The Biblical Standard for Church Leaders

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Please enjoy the following sermon. A few years ago, I heard our brother Paul Washer at a conference

Q &A, and he was responding to a fascinating question and offered,

I think, what most of us would consider a very surprising answer to that question. During this particular

Q &A, someone asked this question. They said, What is the single greatest threat to the church today?

What an interesting question that is. In a world that is increasingly secular, that is characterized often by government overreach, where we see the frequent rampant moral failures of our leaders and celebrities and neighbors, when there is a proliferation of aggressive gender ideologies competing for airtime, it seems that there is a seemingly endless number of threats to the church today.

And if you were asked, how would you answer, what is the single greatest threat to the church today?

What is that one looming adversary on the horizon of the church's life that threatens her witness and her effectiveness in the world?

What is the one thing that, if it were possible to undo the very existence of the church, would seek to do that?

One would expect that a brother would find some opponent out in the world, perhaps what

I would call one of the many isms that are out there, socialism or globalism or liberalism or progressivism, perhaps another world religion,

Islam or another. But he did not. Some would expect that maybe he would go directly to the source and identify

Satan or the unseen principalities and powers of the world that continuously wage war against the church.

But alas, he did not. Rather, in answer to this question, he responded, the greatest threat to the church in our generation is pastors.

And he qualified this. He said the single greatest threat to the church in our generation is pastors who lack biblical knowledge and a fear of God.

Now, what a sobering response to that question. I don't know if you've ever thought about that question in those terms before.

And yet, while this might seem like hyperbole to some, I'm inclined to agree with our brother.

And I think that it is true that this is the single greatest threat to the church in our world today.

And this is why. He was not saying that the greatest threat were faithful pastors.

If he did, that would be incorrect. I would have to disagree with him. He did not say that the single greatest threat to the church are those pastors who diligently seek the good of the flock despite possessing mediocre giftings and an unremarkable ministry.

No, he said that it is men who stand at the front of the church and yet lack the ability to rightly handle

God's word, and who are devoid of the fear of God or of personal godliness.

Men who, though they may be intelligent and charismatic, prove themselves to be incompetent because they are unskilled in the word and unskilled in applying its truths in their own lives.

And this is not something that is new. I know when we think, for those of you who are of that man, it has nothing to do with that.

But since the first century of the church, we've seen that local churches all over the place have often been disturbed by unqualified leaders who have wreaked havoc in her midst.

We don't have to go much further than to look to the book of 3 John, where we read about one such man.

Maybe some of you know his name. His name was Diotrephes. And John said about him, he sought to put himself in first place before everyone.

He was cold and unreceptive to the traveling preachers of the gospel. And anyone who offered their residence, he would put them out of the church, excommunicate them like that.

Or in Acts chapter 20, as Paul was dealing with the Ephesian elders in a moment when he thought this would be the last time that he would ever see them again.

And he warned them, not about some external world power that would come and dismantle the church, but about the damning effects of ungodly elders.

He said to them, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, that is among the elders, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Or in 2 Timothy chapter 4, just one last reference, where Paul says that the people will seek out preachers after themselves or their own liking, who will scratch their itching ears, implying that there will be those who are more than ready to seek them or to lead them away from the truth and after myths in order to gather a crowd.

Make no mistake about it, one of the greatest threats to the church universal and one of the greatest threats to the church that is assembled in this room right now are unqualified elders.

While there are some exceptions, it is rarely the case that the church will rise above the spiritual maturity and vitality of its leaders.

Whether you like it or not, it is usually the elders who set the tone for godliness and devotion in the local church.

And to the degree that they excel, the church excels. And to the degree that they fail, the church fails.

And the church's life and witness suffer for it. There is an old maxim, and it is old, and it is a maxim.

Because it is true, as the pulpit goes, so goes the pew. Therefore, then, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that Paul writes to Timothy about how he is to order the church in Ephesus.

And as he does this, he devotes a whole section in his letter to the character qualifications of elders.

Because leadership matters. And today this is what we're going to look at together.

And as we do, I want to challenge you. I want to challenge each one of you in this regard.

You know, sometimes we think this is a passage about the qualifications of eldership. You know, I've never applied for a job as an astronaut.

And therefore, I've never been to the NASA website to see what the job requirements are, to see what is needed to be an astronaut.

This is not the same. This is something that has incredible bearing on your life as a believer.

How we determine whether an elder is or is not qualified. And so for each one of us, if we are to protect against that which would threaten to undo us, even from within, for all members, this church must commit to knowing, knowing and upholding the high standard for elders spelled out in Scripture.

We cannot be like, sadly, so much of the broader

Christian world that jettisons these qualifications in the name of pragmatism.

We don't have enough elders. We need more elders. We need to relax the standards. Well, the ladies of the church are left out.

