Stewards of the Mystery

This morning we're going to be in 1 Corinthians 4, the first five verses. Yet I am not by this acquitted, but the one who examines me is the

Lord. Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the

Lord comes who will bring both to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of hearts.

And then each one's praise will come to him from God. Let's pray. Lord you see all things and you have made man in your own image and in your image we desire justice

Lord as we we reflect the glory that you've given to us and Lord we are impatient sometimes and we judge wrongly we judge rashly and Lord we don't wait and so I pray this morning that we would understand righteous judgment that we would understand the way that you've instituted the church and Lord that there would be understanding of how we fit into this and how we can work faithfully or give clarity to my words and help us to be hearers and doers of the word it's in your name

I pray amen so we're back in Corinthians we took a little bit of a detour last week this is a this is a technical text this morning you probably gathered that as I read it and with technical text as you come to them and you're and you're asking what is this about what does it mean why is this here it becomes even more important for us to remember and to examine the context that these verses come from so let's back up and look at first Corinthians with kind of a 10 ,000 mile view or 50 ,000 foot view whichever it is

I can't remember it had be outer space 10 ,000 miles wouldn't it a little too far we have to remember in this letter that Paul is delivering admonishment to the church there are a lot of things going wrong in the church they are they are judging wrongly they are showboating they are not loving one another the church service is out of order there's false doctrine that's made its way in there's just a lot of problems and what happens is and I try to do this as you read this through the week as you read first Corinthians especially what you're gonna see next week and as we get into chapters 5 through 15

I want you to imagine the Apostle Paul coming in front of the congregation or sending this letter and having his man read this to the people where every person in that room knows that he is talking about them and he is delivering this kind of instruction so what would happen naturally is as you are sitting next to a man who is having sexual relationship with his stepmother and you have all of these lawsuits flying around that you know who's suing you who and Paul is bringing this to their attention there is going to be opposition to him we know this we know human nature and we know that when we get nailed to the wall on something in our sin and in our hardness of heart we will be defensive and we will attack the one who points it out and so Paul knows that his directions here are going to be questioned he anticipates that and that context is crucial to this morning and we have to we have to realize that Paul's gonna have to answer the question what gives you the right what allows him to be able to have this position to ask these questions and then he foresees another

Avenue Paul the Apostle who always gives his credentials I am the Apostle of God I am a messenger

I have been taught by Christ for three years in the desert but if Paul is questioned how much more is the church going to question guys like Apollos or guys like Timothy and today guys like me right there's nothing special about me there's a lot special about Paul and yet there is a gift that's entrusted and there is a position of elder and what people what we have learned is that we have much of the debris that we have in the

American church today because elders are afraid to do precisely the thing that Paul does for the church at Corinth and he does it as we'll find out soon because he loves them because he sees them as his spiritual children and he cares a great deal and if you see your kid doing destructive things they're gonna bring ruin and damage their life you intervene and you stop them and so that's what he's doing so in this text this morning we have a lot of questions and one of the things that should jump out right away is that this church is not judging rightly in some cases they're not judging at all that would be the case of the sexual deviant in their midst where they don't even want to deal with it they defer judgment they also defer judgment against each other to the civil magistrate which brings embarrassment on the church but in some cases they like to judge and they like to judge quickly and they like to judge based on the motives of heart and they do it without evidence and I think that we'll see we we see this problem persist today in the church sometimes not judging at all when we should and sometimes judging without evidence and destroying people's lives without the benefit of having testimony so let's dive into it we see first we have to define a word we have to understand what

Paul is talking about and that word is the servant or steward we see in verse 1 that Paul says that he and his compadres are to be considered as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God this opens up a couple of questions what is the servant of Christ and this steward and what are the mysteries of God he's been telling us a lot about the mysteries of God and we'll look into that but let's first consider the word servant it's a very interesting word

I don't do this often so you'll see the importance of unlocking it right this word servant this is the only time that Paul uses this word in Greek in any of his writing it is used often in the

Gospels and is a generic word that basically means employee it's an employee he's an employee of Christ but then

I think that what he is doing is showing on dual hands he uses grandiose language with the steward of this mystery which implies an oikonomos which is the butler this would be like the household manager so the idea would be that the owner is

