Articles 36-37 Officers in the Local Church

You said a hundred and six, a hundred and thirty miles, a hundred and six? Yeah, sixty-five each way. Sixty-five each way, so that would be a hundred and thirty miles. It made me think of a little quip.

Does anybody know the difference between an American and a European? Europeans think that a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time. You go to Europe, there's houses that are older than our country.

But then again, a hundred miles to us isn't much of anything, where if you go over there, in a hundred miles, you went through three countries. So it really is interesting, the distinction. Well, as Brother Andy mentioned, I'm going to be going over the extension of Article 35, which is what he did, and I don't know if you mentioned this because I wasn't in here, but the goal is we're going to be finishing the study by the end of September, and then we're going to be moving into a new study.

I'm currently praying over what I'm going to be doing. I know Brother Andy's got an idea of what he's going to do, but we are going to be doing two different things. I'm most likely going to be going through a book in the New Testament, a shorter book.

I'm looking at either one of the short books of Paul or possibly Jude. That's a short one. But just to spend a little bit of time doing an exposition in the New Testament. So if you happen to have an interest in one of those books that you have some questions about and you might want me to go through, let me know.

And Brother Andy's doing Proverbs. His half's going to be on Proverbs, and I'm going to be doing it. So we'll have an Old Testament and a New Testament lesson on Wednesday. He'll do his Old Testament portion, and I'll do a portion of the New Testament.

Like I said, I could take Jude and stretch it for six months if I really wanted to. There's so much meat in that little book. But if you have something else that you'd like me to do, I certainly would be interested in hearing what that is.

What's that? James. I've taught James twice. That's the only reason that would keep me from it. Huh? Yeah, and they are very similar too. Yeah, I love James. I've actually preached to it twice here and taught to it once at Set Free.

Because I taught back when we had Sunday evening service, and then when I was teaching Sunday school I did it. But I'm not opposed to doing it. I'm just saying I kind of wanted to do something I hadn't done before.

But that's just, you know, my life goal is by the time I die, and you never know when that's going to happen, but my life's goal is to have preached through the whole New Testament. Of course, John MacArthur did it.

And that's certainly a worthy task. Yeah, but that is, you're talking about a long time. I'm not yet ready to bite off and chew on that. Because my harmony of the Gospels, my desire to do that, would literally be a verse-by-verse study of every book of the Gospels all at the same time.

And I don't know how long. I'm thinking three years that it would take at least to do that. So probably not that one. And because Genesis is so long, I did want to do something shorter. Genesis is, I have no idea when I'm going to be done with that.

Local Church Autonomy and the Qualifications for Elders and Deacons

All right, so let's look at the articles. If you have your books, we're going to look at Articles 36 and 37. And this is on church officers. 36 says this. Being thus joined, every local church has or hath power given them from Christ for their well-being to choose among themselves meet or suitable persons for elders and deacons, being qualified according to the word as those which Christ hath appointed in his testament for the feeding, governing, serving, and building up of his church, and that none have any power to impose on them either these or any other.

Currently our Sovereign Grace Academy, which meets on Thursday nights, is going through a course on Intro to Church Life and Ministry. That's our term for this semester, or our subject for this term, rather.

And we're going through the book that I wrote. I wrote a book entitled The Biblically Functioning Church. And that's the textbook for this class. And in that book, I spend a lot of time dealing with this subject.

Jackie's in the class, so, you know, this particular subject, you know, we have dealt with at length. And I certainly have some opinions on the matter, having spent the time to put my book together. So I'm not going to be able to outline everything tonight, but I do want to point out some very important things about elders and deacons, primarily what we see in this article.

Because the focal point of this article is very simple. The local church has the right to choose for itself elders and deacons. That's really the key to this article. That's the truth that it's identifying.

Because we are not governed by an ecclesiastical authority outside of ourselves that would impose upon us leaders from elsewhere. I mean, think about the history of the church. Priests would be brought in from other areas and put with a church that they didn't know, and people they didn't know.

