Elders and the Vision of Covenant Baptist Church

Titus 1 and the Need for Elders

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 vested 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 one.

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 going to 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 0 .4 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.

Elders Are Necessary for Churches

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 in 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 God 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 going to 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 might 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 1st 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 route 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. It's 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 call 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 now a 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 Kings 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 discipled 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 pug Nacious 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 silver or gold or clothes.

You yourselves know that these hands minister 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.