Creeds and Confessions #2 - How Creeds and Confessions Work in the Life of a Church?

Redeemer Bible Fellowship

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uh hopefully you got one of the handouts um for this class if you haven't eddie would you mind grabbing them from the front just in case anyone doesn't have one and we'll definitely need that to follow on what to track i should say this morning allow me to pray and we will get straight to work in this lesson in our little series about being a creedal and confessional church so let me pray and we'll get to work heavenly father we thank you so much for your goodness to us thank you for the lord's day another opportunity to come and to worship and to encourage one another and to grow in our faith and we pray that as we begin this day with time of instruction really your spirit would help us to think well to think in a way that glorifies you and to to have the right heart about the things that we believe and how we express those things ask all this in jesus name and for his sake amen all right so as you can see from the screen we are picking up with our little mini series here on being a creedal and confessional church this is part two of that as we think about how creeds and confessions work in the life of a church as we get started you know you all know i like my little ice breaker questions and so i have one for this morning which is very simply how does a church faithfully disciple its members how does a church faithfully disciple its members so obviously we all here we've gathered together we're a church how does the church go about the work of faithfully discipling its members invite to take let's take five minutes with the folks nearest to you and let's discuss that question what are some ways in which the church can faithfully disciple its members let's take five minutes or so to discuss that and then we'll share all right we'll go ahead and give it one more minute and then we'll come back together okay so come back to our little question here before i bring up my board how does a church faithfully disciple its members how does a church faithfully disciple its members who would like to share first yeah this is a good question so many other things in the world that try to disciple us you know so one of the things that we mentioned in our group was simply just church on sunday you know that uh it's about every aspect of the lord's day is meant to teach us about jesus and disciple us and bring us closer to him and it's you know that's vital especially in our world where there's so many different distractions you know so yeah just gathered worship absolutely and actually our next redeemer u class after we finish the sermon on the mount we'll spend a lot of time talking about gathered worship and the role it plays in our discipleship but absolutely there's a critical part that doesn't get as much play back in the back so our group uh decided to look at it from the point of view of how does anyone learn anything kind of universally so loretta brought up the example of her dad teaching her how to draw so we we concluded one of the things was that you don't just learn it in one shot you have to be persistent and practice and continue to learn and learn and learn to build your skills so uh in in a discipleship sense being regular persistent meeting with others and it's going to be important because with our uh hard hearts and hard hard heads it takes us by god's grace practice and practice to grow and learn in this group all right appreciate that and that's definitely true a discipleship is not a one -shot thing it definitely requires regularity and persistence for sure and commitment yes uh joseph was making a point about teaching his members a disciple about history of the church okay and that is a very important i was telling it's very important point for our ground in for us to grow in in the right you know in the right doctrine going back to how was history to church through history starting with the disciple no absolutely that and that is a very i think neglected but important part of the church's discipleship we are we'll talk about this actually a little bit in our lesson in a minute or two we are not the first christians to have read the bible we are not the first christians to have professed the name of jesus and we do ourselves a massive disservice when we disconnect ourselves from that so absolutely absolutely anyone else some of my some of my most fruitful learning times have been one -on -one with someone who was older than me and committed to me okay so older and younger um older in the lord and younger and there's just a commitment there a commitment to pass on what we know and that's pretty sweet yeah absolutely absolutely well i have to do that little exercise because i think it's good for us to think about especially in the context of what we're going to talk about today i pull up the question once again there we go we're asking the question as we do this how does the church faithfully disciple its members that assumes first of all that the church has a responsibility to do that which if you want to turn your bible to second timothy chapter one we'll read these verses are kind of forming a foundation for what we're thinking about second timothy chapter one beginning in verse 13 second timothy chapter one reading from verse 13 i'm just going to read the two verses that kind of bookend this section so second timothy 113 paul says hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me and the faith and love that are in christ jesus god the good deposit through the holy spirit who lives in us and then end of that little section chapter 2 verse 2 second timothy 2 2 what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also i won't go through all these verses again we did that in our first week you can go back on the website and listen to that but essentially we acknowledge that as christians there is a body of truth that has been given to us by the lord jesus it was then spread by those