Elders, Deacons, Missionaries and other Positions

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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August 19, 2021

00:00: Good evening.
00:00: Welcome to Class 3 of Introduction to Church, Life, and Ministry.
00:06: We are going to jump right in because I have so much to say I can't even imagine getting through it all tonight.
00:14: But again, you will get the slides.
00:16: Has everybody been getting the text and the slides and everything? Now, the sign-in sheet, I forgot to bring it in here.
00:21: It's in my office.
00:22: So, Bobby, at the break, would you please grab it off my desk and make sure everybody gets it? Thank you.
00:28: I have had a very busy day today.
00:30: I had to do a funeral today.
00:32: And then I had some other ministry responsibilities and I just finished worship leader practice.
00:36: So, a lot going on.
00:39: But I'd like to begin with a word of prayer.
00:41: Father, I thank you for the opportunity to be here with these folks tonight and to be about the business of this class and this academy.
00:49: And Lord, to think about the responsibilities of elders and deacons in the church and missionaries.
00:55: Father, as we look at this and positions in the church.
00:59: Father, may it be that from this group you might even raise up missionaries, that you might even raise up elders and deacons, that you might raise up teachers and people in the church who would see themselves as being used of you to lead others in the paths of righteousness.
01:18: And Father, I thank you for the calling that you put on lives.
01:22: And I pray that you might begin to make those even more clear through this class.
01:26: In Jesus' name, Amen.
01:30: Alright, very quickly, this is our agenda for the evening.
01:33: I've been trying to do this every week.
01:35: Our agenda is we're going to recap our previous lesson and our reading.
01:38: Everybody do the reading? Chapters 5 to 7 in the book? Okay, hopefully.
01:44: If not, it's basically what we're going to be talking about tonight is what was in the book.
01:49: So, if you didn't get through all the reading, we'll go through it.
01:52: And then, of course, you can do catch-up.
01:54: We're going to talk about the two offices of the church, which are elder and deacon.
01:59: And we are going to talk about missionaries, local and foreign.
02:04: And then our class discussion after the break is going to be what are other positions in the church.
02:10: And we're going to ask, kind of, play a, not play a game, but kind of throw out the question.
02:15: Let everybody have an opportunity.
02:17: What are some positions you think the church should have? What are some positions we think the church shouldn't have? And we're going to discuss that later on.
02:26: The previous lesson, we asked the question, is local church membership biblical? I believe we made the case that it is.
02:32: We talked about the governmental structures.
02:34: You guys remember what the three structures mean? Episcopal is one single figurehead.
02:45: Presbyterian is multiple elders in the local church.
02:49: That's another part.
02:50: I didn't really stress that last week, but the elders, brother, the Presbyterian is not just elders, but it's multiple elders in a local church.
03:00: It's what we would call plurality of elders in the local church.
03:05: And then, congregationally governed is a church that's governed by the congregation, as a sense, by vote.
03:12: And then, expectations of church membership, we all did the handout.
03:15: We talked about that.
03:17: Now, here's the recap of our reading assignment for this week.
03:19: The Biblically Functioning Church, chapters 5 to 7.
03:22: Ask the question, what are the responsibilities of an elder? What are the requirements of the office of elder? I did a whole chapter on that.
03:31: And then, I put one chapter in for what are the requirements and responsibilities of a deacon.
03:38: And that was, you saw how that worked out.
03:42: So, are there any questions from the reading before we even get into the lesson? Is there anything that you read? Forgive me, my throat's a little dry.
03:51: Is there anything from the book that you read that you said, I don't know if I understand this.
03:56: I don't know if I agree.
03:57: Maybe there was something that caused a bit of consternation.
04:00: My brother, Ross.
04:01: To the side.
04:17: You're talking about Priscilla and Aquila and pulling Apollos to the side.
04:31: Some people believe that that puts her in a position of prominence in that conversation by putting her first.
04:39: And I would have to go back and look at what I wrote to clarify what I was saying in the book.
04:48: But, you know, as I said, I've written that book quite a few years ago.
04:51: And thinking about it at this moment, I don't see that there's a whole lot that is placed in the importance of putting her name first or putting his name first.
05:01: Some people, as I said, put that and her in the place of prominence.
05:04: And in a private conversation, that very well may have been.
05:07: But some people use that to argue that she was in a place of leadership in the church.
05:14: That she was a teacher or an elder in the church.
05:17: And I don't think that you can make that argument based on the fact that her name came first.
05:21: I think that would be a stretch to do so.
05:23: And next week is going to be, we're going to discuss gender roles in the church.
05:28: And so that'll be, we'll get more into it then.
05:32: But, is that clear? Okay, well maybe during the break we can look at it and see.
05:42: Okay.
06:01: Yeah, I was going to say it's hard to put a number one because it would really be number one today.
06:07: Okay.
06:11: The hardest thing on my life, and I say this having a church that is a blessing.
06:18: Our church is a blessing.
06:20: And our people are very sweet.
06:23: But it is very hard to have close friendships.
06:28: Because people are very quick to lose the sense of loyalty.
06:40: And immediately leave.
06:43: And I've had people ghost me that I have ministered to.
06:46: I posted something on Facebook about it today actually.
06:49: Just that there have been people who have ministered to for years.
06:53: And then they won't answer the phone.
06:56: And, I mean, it's heartbreaking for my children and my wife too.
07:04: Because you try to develop friendships.
07:07: You try to develop loving relationships.
07:11: And you feel like this is more of a family than your family.
07:16: I spend birthdays with these people.
07:18: I spend my life with these people.
07:21: I mean, my family is here.
07:25: And when people just abruptly leave that, it's very hurtful.
07:31: And I'm being very candid with you.
07:34: About ten years ago I was going through a time of sort of being down.
07:37: I was sort of depressed.
07:38: It was about twelve years ago actually.
07:40: And I visited a church in Daytona.
07:42: And I never met the pastor before.
07:43: And the funny thing is I haven't really talked to him since.
07:46: But he was an older pastor.
07:49: And he and I talked about that very thing.
07:51: What's the most difficult thing? And it was a time where I was already down.
07:56: And he said in his 40 years, at that time he'd been in the ministry 40 years, he said it was the relationships were the hardest.
08:04: Yeah.
08:05: So that's it.
08:06: That's all.
08:06: That's the best I can give you.
08:10: Yeah.
08:12: Anybody else have any questions from the book? All right.
08:17: Like I said, I've got a lot to say tonight.
08:18: So it's going to be sort of a whirlwind through this.
08:20: I'm going to be jumping through the screens.
08:22: Just remember, you're going to get a copy.
08:24: So you don't have to try to write everything down.
08:26: I've done this for your benefit and mine because it keeps me on task.
08:29: It keeps me moving forward.
08:32: We're going to begin with the offices of the church.
08:34: There are only two offices in the local church.
08:36: The Bible only gives qualifications for two offices.
08:40: That's how you know there are two offices.
08:42: Because you don't have a qualification for apostle.
08:46: People talk about today being an apostle.
08:48: I don't believe apostle is a modern expression of someone's position.
08:56: People say, well, wait a minute.
08:56: Apostle is in the Bible.
08:57: Yes, I believe the apostolic age is over.
09:00: I believe it was the first century.
09:01: We see the apostles.
09:02: Now, if somebody says, well, apostle just means someone who is sent.
09:05: The church sent me.
09:06: Therefore, I'm an apostle.
09:07: That is, we call that little a apostle.
09:11: But when I think of apostle, I'm thinking big a apostle.
09:14: And so we don't see any qualifications.
09:16: You can't open to 2 Thessalonians and find the qualifications for an apostle.
09:20: Right? There's only two offices that have qualifications.
09:24: They are elder, presbyteros, bishop.
09:26: Those are all the same.
09:28: Overseer, not.
09:29: And I have to clarify that for guys from Set Free.
09:33: Because you guys have a position called overseer.
09:35: It's not the same thing.
09:36: Overseer there is an important position.
09:38: But it's not.
09:39: In this sense, it's pastor.
09:40: What pastor Mark is would be the overseer in the biblical perspective.
09:47: So an overseer, an elder, a bishop, a presbyter are all the same position.
09:53: And that is the spiritual overseer within the local body of Christ.
09:58: And then you have the deacon.
10:00: The deacon serves as ministry examples within the body of Christ.
10:05: And that's the only two offices.
10:07: There are no others listed or qualifications given.
10:13: We talk about the elder.
10:15: I just mentioned this, but I'm moving right along.
10:18: Within Scripture, the word episkopos, which is from the Greek.
10:22: Epi, which means over.
10:27: And skapos, which means see.
10:30: If you think like a scope or a telescope.
10:33: A microscope allows you to see things that are small.
10:35: Micros and skapos is microscope.
10:39: While episkopos is the word episkopos or the word overseer.
10:44: And it's the same word.
10:47: Or rather, it means the same thing, in a sense, as the word presbyteros.
10:52: Which is where we get the word elder or presbyter.
10:55: And the way we know this is from Titus chapter 1.
10:58: Titus chapter 1 speaks of elders.
11:02: And this is what it says.
11:04: Paul is writing.