Jesus and the owner and trust all of this valuable information and the goods of the house and the resources of the house to the steward who then dispenses it out wisely to the people to carry out the business of the house that's the idea that Paul is trying to come across so on the one hand he uses this word for servant that would be like a run -of -the -mill employee so in one sense an elder like Apollos or like Timothy in one sense they're an ordinary employee of Jesus Christ just like everybody is who's in the faith but in another sense they have been given stewardship of this highly valuable mystery and they are to manage the use of it manage how the resources are given out and manage how the work of the church or the work of the household is going to be accomplished

I don't think these words are at odds I think they are synonyms and they start to build the picture of both how a steward or an elder is an ordinary man but he is an ordinary man who has been called to do a very important job and that job requires having some authority so the idea here is we have to wrap this in we have to say well is

Paul only talking about himself is he only talking about himself and Apollos no

I don't think so because when we harmonize with verses that we read this morning in Hebrews when we look at how

Titus is commissioned to go raise up elders in Crete we will see this idea that there has been a passing of the torch because in first Peter he also describes himself as an apostle but also as an elder or an overseer so the idea is that this faith has been given to the

Apostles to teach and to clarify and to make a deposit and the deposit goes to overseers and then the overseers manage the household and steward these things these mysteries there is a there is a picture that Paul gave us in the previous chapter in verses 5 through 7 of chapter 3 where he talks about farmers and builders and he gives this idea he says what then is

Apollos and what is Paul this would be that servant language right they are employees of Christ servants through whom you believed even as the

Lord gave to each one I planted Apollos watered but God was causing the growth so then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth there is a real there's a there's a real friction that we have to deal with this morning we live in a liberal egalitarian culture probably the most egalitarian culture that's existed we have perfected flattened hierarchies and democracy where everyone's the exact same we're a big old blob of humanity don't tell me

I can't do what you can do and here's the the simple all you have to do this this idea it's like a bubble and all it takes is just a little thing to pop it and we know these things inherently no matter how bad

I wanted to be no matter how hard I worked my entire life could I have ever been an

NBA player and the answer is definitively no why not

I don't have the ability we're not all the same right and so this idea that we have to fight with is that there has been a pervasive thing in the church that's come in just like in the family where there is no hierarchy between husband and wife we're all the same and it goes into the church there's no difference between us we're all the same and elders

I can I can hear myself saying I'm just a man I'm just right and it's true in one sense but then there is another sense where there is a holy job that's been given to an overseer and he has to labor in and build while understanding that if the

Lord doesn't build the house all of his work is in vain he doesn't accomplish anything and I ask myself often the question and I'll say it rhetorically but I believe it who's building this thing anyway who's doing it and the answer is this when we sit here and I look back at June of 2023 two years ago and it jumps out at me that you guys sitting in here this morning and the work that's been done in this place it is so far beyond me and it's so far beyond any imagination that I could have had that what

I have to do is I have to understand and I have to go back and say you know Josh may have watered but I didn't grow anything

I have no ability no more than I can with my willpower make a corn seed sprout into a plant can

I make a church grow I can't do it and so we look at this there is a steward there is an importance and this language of the steward the servant and the mystery it brings up a huge amount of questions for us it gets technical and the household hierarchy is extended to the church and that is this

Jesus is clearly the head and the chief cornerstone of the church he is the direction he is the stone that holds it all together if he's gone it falls apart and if he's gone it goes off in a crooked direction and if you've ever been in a crooked building you'll understand you feel weird when you even walk in the place even if it's an inch off it feels strange you're walking across the floor the windows are cockeyed don't look at that one back there too closely okay that sort of thing and when

Jesus is the cornerstone what that does is it sets a direction for builders to come in and work off of that cornerstone or that foundation stone and to set the wall in the right direction we don't get to decide the direction

Jesus has decided it Jesus has laid it out and what we do is we labor according to what he has given us and he has set out so he is the head and the chief cornerstone and then overseers are the managers of the house they have authority they take care of the house and they run the economy of the house they can do that by empowering others but they definitely do that by handling this mystery the theology the idea of revelation that God has given through his word and it brings to us earthly and physical obligations the owner will hold his manager accountable just like if the house is in disarray there's a there's a story