that he sent in his name the apostles and in every generation that truth is passed down and what we're thinking about with this series of studies that we've called being a creedal and confessional church what we're thinking about is how does the church effectively do what paul describes here how does it hold on to the pattern of sound words how does it guard the good deposit and how does it commit the things that we have seen and heard to other faithful men who be able to teach others also that's what we're thinking about and as i said we're thinking this week about how creeds and confessions which we argued in week one is one way of doing this how creeds and confessions work in the life of a church since it's been about a month since we last did this i'm going to do a very very rapid review of what we looked at last time so last time we began by defining our terms what a creed is and what a confession is anybody remember what the two definitions we gave were for what a creed is versus what a confession is so remember we said last time that whiteboard here we said that a creed there we go a creed answers the question of who do we believe in and the confession answers the question what do we believe in so when we talk about creeds we're asking the question who do we believe in they are remember the quote from the first session those of you who are here they are statements of allegiance this is who we believe in as christians that's what creed does a confession isn't answering the question of who it's answering the question of what what things do we believe in as people who believe in the god who has revealed himself in the bible so we spent some time asking that question of what is a creed was a confession we then looked at some objections that people have to having creeds and confessions and then we talked about some of the benefits just in general of having creeds and confessions well what we're going to do this morning and let me warn you in advance this is going to be a slightly more technical lesson than normal just because there's a number of concepts we need to get our head around if we're going to have a healthy view of holding to creeds and confessions so i apologize i'm gonna do my best to explain as much as i can but if it feels like some of this is going over your head that's why we're recording this i encourage you to go back listen to it again try and catch more of this on the second and third go around if possible but what we're going to do this morning is essentially to like i said answer the question okay if we agree that churches should be creedal and confessional which is what we talked about in our first session then we now need to ask well how does that work how are churches to be creedal and confessional that's what we're going to consider in our sunday school hour this morning so to help us with that i've got a number of questions i want us to think through a number of questions and so let's begin with like i said this is going to be the more technical part of this question number one how can churches hold to confessions now i italicize that word there can because there are different ways in which churches who agree about the importance of creeding confessions there are disagreements as to how to do that well and you'd expect that because the bible itself doesn't give us a particular way to hold to creeds and confessions we have to be honest about that which means that as god's people as we read the scriptures as we reflect as we think on things we're going to have to apply what i think one of the confessions refers to as christian prudence like sanctified common sense a little bit as to how we hold to confessions and so for a moment i want to consider five different ways in which christians have viewed the issue of what we say subscribing to or holding to confessions again i'll do my best not to make this overly technical but five different ways that christians have viewed this so first of all there are what some churches will call absolute subscription absolute subscription so absolute subscription basically says you have to hold to this creed or confession as it is written with no exceptions so you can't disagree with wording you can't disagree with how things are phrased you can't definitely disagree with any of the doctrines that the confession holds you must hold this confession in its entirety it's absolute so that's one way i'm not going to say which one i think is right or wrong yet i'll save that for a little bit later right now i'm just describing the views so absolute subscription says the individual must hold to the entire creed or confession as it is written without any exceptions to wording phrasing or doctrine so churches again if we try to plot this on a map a little bit churches in the dutch reform tradition tend to ask their their members when they come into membership not even leaders just members to hold to what they call the three forms of unity which are their set of confessions you're especially you're expected to hold to those without exception that's one way of looking at it another view which is kind of close to this is what some people call historical subscription historical subscription this view essentially says yes we want to hold to confessions but what we want to do is to hold to the confession in line with the original intent of the people who wrote it and more than that you as the person who's coming to hold to it or subscribe to it you have to hold that historical view so the historical view where i wrote this down requires a person not to merely agree with the basic sense of the words the ideas and the doctrines in the confession but the very world view that the authors brought to it the very way that they would have perceived how we know the truth all of that you need to know and understand to hold to the confession there's a book that's just come out in the last year or so it's actually a really good book i highly recommend it it's called to the judicious and impartial reader it sounds like a high