And that still happens in some denominations, such as the Methodist Church. The Methodist Church has a rotating pastorate where pastors will pastor for two to three years. They will be brought out of that congregation and sent to another congregation.

And the concept behind it, I do understand the concept, and that is this, that the church would never become pastor-driven, that it would never become personality-driven. And you've seen churches that are that way.

It's the personality of the pastor sort of takes over the church and becomes the force, the warp and woof of ministry as this one man. But the problem with it is, number one, when you have men, and in the Methodist Church women, rotating through that ministry like that, what you end up with is you end up with no ownership and really no real relationship past that two or three-year mark.

And when I say ownership, understand what I mean. I don't mean like ownership in the sense of, you know, this is my property, but the idea that this is what God sent me to do. I've said many times, and I believe it to be true, I don't plan to go anywhere else unless God makes it very clear that, Keith, you need to go to, please let it be Tennessee.

I do like the mountains of Tennessee, but I don't want to go unless we all go. You all want to move to Tennessee together? We can all just pick up and, no? Okay. We just spent time on a commune. You just talked about a commune.

Yeah, we're not going to do a commune. But I did see the coolest thing this week, and not to go off the subject, but there's a place up in Virginia for sale. It's an old retreat of some kind. It had like 40 bedrooms and all this stuff, and it's only $3 .5 million.

I said, I know I know enough people that we can get together and pool that amount of money and just have the coolest retreat ever. It would be the greatest place. It has a room that would be great for your cigars, Mike.

It's like a cigar room. So anyway, the point is the church, the local church, has the responsibility of choosing its own leaders. And so what does it say about that? It says, being thus joined, every local church hath the power given from Christ for their well-being to choose among themselves meet persons or suitable persons for elders and deacons.

Well, how do we know that they're meet? How do we know that they're suitable? Well, I agree, but first and foremost, the scripture gives us qualifications. Yeah, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, we have specific qualifications for the positions of elder and deacon.

In fact, I make the argument in the class and in my book that that's why we know there's only two offices in the New Testament church, because there's only two offices that are given qualifications. We don't have other offices because we wouldn't know how to appoint anyone to those offices because there's no qualifications for any other offices.

The offices that are given to the church are the two that are given qualifications in 1 Timothy and Titus, specifically the office of elder and deacon. And so those are the two offices, and we are to choose men who are suitable for those positions being qualified according to the word.

And how do we know they're qualified? As Mike said, that we know them. Brother Andy, how long were you here before we began to examine you for an elder? Two years. Okay. Now, you were a pastor before of, you know, many years, and we knew that.

But he still came in and had to get to be known by us, same way with Brother Mike. Brother Mike Collier had been here a little longer than Brother Andy, but they both had to go through a process of learning the congregation, the congregation learning them, developing mutual trust within, and then the congregation had to affirm them.

We have a constitution. I don't know if you guys, most of you know that, because most of you affirmed it. We redid it back in, I think it was April of this year. We reaffirmed our new constitution. And what is it that a man has to do to be put in as an elder?

He has to be discerned by the elders to be qualified, and then he has to be put before the congregation and receive how much of an affirmation? Anyone remember? Is it 51 No. 90%. That 90 of the people of God within the body must affirm that this man meets the qualifications, and that they trust him to be in the position of elder.

And the same is the same for deacon. And the reason for that is we didn't want a divided church, and we don't believe that a divided church in regard to leadership is one that God would give us. I'll give you a good example.

Right now, I don't know how many of you guys are familiar, there's a very famous pastor who wrote a book called Radical. His name is David Platt. Radical was a sort of huge success because it was about being radical for Jesus and this stuff.

Well, unfortunately, their church is going through a major problem right now because there were men put up for eldership, and there was pushback, and there's division over whether or not they're going to get it, and they're not meeting the standard, the vote standard.

And I wouldn't even be mentioning this if it wasn't all over the Christian news blogs and everything else. I mean, it doesn't matter to us. The point is it happens. Somebody gets put up, and the church doesn't trust these people for whatever reason.

