Grandfatherly Advice

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the
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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio.
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My name is Steve Cooley and it is August 11th, a day that will live in Cooley family history.
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I think I'm going to become a grandfather just about any moment now, so pretty exciting.
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And I thought I would take this opportunity really for today, tomorrow, to talk about some practical things, things that I've learned as I've gotten into my old age.
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I mean, I feel old kind of, you know, now being a grandfather and all. Of course,
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I don't know what that says about my dad who is about to become a great grandfather, but it's exciting times.
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We're very excited. I recently preached a message at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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And by the way, let me just say this, we got an email today about some folks who showed up on the first Sunday of the month for a p .m.
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and were disappointed because no one was here. Well, the first Sunday of the month at Bethlehem Bible Church, typically what we do is we have communion and we'll have, a lot of times, a pot providence afterwards.
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And so it typically goes on so long that we don't have an evening service first Sunday of the month.
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So in case you're wondering, and we're going to get our website updated to reflect that, bbcchurch .org.
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That's two C's in a row. Anyway, we're on no compromise radio where we're always biblical and always provocative, typically in that order.
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And I have just some things that I think I've learned, often the hard way, and I want to pass some of those things on today.
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I was recently preaching about elders and how they need to live. And you know what? Here's an amazing thing about qualifications for elder.
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Here's the amazing thing. If you go down that list in 1 Timothy 3, chapter 3, verses 1 to 7, you go down that list and you look at it and you think, boy, those elders, they must be really great guys.
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Well, can I just share this with you? There is no qualification for an elder except one that does not apply to every single
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Christian. I mean, we get this idea that somehow elders have to be supermen, that they're uber -Christians.
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And the truth is, they're just men who, by the grace of God, live out the
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Christian faith, with one exception, and that is the ability to teach. They have to be skilled at teaching.
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They have to be excellent teachers. So I think as you go through that, and I would encourage you to read the book of 1
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Timothy, just very, very helpful in terms of understanding the local church. But when you look at verses 1 to 7 of chapter 3,
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I think it serves as a checklist for how we all ought to live, man or woman, you know, young person.
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If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you are one of his disciples, a follower of Christ, a
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Christian, this is for you. It is how you ought to live. And so I'm just going to go through some of these things, and I want to, you know, embellish it a little bit, make it even a little more practical.
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Excuse me. In verse 2, it says, therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. And what does that mean?
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Well, it just means this, that there may be rumors, innuendo, smears, even serious charges brought against this person, but they don't stick, that when they're looked at fairly, when they're looked at in the light of, you know, evidence that they don't prove themselves to be true, and you think, well, you know, we've got some problems with our pastor.
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We've got some problems with our elders. You know, they haven't done this, that, or the other thing. Well, how do these things typically get handled?
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In my experience, which is not vast, I've only been in the pastorate for six years, but before that I was at Grace Community Church, and what
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I would see is slander. People handled things with slander. In fact, I once attended a
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Bible study where it seemed like the main focus of the Bible study after the study was done was for people to get together and slander the pastor.
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And it's just an amazing concept that a Bible study would exist like that, you know, under the man's teaching on Sunday, and then, you know, on Thursday or Friday night or whatever, you know, you get together to slam the guy, and that's not how it ought to be done.
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In fact, 1 Timothy 5 .19 would say this, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
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Well, why is that? Because elders are better than anybody else? No. It's to protect the church from being divided.
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What happens when you have slander, you know, when the kind of the rumor machine starts up against the pastor or against elders or against the, you know, the leadership of a church?
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The church gets divided. People start taking sides, and then it doesn't take very long before you've got some kind of a split where you've got, you know, meetings going on to vote out the pastor or whatever.
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That's just not how it ought to be done. And you say, well, why is there a different standard? Well, ultimately, it's because you hopefully haven't made them an elder or a pastor until you've gone through 1
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Timothy 3, Titus 1, verses 5 to 9, and really examined their life to see if they measure up.
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But it's really not all that different from what Jesus said when he talked about church discipline in Matthew 18.
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What do you do? If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
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In other words, you take it on the lowest level. Same thing with an elder. What would you do if you thought he was in sin or if he'd sinned against you?
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You go and you meet with him alone. And then you would take a couple of witnesses.
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And that's exactly what 1 Timothy 5 is talking about. You don't accept an accusation against an elder on the basis of one person's testimony.
