Requirements of the Teacher 1

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to James chapter 3.
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We all have our handout, I believe, right? Everyone was given their handout.
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Tonight is a one-sided handout.
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I wish it could be that way every week, but I often have too much information for just one side.
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But tonight, because we're only looking at one verse, I didn't have to include all that I normally do, and so you have only one side to look at.
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The title of tonight's lesson is Requirements of the Teacher.
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And it comes to us in James chapter 3 and verse 1, which 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 the weeks ahead we'll be looking at the passages that follow this, and really this same thought runs all the way down through verse 12.
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The power that is in the tongue is the subject that James is addressing in this passage, James 3, verses 1 through 12.
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And so he begins that concept, or that idea, with the idea that whose tongue is going to be the most dangerous in a group of believers? Well, the one who's been charged with teaching.
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His tongue has weight, and his tongue has the ability to influence, and his tongue has the ability to drive, and to correct, and encourage.
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And so his tongue is a dangerous tongue.
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It's a serious business, and so James is...
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Some people separate verse 1 from the rest down through verse 12, but I don't think that they can be rightly separated.
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I think, in fact, the only right way to understand the first verse is to understand it in the context of everything that's coming after.
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The subject is the power of the tongue, and the first thing he says in regard to this is now, look, not everybody needs to be teaching.
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If I were to ask the average person to provide to me a list of the five most dangerous occupations in the world, Bible teacher would probably not be on the list.
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If I were to say that not everyone should be a surgeon, because surgeons take the lives of people in their hands every day, most of us would probably agree not everyone should be a surgeon.
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If I said not everyone should be a paramedic, because paramedics have to make split-second decisions about life and death, and if they don't make the right decision or if they administer the wrong medication at the wrong time, then quickly it could cost someone their life, and so not everyone should be a paramedic.
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We would all agree.
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If I said not everyone should be a fireman or a policeman, because not everyone is so bold as to run face-first into a roaring fire or to run drive into a situation of danger.
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You know, that's the difference between the warrior and the person who's not a warrior.
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The person who's not a warrior runs from the gunfire.
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The warrior runs towards it.
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Not everyone's a warrior.
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Not everyone should be a soldier or a policeman.
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Alright? I mean, these are normal, you know, I'll get where I'm going with this, because when we consider the role of the Bible teacher, James tells us the same thing.
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He says, listen, not everyone should be a Bible teacher, and that is something that really has not been obeyed.
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It's something that has not been given a lot of attention in the church.
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Very little concern is often paid as to who gets to teach the Bible.
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A lot of attention is often paid to who's the preacher.
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But then it comes to, well, we need a Sunday school teacher or we need a small group leader or we need somebody to lead this ministry.
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Often very little attention is paid, and yet are they not also carrying the charge of teaching the Bible? There's a cartoon that I saw in seminary, it was very funny.
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It was a two-caption cartoon, you know, two squares.
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In the first square, it had a person sitting at a desk being interviewed for a job, and above the interviewer's desk, it said, school board.
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And below, he said, okay, for this job, you need a four-year degree, you need three personal references, you need to have an immaculate background check, and be willing to submit to a drug test.
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That was all for the school board.
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The next, same picture, but it was different.
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It was the Sunday school board, and it said, do you have a van? If you have a van, you're hired.
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And I just remember thinking, we're dealing with eternal things, we're dealing with things that have eternal consequence, and yet we often pay little attention to who is the one being given the job of teaching these things.
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And Jerome, who was a leader in the church in the 300s, he was writing to a young elder named Nipossian, and in his writing to Nipossian, he said this.
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Many build churches nowadays, their walls and pillars of glowing marble, their ceilings glittering with gold, their altars studded with jewels.
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Yet to the choice of Christ's ministers, no heed is paid.
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That's the 300s.
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You know, he lived between 345 and 419, so that's somewhere in the end of the 4th century.
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And even then, he's saying, we've got all this stuff we pay attention to, we've got marble walls, we've got gold doors.
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But to the man who brings the word, very little attention is paid.
