Requirements of the Teacher 2

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If you'll take out your Bibles and turn with me to James, Chapter 3.
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As I mentioned as I was walking in tonight, we are actually continuing a lesson which started last week.
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Need another sheet? I thought I had it.
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That's alright.
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I kept looking, looking, looking.
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We're starting in the middle.
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So, because I know not everyone was here last week, I at least want to give you somewhat of a catch-up to realize where we are and what we're doing.
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In the third chapter of James, the first twelve verses, James addresses the subject of the tongue.
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And he addresses the reality that the tongue, though it be a small part of the body, is a very powerful and even dangerous part of the body.
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The tongue can get you in trouble.
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The tongue can hurt people.
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The Bible says life and death are in the power of the tongue.
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Or the power of life and death are in the tongue.
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And that doesn't mean, and we're going to talk about this more in the weeks to come, that doesn't mean what a lot of people misuse it to mean, like I can speak things into existence.
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That's not true.
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That's a misunderstanding by the health and wealth, name it and claim it movement.
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But when the Bible says that death and life, the power of life and death are in the tongue, what it's talking about is the power to encourage or the power to discourage comes from our mouth.
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The power to build up or the power to break down begins with our words.
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And so as James introduces the concept of language or speech or words as a powerful tool, he begins by addressing teachers first.
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Now why would he do that? Well, it's simple.
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Teachers use their tongues in a very powerful and a very influential way.
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Because teachers, especially in particular in this context Bible teachers, are in a sense speaking for God and speaking on His behalf.
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And oftentimes we don't like to think of it that way, but that's what the pastor does.
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He stands up and he reads the Word of God and he gives the understanding of the Word of God.
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And as John MacArthur says, the interpretation of the Bible is the Bible.
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How we interpret it is what it means and that's what God is saying.
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So the pastor has a very, very serious responsibility when he stands before the people of God to preach accurately, to preach what the text says and not what he wants it to say, to deal with the subject that he's preaching with clarity and with biblical accuracy is his job.
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And so James tells us in James 3.1, we'll read it together.
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It says, Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
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And as I noted last week, this particular context here, I believe is referring first to the elders of the church primarily, not limiting it to the elders of the church, but at least at the forefront we have to say this, he's talking about teachers and particularly he's talking about Bible teachers.
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How do we know that? Well because he identified himself.
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We know he is a pastor, he is an elder, he is a Bible teacher and he says not many of you should be teachers for we will be held to a higher standard.
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So by identifying himself in the group, he's identifying at least what kind of teacher he's referring to.
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Now could you say that all teachers, school teachers, music teachers, any kind of teacher would fall into the category? Well we all, anybody who teaches another person anything has a responsibility.
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But when you talk about the judgment of the soul and you talk about the judgment that James is here dealing with, particularly the judgment that the elder will face, the pastor will face, that he had to give an account for those whom he shepherds.
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Hebrews tells us this.
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Hebrews tells us that when we treat our elders, how we treat our elders, that we should make them have joy in their pastoring or their eldering, their shepherding, because they're going to have to give an account for your soul and let them do that with joy and not with misery as they're doing their job that they've been called to do.
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So what I did last week is I said okay we're going to look at James 3.1 and we're going to compare James 3.1 to 1 Timothy chapter 3.
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Now why would I do that? Well James 3.1 tells us don't let everybody be teachers or don't everybody assume to be teachers.
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So how do we know who should be a teacher? How do we know specifically who should be the elders of the church? Well we go to 1 Timothy 3 and he gives us that requirement.
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So what we're doing is we're simply using Scripture to interpret Scripture.
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We're allowing Scripture to speak to the issue of a more broad context than simply leaving it in James 3.1.
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So we're going to now, I encourage you to open your Bibles, back to 1 Timothy 3 where we ended last week.
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Just a couple of books over to the left there.
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And you'll notice it says in chapter 3 verse 1, the saying is trustworthy.
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If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
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Now I think that I mentioned this last week but just in case I didn't, the word overseer here is the word episkopos.
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It's where you get the word episkopalian.
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It's also translated bishop in some Bibles.
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In other contexts like in Titus 1, the word presbyteros is used.
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It's where we get the word presbyterian.
