Elders and the Vision of Covenant Baptist Church

We're gonna be in a couple of places this morning, but if you want to put your fingers in a couple of spots We got

Titus 1 We've got 1st Timothy 3 4 5 & 6 and we got a little bit of Hebrews 13

Sprinkled in just a little bit just a tiny bit. So don't get nervous Brady We're gonna we're gonna read out of Titus 1.

I think this is my favorite Explanation of elders because it is simple and right to the point and I think there's a lot to draw out of it

We're gonna pick it up in verse 5 of Titus 1 the Word of God says for this reason

I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in Every city as I directed you namely if any man is beyond reproach the husband of one wife having faithful children

Who are not accused of dissipation or rebellious for the overseer must be beyond reproach as God's steward

Not self -willed not quick -tempered not addicted to wine not pugnacious not fond of dishonest gain

But hospitable loving what is good sensible righteous holy self -controlled holding fast the faithful word

Which is in accordance with the teaching so that he will be able to both exhort and sound doctrine and to reprove those who contradict

Let's pray Lord we do. Thank you so much for your word that You do not leave us to figure it out for ourselves

How the church is organized that you have given us blueprints that you've given us a plan because Lord you are the great commander that you've sent the church on the

Great Commission and That that authority of the church is the authority that's bested in you that you are the king of all creation

That you do have all authority and on heaven and on the earth and that is every bit of the authority everywhere

So Lord, I pray that we would be a church that strives to walk according to what you have said that that plans and Strategizes based on the blueprints that you've laid out for us that we would not stray from that Lord Help us to interpret your word correctly help us to cut it straight help this sermon to To comply with sound doctrine or that's free of any blemish

That's straight and not crooked and I pray that we would be a church that takes that to heart and that we go on that Mission together with your grace and your blessings.

Amen The church in America, it's it's a thing that you will hear me

Talk about a lot because we are in a sad state if you if you look around our country seems to be falling apart

There's there's talks of Civil war there's talks of you know Jailing prominent politicians and in the meanwhile, you have very little voice coming from Pastors you have very little voice in the culture that comes from the church

Herself because what the church has done is she's taken herself out of the game in this country And that's been going on for a long time.

I think that today in this sermon I have a couple of couple of main things that I'm trying to accomplish

One of those is to teach on the proper structure and the proper

Way that the church is supposed to go and where we've missed our mark but then the main point the big thing that I want to come away with today is what we need to do as a congregation to Comply with that to have our elders held accountable to have godly men who are with Titus 1

But also where we have a congregation that can hold those men accountable and where we look Where we look inside and outside To see where we raise up and where we measure up to the bar of what

God's laid out for us and where we fall short In order to do that we have to know what God's Word says and as Bart discussed last week

We have problems with deacons. I think I think nationwide We really just don't even know what deacons are supposed to be doing and and so I really appreciate

I think Bart brought a lot Of clarity to that out of the word But we're we're deacons

We have a mystery where we make them sometimes elders or sometimes we make them the deacon of sound and all that kind of stuff

With elders we have a much more dangerous problem and and the problem that we have with elders is that we we look at them as either being just another guy or we look at them as being someone that's supposed to be charismatic to get people in the seats or we'll look at them as someone who's supposed to appeal to the world and make the church winsome and make the church able to go out and bring the lost in and Because of that because what we've done in America is we have taken away the idea of preaching

And bringing the word to bear on a lost people and on a wayward rebellious culture

We have churches that are all over the place We have apostate churches who really don't even care about what the

Bible says about anything They are kind of social network clubs where you get together and you talk about like interest

You try to feed the poor if you're really good but at the end of the day you're gonna you're gonna fly the flags of all the sins that the culture loves and you're going

To never talk about the sins that your people really do love Because that's gonna get you in trouble in those churches, and I think we spend a lot of time talking about the apostate

Church They're easy to pillory. You can think about it when you see them on social media

You can think about what flags they fly you can think about the person in their vestments And it's easy for us to sit in our room here crooked floors and all and think

Lord, I'm so glad that we're not like those churches So let's move it up a level and if you just throw a dart

I think I've said this the last Couple of weeks to several different people if you were to throw a dart and hit an

American Evangelical You are much more likely to hit Joel Osteen or someone in his church than you are anyone

That's in the reform camp and in that in that world. There's all kinds of churches that are not flying crazy flags

They're not saying crazy things, but they're just pretty lukewarm. They don't really talk about what's going on in the culture

They don't really talk about the particulars of the Bible and they make no Application unless it's the application of how we can all get wealthy and be comfortable