I love it's dear to our family it's called Poldark there's it's about a guy who he goes off to war in America in the late 1700s he's in Britain he's on the wrong side and he his dad dies while he's over there and when he comes back he finds his home in complete disarray and the problem was there was a household manager and so what the character does is he finds the household manager laying on the floor drunk with a bunch of animals in the building and so he dumps water on him over and over again and runs him out of the house things are going to have to change and that is the danger of this position is that there are responsibilities and obligations on the overseer that we are going to be held accountable for we have to administer the physical duties of the church to set all the things in order if there is disorganization if there's disarray ultimately the overseers are responsible for that and God will hold us accountable and so mainly there's the physical part is things have to be in order that is the service that is communion that is the songs that is what we do ministry wise but there is also much more importantly a distribution of spiritual gifts to identify and empower in the household and Corinthians has much to say about this and we will get there and a church that is strong is a church where every member of the church understands that they provide something to the body that no one else can they've been given a duty and a spiritual gift and the job of the overseer is to recognize empower and encourage so that they will go out and exercise those gifts to the good of the body and to the good of the kingdom and we are responsible for that you for your part but me for the greater part see it's a good thing we know this it's a good thing to aspire to be an overseer but understand that it brings tremendous potential for both blessings and cursings because not only the works of the overseer but also the motivation of the overseer is going to be judged

God knows in the inner man why

I'm doing this he knows you don't my wife doesn't sometimes in the sinfulness of sin even

I don't but God knows and he's not fooled so if it's for money if it's for power if it's for some kind of selfless prestige thing if it's just to know a bunch of information about a people

God's gonna know that and I will be judged accordingly see Paul says in in chapter 9 he would say

I if I do this voluntarily I have a reward but if against my will I have a stewardship entrusted to me and this is a thing

I've tried I can't say it as eloquently as Paul but I can tell you this there was a calling on my life and the reality is

I could do this voluntarily and reap a reward or I can do it like being dragged behind me and even still

I'm going to be accountable for it because God has demanded that I do it and I'm responsible for the results whether I want to do it or not and friends many times

I don't want to do it because I'm given to laziness and given to want to just check out and it's the truth so that's question number one what is the hierarchy we have a situation where a church that's out of order is gonna have overseers who are not doing their job it always works that way church out of order overseer gonna be held accountable by God they should be afraid and if they're not they're fool and we have many fools inhabiting the cloaks of overseers today the second question out of this one verse is what are the mysteries of God that are going to be distributed what is that mystery that we're stewarding well there's a few aspects of this one of them we sang about think about it the

Son of God begotten but not created the Word of God made flesh these are things the human mind can't really understand what do you mean the word made flesh the word is these are like things in there that you hear sound waves right or ink how was that made flesh but there's another aspect and that is what

Paul is usually talking about when he talks about the mysteries of God is the things that the prophets searched out but we're in the shadows

Peter comes in to help him out and he says concerning this salvation all of this which is what

Corinthians are out remember the foolishness and weakness of God is the salvation and it's the power of God to those who are being saved by it

Peter says concerning this salvation the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries inquiring to know what time or what kind of time the spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow

I imagine Isaiah and I imagine Jeremiah and I imagine King David I imagine

Nathan the prophet I imagine Moses digging into what

God had told them thinking about it praying pleading with God God help me to understand and the spirit of God within them was driving them to write these things down to speak to Kings to write songs to have these words and yet it was a shadow and there was pieces of it that were coming into view and these men of God of old these great patriarchs and these great prophets they desired more than we can imagine to know what the plan of God was but it was a shadow and they could have never understood begotten but not created they wrote these things not knowing what would happen until the light of God came at Advent and we started to see the gospel of Christ revealed

Paul writes in Romans 16 now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preachings of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long past ages see the cross of Christ did something that the old prophets could not have really understood and that is this it opened up the

Holy of Holies where we have complete access to the King of Kings unimaginable to those men they would have thought that you were a blasphemer by even suggesting something like that and yet the veil was torn as we learned last week in Hebrews 8 but there is no going back because what would you go back to the crude the crude tabernacle or the temple that's in heaven see the obsolete old system that Hebrews 8 talked about it pointed to the grace of God but the substance was veiled in the shadow of priests mediators and the law as a jail cell

Galatians 3 tells us but before faith came we were held in custody under the law being shut up for the coming faith to be revealed there was a system grace was demonstrated nationally and there was a fault in the

Old Covenant because men of the same nationality of the same race they had to be in that country to be of God right you had to be of the

Hebrews to be of God if you left out of one of the pagan nations you had to go in there that's the mystery and it blew people's minds the