11:05: He says, this is why I left you in Crete.
11:07: So that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders.
11:10: That's presbyteros.
11:12: In every town as I directed you.
11:14: If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers.
11:18: And not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.
11:20: For an overseer, that's episkopos, as God's steward, must be above reproach.
11:28: And the way that I've described it, it's used in the same context.
11:31: So I am an elder, presbyteros.
11:34: I'm also a bishop, an overseer.
11:37: It's the same concept.
11:38: It's just two different words.
11:39: And really, one is a title of position.
11:43: The other is what he does.
11:46: So the bishop oversees.
11:48: The presbyter oversees the church.
11:52: And that's the way that that word is being used.
11:57: And as I said, the term elder is synonymous with bishop.
11:59: So if you ever go to a church and they call their pastor bishop, there's nothing wrong with that.
12:04: It's the same idea, right? We could call Elder Mike Bishop Mike.
12:10: He probably wouldn't dig it.
12:11: But we could do it.
12:13: Bishop Andy.
12:14: Because it's the same concept, same idea.
12:17: Elders are always seen in the plural in the Bible.
12:21: Elders are always seen in a plurality.
12:24: They do not all function the same way or with the same gifts.
12:27: But they have an equality of authority.
12:31: This is an interesting conversation that me and Mike and Andy often have.
12:34: Because I'm the vocational elder here.
12:38: What does that mean? It means I get paid.
12:41: It means, honestly, vocational simply means it's my job to be an elder here.
12:46: And they are what we call lay elders.
12:48: A lay elder is a person who is, or a non-vocational, meaning they do the job without being paid.
12:55: So my position at the church, because it is a paid position, is more responsibility for day-to-day business of the church.
13:07: Counseling, things like that.
13:09: These are things that I have more time to do because this is my job.
13:13: And the Bible talks about the, we're going to talk about this when we talk about giving.
13:19: The laborer's worth is higher.
13:20: And those who receive double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
13:25: That's what I do.
13:26: I labor literally hours and hours a week in study and preparation and teaching.
13:32: This is my job.
13:32: This is what I do.
13:34: And so, just understand that's okay.
13:39: We're all equal in authority, but we're not all equal in responsibility.
13:44: We're not all equal in gifting.
13:47: So that's an important thing to distinguish.
13:52: So if you go to a church where there's one pastor who is, like this church, who is paid, but there are other elders, understand that if they're functioning biblically, all of those elders have an equality in their authority.
14:04: Therefore, if the pastor who is paid begins to get out of line or is preaching something false or is doing something foolish, it is the other men who are his, in a sense, his check and balance.
14:17: In fact, let's talk about that for a minute.
14:18: The concept of a single elder or single pastor church is not supported in Scripture.
14:23: You won't find anywhere in Scripture where elder is in the singular.
14:29: In fact, the only place I guess you could sort of make the argument is in Revelation when it talks about the angel of the church of Sardis or the angel of the church of Ephesus.
14:41: Some people believe that that's referring, because the word angel simply means messenger.
14:45: Some people believe that that's referring to the pastor of those churches.
14:48: But if it is, that's the only place where the word angel would be applied to a pastor.
14:51: And trust me, we're not all angels.
14:53: The point is, there is some debate about whether or not that's referring to the pastor of those churches.
15:05: And in the second and third century of the church, it did become very common that there would be a bishop in a church who would be in prominence of teaching and preaching.
15:13: So it's not uncommon to see that.
15:15: But there still would be elders or presbyters in the church who share authority.
15:21: And I ask the question on the board, why might this be the case? Why might a plurality of elders be the biblical model? Who said accountability? Alright.
15:34: I'm sorry, this for some reason is...
15:38: Camera messed up there for a minute.
15:41: Yeah, absolutely.
15:42: I mean, isn't accountability important? Absolutely.
15:46: Have you ever seen a pastor who is without accountability? No.
15:51: I have in some churches where it's almost like they function like what I call little mini-popes.
15:58: Like their word is law.
16:00: They cannot be questioned.
16:02: Whatever they say is absolutely true.
16:03: And no one questions their authority.
16:08: And it's not good.
16:09: It's dangerous.
16:10: Go ahead, Frank.
16:15: Absolutely.
16:16: I wasn't saying that.
16:20: So how did it come about that one who pastors would be referred to as a bishop? That is...
16:39: I don't have time to outline the history of that.
16:46: But there were, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, bishops who began to rise to prominence in whole areas.
16:53: So like you would have bishops over certain areas of the world or certain areas of...
16:59: And those men were seen as being leaders among those churches.
17:04: And so I could see that being a very old model.
17:10: But from a biblical perspective, we don't see that in the Bible.
17:13: We see that in history.
17:15: And that's to say, when you take church history...
17:17: I don't know if you've taken it before.
17:18: Next year, when we give our church history class, we'll talk about how church structure...
17:25: Because that's, again, how we see the rise of the pope.
17:28: Because when the Council of Nicaea met, it was 318 bishops, all from different areas.
17:36: So different area bishops came together to discuss that event.
17:42: And the bishop of Rome was not the most important.
17:45: He was just one of many.
17:47: But by the 6th, 7th century, the bishop of Rome had declared himself the leader of the whole church.
17:53: You know what I'm saying? So the position began to evolve and change over time.
17:57: He ends up bishop in bishops.
17:59: Yeah, well, he is the archbishop, the head bishop, the vicar of Christ, right? According to the Roman Catholics.
18:06: But, again, the biblical model is Paul would...
18:09: I'll answer your question in a minute.
18:10: Paul would go into the local church, and Paul would raise up elders in the church.
18:17: And then he would leave.
18:18: So that those elders had the responsibility to teach and preach in that church.
18:23: And grow themselves.
18:25: So that's the model we see, and I believe that's the model that continues to be the biblical one.
18:29: Yes, sir? Well, Episcopal is more over many churches.
18:40: Sort of what? He was just talking about one man that's over many churches.
18:42: But it sort of is.
18:44: Like I said, it kind of becomes like a Protestant pope.
18:46: A lot of Baptist churches, their pastor, one single pastor who's in charge of everything.
18:50: And he's the man, and you can't question him.
18:52: And it kind of becomes a dangerous thing.
18:57: Too much power.
18:58: It can be.
19:00: What do we say? Power corrupts and absolute power? Absolutely corrupts, yeah.
19:04: So that's the danger.
19:07: Alright, let's look at the responsibilities of an elder.
19:09: The responsibilities of an elder, this is in your book, I believe.
19:14: Four primary responsibilities are protecting the flock.
19:19: Feeding the flock.
19:23: Leading the flock.
19:25: And meeting the flock's practical needs.
19:29: So very quickly, let's just talk about what...
19:33: And there are scripture verses that go along with that.
19:34: You're welcome to look those up later.
19:37: But what would protecting the flock...
19:39: What would we need to protect the flock from? I mean, everything I've heard was basically right.
19:52: Wolves, right? I would say primarily we have the responsibility of ensuring doctrinal purity.
19:59: Ensuring doctrinal purity.
20:01: So therefore, we protect the flock from false teachers and false teaching.
20:06: Right? Because it's not always a teacher that's influencing.
20:09: Sometimes it's a book.
20:11: People come in, Hey, look at my great new book that's by Preacher X.
20:15: It's awful.
20:17: And we've had to tell people here, That book is awful.
20:23: Please don't encourage other people in the church to read it.
20:27: You might say, Oh, who are you to tell the church? If you were giving your baby poison and I told you to stop, You wouldn't think that was wrong.
20:36: And a lot of the junk that people read is just poison.
20:40: If I tell you it's poison and you want to keep drinking, That's fine.
20:45: But you're not going to spread it here.
20:47: That's the point.
20:48: We had a lady one time that was a member here.
20:50: She joined the church very quickly.
20:53: And it was very obvious within a few weeks that she had no intention of submitting to the church.
20:59: She really was very headstrong and wanted to lay claim to some form of authority.
21:04: And she had written a book and self-published it.
21:08: And she was trying to sell it among our members without asking the elders.
21:13: She was peddling her book.
21:16: So I got a copy of it from one of the people who did buy it.
21:19: Because people were being nice.
21:20: They didn't want to hurt her feelings.
21:22: So they'd buy her book.
21:24: So she went.
21:26: I took it home.
21:26: I couldn't get past the first page.
21:29: Not because it was awful, but because the grammar was just atrocious.
21:33: And I'm not perfect, but I can't abide that.
21:36: I cannot abide horrible grammar.
21:40: That's your job not to though.
21:41: Yeah, I'm looking at it.
21:43: I'm like, first of all, this looks like it was written by a three-year-old.
21:46: It just doesn't make sense.
21:49: It is not well written.
21:51: And what it's talking about is wrong.
21:54: So I reached out to her and I said, Listen, you didn't ask us if you could sell this.
22:01: We don't agree with what's in it.
22:03: So we believe you should stop and you're going to stop.
22:07: So she did.
22:08: And then it wasn't too long after that she left the church.
22:10: But, you know, that's protecting.
22:13: That's one way.
22:14: You know, one time we had a guy.