So we need to relax that standard. We need to plant a church.

But in order for us to plant a church, we need to have qualified missionaries and church planters. So we're going to relax that standard.

No. As a church, we must know and insist that every elder in this church attains to and maintains the very standard that God has established for his leaders in his church.

And we must expect, this is the good part about it, that as we jealously guard this office and insist upon these standards being met, the church will thrive and the glory of God will be magnified in the world.

Church leadership matters. The qualifications for eldership matter. And they don't just matter to those who are elders or those who aspire to be elders, but they matter to all of us because it has a great bearing on our lives as Christians.

So, I didn't want to give it away, but you probably already had it. We're in 1

Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1. We're going to look, if you turn there with me, we're going to look today at verses 1 through 7.

And as we look at this text, I acknowledge there are probably many, many, many ways that you could divide this passage.

I thought about a 20 -some point sermon, just looking at every qualification and every other word.

I thought that that would be not just too puritanical, but I'd probably lose you about 0 .11.

So, we're going to look at three bite -sized sections. We're going to look at the aspirations of elder or for eldership, the qualifications and the hazards of biblical eldership.

And I'll read verses 1 through 7, so that we can understand what this text says and then dive in.

So, Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober -minded, self -controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive.

For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

And as Paul begins this section in his letter, the first theme that he addresses is this, that the good aspiration to eldership.

That's what I'm calling it. As Paul begins chapter 3 and verse 1, he begins with the second of five trustworthy sayings that we already find, or that we find in his pastoral epistles.

You might recall that we came upon the first of those trustworthy sayings in 1st Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15.

If you look there, just probably a page over for you, where he says, the saying is trustworthy.

This is an axiom that we would do well to commit to memory. It is such a good one.

It will be an encouragement to you only continuously. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom

I am the foremost. Now, as we arrive then at chapter 3 and verse 1, as he deals with the second trustworthy saying, it's dealing with the leadership in the church.

That's a surprising theme, and I'll tell you why in a moment. He writes, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

Now, I'm not sure if you noticed this with me, but I find this remarkable that I would admit that if I were the apostle

Paul writing these epistles, I would not think to include a point on eldership as one of my trustworthy sayings among five.

And the reason for this is the four other sayings that we find here in these pastoral epistles all have to do with significant doctrines.

They have to deal with the justification that we have in Jesus Christ, with the salvific work of the

Lord, with our eternal hope for life after death. And so of the five dealing with Christ and all of his benefits, or sorry, four of the five, and then with number five dealing with eldership, as I looked at this,

I thought one of these things is not like the other. And you might ask yourself, why is that?

Why would Paul take a point about the leadership in the local church and place it among some of these very weighty doctrines in his trustworthy saying category?

What is he doing here? I'm inclined to agree with many of the commentators who point out that what

Paul is doing here is elevating the dignity of the elder or the office of elder in the life, in the view of the local church.

By incorporating this verse, this concept into his list of trustworthy sayings, he is taking it out of the world of obscurity and saying, pay attention, this is important.

The eldership of the church is vitally important. It's as if Paul is saying these truths are valuable, but so is the work, and so is the work of the elders that is vitally important and valuable.

It is a good work to aspire to. Now I would suggest to you that at the four, the reason why pastors or elders,

I'll talk about maybe the distinction or the lack of distinction in those words in a moment, but the reason why pastors today pose such a great threat to the church is not because we think too highly of the office, but it is in fact because we think too lowly of the office of elder.

The reason why so many unqualified men and regrettably women are appointed to this office is because we have lost sight of its vital importance.

And we have, I would suggest in modern Christianity, stripped it of its inherent nobility, that being a noble work, and its virtue.

As Paul begins this section, it's interesting. He is seeking it at the forefront to establish the inherent goodness, even the prestige of the office of elder.

It is a trustworthy principle. If you want to be an elder, you desire a very good, a noble thing.

Now in a biblical, healthy local church then, the office of elder is rightly held in high esteem.

We should not think that just anyone can serve as an elder, but only those who prove by their godliness and then by their gifting.

Only they are fit to serve in this way. And perhaps the importance, the vital importance of this office is captured in a term that Paul uses in verse one, when he uses the term overseer.

Now, what does that word mean? Comes from the Greek word episkopos.

I say that not to flaunt my Greek, but because we're going to compare it to another word in a moment.

And what that word overseer means is, is to act as a superintendent or as a guardian of something.

In Paul's day, it referred to one who was expected to steward something that was entrusted to him.

And so on a smaller scale, an overseer was a household manager who was responsible to make sure that everything in that house was in good order.

On a broader scale in the Greco -Roman world, it referred to the municipal officials who were responsible for the good government of an entire city.

So whether one wanted a well -ordered home or a vibrant, well -functioning city, this responsibility was given to an overseer or a few overseers.