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Those two words are interchangeable in a sense.
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Episkopos and presbyteros are both referencing the same office and that is the office of the overseer or the bishop or what we would define as the elder.
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The word presbyteros does speak of an older person, not necessarily always an age but maturity specifically.
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And the elder term does derive its intended meaning out of the word presbyteros.
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I did hear a guy one time who said that the only way you could be a presbyteros is if you were 70 or older because he was defining it in strict terms of being elderly.
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That's not what it means.
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I'm also not saying if you're 70 you're elderly.
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But that was the way he was saying it.
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He was saying 70 or older you have to be to be a presbyteros.
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That's not the way the Bible uses the term.
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In fact, Timothy is told what? Do not let them despise your youth.
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And yet he was a presbyteros in the church.
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He was an elder in the church.
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He was a pastor in the church.
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I'm sure he wasn't 70 when Paul said don't let them despise your youth.
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So we understand that the term presbyteros, the term episkopos both referring to the office of the elder or the teacher.
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And we looked at last week being above reproach comes first with some positive requirements.
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And since we went through these last week I'm just going to name them very quickly.
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It says the man who wants this job needs to be above reproach.
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And I said there's three qualifications for eldership.
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The first one is moral.
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The second one is maturational or maturity.
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And the third one is motivational or simply motivation.
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So we're still under moral.
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Under moral there are positives, which we dealt with last week, and negatives.
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Positives and negatives.
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Well, the positives are this.
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He should be the husband of one wife.
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The Greek literally says he should be a one-woman man, a man faithful to his wife.
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That should never be a question with the elder, that that man loves his wife.
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He's faithful to his wife.
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He's not out running the streets.
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He's not looking to have multiple illicit relationships or any illicit relationships.
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He's in a relationship with his wife, and he is absolutely fully committed to her.
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That's no doubt.
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I remember years ago, a man who had left his wife, left his children, was still ministering in a church.
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And he happened to see me at a Walmart.
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I was walking one way, and he walked the other way.
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And he stopped.
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Hey, how are you doing? And I said, hi, I'm doing fine.
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I wasn't going to address his issue because it just wasn't the time, wasn't the place to address his situation.
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But he brought it up.
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And he said, yeah, I'm still pastoring, ministering in the church.
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He said, boy, there are some people who don't think I ought to be doing that.
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And I said, well, I would be among those people.
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He said, since you mentioned it, since you opened the doorway, I'm just going to step right through and say they're not wrong.
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Oh, well, you're just one of those judgmental people.
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I said, man, I haven't judged you at all, but the word of God has judged you as guilty of abandoning your wife, abandoning your children.
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You're unfit for the gospel ministry.
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You need to repent and go home.
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Well, he mumbled as he walked away.
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I don't always engage people, but when you open the door, you know, I'm not going to come kicking the door in, but if you open it a little, I might weasel my way in there.
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And that's what he did.
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But again, husband of one wife, that's primary.
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A faithful man.
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Number two, sober-minded.
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We talked about that last week.
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Self-controlled, respectable, and hospitable.
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These are all ways of simply talking about how he deals with others, how he deals with business, how he deals with family.
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All these things are part of that.
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Is he a man who is not given over to misbehavior, given over to misbehavior in his thinking? All these things we talked about last week, and I gave definitions of them.
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So tonight, we're going to look at the negative examples.
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What are the negatives? Well, the first negative we see as we're going through the list here, after he says self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, we see not, and we're going to talk about able to teach later, because I'm not necessarily skipping that, but we're going to talk more about that later, because able to teach is one of the positives.
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But specifically, let's look at the negative starting at verse 3.
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He says, not a drunkard.
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Par oinos is the Greek, literally means to not be addicted to wine.
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Some translations say given to wine, and this is a person who is enslaved to drinking.
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Now, there are those who interpret this as no drinking at all in any way, shape, or form, and that is a discussion that's worthy of conversation.
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I will say this.
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That is not the way I understand it.
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I do understand that drinking in and of itself is usually not a good idea for most people.
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It's usually something that is unhealthy in the sense of overindulgement, but I don't think that a drink from an alcoholic beverage is always a sin.
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I think that there is something about overindulging there.
