WHY DOES THE CHURCH NEED QUALIFIED ELDERS?

This is a new one, so you might not know it too well. ♪ Created one, the author of salvation ♪ ♪

Who wrote the laws of space and time ♪ ♪

And fashioned worlds to his design ♪ ♪

The one whom angels most revered ♪ ♪ Hung the stars like chandeliers ♪ ♪

Numbered every grain of sand ♪ ♪ Knows the heart of every man ♪ ♪

He is king forever, he is king forever ♪ ♪

He is king for interest and our strength ♪ ♪

The rock on which we can depend ♪ ♪ Trust in his majesty, his power and authority ♪ ♪

Unshaken by the schemes of man ♪ ♪ Never changing, great

I am ♪ ♪ Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall ♪ ♪ He is faithful to it all ♪ ♪

Crown him king forever, crown him king forever ♪ ♪

Crown him king forevermore ♪ ♪

God immortal flesh ♪ ♪ Forsaken by a traitor's kiss ♪ ♪

He curses sin and centuries ♪ ♪

Did pierce and lowly perseverance lifted high ♪ ♪

Oh lifted high the sinners' land ♪ ♪ They crucified the spotless lamb ♪ ♪

Buried by the sons of man ♪ ♪ But he was rescued by the father's hand ♪ ♪

Reign as king forever, reign as king forever ♪ ♪

God of grace, we crown you with the highest praise ♪ ♪

Shouts of saints adore your holy, holy, holy

Lord ♪ ♪ What joy in everlasting life ♪ ♪

With all his love and his insight ♪ ♪ Justice rolls and praises rise ♪ ♪

With the name of Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ King of kings forever, king of kings forever ♪ ♪

He reigns forever, he reigns forever ♪

That's a new song that we're just trying to introduce, so if you couldn't catch all the words, that's okay.

It's a matter of what we're singing. The truth of God's word that he is king forevermore and he is worthy of our praise, amen?

Amen, well welcome. Welcome to our service today. I wanna welcome, as I do every week, all of our covenant members.

You know who you are. Thank you, thank you for bringing your gifts to the body. We've had many of you out there serving in the parking lot and welcoming and serving back in the kitchen already this morning for the benefit of the whole and we are so grateful and I want you to know that you are loved.

I always wanna remind you, first thing, when we come in here, before we begin to worship, you are loved. You are loved by us and the reason you're loved by us is because you're loved by God the

Father who has set his love on you before the foundation of the world. He chose to bring you to glory.

You're loved by Christ the Son, God the Son, Jesus, right? The one that came and purchased you, purchased you by blood ransom and you are loved by God the

Holy Spirit who now dwells in you and dwells in all of us if we are in Christ. So we are unified in the

Spirit. And so I wanna thank you for that. I also wanna thank all of our guests for being here.

Thank you so much for joining us. We pray that all of us would grow in the knowledge and fear of the Lord. And I just wanna share with you, if you're a guest and you've not filled out one of these

Connect cards, we can get one to you. If you got one in the first time guest bag, there's one in there with a pin.

There's an area on here where you can find out more about the ministry here at 12 .5

but then more importantly for us, there's a section at the bottom that says, how can we pray for you? And if you just fill that out, all of us need prayer, right?

I need prayer, we all need prayer. And there's a group of us that meet every Tuesday morning in here. And if you put that in the offering plate, when it comes by, we can be praying specifically for you.

Gives us a chance to get to know you a little bit. So thank you for being here and being a part of this.

Well, typically we pray for another local church this morning, but we're actually gonna do that during our time of fellowship later on in the service.

And so now what I would like for us to do is I would like for us to jump in to worship. It's time to start with a call to worship.

We always go to scripture for this. There's a read and a response, but this is simply just all of us as corporately reading through a portion of scripture.

And this one happens to be Psalm chapter 98, where the psalmist says, make a joyful noise to the

Lord. It's a psalm. It says, oh, sing to the Lord a new song. His right hand and his holy arm, the

Lord has made known his salvation. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness.

All the ends of the earth have seen make a joyful noise to the

Lord, all the earth. Sing praises to the

Lord with lyre, with trumpets and the sound of the horn.

Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the rivers clap their hands.

Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord. He will judge the world with righteousness.

Let's pray a prayer of adoration to our great God this morning. Oh, dear heavenly

Father, we come to you. We bow before you. When we acknowledge that you are the creator, you are the sustainer, you are the giver of all things.

God, we know that the rocks cry out and worship to you, the creator.

We know that the stars are declaring the glory of God. How much more should we, this morning, image bearers, those that are created in your image, worship you?

To point to your glorious grace and mercy in our lives and your sovereign hand over all things.

Oh, God, we ask that you would be honored in our worship. We ask that we would not bring a sinful, false fire before you,

God, but that we would be able to sing and to preach and to pray and to read your word and to declare these truths in spirit and in truth.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you are honored in our lives and in our actions and our worship together.