fluting title all it is it's a walk of the second london baptist confession it's another confession of faith and the author of that book dr jim renahan who i've met he's a wonderful brother in the lord uh he holds the historical view so a lot of his book is taken up with well here's what the people in the time when this was written this is what they would have said and so this since this is what they would have said we have to hold it just like this again that's another way of looking at this there are what some people call a full or strict uh subscript subscription now you may think wait a minute isn't that the same thing as absolute not so much i told you this can get slightly technical so if i'm losing anyone feel free put your hand up i will go back and do my best full subscription says yes we want you to hold to the whole confession however you can take exception to words or phrases not the teaching per se but the way things are worded so what this view tries to say is yeah human beings write these documents which means human beings will get things wrong sometimes they will word things that maybe they'll say things in ways that aren't worded the most helpfully so they will say yes you want to hold to the whole confession but yes there's going to be moments where i don't particularly agree with the way they worded that excuse me there we go i don't agree with the way they worded that but i agree with the confession as a whole in terms of what it teaches again one way of looking at that another view is what some people call system subscription this says essentially the confession isn't meant to teach you everything you know jot and tittle word for word it's giving you a system of belief as long as you believe in the general system you don't have to hold to each individual point as long as you're not contradicting the essential parts of what this confession teaches again another way of looking at that finally there's what some people call substance subscription it's my last one subscription basically just says you don't even have to hold to all the system of it just the spirit of the confession you have to agree to so can you see how honest if we're to kind of plot this on a spectrum you go from the most strict to like the most lenient from the most tight to the most loose i think okay kofi that was a lot why do we need to think about this well i think it's important for two reasons first of all can i put it to you that it's not enough to know what you believe or even why you believe it i think it's important for us let me put it this way it's not enough for us to just know what we believe that's as good as that is i don't think it's even enough to say we know why we believe it i think it's also important for us to be able to answer the question of how do we believe these things if we're going to think about this the bible says matthew chapter 22 i believe that the great commandment of the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength which means if we're going to glorify god and know him well it's not enough just say well i know what i should believe which is good you should know what you believe it's not enough to even say i know why i believe it which is good you should know why you believe what you believe but i think if we're going to glorify god well it's going to include thinking about the how of what we believe how did we get here now there's differing levels of detail to which we should think about that of course but i do think it's important for us to not just consider to not just consider excuse me what we believe and why we believe it we should always ask that question of okay how did we get here and so that's one reason it's important to think about this but more than that on a more practical level in the life of a church but what how do you handle disagreements with the confession if we acknowledge the confession is not the bible which means we're going to have moments of disagreement with the confession well how do we handle that if think about this if we're going to have moments of disagreement as christians will that requires us to think about okay how do we view our confessional statements are they absolute to where you cannot have any disagreement do we disagree maybe with wording but not with doctrine can we disagree with doctrines and these are the kinds of things that we have to think about as we hold to confessions now do i think we can answer those questions i think there are some biblical principles that can help us with that which leads to my second question this morning which is what biblical principles lead to a healthy view of confessions now in asking that question i'm assuming a little bit which is that there is an unhealthy way to hold to confessions and personally i think there is i think when a confession basically does all of the heavy lifting for you and you don't have to actually think about come back to our little thing here but what the why and the how but you don't have to think about any of that i think that's an unhealthy way to approach that you want to be thinking people when it comes to our faith and that requires us to have a healthy view of how we hold these confessions well the question becomes what are the biblical principles that lead us to a healthy view of confessions i think there are a few that we need to think about i think first of all we have to start by asking what's the purpose of a confession so what's the purpose of a confession in general what did we say think back to our first lesson or if you haven't heard it i encourage you to go back and listen to that because we answered that question a confession is designed to be a simple summary of the important truths of the faith now that phrase simple summary is incredibly important because if it's a summary we're not trying to answer every question and we really shouldn't expect our confessions to answer every question because they're summaries so if we think about it like this if a confession is designed to be a summary of the important details