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As people tell me, I've had all kinds of arguments from people who say, well, you should never have any drinks at all, and certainly if you feel that way and that is your conviction, then you should not.
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Romans 14 will tell you that.
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Romans 14 is very clear that if you cannot drink or eat or do anything in good faith, then you shouldn't do it at all.
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And I know there are some, like I said, who would say any and all drinking is always a sin at all times.
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It's so funny because that tends to be a very American thing.
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Over there and in other countries where it's a part more of the culture, where it's not the culture to overdo, it's the culture to do but not overdo, it's different than here where people buy 12 packs for the evening and that's the way they spend their evening.
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Or they buy a case for the weekend and they're going to stay lit until Monday morning.
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Yes, that's a sin.
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If we're drinking to overindulge, if we're drinking to change our behavior specifically, people say, I'm much funnier when I'm a drunk.
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Well, to you, but if that's what you're doing it for, then that would be wrong.
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That's what the Bible is talking about here.
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But again, you follow along the argument and Timothy mentions having a little wine.
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And I have heard people say that the wine in Scripture wasn't fermented.
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I can prove that is not true from the parable of Jesus Christ.
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He said, you do not put new wine into old wineskins.
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Why? Because wineskins expand when they ferment.
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If you put new wine into an old wineskin that's already expanded, it will expand more, it will burst and ruin the wine.
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So Jesus understood the fermentation process and he used it in an example.
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So if the wine weren't fermented, then Jesus' example wouldn't have made sense.
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And the statement, do not be filled with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, would make no sense if wine didn't do anything to you.
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Yes, exactly.
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And they didn't have Welch's concentrated grape juice.
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They didn't have that, it just weren't a thing.
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So have I spent enough time on that? Can we move on? I mean, hopefully you didn't think tonight was all about, I want you to tell you your pastor has a drink.
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No, I'm just giving you the lowdown on this text.
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R.C.
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Sproul has a great story.
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He went to eat dinner with a group of friends who a lady came up to them and said, would you like a wine list? Now again, this lady don't know them from nobody.
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She doesn't know who R.C.
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Sproul is.
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He's only famous to us.
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He ain't famous to people.
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He's famous to us.
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And they're sitting down with R.C.
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Sproul and they say, oh no, we're Christians, is how the lady answered the little waitress.
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Of course, the waitress don't know.
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And so now she's embarrassed, walks away with her tail tucked in her legs, you know, all sad.
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And R.C.
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Sproul said, he said, I was tempted.
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He didn't do it.
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He said, I was tempted to call that lady back and order a glass of wine.
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He said, just because of the way she was treated.
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So I just remember that story as a humorous little anecdote from his life.
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All right.
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The next thing is not violent.
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Plectase in the Greek, it literally means ready for a blow or ready for a punch.
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It speaks of a person who loses control and is quick to throw punches.
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Certainly a man who is abusive towards his wife or his children would be immediately disqualified.
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But it also describes one whose ability to control his anger is not in check.
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Since uncontrolled outbursts erupt in violent behavior.
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It's just the description that's given.
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And we see here, he says, not violent, but gentle.
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That's one of the things about this particular outline.
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He gives the not but this.
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He said, not violent, not a striker, but gentle.
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It's not enough that you don't hit people.
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It's not enough that you don't go around with a fist raised all the time.
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But how do you handle conflict? Do you handle conflict with love and gentleness? Or do you handle conflict? Are you always ready to blow up? That's true.
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But Paul did have to deal with Christians.
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And he was a minister.
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And I imagine there were times where even his temperament was tested for sure.
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But the next one goes very similar.
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It's not quarrelsome.
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It says, not violent, but gentle.
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Not quarrelsome.
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It's very, very similar.
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They're not exact parallels, but they're similar.
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Sort of in the same way when he says sober-minded and self-controlled earlier.
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Those two things are very synonymous in what they're saying.
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To be a sober-minded man is to be a self-controlled man.
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Well, to be a not violent man is to be a not quarrelsome man.
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A very similar language.
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I love the Greek here.
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It's machos.
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What do you think? Macho.
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It means not being a macho man.
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And I'm not talking about like Randy Savage.
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Ha-ha, for those who know who macho man is.