I don't agree or disagree with what's going on because I don't know. I just know that these men put up for this position, there's not enough trust to move forward. Not enough trust to move forward. So we see, being thus joined, every local church has the power given to them for the well-being to choose among themselves suitable persons for elders and deacons being qualified according to the Word as those which Christ has appointed in His Testament.

For the feeding, there's four things, four tasks of the elders and deacons. Feeding, governing, serving, building up of the church. I didn't, when I was preparing this, I got to thinking, you know, we could divide these out as to what's an elder's job and what's a deacon's job.

But really, here's the simple way of understanding it. The elders are charged primarily with the teaching of the Word and the governing through the Word of the body in regard to matters of faith. The deacons are charged with serving the body in whatever capacity is needed.

And so, in a sense, when we talk about feeding and governing, I would say the first two really primarily fall on the shoulders of the elders. And serving and building up would be all of them together, but primarily on the deacons.

And so, like I said, I didn't want to make a hard divide there, but I do think that there is somewhat of a distinction that is to be made. And when we talk about governing the church, we're not talking about micromanaging every aspect of everyone's life.

That's not our duty. But we do govern the affairs of the church. We minister within the body and we love the body and seek to encourage the body and to teach. In fact, when it says feeding, what do we feed the body?

The Word. The Word. That's right. That's right. What's the problem that happens in the church? The sheep don't show up for feeding time. That's a big problem. People just don't come. I've heard people say, I don't feel like I'm being discipled.

I say, start by being here on Sunday. Because if you would listen to the sermon on Sunday, whether I'm preaching or Brother Andy or Brother Mike's preaching, there's enough in the sermon to get you through at least five nights of family worship with your family.

If you would take what we teach you home and apply it. Absolutely enough for five nights of family worship. If you would actually take the time to invest in what we're teaching. And if you do Sunday school and Wednesday night, you've got plenty of information of food.

But we often don't. So that's one thought. The feeding has to be there. And I'm not discounting individual discipleship. We do that as well. Currently I'm working through a discipleship program with one of our deacons.

I'm currently counseling a church member. And obviously phone calls and everything else that go on normal church life. Those all happen intermittently. But the primary time of feeding is the Lord's Day, 1030 a .m., when we come in and worship together.

And that's when the feeding happens. And then, of course, this is extra. Wednesday night is additional food. And then, of course, like I said, governing and serving and building up. Now, you'll notice in the article it references the appendix.

It referenced appendix 19. If you want to turn there very quickly, I just want to make mention of what it says. Because it's kind of long. I'm not going to spend a lot of time with it. But I just want to.

The reason why it references the appendix at this point is because it's discussing primarily who it is that the church would call. The church would. And it says, appendix 19, A disciple gifted and enabled by the Spirit of Christ to preach the gospel and stirred up to this service by the same spirit, bringing home to his soul the command of Christ in his word for the doing of this work is a man authorized and sent by Christ to preach the gospel.

Stop right there. Okay, so how do you know somebody's called to preach the gospel? First and foremost, they have a calling from God on their life. You say, how do you know? Well, it begins with him making that calling known.

You will recognize it in his life. He's making that calling known. How did the church know that I was called to preach the gospel? I've been in this church since I was seven. Well, first I got saved. But then the desire to preach was there.

The desire to stand before the people of God and proclaim the word of God. That was there. And I don't mean to say this in any way that sounds kind of super mysterious or mystical. But you remember the passage where Jeremiah, I think it was, talked about it was like a fire in his bones that would consume him if he didn't preach.

Wasn't it Jeremiah that said that? I mean, that really is legitimately a feeling. If you're called to preach the word, there's nothing else in the world that will satisfy that. In fact, when a young man comes to me, I've had two or three in the years of being a minister who've come to me and said, I think God's called me to preach.

My answer is, I've told you guys this before, if you can do anything else and be satisfied, you're not called to do this. If you can do anything else and be satisfied, then you're not called to do this.

This is a calling that if you don't do it, it will burn you a lot. Because guys will come in and say, well, I think I want to be a minister. No. You either have a fire in your bones or you don't. It's not about, I think, I want to have, like the one guy who said years ago, you never met this guy, but he came up here.