22:15: Again, I can't stop at every screen and tell all these stories.
22:17: But we did have a guy come in one time with his wife.
22:19: He came into the church and he said, My wife is a prophetess and she has a message for your church.
22:28: This was right before church was about to start.
22:33: Oh, well, I was excited.
22:37: And I said, Please preach.
22:40: And what I said was, I don't know what.
22:50: I said.
22:54: I don't know what's going on with my camera, but it's killing me over there.
22:58: So anyway, what did I say? I said, Listen, I don't believe your prophet.
23:08: I don't believe your wife's prophet.
23:10: I really don't want to hear what she has to say.
23:12: And she's not going to speak here.
23:16: Really? I can't believe you're surprised.
23:20: I just I can't.
23:21: I can't imagine what you thought I was going to say.
23:24: Yeah, just go ahead.
23:28: No, you're not welcome to speak.
23:30: You're welcome to sit and be quiet.
23:32: If you can't do that, you need to leave.
23:33: And they left.
23:35: So that was it.
23:35: That was it.
23:36: So, yeah, that happened.
23:38: But in essence, and like I said, I mean, we had those moments, right? Where it's a job of the elders.
23:43: It's a job to protect the flock.
23:45: Feeding the flock.
23:46: What do we feed the flock? The Word.
23:48: The Word.
23:49: You know, it was so funny.
23:51: One of my pastor friends posted something.
23:53: It was great.
23:53: He said the flock gets upset if they're malnourished, but they don't show up for feeding time.
23:58: They don't show up on Sunday.
24:00: They don't show up on Wednesday.
24:01: They don't show up when the feed's going out.
24:03: And they get upset that they're malnourished.
24:04: That's part of the reason why we gather, is to hear the Word preached.
24:08: And discipleship begins on Sunday morning.
24:13: I've had people come to me, I don't feel like I'm getting enough discipleship.
24:16: Yeah, well, you're here only two Sundays a month.
24:17: Maybe you need to start being here more.
24:20: Because discipleship begins on Sunday morning.
24:23: The preaching of the Word, where everybody hears the same.
24:26: And by the way, if you took what I preached on Sunday morning, if you took the text and the sermon, and wrote down just the main points, you would have enough information and material to do family worship with your family every night of the week for five nights.
24:44: I preach anywhere from 40 to 50 minutes a week.
24:49: Every week on Sunday morning.
24:51: If you took just my sermon, and pieced it apart, and talked about it with your wife and children, you would have enough information to have five nights of family worship every week.
25:00: So, discipleship begins on Sunday morning.
25:04: And, of course, Sunday school.
25:06: This.
25:06: Wednesday night.
25:07: All the other things that we have going on.
25:10: Leading the flock.
25:11: What is leading? Leading is getting out in front, and being the example, and going forward, and doing what needs to be done.
25:22: Leadership.
25:24: A lot of people talk about leadership as a skill that is developed.
25:30: And it is.
25:30: You develop that skill.
25:32: But it is also something, I think, that is a calling.
25:35: God calls leaders and equips them to lead.
25:40: So, one of the first things when we are looking at elders, or any time we are considering that, is this person a person who is a leader? That he doesn't have to be forced to get out in front, but he does get out in front.
25:57: And the difference between the shepherd and the cowboy, is the shepherd walks before the sheep, and the cowboy drives the herd.
26:07: So, the elder walks in front.
26:10: He gets out in front and leads.
26:12: And the last is meeting practical needs.
26:14: Now, in two weeks, we are going to be looking at ministry in the local church, and we are going to talk about needs of the church.
26:21: Felt needs.
26:21: I am even going to talk to you guys about how to do a hospital visit.
26:24: So, when we talk about practical needs, we are going to look at that more.
26:28: But the elders are the first line of defense.
26:32: And this is really where the deacons come in.
26:34: Because the deacons help us do that last thing.
26:38: And let's move on to that now.
26:40: Because when it comes to meeting the needs of the congregation, we have to consider the role of the deacon.
26:45: The deacon is to be the arms of the church.
26:52: The hands and feet of Christ.
26:54: To understand the responsibilities of deacons, it is appropriate that we look at how the office was established.
27:00: Turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 6.
27:19: When you get to Acts chapter 6, who wants to read? Read for me.
27:24: Read loud.
27:26: 1 through 7, I think it is.
27:29: Now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.
27:40: And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.
27:48: Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.
27:57: But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
28:01: And what they said pleased the whole gathering.
28:03: And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.
28:17: These they said before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
28:21: And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
28:27: And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
28:30: Amen.
28:31: Alright, so that is...
28:34: There is some debate about this, but as far as I'm concerned, that is the introduction of deacons into the church.
28:41: Some people say, well, the word deacon is not used there, therefore it's not the introduction of the office of deacon.
28:46: Even if it's not the official office of deacon, it certainly is the ministry of the deacons, because what these men are doing is they are paving the way for the apostles to have the opportunity to minister the word by not having to minister all of the other things that have to be ministered.
29:09: Because the church has spiritual needs and physical needs.
29:14: And the physical need that was going on was food.
29:16: And of course there's a lot going on here about national and ethnic frustration, because it was the Jewish versus the Greek-speaking Jewish people that were having this issue.
29:30: And that's why the seven men that they chose were actually all Greek.
29:34: All of them have Greek names.
29:35: You know, they chose them to ensure that those who were being mistreated were treated properly.
29:39: There's a lot in this that we could get into.
29:42: But the most important thing is, right there, I think it's verse 2.
29:46: It says, it is not right that we, that is the apostles, should give up preaching the word to serve tables.
29:53: Now does that mean they're too good to serve tables? No, Jesus washed feet.
29:57: It's not about how good or important a person is.
30:01: It's about the duty and responsibility that that person has.
30:04: The responsibility of the deacons come into focus when we see their relationship to the elders.
30:09: The elders have the responsibility to protect, feed, lead, and meet the needs of the flock.
30:13: And any one of those could be a full-time job.
30:18: And we are called to fulfill all of them.
30:21: So how does the elder accomplish all he needs to be done? He does it through the ministry of the deacons.
30:28: If the deacons don't deac, the elders can't eld.
30:32: I mean, there's two roles, two duties.
30:37: And here's the thing I want you guys to understand.
30:39: If you're ever called to be a deacon of a church, to make a list of deacon responsibilities would be almost impossible.
30:47: Because the responsibility of the deacon is to serve the church in whatever the case may be.
30:52: This is one of the things we've talked to our deacons about.
30:55: Because the question was, well, can you make a list of what we need to do? No.
30:59: We can't give you a list because it's an ever-changing dynamic.
31:04: I'll tell you what, when I first became the pastor of this church, it was mostly an elderly congregation, right? You and I were probably the youngest.
31:15: I was in my 20s, you were in your early 30s.
31:18: I was 26, you were 31.
31:20: But we were younger families here at the church.
31:22: We had most of the people at the church were 70s, 80s, 60s, 70s, 80s.
31:28: And so there was a lot of hospital visitation that needed to be done.
31:32: There was a lot of sickness that needed to be tended to.
31:37: That was more so than now.
31:40: Because now we deal with a lot of younger families.
31:42: So what do we deal with now that wasn't then? Now we deal with family strife and teenagers and young people.
31:49: There's problems that need our help and encouragement.
31:52: So the dynamic changes, right? And as the church moves through the ages and time, the dynamics change, and therefore the responsibility of the deacons are going to change.
32:04: I'll read what I have here.
32:05: The church is a living body, not a lifeless entity.
32:09: The needs of the church grow and change.
32:11: There will always be a need for hospital calls, but there may come a time when their need is greater and other times when it's not so great.
32:17: I mean, just a few weeks ago, we had a young man in our church.
32:22: One of our church members, their son, was in an automobile accident and he died.
32:28: But he was in the hospital for a week before he passed.
32:34: And so they were there every day.
32:36: And so they needed food and love and encouragement every day for a week.
32:43: And thankfully we were able to do that.
32:45: And, you know, other people in the community reached out too, but the church was there on point.
32:50: That's what our job is, to be there on point.
32:52: You know, that changed the whole week.
32:56: It certainly changed their whole life.
32:57: But, I mean, it became the focal point of ministry.
33:01: This one family becomes the center of ministry because they're the ones who are hurting and have that need, right? So that's, like I said, you never know what a week will bring in that regard.
33:17: There will always be a need to assist those in the congregation who have needs, but there will be times when that need is greater.
33:21: So the deacons can't always know what the need's going to be because it changes.
33:27: And so, ultimately, the responsibilities of the deacon are not as clearly enunciated in Scripture as those of the elder.
33:34: And that is by design, I believe, because the position is clearly stated in the broad title of servant.
33:42: The word servant.
33:44: The deacon is to serve the church wherever and however the church needs to be served.
33:50: If you are called to be a deacon, you are called to be a need filler.
33:58: That's it.
34:01: When there is a need for a person to be visited, you fill the need.
34:05: When there's a need to prepare assistance for a grieving family, you fill the need.
34:09: When there's a need to mop a floor, trim a tree, you fill the need.