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The term actually means not invincible.
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It's a person who's not movable.
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A macho person in this context is a person who is never able to be pliable.
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Never able to work with anybody else.
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He's always bowed up, ready to stand up and make it his way or no way.
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It's his way or the highway.
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You've heard that phrase before? It's got to be his way or the highway and he's not pliable at all? That's what this term really means.
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He's the perpetually negative voice.
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He's always disagreeing.
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He's never allowing himself to budge even an inch on anything.
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He is right.
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Everyone else is wrong.
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The circle is drawn around him and he's got it pulled so tight that he's even standing on one leg.
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The circle of truth is him.
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And that's no good.
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Last but not least on this particular list because we're going to go on.
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He's not a lover of money.
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So he's not a drunkard.
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He's not violent.
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He's not quarrelsome.
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He's also not a lover of money.
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The term here is actually the Greek word for silver.
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So the idea is not a lover of silver, a lover of money.
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Argo is the word for silver here.
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This is a person who allows a desire for financial gain to cloud out his desire for spiritual gain.
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Anyone whose primary goal is prestige, power, control, or flattery is after base gain and would not qualify to be an elder.
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That should be simple enough, right? But it's not always hard to define.
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Sometimes it can be hard to define.
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You know, if you think about us, again, looking at culturally, are we rich? Oh, absolutely.
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If you compared us to the rest of the world, we are very rich.
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Jennifer and I have been talking about it.
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We've actually had this conversation several times this week because she's reading through David Platt's book and looking at the poverty all around the world.
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And one of the things that's true, if you were to describe your day to a third world person, they would be horrified.
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Just what you do in the first 30 minutes of your day.
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You have a big bowl of water and you use it for the bathroom.
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They don't have water to drink.
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You flush it down the toilet, never to be seen again.
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You stand under water that goes from here to there and most of it doesn't even touch your body.
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Most of it goes right by, never hits you.
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It's hot water, too.
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It's clean water.
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And it goes for 15 minutes or so, however long it takes you to bathe.
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Maybe 5 minutes, maybe you're a 10 minute person, but whatever.
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All that water just goes away, never be used again.
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If you describe that to a dictator in the third world, they'd think you were nuts.
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It's just amazing when you compare riches and cultural, socionomic differences.
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So now we go back to the same.
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Are we a lover of money? Well, I do think that there's cultural context here.
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Because I could also say, in the context of America, I don't think anybody in this room is rich.
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I don't know all of your bank accounts.
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I don't know any of your bank accounts.
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It sounds like I knew some.
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I don't know any.
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Some of you have more than others, financially.
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Some of you have made wiser investments.
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Some of you have been able to develop for yourself more than others, simply because you've been on the earth longer, you've had a better job, or what have you.
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But the reality is, the question is not whether you have or whether you don't have.
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The question is whether you're owned by what you own, or whether what you own owns you.
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And that's the whole thing.
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That's always what it's about.
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When that man came to Jesus, and he fell at his feet, and he says, Good Master, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus said, Go sell everything you have.
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Why did Jesus say that? Because that's a requirement for every single person ever? No, because that man was owned by what he owned.
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He was owned by what he had.
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And Jesus was simply pointing out to him that you have a problem, and your problem is you are owned by what you own.
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And a man who is called to be an elder is the man who is to have his first allegiance to Christ and not necessarily his bank account.
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And I think that that's simple, but it's sometimes hard to apply, simply because you don't always know a man's motivations until you see them in action.
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And greed can come out as a sneaky thing.
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Greed is one of those.
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It can underlie things, and you don't see it until way.
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So it's something you have to look out for.
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And when you talk to a man who wants to be an elder, you have to kind of ask him tough questions.
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How do you use your finances? What is your giving life like? Do you give outside the church? Do you give to the church? You know? Huh? Yeah, all of those would be questions.
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You know, I don't need a percentage, but do you believe that you give and accord us what God has placed in your heart, as it tells us in 1 Corinthians? Are you doing that? That would be an important question.
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Yes, sir? In Dr.
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Wisdom, in the Proverbs.
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Read it to us.
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I know what you're talking about.
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Go ahead.
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Two things I ask of thee, do not refuse me before I die.