He said, I want to be a minister because I want to be able to make my own schedule. That was his desire. I want to be a minister because I want to be in charge of this little small business thing we've got going here.

No, that's not it. Did he have a chapter and verse for that one? Exactly. I told a guy years ago, I said, I would preach the word if I didn't get paid a dime. He said, I don't believe you. I said, no, it would be hard.

I'd have to work a 40-, 50-hour week job to pay for my family and do the things I have to do. But I would still come and preach. Don't get too excited. I like getting paid. But the reality is I don't do it because I get paid.

I do it because this is what God has called me to do. And, again, I'm not putting myself up on a pedestal. I know Brother Andy feels the same way. Brother Mike feels the same way. This is the desire of the heart is to proclaim this word, and it's there.

And I love to talk to men that that is the desire of their heart. And that's the first step. But it goes on. It says, You say, well, how do you know a man's called of God? He's preaching the gospel, and people are being saved.

Now, not everybody's Billy Graham, and not everybody's pulling thousands of people. They had a method for that, by the way. There was a certain method for crusade-type bringing people forward. But seeing the fruit of the ministry of people coming to Christ, people growing in their faith, you see that when the man of God is preaching the word of God.

But may also call upon the churches and advise them to choose fit men for officers, and may settle such officers so chosen by a church in the places or officers of elder or deacon to which they are chosen by imposition of hands and prayer.

This is basically saying that when a man is called into the church to be the pastor, or called from within the church to be the pastor, he also bears responsibility in raising up other leaders, elders and deacons within the body.

You know, I've seen pastors, and I pray that I would never be this, but I have seen pastors who are so afraid to share any authority, to share any word. I don't want this guy preaching, or I don't want that guy preaching, because I want my word to be law.

No, the goal of ministry is raising up godly men, recognizing the call on their life, raising them up and commissioning them to be elders and deacons within the church to serve alongside. The churches that have the rock star pastor, the one guy who says it all, knows it all, does it all, are the churches that tend to burn out very quickly.

Those stars are, those stars burn out fast. The Baptist Pope, that's right. Can't be questioned, can't be challenged. That's a dangerous place to be. One last thing on this article, and then we're going to go to the last.

I'm going to keep you a few extra minutes tonight, if that's okay. But the last thing it says, it says, and that none have any power to impose upon them either these or any other. What that's saying is there's no ecclesiastical authority from the outside that can put anyone in power in the local church.

The local church raises up leaders, the local church chooses their leaders. No power outside can impose upon the church. This is what the confession is saying. That no one can come in and say, we're going to put this guy in charge.

This is the thing that made Baptists Baptists. You understand, earlier this year I read a book on Baptist history in America. And one of the things about Baptists in America, they were not loved by the Anglicans and Presbyterians.

They were particularly despised because they believed in local church autonomy. They believed that every church stood before God as a local church, and every church governed itself. That was a big deal.

Now, we're going to read later in the confession where it talks about associations. That doesn't mean we don't have relationships with other churches. But, you know, we have relationships with other churches in this town.

We have relationships, Counterculture Baptist Church, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, Christ Redeemer Church, different churches around. But none of them can come in and exercise authority here. Neither can we go over there and exercise authority.

We can certainly counsel one another and encourage one another. But at the end of the day, they have no authority here. Make sense? Yeah. Yep. Yes. That is true. Yep. Well, two things that were different then that would be particularly different now.

One, the age of the apostles is over in the sense of apostolic authority. That particular council had apostolic authority. And it also had an ecumenical authority that we no longer possess. Because at that particular time, there was unity within the body because of the apostles being on the earth.

Right now, it would be absolutely impossible to have ecumenical power because there is no governing body that could be trusted. We certainly couldn't trust the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly couldn't trust the Methodist Church or the Anglican Church.

And so, this is why this side of the Reformation specifically, the Baptists saw each individual church as the highest authority as the elders. And that above that, now within Presbyterian churches, they do have a presbytery, which is basically like an assembly, a district assembly.