Now some have come along now and argued that this term overseer should be translated bishop, and that this word bishop should refer to one man who oversees a whole network of churches in a particular region.

We know that the apostle Paul is not making that claim here. He's not speaking for some man in the upper echelons of the hierarchy of the church.

And we know that for two reasons. Number one, because that simply isn't what that word meant at this time.

Even if you ask those who belong to Christian or quasi Christian groups who practice these hierarchies of bishop and archbishop, they must admit that this concept did not arrive here, but it arose at a later time after Ignatius and then others through the period of the church.

And so they based their practice not on scripture, but on church tradition. We know that Paul does not mean this is a bishop.

But at the same time, or the secondly, throughout the epistles we find the word overseer or elder used interchangeably.

And we don't have to go much further if you turn with me for a moment to Titus chapter 1. If we look at verse 5, we see here

Paul dealing with Titus and the elders that he is to appoint in Crete. He says, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

Now, I want you to see this. He says, and we see the very similar, it's the parallel passage for our text.

If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

Verse 7, for an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach.

Now you might ask, are we talking about elders? Are we talking about overseers? We're talking about one office with two titles.

And the reason why we have two titles is because it speaks to the dignity and the work of the elder.

John Stott writes on this. He says, the word presbyteros, which is the other word for elder, was

Jewish in origin. Every synagogue had its elders. And so it indicated the seniority of the pastor.

Whereas episkopos, which is translated overseer, was Greek in origin.

It was used of municipal officials. And he adds this, making my point for me, I think.

In sum, the title episkopos denotes the function, presbyteros, the dignity.

So this is what we're being told. To serve as an overseer is a very good thing.

It is, to use the words of one Greek English lexicon, to steward the great truths of the apostolic tradition found in scripture.

There is one office over the church in terms of its authority and leadership. It is the office of elder and or overseer.

And we could bark up another tree another day and or pastor. And so Paul tells us that it is a good thing to desire this noble task.

And the words that Paul uses here is pregnant with meaning. I want you to see this with me. He says, if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, this word aspires literally means to reach out after.

It is a concrete action whereby a man strives after something and takes hold of it.

And he says that to do this is a noble desire. And that word desire, again, it does not communicate something that is indifferent.

It is not an indifferent inclination. It is a longing after something. It speaks to a passionate inward desire.

And so in some ways, even as Paul elevates the dignity of the church, he provides the very first qualification for this office, which is this.

It is one who longs to be an elder and who takes practical steps to attain to that office.

It is accompanied by a God -given yearning for the office that one might be able to park for a time.

But they can't help it when the desire simply begins to well up within them again. Now, that was a very technical first point that will be the most technical part of things.

But I want you to see this with me. If we're going to conclude one thing, if you were to remember one thing with me, it's this, that we as a church, if we're to protect the office of elder, must have a high view of eldership.

Now, I can't help, as one of the elders responsible for saying this, to feel a little bit self -conscious about saying it.

But what we need to understand is this, that we must assign this office of elder the very dignity that it deserves.

The very dignity that scripture assigns to it. The office of elder is a noble office.

It means something to be an elder. There must be then something that we expect from those who serve as elders.

Even as I was working through this, my hope, my prayer is that Sam and I would be sobered by this idea.

That we cannot be complacent. That every time a man is appointed to serve as an elder in this church, the book of Acts in chapter 20 and verse 28 tells us that he has been appointed to this very task by the

Holy Spirit. And he is charged with caring for the church which God obtained with his own blood.

But there's a second part to this. If we're going to safeguard eldership by holding it in high esteem, the second thing that we must do is we must safeguard the office of elder by ensuring that aspiring and qualified men are able to serve as elders in the church.

I don't want us to lose sight of what Paul is trying to say here. That brothers, there are some of you who aspire to serve as elders in this church, and that desire is good.

And if you have that longing to serve as an elder, you should not sit on your hands, but you should seek to serve as an elder.

Most men, for those of you who do have the desire to be elders, you'll be surprised to learn this perhaps, that most men do not have this desire.

Most men do not have this burning longing in their soul to serve

Christ in this way. And so I'm almost inclined whenever someone says that they desire it to think, well, the only reason why you desire it is because the

Lord has put that in you, at least on the good side, unless you're seeking prominence or something else.

And so if you have a desire to serve the church and to serve Christ as an elder, it is a noble task.

And therefore, brothers, I want to urge you to improve every opportunity you have as you prepare to serve

Christ and his church in this way. I want to tell you something that I wish older, wiser men had told me when

I was in my twenties, that it does not take days. It does not take weeks.

It does not take months, but it takes years to make a qualified elder.

And we should not resent the time that it takes to prepare for ministry, but rather we should embrace it and to seek every opportunity to learn, to grow, to mature, and to discern that aspiration to ministry.