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Keep deception and lies far from me.
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Give me neither poverty nor riches.
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Feed me with the food that is my portion, lest I be fooled and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be in want and steal and profanity to my God.
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That's amazingly wise.
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God, give me what I need.
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If you give me more, I might feel like I don't need you.
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And if you give me less, I might feel the need to take what is not mine.
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That's a very powerful picture of the wisdom when it comes to finances.
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So these are the negatives.
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Not a drunkard, not violent, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
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So those are the things that we would call moral requirements.
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Now let's move on to the maturity requirements.
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The requirements of maturity.
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Well, the maturity requirements begin with managing the family.
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Let's look at verse 4.
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He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.
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For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? Well, let's stop right there and just talk about this for a moment.
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An elder, and let me, I'm going to throw this out, and this may seem like I'm taking this sideways.
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John, I'm not.
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Some people have asked the question, does an elder have to be married and does he have to have children? Because it says husband, one wife, and here it references children.
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I don't think that this is a have to situation, but I think the regular principle of the text is that it's normal that an elder, a man of maturity, would probably be a married man, and a man of maturity would probably have children, but my point is I don't think this is making that a requirement, but it's saying this is the normal situation.
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So if you're looking at a normal situation where a man, and it might not be, a man might not be able to have children or whatever, but if a man has a wife, he ought to be faithful to her, and if he has children, his children ought to be submissive to him.
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Now, the Puritans referred to the family as a little church.
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That's how they described the family.
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The family is a little church, and so for the Puritans, the family, not the corporation, is the model for the church.
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You have the husband who serves as the pastor of the home, the wife who serves in a sense as the servant or deacon of the manager of the home, and you have the children who are to submit to the leadership of the father and to be ministered to and submit ultimately also to the mother who is in submission to the father who is ultimately all in submission to Christ.
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So there's a picture there of the family and how it relates to the church.
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So if you've got a man who comes into the church who wants to be an elder, you ask, well, may we look at your family life? May we examine how you manage your family? Because if you can't do that, remember the microcosm, macrocosm principle.
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You know, Jesus tells us, he says that he who is faithful in the little things will be given more, but he who is not faithful in the little things can't be given more because if you're not faithful in the little, you can't be faithful in the lot, right? And so if you're not faithful in the management of the home, how are you going to be faithful in the management of the church, which is a larger extension of what you have at home? And so I think it's a simple requirement here.
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The elder is not a CEO.
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The elder is more like a father in a home.
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And so if a man can't father in his home, then how could he manage the church? I've said this before and I'll say it again.
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Being a good businessman doesn't always make a good elder.
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It's a different type of ministry, you know? So that's the first, the maturity of the family, managing the family.
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The second is the maturity in teaching.
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Going back up now to verse 2, it says, Therefore an elder must be, and it goes to this list of things.
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The last thing in verse 2 is the ability to teach.
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Didactikos, you've probably heard me use the word didactic.
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The word didactic simply means teaching or the way something is taught.
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And didactikos means to be skillful in teaching.
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This is one requirement that the elder has that no one else, no other ministry of the church is required to have, including the deacons.
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Had this conversation last night in our dads and dudes, because we were talking about deacons and about the roles of deacons.
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We're in Romans 16, so we're talking about the word deacon there.
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Can the word deacon be applied to a woman? Not going to debate that tonight, but I'm just saying that was the conversation we were having.
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Here's the thing.
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If you put the deacon in a position of overseer, which does happen in a lot of churches, then the conversation of a woman deacon could never come up, because she's in a position of authority.
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And the Bible says in verse 72 that women can't have that position of authority, so you could never have that conversation.
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However, if the deacon role is understood as to what it is, a position of service, not a position of oversight, a position of service but not authority, then the conversation could go on.
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I'm not saying, you know, that I'm supporting female deacons or not.
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I'm saying you could have that conversation then to understand one or the other.
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Here's my point, though.
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The elder is given a very specific requirement that the deacon is not given.
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The ability to teach.
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If you go through the other requirements of eldership and look at the requirements of deacon, they're almost verbatim the same.
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I mean, there's little nuances of difference, but the same requirements for elder and deacon are almost exactly the same, save one, the ability to teach.