Even in some of the best of those what we would call the conservative evangelical churches They teach a faith that is largely best performed in our own minds in our closets

And that has nothing to do with anything that's going on in the world and we've seen within our camp. This is us

We've preached good doctrine We have been serious about what the word says But we've largely lived a faith that has no effect on anybody outside of our front door

And the sad part is that in many of these very good churches that teach good doctrine That doctrine doesn't even affect what's going on inside our own door as we've lost a younger generation

That they've gone out the door and what we're seeing now is some go apostate and deconstruct

But many of them succumb to they're gonna find what they need to find that they're not getting from their pastor and they're gonna jump into the red pill rage movement in the manosphere and they're gonna start taking on selfish qualities and they're gonna start saying things like I Would never get married.

Why would I want to get married? All that's gonna happen is she's gonna divorce me and take half my stuff and with every lie

There's an element of truth to it because marriages are in shambles in America and people feel like they're beleaguered

AW Tozer said of his day and I think this hits really hard This was a long time ago that Tozer said this but see how this lands he said of his day that if 95 % of the churches lost the

Holy Spirit that nothing would change and If 95 % of the Apostolic Church lost the

Holy Spirit Everything would stop. I Think the question that we have to ask is

Has the Holy Spirit lost our left our church already and we don't even know it. I fear in our own camp

That we teach great doctrine that we hold the truth of highly We profess a love for Christ But at the same time we distrust anyone who doesn't live up to our doctrinal purity test and that makes us an echo chamber

That's about point four percent of evangelicals in America that has no impact on anyone because we won't work with anyone else because they don't agree with us on the doctrines of grace or on the cessation of sign gifts or on how we're supposed to interact in the political sphere or any other number of Topics that if you venture into social media for 30 seconds, you'll see that we're tearing each other's throats out

We can't accomplish anything this way The source of all these problems we can be simplistic.

There's a lot of things in our culture But I think the thing that jumps out is that we have a severe lack in our country of qualified elders

We have accumulated teachers in our churches that tickle people's ears This was demonstrated in the days of Jeremiah where we gather up teachers that will tell us the things that we want to hear so that we can feel comfortable so that we

Can check off the Jesus box and think to ourselves. I'm a good Christian because I love the Bible and I vote for Republicans And that's where we've been for 70 or 80 years in the church in America and the consequences are in full bloom right now the church is

Seemingly weak in America as an institution But what we know is that God's not going to let it stay that way that he always has his remnant that he has his

People that are going to be devoted to him And what we need to do is that we want to devote ourselves to prayer so that we would be those people

Not thinking that we already are But thinking that through dependence on what God has told us to do that.

That's what he can use us to be So Today I need to I need to lay out the case for why qualified elders are absolutely crucial to what we're doing here

And I also want to on the front end urge you to pray for Bart and I that we would be able to persevere

That we would remain qualified. It's not a one -time checkoff list where you get qualified and you're qualified forever

The elder qualifications are a sanctification that continue on and on and every elder can disqualify themselves in one second

It's a gravity and an important thing for us to talk about so I've entitled I've entitled this message elders and the vision of CBC There's a few points that I want to get and I think one of them is the most obvious and I need a breeze because I I usually

I usually take too long on point one and point one is one that's the it's the foundation here

But I need to move fast and point one is elders are necessary for churches Now that needs to be said in America because I don't think that's a widely held belief

We have a lot of churches that don't have elders. We have a lot of churches that call people elders who are not elders but the

Bible is very clear and Titus is Explicitly clear that we need elders and Titus gives us a really good reason right off the bat in Titus 1 verse 5

It says that Paul left Titus in Crete why so that he would set in order what remains and how is he going to do that?

He's gonna appoint elders in every city as Paul had directed him so Crete has a bunch of Disconnected groups of Christians and it was a really mountainous island

It was kind of backwoods and rural and the Cretans were not thought of as being very good people

There's a proverb that Paul quotes in Titus. It says Cretans are lazy gluttonous liars, and he says this saying is true

So this island full of lazy gluttonous liars has some Christians now

Look, does this not sound familiar is America not lazy gluttonous liars. Our cultural sin is lying.