Lord, I pray that as we sing, as we open your word and all that is involved in what you've called us to on this

Lord's Day gathering, I pray that it would be used to edify and encourage each other, the saints.

Well, that's the way you've designed it. You've designed it for us children to be able to just glean from you, to set and learn from you and to honor you with our lives and in doing so, driving each other to continually live as unto the

Lord. Father, I pray that you would be honored. Jesus, I pray that you would be honored.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you would be honored three in one, the almighty God, this morning and all that we do.

Lord, we thank you. We thank you for bringing us together, Christ. Amen. ♪

Lift up your voices, lift up your praise ♪ ♪ Joined with the heavens to bearing the wonders of this day ♪

Sing of the victory. ♪ Oh, sing of the victory, the hope of the world ♪ ♪

The Savior has risen, the Spirit has come to me ♪ ♪

I sing to you forever, we are one ♪ ♪

Oh, we are the people of God, open our hearts out ♪ ♪

Great is the love of the Father ♪ ♪

Listening to the light, the sons and the daughters ♪ ♪ I'm loved at a price,

I'm loved forever ♪ ♪

Heart out, this is the song of the

Redeemer, ransomed and freed ♪ ♪ That's such a price, this is love ♪ ♪

You see Him on the throne, hear the voices sing as one ♪ ♪

Oh, this is love, oh, this is love ♪ ♪ Oh, we are the people of God with the freedom of hope in our hearts ♪ ♪

How great is the love of the Father ♪ Sing it one more time.

♪ Oh, we are the people of God with the hearts out ♪ ♪

How great is the love of the

Father ♪ ♪ Who became sin, who knew no sin ♪ ♪ That we might become

His righteousness ♪ ♪ The almighty Himself, who carried the cross ♪ ♪

Love so amazing, love so amazing,

Jesus is Messiah ♪ ♪

Name above all names, blessed

Redeemer, Emmanuel ♪ ♪

The rescue for sinners, the ransom from hell,

Jesus Messiah ♪ ♪

The Lord of all, the bread,

His blood, the wine, broken in four ♪ ♪

The triple that there was told, love so amazing, love so amazing,

Jesus Messiah ♪ ♪

Name above all names, blessed

Redeemer, Emmanuel ♪ ♪

The rescue for sinners, the ransom from hell,

Jesus Messiah ♪ ♪

Praise Him, you, you,

Jesus Messiah, blessed

Redeemer ♪ ♪ The rescue for sinners, the ransom from hell,

Jesus Messiah ♪

The Lord of all.

Jesus Messiah. The Lord of all.

The Lord of all. We're going to get time for our scripture reading this morning which comes from Hebrews 13.

Starting in verse 7. He says, remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.

Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever

Do not be led away by Diverse and strange teachings for for it is for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace

Not by foods, which which have no have not benefited those devoted to them We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a

Sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood

Therefore let us go into him Outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured

For here we have no lasting city We seek the city that is to come

Through him Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name

Jesus Messiah. Amen Amen Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you let's pray a prayer of confession and assurance this morning because We know that we all sin

Every one of us have sinned this morning, right? But there is therefore no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus So we come boldly

We confess we acknowledge our sin before him and we even do so publicly as we're getting ready to do

Oh, but we rest right? There's an assurance of the righteousness imputed to us from Christ himself.

So let us pray Lord we come to you now and we acknowledge our frailty and sin and brokenness

God we acknowledge that we do not worship you as we should God we acknowledge that we do not live as we ought

God we acknowledge that that even our greatest day of Pursuing holiness is still falling so short

God we acknowledge our sin. We acknowledge our gossip of one another. We acknowledge our slander of one another

We acknowledge our disunity. We acknowledge the the fact that our flesh enters into to your very church

And we just want to lay that down at the foot of the cross knowing that that our our glorious Savior is paid for all of it and We stand now righteous

We stand before you with no condemnation. You are not less or more happy with us your children

At any given moment you are perfectly content in your children because you are perfectly content in Christ and he is our righteousness

So we pray that you would be honored in our worship even though it falls so short You're worthy of all

We thank you in Christ's name In Christ's name

I Got you suffered

We serve for me Oh Yes Oh Oh Because he lives

I Can face tomorrow

Because he Fear is

Oh Just because Oh He Oh Oh I'll cross

It is way

I'll see the light of glory, and I'll know

He lives. Because He lives,

I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, fear is gone.

Because I know the future in life is worth the living.

Just because He lives is worth the living.

Just because He lives. Amen. Jesus, thank you so much,

Father. Thank you for this opportunity we have to come together this morning, Lord. And sing in one accord,

Lord, and raise you up, Lord, because you are Lord. You reign. You live.

Lord, I pray this morning, Lord, as we continue this service, Lord, I pray that your word would be preached boldly,

Lord. You would clear out any distraction, open all of our hearts, open our ears, Lord. Lord, I pray as we take up this offering this morning,

Lord, I pray that you would bless it. Lord, we can never outgive you,

Father. Lord, I love you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name, and all of God's people said. Because He lives, amen.