34:12: When the need is whatever it is, you are the servant to Christ and His church, and that is the primary responsibility of a deacon.
34:22: So it is a very vital role in the church.
34:28: So, that being said, let's take a few moments and look at the biblical requirements for the elder and deacon.
34:34: I invite you to open your Bibles for this one because we're going to look at 1 Timothy 3.
34:48: 1 Timothy 3.
34:50: Now this is in the book where I go through what each of these mean, but I did think it would be valuable to at least read through it and hear it yet again.
35:10: 1 Timothy 3 says, The saying is trustworthy, if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
35:24: Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
35:39: He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.
35:44: For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.
35:55: Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
36:02: Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.
36:10: They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and let them also be tested first.
36:15: Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.
36:19: Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.
36:25: Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their households well.
36:29: For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves, and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
36:37: All right.
36:39: So let's just for a moment consider the fact that the qualifications for an elder and a deacon are not that different.
36:46: Now I think I put this in the book.
36:50: What? Yeah, I was going to ask, what's the big distinction? Preaching and teaching.
36:56: The one thing that elders have to be able to do that deacons do not have to be able to do is teach.
37:06: The phrase apt to teach is the ESV.
37:10: The ability to teach is a necessity for an elder.
37:14: Now some churches don't believe that.
37:17: Especially in many Presbyterian churches, you have two different elder positions.
37:25: You have what's known as a teaching elder and a ruling elder.
37:30: So like in our church, all of our elders would be teaching elders because they all teach.
37:36: But let's say that there was an elder that didn't teach, but he was really good with administration.
37:43: They would say he's not a teaching elder, he's a ruling elder.
37:49: And I do understand the logic behind that, but I don't believe that their biblical distinction can be made.
37:56: Because under the qualifications of an elder is the qualification that he be able to teach.
38:04: That does not necessarily mean that he is the most gifted preacher that ever walked the face of the earth.
38:09: I do believe that there is a difference between the gift of teaching and the gift of prophecy.
38:15: And I'll talk about this in class five when we talk about gifting.
38:19: I believe prophecy doesn't always mean the gift to speak the future, but rather to proclaim God's word.
38:26: And that is what I believe my gifting is, is the proclamation of God's word.
38:31: And so somebody would say, well, you're a gifted teacher.
38:34: Well, I think that prophecy is my primary gift.
38:38: I would say teaching is the secondary gift.
38:42: But primarily would be prophecy, the proclamation of the word.
38:46: But there are other elders who aren't as gifted in preaching, but maybe are able to teach.
38:52: And when we get to that class, I'll distinguish it a little more.
38:56: If a man cannot do either, if there is no gifting to either, then he is not qualified to be an elder, as we understand it.
39:04: So, but he can be a deacon.
39:09: There is no qualification for a deacon to teach.
39:13: So, is the elder male specific? Yes, and we're going to talk about that next week.
39:18: Right.
39:18: Yep, yep.
39:19: We would say that, and we'll explain more next week as to why, but we would say that the role of elder is man specific.
39:27: There is debate as to whether or not a woman can serve as a deacon.
39:32: In fact, in this very passage, I'll show you why.
39:34: If you look down at verse, let me see, where is it? Verse 11.
39:41: It says, Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers.
39:47: The word there is gunakos in the Greek, and it actually means women.
39:51: And so some people have translated that to mean women deacons, and that this is qualifying women deacons.
39:58: John MacArthur holds that position.
40:00: They allow women deacons at John MacArthur's church.
40:03: And they call them deaconesses.
40:05: They do make a distinction between deacons and deaconesses.
40:08: In our church, we only affirm male deacons, but we do recognize that when a man becomes a deacon, his wife often is a supportive role in that position.
40:18: And so we kind of see them as being partners in that service, in that ministry of service.
40:23: They're one.
40:23: Yeah, huh? They're one.
40:25: Yeah, and it's a role of service, not leadership.
40:28: So we don't see it as violating the scripture that she would serve alongside of him.
40:34: But it's like this.
40:35: A deacon's wife can help him deacon, but an elder's wife does not elder along with him.
40:41: My wife doesn't come to elder's meetings and make point.
40:44: So there is a distinct...
40:46: Yeah, absolutely.
40:50: And that's fine.
40:51: That's fine.
40:52: As I said, in our church, we don't...
40:53: The title office holder of deacon we put as men only.
40:58: And again, for a couple reasons.
41:00: One of the reasons why we hold it to men only is because even though it's not technically a position of authority, it is a servant leader position.
41:11: It's supposed to be exemplary and we do believe that it's, in that sense, should be a man.
41:16: And I'll be here.
41:17: I don't want to keep you.
41:18: I don't want to hold you.
41:21: Next week.
41:21: Yeah, when we deal with it.
41:22: Yeah, we will.
41:25: But that is a big question people have.
41:27: People also ask the question a lot about the husband-of-one-wife issue, whether or not that would absolutely preclude a man who has ever been divorced.
41:36: And I'll give you the 25-cent version of that.
41:40: There are basically three different perspectives on that.
41:43: The first one is that if a man has ever been divorced at all, that he cannot serve as an elder.
41:50: The second position is that if a man has been divorced but not remarried, then he can serve as an elder because they would say the divorce isn't a sin.
42:00: It's remarrying that's a sin.
42:03: And then there's the third position which would say a divorced man would qualify.
42:08: But only if he were one of two situations.
42:14: Either he was divorced prior to his salvation because we cannot expect any man that would be prior to your salvation.
42:23: You can't expect anything, any holiness or righteousness in a man.
42:27: So that makes sense.
42:29: But the other one would be if he is the innocent party to the divorce.
42:33: For instance, is there such a thing as an innocent party in divorce? Well, if a man is, if his wife leaves him or she commits adultery and abandons him, then yes, he would be an innocent party.
42:44: So this is not as easy to answer as some might make it.
42:49: And the biggest arguments, again, always come down to, well, it says one wife, but actually it says, in the Greek, it says, it's mion gounakos andre.
43:04: That's the words.
43:06: And mion is one woman man is the term.
43:09: And basically the word means faithful to his wife, a man who is faithful to his wife.
43:14: And so let's say, this is the way I see it.
43:16: Let's say a guy is 20 years old.
43:18: He gets married and three years later, he and that woman get a divorce and then he gets saved when he's 30 and he marries a woman.
43:23: They go on to have five children.
43:25: And now he's 45 years old.
43:27: He's got five children.
43:28: He's been faithful to his wife for 15 years.
43:31: You know, I don't think that that would disqualify that man because when he was 20, he got married and got divorced.
43:36: That would be my position.
43:37: I don't think that would necessarily disqualify a man.
43:41: However, if there is a man who has multiple marriages, that might paint a picture of an issue of trustworthiness.
43:50: Remember what it says in the text about being thought of well by outsiders? Well, if you've got 15 wives, you might not be very well thought.
43:58: So there's that too, right? Not to the point that I would say that that's what Paul's talking about, even though some people do think that Paul is saying husband of one wife as opposed to husband of multiple wives.
44:16: But polygamy was not an issue where Paul was at this time in writing to the people that he was.
44:21: We don't think that that was the issue that he was addressing.
44:24: Could it have been? Possibly, but I tend to not think so.
44:28: Most don't think so.
44:30: But certainly, that would qualify.
44:32: If a man walked in with three wives, you're not an elder.
44:34: You're certainly not the husband of one wife.
44:37: Yeah? Yeah, no harem.
44:39: Yeah.
44:40: So certainly, it would disqualify multiple wives for sure.
44:46: And this is what brings up the issue of Mormonism and other religions that believe in polygamy.
44:54: I don't understand how they would be able to get past this text at all because the text is clear for sure.
45:03: So is there any other questions about biblical eldership, about qualifications? It's a big topic.
45:12: I know time is always never on our side, but honestly, if a man came to our church, for instance, we have two elders that serve with me, Andy and Mike.
45:22: They were members here for a while before we ever recognized them as being called to be elders.
45:30: And then there was another period of time where they went through a time of examination.
45:36: So this is something that is very serious.
45:39: It is better for a church not to choose an elder than to choose the wrong one.
45:44: So if you believe God's called you to be an elder pastor in a church and the church makes you wait, don't grow impatient because they are examining you as it says.
45:58: In fact, it says about deacons they must be examined.
46:02: And I think that that same thing applies to the elders.
46:04: There is an examination.
46:08: If you're going to serve, for instance, again, time.
46:13: If you were going to serve as an elder in a Presbyterian church, you have to pass a written exam and an oral exam before the presbytery which is elders from multiple churches that gather and they can ask you any question they want about the Bible, the Westminster Confession, and the larger and shorter catechisms.
46:36: Yes.
46:37: They can ask anything they want and you have to be able to answer.
46:42: Yes.
46:43: Now that's a good question because I've had that conversation.
46:47: Some men do believe that you have to be the husband of one wife and that means if your wife dies that you're no longer qualified.
46:55: Some people do take that position.
46:57: I don't hold that position because I believe that the whole idea of being the husband of one wife is being faithful, right? And therefore, if a man has been faithful to his wife who has died, I don't think that that discounts his faithfulness at all.