I love what one Puritan says about the calling to ministry. He says, a minister is a merchant of invaluable jewels.

And the thing about preparing for ministry is this, those jewels are given to you in a little satchel on the day that you are appointed as an elder.

Those jewels are mined and they're found through searching the scriptures, not for dozens of hours, but for hundreds of hours and thousands of hours, walking with the

Lord in fellowship with him, seeking to grow as a Christian man. And so the only way that you can begin to dispense these jewels is by first finding them for yourself, acquiring them and collecting them and treasuring them and then sharing them.

So that's the first point I want to make that the office of eldership is important and men, if you aspire to it, you should pursue it.

You should reach for it. You should long for it. My prayer even leading up to this time is that people would come to me after the service and say,

I really desire to be an elder. At which point I will say, okay, let's talk this week and let's start the journey.

But we'll go to the next point and we'll build more upon this. In verses two through seven, scripture lays out what a man must be if he is to serve as an elder.

And this is the second truth I want to highlight. I'm calling it the high standard for eldership.

So while Paul has established the dignity of the office of elder, he next turns to the qualifications for the office.

And while we don't know everything that led up to Paul listing all of these qualifications, some have speculated that some of the false teachers perhaps were vying for positions of authority in the

Ephesian church. Maybe there were some who had been appointed as elders in the past who were not qualified to serve in this way.

We don't know exactly. Either way, what we do see is that Paul sets the record straight by providing a list of qualifications that parallel that passage that we looked at in Titus chapter one.

And so beginning in verse two, we're going to do a bit of a survey of these qualifications for young men or old men, for all men.

If you aspire to the office of elder, what I would like you to do is ask yourself, do I meet these qualifications?

And if I do meet these qualifications or if I don't, am I seeking to cultivate growth in these areas?

For my sisters, that the elders are to be an example to the flock.

We're told in first Peter chapter five. And so you can ask yourself in almost every situation, except for a few, am

I seeing growth and cultivation in these areas of my life? You can begin to think, how can

I pray for the elders of the church now that they would continue to grow in these areas? I want you to see that there's so many applications.

I don't want our sisters, just like I didn't want the men two weeks ago, tuning out when I'm talking about modest dress for the ladies, for the sisters to go, okay,

I can turn it off. I want you to think too, how does this apply to me? And so beginning in verse two,

Paul gives us the qualifications. He says, therefore an overseer must be above reproach.

Now it has been pointed out that this is perhaps the overarching qualification of an elder.

It's somewhat of an umbrella qualification where all other qualifications are encapsulated or encapsulate, sorry, above reproach encapsulates all of these other qualifications.

But what does it mean to be above reproach? Some people would say, well, it's to be sinless. You'd look at my life.

You cannot find one sin. Well, if that's what above reproach means, the church can have no elders, except for the

Lord Jesus. We had one elder and he's now ascended and he's at the right hand of the father. I don't think that's what

Paul is saying here, but rather if we do a careful study of the word, it reveals that it means that an elder must be blameless, blameless and upright, we might say.

It means that he is without any kind of scandal, any kind of scandalous reputation.

If you translate that above reproach, it literally means not able to be held, which means that any accusation that is leveled against him, it does not stick.

When an opponent of the gospel seeks to take hold of him to say, finally, I have you and I can discredit your message, he just slips out of the opponent's hands.

It's like Daniel and his opponents, when they could not find anything against him, they made a new law to contradict a good thing that he was engaged in.

I'm in agreement with one commentator who says this. He says, above reproach means this, it points to a quality and depth of godliness that are indispensable for the magnitude and gravity of pastoral labor.

So that what this means is that before we look, when we have a man who comes and says,

I desire to serve as an elder, before we look at his gifts, before we look at his ability to communicate, but before we look at his leadership style, before we look at his magnetic personality, we must look for godliness.

Charles Spurgeon said something on this point, on this text, which I think is very helpful. He says, the highest moral character must be sedulously maintained.

I thought that was a different word, but I looked at it earlier. Sedulously maintained. Many are disqualified for office in the church who are well enough as simple members.

Holiness in a minister is at once his chief necessity and his goodliest ornament.

Mere excellence is not enough. There must be a higher virtue.

Brethren, when it comes to elders in the church, we should have a very high standard.

We should expect the very highest level of conformity to scripture. We should be able to look at a man in the office of elder and we should be able to say,

Lord, make me like that man. So that is the first that Paul gives.

He says that an elder must be the husband of one wife. And what does this mean? Some have said that it means that a man cannot be an elder until he is married.

That's not at all what I think is being put forward here. In this case, Paul himself would not be qualified to be an elder.

Some have suggested that he cannot be divorced and then remarried, because then he would be the husband of more than one wife.

