But we have gifts given to us by the Lord.
So in terms of my gifting, I've had people ask me, because I am the primary preacher
here, I've had people ask me, Jeff, do you think you have the spiritual gift of teaching?
And I hate that conversation.
And I have talked with the Lord about this for decades.
Like Lord, what am I really gifted at?
And so I'm just going to give myself appraisal.
You ready for this, Tam?
I am not gifted as what you would call a classical preacher.
I'm just not.
There's so many things I don't have a great voice.
Have you ever heard a preacher that has one of those voices that just commands the room?
I don't have that voice.
I ask the Lord, why not?
But I don't.
I'm not a warm and fuzzy guy in the pulpit.
Some guys just feel like your grandpa's preaching to you and it just makes you feel all warm.
Yeah, that's not me.
I'm a terrible storyteller.
Even when I have a story to tell, I get ahead of myself.
I speak too fast.
I blow the line at the end.
I'm terrible at it.
I'm really not great at analogies and even worse at illustrations.
Some guys, they just rolls off their tongue.
They've got analogies and illustrations.
That's not me.
And I know my body language up here is just a little strange.
I don't even like watching myself.
It's like, please don't film me.
So I'm not a classical preacher.
But what God has seen fit to show me over the years is that there's a few things that
He has put in my heart that are a passion.
This gets me emotional.
Number one, an unquenchable desire for more knowledge about God and His word.
I cannot get enough of it.
And that's a gift from the Lord because not every man has that.
Second, a work ethic that drives me to grow and improve at everything that I do.
I'm never satisfied.
And I think that's a really nice gift that God has given me, a very strong work ethic
to keep training and working at what He's called me to do.
And then third, and this is something that I've been told by people, I've been told
that I preach like a lawyer.
Is that good or bad?
And it's basically this idea that I can build a case to try to convince you of something,
take you from A to Z, and hopefully convince you of something.
The way I wrote it down here was I have a strange talent for accumulating biblical data
and then synthesizing it into understandable bites and then feeding it to you as a meal
on Sundays.
And really all it is is because I love to study, is I learn myself and I get so excited
by what I'm learning from my life that I can't even sleep Saturday nights because I want
to get here and share with you all that God showed me.
And so it's not the classical gift of preaching that God has given me.
It's just Jeffism.
I need a word for it.
But I'm great, I'm grateful for it.
Listen, I'm not all that special.
And I knew that going into the planning of this church.
So my goal in all of this is just, okay, God, you've wired me to be this very unique way,
so be faithful with that gift.
And just keep working at it and keep serving and use your unique gifts and then you know
what, the results are going to be completely up to the Lord.
Right?
Because that's ultimately what we know about Scripture.
It says that God is the one who gives the growth, not us.
Okay, so that was my Jeff's moment of transparency.
All right, let's finish verse nine now.
Here's one of the reasons why an elder has to hold fast to God's word, so that he will
be able to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.
Listen, here's what this means.
Elders have to be men of courage.
They cannot hesitate.
They've got to be willing to step into situations.
Step in to teach what is true and also counter what is false.
And those are two functions of a shepherd.
We feed and we protect.
And every sheep wants to know that they're being fed well and protected well.
And to do that, once again, they have to be men of the word, not passive, but bold and
confident in the truth.
I'll give you a couple of great quotes from two of my favorite guys on this.
Calvin says this, the overseer ought to have two voices, one for gathering the sheep and
another for driving away wolves and thieves.
The scripture, get that now, the scripture supplies him with the means of doing both
of those things.
That's beautiful.
And then, you know, Luther was always more edgy than Calvin.
Luther says this, a preacher must be both a soldier and a shepherd.
He must nourish, defend, and teach.
And he also must have teeth in his mouth to be able to bite and fight.
Yeah, take a picture of that one.
That's a great one.
Okay, one last summary statement and we'll close the door on our four-week mini-study.
And then I promise next week we're moving on in Titus 1.
Hold me to that.
Listen, have I gotten through to you that church leadership matters?
Have I gotten through to you that appointing elders is one of the most significant things
that a church does, that how a church goes about doing that is massively important and
that they look for the right things in the men that they choose to lead, not on the outside
but what's in the heart.
So I'll say it again, the spiritual maturity of the elders in a local church is either
going to set that church on a path towards health, maturity, and unity, or it's going
to set that church on a path towards compromise, weakness, and division.
Ecclesiology matters, church leadership matters.
And so here at Oak Hills, I said two weeks ago, may we continue to praise the Lord for
the men that he has brought to this body and called to lead in this way.
And can I ask you once again to pray for us, pray for us.
In fact, would you do that with me now?
Let's just bow our heads and I'm going to just lead you through a few prayers.
And if you would like, Adam said it so beautifully earlier, he said, don't just listen to me,
pray it, pray it with me.
Ask the Lord with me for these things.
Will you ask the Lord to keep the hearts of our elder team united as one?
Will you ask him to protect us from the enemy's attacks?
Will you ask him to strengthen us for the heavy task that we have in shepherding this
flock?
Will you ask him to help us to be gentle and peaceable with our sheep, but also firm in
our confrontation of sin and falsehood?
Will you ask him to cause us to be men who are respectable inside the church and respected
outside the church by our neighbors?
Will you ask him to give us boldness and confidence as heralds and teachers of the gospel?
And finally, will you ask him to increase in our commitment to be men of the word and
to grow in our passion for both teaching and defending the faith?
Father, we do thank you for these four weeks of spending time in Titus and Timothy and
learning more about how you want your church to be structured and administrated and overseen
and shepherded.
And Lord, I thank you that you have given the elder team at this church a heart to stand
firm on those principles and to not stray and to not bring our own ideas into it, but
to trust your word completely.
So thank you for the great work that you've done over 18 years now as a church, the great
work you've done in providing us with godly men who lead so well.
Thank you, Lord Jesus.
It's only because of you that any of us are here.
It's only because of you that our church is what it is today.
So we praise your name and ask that you would continue now to help us to worship you well.
In Christ's name we pray.
Amen.