47:11: But there are some who believe that that makes him disqualified.
47:15: I will say this though.
47:16: I do believe that a man has to be married and has to have a family because the text says if he cannot manage his house, how can he manage the house of God? And if a man comes in as a single man and there's no wife and no children and he's not managing his home with wife and children, what do we have to base his qualification on? We don't.
47:39: So I do think that marriage and family go along with being an elder.
47:47: I had a cousin who was an assembly of God and he was in the ministry.
47:51: He was like a youth pastor.
47:52: And his wife got divorced.
47:54: It wasn't his idea.
47:55: She wanted to divorce him.
47:56: And now they won't let him pastor anymore so he's no longer affiliated with the church.
48:02: Yeah, that happens, Ed.
48:04: And unfortunately, I've seen that in many situations.
48:07: And that's where we get the idea of a zero-tolerance policy kind of thing.
48:16: Like, this is our rule, right? It's got to be husband and one wife.
48:20: Did he remarry? He did.
48:22: But did he remarry before they...
48:24: A couple years later.
48:25: He remarried like earlier this year or something.
48:27: But it was a couple years after he got divorced.
48:29: But it was just because he divorced that they put him out.
48:32: Yeah, he couldn't work in the pastoral...
48:35: Interesting.
48:40: Well, again, I understand it.
48:43: They're holding a zero-tolerance kind of thing.
48:45: They're saying...
48:51: Yeah, yeah.
49:04: I've seen it happen many times.
49:08: Husbands and wives.
49:09: I've seen them leave.
49:17: I remember a pastor came here one time.
49:19: He was a friend of mine.
49:20: He was a worship leader pastor.
49:22: And he was coming here to...
49:25: It was back when I was selling T-shirts.
49:27: He came here to pick up his T-shirts and he said, I just want you to know I'm probably going to divorce my wife.
49:37: And I said, Oh, okay.
49:39: I said, Can you tell me why? And he kind of went into this, Well, she doesn't make me happy.
49:45: We're always fighting, whatever.
49:47: And I said, Well, I just want you to know on biblical authority you have no reason to leave your wife.
49:52: If you leave your wife, you will be in sin.
49:54: You will violate your oath of ministry.
49:57: And my call to you is to repent and love your wife and stop this nonsense.
50:05: Well, they began to counsel with me.
50:07: And they're still married today.
50:09: So again, I'm not putting myself up, Oh, look what I did.
50:12: It was God doing that.
50:13: But a lot of times people hear that.
50:15: People hear, Oh, you're getting a divorce, no big deal.
50:17: No, he would have been...
50:18: He had no reason to divorce his wife.
50:20: And I do think he would have disqualified himself from ministry in that case.
50:25: So there is a sense in which it can happen.
50:27: But I don't think it's an every case situation.
50:30: I think you have to look at the situation.
50:33: All right.
50:34: Last few minutes in this part I want to talk about missionaries.
50:37: Because this is an office that the Bible doesn't really give us a qualification for.
50:43: In that sense, we wouldn't call it an office.
50:44: But we would say it's a position that is necessary in the church.
50:49: And when you hear the word missionary, what do you think? Africa, third world, right? Goes out on the street, right? Okay.
51:05: Well, we're going to talk about that, right? But what is the concept of missionary work? What is it? Can't hear.
51:13: Try again.
51:15: Frank, what were you going to say? Okay, all right.
51:21: Simple enough.
51:22: What is the mission? Go and make disciples, right? All right.
51:29: So this is one of the questions.
51:30: I actually reached out to a man this week.
51:32: I never did get a chance to get back with him.
51:34: But I have a friend who leads a missions group.
51:37: And I wanted to get his definition because I was asking the difference between a missionary and evangelist.
51:44: Because that's kind of something I was beginning to think of.
51:48: The Bible discusses evangelists.
51:51: But it doesn't really use the term missions like in the term we do.
51:56: We say Paul and Barnabas were missionaries, right? Their church laid hands on them in Antioch, sent them out, and they supported their work, right? And they said, you go.
52:07: And what were they doing? They were going and making disciples, right? In a sense, doing the work of evangelism, but they were also building churches.
52:15: So it wasn't just building individuals.
52:17: It was building churches.
52:18: Everywhere they went, a church sprung up, right? And so that's another thought when you think about missions.
52:24: It's a raising up of churches, right? So there's a distinction, I think.
52:31: Again, we're going to get there, Frank.
52:33: But I think that if we were trying to say, okay, we're all called to evangelize our neighbors, but are all of us called to be missionaries? You say, well, we're all called to do the work of the mission, but are all of us called to get on a plane and go to Africa or wherever? Well, that's what I'm saying, right? Is that how we define it? That's what I'm asking.
53:06: Okay.
53:08: Well, here's what I want you guys to consider.
53:10: I think missionary work can be both local and foreign.
53:13: So when you say Africa or cross the seas or whatever, this is the thing that bothers me.
53:20: Some people would cross the ocean to tell somebody about Jesus, but they won't cross the street.
53:26: They'll go on a two-week mission trip to Haiti, but they won't spend two weeks going to the local school and doing a Bible study with a group of kids.
53:37: Yeah, well, that's what we call them, vacationaries instead of missionaries.
53:40: Yeah.
53:41: And I am not a fan of short-term missions trips, but I'll explain that later.
53:47: Let's just for a moment talk about this.
53:48: The church has primary...
53:50: Excuse me.
53:51: We're going to talk about missionaries local and foreign.
53:53: The church has the primary responsibility to make an impact where it is planted.
53:57: Support of foreign missionaries is very important, but should be an outgrowth of the work already being done in and around the local church.
54:04: So where is the mission of the local church first? The community.
54:09: The first mission of the local church is within its own community.
54:14: If the church is a big, beautiful, sterile building in the middle of a bunch of trash and brokenness and everything...
54:21: When I say trash, I mean like trashy homes and everything's broken, but the church is this big marble statue and it's not affecting its community at all, then is that an issue? Yes, because it's not blooming where it's planted.
54:32: It's sending people out, but not sending people in the community.
54:37: And so one of the questions I wanted to ask, what are some of the ways a church can make a missionary impact in its own community? Outreach.
54:54: Wouldn't go to, right? Pastor Mark and I talk about that.
54:57: You guys go to places sometimes where it would feel very unsafe for some people.
55:02: They wouldn't feel like they want to go.
55:05: But honestly, honestly, right now, would you rather go there or would you rather go to Afghanistan? That's what I'm saying.
55:15: But my point is, people often, you know, well, I want to go to Africa or I want to go to Afghanistan or whatever, but you won't go to Moncrief or Edgewood.
55:25: You know? So, yeah.
55:31: Here are some thoughts I had just based on that.
55:34: Ways that you can make an impact on your community, I think food and clothing distribution, that's an example of the outreach you guys do at Set Free.
55:41: Door-to-door evangelism is something that is harder and harder today because I'll give you an example.
55:48: I heard a comedian talk about this the other day.
55:50: It was so funny.
55:51: He said, when I was a kid, we loved company.
55:54: He said, well, you heard the door knock.
55:57: Company's here.
55:57: And you run to the door, slide with your socks, and you open the door.
56:00: You know, your little kids are excited.
56:01: He says, now you hear the knock.
56:03: You're on the ground looking through the window.
56:05: You're like army crawling.
56:07: Don't tell them we're here.
56:08: Because people are not as welcoming to open their doors as they used to.
56:14: But that still doesn't mean that we don't do it.
56:16: They just understand a lot of doors don't get opened as much as they used to.
56:24: The what? The fuller brush man.
56:27: Oh.
56:28: You go door-to-door selling the brush.
56:29: I was going to say the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons.
56:35: You know, I got this white shirt.
56:37: I could get on a 10-speed and go ride up to somebody's door.
56:42: Are you a Mormon? No.
56:44: I'm from Sovereign Grace.
56:46: I look a little older.
56:53: So door-to-door evangelism is one way.
56:56: Open air preaching.
56:57: This is something that I believe in very strongly, but a lot of people don't.
57:02: I believe that open air preaching is something that we are called to do.
57:09: But there's a way to do it, and there's a way not to do it.
57:12: Some people just stand out and shout almost profane words at people as they go by.
57:18: I don't think that that is very helpful.
57:21: But preaching the gospel in the open air has 2,000 years of historical precedent.
57:29: So to say, well, it doesn't work anymore.
57:32: I say, what do you mean it doesn't work? It's just like going door-to-door.
57:36: They say, it doesn't work.
57:37: Well, what do you mean it doesn't work? Are you getting the gospel to people? Yes, then it works.
57:41: Whether or not people respond right that moment is not the point.
57:45: It's getting the gospel out.
57:47: Yes.
57:52: Preaching the gospel.
58:01: Well, Brother Mike is one of our elders who goes, and I go with him.
58:06: There's a place in Talleyrand that we go when they're having Monster Truck or they're having the Florida-Georgia.
58:14: Yeah, right under the bridge.
58:15: And he preaches, and I hand out tracks, and sometimes people from the church come and hand out tracks with us.