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The Bible teacher is entrusted with the most precious thing in the world, the human soul.
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It's the only thing in all the world that will last forever.
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The Bible says that this earth will be consumed with fire and everything in it, everything we've ever created, every beautiful piece of art we've ever produced, everything that this world has that we say is going to last forever, will not last forever.
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Eventually, it will go away, it will be sucked into the realm of darkness and nothingness, it will be burned up like dross, and yet there is something that will go on, and it's the soul.
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That's why this is such a dangerous occupation.
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The surgeon works with the body, the body dies, the soul lives.
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The paramedics tries to save the body, the body dies, the soul lives.
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The pastor, the elder, the preacher, the teacher is dealing with the only part that's going to last forever.
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And so James adds a serious commendation to the reality of the seriousness of the job.
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So tonight, I want to address something that I've addressed at times before.
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This is not, I don't think I'm going to be covering new ground, but some of you guys are relatively new here.
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So for some of you, this will be a retelling of some things you've heard, but some of you may be new.
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But what I want to talk about tonight in regard to this is the primary teaching position in the church.
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What is the primary teaching position in the church? Elder.
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Yes.
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The pastor is an elder, and the elders together make up the teaching office of the church.
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That is not to say that they're the only teachers.
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There are others who may teach Sunday school, lead small groups, or what have you.
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But all of those operate under the teaching authority of the elders.
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The elders have the authority to set perimeters and to set structure and to rebuke if somebody's teaching something that's incorrect.
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That's the job of the elders.
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So based on that, I want to address that specific job, and I want to address this specific question.
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What are the requirements that we should expect in a person who is an elder? Now, right now we have three, and they're all in the room.
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So we're not picking on anybody who's like, well, he's not here tonight.
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We'll get him tonight.
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All three are in the room.
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And I know, at least I believe, all three of us would agree with what I'm going to say because all the requirements I'm going to give are biblical requirements.
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But the reason why this is always a good lesson is probably a lesson we should do at least once a year is because we're always, you know, looking for God to give us leaders, and we should always, anybody who we're looking at in leadership roles, we should, they should fit these requirements.
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And we should be confident that they do.
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So when we're looking for new elders or when we're praying that God might lift up someone and use them in that role, we need to know what we're looking for.
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Everybody agree with that? We want to know what we want to know.
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What does God require? And so I produced an outline based on scripture.
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It's not something I just pulled out of a hat, but I produce an outline of three requirements, three types of requirements that are necessary for the office of the elder.
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The first one is moral.
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The second one is maturational, which is just a big word for maturity, and the third is motivational.
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They had to end with an L, they had to, but it is a word.
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So we have moral, maturational, and motivational.
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Those are the three areas that a man must meet the requirements if he is going to fulfill the office of an elder.
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And as I said, not everyone who teaches the Bible has to be an elder, but that's where the teaching office begins.
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And so when James says, let not all of you presume or let not all of you become teachers, my brothers, and then he says this, I don't know if you noticed this, he says, for you know that we who teach, well, we know James was an elder, he was a pastor of the church.
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So he's identifying himself in the group.
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So I think that at least, even if this doesn't cover elders only, it certainly covers elders first.
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You're going to be judged with greater strictness, gentlemen who are elders.
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We will face God and we will give an account for how we shepherded the souls that God gave to us.
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That's just the way it is.
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We will give an account.
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Now, I can't save you, I can't make you saved, but I sure will have to give an account for what I taught you about being saved and what it means to be saved and what it means to live as a saved person, a Christian person.
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I'm going to have to give an account for that one day.
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And that keeps me up sometimes thinking about that because I've messed up and I've had to repent of things that I have done in the past.
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I thank God for his forgiveness.
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But the reality is that's a serious business.
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Yes, sir.
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What do you mean? How many of who? How many of that group? How many of those do you feel like they're really called to do that work? Well, we're going to talk about that in a little while in the motivational requirements.
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What is what is a calling from God and how do we know that we have it? That's that's.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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We're going to talk about that because there are some people who think only elders should teach.
