Behavior in the Church Titus 1 Vs 1 9

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So this morning's scripture reading is from 1st Timothy 3, 1st

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Timothy 3. We're going to be reading verses 1 through 15. I'm going to start reading at verse 1.

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This is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.

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A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober -minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.

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For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the Church of God?

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Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

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Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

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Likewise, deacons must be reverent, not double -tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith with the pure conscience.

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But let these also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless.

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Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things.

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Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their houses well.

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For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

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These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly. But if I am delayed,

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I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living

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God, the pillar and ground of the truth. May God bless the hearing of his word.

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Barbara and I visited a church in New York City one time with some friends of ours, and we asked, who is preaching today, or who's the preacher's name?

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And they were more familiar than we were, and they said, well, they have three preaching elders, and they never tell us who's going to preach.

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Because some people say, well, I like him, and they'll come that Sunday, or I like him, and they'll come that Sunday.

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Well, when Harold and myself decided, being fathers who've been through what we knew that Lauren and Ilgen were going to go through, we said we need to take the next

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Sunday service, because we knew that he wasn't going to be having time to study and so forth.

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So I thought, so now you've got a surprise, right? You didn't know, so you're here. And we thank the

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Lord for his faithfulness in all of that. We'll be speaking from Titus, the book of Titus, and it's considered one of the pastoral epistles, because it was given to Titus from Paul, and it's a parallel passage with the passage in 1st

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Timothy that Harold read this morning. I have taught a lot in my lifetime with Sunday school, but I'm usually down on the floor down there, and I like the interaction where I can talk and say, what do you think?

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And get feedback. Well, as I got hard of hearing, that got a little harder to do.

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But even, and it's a joke with Barb and I, we attended about two and a half to three years to the

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Vacaville Bible Church, and I taught through the book of Matthew there, and I'd also taught through the book of Matthew here.

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But one lady in the front row says, I don't buy that. You know, I had said, and so I said,

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I stopped and I looked, I said, okay, tell me what you think. And so we waited for her to get through that, and then

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I said, well, I understand what you're saying, but here's what the scripture says, you know. And afterwards, the pastor of the church and his wife walked out with us, because we, you know, like here, we close the church when we go out.

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And his wife turned to Barb and I and says, if that had been pastor, he couldn't have handled it.

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And that's the way, but as I have not taught really a lot, I find it very hard to just to speak to you.

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So don't be afraid to answer me or say, no, that's not right, you know. And we look forward to a blessing from the

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Lord this morning as we get into his word. And as we, let's just go to a word of prayer before we start, okay.

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Thank you, Heavenly Father, for your blessings that you give us. We thank you for the blessing of Micah given to us even this week, and to Pastor and Lauren.

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Pray continually for them, for their health, and for their care, and for their keeping. We'd also uphold

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Wayne for the operation tomorrow, and we uphold also Jimmy in rehab.

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We would pray, Heavenly Father, for continued healing, and we thank you, Lord. As we get into your word,

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Lord, speak to each one of us through your word. May you be in control with the things that we say, and we'll thank you for that, and we'll pray in Jesus' name, amen.

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I'm gonna read the first, I'm mainly gonna deal with verses five through nine, but I'm gonna read the first four verses first before that.

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So follow with me, if you would, in Titus 1. Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which

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God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested his word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our

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Savior, and here's the key, to Titus, a true son, in our common faith, grace, mercy, and peace, from God the

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And where we proceed further, we're talking about the, what are the qualifications, or the duties, or the character that we should look forward to as church leaders.

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Now, you can do one of two things there, but I, as we look first of all at Titus, he's one of Paul's most reliable helpers.

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And the letter here to Titus deals chiefly with the conditions in the churches located on the

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Isle of Crete. Now, if you look at a map, it's below Greece and so forth, it's an isle just sticks way out in the south there.

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And Titus was placed over the churches in Crete. He is mentioned also in 2

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Corinthians chapter 7, and where Paul says, he was a real help and a mercy to me.

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So, he has a great respect for Titus. And now he said, okay,

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Titus I'm sending you here to the churches of Crete and here's some things I want you to do there.

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So, 1 Timothy the one that Harold read this morning and Titus are parallel passages of Scripture.

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They both speak to how Christians in general should behave in the house of the

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Lord. And specifically they speak concerning the walk and work of Christian leaders.