Is that what Paul has in mind? I don't think so. I think that when we look at the cultural context and when we look at the language that Paul uses, it makes it perfectly clear what

Paul is after. As Paul is writing, he is writing in a time where sexual promiscuity was rampant in the surrounding

Greco -Roman context. Adultery, prostitution, and a whole host of other vices were mainstays in the culture in which

Paul ministered. Meanwhile, marriage was held in very, very, very low esteem.

And this is seen in the words of one famous Roman, a man named Metellus Macedonicus.

He was later quoted. We have his words because Augustus Caesar quoted him later. And it went like this.

You might maybe notice that we have a similar phrase in our day today.

If we could do without wives, he said, we would be rid of that nuisance. But since nature has decreed that we can neither live comfortable, they recognize their helpfulness, with them, nor live at all without them, we must look rather to our permanent interests than to passing pleasure.

Now, there's something fascinating about this quote. It really captures the Greco -Roman mindset in Paul's day, where they viewed really women or wives as the vehicles for child rearing, while other women or men for that matter, as objects for their personal pleasure.

But that's not all. Even in the Jewish setting, Justin Martyr, who was a

Christian apologist, or Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, commented that it was not uncommon for many

Jewish men to have multiple wives. In this context, then we can begin to see what

Paul is working against. Moreover, if we translate what he is saying from the Greek into the English, it literally translates a one woman or one wife man.

And so it is a man who is faithful to his wife, not only with his hands, but with his eyes and with his heart.

It is a faithful man who is habitually faithful to his wife in every respect.

And some have even pointed out that perhaps this falls right after the above reproach qualification because it deals with an area where men struggle most, which is in the area of lust and sexual temptation.

But Paul continues. He says, an elder must be sober -minded. This has been described as a man who knows how to order his priorities and is serious about spiritual matters.

The church should desire in elders that they would be men of sound discretion and wise decision making.

The church should not appoint rash and thoughtless men to eldership, but wise, diligent, and discerning men.

He adds self -control to that list. I think we know that fairly well, what that means.

One 16th century observer says, how shall I be able to rule over others if I have not full power and command over myself?

How can we expect that of our elders? Paul adds in his letter to Titus, he says, an elder must be self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

We should not appoint elders who don't know how to start on their own or don't know how to stop on their own.

Paul says that they should be respectable. And what's interesting is the only other place we find this word respectable in its original form is in chapter 2 and verse 9.

So sisters, I told you about dressing modestly in chapter 2 there in verse 9.

Here we see that same word respectable. So just as respectable or modest attire, here we have a respectable man in the office of elder.

And what does it mean? One Greek lexicon says it is to possess character qualities that evoke admiration or delight.

It is very hard to lead a group of people that do not respect you. He says that an elder must be hospitable.

And this is an area where I think every church can grow. And so I'm going to address this a little bit longer.

That word hospitable means literally, if we are to translate it, love for strangers.

And sometimes what I hear when I talk about hospitality with people in the church is this. You'll talk about opening your home or having someone for dinner or hosting someone.

And someone says, you know, you guys are just so good at that. I assure you, I'm not. My wife, I think, is skilled in that area.

But they will say, but hospitality just isn't my spiritual gift. And I'm mindful of something that one of my former elders told me when

I belonged to that church. He said, hospitality isn't a gift. It's a command.

And here what we see is that the elders excel in not only obeying this command, but modeling this command.

As members of the church, I will be so bold as to say, you should know what the inside of your elder's home looks like.

You should know what their kitchen looks like and what their dining room looks like and what their living room looks like.

You might go there, if you're a single young lady or a married young lady, you will not go there alone to meet with the elders, but you will go there perhaps in a group, but you will know what that residence looks like.

You should have an understanding of some of you know my dog's name. That's a good thing.

You should know that she's a German shepherd. You should know that we usually have to put her outside when you get there because she's way more hospitable than we are.

The elders are responsible for promoting a culture where they have not a celebrity mentality.

Did you know the elder made eye contact with me last Sunday? No, but their homes and their lives are open to the members of the church.

Elders must be, we're told, able to teach. Now this is what sets an elder apart from a deacon.

Will deacons serve and meet the various needs of the church? The primary, the principal ministry of the elder is the ministry of the word.

It is the ministry of prayer and the ministry of the word of God. And therefore, any man who is appointed as an elder must be capable in wielding the word of God for the profit of the church.

The elder's ministry is preeminently a ministry of the word. It is a ministry of more than the word, but it must never be less than the ministry of the word.

And this means, and young men who aspire to be an elder, this is a counsel and an encouragement for you.

We must be sure that when we appoint men as elders, they are diligent, hardworking, studious men who love and know their

Bibles. It's one thing to know church history.

It's another thing to know how to navigate Logos Bible software. A man needs to know his

Bible and to know how to instruct and to counsel and to encourage and admonish from the

Bible. And he must be diligent and consistent in this way.