We love lying We love to be lied to and we love to lie to people. We love to be gluttonous We're the fattest nation in the history of the earth right, and we love to sit around be lazy and veg out with our

Phones where the average kid that I teach in school has eight hours of screen time per day we are

Crete in many ways, but but Always always the thing that I want to see here is that God has his people that are scattered in every city

But what's going on is that these Christians who are on the island of Crete are not being effective and the reason they're not effective

Is because they don't have anyone to hold the flag and they don't have anything to be organized around Any movement is going to die if it doesn't have organization

That's why Christ set up the Apostles and that's why the Apostles as Peter said He held himself as an apostle and a fellow fellow elder of those who were going to be in the church that were preaching the word

There has to be elders to set things in order. That's why they are necessary for churches We're not going to be able to worship

Christ rightly sitting in a boat by herself on Sunday morning fishing That has become a cultural lie that I've heard many times

I can worship God wherever I'm at in the world in the woods that is true But you cannot be the church there

The church must have elders because if there are no elders There's nothing to organize around and there's nothing that's ever going to be accomplished for the mission

See that idea of having church in the woods by yourself is the pietistic idea that we can accomplish everything

We need to in the faith between our ears and it just doesn't work that way That's dead

Christianity that James would say is dead because it has no works The Christian faith has to have works

So there we go already a little too long But elders are necessary because they put things in order a different point here that we look in acts and I could do a lot of work here

But I I really can't I got to cut it short Number two, this is something people don't think about often with elders elders and we're gonna see it in our time

Elders are a bulwark against a raging culture Elders are protectors of their people in the pews

We see it in Acts 14 that there's a story. That's that's really popular you guys probably know it that Paul and Barnabas had gone out and they were preaching in Asia Minor and Antioch and Lystra and Derby and and what happened was that the people saw the signs that Paul was doing and they started lifting it up and saying he

Was Zeus they were trying to worship him as a god Paul was appalled by this and he preached the gospel of Christ but then what happened is the

Jewish Council came into these cities and it says that they stirred up the people against him and they Took up stones and they stoned

Paul and they threw him on a pile to die outside the city What Paul did was he got up again and he went back in the city and he preached the gospel

But then they left and it says very interestingly in verse 23 It says and when they had appointed elders for them in every church having prayed with fasting they commanded them

To the Lord in whom they had believed. So what did Paul do after the city had been raised up to stone him?

He went back He preached the gospel and then he sent in elders to establish churches with the

Christians who were in those cities The reason why is because Christians are going to be scattered without a shepherd

Jesus said that himself that when there is no shepherd the wolf will come in and ravage the sheep and scatter them all over the place

All this goes around with what we've lost in America is that Christianity is on a mission That Christianity has to be organized because we're trying to accomplish something and what we're trying to accomplish is

Impossible for us, but it's something we labor in anyway And that's to make disciples baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that Christ has commanded us

There's multiple parts to it But we accomplish none of that if we're not organized together and what elders do is they come in and organize and in these cities

Don't you think that those Christians were afraid they had just seen the man that they were calling Zeus Get stoned and laid on a pile

See the old gods the demon gods seemed to have triumphed for a time Because Paul was preaching the gospel and he was doing signs and wonders to the extent that those people were starting to worship him

They stoned him like hey, we'll show you what your gospel is about and leave him for dead

But then he put steel in their spine by coming back into the city Preaching the gospel and then what he has to do is he knows that Christians there are gonna be wayward

They've just seen the authorities take up and use violence against them So what

Paul does is he appoints elders and the reason that he appoints elders is Because sheep need a shepherd to protect them and to give them courage

It's a sobering thought that the courage and the mission of this church is

Never going to rise above this level Cowardly pastors make cowardly sheep

We don't have courageous sheep that stay around cowardly pastors because they're gonna go find a courageous pastor

That's the way that we live So when we see the church shut down in mass three years ago, the reason for that is very simple

We are a nation that is full of cowardly elders Full of them full to the brim and I will tell you they're a stench in the nostrils of the

Lord Because the Lord has told us to fear not man Who can destroy our body?

But says to fear God who can destroy our soul and send it to hell Elders are a bulwark in my maybe my favorite passage in Acts.

It's in Acts 20 along this line Paul says and now behold I know that all of you among whom at the

Church of Ephesus it I went about preaching The kingdom will no longer see my face final words from Paul to a church that he loved

He says therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God 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. I know that after my departure

Savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things

To draw away the disciples after them therefore be watchful Remembering that night and day for a period of three years.

I did not cease to admonish each one with tears and Now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace

Which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who have been sanctified

That is an elder of elders right there. What Paul is saying is don't forget

How I've labored among you don't forget how I prayed with you Don't forget how

I came to your house And I intervened in your family stuff and I prayed for you and I prayed for you and I prayed for you

Don't forget how I've been in chains Don't forget how I'm gonna go to die For this gospel.