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In 1 Timothy the key verse that states the purpose of the letter is verse 315 one that he read and which you have up here on the board that says,

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Paul is saying to Timothy in the portion read this morning, I'm writing to you so that you may know how you ought to conduct and I'm going to add and be or behave yourself in the house of the

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Lord. And he says, this is my reason for writing this letter to you.

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I want to tell you how to behave in the church of God. It's His church, not your church, not our church in that sense.

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But he says, I want to tell you how to behave. And so the whole book of 1 Timothy and the book of Titus is telling all of us how we need to behave in the church.

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And the passage where it says, it speaks of the church of God it refers to that visible body of professing believers called collectively the church.

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Now we just expect that everyone here is a believer in Christ, but that's not always the case.

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There might be one or two say, and we've even had one or two members here

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I can remember specifically one dropped out was just a young man and we saw great hopes for him and he finally said,

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I just don't believe that stuff. You know which kind of shocked us all. And but we just expect that each one of us here are believers in Christ and if not we hope to give the gospel to those to learn how to be followers of Christ.

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And so I believe that this verse really describes not only 1

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Timothy but also Titus because he repeats the same things in Titus there.

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And so now I want to stop and now let's read verses 5 through 9.

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Now let me just say before I read this, this is qualifications for an elder, for a leader.

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But as I read these things my thrust wants to be if we believe that Christ died for our salvation and He promised us eternal life with Him, should our conduct, whether you are a leader or just in the pew, should your conduct be any less than that required of the leaders?

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What do you think? No, I think you're right. Should our conduct be any less?

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And so as we read through for the qualifications of leaders in the church just think, do

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I come up to this standard? And or do you say, I'll leave that up to the elders to live that godly life.

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I think no, God wants us to follow in that way.

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And so as we read this portion of Scripture don't just say

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Harold, Victor, Pastor, that's for you guys. And but we want you to realize that that should apply to each one of our lives.

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We should come up to that same standard. And so reading now from Titus 1 starting with verse 5 and we'll read up through verse 9.

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For this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded.

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If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination, for a bishop must be blameless, a steward of God, not self -willed, not quick -tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober -minded, just, holy, self -controlled, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to give convict those who contradict.

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And the rest of the chapter goes on to say for there are many insubordinate.

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And he talks about all the people in the world that could be in the church that want to overthrow the church. And so he says in this very last verse to the elders you need to be able to teach and say against that sort of thing.

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So the first point as we go down through there in verse 5

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I underline that each little word and a lot of times in my own studying what

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I do is I look to a concordance if you're unfamiliar with a concordance it's usually they have every word in the

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Bible listed and then they'll give you a little blurb here's what it is in Greek which means nothing to me and then they have a transliteration they put it they type it out in English so you have some idea what it should sound like and so we call that a transliteration and I'll look at that and say okay and but then

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I will look at the English word many times and then I'll go to the dictionary I'm a great one or I'll go to my phone tell me what this means and it's very nice to have this phone that tells me what this means but then

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I check it with there's usually several dictionaries and a lot of times it's good if you notice with the dictionary

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I have it on a little older because I'm a little older and it always has the archaic meaning in other words this is what it meant a hundred years ago or so forth and that's how

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I do my studying just so you get some idea so he said

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I left you in Crete to set in order the thing so he's talking about the churches in Crete and I want you to set them in order and the thing that I think about is that our

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God is a God of order you look at chemistry you look at math which

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I think God created if you change I don't like this you know I'm going to change this a little bit in the chemistry and it's not according to order you might be dead right and so in 1st

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Corinthians it says while addressing spiritual gifts and confusion in the church you remember 1st

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Corinthians there was a lot of confusion so Paul's addressing spiritual gifts and he's addressing the confusion that was in a church and it could be so he states for God is not the author of confusion but of peace and is it as in all the churches of the

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Saints and then jump to verse 40 of this is in 1st Corinthians 14 33 and then 40 says let all things be done what

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I bet you could finish it decently and in order so as we look at this he's saying to Titus make sure that the church and the people understand there's not to be a lot of confusion in the church it's to be decent and in order we used to have union meetings with us and the