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You have to get two or three witnesses. Well, what's the picture there? That the person offended has already gone to the elder and then has taken two or three witnesses.
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Then what you'd—or one or two witnesses. So now you've got two or three against him and they all say the same thing.
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Now it's time to deal with it. Now moving on in verse 2 of chapter 3, it says an elder must be an overseer, must be the husband of one wife, literally a one -wife husband.
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In other words, a man who is married must be fully devoted to his wife and he must be above reproach in this area.
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And you know, what are some of the practical implications for that? If you're married and you're listening today, you know, and you think, well, elders have a different standard.
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No. You know, what did Jesus say? That if you even look at another woman with lust in your heart, it's adultery.
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So how is this any different? We're just talking about a full devotion to your wife.
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This is what every married Christian is called to. If you're a Christian man, you are called to be fully devoted to your wife.
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Same thing for the wife. Is she to be, you know, flirting with other men?
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No. And neither should a husband be flirting with other women or to, you know, even give the appearance of that.
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You know, a practical—let's say you're single right now. Let's say you're not married. Well, let me ask you this. Would you want to be known as someone who dates a lot of women?
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That's not proper for a Christian man. He ought to be pursuing one woman. Well, let me ask you another question if you're single out there.
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Would it be proper for you to be known as the single guy who, you know, is dating an unbeliever or who is even alone with a woman a lot?
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I mean, what would the world think if they just saw a Christian man or a Christian woman who were not married, who spent, you know, a lot of time alone in an apartment?
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Well, of course, they're going to think the wrong thing. They're going to think that you're just like them, that there's no difference.
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And you know, may I just say this too, that if you think you can do that kind of thing and be alone for long periods of time, it may be an issue of pride because there's no one who puts themselves in the wrong situation over and over again and can expect to come out of it unscathed.
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If you don't want to gamble, you don't go into a casino. You don't want to drink. Well, don't go into bars.
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And if you don't want to fall into sexual immorality, then you shouldn't put yourself in a place where that sort of thing can happen.
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You know, you can't just, I mean, obviously to stretch the metaphor, you don't go into a brothel.
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But I mean, why would you even be alone with a person of the opposite sex and think this, you know,
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I could never fall? Well, take heed lest ye fall. It is just foolishness to think that, you know,
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I'm so strong, I could never fall to sexual temptation. Trust me, everyone in the wrong situation, if you put yourself there, you can because no one is immune to that.
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Verse two goes on and talks about being sober minded. You know, originally that had to do with alcohol, the
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Greek word did. But I mean, this is the idea of being sober minded just is that you're not known for excess in anything.
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You live a well -balanced, spiritually earnest, thoughtful life. You want to be known as someone that, you know, people could come to you for counsel, for advice.
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You want to be thought of as, you know, scripturally minded, not worldly minded. This is, again, these are things that every
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Christian ought to aspire to. This isn't some kind of, you know, holier than thou, great
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Christian life. This is just what we are called to by the Bible. Verse two goes on, self -controlled, which means in control of oneself, prudent, thoughtful.
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One writer went so far as to say that this person is sane. In other words, in his right mind.
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It also has to do with not falling for false teachers, which is, which was one of the problems that Paul addressed in chapter one of First Timothy.
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Technically, this can be, self -controlled can mean the ability to curb desires and impulses so as to produce a measured and orderly life.
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Self -controlled, does that describe you? Is this the kind of person that you are?
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If not, why not? Again, this does not just apply to elders.
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It's something that we ought to want in our own lives. Wouldn't you like to be known as scripturally, spiritually dependable?
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Someone who just doesn't fly from one idea to the next. You are under control. An elder must also be respectable, having characteristics or qualities that evoke admiration or delight.
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And it's interesting, too, I think that the root word for this is cosmos or world.
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And just as in First Timothy 2 .9, a woman's dress is to be described as, or it is described as being respectable, same root word, cosmos, orderly.
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An elder, a leader, and indeed, I would argue, any Christian ought to have a respectable air about them.
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Not that they, you know, are kind of stuck on themselves or whatever, or think they are respectable, but other people kind of look up to them.
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It's not a bad thing. An elder must also be hospitable.
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And again, I say that every Christian should be hospitable. If we understand the ancient world, the ancient world was one in which
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Christians not only were persecuted often, but when they had to go somewhere, it's not like they could check themselves into the local hotel or motel.