New Testament if the doors popped wide open and all of these Gentiles started coming into the faith they were entering the holiest places without even being circumcised and this rattled the cage you can't imagine what turbulence there would have been in the first century it would have been confusing it would have been terrifying the way

God had dealt with man for thousands of years changed but here's the thing whenever the

Son of God condescends to be a man and dies a death on a cross and raises from the dead and ascends into the sky that's going to change some things and it did see the shocking this is the other aspect of the mystery right is the shocking revelation that God's chosen people were always chosen by faith instead of by lineage that's a thing we take for granted today as Enlightenment liberals we hate talking about lineage and race we love talking about your ideas our ideas make us equal but here's the thing this idea was perplexing in the first century

Romans 11 for I do not want you brothers to be uninformed of this mystery so that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles has come in door was flung wide open and these riches these riches of this mystery were given to overseers to give to the people and they were to bring these things to bear with the many issues that came up in the church and that's where we're about done with 120 minutes in right we got five points we're doing good this morning so let's ask a few rhetorical questions here but I want you to think of them in your mind number one does having access daily to the

Son of God through his Holy Spirit affect your battle with sin does it does the removal of iniquity and your status as a child of God have any effect on your marriage and your family does having one with accountability to God being there to counsel you in spiritual matters change your view of living out the

Christian faith do you avail yourself to the resources that God has given you does it matter that you will be called to imitate the life of your overseer can you swallow that pill or do

I sound arrogant when I say that you should imitate me spiritually and you should take the food that's given and you should take the distributions of the household that come from the owner that are delivered through his under shepherd and that you should live your life according to those things see

God can make you do it I can't but you're still going to be held accountable for how you deal with the counsel spiritual counsel of your overseer and the accountability comes on me to not overstep the bounds there's a huge amount of authority in a very small area for overseers of the church that's the truth so let's move on how was joking about the five points the faithfulness and conscious of the steward so we talk and we start turning and looking at what it what

Paul anticipates he says is required of stewards that one be found faithful they have to be trustworthy many churches are destroyed from untrustworthy overseers and they can do that in many ways they can do it by stealing money they can do it by sexual immorality they can do it by being liars and pleasers of men ear ticklers they can do it by being afraid to deal with problems that are plaguing the sheep and hurting the sheep they can do it by disrupting and destroying families with their grading hobby horse third -tier doctrines where they cut

Christians out of the kingdom over matters that Christians can disagree about and did you know that there are many issues that Christians can disagree about and it should not make our blood boil we should understand that we're dealing with family members in unity of the

Holy Spirit and that we can sharpen each other iron sharpens iron through friction we can be okay with that we're not going to die it's not even like getting spanked it's just having a conversation and no one's gonna die words are not violence okay the steward has to be found trustworthy but then the question comes in and that's what this text is about found faithful by who and by what standard and the answer this is obvious they are found faithful by the owner which is the one that matters and if they are faithful to the owner then they are by definition faithful and this is why it's a small matter to him to be judged by the

Corinthians because it doesn't matter what their warped judgment was because if God finds him faithful then he is faithful and what is the standard that is the requirements of the law and we have those for elders we see the qualifications in first Timothy and Titus we see them throughout the

New Testament when we look at the ministry of the Apostles and how these men were and if your overseers don't look like that then you should pray to God that they would repent or be removed in shame and disgrace that is the line that we walk and so Paul was not worried about being examined by the church or any human court why is it because he's arrogant no it's because he hadn't done anything wrong and what is the answer

God sees everything God can send a man to hell and damn the eternal soul what can you do to me that's the question what can you do

Paul knew that there was nothing against his own conscience but then his own conscience is not the arbiter of whether he's faithful or not

God is and God's law is see the church or the human court you guys the human court no one can do anything of note to us compared to what

God will do to the dishonest manager that is the office that I've stepped into and that is this that the judgment for me will be tricky on judgment day if there's thorny stuff and as a man who

I looked up to fell in the last month what he said is he knows that when he comes to the father that he will not be told well done good and faithful servant for his job as an overseer because he brought disgrace to the church but he hopes that he will be found good and faithful steward as a sheep because his faith is in Christ it's a dangerous thing it's a terrifying thing and what we say is you'll hear it listen the fear of God is so gone in our culture that you'll hear things like this you'll hear well who are you accountable to Josh in the real answer the overreaching answer is