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Now, does that mean that every elder has to preach? I had this conversation with a group of pastors recently, because there was a young man, they have a church plant over on the west side.
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I meet with a group of pastors every two months.
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We have a lunch, and we were talking, and this young man, he was very concerned because there was a man in his church who he felt like fit the requirements of eldership.
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He was a godly man, husband of one wife.
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He met the requirements, but he would not step into the pulpit and preach.
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And so this young man was, I don't know if I can call him an elder because he won't preach.
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And I said, well, is he given to teaching in any respect? Is he able to use the Word in leading one-on-one conversations with people? Is he able to teach the Word in counseling? Is he able to teach the Word in Sunday school? Is he able to teach the Word in any of these contexts? And he said, well, yes, but he won't preach.
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I said, well, where do you think? Why do you think that's the only way that you can teach the Word of God is by standing in the pulpit? I don't think that that's what is intended here, to say everyone has to stand in the pulpit and do what I do.
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I have a very particular spiritual gift.
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I believe my gift is prophecy, and I don't mean that I can tell the future.
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I'm not Nostradamus.
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Neither am I Isaiah or any of the prophets, and Nostradamus weren't no prophet.
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What I'm saying is the gift of prophecy in how it is contextually used is a man who proclaims the Word of God to God's people.
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In Old Covenant, he spoke of the future, and in the New Covenant, there were times where there were prophetic utterances given which are future in nature, such as in the book of Revelation.
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But primarily, the role of the prophet, the prophetic voice, was speaking the Word of God to the people of God.
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The prophet speaks to the people on behalf of God.
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The priest speaks to God on behalf of the people.
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And that's how the circularity of the relationship goes.
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There's always a mediator.
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Mediator from God to man was the prophet.
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Mediator from man to God was the priest.
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Right? So I have a particular spiritual gift that's different than yours, Jack.
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Jack does not have the gift of prophecy, but he does have the gift of administration, and that is listed among the spiritual gifts.
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Richard has the gift of teaching, but not necessarily prophecy, proclamation.
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His gift, he writes very well.
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He teaches one-on-one very well.
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He writes material that I've taught here.
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So these men work together with me, and we all function as elders in the church, all understanding our unique giftings.
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Because if we all had the same gift, we wouldn't need each other.
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You see? So that's an important part of why there's a plurality of elders, because there's a plurality of gifts, but one spirit who works them all together.
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So, do I think every pastor has to be able to preach? No.
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Every elder, rather, has to be able to preach? No.
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But I do think that's what makes the unique role of the pastor-teacher, that's my position in the church, that's why I'm the one that gets up there every Sunday, and we don't rotate through.
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Because that's the gift God's given me to do.
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Okay? Alright.
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Anybody have any other questions about the apt-to-teach requirement? Okay.
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The next one is not in 1 Timothy 3, and I want to invite you very quickly just to hold your place in 1 Timothy 3.
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Jump over to Titus 1, because this is also important.
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And remember, Titus also gives requirements.
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Titus 1, speaking also of the elder, Titus 1.9, it's one over from 1 Timothy.
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It says, He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
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Simply stated, an elder is to be a man who can fight away the wolves.
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Well, I think it can be several contexts, but he says specifically, rebuke those who contradict the truth.
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I'll give you several examples that come to mind.
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There have been several times where people come into the church who want to proclaim something that's not true.
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I remember one time a guy came to my office, sat down, and he says, God has given me a word to speak in your church.
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I said, well, give it to me.
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Tell me what you want to say.
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No, it's not for you, it's for your church.
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I said, no it ain't.
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Not if I don't know what it is.
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You are not speaking in our church if you ain't going to tell me what you're going to say.
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You are out of your mind.
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Another lady came in one time selling a book.
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And the book was riddled, I mean filled, with unbiblical nonsense.
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Just straight up filled with unbiblical nonsense.
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Hey, fellas.
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And she was selling her book in our church.
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Didn't have the elders look at it.
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Didn't ask for permission.
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Just started selling it.
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She was in Sunday school classes, hocking her book.
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And that whole not a striker thing.
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Just kidding.
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But this was bad.
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Because we had to go and say no.
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We looked at the book.
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We read what it had to say.