58:21: Would you agree that that's a unique calling, the open-air preaching? Yeah, I don't think everybody is gifted to that.
58:27: A great comfort gift or boldness.
58:29: Well, yes.
58:30: Here's the thing.
58:31: If somebody came to me and said, Pastor Keith, I believe I've been called to open-air preach, I would respond to them in the same way I would call if somebody came to me and said, I believe I've been called to preach in the church because it's still preaching.
58:46: I would want to know what their doctrine is.
58:47: I would want to know if they are, in fact, gifted to that.
58:52: Do they just want to be seen? Do they just want to go wear a GoPro and have everybody see what they're doing on YouTube? Because I do believe this, and I was actually going to reach out to some of my open-air ministry friends to ask if they would agree with this, but I'll say it, and maybe somebody will argue with me later.
59:06: But I do believe GoPros and iPhones and YouTube and Facebook have drastically increased open-air preaching because it's given people the ability to be seen.
59:20: Because in the 90s, I don't remember anybody doing it, honestly.
59:23: Not a lot of people out there open-air preaching.
59:24: Of course, we couldn't see it because we didn't have Facebook and YouTube.
59:27: But now with Facebook, we see it all over.
59:30: But again, would the guy be willing to go if his phone wasn't working? Would he be willing to go if he wasn't going to get seen by his followers? Yeah, go ahead.
59:40: You see it all over because it's available on Facebook and YouTube and stuff like that.
59:44: We don't see it all over because of where they would be proclaiming the gospel, as I said before.
59:52: The last one here is partnering with other churches.
59:54: Now, in Class 6, we're going to talk a little bit more about that because I'm going to talk about other church ministry partnerships as well as para-church ministry partnerships and the difference.
01:00:04: But that is one way that Missions works, is sometimes you partner with other churches.
01:00:08: Like when Set Free goes out, sometimes we go with you guys and minister alongside.
01:00:12: You're the primary, but we're there doing it with you because we agree with what you're doing and we want to support it.
01:00:18: And so we go.
01:00:19: And that's a way to do it.
01:00:20: Yes, Sir Ross? When we get to partnering churches in Class 6, I will address that more, but to give a simple answer, there should be agreement in the gospel.
01:00:46: I wouldn't go out and partner with a Catholic church because there's not agreement in the gospel.
01:00:50: Because the Muslims need a lot of people too.
01:00:53: Yeah, yeah.
01:00:54: And there's an argument in that statement that ours were to show calm and to obviously go and pray and do the things they're doing, but we're still going to be out there doing, helping the needy.
01:01:15: Well, yeah, and I mean, let's just say the Red Cross was having an event and they needed helpers.
01:01:23: Yeah.
01:01:24: You know, there may be all kinds of different people going down to help.
01:01:28: And if we went down to help, we would be helping their ministry, partnering with others in a sense.
01:01:33: I don't think there would be anything necessarily wrong with that.
01:01:35: I did a walk for life one time where it was mostly Catholics.
01:01:41: And I just remember I was surrounded by nuns and guys in collars, you know, because it was mostly Catholics.
01:01:48: And I almost felt like getting up and open air preaching to them because they don't have the gospel either.
01:01:54: But I didn't.
01:01:57: Yeah, you guys need to hear this too.
01:02:00: Especially you in the hat.
01:02:08: But, you know, when it comes to the church partnering with them, like our church partners would set free, you know, to do things, we would not partner with a church that did not preach the gospel.
01:02:19: So that would be the biggest thing.
01:02:21: Here's one thing we do.
01:02:22: Here we have the fishing hole, which is a booth that we set up at the fair.
01:02:27: And we've tried to set up at other places.
01:02:29: We give out tracks.
01:02:30: We talk to people.
01:02:31: We've had hundreds of very good conversations over the years.
01:02:35: And we call this, you see the sign that says, Do you understand the gospel? That's sort of an opening question that we ask people so that we can begin this conversation.
01:02:42: So that's one of the ways that we do local missions.
01:02:49: Oh, I don't know.
01:02:50: I don't know the answer to that.
01:02:52: I mean, a lot of people would, I've had a pastor say, I don't know if I can answer that.
01:02:56: So it depends.
01:02:58: Here's, you guys remember Rich Suplita? He was in our last semester.
01:03:02: He came and spoke.
01:03:03: He is, I would consider him a local missionary because he goes on to the college campuses.
01:03:10: He goes out into the community.
01:03:12: He does open air preaching.
01:03:13: And I even called him this week and asked him, I said, would you consider yourself an apostle or a missionary? And he said, you know, he said, he said, up until recently, I would have probably, I'm sorry, an evangelist or a missionary.
01:03:24: I said, would you consider yourself an evangelist or missionary? He said, up until recently, I would have probably said evangelist.
01:03:28: He said, but the more I think about it, I'm a local missionary.
01:03:30: You know, I'm seeking to build my local church through reaching our community.
01:03:35: That's what.
01:03:36: That's what we're all called to do.
01:03:37: Yeah, that's what we're supposed to do, right? And he's uniquely gifted to go out and preach on the street and preach in the community.
01:03:47: When we talk about foreign missionaries, though, foreign missionaries are an extension of the local church.
01:03:53: They are sent and supported by the church to go places in the world where the gospel has not been preached.
01:04:01: That's the goal.
01:04:02: If you think of Acts 15, 20, Paul says, I want to go where the gospel has not been proclaimed.
01:04:07: I don't want to build on another man's foundation.
01:04:09: I want to lay the foundation where it's never been laid.
01:04:12: All right, I want to go and preach the gospel.
01:04:14: And so when the church sends a missionary, the church takes the responsibility of supporting the missionary.
01:04:21: We call it holding the rope.
01:04:23: If you imagine a man who is down in a hole, who's doing a work of trying to save someone, and you're outside the hole holding the rope for him, right? And so the missionary is there doing the job, and we're here holding the rope.
01:04:36: We're providing him his needs.
01:04:38: I read a book this week about mission's work, and one of the things he said is he said it's really shameful how churches do not support their local missionaries well, or support their foreign missionaries well, because they don't understand that this is their whole life is over there, and oftentimes they're scrimping for what little bit they get, and they need to be lavishly supported, not supported in a way that's very low and sad.
01:05:13: So one of the things I put on here, often they are supported by more than one church.
01:05:18: Like our church is small, it would be hard for us to take on all of the support of a missionary.
01:05:23: We do support a missionary.
01:05:24: This is Scott Phillips and his family.
01:05:26: He is a missionary to Indonesia.
01:05:29: His story is amazing.
01:05:31: I wish I had time to tell it.
01:05:32: I don't, but we support him with as much as we can, but we're not the only church that supports him, and we're not the church that sent him.
01:05:40: He has a sending church that he is responsible to, that he reports to, and he reports to their elders and their pastors.
01:05:46: Maybe one day we will send a missionary.
01:05:49: Maybe David, your grandson, will become a missionary.
01:05:53: Maybe Cody, my son, would become a missionary, and then this church would send him, and we would support him.
01:06:01: So that's the role of the church.
01:06:02: If you send them, you support them, and they may have to get support, but you're the one they're responsible to, you're the one they report to, you're the one that ministers to them.
01:06:12: One of the things in the book that mentioned, I hadn't even thought about this, but as I was reading it really hit me.
01:06:17: It said sometimes you support them by sending them help.
01:06:23: Like a few years ago, I have a friend who's named Trevor.
01:06:25: He's a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and he needed help.
01:06:31: He was sick.
01:06:32: He had malaria, and his wife was tending to him, and they needed help with their children.
01:06:37: My daughter actually got her passport.
01:06:39: She was going to move to Papua and live with them for six months just to support by watching the children.
01:06:46: You wouldn't think of that as a missionary, but that's what she would have been.
01:06:49: She would have been supporting him in his missionary work.
01:06:53: It ended up not working out because she couldn't get over there quick enough.
01:06:56: He needed somebody more quickly, and somebody else was able to fill that void.
01:07:00: But that's something that we often don't think about, how we could support missions, even if you're not the one gifted to go out and preach and teach, supporting with all kinds of different ways, foreign work.
01:07:14: There are also missionary organizations which send and support missionaries.
01:07:18: Some churches choose to support through those organizations, like the Baptist Church, the Southern Baptist Church.
01:07:23: They have what's called the cooperative program.
01:07:25: That's where all the churches give to one cooperative program, and that distributes the money to the missionaries as needed.
01:07:35: And that decision is really up to the churches.
01:07:39: The decision whether to support a missionary directly or to support missions organization is the responsibility of the local body under the elder leadership.
01:07:47: So like in our church, we choose to support a missionary directly.
01:07:51: We send him the money directly.
01:07:53: We talk to him directly.
01:07:54: We know the names of his children.
01:07:56: He's preached here three or four times.
01:07:57: He comes here when he's in country, and he visits with us.
01:08:00: We know him.
01:08:02: But we could support a missionary through an organization if we wanted to.
01:08:06: It wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but I do like the way that it connects us to him.
01:08:15: And here's the thing.
01:08:16: If you're going to join a church, when you go to join a church, if you're not a member of a church, a good question is, how does this church support missions? That would be a very good question.