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And I'm not going to get into the argument as to why or why not.
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That is.
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But there are some people who say no one else should have a teaching position in the church that every Sunday school class should be taught by an elder.
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And if you don't have enough elders, you just don't have the classes and those kind of things.
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I do believe that that at least the way we do ministry here is that there are areas of ministry that are under the authority of the elders.
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The person is still under the under the same condemnation of James three one in the sense that they are still teaching the word of God, but they are not in the highest teaching role of the church.
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And so, you know, just does a person still need to be called by God to do that? Yes.
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But I do think that the calling to be an elder comes with a very specific motivation.
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And we're going to talk about that in just a little while, OK? Let's look first at probably the lynchpin passage of this whole thing, which is in first Timothy three.
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So if you want to turn with me, first Timothy three, this is where the apostle Paul deals with the issue of the elders and the deacons, and he gives the requirements.
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And this is where the moral, maturational, motivational, this is where these requirements come from.
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Is first Timothy three primarily you can also see them in Titus one, but it's really just a in a broad sense, the same things repeated.
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There's a few minor technical variations, but they're all saying essentially the same thing says in first Timothy three.
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The saying is trustworthy, if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, that word overseer there is not the word presbyteros, presbyteros is a presbyter where we get the idea of an elder.
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That word is episkopos, what do you think, what word we get from that? Episcopalian, right? You've heard the term Episcopalian.
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Episcopal or Episcopalian is a type of leadership structure, Presbyterian leadership, Episcopalian leadership are two different types of leadership structures.
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An Episcopalian leadership typically what you have is a single point of leadership or a single head as in the Roman Catholic Church, there's the Pope, and then everything else is under him.
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There are levels of authority, but he is the highest level, right? That's Episcopalian leadership, even though it's not the Episcopal church, that's the model.
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In Presbyterian leadership, you have a small group of ordained men who are the leaders, it's not a single man.
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And thus, you know, you see in our church, we don't have, I'm not the episkopos alone.
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There's a group of us who serve as the bishops.
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That's another word, and I know it's not a word we use often, but could you call Jack Bishop Jack? He probably wouldn't like it none, but but it's the that's the term that is sometimes I do believe in the King James.
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It says if anyone aspires to office of bishop, that's the that's that's just an older term used for that position.
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It's an overseer and it's not a singular office or a singular position in the church.
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It should be a plurality of bishops or elders, presbyters.
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OK, and so he says, if anyone aspires to that office, he desires a noble task.
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Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach.
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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.
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He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive for someone does not know how to manage his own household.
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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.
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Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil.
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All right.
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So we see the text.
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Now let's break the text down some.
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Let's look first at the moral requirements that are given to us.
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First, we are told that he must be above reproach.
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Now, this is one that has been confused because some people think that being above reproach means to be perfect.
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Well, if that were the if above reproach meant to be perfect, then guess what? We wouldn't have any elders.
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We wouldn't have anyone to lead the church because above reproach, if it meant that, then I'm sorry, none of us would qualify.
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No one's perfect.
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But what does it mean to be above reproach? Well, another way of saying above reproach is to say irreproachable.
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And let me just describe to you how I've always understood it.
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There are there's two ways that I when I meet people, some people are a I call it the flagpole in the coat rack.
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What's the difference between a flagpole and a coat rack? Well, a flagpole, if you try to hang something on it, it's going to fall right off because there's nothing sticking out.
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It's just a pole.
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Only way to get anything hooked to a flagpole is to put something else on it that you hook the flag to.
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And that's the thing at the top with the little wheel.
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You can't go up and hook anything to a flagpole.
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It's just smooth.
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However, a coat rack is made with little extensions sticking out of and it's designed to just toss your coat up there and it holds on to it.
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Well, here's the way that I'm trying to make the illustration.
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If a man's life has all of these things sticking out that are obviously issues with his morality, with his maturity, with anything or even his motivation.
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If he is if he's obviously a man who has issues in these areas of morality, maturity and motivation, then he's not above reproach.
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For instance, you all know I'm not perfect and I hate to use myself as an example for this at all.