of the faith then we'll readily have to admit that confessions don't tell us everything but they do tell us about everything that is important so when we think about a healthy view of confessions we shouldn't view them as well basically this is the 67th book of the bible please treat it as such far from it there are only 66 books in the bible those are god's word whatever we are reading in the confessions of faith that we hold to they're not designed to tell us everything god's word is designed to tell us everything we need even that we don't always understand everything equally but what the confessions are designed to do are to give us simple summaries of the faith which means there are going to be some things where we should have freedom to discuss and freedom to ask questions kind of leads to my second principle not only do we need to think about the purpose of a confession we need to think about secondly the virtue of clear and honest conversation one writer put it like this well we want to win we want to employ a form of confessional subscription so holding to a confession that requires transparency and honesty i think that's a good way to put it transparency and honesty if you have to so think about this if someone's coming into membership and we say okay well this is our church's confessional position you have to agree with this completely kind of showing my hand a little bit as to where i stand on this issue here's a problem i think you've run into what if the person doesn't understand everything in it at some point you're either going to ask the person to lie because they're going to say well yeah i understand it if they don't i love this church so i want to join but they're expecting me to understand every single thing here or you're going to have to say okay look i don't disagree but i don't understand it that's where the clear and honest conversation part comes into it there needs to be some freedom of conscience in these areas where you give people room to grow actually that leads to my third principle anything progressive sanctification what's that have to do with anything well simple all of us are still growing in our faith even the man who's standing in front of you he's still growing and learning i don't hold all the same views that i held even a year ago now the big picture of my theology remains the same and unchanged but as i'm growing and learning and spending more time in god's word and sitting under good teachers my view on things is constantly growing and changing just like you are growing and learning new things you are growing in your faith a healthy view of confessions a fancy term a healthy confessionalism gives people a ceiling for growth without demanding too much too soon because you recognize everybody is still growing everybody is still learning if we don't give room for that what ends up happening is we either expect too much from people which is a bad thing or we become easily frustrated with people because well you should know this all now well no i think understanding that our sanctification includes being made more and more like jesus in how we think and in what we think well that means that's going to take time that's not something you can rush i think another important principle which kind of follows on from the last one is that the holy spirit does a work in all of us of illumination illumination is just a fancy way of saying that the spirit grants us spiritual light so that we can understand the word of god if you are a christian one of the things that you enjoy by virtue of jesus's death on the cross is that you receive the holy spirit and the holy spirit is given for a multitude of reasons one of which is to continue to help us to understand the things that god has given us first corinthians chapter two makes that point and so if we want a healthy view of confessions it's going to have to include the fact that the spirit of god works in every christian to grant them light and understanding and he doesn't do it at the same pace and to the same degree with everyone because we are all different there's also the reality that there's a certain degree of responsibility on all of us so if i can use this example if you only read your bible once a week that's a good thing it's better than not reading it but if you only read your bible once a week are you going to know as much as the person who reads their bible every day no now the person that's not always an absolute the person who reads every day might not understand what they read every day that's a whole other set of issues versus the person who reads once a week and does get it so let's not be too absolute but in general we can agree if you're not exposing yourself to the word of god and thus giving the spirit of god an opportunity to grant you understanding you're not going to understand as much okay coffee what does that have to do with confessions simple part of the illumination the spirit gives us is through remember ephesians chapter four that we've talked about god gives to his church teachers people who can explain the bible oh creeds and confessions are one way the church exercises that teaching ministry but for that teaching ministry to make any sense the spirit of god has to be at work i don't care how good a teacher you have in front of you without the spirit of god you can't understand what that person is saying and so the work of the spirit and illumination becomes important it also becomes important in thinking about confessions because the spirit doesn't just illumine individuals he doesn't just give understanding to individuals he gives understanding to the church corporate that's why i said earlier on that we are not the first generation of christians to have read the bible unfortunately i think a lot of christians can function like that but that's just not the reality reality is we are in a long line of people who have been reading god's word since the beginning of the church in the book of acts we stand in a long line of godly men to quote a series