But yet, what is a presbytery? It's a meeting of elders. It's an elders elders council, if you will. And is there some value in that? I guess I could see some value in it if a church had elders that were poor or were not doing their job.

But from a biblical perspective, we don't see that model except in the Jerusalem Council. And again, in the Jerusalem Council, there's nothing to compare that to today. There's no... That's true. I feel like Brother Andy is about to pop.

I think he wants to add something to this. Would you agree with what I said though? Apostolic authority, and again, to right now, to call upon an ecumenical council would be almost impossible. But I do think, and this is why I think later in the confession it talks about associations.

I do think that there is value in having associations with like-minded churches. So, like I said, Sovereign Grace, Baptist Church, and other churches that we have associations with that are familial but not authoritarian.

I'm glad to say so. Please, please. I know, I was egging them on.

If you think about it, the church, the Council of Jerusalem was a correction on the Council of Jerusalem at the Church of Jerusalem. Paul went there to correct the big boys, if you want to use it in that thinking, right?

So when you think about it from that standpoint, it wasn't that they went and said, is this okay? Paul went and said, you guys are wrong. And then the church says, yeah, we are. And then they send back brethren to say, you know what?

He's right. We're wrong. So I think sometimes we use that only for one road and there's another road or two on it.

That's a good thought. And we do, like I said, historically, we do see councils that crop up that have important things to say. Council of Nicaea, Council of Chalcedon, that had important things to say that I do think spoke with a certain amount of ecumenical authority.

But on this side of the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, on this side of the rise of medieval Christology or medieval Christianity, which was much of it was unbiblical, I think we do find ourselves in a different time historically.

Those are very good questions. Very good question. All right. Lastly, let's look at number 37. It's a short article, but I do want to just make a few points on it. It says that the ministers lawfully called, as aforesaid, nice word, aforesaid, ought to continue in their calling and place, according to God's ordinance, and carefully to feed the flock committed to them, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.

Well, what is this talking about? It's talking about three things, the qualifications of the minister. Number one, he must be lawfully called. Well, we just talked about what that means. He meets scriptural requirements, and the church has affirmed him.

That's lawfully called. Number two, he must be steadfast. Notice it says that he continue in his calling and place, according to God's ordinance. He should be a steadfast man to continue in what God has called him to do.

And finally, that he be properly motivated. Notice it says that he feed the flock committed to them, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. And what that word ready mind means, literally, simply means to be eagerly.

That's what the ESV translates, eagerly or with cheerfulness. That the man of God ought to do what he does, not because he gains financially, or even gains socially, but that he has an eagerness or desire to do it.

Next week, Brother Andy is going to talk about the next article in the confession. And he's actually doing this as a blessing, because the next article talks about taking care of the minister financially.

And I really didn't want to talk about that, because I am the only one here who gets paid. And it is something that sometimes people take issue with. Nobody here, but there have been people who have called, not to my face or anything, but have said, you know, if you get paid to minister, then you're a false teacher, because you're doing it for money.

You're doing it for filthy lucre. That is not the truth. And that's not what this confession is saying, that if someone is paid, what does the Bible tell us? He who preaches the gospel should make his living from the gospel.

Don't steal my thunder now. No, no, no, I'm not. But the point is, there still should be a proper motivation. I said it earlier, and I believe it with all my heart. If the church couldn't afford to pay me, we know we had kind of a big financial crisis last year.

You know, we had a big issue come up. When that happened, I looked at my wife, and I said, you know what, if the church can't pay me, we're still going to preach. If I've got to go and teach school, that's the only other thing I'm qualified to do.

I've got a degree in teaching. I've got to do that. Boy, I don't want to go teach at a high school. But I could, right? And that would be it. But that is not what I have the desire to do, because I have the opportunity, because the church does pay me, to do this well.

And I pray that I am doing it well, and to focus all my attention on it. Now, I do want to end with one question. It's only 732. Give me an extra minute. Question time. It says here that the ministers ought to continue in their calling and place according to God's ordinance.