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Russian church years ago and they would meet and we would meet and we would be all together but it got to be because of language differences and because of some tradition differences and so it was really confusing service you know and and even and even during communion we it just fell on communion when we planned it and we started passing out communion they don't give communion they don't offer it to anyone who's not a member and especially children below the ages of 16 or 18 years of age so we started passing communion down the road with these young people they jumped up and stopped our service and I say that we love them dearly don't take me wrong it's just a different tradition that they have in their church and but we said at that point we love them we'd love to have the kit the union meetings but the confusion was so great no one got anything out of it so it can happen in a church and so here our

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Lord says let's do things decently in order and he says the next phrase

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I want you to set in order the things that are lacking we don't know for sure what was lacking but it looks like they had not set up elders in each church because he goes on to say

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I want you to appoint elders in each church so there must have been we believe in a multiplicity of elders and when

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I was younger I made a lot of foolish to see decisions even being an officer in the church and I found it is very great to have someone else you can bounce off of or someone who's able to say to me no

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Victor that ain't gonna work you know and it's good when you have somebody and a multiplicity of elders and I wanted to just say a minute different churches have different ideas of who should be in charge of a church

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I've been in a I've been members of a few different churches I've been in especially other

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Baptist churches this is not considered a Baptist but the doctrine their doctrine and this doctrine is very close together except in a lot of Baptist churches they believe the pastor is the only elder and everybody else are deacons and so if you go to we were a member and I was a chairman of the deacons in a church in Fresno for about five and a half years and then the pastor resigned and left and I said am

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I an elder do I get up or am I a deacon you know and I had to weigh that out but that's their doctrine now we have an absence of an elder and I said well call me a deacon but I'm gonna have to act like an elder okay but I'm not against them don't take me wrong

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I'm not speaking against that system church system but a lot of churches are that way we in our

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Constitution and I believe correctly have elders and deacons and I'm not going into deacons today just the elders today but there is also an interesting sidelight

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I have been a member of a church where they felt they could not find anybody even though they that was qualified to be an elder or a deacon so they had a board and then they had committees and they kind of bypassed the requirements of elders in the church and so they had 10 or 15 different committees and so then they would say okay we're going to have a leadership committee meeting which all the leaders from each of these committees would get together but I'm just saying it's a hard thing when you are a leader to look out and say

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Lord help us in finding someone who's qualified in this I thought of going into I won't go into it this morning but our

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Constitution spells out the how we pick elders and deacons and someday we should go into detail with that if you're unfamiliar or ask for the

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Constitution and go through it and we try to stay closest to the word that we can in doing that so he's to appoint elders and the word when we see the word elder as you go through the

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New Testament you're going to see the term bishop elder or Presbyter a press you'll see those three things but they're interchangeable in the there's two different original words in that one is a

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Presbyter when I said there was this transliteration of Presbyter was one of the transliterations from the

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Greek and then there's the Episcopal you ever heard of a piscopal church it comes probably from that word

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Episcopal and then there's the you ever heard of the Presbyterian Church probably comes from they believe that the elders are in charge kind of a thing and the so you see the words they kind of show up when we talk about a transliteration here's the

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Greek word and it's to me it was interesting baptize is not an

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English word the Greek word was baptizo and they didn't know what to use for when they use the language so they said well let's just use the transliteration and call it baptism you see what

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I'm saying so going from the Greek and so we believe that the scriptures in the original

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Hebrew and Greek and most of us besides pastor can't read the Hebrew and Greek so we have to go to books to kind of make sure that we are accurate and we feel that the translations that we use are accurate translations there are some that are don't worry about accuracy but we believe that the ones we're using as close as you can be to that so when we talk about a transliteration they take and just take that word from the original

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Greek and make an English form of the same thing and that's where baptized come just for the curious thing bad it when they write when the

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Roman soldiers went and dipped their spears in blood before they went to war the word is they baptized that's where they got the word that's the

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Greek word baptized when a ship sank it baptized that was original and so that's why

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I mean just this is a transliteration so when you are baptized you should be sunk right in in the anyway a side note

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I get too many rabbit trails right so the qualifications here for an elder less it says number one and it says in verse six he must be blameless now when you and I read through this we just kind of run through it dot dot dot dot dot dot dot and we don't really think if you're like me we don't really think what each word means so he said first of all if someone's going to be a leader he should be blameless and again remember this should be should any of us be less than this but again