of books that's a personal favorite of mine and they too have been reading the scriptures and they too have experienced the illumination of the spirit and so whatever we believe we want to take that into account yes it's not of equal authority to the bible only the bible is perfectly inspired perfectly given to us by the holy spirit but whatever view we hold of confessions it should take into account the fact that the spirit of god grants understanding he grants light that's the picture it's like if you go into a dark room all the things in the room are still there but when you turn the light on you can see what's in the room better but that's what the spirit of god does for the christian and i would also argue it's what he does for the church corporately and so whatever view we take of confessions needs to account for that reality that he grants understanding to the individual christian and he has granted understanding to the people of god corporately i'm ahead of where i was thinking to be at this point so i'm gonna pause does anybody have questions stuff that maybe i could clarify before we move on everyone tracking with me so far i would not be mad if you're not but if everyone's tracking with me okay if i move on okay you've got a question all right about what you mean when the spirit turns the light on in the room okay so first christian chapter two let's look at that i think that will give us some my little whiteboard here so i can draw something first christian chapter two and let me kick us off in verse 10 i'd really need to start in verse six but we don't have that kind of time so i'll just jump midway verse 10 paul is talking about the fact that he and his apostolic colleagues were given revelation by the spirit and that the spirit's revelation was what he proclaimed to the church at corin verse 10 now god has revealed these things he's referring to the gospel essentially god has revealed these things to us by the spirit since the spirit searches everything even the depths of god but who knows a person's thoughts except his spirit within him in the same way no one knows the thoughts of god except the spirit of god now we have not received the spirit of the world but the spirit who comes from god so that we may freely understand the things that are given to us by god so paul says there are people who don't have the spirit actually no that's not the contrast he makes let me be accurate he says there are people who have the spirit of the world and then he says there are people who have the spirit of god and for the people who have the spirit of god remember he said we do not have the spirit of the world verse 12 but the spirit who comes from god so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by god so the people who have the spirit of god have boil it down to one word understanding verse 13 we also we being paul and his apostolic counterparts we also speak these things not in words taught by human wisdom but in those taught by the spirit explaining spiritual things to spiritual people but then he comes back to this person who doesn't have the spirit who has the spirit of the world verse 14 but the person without the spirit does not receive what comes from the spirit in other words the person who doesn't have the spirit has no understanding the person without the spirit does not receive what comes from god's spirit because it is foolishness to him that the message of the gospel sounds like gobbledygook for lack of a better term to the person who doesn't have the holy spirit but for the person who does have the spirit in fact let me finish reading verse 14 because it's foolishness to him he is unable to understand it since it is evaluated or judged or discerned spiritually the person who has the spirit of god has understand the understanding gives them the ability to discern well discern is just a fancy way of saying to be able to determine what is true and not true when we say that the spirit of god turns the light on it's that he gives us this understanding which in turn gives us an ability to determine what is true and not true paul's point is the person who has the spirit of the world or who doesn't have the spirit of god interchangeable doesn't have that understanding in fact he can't even discern it the text says since he can't understand it look at verse 15 verse 14 excuse me it's foolishness to him verse 14 there's no ability to discern what is true and not true all just sounds like static to him essentially verse 15 the spiritual person however can evaluate everything yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone but who has known the lord's mind that he may instruct him but we have the mind of christ oh so this understanding includes having the mind of christ when you became a christian what the spirit of god did was he gave you understanding he gave you the ability to comprehend the truths of the gospel first and foremost that's how you got saved but he continues to give you an understanding not just of the basic gospel message but of all the things that god has given to us by his spirit in his word that's the one that's one of the things i won't say it's the one thing but it's one thing that marks the christian from the non -christian that the christian can understand what it is that god is saying to us in his word that's why i use that analogy of the turning on the light in the room it's not that the spirit of god puts things in the room when you become a christian in terms of the gospel message and what the word of god says the word of god is always there but it would be like this if you went into a room that had blackout curtains no lights no windows it's completely dark and i send you into that room with a bible in your hand even with a bible in your hand there's no light you can't read any of them does turning on the light create a new bible for you no what it does is gives you the ability to see what's always been there and so when we talk about the spirit's work of illumination it's not that he is creating new revelation