Because He lives, we get to stand in boldness, and we get to open His word. And because He lives and we now have the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit, we can now comprehend and understand the great truths from His word with clarity.

And we are so grateful to the Lord for that. Well, this morning, we're going to actually take a bit of a break from our study through the book of Ephesians.

For the next few weeks, the reason that we're going to do that is that we've come to a section in Ephesians 5 where Paul is laying out, as we see, the design for the family, how

God has designed the family. And as we as elders have been thinking and praying through that text and what we want to present, we believe that this is an area that we would like to slow down a bit, spend a little bit of time and really examine ourselves, really examine the families of the church in light of what

Scripture teaches. And so we're going to be doing a bit of a mini -series within the bigger series.

And this is going to actually start in April, right after Easter. We're going to get through Easter, and then we're going to jump back into Ephesians with that,

God's design for the family. So if you have anyone that is interested in understanding what does

God say about the family and the structure, what is his prescription, this would be a great time to be able to come and be a part of that, and I'm looking forward to that series.

So in the meantime, we're going to take the next few weeks and look at other texts in Scripture, and as we believe that the

Holy Spirit leads. And most of you already know, many of you were here last night. It was a great celebration.

Last night, we had the installation service of Pastor Keith Hinnick as he became one of the elders of this congregation, one of the pastors of this congregation.

It's an exciting time. And so in light of that, I thought I would preach from one of the pastoral epistles,

Titus. So if you got a copy of God's Word with you, go ahead and open up to Titus chapter 1.

This is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to one of his protégés,

Titus. Titus has been sent to the island of Crete essentially as a church planter.

Paul has left him in this position to put together the church and to establish churches there on this island.

And as you look there in Titus chapter 1, I'd like to start reading in verse 5 where Paul says, right, to Titus, this is why

I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

Well, he goes on then to list the qualifications of these men. They're very similar. They're essentially the same qualifications that Pastor Jeremiah preached last night from 1

Timothy 3. But there in verse 6 he lists them. He says, if anyone is above reproach, hey, establish elders.

And these are the things you're looking for to establish elders. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick -tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

Let's stop there for a moment. Our sermon today is not about these qualifications.

Pastor Jeremiah did an excellent job covering those last night. I simply wanted us to see them again to remind us of the high standard of this calling in this office.

And if you're like me, you see this list and you think, who amongst us?

Who could possibly live up to all of that? After all,

Jesus himself is the only one that has truly lived up to that type of scrutiny.

We can see, though, a pattern, a pattern of the pursuit of these things in some of our lives.

So why such lofty standards for this office? Why is it so important for these qualifications to be met and to be the pattern of a man's life in order to carry this office of overseer, pastor, bishop, these are all interchangeable words.

It's because of the requirements of this office. The requirements of this office.

The pastor, you got to see, you got to understand, tends to draw lazy men. It does.

It draws lazy men, men who don't want to do manual labor. I've known many of these men in my life.

Or they don't want to have to work a regular job. They get to go be a pastor. They see somebody standing up here and they think, well, man, they've got some respect, people like them, and they can just put together a sermon every week.

I get to read. I can go visit people in the hospital. I can throw together a bit of a sermonette every

Sunday, tickle everyone's ears, maybe share a few stories. After all, maybe I'm good at sharing stories.

All the while essentially playing church. This is many pastors in the pulpits in America today because it draws these men.

However, this office doesn't have office hours, right? This is not like a normal job.

The job description from scripture is the care of Christ's very bride.

Think about that for a second. The oversight and care of the very bride and body of Christ himself.

This is a high calling. That we are under the good shepherd. We like to say around here we do have a senior pastor.

It's not me. It's not Jeremiah. It's not Keith. It's Christ. Christ is the senior pastor.

He's the shepherd. We are just under shepherds. The senior pastor,

Jesus Christ, calls these men, and he says, feed my sheep. This is a high calling.

So why are these qualifications so rigid? It's because of the task set before us.

The very reason that elders are needed within Christ's body, the church, because of what

Christ himself has called. Now, before you begin to check out and say, well, I guess Pastor Nathan is just preaching to Pastor Jeremiah and Pastor Keith this morning.

No, this is for you. I want you to understand this calling because this affects you greatly.

So please don't check out. As a matter of fact, today I want us to see three reasons why qualified elders are needed.

And this is for you to be able to watch the overseers, watch the elders in your life, watch pastors and evaluate.

Why are these qualifications so strict? Because of these three reasons.

These we see in the following few verses. Right after Paul lists these qualifications, look back at the text with me, but look at verse 10.

This is the text I want us to address today. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

These are fighting words, aren't they? The apostle

Paul pulls no punches when he addresses this. Have you ever noticed that Paul has a zero tolerance policy for false teaching?

In all of his letters and everything that he addresses, he will not give it an inch.

He doesn't move and budge when it comes to false teaching. And as soon as he tells

Titus to establish men, he leaves them there as a church planter, right? He says, establish overseers, establish elders in all the churches.