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But I would hope that my life would be such that you don't go home at night and say, you know what? I know Keith is all the time running roads, drinking, carousing or whatever, but he sure is a good preacher.
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I'll let him.
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I'll let that go.
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I'm serious.
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There are some people who do.
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There's a man in Jacksonville whose church had to stop letting children come because he is a sexual deviant.
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He is.
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He's listed as a sexual pervert and children cannot come within a certain amount of feet of him because he's dangerous.
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So instead of putting him out of the pulpit, they put the children out of the church.
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And that's absolute truth.
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You can look that up.
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And it's so funny because Jesus said, suffer the little children and let them.
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Do not stop them from coming unto me.
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This church is under the condemnation of God.
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Right.
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They've stopped the children for the pervert.
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Now, does that guy need to be forgiven? Well, if he is repented and is truly repented, he can be forgiven.
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But he doesn't need to be in the pulpit.
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He's got a bunch of these little things sticking out.
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He's got all of these coats, coat hooks that you can hook allegations on.
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If you constantly saw me out with a woman who wasn't my wife, there may be absolutely above board, but those are coat hooks sticking out, ain't they? Wouldn't it? That's above reproach.
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That is.
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That's it.
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It's very simple.
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You're either a flagpole or you're a coat rat.
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And a man who's going to be an elder or a pastor needs to be a flagpole.
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His life needs to speak for itself as to his morality, his maturity and whatever his motivations are.
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You know, when we talk about motivation later, some men are motivated by money, and that's very obvious when you see a man who's motivated by money.
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That's a coat hook, man.
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That's something sticking out because that's wrong.
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Some men are motivated by power.
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Some men are driven by anger.
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And these are things that stick out, right? This is what he's talking about.
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Above reproach is sometimes hard to define, but I think that's the best way in 15 years I've been able to figure it out because I had to define it for myself when I took the position.
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What does it mean? I know it doesn't mean I'm perfect, but what does it mean? My life must bear testimony.
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To my morality, my maturity and my motivation, am I going to mess up? Yes.
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Should my mess ups be followed with repentance? Absolutely.
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Are there some mess ups that could mess up my ministry for good? Paul said so.
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He said, I preach to others and I beat my body and put it into subjection so that when I have preached to others, I myself might not become disqualified.
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He said that.
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He said, he said, I, I, I, I discipline myself so that while having preached to others, I myself would not become disqualified.
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Disqualified from what? From the ministry.
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Yes, I could disqualify myself.
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So I pray that I would never do that.
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I pray that you would pray that I would never do that.
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But that's what it means.
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All right.
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Now he gives a listing of, OK, we talked about above reproach.
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What does that look like? What does above reproach look like? Well, husband of one wife, that's first one.
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This may end up being a two part lesson.
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I just realized this could go.
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I'm only a part one.
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This may go on.
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I may have to push.
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Is that all right? If we if we if we don't get all the way because I don't want to rush because I got a lot more to say and I ain't got much time to say it.
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But husband of one wife, me on Gunakan Andra is the Greek term.
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This creates a lot of questions and confusion in the body of Christ, and I am not going to seek to satisfy all of the questions and confusions tonight.
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But I do want to make mention that husband of one wife is one way to translate the phrase.
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It can also be translated a one woman man.
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In fact, me on singular one Gunakos woman, there is no specific Greek word for wife, it's Gunakos is woman or wife.
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And in fact, this becomes an issue down in verse.
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Um, let's see, it's it's down a little further.
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It talks about the wives of the deacons.
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Verse 12, it says, let deacons each be the husband of one wife managing.
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Well, no, there's one that says, let their let their wives.
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Where's that verse? Yeah, verse 11.
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Let their wives likewise must be dignified.
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That actually says their women must be dignified because, again, there's no specific word for the wife.
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So that has led to the question of whether or not women can be deacons.
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And I'm not satisfying that question either.
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We can talk about that another time.
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But this does address this is why some people say, well, is this talking about a wife or just talking about a woman who's serving as deacon? We know women can't serve as elders because the elder role is a teaching role.