Don't let these wolves come up and speak crooked things that don't cut it straight and let them entice you away

Paul has the heart of a pastor Paul was shipwrecked left to see overnight put in prison beaten and Ultimately martyred for the faith and that's what elders are called to be ready to do

We're not here for our comfort we're here to shepherd our people We know that why are elders essential for the church because they primarily bring the

Word of God to bear It's all over first Timothy Timothy in chapter 4 says until I come to Timothy give attention to the public reading of Scripture To exhortation and teaching that's why we read the

Bible out loud Because the word is powerful and it's a little bit different when it's read out loud We hear its beauty

We we it penetrates our heart in a different way when we hear it read out loud And so elders are do that he goes on he says take pains with these things to Timothy his disciple

He says be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all

Our progress as elders in the word should be evident to all I Should not be static here as a preacher of the word.

I have to be absorbed in it That doesn't mean that I'm blown around right every wind of changing doctrine but what it does mean is that over time that Bart and I are growing in the exposition of the word to teach you the even deeper truths to mine it to mine it rich and to get better at this because what we have to Do as elders is we have to take pains to do that We're supposed to pay close attention to ourselves and to teaching.

We're to persevere Because if Timothy did this this is what

Paul said if Timothy did this He will save both himself and those who hear him.

That is a weighty charge that through Timothy's study and Absorption in the

Word of God that not only would himself be saved that he would save those who are listening to him

Now as Paul saying that Timothy saves them. No, that's a ridiculous qualification What Paul is saying is if you preach sound doctrine, it's the preaching of the word that changes hearts that's the means by which

God uses and Then in a very famous passage in 2nd Timothy verse 4

Maybe the most famous passage in that letter Paul says I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and By his appearing in his kingdom preach the word be ready in season and out of season

Reprove rebuke exhort with great patience and teaching there are many of us

Many of us who call ourselves pastors who are ready to preach the word in season

In season means that when people are ready to hear it and they like what we're saying. There are very few of us who are ready to preach the word out of season and That's where we have to bring the

Word of God to bear against the sins that are ravaging our own churches Not the ones that are outside of us

But the ones that are within these walls and there are very few elders who are ready to preach the word out of season

And that's why Paul tells Timothy that he must do it These are the most important things that Paul wants to write

He's on death row about to die any day in that letter and he's putting across final instructions

And that final instruction is preach the word all the time Preach the word all the time and I think this leads to a confusion that we have in the church

We have such a such a lack of good preaching and teaching is that we are satisfied merely with good teaching in fact good teaching is

What happens in the sense of Nehemiah 8 or what's going on? Is that the word is being read out loud and there's leaders of Israel who are going among the people and giving the sense of what?

The word says they're helping the people understand what the law says and surely that is a vital function of the elder

The elder is to teach the word we have to communicate in context what the

Word of God says This teaching in our culture will make people mad because simply saying the word rightly is going to make people upset but teaching is different from preaching and Preaching is a very dangerous thing to do because what preaching does is that we exhort encourage and give reproof even when our people don't want to hear it and Especially when our people don't want to hear it

This means making correct application to the text and bringing it to bear in your life and we

Fake courage and LARP all the time in this regard as elders. So I know within this body

Let's just make it really specific and especially within the reform camp Okay Sometimes within our churches we will talk about how big and bold and lionized we are by preaching out against the sin of homosexuality and It rightly is a sin and it rightly is a cultural sin that's being flagged around everywhere but when

I sit in this pulpit and preach to you about Homosexuality and I think wow, what a bold man of God I am.

I'm just playing a role Because what I'm doing is I know before I walk in that that my people all agree with me on this

That's preaching the word in season Preaching the word out of season is when we see the sins that infect our own church and we called those out

It could be gossip It could be bitterness and when we preach the word rightly what happens is

God's people repent and they cry out like what happened in Nehemiah 8 is that the people heard the word of the

Lord and they tore their clothes and they wept because of how they had broken

God's Word and his law and they were so down when they Heard the truth of it that what happened is

God took mercy on them and through Nehemiah Told Nehemiah to throw a party for them and to have joy that they had recovered the word

That kind of preaching is rare But in our culture and in our society this kind of preaching is perilous

And what will happen is it'll get you ousted from even the most conservative churches Even those that are in our camp

How I wish That I had had the opportunity that I had done it rightly in March of 2020 to preach out of season and to say

God's Church will never be shut down by the government and all

I can do is like the people in Nehemiah is to in sorrow say I Heard and I was wrong because that would have gotten me severe pushback within my own people

That's what preaching the word does and preaching. The word is a dangerous thing indeed for the elders. Why so few of them do it

It's a weighty charge. Number four elders are be imitated held in honor and yielded to First Timothy 5 says elders who lead well are to be considered worthy of double honor especially those who labor at preaching and teaching

For the scripture says you shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing and the laborer is worthy of his wages

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 So we're gonna mix into our next point here and move on I told you number one would be longer than intended, but I think it's really important.