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I go to the dictionary a blameless they said innocent of wrongdoing above suspicion without guilt but as believers we are not perfect are we but their character and our character is a result of following Christ that's where we come into being blameless he said you need to check and I think one one of the things you hesitate sometimes to give examples we did have a incident where one of our leaders left the church because there was an accusation made and we got the questioning of the leaders we had both elders and deacons at the time and we got the questioning what happened here so we finally contacted the wife after they left she said you know when you picked him as a leader you never talked to me you understand what

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I'm saying I knew what he was like you didn't know what he was like but you never asked me now at the time we as leaders had a list of when we're looking for who should be deacons who should be elders we started saying well we should check this for our own sake let's here's the scripture let's check this check this check this we pulled out the list and says ask the wife that was the next thing that we put on on there because and I thought how dumb of us you know we didn't think about that but the

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Lord knows and again in every life that we have had failings but the

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Lord wants restoration am I correct and but when we're looking for leaders and then the next one says the husband of one wife and I'm not going to deal with that you

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I said there's books written on that right and we feel

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I mean you could go well it could be this could be this could be in his divorce and so forth and all these things are involved that's between you and the

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Lord right now I'm not going to convince you one way or the other at this point and then it says after that having children not accused of dissipation excuse me having faithful children not accused of dissipation and insubordination now

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Barb will tell you and we joked about me last week I'm her secretary typing and she'll say

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Victor has an alternate way of spelling if you know what that means and so that's true but sometimes

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I think when I was growing up they didn't know the word dyslexic you know what I mean I have a little bit of dyslexia so I will look at a phrase and sentence and I'll see this part but I won't see that part it just doesn't register you know

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I'm saying so when I first read this and most of my life they haven't faithful children stop there and then not accused of dissipation of insubordination

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I thought it was talking about the elder you know I didn't I thought I my mind saw a comma there won't but here it says faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination and so the leader and should this apply all of us especially that have been parents is being a parent the easiest thing in the world getting your children to mind you know and having them to mind without how would

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I say depressing them you know that's a that's a fine line to follow it really is but the again it says faithful the word faithful talking about there is reliable trustworthy and in the

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English Standard Version and the New American Standard Version Bible they rendered it believers so if you were reading this in those versions it would say having believers your children are believers and but then they said a lot of people question that phrase because how can a parent guarantee or that his children are saved or believers and so then interesting thing in the passage that Harold read this morning in first Timothy 3 for it says the same thing having children in submission with all reverence and I would follow that personally because we're talking about children that are in the home

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I think the word here for children and pastor can check me on that later but I think it's talking about young children that are under the control of the father in the home if your children if you're still responsible for when your children get out of the home that's something that we in the

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Vaughn the Bible says that children when they get married leave father and mother and we can't really be responsible for him at that point but it's there's a lot of question and I know that I've talked with several men that have left the ministry or left of being an elder because their children kind of went wild after they left the home and I think there's a limit there

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I think that the Lord can't hold you responsible once they're out of the home you've taught them everything if if your kids are like my kids they don't want to hear me say another thing you should do this and we have a joke in our house what a fellow ought to do you know is and then you go you rant on about what you be should be doing you know but my kids don't want to hear that my adult kids don't want to hear that you know so I gotta be careful but I think it's talking about the children that are in the home and a person that should be a leader should have his children under the control because I like the

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King James rendering to that passage it says faithful children where it goes about dissipation and insubordination faithful children not accused of riot or unruly in other words your children shouldn't be a riotous or they shouldn't be unruly you should have them under control and I I'm in this day and age with all of the social media going on it's very hard for a parent to properly discipline their children but there's and it's and because a lot of parents wrongly discipline their children we know that but there is a way and we have to pray for as parents godly ways to discipline and bring our children under control none of you and parents have ever got a call from the school that says can you come pick up your child and don't come back until you bring him with you and I've never had that happen right so we it's kind of joke

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Mike my kids are all adults now you know and you bring one home and you're going inside you're steaming and bitten you know and finally

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I say you go in that room and wait a half hour so I'm going in here and call myself and pray the

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Lord make me calm you know our kids have said that's the worst half hour in their life but I mean we need to do that because we're human we really need to do that but now we're talking about leaders sometimes we can come up against with each other where we want to butt heads and so he's saying if you can't do it with your kids can you do it when you're in a meeting with other leaders and so that's what he's talking about here and I think all of you who are parents understand what we're talking about here so the new international version says that children not wild or disobedient and I thought