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It was terrible.
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False doctrine, false teaching.
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Bad grammar, which is unacceptable.
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It was.
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It was.
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I couldn't get past the first page.
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It was really bad.
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And so we said do not, you are not able to do that.
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You do not need to bring those books back to the church.
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You are not welcome to sell anything in our church.
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And anyhow.
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So there have been several times where the elders have had that responsibility to have to say no or have to say yes to something right and no to something wrong.
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Yeah, every time a man preaches here.
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If a man preaches the Word of God, he is listened to by the elders.
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And if something is said that is incorrect, he will be rebuked privately.
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If it is something that needs to be corrected publicly, it will be corrected publicly.
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We probably wouldn't stop him in mid-sentence unless he was just going off the rails completely.
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But we would solve that issue.
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That is the job of the elder.
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Alright.
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Finally, back to 1 Timothy 3.
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The maturity to be patient.
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1 Timothy 3, 6.
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The maturity to be patient.
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He must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.
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Alright.
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Let's just very quickly.
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Why is that a requirement? Well, he gives us the explanation.
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He says, if a man just became a Christian, do not stick him in a position of leadership automatically because that has a tendency to go to people's heads.
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It has a tendency to become an issue of pride.
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Boy, I was so good at getting saved, they put me in charge.
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I'm not getting saved out of the park.
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So there had been the question, well, what's the differential time? Is it a month, six months, eight months? Paul doesn't give a specific time.
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I do think this is left up to the church to seek wisdom on this issue.
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I think if it were a three-year period or a two-year period that was specifically stated, I think that would be inappropriate.
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I think it gives the church a latitude here to say, okay, we have to decide what is a reasonable time.
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Let's say a man comes into the church, joins the church.
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He may be a mature believer already, but he's not a part of our body and respected and he's not just respected, but trusted yet.
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And trust takes time to develop.
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You just stick somebody like that out in a position of authority, what happens? There's a tendency there for all kinds of bad things to occur.
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So you have to be careful in how you put people in positions.
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Maturity to be patient is huge because not everybody has that.
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The ability to be patient and wait for God's timing is huge.
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So I just, you know, I always like to say that's a maturity issue.
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If a man can't wait until it's time, then he doesn't really need to be in that position to begin with because it's part of his maturity.
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All right.
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Last but not least, and we will finish this up tonight, it looks like, is the motivational requirements.
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So we've looked at moral.
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We've looked at maturity.
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Now let's look at the motivation.
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First of all, go back to verse 1.
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The saying is trustworthy.
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If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
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The word aspire means to reach out for something.
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The word desire means to set your heart upon something.
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So together, those two things essentially mean that this man wants to do it.
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There have been men in the church who were qualified for eldership in every single way except this one.
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They could teach the word.
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They were husbands of one wife.
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They met all the moral requirements, all the maturity requirements, but when we went to them, we said, do you want to serve as an elder? They said, no.
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That's it.
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You are no longer qualified.
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If you don't want to do it, we are not going to ask you to do it.
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Because that begins with that desire.
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It's like Jeremiah said, the word of God is like a fire in my bones that I cannot contain.
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The man who wants to do it, it will be obvious in his desire to do it.
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If God calls him to it, it will flow out of him in a desire.
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And he will probably already do the things that God requires of that position even without the title.
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It's like I always know a deacon before we call a deacon.
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Because they are already deaconing.
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They are already serving in the church.
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They don't need the title to serve.
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And so you just say, you are already there.
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We give you the title because you are already doing it.
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The same way with an elder, somebody who loves the word, who loves to teach the word, who loves to talk about the word, who loves to be involved in ministry.
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And you say, you are really already there.
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We just got to confirm that.
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And have you before the church and affirm you before the church.
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But really you will see it in their desires.
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It will already be there.
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I have heard people say in the past, if somebody wants to be an elder, he shouldn't be.
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That should disqualify him because it's pride.
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And I say no.
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The desire is there.
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He says if anybody aspires, he desires a noble task.
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The desire is there.
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Now I do think there is a sense in which some people can want it too much.
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And I go back to that maturity thing.
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The maturity of patience.
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If somebody comes in and demands to be an elder, or somebody gets saved and demands to be put into leadership, that's tipping the scale the other direction.