And then he gives them these high qualifications. He tells them that they must do the same.

Have a zero tolerance policy for false teaching. Do not budge. They must fight for purity of doctrine and unity within the body.

This requires them to meet those qualifications, doesn't it? As we're going to see.

So here we see our first point. Qualified elders are needed in order to silence false teachers.

Qualified elders are needed to silence false teachers. Look there at verse 11, right at the beginning.

What does he say? He says, they must be silenced. You know, there's false teachers everywhere, isn't there?

They were present in Jesus' day. They infested the early church. And unfortunately, they essentially run amok in the modern church.

They have total free reign. And it's probably because of all the lazy pastors, the lazy overseers who refuse to do their job and don't meet those qualifications.

Yet they must be given free reign, or must not be given free reign, to spew their poison.

They must be silenced, as Paul says. So how do we silence them? That's the question at hand that we have to deal with.

How do we silence false teachers? It's not as simple as just asking someone to be quiet, is it?

It doesn't work like that. We can confront people all that we want, and usually it just turns them into a martyr, and then they have the ear of more people.

So how do we silence them? How do we shut them out? Do we shun them? Well, you can't control the whole of the church.

This is difficult. And so I think Paul gives us an answer to that. As a matter of fact, look back at what Paul tells Titus at the end of the list of qualifications, in between what we just read, in verse 9.

So he lists the qualifications, and then he says, he, this overseer who meets these qualifications, must, is demanded, he has to hold firm.

This word, it means to support, or to cling tightly to, or to protect.

As a matter of fact, this same word is used elsewhere in the New Testament in reference to holding up and holding firm the poor and the broken, the needy.

And so this word, he must hold firm, he must support, cling to, and cling to what? To the trustworthy word as taught.

He must hold to, tightly cling to the trustworthy word, the words of God that are taught.

As taught by who? Who gets to set the standard? Who sets the rules? There's so many different interpretations.

Every false teaching that you've ever seen has tried to derive it from words in Scripture. Yet it's a wrong interpretation.

So who gets to set the standard? How are these men to hold firm to something? They are to hold firm to what the apostles and the prophets handed down.

It's been handed down through the church, hasn't it? It's been handed down through the saints.

We mentioned it in Ephesians where Paul talks about the apostles and the prophets being the foundation, with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, and then every decade, every century, every bit of the church is being built upon the teaching as long as it's in line with that foundation.

Now people try and build off of that foundation. That's when we get false teaching. But as long as it stays on that foundation, it's being built up.

So this trustworthy word as taught is as taught by the apostles, that has been written by the prophets in the

Old Testament and interpreted by the apostles. After all, Jesus said over, or Jesus, Paul said over Galatians chapter one, as he deals with false teaching, he says, but even if an angel from heaven, he even already said before, even if I or Barnabas teach you this, teach you something, or an angel from heaven comes down and should preach to you, should declare to you a gospel contrary to the one that we, who's

Paul talking about, the apostles, right? That we preach to you. He says, let him be accursed.

Let him be an anathema. Damned to hell is the translation. Paul takes this very seriously.

No one, including pastors, has the authority to redefine the scriptures. The truth has been passed down from the apostles.

So a pastor's job, an overseer's job, is to hold fast, to be a student of, to know the scriptures.

He must know the word. Look at the text again, verse nine. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught.

Why? So that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine.

See, you don't know sound doctrine that's taught by the apostles. You can't instruct, can you?

You can't fulfill that calling that Paul has said these overseers must fulfill. You don't know how to put work into it.

You don't want to put the effort into it. Then do anything else. This isn't for you.

This isn't the calling for you. You can't teach what you don't know. You must be a student.

You must hold firm to it so that you may be able to teach it. Because here's the problem. We have a lot of men that fill the pulpits today that like to give you their opinion.

They like to give you their wisdom. They like to give you their insight. And that is thoroughly and completely worthless.

I have nothing to offer you. I do not have any wisdom. I do not have any ability to give you any guidance that is of any worth.

Only the Word does as taught by the apostles. Sound doctrine, the truth of God's Word is the only thing with any power of true instruction.

Look at the text again, right? So we must hold firm to the trust where the Word is taught so that we may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine.

But then there's a second part to it. And also to rebuke those who contradict it.

That's definitely a concept that we don't like today, is it? That's why

I think most churches like that lazy pastor. Because he doesn't have the sound understanding and knowledge to rebuke them in their sin.

But rebuking people seems unloving, doesn't it? That's the way our culture runs. You don't rebuke people.

You don't tell people that they're doing wrong. Yet this is what Paul calls elders to do. You may ask, well, isn't an elder supposed to be gentle?

Isn't an elder supposed to be soft -spoken and loving and peaceable? He's a peacemaker, isn't he?

And rebuke seems so confrontational. This just seems to contradict these qualifications.

But when it comes to the truth being distorted, the truth of God and the minds of God's people, rebuke is the most peaceable, gentle, loving thing that can be done.