I give you permission, and I give you permission on Sam's behalf. Any day of the week, you can ask the elders, what are you reading in your

Bible? What are you studying in your Bible? What are you learning in Scripture? And you should expect not a blank stare, but a very reasonable answer from one who is actively studying the

Bible, not just to fill our minds with knowledge, but to live it, to apply it, to teach it, to seek it lived out, or to have it lived out in every facet of the church's life.

In Titus 1 and verse 9, Paul tells Titus, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine.

Go to Sam after the service today and say, Sam, defend the Trinity. I expect he'll give you a good answer.

And to be able to rebuke those who contradict it. Likewise, Paul says in 2

Timothy 2 .15, he says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Not just to volunteer Sam's time, but I'll volunteer my own. Tell me, how did you reach the conclusions that you reached in the sermon?

What did the preparation for the sermon look like? How many hours did you spend doing it? What did your prayer life as you prepared the sermon look like?

Even as we've been training our deacons in training, I've told them, we're all going to maintain a journal, myself included.

And you can come to me at any time and say, show me your journal so that I can open it up and say, this is what

I've been reading. This is what I have been praying. This is my life. For those of you who aspire to the office of elder,

I want to ask you, how many hours a day are you spending in God's word?

Reading it, studying it, memorizing it, meditating upon it, seeking to understand the doctrines of Scripture, systematizing the doctrines of Scripture as we find them, walking with God.

A few years ago, when my daughter started studying, practicing jiu -jitsu, going to jiu -jitsu classes,

I noticed something that was really interesting. That those people who taught the adult classes, they were not men and women in yellow belts and purple belts or whatever other colored belts there are.

They were men and women who had spent eight, 10, 12, 15 years getting a black belt so that they can teach jiu -jitsu in the evenings after work.

And I thought to myself, how is it that these people will study, will come and roll on the mats several hours a week, get sweated on and torn up in a shoulder surgery and all of these other things so that they can teach eight -year -olds jiu -jitsu?

And where are the men who will give 10 or 12 or 15 years of preparation so that they can stand before the church that Christ purchased with His own blood and say, thus saith the

Lord. And I know that this is what God's Word says because I have studied it, because I have poured my life into this.

We should expect this of the elders. And men who aspire to eldership, you should expect this of yourselves to be diligent students of God's Word.

And we'll put you in charge of the seven -year -olds and the eight -year -olds and then the adults. Men who aren't just Bible quizzers at heart, but integrate this truth into their lives.

I think of Ezra. This has to be one of the most important verses to me. Ezra chapter seven and verse 10, where we read,

Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord. Listen to the order of this, by the way.

We would normally think in this order, but this is exactly the right order. Had set his heart to study the law of the

Lord and to do it and to teach it.

To know it, to live it, and then to teach it. One Puritan says, he doth preach the most who doth live the best.

The best way to teach is to live it. Now, verse two provided us with seven qualifications.

We're going to move a bit faster. Verse three provides us with a list of disqualifiers. He is not to be a drunkard.

I think we know what that means. He is not to be violent, but gentle.

It could be translated, not a bully. And I think that finds relevance in this passage, because in first Timothy chapter six and verse three, we read about the false teachers who were coming into the church.

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and disagrees with the sound words of our Lord Jesus and the teaching that accords with godliness.

Verse four, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicion.

And he goes on. You should find that the elders of the church are not bullies.

They're not going to beat you up after church. They're not going to throw you into a pond for falling into sin.

But there is a sweet, in the words of one commentator, a sweet reasonableness about them, a kind, gentle disposition, a long suffering, and a patience as they work with you and through this.

And yet at the same time, though they are kind and gentle, they are not violent, they are not quarrelsome, as Paul will go on to say.

They are not pushovers either. John Calvin put it well.

He said, the pastor ought to have two voices, one for gathering the sheep and the other for driving away wolves.

And we should expect to find both of those voices in our elders. They're not to be a lover of money.

We read in first Timothy chapter six and verse 10, that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. In Micah chapter three, we see he's speaking about how the prophets and the judges would receive bribes as they practice divination for money.

That should not be the heart of the men who serve as elders in our church. The elders who give themselves to preaching and teaching, to ruling well should be shown double honor.

They're to be cared for. Their not to be, if you hear me talk about our church's new private jet,

I have it parked at my house, but I promise anyone in the church can use it. You get rid of me. You're gone.

This could be applied to any facet of the qualifications for eldership, but it's illustrated.

I heard it illustrated wonderfully just by a picture of the great wall of China. If you can picture the great wall of China with me, you picture it making its dips in it and then ascending up into the mountains and other things.

No doubt you've all seen pictures of the great wall of China. I did just a bit of reading on it this week and I found myself fascinated by it as I sometimes am with things.