It's foundational stuff here Here's what you have to understand is that elders are held to a much much higher standard

That's why the elder who labors well the one who leads well the one who meets the qualifications who preaches the word in season and out of season the one who exemplifies godly character the one who has

No reproof outside of these walls the one who is not wicked the one who is not about bad things

That person should be imitated. He should be a father that other fathers match their life after He should be a husband who other men try to model their lives after to be husbands to their own wives

He should be a student of the word that others measured their life against but with that comes a harsher reality for the elder if you remember the steps of church discipline you go to your brother by himself and then you bring another with him and Then if he doesn't repent after those you bring it to the body and then if he doesn't repent then you throw them out

Do you notice what happens with elders in this passage? We skip a step and We bring in the judicial case

So for the elder who is in actual sins the sins of false teaching immorality gossip theft embezzlement

Gossip the elder who's engaged in those things You're to accumulate another witness and You're to bring it to him and it's to go to the church because when that elder is guilty of those sins

It goes before the congregation so that others would be afraid It doesn't mean necessarily that he's disqualified

But what it does mean is that is family business that goes in front of the whole family It's not handled in cigar smoke -filled rooms when the elder sins it's handled in front of the entire congregation

Do you get what's happening here? This is a trial This is not two witnesses go to the elder board to talk to the elder

This is two witnesses go in front of the congregation and bring their charge The elder doesn't get the benefit of building a citadel wall and insulating himself against these charges

So that none of them can make it through The elder is held to a higher standard That's why when he meets that standard that he can be considered worthy of double honor

The one who leads well the one who labors at preaching and teaching Notice that we don't see hierarchy of elders in the scripture

It's not the ones it's especially the ones who labor and preaching and teaching But the elder who leads well is the one who gets double honor

The one who leads well the one who is doing the job the one who is among the sheep

Final point on this one. The work of an elder is vital to Christendom consider consider friends that The massive growth of Christianity from the time of Christ until the 20th century

Most of that in fact about three -fourths of that time Christianity grew without the normal Christian even having access to the

Word of God They were dependent on the preaching of the word from elders Once a week to live the

Christian life and those Christians did something that we've squandered in the last hundred years in America They didn't have access to the printed word

They were depending on a good quality elder to preach the word and because of that powerful preaching what they did was they built

Western civilization and what we've done is in accumulating false teachers who tickle our ears we have given into the decadence and The crumbling of Western civilization and we have the

Word of God everywhere. How many do you have in your house? You're carrying in your pocket at all times

We are gonna be held under much stricter judgment Because we know the Word of God.

It's not been lost in the King's armory somewhere It's in front of us all the time and to those who great light has been given great responsibility is going to be required

We live in a day where the judgment is going to be so severe on those who have trampled underfoot

The blood of Christ who know it well from hearing his word and reading his word is going to be an amazing thing to see the judgment of God is full up and His wrath is

Gonna pour out on us The work of the the elder is vital to Christendom we have to have a

Reformation in the church and The starting block for Reformation in the church is having qualified men to preach the word in season and out of season

All right Housework in point number two elders must be qualified men who desire the office who desire the office

We can go through these really quickly We understand from Titus and from Timothy that elders first must be above reproach in their family life

That means that they have to organize their household. Well, they have to educate their children. They have to discipline their children

They have to have a well -managed household where where they love their wife where their wife has what they need

Where the wife is the only woman in the man's life All of these things are true

He has to be he has to raise his children in such a way that they are faithful Now I think adult children do not necessarily call disqualify the elder

There's a lot of debate on that topic But what we do see is that while the man is the manager of his children that they're not given to rebellion and debauchery

That they are well in control that they are disciple if he doesn't know how to do that How is he gonna manage the people of God and the various problems that are outside of our door?

Number two the elder has to be above reproach in public. That means that doesn't mean that the world loves him

That would be a problem in our day and age It does not mean that the world loves you What it does mean is that the world cannot accuse you of sin first Peter gives us a lot

To think about and what it means to live a righteous life where we're not being reviled That means that we don't steal from people.