01:08:26: All right, let's take our break.
01:08:28: Take five, and when you come back, we'll spend the last 15 minutes or so talking about the rest of it.
01:08:36: As I said earlier, I don't like short-term missions.
01:08:40: That doesn't mean that there's never a place for short-term missions, but what has happened is short-term missions has become almost like little vacations for people.
01:08:50: Oh, I went down, and I spent two weeks in South America.
01:08:56: But did you share the gospel? No, we dug a well.
01:08:58: Or no, we put up a fence or whatever.
01:09:01: But you didn't share the gospel.
01:09:02: No, that's not why we were there.
01:09:04: Then it's not missions work.
01:09:07: You know what I'm talking about, right? I do, because Cuba is huge.
01:09:10: People, you can go visit Cuba, but you must do something in Cuba to help the people.
01:09:18: So you can either plant trees, you can go to the chocolate factory, you can do all these things.
01:09:23: If you don't do that, you can't go.
01:09:25: Your vacation is contingent on doing something.
01:09:29: I see what you're saying.
01:09:30: It's a mission vacation, and you did something for the people.
01:09:34: Yeah, and that's right.
01:09:37: And I was actually on a radio program a few years ago, Iron Sharpens Iron with Chris Arnson had me on, and we were talking about, I forget even the subject, but the subject of short-term missions come up, and I said, I'm not for it.
01:09:52: And this guy called into the program to kind of argue with me, and he said, well, listen.
01:09:57: He wrote in an arguing question and was read online, or read on the program.
01:10:05: And he said, well, listen.
01:10:07: A few years ago, my son was doing really bad, and I sent him on one of these short-term missions trips, and it really straightened him out, and it taught him some things, and it really helped him to go and see people who were hurting and blah, blah, blah.
01:10:21: And my response, not to be ugly, but I said it on the program, I said, so what you're telling me, as I said, you spent money not on missions, but on therapy for your son.
01:10:34: Because you wasn't about sending, your son's not even a believer, so he's not a missionary.
01:10:39: And you're sending him overseas to get therapy.
01:10:43: That's not missions.
01:10:44: So, I wasn't trying to be ugly, I was just saying this is the...
01:10:48: Yeah, yeah, but that happens.
01:10:51: People, you know...
01:10:53: So, again, are there times where short-term missions can be valuable? Yes, as I said earlier, my daughter was going to go to Papua New Guinea for six months.
01:11:01: Could that have been valuable? Absolutely, to the family.
01:11:05: There can be a place for it, but a lot of it is, I think, is self-serving and useless.
01:11:12: And if somebody wants to argue with it, do it after class.
01:11:15: I ain't got time right now.
01:11:16: All right.
01:11:17: So, the last few minutes, and we are going to go a few minutes over because we started a few minutes late, so I apologize.
01:11:23: But I do want to ask this question.
01:11:24: We said that the church has elders.
01:11:27: That is the first office of the church.
01:11:29: The second is deacons.
01:11:31: And that the church also has missionaries, whether they be local or foreign.
01:11:36: But what are some other needed positions in the church that may not be necessarily outlined in Scripture, but are still not unbiblical, but just important? Okay.
01:11:53: People to handle the property if the church owns property.
01:11:57: People to handle the money.
01:11:59: Who said that? Finances? Greeters? Okay.
01:12:08: And that's a good question, right? Miss Daisy asked, well, wouldn't a deacon do that? But it doesn't have to be a deacon, right? Does a deacon have to greet? Well, no.
01:12:17: There can be people who greet that are not necessarily deacons.
01:12:20: But certainly a deacon would be responsible to make people feel like they're cared for, right? So it would start with them, but not end with them.
01:12:29: Yes, sir? Worship leaders.
01:12:31: Okay, a worship leader.
01:12:32: That's a good thought.
01:12:34: Somebody that might be gifted to leading God's people in music.
01:12:41: That's a good thought.
01:12:42: What do you think, brother? Nursery.
01:12:44: Somebody to serve in the nursery if the church has small children and has a need for that.
01:12:48: Frank? I think this line of discussion really starts with what you said earlier when you referred to the church.
01:12:57: That's right.
01:12:57: What does the church need? Yes, the church is not the edifice.
01:13:01: It is a living body.
01:13:02: It's people.
01:13:03: A living body has members and there's so much Scripture that deals with that.
01:13:07: Yeah.
01:13:07: Well, I put together a list for y'all to consider and I want to talk about these things.
01:13:13: Y'all have already mentioned many of them, but these are just things that I was thinking about.
01:13:18: What's necessary? What's important? And I'll give it to you and write them down or just wait until you get the notes.
01:13:24: But here's the ones I thought of.
01:13:25: The first one was youth ministers.
01:13:28: But here's the thing.
01:13:29: Our church doesn't have a youth minister.
01:13:32: So the question would be are youth ministers necessary? Somebody says, well...
01:13:39: I think it depends on the size of your church.
01:13:42: Does it depend on the size of the church? Well, if you've got like hundreds of kids, I mean, you know...
01:13:49: Let me...
01:13:50: Well, but let me challenge that.
01:13:52: Let me just ask this question.
01:13:53: They're being taught right at home.
01:13:55: There shouldn't be classes here.
01:13:56: Well, shouldn't be or don't have to be? Let me back up.
01:14:03: There's a reason why we don't have a youth minister at this church.
01:14:08: We don't believe in dividing the family into parts during Sunday morning worship.
01:14:18: We believe in what is called family integrated worship where the children worship alongside their parents.
01:14:26: So on Sunday morning, and a lot of churches on Sunday morning, the kids come in with their parents, but as soon as the music's over, kids go out, right? And the sermon begins after the kids are gone and they go and they get junior church or kids church, right? Some of them, they don't even come into the sanctuary.
01:14:44: Some of them, they have their own youth church and their own youth building.
01:14:48: And here's what I witnessed.
01:14:50: I was a youth director for four years.
01:14:52: I was back in 2001 to 2005.
01:14:58: I was the youth director.
01:15:00: And this is what I learned.
01:15:03: Oftentimes, a church that has youth ministers and a youth group that is divided from the church, the youth and the church become almost like two different worshiping bodies that just share the same building.
01:15:21: And there is a lack of unity.
01:15:23: I mean, Bobby, you can attest to this.
01:15:25: Think of how many of those young people never came to regular church.
01:15:29: And when it became time to go to regular church, what happened? They left.
01:15:34: And what have we done? Look at what we've done.
01:15:36: Used to, you had children's church.
01:15:38: Then they started children's church and teen church.
01:15:41: Then it went from children's church to teen church.
01:15:43: Then you had young adult church.
01:15:45: Then you had college and career.
01:15:47: Then you have young marriage.
01:15:48: You never get to church.
01:15:49: You graduate into the next group, but you never graduate into the church.
01:15:56: And you see the problem.
01:15:59: So here's what we...
01:16:01: And again, I'm not saying we're the model.
01:16:03: We're not the best.
01:16:05: But here's what we have said.
01:16:07: We don't have a youth pastor.
01:16:10: We have fathers, all of which have the responsibility to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
01:16:18: So we seek to equip fathers to pastor their homes.
01:16:23: So if you say, I don't have a youth pastor, I say, no, I have about 30 of them.
01:16:28: Well, maybe not that many, but as many men who have homes with children have the responsibility to teach them.
01:16:36: But that doesn't mean we don't do things for children.
01:16:39: We have, for years, we've had a group called American Heritage Girls.
01:16:43: It was like a scouting program.
01:16:44: That's actually coming to an end.
01:16:45: So we're about to start a group called Young Disciples.
01:16:47: And it's going to have Bible teaching, but it's also going to have like life skills lessons like they do in scouts.
01:16:55: And there's gonna be some of that here.
01:16:57: We have all kinds of outreach programs here.
01:16:59: We have the karate program and other things that we do.
01:17:03: I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with youth ministry.
01:17:08: And even the title youth pastor, if the church is structured that way, it's not necessarily wrong.
01:17:15: But here's where I do think it can be an issue.
01:17:17: If a youth pastor is not qualified to be an elder, he's not qualified to be anybody's pastor.
01:17:27: So the idea of being a youth pastor, because here's what I've seen.
01:17:32: Maybe you've seen it too.
01:17:33: You get these young guys who don't know the difference between the Bible and a hole in the ground, and they put them in charge of the kids because they're hip, and they know how to play the guitar, and they talk real well.
01:17:51: And they're entertainers.
01:17:53: Not just babysitters.
01:17:54: They're entertainers.
01:17:55: They don't know the word, but they're entertaining.
01:18:01: I've seen some really gross things too.
01:18:04: I have seen churches that have the kids do things licking peanut butter off of each other's feet and stuff because they think it's funny.
01:18:13: Look it up.
01:18:15: Atrocious youth games.
01:18:16: It's all out there.
01:18:18: Foolish stuff.
01:18:23: Because it's fun.
01:18:25: Well.
01:18:30: Do I think we have all the answers? No.
01:18:34: But when it comes to youth ministers, do I think that there can be a position? Yes.