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They didn't have systems like we did. And typically when you stayed at an inn, there were exceptions to this certainly, but there were often things going on in those inns where it wasn't the best place for a
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Christian to be. I mean, this was a pagan world with a pagan worldview.
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The Greeks were not puritanical, shall we say, when it came to sex.
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And so a hotel or a motel, an inn in those days, was often a place where you did not want to be.
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And so Christians would need to open up their home to strangers, to other
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Christians who had traveled for whatever reason, and they would need to open up their home, they would need to be hospitable.
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Sometimes it was with little or no notice. You know, my wife and I recently had some time that we needed to,
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I'll just say time to kill, while we waited to go visit someone in the hospital. And we thought, well, who lives close by?
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And we just stopped by, and we just dropped in, and I'll mention on the air, we just dropped in on the
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Andresics, Bob and Nyada. And they were happy to see us. Bob wasn't there, but Nyada and the kids just opened up their door, and we just got to play with the kids and just have some fun.
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We told them we were just in the neighborhood. No problem. We're happy you stopped by. We wish more people would do that.
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And that's the kind of atmosphere that Christians should live in, how we should think, how we should be delighted that people would come by and not kind of like look out the peephole of the door and go, oh, great.
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What am I going to do now? I actually have to get off the Internet. I have to stop, you know, reading the newspaper.
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I have to do what, you know, I have to adjust my schedule to meet theirs. It should be a blessing to have brothers and sisters in Christ stop by.
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We should want that sort of thing. I'm going to skip a little bit down to verse 3.
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An overseer cannot be a drunkard. And this would be something, you know, maybe you could hide this on Sunday.
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If you have a problem with alcohol, maybe it's something you can hide on Sunday. But how do you hide it during the week?
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If you've got an alcohol problem, somebody knows about it. I don't care if it's the clerk at the grocery store, if it's the bartender.
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Somebody knows that you're buying a lot of alcohol and consuming it. So what kind of testimony, you know, just imagine you're buying a couple six -packs a day from the local grocery store or wherever you get them here in Massachusetts.
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I'm still learning these things. Somebody's going to notice that somebody in your house is consuming a lot of alcohol.
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And this idea of being a drunkard in the New Testament just means obviously addicted to wine. But it used to picture someone who would just spend a lot of time around alcohol.
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And, you know, you just don't want to be that sort of a person. I know that there are people who struggle with all sorts of substances out there.
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And may I just say to you that the Bible forbids it.
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You know, what did Paul write in Ephesians 5 .18? He said, do not be drunk with wine. Do not.
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It is a command. Do not be drunk. Does that mean you can never drink? No, I don't think it does.
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Now, other intoxicants, I think there are bigger problems with that.
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But suffice it to say that you ought not to be looking for an altered state of consciousness.
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I'm not after anybody who drinks, you know, the occasional glass of wine or drinks a beer or whatever.
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I'm after people. I mean I was a police officer for 21 years. You know how many times
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I heard somebody say, answer this question, how many beers have you had or how much have you had to drink?
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Oh, just two beers. You know, if you say that when a police officer stops you, you might as well just get ready to put the handcuffs on because that's what's going to happen.
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That's just not going to work. But, you know, he goes on, Paul does in 1
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Timothy 3. He says, not violent. Let me ask you this. You ever been around a drunk? Many of them.
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I mean there are what we call the nice drunks, the kind of, you know, Otis from the Andy Griffith show.
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There are nice drunks, people who are just very polite when they get drunk. But there are a lot of people who just go off, who get violent.
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And I would say that there are a number of people who become something they typically would not.
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So when it says not violent and it's almost tied into that idea, of course drunk or violent people don't necessarily have to be drunk.
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I mean some people just walk around life with a chip on their shoulder.
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They're ready to fight. And that's the picture of this is someone who's pugnacious or a bully, always ready to throw down, exchange blows.
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It's just something that they'd rather fight than be proven wrong. You don't want to be that person. But you also don't want to be a drunk, a violent drunk.
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You ought not to be in those kind of situations. And then Paul goes on to contrast it with instead of being violent, you ought to be gentle.
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So not drunk and not violent, but gentle. And it's interesting this word, listen to this carefully.
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It means not insisting on every right of letter of law or custom, yielding, kind, courteous, tolerant.