for us to understand it's more that he is helping us to understand the revelation that god has already given and that's true of every christian well kofi i don't feel like i understand everything well it's a lifelong process of learning and growing none of us arrive overnight but if you are a christian you can be guaranteed of the reality that you will at some point grow in your understanding and grow in your ability to discern what is true and not true does that make sense of your question all right anyone else before we move on quickly if not well we've kind of thought big picture here okay uh what are some biblical principles that lead to a healthy view of confessions how do churches in general hold to this well let's talk about here at this church because i think that's where this can get a lot simpler very quickly so a question for the morning how does our confession work at redeemer so here at redeemer i think i've said this but if not we hold to a confession called the new hampshire confession of faith in our next lesson i'll have a printed out version for you that you can look at but we hold to the new hampshire confession of faith here the question is how do we hold to it so think back to those five kind of complicated views we talked about absolute historical fall system substance how do we hold to those or how does that work in context of our church not my job to necessarily judge what happens in every church everywhere it's not my place i'm the pastor of this church it means i'm concerned with the teaching and doctrine that we here so how does our church hold to the new hampshire confession how can we say that in a sense we are a confessional church well i think that if you're going to be fair and take into account all of those principles that we talked about i've for the purpose of our church come to the conclusion that you need something of a two -tiered approach here there needs to be two levels of subscription for this to work well this is just my personal take but i think it makes some sense and it's not unique to me a number of churches hold this view as well so here redeemer it works out that if you're a member we call you to a substance subscription to the confession simply put we call our members to agree to the substance of the confession as it relates to the gospel and the basics of the christian faith we don't hold the view and i have brothers there are churches in our town who would hold a more strict view of subscription than i do love them they're brothers in the lord this isn't a right or wrong necessarily it's a what's best you get what i mean when i made that distinction that i'm not saying that you're in sin if you don't hold it this way or you're in sin if you hold it if you do hold it this way no what i'm saying is these are those questions of christian wisdom christian prudence that we have to think through and so for us we've said if you come into membership so i'm looking around them a number of you i did your membership interview so you remember that i said that we call you to essentially understand that this is where we're coming from as a church and as far as it agrees in the essentials we expect you to hold to it in that sense carl truman whose work on this subject has been very helpful for me um he says it like this when he talks about the biblical minimum for church membership how much do you need to believe to become a member of a church carl truman who is a presbyterian so he has a very high view of confessions nonetheless he says it like this and i think it's helpful it should be up on screen there and i think it's in the handout as well the basic criteria for church membership are the simple ones of romans 10 a basic trust in christ and an outward profession which is consistent with that it is surely important and consistent with a high view of god as merciful and gracious that we set the bar for membership no higher than that which we find in the bible itself so think about this to become a christian let's think about to become a christian a part of the church with a big c the church universal what does the bible say the bible says you are to believe in the lord jesus christ and to turn away from your sin would we all agree that that's at the baseline of how someone becomes a christian so we can't what carl truman is saying essentially is you can't have a higher baseline for entering a local church than you have for being a christian now that doesn't mean that there are no doctors for example let me put this way so if you were sitting in a membership interview with me and you said you know i love this church but i don't believe that jesus is god that we're gonna have to say yeah you can't be a member here why because that's an essential of the christian faith confession or no confession christians don't get to argue about that one that one's off the table if you come and say you know i don't know what my view is on what happens when we take the lord's supper well firstly join the club christians have been arguing that for two thousand years but more than that that's not an essential of the faith if you so we take a what some people will call the reformed view or a spiritual presence view you don't know what those times mean don't worry about it but someone came in and said i think it's a memorial and that's all it is okay that's not an essential of the faith we may teach from a different perspective but that's not essential to the christian faith you can still be a member here and partaking of the lord's supper and we won't put a bar to that because essentially what we're saying is this is kind of important here at redeemer what we mean by a substance subscription is simply this we ask that members not teach or advocate for anything contrary to the confession so it's not that you have to agree with any of all of it in total we're simply saying just don't actively teach against it we also ask that you know think back to what we said about progressive sanctification and the work of the spirit and giving us