01:18:38: But in my estimation, the man must qualify as an elder before he's anybody's minister, before he's anybody's pastor.
01:18:47: And that would mean he has a wife.
01:18:50: That means he has children.
01:18:51: Didn't I say that earlier, right? So we don't put 18-year-olds in charge of youth ministry.
01:18:57: You know? So just again.
01:19:00: Now music ministers.
01:19:01: Somebody mentioned worship pastors.
01:19:02: I do think there's a place for that.
01:19:04: Again though, is there a biblical mandate for that? No.
01:19:08: It's something that may be needed, but it's not a necessity.
01:19:11: It's something that the church may or may not want.
01:19:13: I'm actually the music minister here along with being the pastor.
01:19:16: And only because the music minister that we had left.
01:19:19: And I filled that gap.
01:19:23: I play the guitar a little bit, so I lead.
01:19:26: But I want you to think about Charles Spurgeon.
01:19:30: Charles Spurgeon was the prince of preachers, right? He also led all of the singing in his church.
01:19:36: He stood on the bottom platform.
01:19:38: He had a two-tiered platform in the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
01:19:41: He would walk to the bottom.
01:19:43: He would lead the singing.
01:19:44: No instruments.
01:19:46: He believed instruments were wrong.
01:19:48: He believed the only instrument the Christian should use to glorify God was his voice.
01:19:53: I don't want to debate that today.
01:19:55: But that was what he believed.
01:19:57: And so they sang a cappella.
01:19:59: And he led the congregation.
01:20:02: Then he walked up the stairs to the pulpit, and he preached the sermon.
01:20:07: That was it.
01:20:08: So he was the music minister and the pastor.
01:20:13: So is that a position? Yeah.
01:20:15: But again, if you're leading God's people, that's a position of responsibility.
01:20:23: It's certainly a position of visibility.
01:20:27: People are seeing you lead worship.
01:20:30: Here's the thing that would bother me.
01:20:31: A man gets up and leads worship, but then wouldn't take communion.
01:20:40: I mean, just think about it, right? What would keep you from leading? What would keep you from taking communion? Maybe whatever's going on in your life, right? Well, why are you leading worship and then not taking communion? I've seen this happen.
01:20:49: So this is not something that is outside the bounds of what I've seen.
01:20:54: But if he's still in a position not to take communion, he should do the same in leading worship.
01:20:59: In leading worship, right? You're leading God's people.
01:21:03: You are standing before God's people.
01:21:06: This is why in our church, and again, we're not the model.
01:21:09: It's just this is what I do.
01:21:10: This is where I work.
01:21:11: So I've got to give you what we do because it's all I've got.
01:21:13: But in our church, we do not allow anybody to lead worship who is not a member of the church because they have not confessed Christ before the body and they have not become part of this body.
01:21:27: Now that doesn't mean that we might not have a special person come in.
01:21:30: Just like a special preacher might come in and preach, we might have a special come in and sing a song or something.
01:21:35: But the idea of the normative action of the church is that the people who are leading worship are all members of the church.
01:21:44: I know some churches that hire musicians that are unsaved because they are talented.
01:21:54: That is not something I would say is a righteous thing to do.
01:21:58: Again, not trying to kick anybody in the teeth, but just because a man can get down on the piano or drums or whatever, if he's not in Christ, he need not be leading God's people in worship.
01:22:15: What about Sunday school? Sunday school biblical? But is it unbiblical? Yeah, it's a Bible study.
01:22:24: And that's in fact a lot of times what we talk about on Sunday morning.
01:22:27: We call it Sunday school, but really it's just Sunday morning study.
01:22:29: It's Sunday Bible study.
01:22:31: At our church, we only have one class right now.
01:22:33: It's Brother Andy's class, and anybody who wants to come would come, whether they be young or old.
01:22:37: But if we decided next week to have kids' classes or whatever, it wouldn't be wrong to do that because really what keeps us from it is people willing to teach.
01:22:46: It takes a lot to dedicate 52 lessons a year, or 50 if you take two weeks off or whatever, but it's a lot.
01:22:55: If God is calling you to do this, He's calling you to a weekly responsibility of explaining the Word and loving people enough to get up and teach the Word in Sunday school.
01:23:07: It's a big deal.
01:23:10: Here's the thing that...
01:23:12: Again, time.
01:23:13: I hate that I sometimes just feel like...
01:23:17: So much to say.
01:23:19: There was an old comic that was really funny.
01:23:21: It had a picture of a person applying for a job at a school, and it was, do you have a four-year degree? Do you know this? Do you know that? Do you have this many references? Whatever.
01:23:34: And then it had the same person, but it changed from a school to a church, and it was like Sunday school, and it says, do you have a van? That was the only qualification.
01:23:45: Do you have a van? And so I do think if you're going to teach Sunday school, you should know the Word.
01:23:51: I mean, is that...
01:23:53: Huh? Yeah, absolutely.
01:23:56: You should be gifted to teach and know the Word.
01:23:59: And this is a big issue because you have the blind leading the blind at that point.
01:24:07: What about home groups? Well, again, when we say it's not biblical, are we saying it's not in the Bible, or are we saying it's unbiblical? I mean, technically, driving your car to church isn't biblical either in the sense of it's not in there, but it's not unbiblical.
01:24:31: Yeah, but I think a home group is different than a home church.
01:24:34: Yeah, but for instance, let's just say Brother Mike Ward, her son is a deacon.
01:24:44: Let's say he said, you know, I want to start getting together with the people that live in my community because he lives in Yulee, and so Brother Andy lives out there, and a few other people live out there in Yulee, and he says, you know, I want to start a home group on Sunday nights that meets to read the Bible, pray together, and sing a few hymns, and we're going to do that every week.
01:25:02: That wouldn't be wrong, but he would still have the responsibility, if he were doing it, to do it, if he's leading a Bible study, it would need to be something that is biblical and true and righteous and holy, and so, again, any position like this is not necessarily a biblical or unbiblical.
01:25:23: Is it under the leadership of the elders? Is it being managed properly? Here's the most dangerous thing I see people do is people avoid the church completely, and they say, we'll just start a little home group at our home with no intention of ever growing into a church.
01:25:41: We're just going to do that.
01:25:42: That's the dangerous thing, but if a group within the church wants to meet for Bible study, that's just more discipleship, so it can be, so, again, the question is, is it right or wrong? It's as the church has needs.
01:25:55: Yes.
01:25:56: Is that true? Yep.
01:26:03: Submitting to the ultimate leadership in the church, which is Christ, and then through the leadership of the elders.
01:26:10: Last one I have on this list is treasurer.
01:26:15: Is that necessary? Absolutely.
01:26:17: Well, I mean, if you're going to deal with money, somebody's got to be responsible.
01:26:20: Here's one of the things in our church that is important.
01:26:23: The elders are not treasurers or their wives.
01:26:29: The elders do not know who gives what.
01:26:33: We don't get a report that says James gave this much or Daisy gave this much.
01:26:38: We don't get a report about that.
01:26:41: All we know is how much was given so that we know what we have to work with in ministry, but we have three people in our church.
01:26:52: They're finance officers, and all of them share the responsibility and the authority over the account.
01:26:59: None of them can write a check without another signature.
01:27:02: Each check requires two signatures and all those things.
01:27:08: Yeah, all of those things.
01:27:13: Just the three finance officers, but one of them is a deacon, so they are the three people who know who gives what.
01:27:26: Notice the last question.
01:27:28: I'll end with this How would these function in relation to the two offices? Well, youth ministers, if they're going to be ministers, they would need to be qualified as elders.
01:27:38: Music ministers, I think pretty much the same thing.
01:27:40: That doesn't mean everybody on the chancel is an elder, but whoever's the leader, whoever's leading it needs to be qualified to lead.
01:27:47: Sunday school teachers, I think need to be qualified to teach, and that would be the elders who would oversee that.
01:27:53: Home group leaders, same thing.
01:27:54: The elders would oversee who's the teaching, and the finance officers, the elders and the deacons.
01:28:00: So, again, all ministry is funneling and functioning through the offices of elder, overseer, deacon, servant leader in the church.
01:28:11: So, whatever the church needs, it's all going to be falling under that umbrella.
01:28:18: You've probably seen this before, and we'll finish with this.
01:28:22: If you think of an umbrella, and you say Christ is the head of the church, and there's the protection of the church, and then he manages the church through the Bible, that's the scripture, right? And then this is meant to be interpreted and applied by the elders, and then down here you have the deacons and the body of the church which fall underneath that, and that is whatever else comes in, whether it's youth ministry, or whether it's Sunday school ministry, or whatever else, it's all going to fall down here, because it's all a part of the body functioning under the leadership of the elders who are functioning by teaching the scripture under the authority of Christ.
01:29:13: So, no matter what it is, that's sort of the simple model.
01:29:18: Alright, any questions? Alright, well let's pray.
01:29:22: Father, I thank you for your word, for your truth, and I pray that this has been beneficial for all of us as we better understand the ministry of the local church.
01:29:32: And Lord, as we go into the weeks ahead, I pray that you would be glorified in all that we say and do.
01:29:36: In Christ's name, amen.