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Again, that's an issue of pride.
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So there is a balance here.
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We got to understand that there's got to be patience involved.
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But there's also got to be a desire.
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This is what God's called me to do.
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And I believe that this is the direction I'm heading.
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And all I'm asking is that you examine my life to see if that's where I'm headed.
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And you agree that this is what God's called me to.
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If that's the attitude a man has, then that's where you go.
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But if the attitude is, I got to have it, I got to have it now.
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Well, then you're going to have to have it somewhere else.
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So, the other thing I want to show you, and this isn't in 1 Timothy.
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1 Peter makes a good point on this.
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This is the last verse I'll get you to turn to.
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So just turn over to 1 Peter 5.
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We said first, it's a work he desires.
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That's the first motivation is he desires.
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But also, 1 Peter 5 says something interesting.
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1 Peter 5 tells us it's voluntary work too.
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And I do not mean by that that an elder cannot receive a pay.
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Because the Bible does talk about the elder receiving a pay for his due.
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Like an ox treading the ground, the elder can receive a salary.
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I receive a salary as part of my ministry of the church.
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It supports my family and I praise God for that.
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But the point of what I'm trying to say here, if you read 1 Peter 5, 2, shepherd the flock of God.
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This is an elder talking to elders because Peter is an elder.
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He's talking to other elders.
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He says, 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.
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So, what's Peter saying? He's saying, you should do this willingly and not because you have to.
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There are men, I know, in churches that serve simply because they feel like that's what everybody expects them to do.
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You know what I mean? They just feel like, this is what, this is what, you know, it's what I've got to do.
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And what happens when a man feels compelled to do something because he's got to do it, rather than a desire? If he feels compelled to do something because that's what's expected of him, he often either does it poorly or he does it angrily.
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Now, I'm looking for a different word.
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Reluctantly.
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Reluctantly, yeah.
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He doesn't want to do it.
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He does it because he has to do it.
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Unwillingly.
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Yeah.
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So that's, that's part of the call.
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The call of God is that you want to do this.
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And it's voluntary, it's willing, and you're willing to come, you're willing to serve, and you're willing to do.
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When we start talking to guys about being deacons, or even an elder, if the first questions out of their mouth are things like, well, you don't want me to do this, do you? Or you don't want me to do that, do you? That's a red flag right away.
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Because there's no telling what we're going to want you to do.
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This is the gospel ministry.
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There's no telling what's going to happen.
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So if the first thing you're asking is what we're not going to want you to do, you're already thinking the wrong way.
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Because we don't want you to be compelled to do anything.
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We want you to do it because God has called you to it and you want to do it.
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Make sense? Alright.
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So let's make application on our sheets.
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This is a, this was the right one.
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I know we were in a different verse when you got here, but that is the right one for tonight.
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First and foremost, while everyone is called to be a student of the word, not everyone is called to be a teacher of the word.
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That's simple enough.
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Not everyone is called to be a teacher of the word.
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Teachers of the word are held to specific standards which require, let me try again, which include requirements in the areas of these three, morality, maturity, and motivation.
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Last but not least, at judgment, teachers will give account for the way in which they shepherd the souls of those in their care.
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And that should give us pause.
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Those of us who are elders and those of us who may desire one day to be elders, that should give us pause that we will give an account for the souls of those whom God has entrusted to us.
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Well I hope that, that was a little side step from James.
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I, I, I, every once in a while we hit a text like James 3, 1 and it brings up an issue or a subject that I want to address.
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And I, I try to at least once every, every couple years at least go through the requirements of an elder, look at the deacons and those things because I know there's, God's always raising men up for those things and, and we need to understand what is required.
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And, and if God calls a man to an elder position or a deacon position in the church, then we as a church ought to know what's required so that we know what to look for when we're given that affirmation to that person, whomever he may be.
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Well I hope this was encouraging to you tonight.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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And I thank you for the opportunity to study this subject.
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I do pray that our elders would understand the weight that is placed upon us and yet the joy that we receive from this position as well.
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The joy of knowing, Lord, that we have been called to a great ministry.
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And when in service to you, O God, we would, we would be fools to do anything else.
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We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, Amen.