It means that we work hard It means that we have a good witness because we don't lie to people and we don't try to swindle them and we're not pugnacious

Brawlers who are trying to argue and cut people apart every chance that we get That's something that I had to grow

Greatly within in my Christian maturity because I am pugnacious by date my nature and I like to cut people with words

And praise be to God that he's not left me there Praise be to God Elders have to be mature in the faith.

We get this in Timothy It says that the elder should not be a new convert so that he will not be conceded and fall into the condemnation of the

Devil hold that thought The elder needs to be able to teach sound doctrine in Timothy The sound doctrine is talking about good and beautiful doctrine things that exemplify what

God has done and the beauty of his righteousness in Titus Different context sound doctrine is talking about being hygienic

That's being not sick because the island of Crete was sick with perverse men who are upsetting whole families

The doctrine needed to be pure and healthy But both uses fit and talk about the need for the elder to preach the truth to preach the truth

Finally elders need to be free from the love of money acts 20 says Paul says I have coveted no one's silver or gold or clothes

You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my own needs and to those who are with me and Everything I showed you that by laboring in this manner

You must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive

Not many should be elders point three Not many should be elders.

We get it right away elders get stricter judgment. We know this from James 3 It says do not many of you become teachers my brothers

Knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment for we all stumble in many ways

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man able to bridle the entire body as well

I think we breeze over that a lot of times and we think not many should be teachers Okay, and then we read that next verse and we apply it to everyone

No that verse is applied to the teachers and the reason why not many should be elders is because elders get stricter judgment because we speak so many words and We have influence on entire families every time we speak we're putting ourself in mortal danger

Do you understand that? Jesus said that out of the overflow of the heart speaks the mouth and he said do not be deceived

Every man will be judged for every word that comes out of their mouth What a terrifying thought that can be without the blood of Christ But elders get stricter judgment because we can upset whole families

What's happening in Titus is that we have crooked men who are seeing perverse things the opposite of sound doctrine, right?

Crooked unhealthy sick doctrine and they're upsetting entire families when you bring a man into your home

Because you have pastoral counseling needs and that elder speaks out perverse doctrine

He upsets families and he brings judgment on himself Second Peter gives a dire warning to the false teachers

It says for if they are overcome having both escaped the defilements of the world But by the knowledge of the

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, this means they've escaped the world. They know good doctrine But then what do they do?

They have been again entangled in the world Then the last state has become worse for them than the first It would be better for them to have not known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn away from the

Holy Commandment God handed to them It's worse to be an elder That goes apostate and twist the word than it is to have never known the word in the first place

Because you brought judgment So that's one thing that elders fall into is they speak perverse words.

They speak false teaching There's another temptation and for the congregation you have to always check us against Scripture You have to listen to the words and you have to see do they comport with sound doctrine

The second thing that elders do and we have seen this Burn bright in America is the elders can be fascinated by position platforms and praise

They can be fascinated by it Luke 22 24 It says and there arose a dispute among them the disciples as to which one of them was regarded to be the greatest

Do you understand that when this got out to the whole Apostle group that the Apostles weren't upset about Them asking the question who was going to be the greatest they were upset that those guys thought that they would be the greatest instead of the other ones this is the temptation of the elder who preaches

God's Word is to kind of Get ourself in the wrong spot where we think people are coming to hear me talk.

That's not the case If you're coming to hear me talk you're better off staying at home this is about the

Word of God and it is a Deathly trap for the elder to get in there to get enamored with his

Charisma his charisma with his ability to get people to say oh that was such a great sermon brother rice and all this kind of stuff and to accumulate accolades for each other because what happens is what we see in acts and this

Is a warning for the elder is when people start praising you for your great sermons They're gonna be the first ones that hold the knife for the stones when it's time to take you down That's what we see over and over again in acts your

Zeus Paul. Now, let's throw rocks at you Elders need to remember who they are

And that is that Jesus in that same discourse in Luke said among you the

Gentiles lorded over people But among you you should be servants Because the greatest among you should serve the most and that's the calling of the elder

The third trap that elders can fall into is they can fall into the love of money and fleecing the church

Jude 11 Which is really like the manifesto scary word on false teachers

It says woe to them for they have gone the way of Cain and for pay They have rushed headlong into the era of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah Why do teachers go bad?