It's the only loving thing that can be done. Think about it for a second.

The word of God refers to the churches. We're sheep, right? We're sheep and we have to be near the good shepherd and we have to be together and there's safety in all of that.

And that's the analogy that it gives us. When a wolf enters into the herd, grabs one of the weak sheep and drags them away, what's the most loving thing to do?

How do you address it? Do you let the wolf devour the sheep and then come back for more? Is that the loving thing to do?

Or do you kill the wolf? You cut it out of the herd.

You guard the herd from that wolf coming in and devouring the sheep. You see, our way of thinking is not very loving because we're just allowing false teaching to wreak havoc in the lives of the saints, pulling them away from the good shepherd.

Sometimes it's not even a wolf that needs rebuke. We're gonna see that here in a moment in the text, but sometimes it's another sheep.

Sometimes it's one of us. Sometimes I need rebuke. We have to be rebuked, leading other sheep away from the shepherd because of false teaching that doesn't align with what the apostles taught.

That needs to be rebuked. Rebuke those who contradict it. But in order to do this, this takes great discernment.

We must be able to distinguish how we're going to approach a wolf or a deceived sheep.

We must be careful. So how is a false teacher a wolf identified?

Because we must approach them very differently than we do a sheep that is misunderstanding truth.

These can be very difficult to identify. Jesus himself said that these wolves are in sheep's clothing.

They disguise themselves. They disguise themselves and they look like one of us. You see, a dangerous false teacher is one that is the closest to the truth, isn't it?

I'm actually gonna share an analogy that I grew up hearing from my family. My mother's here today from Florida.

I'm glad to have her here with us. But this is an analogy that I've grown up hearing about. My mother, back when dad was going through seminary, you worked at a bank, right?

As a bank teller. And she shares how back then, the way that they were taught to deal with counterfeit money wasn't to be handed counterfeit money and said, examine this counterfeit money.

And when you see this, you deal with it. It didn't work like that. What she says is they would tell you during slow times is to open one of the drawers and pull out bills and just flip through them.

Just count them. Just be counting them. Day after day, week after week, and year after year.

The reason they did that is because counterfeiters, they go to great lengths to create a counterfeit that is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.

It's so close to the real thing that your eye can't see it. And so showing you the counterfeit and telling you look for these doesn't help.

But when you flip through day after day, year after year, through the real thing, you begin to know what it feels like.

And so when that counterfeit comes across the counter and hits your thumb and your index finger, something's wrong.

Something doesn't feel right. Something's off. And this is how they were taught to deal with counterfeit money in the bank.

And I think this is precisely why an elder should hold fast to the trustworthy word. He should know the word so well.

His days should be so consumed with flipping through the pages of that word and knowing it and consuming it.

When the counterfeit comes along, he knows something's not right. He knows what that counterfeit is.

He knows it's not the real thing and how to address it. Now begins to be given to him through the renewal of his mind of that word.

This is why it's so important that he be a great student of that word. So that when someone has meticulously curated a doctrinal counterfeit that is deceiving the saints, the elders can expose it.

Paul goes on here and actually gives us some identifying marks of a false teacher. So this helps us distinguish.

Now we know what the counterfeit is. It hits our ears. We know it. We can address it.

So now Paul gives us the identifying markers of one that is a false teacher as opposed to a deceived sheep.

Look at verse 10. He says, for there are many who are insubordinate.

This just means rebellious. These are rebellious men and women, the false teachers, the wolves are rebellious.

But just like the counterfeit doctrine, this rebellion isn't always in your face and obvious.

It doesn't always come through those doors like a biker with his leather on and tattoos up his neck and across his face.

It doesn't work like that, smoking a cigarette. It doesn't function like that. That's not how they enter.

So how can we tell if they are insubordinate? How can we tell if they're rebellious? There are a few ways.

You see, rebellious men do not submit themselves to God's ordained authority. They do not submit themselves to God's ordained authority.

After all, teaching and holding to false doctrine means that they are not submitted to God himself.

If they're not submitted to God himself, they're sure not gonna submit to his representatives and his structure.

These are men who are rebellious. Women who are rebellious in heart.

They don't want to become a part of a local congregation and put themselves under the oversight of elders and overseers.

They don't want to be held accountable to the rest of the body. And when they are, they buck against it.

They fight against it. But a sheep, on the other hand, they might get deceived. We do all the time.

We may have misunderstandings and misinterpretations, but when addressed by the God -given authority, we adjust.

We don't buck against. But a rebellious one shows that this is a false teacher.

Look at verse 14, actually. Jesus says, or Paul says, they are devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

They don't submit themselves to God. They don't want what God has to say. They want their own way.

They want their own interpretation. They want their old traditions. They want anything else except for what

God says is true, which is what has been handed down by the apostles. They are rebellious. These particular false teachers that Paul is talking about and dealing with there on the island of Crete are the same ones that he's been dealing with all throughout the early church.