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Chapter two of First Timothy tells us that women are not to teach men and have authority over them.
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First Corinthians tells us women are not to have that position in the assembly or to speak publicly and teaching men.
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So we know that a woman can't be an elder.
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But could a woman be a servant in the church as a deaconess? Well, that's John MacArthur thinks so.
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He thinks that they have women deacons, but other men and other churches don't.
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And I'm not again, I'm not trying to satisfy that issue tonight.
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I'm saying that wouldn't you say, Richard, that's a question that good men have differed over as to whether or not at our church we don't have female deacons.
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But it is a question that is often risen, should we or shouldn't we, based on this text.
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So my point is to simply say this, when it says a husband of one wife, the direct specific translation is a one woman man.
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In the vernacular, a one woman man speaks of his fidelity and his faithfulness to his wife.
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Is the man faithful to his wife? Now, here's the question that always Wright raises.
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Well, does that mean a divorced man cannot ever serve as an elder or a deacon? I'm not going to answer that question.
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We don't have that issue here at this moment.
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All of our elders have never been divorced.
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But it is a question that is raised because how it is translated in the King James is translated as husband of one wife.
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And if it's translated that way, it would have to be that he's never had a second wife of any kind.
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But here's what here's the here's my issue with translating it, husband of one wife.
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I've had people say, well, if a man's wife dies and thus he's a widow or and then he marries another woman, he is now the husband of two wives and can't serve as an elder.
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Do you think that's what Paul meant when he wrote? I don't.
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I wouldn't agree with that.
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But but you see what I'm saying is if you push to the to the to the logical necessity, if it absolutely means husband of one wife and that's all and it can't have any other meaning but that.
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Then if a man's wife dies and he marries another woman, well, he's a husband of two wives, he doesn't qualify.
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So that's something that has to be considered.
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Here.
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Yes, dear.
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I would have to look at the underlying Greek to see is that what you're saying about whether it says they must be men.
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I really wish I hadn't brought that issue up.
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I don't want to get into that.
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But the.
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The question is not whether deacons can be women.
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The question is whether or not women can serve in the role of servant and an office, and it would be a specific office of deaconess.
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That's not in the Bible, but that is what is argued for.
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And so they wouldn't normally argue that the person, the deacon is talking about a woman, but they would say that there are women who serve in the role.
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For instance, at the end of Romans 16, it talks about Phoebe and it calls her a deaconess.
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In Romans 16, one says, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess or servant, it says in the ESV.
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But if you look at the bottom, it's got a little number one next to the word servant.
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If you look at the bottom, it says or deaconess in the Church of Centuria.
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Again, I'm not I don't want to necessarily argue this tonight.
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My point is my my my initial point is the issue of the husband of one wife.
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I think that this speaks to the man's faithfulness.
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First, if somebody said, is this man faithful to his wife? If the answer to that is no, there ain't no way he can be an elder.
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What about if he's a loving wife as Christ loves the church? Yeah, absolutely.
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And that's what that's what I think Paul is saying here.
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The man who is in the office of the elder, the primary thing after he says above approach, the primary thing is he got to love his wife and he's got to be faithful to his wife.
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If there's any question about his fidelity to his wife, he is off the list.
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Now, how we deal with the issue of divorce and whether or not he was divorced prior to his conversion, that's another big question that comes up.
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What if he what if he had a divorce and then he got saved? Can we apply a requirement to an unsaved man? That's a big question that's often arisen.
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Like I said, I'm not here to solve the problem tonight.
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I'm here to present you with what I believe is the primary interpretation.
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The primary interpretation is this, that he is faithful to his wife.
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That doesn't solve all the issues of divorce and all that, that kind of stuff.
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But I will say this, the primary interpretation of Mian, Gunike and Andre, one woman man, is that the man who is being considered for the office of elder must be absolutely 1,000% committed to his wife.
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That he must love her as Christ loves the church.
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I would hope that if you could never say anything good about me, if you couldn't say anything else good about me, that you could say I love my wife.