With that question, do we think that elders and deacons should be forced to observe term limits? Because a lot of churches do. But we don't. What would your argument, one way or the other, be? Typically, the statement that I've heard, because I've asked the same question, because we don't do it, is that it helps them not get burned out.

So, an elder might serve for three years and then be required to take a year sabbatical and then come back, and he could serve again. Is that basically what you've heard, Brother Mike?

I know you've served as an elder before. If we go three years, there would be a reaffirmation. We go another three years, and that's seventh year. It's like a Sabbath. Right. It's like a Sabbath year.

Okay. They lay a spallowed arrest.

It's a year of jubilee. But still, though, that's six years. It's not like it was every other year or something. I've seen some churches where elders can only serve for a year or two years max. So, that's six years.

Right. Yeah. What do you think, Brother Andy?

Well, I think a lot. Yeah, I mean, if a man is called, he's called. Whether it's elder or deacon, and I know we've had many discussions about that, that I see it as a calling, even in the area of the diagonate, although there's some differences to work out, but I don't see it in any sense as term limits.

You're not going to burn out if God doesn't give you to do something. Okay.

Well, the way that I look at it, and I would agree, but I would just add this thought. One of the reasons why I've always supported no term limits on elders or deacons is because I don't have one. And if the elders are supposed to serve with me and have the same authority and position, essentially, that I have as elder pastor of the church, then why would I expect these men to not continue in that calling?

Because it's a calling. And if they came to me, or one of us came to each other and said, I need some time off. By the way, brother, we need to talk. No, I'm just kidding. No, if one of them came and said, you know, if Brother Mike said my job's killing me, I've got to take six months, I need a rest, that's different than saying every three years or every six years or every six months you have to take time off.

I think that that's up to the man, and that's the way our Constitution lays it out, is that if a man wants to take time off, he just lets the others know, and he takes his time, but that it's not a mandatory requirement.

The only thing that can remove an elder or a deacon is either a spiritual lapse, which may end up in some form of discipline, we pray that never happens, or they step down willingly. You know, Brother Jack was an elder.

He's not here tonight. He was an elder 50 years or something in this church. Now, there were times where he did take some times off, but it was his decision when he came to us this year. He said, it's time.

I've done it 50 years. I'm ready to step down and let you guys serve and, you know, relax. So praise the Lord, you know. So I just thought that's an interesting question. Some people wonder how we do that, and that's how we do it.

It's up to the individual man, you know, if he feels he needs it. And there may come a time where we encourage somebody to take some time off. I'll wait for you to encourage me. I'm teasing. Keep your hand on the plow.

That's right. That's right. Don't look back. There's a lot of Scripture here. Obviously, I've been talking this whole time. I would encourage you to read it, but I want to finish by reading this passage.

1 Peter 5, I think, says a lot of this all just sort of summed up. 1 Peter 5, 1 to 3, says this, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ. By the way, Peter calls himself an elder.

It's interesting. Not pope. That's true. He's a fellow elder, co-laborer. Interesting point. And he says, I exhort as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock.

That's the goal, and that's the desire and role of the elders and even the deacons to be examples to the flock. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this time that we've had to study your word, and I do pray, O God, that through the study of the word that we would draw closer to you, that we would grow in our faith and our understanding, that we would love your church more.

Lord, your church has been given to us to be a place of rest and a place of recovery from the world's abuses, to be a place where we can come and be loved and built up and fed. And I just pray, Lord, for this church.

I pray that we would understand the dynamics of what you've given us in the area of leadership, and, Lord, that you would bless Brother Mike and Brother Andy and myself and our leading as elders. I pray that you would bless Brother Ward and Brother Adam and Brother Chris and Brother Gary as they continue to serve as deacons.

And, Lord, as you raise up new men in the church, you raise up faithful men in either one of these offices, God, that we as a church would recognize the gifts that you've given, the callings on lives that you've placed, and that we would be eager to see them fulfill those ministries that you have called them to.

We pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right, praise the Lord. Hopefully that was an encouragement to you. I forgot to take prayer requests. If anybody has anything to tell me that you'd like added to the bulletin, just get with me afterwards.

God bless you.