And they're known as the circumcision party. Also known as the Judaizers. We've talked about them before.

This is a group of Jewish people who have grown up in the customs and the cultures of the old ceremonial laws and the circumcision.

And now they've somehow made their way into the church. And they've said, yes, Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through Him. And then they get baptized, and they become part of the church visually and externally, horizontally.

But then in the meantime, they say, but if you want God to really be happy with you, you have to do all of these old ceremonies.

You still have to be circumcised. You still have to do all of these practices, adding to the grace, the finished work of the cross.

Essentially, they are saying that what the apostles are teaching is not sufficient. They can't submit themselves to it.

So these are rebellious men. Paul goes on to call them empty talkers and deceivers.

False teachers, they can usually talk a good game, can't they? Let's be honest.

People like Joel Osteen or T .D. Jakes, Stephen Furtick, Beth Moore. These are people that can talk circles around me.

They can communicate. Their auditory skills are far surpassing anything you're ever going to hear from this pulpit.

I'll acknowledge that. They're good at talking. They're far more poised in their communication, yet their words are venomous.

They're empty talkers. They're those who have come into our midst. We've had people come in over the past few years whose speech and pseudo -knowledge, they're enticing.

And they draw sheep to them because they're able to communicate well. They're empty talkers, though.

And they must be silenced. And it's because they are empty talkers and deceivers.

You know, sometimes we see these empty talkers, people like maybe some of the ones that I just named.

We don't want to judge their intent. We don't want to look at Stephen Furtick and judge his intent.

Maybe he misspeaks. Maybe his intent isn't bad. We may know what they're saying is wrong, but, man, they're just confused.

After all, we don't know their heart, right? You see, the problem with that is

Paul says that they are also deceivers. They may not think that they are deceiving, but they are of their father, the father of lies, the deceiver, who is controlling them, who is guiding what they're saying in order to divide the body and to draw away from the apostles' teaching.

You see, I don't care what someone's intent is. I don't.

I couldn't care less what someone's intent is. I only care about the truth. And an overseer should.

Does it mean I don't care about their souls? Well, absolutely not. But it means that I care about the souls tasked to my care, and I must guard the souls that God has guided and directed under the care of the elders here.

And so I must, I must care more about the truth. And if we expose that untruth and their response isn't repentance, then make no mistake, their intent is to deceive.

They are a wolf. This is why we must have, as King Jesus prescribed, qualified elders that can silence these false teachers.

Because just like in that day as they dealt with those in the circumcision party who are denying the finished work of the cross, they're denying the work of Christ, that Christ died once for all, and that it is done, that He did it all, that we must add something to it, that He purchased us by His blood.

Is that something we did? No. He did everything. There's nothing more to give. And when we try and add anything to our righteousness, baptism, good works, church attendance, anything, we try and add that to our justification, our standing in God, then we're adding to the gospel, hence we're taking away the gospel.

It is of no value. We're to hold fast to the trustworthy word as taught.

The second thing I want us to see in this text is that qualified elders are needed in order to remind believers that even though they are in the world, they are not to be of the world.

Look at verse 12 with me. It says, One of the Cretans, he's speaking to Titus there on the island of Crete.

It says, One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

And this testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

You know, Titus is dealing with there on the island an extraordinarily corrupt culture. These people are known throughout the whole of the region as being a very vile and wicked people.

All for some of the things that Paul just listed here. But even though, knowing that,

I'm sure that there are some of us that while we're reading these words, it rubbed you the wrong way.

Like, wow, Paul isn't very nice. But maybe it's our view of nice, right?

Maybe that's our view that needs to be adjusted, not Paul's. After all,

Paul's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, right? And God defines what's good. It's all true and good.

I heard a pastor by the name of Ligon Duncan do this practice when he addressed this text, and I wanted to do this for us.

He asked, imagine for a moment that I get up here this morning and I tell you, hey, great news, 12 .5.

The Apostle Paul has written us a letter. I've got it right here in my hands. I'm getting ready to read it. I'm going to read it out loud for the church.

It's specifically for 12 .5 Church. And I get up here and I begin to read, and I say, one of the

Arkansans, a prophet of their own, said, Arkansans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

And he goes on, he says, hey, and let me tell you something, 12 .5, this testimony is true. They're all liars, gluttons, and evil beasts.

How does that make you feel? It hits, doesn't it? This is essentially what

Paul is writing to Titus about the people he's establishing churches there. But you see, here's what

Paul knows, that as we hear these words, the true saints, the true believers are going to hear them and say, yes,

Paul, it's true. It's true, this culture is this.

They are liars, they are evil beasts, they are lazy gluttons, they are enemies of God, they are haters of God, they are lovers of evil, yes.

And so was I. I was once one of them. And I don't want that any longer.

I don't want to be in that world. I want to be set apart. I want to be different. I want to live a life of holiness because my

Savior, Jesus Christ, is my righteousness. He bought me and He redeemed me.

And so I don't want to be that anymore. And here's an elder's job in this.