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Now, I don't love her perfectly because only Christ loves her perfectly.
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But I want to be a close second.
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I want to love her just as good as anybody has ever loved her.
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That's what I want.
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And that's what any man who is a Christian man should want.
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What's interesting about these requirements is every one of these requirements could apply to any Christian man.
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Any Christian man should be a one woman man.
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Any Christian man should be faithful to his wife.
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Any Christian man should love his wife as Christ loves the church.
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The requirements of the office of the elder are simply the requirements of what it means to be a man.
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A Christian man.
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We should all hope to have those same moral requirements met.
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Now, the teaching requirement isn't met by every man.
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Not every man is gifted to that.
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But what I'm saying is the moral requirements is just what it means to be a man.
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Let's look at the second one.
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We looked at husband of one wife.
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The second one is sober mindedness.
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The thrust of the word, and I think it's translated this way in the King James, is temperate.
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Other translations use the word vigilant or watchful.
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First over himself, then over the flock.
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He is not one who allows his senses to be dulled or deceived by carelessness.
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He's focused on what's happening, especially in situations regarding the church, and he deals with them soberly.
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He's a vigilant, sober minded man.
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I want you to think about over the last, you know, however many years.
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Think about the times where big issues have faced our nation.
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And I've taken to the pulpit to address those issues, the Supreme Court rulings, things like that.
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Those really, even though I've done that a few times, have really been the exception to the rule, not the rule.
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There are some guys who preach their hobby horse all the time.
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Whether it's gay marriage or whatever, that's just all they ever talk about.
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And it's boom-da-da-boom-da-da.
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I'm going to find, I've got my favorite four subjects, and I'm going to preach those favorite four subjects.
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Every first Sunday's this, second Sunday's this, third Sunday's this.
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I'm just going to find a verse that goes with it.
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And they don't preach the Scriptures.
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They're not sober minded.
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They're driven by agendas or whatever else.
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They're not temperate.
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They're not sober minded.
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This person is to be one who is sober minded.
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And then it says, and the very next thing is self-controlled.
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Self-controlled.
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Sophron is the Greek.
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It means to be prudent.
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And it's very close.
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Sober minded and self-controlled are very similar because they both speak to how he manages himself in a wise way.
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An elder must be characterized both by being reasonable and straightforward.
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In his judgments, he must show wisdom.
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A person who's fickle, unstable, always flying off at the handle, doesn't yet qualify.
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It doesn't mean he never will.
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God may mature him out of that.
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And, you know, that can happen.
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Men can be, men can grow in the spirit.
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But this is something that needs to be there.
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This is part of that moral requirement.
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Yes, sir.
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I have seen it too.
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I have seen men get very angry.
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And I want to, and I will admit, you know, as I was a young man when I started, I was 21 when I preached my first sermon, my first real sermon in the pulpit on a Sunday.
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I was 24 when I was, when I graduated the first time.
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I was 25 when I first started preaching every Sunday.
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I was 20, and I was still 25 when I was called to be the pastor here.
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And I have matured, hopefully, a lot since then.
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But, you know, there were times in my youth where I would get upset.
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And I'm thankful to God that he has given me ability to overcome some of that.
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And I am glad that he did overcome a lot of that before I ever became a pastor.
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You know, in my youth, I was somewhat hot-headed.
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And I still am passionate.
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Don't get me wrong.
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There is, there is, I hope that you understand that this is an important thing.
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And it's worth being passionate over.
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Paul was passionate too.
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I remember one night, I remember one night specifically with our former pastor who I had a disagreement with over a theological matter.
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And I went into his office, and I was very upset.
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Because he preached something that was incorrect.
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And I said something to him about it.
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And he said, why are you so upset? I said, this is the Word of God.
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If there is anything in the world that I should have the ability to at least be a little upset about, it's you preaching wrong about the Word of God.
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And, but I probably, looking back at it, I probably was a little overzealous.
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I'll be honest.
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But it was a serious matter.
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It was serious.
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It was the Word of God that was being mishandled.
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But anyhow, that's what this is talking about.