God I am accountable to God and what you'll hear that as is he's accountable to no one and the reason you will hear that is because bad crooked perverse men have used that without the fear of God in their hearts and they have blasphemed the name of God and taken him in vain so that they can hoodwink the sheep and fleece the sheep and the fire will be hot for them friends it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

God and no one will be judged more harshly than the one who is a steward of the household who steals from the house so yes in a very real sense my accountability is before God may

I not blaspheme his name by saying so in the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God we should be afraid of God what can

God do will God take the abuse of his law lightly will

God take the fleecing and the molesting of his precious people lightly no he will not he will not so understand this these two there's there's a friction here and two things have to be true one is this the elder must not fear the judgment of even his own church but he has to fear

God the elder must not fear the world only God and we know why that sounds weird is because it's been used the way

I described but even our own conscience as elders has to be kept clean but it's not the end we read it in Acts 20 be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood is

God gonna take it lightly we should be very afraid

Corey very afraid God is not going to take it lightly when you when you mess with the people that are described this way and you understand this

I give I try to give the church a hammer all the time on us and I'm gonna give you a few here I want you to identify how do you know when the elders in sin it's in the dark for a long time isn't it before these things come out let me give you some things to look for an elder who is in sin by definition is going to have a conscience that's not clean he knows what he's doing and he is suppressing the truth and unrighteousness and it's gonna start leaching out like acid from a corroded battery and here's what you're gonna see he is going to try to hide from God's law or project other areas of God's law so he will redirect you to other acceptable sins he will diminish some and hide in others and buy in the ones that he's gonna hide in are the ones that he's not involved with he is going to point out others bad behavior to avoid focus it is very easy for an elder to look out and to slam other elders across town to make you believe that we are the holy chosen ones with white robes and there's no one else out there who's doing what we're doing and the reason he might be doing that is because he is trying to redirect attention from his own filthy conscience he will minimize certain actions he will blame shift when you catch him on something he'll turn it around on you and he will use what

God has given him which is this stewardship of the mystery to make you feel like an idiot for what you observed don't be fooled by that don't let him be a fast talker don't let him

Jesus juke you and pull a bunch of verses out of context and make you feel like you're one inch tall sin is sin and our five -year -olds know he's going to use his position to shield and to insulate himself he will build a merry band of yes men and he will withdraw from the congregation and no one will ever call him on anything because he's too important to hold to account he might get mad he might blow up the church by getting mad good the church needs to be blown up if you have an elder like that the lamp needs to be taken away he will twist

God's Word to his own certain destruction should be afraid should be a very afraid so what does this mean accountable to God only yes in an ultimate sense yes but we are

Baptist here and there is wise polity that keeps place and I think that what we do is as we look at the last verse there's two edges of a coin here because again

Paul is looking out and he's saying there's gonna be a couple of types of judgment so let's look at a balance here and we do have a balancing verse he says it is a small thing to be judged by you

I almost hear him in a mocking voice and the mockery is coming in chapter 4 if you've read ahead okay but then he also says it's anathema to anyone preaching a false gospel so the church has some responsibility for dealing with false teachers right and then we get the legal standard in 1st

Timothy about when you should bring charges against an elder so yeah accountable to God but the church does not have to sit there and relentlessly put up with a man who is exhibiting terrible behavior let's read the verse and we're gonna tear it apart therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time but wait until the

Lord comes who will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of hearts and then each one's praise will come to him from God so can the congregant say boo are you just locked in you signed a blood oath of covenant membership

I know more than you you're wrong is that the way it works no no but here's here's the thing every man can be judged and should be judged rightly and the judgment that comes rightly is never about motivations it's always about evidence we are not

God and we presume judge not lest ye be judged that is talking about the kind of judgment

Paul is talking about here which is the judgment that's unrighteous to make because we can't know

God can judge in a way that we can't because he knows everything there is nothing hidden to God there is a lot into us and we cannot judge people based on our gut feelings about them we cannot judge people based on their associations we cannot judge people based on their tone and we cannot judge people based on I saw this happen over there but I don't know what they said and we also can't judge people to hell or qualification based on secondary and tertiary doctrinal arguments so let's harmonize the two things first Timothy 5 19 through 20 we probably haven't thought about this enough do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses those who continue in sin reprove in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful you ever seen this do we think that elders don't sin do elders not sin observably in Baptist churches have you ever seen one brought up before the congregation evidence laid out and they refuse to repent and they're defrocked in front of the church are we to believe that in the last hundred years we have figured it out no obviously we are sinning obviously and obviously the church has lost its order and whose fault is that let's go back to verse 1 right whose fault is that it's the overseers fault because the path has been laid out for us see the judgment of overseers can be present and it must be based on observable evidence not on intuition or vibes can't be