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Who does that describe? You just think about that. Who didn't insist on having all of his rights?
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Who didn't always insist on defending himself? Well, Jesus. Jesus was not or was exceedingly gentle.
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He's described that way. He's a very gentle shepherd. I mean think about how he was railroaded in court and he didn't even open his mouth to defend himself.
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Moving on, it says not quarrelsome. What does that mean in verse 3? Well, he's a problem solver, not a problem causer.
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He doesn't want to debate every issue. He's not one for arguing. In fact, it really means that he's peaceable.
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He's not looking to create arguments. He's looking to diffuse them. He is someone who would rather sit down and try to resolve problems than kind of create them.
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So that's the kind of person that every Christian should want to be is someone who is known as a problem solver, not a problem causer.
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An elder overseer must also not be a lover of money. Who would want to be known, hi,
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I'm a Christian and my number one goal is to get rich. My number one goal, you know, is to make a million dollars before I'm 30.
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My number one goal is to own as much property as I possibly can. I'm just piling up toys because I want people to know, you know, how much
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God has blessed me. That is such a wrong idea. I mean, the
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American dream can really run into conflict with the Christian ideal.
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And which is more important, the Christian ideal or the American dream? Well, the answer is the Christian ideal.
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You don't want to be known as a lover of money, as someone who's greedy, someone who's driven by money.
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Now we get into verse 4. He must be, an overseer must be someone who manages his own household.
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Well, that word manage is interesting because it really means to exercise a position of leadership, rule, direct, be at the head.
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Now we know this applies to a man. How? Well, we could look and just see he. And then you could say, well, that could be a generic he.
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Well, we go back to verse 2 and it says husband of one wife. I don't care what anybody says. You cannot be the husband of one wife and be a woman.
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Men are to lead their households. That is clear throughout the New Testament. There's no doubt about it.
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And so he is a leader. He is ruling and directing his household. And it says you must do it well.
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A man is responsible, as I said, for everything that goes on in his household. Well, why is that?
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Is everything his fault? No. Is he responsible for everything that goes on? Yes. Just as, you know, let's say the president is responsible for everything that goes on in his administration.
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Remember Truman had that sign up that says the buck stops here. Well, in the house, the buck stops with the husband and father.
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What are the implications of that? Well, if your finances are a mess and your wife runs a checkbook, guess what?
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It's your responsibility to straighten it out. If there's a problem in your relationship with your wife, you are responsible for straightening it out.
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If your house is absolutely chaotic, you know, people come into your home and they go, good night.
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How does anything get done in this household? The kids are running around. The dogs are yapping. The wife is on the phone all the time.
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You know, you've got craziness all around you. This place is a madhouse. Whose fault is that?
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Well, the fault may lie in individual places, but the husband is responsible.
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It's his responsibility to organize, to run, to manage his household well.
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He's the one who's on judgment day going to be held to account for how he ran his household.
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Every male Christian listening to me needs to understand that while he need not control, and listen to that carefully, he need not control every aspect of the household.
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He is responsible for all of it. He needs to manage it well. Now, verse 4.
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With all dignity, keeping his children submissive. Oh man, that's a tough one, huh?
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My kids are out of control. My kids are, my kids, my kids. You don't understand my kids.
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My kids are rebellious. Listen. With all dignity, keeping his children submissive.
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Let me ask you a question. Do your kids run your house? Would you like to look at them and just say, my house, my rules, but you're afraid of what the kids will say?
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There's something wrong with your household. And guess what that problem is? You've abdicated your responsibility.
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Moms, mothers. If you think, I can't do anything till my husband gets home with the kids, there's something wrong.
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You've also abdicated your responsibility. While your husband's gone, you are completely in control of those kids, and you need to take control.
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You need to correct them, to discipline them. Listen to verse 5. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
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Again, talking about elders. You can't have an elder. You can't choose your elders based on elections, based on three -year cycles, five -year cycles, on popularity within the congregation, the fact that they can run a business well, on the fact that they know how to play the stock market, on the fact that they've got some kind of experience that makes you think they'll be a good teacher or whatever.
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No. You need to look at that man's life. You need to look at how he runs his household.
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You need to know a lot about him. Listen to what Kistemacher says about children and fathers.
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He says, It has to be natural for them to obey because they must see the wisdom in what you're doing.
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