I just had to turn it off and leave it. Did you know that the great wall of China is 21 ,000 kilometers long?

It took almost 2 ,000 years to build it. They started building it when Isaiah was prophesying in Judah and they still were building it when

Martin Luther was nailing his 95 theses to the castle church door. To put that into perspective.

What's fascinating is it covers that great distance. It took thousands of years to build. That wall has been breached twice.

Both times, one was by Genghis Kong and then the other one was by, oh

I forget now, there's the Mongols and some other group. The Manchus, that's who they were.

And both times they breached the wall. They did not go with siege towers and battering rams to push through that wall.

They went to the guard with money and they got through the wall through a bribe. The elders must disdain the love for money.

They must disdain materialism. We should expect to see that in the men who are appointed as elders.

Verses four and five deal with the domestic qualifications that we should see in the lives of elders.

The Puritans called the family a little church. And in truth, this is just real, that one's marriage and one's home life is the arena whereby or where we should expect the transformative power of the gospel to be most clearly seen.

And yet, I'm reminded of the words of one man that I read a number of years ago where he said, we are often saints abroad and devils at home.

That should not be what characterizes the life of an elder. We should expect to see excellence in his management of the home.

We should expect to see excellence, tenderness, love in his relationship with his wife and with his children.

An elder's home should not be a pigsty where the grass is never cut and the house is full of clutter.

But it should be a place of order where he manages his home, including his wife and his children and his things.

And we're told that the children are to be submissive. And this is a military term that Paul uses about soldiers who are to file into their ranks.

And what this means is that children must be faithful and well -behaved and respectful.

They're not going to be perfect, but we should expect great things of the elder's children as well.

And that as that father leads his family, as he keeps his children submissive, he should do it with dignity.

Meaning that he is not flying off the handle. He is not a raging lunatic. He's not threatening his children before the church comes for breakfast.

But he loves his children and he deals with them firmly and fairly. R .C.

Sproul says the attitude of the elder's children reflect the fruit of the spiritual management of his home and thus forecast the effects of his leadership in the church.

And it deals with his work. He is to care for God's church. Hinting at his responsibilities.

Verse 6 tells us that he is not to be a recent convert. Again, because we're just getting into the nitty -gritty of these words, that literally is translated, he is not to be newly planted.

It brings to mind the parable of the sower that we find in Matthew 13 and Mark chapter 4 and Luke 8.

Meaning he's not a man who just found soil. And now he's starting to sprout out. And praise the

Lord, we're going to appoint him as an elder. We know that there are some men who, they hit the soil and they spring forth.

And there's so much zeal within. This man is called to ministry. And two years later, we don't know where in the world he is.

He must not be newly planted. He must not be a spiritual novice. He must be battle -tested.

He must be spiritually mature. I read about a church in China where a young man was converted and he was faithful and zealous.

And within two weeks, he was appointed as an elder. We will never do that here.

We must never do that here. We must never see that done in any other church. So much as we can help it.

The elders must appoint qualified men. And that takes time. Lest we're told they fall into the condemnation of the devil.

We'll get to that in a moment. They must be well thought of by outsiders. You and I both know that we should not seek the praise of men.

We should not fear the scorns and the scowls of men. We should be, to a certain degree, relieved entirely of what men think about us.

Almost. I think we all know those Christians who go about in the world and they care so little about what the world thinks of them that they almost present as rude and arrogant.

And the people around them rightly do not like them because they are so disinterested in pleasing people that they don't even give them the common courtesies that you would expect from an unbeliever.

I think some of us know that experience. We should not expect that of someone who is an elder.

They must be thoughtful. They must be hard working. Sam and I have talked about this in the future,

Lord willing. When we appoint future elders and future deacons, we're gonna say, can we have your boss's phone number?

We'd like to talk to your boss to see what your boss thinks about you. If they say, well, he's always reading his

Bible and he's never working. Well, that's a problem too, isn't it?

And so he must be well thought of by outsiders. Brothers and sisters, these are non -negotiable character qualifications for an elder in Christ's church.

We could go to Titus 1. We could look at Acts 20. We could look at 1 Peter 5. But these are the ones before us.

I once heard a fundamentalist pastor say that, well, you only need to meet these qualifications at the beginning of your ministry when you're a novice.

Once you've progressed beyond that, then you're fine. There might be a little bit of variance here or a little bit of variance there.

Absolutely not. This is what we should expect of every man who will be appointed as an elder or every man who has been appointed as an elder.

It's not just a qualification set that gets us through the start line. It is what every elder must meet at every point in his ministry.

We must demand these of every man who serves as an elder in the church.

Every time then a man is put forward before the church to serve as an elder, it requires the most earnest prayers and fasting of the whole assembly.