I thought he was a little harsh in that one no you don't get to make that evaluation okay for disqualification we have areas here look if you see me sinning

I want you to come to me as a brother and tell me about my sin we're talking about disqualifying sins that require two or three witnesses that are going to be brought up in front of the congregation why so that people would be afraid and so that I would be afraid but if you see me sinning come to me and let's reason if you find me to be a stubborn goat and hard -hearted and bring a witness and if you still find me to be stubborn then you call a meeting and you bring your evidence because I would love to have the chastisement of the congregation as a means of grace to keep me from stumbling into hellfire instead of holding on to a position for whatever reason my dirty heart can think of for disqualification the sin has to be brought by two or three witnesses the severity has to be there along with repentance we know these adultery crime putting one in a reproachful position but also hard -hearted refusal to repent can escalate to this level and disqualification does not always have to be permanent it can be for a time it depends an elder can come back after months off if he has repented and the congregation is willing to follow him as a man who is above reproach and I'm going to tell you guys something repentance is something that people who love

Christ do the lack of repentance though can always disqualify no matter how insignificant the sin seems to be we also know from this text being quick to judge that we have to be careful about elders and saying these words and we are so bad about this in the reform camp let me lay these on you heretic false teacher hireling these words get thrown around like water in our camps

I've been called two of the three myself okay we cannot do these things based on gut feelings they have to be based on demonstrable evidence they can't be based on I think this is why you did this it can't be that in many cases in many cases there can be a failure to repent and then it goes nowhere because here's the position we hold as elders especially in reform churches is what we'll do is we'll say no you're wrong and here's my verses and you're like yeah but but you you lied right no you don't understand what

I'm talking about and if you tell anybody you're a divider and you're doing the work of Satan this is how this game works okay and when you start doing that what you understand is the one who is telling the truth is never dividing do you understand this people if you are telling the truth it is not divisive to bring the truth to light that is doing the work of the

Holy Spirit Christ he is the way the truth and the life and truth is not at odds with love and truth is not at odds with unity there can only be true unity around the truth if we are hiding sins and trying to make people's position more comfortable or it's just gonna be it real uncomfortable nobody listen let me dispel nobody except psychopaths wants to go to a members meeting and have a big fight nobody wants to do that it's gonna be ugly it's gonna be messy and friends if we want to have a healthy church that's on mission that has to be a threat in this place it must be there's no option we're gonna judge angels someday can we not judge amongst ourselves we're required to see the failure to understand church discipline or to or even if we're so much worse when we do understand it and then we don't practice it it's led to a well -earned mistrust in elders today and it's led to a lot of slinging mud and unfounded accusations the elder needs to be able to not be burdened by critics who will always be there they are of small concern

I'm gonna have critics Corrie will have critics they are of small concern the reality is are we walking with God we have to adhere to the teacher to the to the scripture and listen in here there are secondary and tertiary doctrines that are off limits to us as elders in this church because as a church we have agreed to abide by a statement of beliefs that is the 1689 if I go outside of the 1689 it might be an area that Christians can disagree with but as an elder of this church

I am not permitted to preach that doctrine if I go paid -o -baptist in here and decide that we should be baptizing our babies

I cannot be an elder at this church anymore does that mean I'm not a Christian no but I'm outside the guidelines that we have agreed on doctrinally so we have to understand the categories and the distinction but see unrepentant first -tier errors should cause disqualification this is

Trinity the nature of salvation the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the Saints the inerrancy of Scripture these are judged explicitly based on the words not where I think the conclusions of these things go right so with Lutheran's view of baptism with our minions this sort of thing we can't judge them based on where we think the logical conclusion of their doctrine goes we have to judge them based on what they say and what they say is within the bounds of what

Christians can disagree on so be careful about throwing these dangerous words around it's important now the last part that's how we judge as men we have to judge as men and we have to judge based on evidence but there is also an inescapable judgment of God so listen

I'm gonna be laid bare before the throne of God he is going to look at my my actions he's going to look at how

I led this church how I led my family and he is going to know every thought that I had every motive I had every time