Look at verse 13. This testimony is true, right?

Hey, this is true about them. Therefore, rebuke them sharply.

Who's Paul talking about here? Who's the them? We could be thinking it's just the false teachers in the moment, but remember, we have this intermixed of false teachers versus deceived sheep.

We have to make that distinction, right, through wisdom. He says, therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

Paul is already assuming that when you rebuke them, the sheep will hear the voice of Jesus and obey it, and the wolves will be run off and dealt with.

That they may be sound in the faith. Believers who have this residue in their past, right, you feel that, don't you?

The flesh before salvation that still has scars left from the sin and from the worldview and from the way you think that is unbiblical and the influences within the culture are consistently at war within us, aren't they?

Just like the Christians, the people that were coming to faith in Christ and the churches were being established, but they said, be sound in the faith.

Must be sound in the faith. This requires rebuke, correction, and reminders all the time from your overseers.

We're all susceptible to the flesh. I'm susceptible to the flesh. That's why there is not a single pastor model here.

There's a plurality. I need pastors in my life. Pastor Jeremiah pastors me. Pastor Keith pastors me.

We must have that. We must have the rebuke. We are all susceptible to the flesh, and if a pastor doesn't rebuke you, he doesn't love you.

Right? It's the same way in our house, right? I think the Proverbs say, a father that doesn't chasten his son hates his son.

It's the same way. A pastor that doesn't rebuke and chasten a fellow saint hates that fellow saint.

He loves himself and wants to keep you happy so that he can receive from you whatever it is that he's wanting.

That's why he won't rebuke you when the call has been to look out after your soul, to care more for your soul and your spiritual well -being and your walk in holiness than he cares about your feelings or how you perceive him.

That's the calling. But it's not just guarding you from the flesh and the world.

It's making its way into your life and everything. It's the flesh and the world making its way into the life of the church.

Look at verse 14. It says, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

You see these Judaizers, the circumcision party, they had brought their poison right into the church and they tried to use their cultural

Jewish worldview to distort an influence within.

This wasn't an outside influence. This was the outside penetrating in and influencing from within.

Because these people had come in and they were teaching false doctrine. They were coming in and saying, yes,

Jesus, but you must do this. And it was right there within the church.

Redefining to the saints what holiness is while denying the scriptures and denying God -given authority of the apostles.

You know, we have our own Judaizers today, don't we? They may have had a very niche false teacher in the day, but we have it ourselves.

We live in the South. We're in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Northeast Arkansas. We're in the belt buckle of the

Bible Belt. If there's ever the Bible Belt, it's Jonesboro. The city of churches.

Walk out that door and throw a rock in any direction. You're hitting a church window, right? Or a bank, I guess. But it's the city of churches.

There's a church on every corner and a watered down perverted version of the gospel.

And all the while it's lulling the saints into a stupor. Leaving them in their sin.

Not guarding them. Not driving them to all the truth of scripture.

It's nothing more than moralistic deism. Pray this prayer.

Dunk in this water. Give your life to Jesus. Just pray this prayer and everything will be okay.

No real call for holiness. No real call to be obedient to what scripture commands and calls in your life and says a true believer is.

Just a lot of don't drink, don't smoke, and don't gamble and you'll be good. And then we just assume our neighbors are

Christian because they don't do a list of things. It's moralistic deism.

As if the gospel is something that we've earned. Why do you think there's so many denominations and groups of Christians that believe you can lose your salvation?

It's because they've watered down the gospel so much that salvation is something that you obtain through something you do.

Either getting baptized or you obtain it from praying a prayer or you obtain it because you walk down the aisle or you obtain it because you do good things or you obtain it in any way.

If you obtained it, then you can most certainly lose it. At least they're being consistent with that, right?

But that's why we are led to such terrible doctrine that the apostles did not condone.

They taught otherwise. This is the type of thing that qualified elders must guard the saints from.

And if they're gonna do that, they better know the gospel. They better know these words, right?

That's what it all boils down to. We look at those qualifications and then we go back to verse 9 and we see they must be a student of God's word.

They must know it well so they know the counterfeit. Third and lastly, qualified elders are needed in order to identify the sanctifying work of the

Holy Spirit in a true believer's life. Look at verse 15 and 16.

Paul says to the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their minds and their consciences are defiled.

They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their works. They're detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Overseers must be able to discern between the sheep and the goats. We must.

They are looking for the fruit of the Spirit. They are evaluating the marks of a true believer constantly in the life of every individual within that congregation.

And in contrast, seeing the lack of those things in the life of those who do not show evidence of the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit within their lives. They profess to know God, but they deny

Him by their works. It's obvious when we see it, when people are not living for the

Lord. Obviously, elders cannot see into your heart. We're certainly not

God, only God knows the heart. However, we can look for the evidence of what's in the heart.

What's in the heart makes its way out here, makes its way out through your life. There's fruit of what's in the heart.

After all, King Jesus is certainly worthy of a pure, healthy church, isn't He? We are to look for the evidence in the heart.