Why do elders go bad for money? For money in those last two are linked you get the platform and you get the accolades you also get the money

Christian Incorporated in America has got people to believe that if I can be charismatic enough and if I can get enough people to come to my church

Then maybe I'll invite to go on the conference circuit and everybody will listen to me and they'll give me big speaker fees

These are not pastors These are not people preaching the word in season analyses and because if they preach the word out of season

They would never get invited to any conference ever Unless they make their own conference That's the truth of the matter and too many elders fall into the love of money and when you see a disqualified elder

I'm gonna tell you you're gonna see lurking immorality greed sexual sin

Gossip division. It's always there Jude and second Peter are clear when you see the elder who's often false doctrine

He's got immorality in his life. He's not absorbed in the word. He's absorbed in himself And before reason why we should have why not many should be elders is we have sheep pastures not shepherd pastures

It just makes common sense then in the church if you got 70 people in the church and you got 43 elders

There's not much for him to do We have to have some kind of ratio. No, look, I'm not a numbers guy on this

I don't know what the ratio is But I do know this you probably don't need two -thirds of your congregation being elders and it's not gonna be that way

Right God calls elders, but we need elders for the vision Finally a fifth reason is that the work of an elder is time -consuming and we need equipped sheep out in the world doing other things

The highest call of a person who's a Christian is not to be a pastor We need to get rid of this mentality

That is one of the reasons why Christianity has suffered in America is because what we've done is we've seen

Talented men in the church and we've said oh Well, if you're gonna do anything important for the kingdom, do you need to be a pastor and so what are we done?

We've completely vacated the rest of the field of all of our talent We don't have godly seminarian professors.

We don't have godly doctors godly lawyers godly politicians We don't have any of that because if you want to really make a difference as a man

You better be a pastor and really if we see the talent you better do it in your 20s in Stark contrast to what

Timothy is warned about Because we need to get all the talent in the pipeline as quick as possible and I ask you a simple question

Is that trusting manners that trust in God? Who's calling elders? Anyway, who's making this happen?

That's the question we have to ask So now here's what I've said It's terrifying to be an elder

You can burn in the hottest part of hell You're gonna get all the judgment if you say a wrong word, it's held against you

There's not gonna be many of them period they're probably gonna kill you first when the culture comes look let's make no mistake

I'll be the first one arrested out of here. There's no doubt about that. Okay, but You should consider if you want to be an elder that's

So that is the turn because we have another thing going here We need elders to fulfill the vision at CBC.

We have to we have to have them Bart and I are not enough. I But we're not enough to fulfill the vision if Bart and I are the only elders in ten years and something's gone horribly wrong with The vision and we probably need to address it

If churches are built on the teaching of the word We will not be able to plant churches without raising up elders who desire to preach

Who are dedicated to preach who are dedicated to set things in order with Christians and lay out their lives for the sheep

We need to replicate them Our three core distinctives are connected our three course distinctives are prayer

Planting churches and intertwined community. I want you to think about how these things work together.

First of all prayer. We have nothing here Nothing here if the Spirit of not God is not behind it

Hopefully we would be like the apostolic church that if the Spirit is removed in this place that we just stop What are we even doing?

But the second one is connected because if we're going to have biblically qualified elders God is going to have to provide them and why would he provide them if we're not asking for them?

We have to pray for them Jesus said that if we abide in him that he will give us all of the things that we asked for Do we think that it is in God's will?

To plant churches in Northwest Arkansas with biblically qualified elders to set in order the wild Reformation that's needed in this area.

I think so. I don't think that the work of Satan is being accomplished here I think the work of God is being accomplished because we need to plant churches

We need to take ground. We have been pushed back for far too long. And while we've tried to centralize and get bigger

We've lost more and more people because of the third thing Community an intertwined community and fellowship

Just like what we read in Acts 2 is what gives us a pipeline to find these qualified men because we know their lives and we

Know it much quicker All of these things are connected that's why in our bylaws we have two ways for an elder to be brought forward a man can

Extend himself for consideration to be an elder the bylaws say he will be examined for biblical qualifications and given discipleship and fellowship

Based on the evaluation of his fitness for the office if deemed to be qualified He will then become an elder candidate.

The elder candidate will go through a season of learning the church's theology philosophy of ministry and leadership model under the oversight of the elders the length of his season will be determined by the

This season will be determined by the Board of Elders Or the elders can reach out to a man and ask him and this starts a very important process for the church

Where if a man becomes an elder candidate The church has to watch him

But the church has to watch me too We need to act like all of us are elder candidates in the sense of we need to be watched for fitness all the time

See, I didn't check off the qualifications in 2018 and I'm done with that The qualifications are ongoing.