understanding well part of that i would argue is well we encourage you to be teachable and open through persuasion about the things we teach i remember my pastor back in london used to say about our statement of faith that we call it what we teach not what we believe because you might not necessarily believe it when you come here but we want to give you room to grow and sit under the ministry of god's word and give you a chance to be persuaded and finally we expect members to understand that as leadership our goal in your discipleship and growth is eventually we'd love you to get to the place where you can say no i do actually agree with this in full but we want to give room for that versus unless you do it now you can't become a member here because again you don't want the bar to be set higher than the bar that the bible itself gives does that make sense to everyone now that's for members if somebody wanted to teach at redeemer on the other hand so obviously that would mean pastors and elders i would argue adult sunday school teachers home group leaders i would argue you want a slightly different standard for that and so while we would say for members we ask for a substance subscription teachers and elders you want a subscript view of subscription that's a little more strict let's think about it this way in the bible what is the one skill i'm very careful how i word this here the one skill or ability an elder is expected to have in the bible when you look at the qualifications for an elder what's the one skill the elder is supposed to have able to teach so paul will put it like this in uh there we go one timothy chapter three verse two that an overseer which is the same thing as an elder or a pastor they're all interchangeable in the bible an overseer therefore must be above reproach the husband of one wife self -controlled sensible respectable hospitable all of those are matters of character that's who he is as a person but the only skill that he says is that they need to be able to teach in titus chapter one he gives a bit more detail about that so titus one nine and ten he says that an elder must be holding to the faithful message as taught so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and refute those who contradict it an elder is called to be a man of exemplary exemplary character and of clear confession a whole series could be done on how i think lots of people don't really understand that this is why in church life you often see people who they've got somebody who is a faithful pastor he's doing his best for whatever reason they're not happy with him because he doesn't do all of this extra stuff that we think a pastor should do rather than well what does the bible say a pastor must do but i'm not going to get on that soapbox this morning because i don't have that time i'll simply say this elders are called in the bible to perceive the truth so they need to be able to understand it they're called to proclaim that truth so as paul says he needs to be able to refute those who contradict it so you gotta also protect it perceive proclaim protect and then think back to what we read in 1st timothy 2 -2 he's gonna be able to pass that truth on ensure elders are called to be guardians of the truth now if elders are called to be guardians of the truth let's think about this here do you want elders who know the bare minimum or do you want elders who can be tested in terms of their commitment to the truth by a standard of words that we can all check let me say that again do you want elders who know the bare minimum or elders who can be tested in terms of their commitment to the truth by a standard of words available to everyone let me put it like this do you want somebody who can kind of wing it make it so they make it or do you want somebody who actually knows the word of god who we can actually trust to do the one thing that's actually a ability a requirement for them on that front if you think about it whether you like it or not whether a church is confessional in the classical sense or not it's funny even if a church isn't confessional think about this we expect our pastors to be because we expect our pastors to know the truth and teach it so whether even if a church itself doesn't have a confession on paper they sure expect their pastors to have one they sure expect their pastor to have a pattern of words that they hold to that we can check the question is not whether a pastor should be confessional or not is whether the church is going to be consistent about that expectation or not so again here at redeemer if you remember we're not expecting you to hold to every jot and tittle we want to give you room to grow you may never come to agreement on something that's fine but we do think that if you are a teacher and if you're especially if you're going to be an elder even at the minimum if you're going to just teach god's word here there should be agreement to what it is that we believe that's why if you go to our website for instance it has our statement of faith and it says that we hold as a teaching position that's the language we use here the new hampshire confession so if you're going to teach at any level probably want to know what we believe and to agree to it which means a church might not be as quick to make somebody a teacher but think about it we might not be quick to do that but it means that the teachers you do have are trustworthy i've got four minutes let me see if i can fly through this last point what are the benefits of a confession in the life of a church i think i could do this in four minutes well we talked about this first of all there's consistency of teaching in the life of the church there's consistency of teaching in the life of the church so our friend steve meister was here last week he is part of a church that is confessional steve said this in an article he wrote recently for every reader and preacher of scripture approaches the passage before them with some conception of the whole counsel of god or the pattern of sound words second