What to Look For in a Pastor

Gifts Versus Character in Choosing Elders

So, let's move to, we've talked about the importance, why we're going to talk about this. Chuck, one of the things in your sermons that, in any of your notes, you really wanted us to hit on is the difference between gifts and character.

Why that differentiation?

One reason is because as you look at the clearest passages on this subject, obviously, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, talking about elders, pastors, here's the qualifications that are listed. And as you look at those, the emphasis is on character.

The only gift, if you will, that's mentioned, or skill that's mentioned, is that he must be able to teach. Other than that, you're looking at his character. So, the emphasis in Scripture is on his character, so, yeah.

Yeah, so that's why, I mean, no, but that's why. So, we want to focus on the things that God focuses on, and what God tells us to focus on. If God is going to give us so many words in the Bible on describing who to look for in a pastor and in a deacon, then that should be the standard.

Yeah, and to both of those letters, Paul is giving instruction to Timothy and to Titus to look for these men, and here's the opportunity for him to say, look for the gifted men, look for men who have these gifts, and he doesn't.

Look for men who have these qualities, these graces.

Virtues, Graces, and the Work of the Spirit

Yeah, no, graces, what do you mean by that?

I mean that while these are, we could say virtues or qualities in a person's life.

Real quick, what do you, okay, so we're talking about qualities and virtues. Just give me a very short, not even a complete rundown of some of the things that you're talking about as being virtues.

Blameless, gentle, not addicted to wine, above reproach. Yeah, those things. So these are virtues in a person's life, but they're not just the effort of my diligence. I've been diligent to be gentle with everybody.

It's not just that. I think these are also graces in the sense that it's the outworking of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit in a person's life. It's not to say that they have been, that they magically appear because you have the Spirit.

We also, you know, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

And you mortify your sin and you sanctify, you are sanctified.

Yes, but independence upon the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, these things ought to be there and growing.

The Danger of Choosing a Pastor by Gifting or Charisma

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so as, and you alluded to this earlier, particularly when you were talking about the job descriptions that you would see, the wrong things that we look at, we tend to look at character, or no, I'm sorry, we tend to look at charisma or at gifting or at something that I want versus the thing that God says that I need in a pastor or an elder.

So what's at risk if we do follow along with the job descriptions, you know, that people have listed and we're just looking at character, charisma, or even if we're just reacting to the guy who was here last as pastor?

Well, if we're just reacting to the guy who was here last, then again, one of the temptations is overreaction. You know, I don't, I so strongly don't want that again, that I've got to have this. And the insistence on whatever that is may not be what God really has planned for you next, you know.

But the emphasis on the gifts versus the character, I think there's the temptation to be impressed with the gift more so than the character. And certainly one is more readily observable than the other.

If you think of a man who has just that voice and you hear him and it's smooth as honey and he's able to communicate so well, it's easy to hear that and be really impressed with that. And it's wonderful when a man has that, if that's what God's given to him.

But if he doesn't have the character to match that, then he's kind of a snake oil salesman. And you are listening to and potentially following a man whose character is going to lead you astray. You can't really follow him.

He's not worthy of being followed.

Right. And also, where is he leading you? Because he's not going to lead you to Christ. He's not going to lead you to the cross. And he's not going to lead your wife, your husband, your children to salvation.

He's not going to point you there. He's going to point you to himself.

Yeah. And saying that, it's not to say that people will not come to Christ while that man's preaching. That happens.

Right. Sure. God uses fallen men.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. But that's not the standard that he's given to us.

Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, and Ministry That Points to Christ

And I think, too, part of it is we as people tend to say, oh, well, I really want the next Spurgeon. Or I really want the next Lloyd-Jones. But take an honest look at those men. Lloyd-Jones hated his sermons being recorded.

He never wanted them to do it. He didn't understand why anybody would want to listen to a sermon that was preached to his church for his church in this season. Why is that necessary? We're glad they did.

We're incredibly glad that they made those recordings. Spurgeon had a different view. He understood that people wanted to read his sermons and that people were blessed by it and appointed people to Christ.

So he would take Mondays. So Sunday he would preach, and he had people who would write the sermons out. Monday morning he would edit them, and then they'd go out in newspapers. Different approach. Both of the men, however, constantly fought to make their ministry not about them.

They never wanted the spotlight on themselves. They understood that God had given them giftings and that God had blessed them with an ability to preach. But they never wanted their ministry to—they never wanted the spotlight of their ministry on them.

When you read them, when you hear them, it is constantly pointing to Christ.

A Pastor's Nearness to God and the Higher Standard for Elders

Yeah, and it was more to them than their giftings. I remember a story—I can't remember who told it—about Lloyd-Jones visiting Vernon Higham in the hospital. And it was one of these rooms where there's two patients.

And the other patient, after Lloyd-Jones had left, turns to Mr. Higham and asks him, who was that clean man? And Lloyd-Jones...

Vernon Higham.

Yeah, Vernon Higham.

What do you mean by clean man?

I assume he meant holy. Who's this man?

Sorry, for a second, I was like the cleaning man.

Yeah, no, not to mop, but here's a man who he looks at—this guy looks at him, and that man's clean.

Yeah.

Maybe that's not a good story to include.

No, no, I think it is, because it does say there is something about these men that their nearness to God is what really was the easiest thing to see about them. I mean, I remember in the The Logic on Fire documentary, one of Lloyd-Jones' daughters said that you would walk by his office, and you would see him in his chair, and he'd be praying, and you knew not to go in.

And everybody in the house would just be quiet because they knew that he was meeting with the Lord. It was that in the home life that was reflected in everything else that he did. So Lloyd-Jones wasn't about himself.

He was about his Christ. And is that not what every pastor—every believer, really—should be? But there is a higher standard for elders.