I have to constantly live up to the qualifications and that's why in our bylaws It's also laid in in print that we will have examinations within the

Elder Board yearly of what we're doing in the job That's for competency, but it's also for qualification Bart If it doesn't change in the next year

Bart's gonna sit at Slim Chickens with me and ask me the hard questions And then I'm gonna sit at Slim Chickens with him and ask him the hard questions because that's where the elder meetings are right now

We're gonna do that if God has called you to be an elder then you should put yourself forward and I can guarantee you this

If you put yourself forward, what's gonna happen is you're gonna get really sick of Bart and I Because what we're gonna do is we're gonna start asking you questions and we're gonna start sitting with you and we're gonna start examining your

Life and we're gonna get in the business of your family. We're gonna see what's going on in your home and When we like all that Which we should because every man in here the aspiration would be every man in this church is elder qualified Not that every man will be an elder

We've already dealt with that, but every man should be elder qualified which one of those qualifications and Titus is like now

I don't need any of that No, that's every Christian man right The difference is the calling

The difference is the calling because men have to desire to be an elder also And they have to desire all those things that are gonna be put on them

So the question in closing is what can we do as a church? in One sense.

I know what I have to do All right, what I have to do is very simply this I have to be absorbed in the

Word of God to fear no man and to lead my family well and to be a light for the gospel in the community by the way that I behave and The way that I act out there.

I Have to love my people more than myself. I Signed on for this too that I have to take that time to go help people when they're in crisis

And I have to bring the Word of God to bear in their life gentle as a shepherd and also sometimes aggressive as a shepherd and to know and have discernment and wisdom about Which one to use?

What can we do as a congregation? I've got a few things for you in closing seven things first.

I Urge you I beg of you pray daily or at least often

That God will give us elders to send and elders to keep We need both number two

You need to be a qualified man in case the call comes You need to be a qualified man in case the call comes.

You don't know when it's gonna happen in In 2013 I said I never wanted any part of church leadership because I didn't want to know how the sausage was made and I didn't

Want another church to get ruined for me? God had other ideas Sometimes I wish he didn't

But it is a weighty calling be qualified Women encourage and exhort your husband to live according to these qualifications

Help him with it. Call him to task Pointed out you're his eyes a lot of time.

We are blind in our own sin men and women. We're blind in our own sin We have to help each other and love each other enough to take the blindness off For we have to develop a plan for discipleship and assessment of men who desire eldership

Bart and I are gonna be talking to people and we're trying to develop that right now It's one of the main focuses of our next meeting is to get together and to do that Five we have to build a culture of transparency and accountability which makes it difficult for wolves to divide and conquer

This is the joy of the core group Look, I know this by God's blessing Wolf is not gonna get to come in and make you divided from me

This is the nature of intertwined community But it's not gonna be the core group forever And there's gonna be people who come in and we have to minister them and we have to live in such a way that there's

No question about whether Bart and I are making tons of money and embezzling it. The reason why is because you're gonna see all the money

There can't be questions about it. If you think that I'm platform seeking you need to come talk to me

If you think that something is wrong We have to have the culture to where you can ask me about it. You don't have to bring charges.

You can just ask me Six we have to invest in community so that you can feel confident in the calling of a man from the body

It should not be a shock. It should not be foisted on you. Whenever we call a man to elder candidacy

It shouldn't be like whoa, man. I never saw that come in Hopefully you would see it coming with anyone who desires it in this church and that that process would be diligent and finally last thing

We have to hold what we have here with an open hand We have to hold men that we love with an open hand because we are actively praying for God to send them out from us and That's gonna hurt.

I Know personally that that hurts Whenever someone who's so built in and so rooted in the foundation is called to go somewhere else.

It hurts It's a church We have to be ready for that And we have to pray that it's not our will but God's will and that we would hold that this way and not with a closed fist

Let's pray Lord, we thank you It's I'm so grateful

That this is not something I have to figure out Lord that that it's not a deal where we have to elevate men with talent

Where it's not where we're trying to figure out some way Pragmatic way to get someone who's going to to be entertained to listen to Lord But that you've told us who elders are

I? Pray that as a church, not only that we would have men raised up and qualified Lord, I pray that we would disciple them.

Well, and I pray that they would lead well or I pray for Bart and I that we would continue to Be absorbed in your word or that we would have the courage to preach in season and out of season

Lord we thank you for your blessings to this church We pray that you would continue them Lord, let not your spirit leave us

We want you to dwell here among us and we know that through the power of Christ on the cross and his resurrection

That you've promised to do so or that you have sealed us for that day We love you, and we glorify your name.