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And that's why I do think that a young man who is called into the ministry can learn a lot from older men who have been there longer, who have been in it longer.
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Because part of going through the fights and going through the frustrations helps develop patience.
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James has already told us this in James chapter 1.
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You know, these things that we go through develop patience in us.
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And thus, when something does come up, you don't automatically just immediately put your claws out and your hair and, you know, get like a cat ready to fight.
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You say, okay, it's all going to be okay.
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We've got to work together and work through this.
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You know.
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Let's look at the word respectable and then we'll draw to a close.
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We'll look at respectable and hospitable because these are the positives.
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Then it goes to the negatives.
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And that's, I'm going to put a mark there.
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That's where we'll start next time.
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I do apologize.
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I'm not going to give you the answers to your little sheets.
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If you want to turn them back in and hold them until next time, you can.
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Or you can hold on to them and put them in your Bibles.
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But respectable.
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Cosmos.
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It's the same, not the same word exactly, but it's a similar word of the word cosmos.
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And the word cosmos in the Greek, it means, you know what the cosmos is, right? Do you know why they call it the cosmos? It's because it's arranged.
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It's orderly.
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Cosmos or cosmos means to be ordered or arranged where you get the word cosmetic.
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What do you do when you make a cosmetic change? You make it look better, right? You take something that may have a problem.
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You make a cosmetic surgery to fix something that's out of order.
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Well, a respectable man is a man who is well arranged.
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It means that he has his life in order.
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The word that really could be put there is a man of integrity.
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You know what the word integrity means? It means to be together.
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Think about the word disintegrate.
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What does it mean when you see something disintegrate? It means it flies apart, right? What is the root word of disintegrate? Integrity.
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Disintegrate.
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To separate.
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Disintegrate.
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Integrity means he's held together.
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That's what respectable is.
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A man whose life isn't all over the place.
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But it's focused and respectable.
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He has it together.
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What do you say when you see somebody? You say, man, he has it together.
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What do you say about somebody who doesn't? Man, he's falling apart.
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That's the difference.
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The elder shouldn't be a man who's falling apart.
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Not necessarily physically, because we're all going to fall apart physically one day.
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But morally, shouldn't be a man who's falling apart.
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And the last positive, because he goes after this to the negatives.
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Not drunkard, not violent, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
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We'll talk about those next time.
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But the last positive is hospitable.
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Hospitable.
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And I love this word in the Greek.
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Philoxenos.
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Philoxenos means a lover of outsiders.
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Philo is the Greek word for love.
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It's one of the several words for love in the Greek.
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And xenos is an outsider.
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You ever heard the word xenophobia? Xenophobia is a fear of outsiders.
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A fear of people who are different.
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Well, Philoxenos means you love them.
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You love people who are outsiders.
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An elder should be a man who's open to welcoming people in.
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He's welcoming to new strangers to come and to love them and to encourage them.
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And that's part of his job.
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He shouldn't be one who's separated from that.
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But his home and his church are open.
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And he makes that.
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Huh? Paul? Our Paul.
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Our Paul, yeah.
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Yes.
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Yeah, he welcomes everybody at the door.
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That's right.
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He's very welcoming.
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That's true.
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So, those are some of the positive aspects.
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Again, I intended to do this all as one lesson.
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But since you guys are so willing to allow me to press it to another lesson, we'll take a second week in two weeks.
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Because next week, Walter will be here.
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Next week, we'll probably meet in the sanctuary.
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Because I don't know how many people will be here.
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But rather than trying to fill this room, we'll just have it in the sanctuary.
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Maybe.
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I don't know.
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We'll see.
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We'll see how many come.
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But...
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Do you have an idea? I thought you were raising your hand.
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Okay.
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Alright.
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So, this ends tonight's lesson.
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I hope this was helpful to you.
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I hope that...
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This study always does me good.
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Because, again, as an elder, I like to be reminded of what God calls me to.
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And I want you guys to hold me accountable to these things.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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Help us to be ever faithful to it.
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In Jesus' name.
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Amen.