I thought ill of a church member for no reason every time I thought good and he is going to give a reward voluntarily and he is going to bring chastisement but it will not be unto death it will be discipline and it will be the final discipline and hopefully my driving goal in life is to leave nothing on the field and lay all the crowns of Jesus feet the

King I want to lay as many as I can on him because he's worthy of it but there is a judgment coming and this is why the balance is there you are limited and hand -tied by how you judge your elders it has to be on observable evidence but the reason for that is elders have to on one hand be very bold because we are going to have to rebuke you we are gonna have to get into your face and we're gonna have uncomfortable conversations we have them all the time and you have to understand that we love you but we also have to tell you the truth but on the other hand we have to fear

God we do not dispense eternal justice and there's no such thing as eternal injustice do you understand that when the bad guys seem to be getting away with it there is no such thing as injustice eternally

God sees it all and an injustice may seem to reign today but that is going to be clear and show

God's patience and forbearance someday and we will glorify him understand this friends when injustice reigns and you see bad behavior in the church understand that even the bad guys are not hampering the work of Jesus they're not getting in the way at all in fact they're amplifying it all things work for good to those who love

Christ and all things work for good to Christ okay he is not taken by surprise we judge dimly today and so we should not be hasty we can't know motivations we can't we have to trust the justice of God all right so let's leave it with this thought and this is how we walk away there is a way here that Paul is talking about and it is the way that has to be followed to provide us with elders that are worthy of imitation in the spiritual and character domains look

I'm a liberal too I'm egalitarian it's like being a feminist if I was to talk to our church fathers they would be surprised if I had a hair that's not blue okay we are so feminist and so liberal and here's what here's what

I can tell you these things are hard for us it's hard for me to say look nobody knows their faults

I know my faults I know my sins but here's the thing we know scripturally that it's not about being a perfect man but there has to be a man of character that's worth imitating and young men

I want I want Noah I want Noah to be like me and I want Abby and Charlotte and Elizabeth to be like me and I want you to grow spiritual like me that's what

I want and I have to say this boldly you have to imitate me as I imitate Christ now what's that gonna look like number one and this is a tough one

I have to not be a weak man who fears men cannot be afraid of men if I'm afraid of men

I'm no good to you at all I'm not gonna tell you the truth I'm gonna cloak it and I'm not gonna tell you when you got something going on cannot be afraid of men number two

I have to teach sound doctrine have to that's the instruction of Paul to Titus you have to give hygienic doctrine it has to cause health and families not destruction sound doctrine is the mark of a good elder and then the character is there and then here's the thing when those two things are clicking when they're not weak men who fear men when they are leading their house well and they are a good character and they teach sound doctrine you should follow them let me add something that makes me profoundly uncomfortable you should thank

God for them one of the things I found with the vision of the church here and trying to plant churches is that friends elders don't grow on trees okay we know him when we see him

God raises men up and we are praying that he will but it is a thing that we don't want to be too hasty about because you enter into danger and you have to be able to look at a people and say please imitate the way

I'm walking with Christ and by God's grace I'll continue to be able to do that and by God's grace

Cory will be able to do that and by God's grace there will be more men who are able to lead in that way let's pray for that as I ask you to pray for us this week then to continue to keep us in your prayers that we would not fall and that we would not make a disgrace of the gospel let's pray

Lord Jesus you you unveiled a mystery the mystery of the faith that is open to all people

Lord that we are saved by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit and that you have opened up the high places to us the the temple the holy of holies that we can come into your presence with confidence because we do that on the basis of your work and who you are and Lord you have appointed weak men

Paul described it as as clay earthen vessels that were fragile that held a surpassing beautiful treasure and Lord I'd I'd feel the frailness and the weakness in the sin that so easily bogs us down or in the cares of the world that weaken us

Lord my desire is to throw those things off or I pray for our church

I pray that we would not be afraid of man but that we would hold each other accountable so that sin would gain no foothold in this place

Lord I pray that we would have unity around the truth Lord I pray that you would keep me and keep

Corey faithful or that we would be men worthy of imitation not because of anything that we bring to the table but entirely because of what you've done and your calling and the responsibility and accountability you've laid on us or it is no small thing and I'm I'm probably not as aware as I should be of the judgment that comes but Lord I do fear you and that's because you have revealed yourself and I know you and Lord what a thing it is to know you