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I thought those were good phrases to translate that there now it talks about the next verse you for a bishop must be blameless we've already discussed that but here's the word bishop and and this one is

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Episcopal so there whereas were before where it said elders that was a presbyter's was the original word but these are interchangeable so a bishop must be blameless and so we've discussed that then a steward of God now it's an interesting you could run over that and not even think about it

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Webster's Dictionary said a steward is one employed in a large household or a state to manage domestic concerns supervise servants collect rep and keep accounts so he's a steward is in charge of a household an elder is in charge of a household is it his household what's the next word after that it's

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God's household he's in charge of a household that doesn't belong to him and if you look at history many and most of the stewards were either servants or slave put in charge of their household how did

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Paul how did Paul start this chapter a bond servant or a servant or a slave of God I'm a slave of God put in charge of a house of God and we need to remind ourselves of that and so the household didn't belong to him do you remember the story in the

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Old Testament Joseph in Potiphar's house Joseph was his brother sold him into slavery into Egypt and in in the time he became into the house of Potiphar Potiphar really liked him he's a slave of Potiphar's he put him in charge and Paul is saying that's the same position that we have as leaders in a church you're my servant in charge of my household and so going to verse 7 not self -willed definition of self -willed stubbornly doing what he wants in spite of the wishes of others none of you are guilty of that are you

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I'm not guilty of that no stubbornly doing what he wants in spite of others wishes and so if you're looking for a leader in church but should that be our lifestyle at home we have to pray to be humble right and then it says quick -tempered in our version and we

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I'm in a new King James till you know where I'm coming what version and it's interesting inclined quick -tempered is inclined to anger an individual who rules with anger have you ever known anybody especially men who rule their home with anger

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I mean it shouldn't be named among us as believers am

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I right I know some of you here have heard the story of Barb and I and I won't go into good detail the church that we were married in we had an elder who had greets at the door and everybody loved him and an incident happened my brother was dating his daughter and he was not married he was living with us while he's in between college summers and so forth and we got a call from a man who worked with him and he says

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Victor get your family and children out of the house this man is a violent man you don't know him you know him only as an elder is a nice get your children out of the house because he's very angry and violent and he was an elder in our church but I'm that should not be where any of us rule our house with anger if you don't know what

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I tell you you know we shouldn't rule our own homes with anger I tell you this

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I was at that time not walking with the Lord as I ought her parents came over to our house and I said what do

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I do he says let's pray I get down on my knees my prayer says

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Lord take care of that character because if me as a young man I was a young man at the time went to the elders and said you realize what this man did they wouldn't believe me a month later he died of a heart attack at 45 changed our thinking on prayer as well as the

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Lord in charge and so I'm just telling you don't rule your house with anger don't allow your house to be ruled with anger don't allow that to be part of you so not not given to wine they say the original and like I'm saying

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I don't know that they say the original says don't is staying near the wine is what it really says in the original staying near the wine in other words don't be a person that's staying close to the wine and really all the translation says a drunkard don't be a drunkard in other words as I think about that in this day and age when we were younger you never heard about drinking in the church usually but now a lot of people say well the

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Old Testament they drunk and people drunk wine they go on and on about that and that's true and because if you're in Europe a lot of times you didn't drink the water you know because of the what would happen but here's my thinking is don't stay near the wine we're talking about leaders we're talking about individuals in Ephesians 5 18 it says don't be filled with what wine and it wears an excess but be filled with the

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Spirit and I'm just saying what should be controlling you and I this is the Holy Spirit am

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I correct the Holy Spirit should be what's controlling us and some people say well I can't get through this without having a little wine or get because I need that control well we really need to back off and it's hard for us to back off and say okay

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Lord you know you need to be in full control so it's an area which again we don't say a whole lot about then goes on in verse 7 not violent and in the

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King James Version it says no striker and even the

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Webster's Dictionary says for violent it means ready for a fight contentious physical force intended to hurt so when he's talking about here don't allow anybody to be over you in the church that is just generally violent you know at the drop of a hat they are angry and they want to take off after you

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I used to read when my boys were we'd go through Proverbs and I would read you know the first day