Most congregations today don't have qualified overseers and are therefore overrun by impure goats.

It's the majority of the congregation, if not a big chunk. The sheep are confused and in derision.

They don't know the Word, they don't know doctrine, they don't know truth. They have no power over sin in their lives and they're spinning their wheels.

And I feel sorry for them, my heart breaks for them. You see them out and about, and you see they look anemic, don't they?

You can see their spiritual ribcage because they're not being fed, they're not being cared for. And they're being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

You see, there's always going to be tares amongst the wheat. Unbelievers in our midst,

Jesus Himself said that. They're always going to be there until the end. And we are not to hastily try and remove those tares for fear of harming the wheat, is what

Jesus says. We have to be careful. That's why we must seek discernment. That's why we must seek the

Word. We must seek wisdom from God's truth. Oh, but Jesus said in Matthew 13 that one day, one day

He's going to return, right? One day Christ is going to return. He, the head of the church, the rightful king and ruler of all.

He says that He will send His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom. All causes of sin and all lawbreakers.

All that are not in Him. Those tares amongst the wheat. He says

He's sending His angels to gather them. Friend, if you're playing church today, you might be able to deceive me.

You might be able to deceive Jeremiah and Brother Keith. But make no mistake, you are by no means deceiving

King Jesus. You may think you're sliding under the radar here at 12 .5,

but you are not deceiving Him. And if you are found not clothed by His righteousness,

His Word says that you will undergo the rightful wrath of a holy God. It's a scary thought, isn't it?

That's why we're called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, isn't it? You will undergo that rightful wrath.

You may enjoy temporal benefits, and you do. There's a common grace of God. You might enjoy the temporal benefits of this community, but if you are not truly part of this community by faith in the finished work of Christ, you will be all for naught.

You will be that tare amongst the wheat. You will be the goat amongst the sheep. So I ask you this morning, as we get ready to close to turn from your sins, look to Christ and be saved.

Be accounted amongst His people. But for those of you in here who are truly in Christ, which

I pray is a large portion of us, I say, rest in the providential hand of God.

Rest in the gospel. Trust that He has given a prescribed means for you to walk in holiness, right?

He's given us everything we need for life and godliness, and it's all given in His Word. Jesus goes on there in that passage in Matthew 13 that I'm referencing.

In verse 43, He says, Then, once the wicked are burned, are sent out into eternal torment, the righteous will shine.

Those made righteous by the righteousness of Christ, right? Those are us that are in Christ, and we will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their

Father. It's what we look forward to.

And qualified elders guard you from false teachers and remind you that you are not of this world and continually evaluating your perseverance.

And this is just one of the means of preparing us for glory in the kingdom of our Father. This is the here and the now.

This is why qualified overseers are absolutely essential.

And when I say that, I want you to know that I am not saying that we are perfect.

You've all been around me long enough, you know I'm far from that. But I pray that the pattern of our lives is one of seeking to live according to those standards.

Because when we falter to do that, when we don't live above reproach, when we do not live as Christ has called us to, when we do not do as Christ has called us to, when we see what

Christ says, what King Jesus says in His word, and then we don't obey it, we'll be held to a higher standard and accountability.

But for you saying, I want you to rest, trust God's prescribed means.

And as we close out, I want to remind you of what Jesus had just said, of preparing us for the kingdom of God, for eternal glory.

And as we wait for that day, let's go to the Lord's table. Amen. Let's be reminded of the sacrifice of our great

Savior this morning. It's the first Sunday of the month, and so we will be partaking together. If you're a guest and you are in good standing with a biblical true church, and you are a baptized believer, you are welcome to this table.

I would guard anyone from coming to this table in an unworthy manner. Please be cautious with that.

But the way it works is we have two tables up here. I'll be on this side. Pastor Jeremiah will be over here, I believe.

And there's the wine and the bread up here. Anybody on the back pews, if you wouldn't mind coming along the back.

We're kind of lopsided here. We can make it even line on both sides, but you can take those elements, come back through the center, go back to your seat, but let's hold off on taking them.

You can pray, you can sit and ponder and go to the Lord, but then we will come together and we're going to partake together this morning.

Let's pray that God will be honored in this time. Lord, we pray that you would drive our hearts and our thoughts towards the great work of salvation in our lives.

God, I pray for the elders here that we would be good stewards of what you've called us to, that we would be obedient and we can only do so through the power of the

Holy Spirit. Lord, help us to stay humble and Lord, guard us from the evil one or that we may shepherd well.

Lord, I pray for the people here. Lord, I pray that you would drive their hearts towards Jesus, not the church, not 12

Five, not pastors, not elders, not speakers, not authors, but Christ and Christ alone.

Lord, I pray that as we partake of this great ordinance of the Lord's Supper this morning that we would be reminded that it is all for and of Christ, that we would worship you in spirit and in truth out of obedience to you in this great taste of a feast that is to come and the oneness that we share in you in Christ's name, amen.