We should test that man. That is why if you remember back when our brother

Sam was appointed as an elder, what did we do? There was Sam sitting here at a table with you sitting there and a microphone here.

And we said to you, you ask him any question you want. You tell him, what do you believe on this doctrine?

Tell me about this aspect of your life. If someone were to come to you, I used that example earlier, and deny the

Trinity, how would you defend that basic and blessed doctrine of the

Trinity? There is one God who exists eternally in three persons, the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we should expect that those men can answer those questions because they're qualified.

Now, spent the lion's share of my time there. We're going to look at one last point very quickly.

And we see the aspiration to eldership. The Lord would grant us many men who aspire to the office of elder.

The qualifications that we must meet, certain qualifications, and that these are to be an example to the church.

And then lastly, we'll look at the notable hazards of eldership very quickly. Some might even say that I'm reaching here, though I don't believe

I am. In verses six and seven, we read that he must not be a recent convert.

We've talked about that. Or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Or in verse eight, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace.

What is it? Into a snare of the devil. For anyone who aspires to the office of elder, for anyone who sees the elders carrying out their ministry in the church, you need to understand something, that there are some very notable hazards for those who serve as elders.

And we see them hinted at in verses six and seven. Our Lord said in Luke 14, 28, he said, for which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it.

There is a cost to be counted for those who will serve as elders. Calvin commenting on the broader part of this text, he says, those things that are excellent are also arduous and difficult.

And we see them here when verse six tells us that he cannot be a recent convert.

Why? Because he will fall into or may fall into the condemnation of the devil.

You need to understand that the elders of the local church experience a measure of attack that in my experience is entirely unique.

And you can talk to men across the spectrum in big churches and small churches and every church in between.

I was recently talking to a man about this very thing. He has been seeking to serve the

Lord as an officer in the church. He's not even an officer in the church yet. And he said to me, it feels like there's a cross hairs on the back of my head everywhere

I go in terms of the difficulty. And all I could simply respond with is that is exactly true.

Richard Baxter says about this, this is 400 years ago. He says, you, speaking to elders, he says, you have sinful thoughts as well as others, but you have greater temptations than most men.

He says, the tempter will make his first and sharpest onset upon you. And some might ask, well, why are you so special?

He says, if you will be the leader against him, he will spare you no further than God allows.

And so it is that as the leaders of the church go, on one hand, we have the devil at our fore.

And a wise Dutch reformed man once said, and he who stands in the front gets kicked in the rear.

So that you have both the onslaught of the devil and the criticisms of those you seek to care for.

If you aspire to the office of elders or overseer, you will be attacked. You will be attacked from every side.

And you will come to know very quickly what that is like. But verse seven paints an even more explicit picture where we see that he must be well thought of by outsiders.

Why? That he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil.

The devil, if you can think about it this way, is with the officers of the church, and I'm convinced with those who are not officers of the church as well, he has set up snares.

You know what a snare is? Our brother PJ works, he'll go to a trap line from time to time.

And what do you do on the trap line? You set traps. You set snares. And you hope that unsuspecting animals come walking through.

Maybe they're baited. Maybe they just walk past and snap, and you're in the trap, and you're cooked.

As the kids would say, how carefully would you walk in this world?

If you had reason to believe that an opponent had set landmines all around your home and around your business, and everywhere that you frequently walked, you'd be very careful.

Well, so it is with the officers of the church. And to a degree for all Christians, we must be mindful there are landmines, there are traps, there are snares all around us.

And what this means then is not only for those, some of you, most of you will never serve as elders.

The Lord has his reward for you. Your service is vital and no less important.

And yet at the same time, you might not know what these snares appear like. And I would just say, pray for the elders.

Pray for the deacons. Pray for the deacons in training. Pray for all those who serve the church as it were leading the charge, not from the back, but from the front.

And there is amongst all these hazards, a great reward. Some of you,

I might've scared away from being elders. Some of you, I hope I've challenged you to be elders. We read in 1

Peter chapter 5 and verse 1. So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder,

Peter says, and a witness of the suffering 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.

And here it is in verse 4. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

Every man that serves as an elder serves as an under shepherd of the chief shepherd.

Every time an elder does you well, every time an elder is a blessing to you, every time the word is preached and you are encouraged and edified by it, every time you are encouraged in counsel, anytime you are served well by the officers of the church, it is an expression of Christ's love, of the love of the chief shepherd for you.

And so every man who aspires to the office of elder does not aspire to be the boss of the church, but nor hireling either, but to be a faithful under shepherd, to serve

Christ and to serve his bride for Christ's glory. The best elders are at their very best only under shepherds.

And the very best elders point to the chief shepherd, Christ, who is the

Lord of his church. So that is why we must have high standards for our elders.

Let's pray together. And we hope to see you soon.