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Proverbs 1 second day Proverbs 2 I always enjoyed the King James Version that's just me because of words and enjoying that Proverbs 18 6 describes this man and it says a fool's lips enter into contention and his mouth calls for strokes what's a stroke a punch in the mouth and I would say that I always thought that's a cute way to put it in Proverbs but now they say it differently in other versions but I like King James says a fool's lips calls for strokes you know and my father being a pastor would say every now and then that man deserves a holy punch you know but he's just kind of joking when you say that but we don't want a man nor should it be violent in any of us and the next phrase there is not greedy for money and then what

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I think about when I read there is an individual who desires the position of an elder or a leader in the church for the purpose of a getting ahead financially or politically

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I've been in churches where they have big boards and men vie to get on the board so that they have good contacts for their work and I think that's the same thing as well as we know of we've seen some that have just done wrong with the money in the church and we try to be above board as we can be here at Faith Bible and have everything before you there and in verse 8 he should be hospitable hospitable and it's generous to guests friends and welcoming to strangers and guests and in verse 8 also he's to be a lover of that which is good and as I think about that all

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I could think about was a lover of what God loves you know think about what is good sober -minded in verse 8 that's our translation the new

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American Standard Version says sensible I like that you have you want somebody that's in charge of the church to be sensible right and it's it's not a bad trait for any one of us at home right to be a little sensible and a sound mind and sane was the other versions that were put there so the next phrase elder should be just and again

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Webster's says behaving to what is morally right and fair now we know just you know in the scripture and what it means before God but when it talks about you and I being just we need to behave morally right and fair with people that are around us and it goes on to say in verse 8 we should be holy which is

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I take that to be we need to be pure we need to be godly or we need to be dedicated or consecrated to God is holy something that is dedicated or consecrated to God my father used to say here's a holy piano and I'd go you know he said it's use is dedicated to God here and I'm you know and we think about that and even when we talk with your children raising children he would say we don't put you know that the

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Lord is in charge of this but this building right now is dedicated for God's use so in that in that sense it's a holy place because it's dedicated for his use and when we talk to our children we should say this is dedicated to the

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Lord for his use and it's a good way to to put that and self -control is the last one in the list is the ability to control the emotions and desires especially in difficult situations now all of you control yourself even in difficult situations right you have all control you don't get out of control with emotions none of us right well that's a good for an elder but it's also good for each one of us here today now

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I had another hours notes here but I'm gonna stop there not really but I was going to go into I had another portion to go into first Peter 5 and you might just go there and read that on your own when you get home first Peter 5 1 through 5 and I might just take one second and read it and then we'll close okay turn with me to first Peter 5 oops got to get the right book second

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Peter don't work first Peter 5 1 through 5 and this is really instructions to the elder by Peter the elders who are among you

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I exhort I am a fellow elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed shepherd and some versions say feed the flock of God now again we're a steward with what

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God's flock not ours correct which is among you serving as overseers and that's the

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Episcopal the word for shepherds or for elders in the beginning excuse me and this is another word for overseer is the same as an elder in that sense but that's his duty and to be an elder he said

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I don't want you to be an elder by compulsion but willingly and I'm going to jump over and eagerly do you see that at the end not for dishonest gain and we dealt with that in the other portion of Scripture in there but not as being

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Lords over those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock and I thought is we as elders and leaders said this is the way you're going to do it you understand no it says you're not a

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Lord over my place you're you're a caretaker you're not a Lord you're not a master you're a caretaker and as it being examples and I always think when you come when it same thing when it comes to raising kids when

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I said to my kids go do this everything was slow and hard I'm insane whenever real small but when

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I said to my kids you know I'm gonna go out and we got a driveway that's full of weeds I'm gonna pull weeds here's a box for you here's a box for me and we're gonna pull weeds together they loved it it was a game right that's what as leaders should do is follow me we're going to go do this together and that's what the

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Lord says through Peter here not as being Lords over those but I want you to be an example and when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away thank the

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Lord that he's promised us eternal life and with that let's close in prayer thank you

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Heavenly Father for your blessings that you have showered on us thank you

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Heavenly Father for your scripture that you have given to us as we read these qualifications and characteristics that should be in our lives

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Lord may your Holy Spirit give us the strength to do that and we would thank you for it and we pray this in Jesus name