Titus chapter 1, and I pray that
as you read through this every day, you are reading through
it every day, that it's starting to come alive and maybe you're
sitting there and your hands are rubbing together, not because
it's cold outside, but because you sit with great anticipation
of that which is coming. So like a teaser or a trailer
for a movie or some great event that is going to take place,
you see that about to start. My prayer for you, Church, is
that the ministry of Paul to Titus would definitely not just
engage you in your understanding of Scripture and your understanding
of the Church, but most importantly, it would engage your heart in
worship. So let us look here as we read
the first nine verses of Titus. Paul, a servant of God and an
apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's
elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with
Godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies,
promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifested
in His Word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted
by the command of God our Savior, to Titus, my true child and a
common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ
Jesus, our Savior. 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. 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 a drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain,
but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy,
and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy
word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in
sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it." Friends,
there's a lot here, and I know, as I always say, My minister
in California had a dear brother who every week he would give
me sort of an overview of what he felt like I could have done
better in communicating. And one thing that he always
told me, and I still think it's true, is to quit apologizing
for the continuity of recapitulation. In other words, quit getting
sorry or feeling sorry for stating that was starting to save you.
and for going back to this scripture. He said, because we don't even
think about it. And then you say it and then we go on. I guess
he is a little long winded in that regard. So I would just
say to you that I pray you notice that I'm going over this and
over this and over this. For there is a lot of understanding
here in Titus that if we just ignore it, we will miss a good
deal of things. And so with that being said,
I want you to focus today on verse five. It's the only verse
we're going to deal with. Verse 5 says this, this is why
I, Paul, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're just saying
what he's already said in the prior things, he's identifying
himself, this is why I left you in Crete so that you may put
what remained in Crete into order and appoint elders in every town
as I directed you to. to do. So there we go, a little
bit of a paraphrase and addendums so that we might understand the
flow. So why do verse 5? Well, here's what's interesting.
If you look at contemporary commentators, contemporary literature on this
particular letter, you will see a, not an intentional glossing
over, but a very, what I would say, superficial touching of
chapter, of verse 5, of chapter 1. Because it seems to just be
informative. Hi, it's Paul. I'm on the phone.
And remember, I left there and there you are. And dude, before
I get started any further, I want you to understand that I need
you to do something for me. Now, here's who I'm looking for. But I want you to know that there's
an importance to verse 5 in such a degree that if we miss it,
what we'll do is our prior learning will pace over everything else
we're about to see. So everything that Paul is about
to teach us from the qualifications of those men who are to oversee
and govern the unity and the protection and the teaching of
the church to the fact that we as the church ought to be reminded
of our doctrine and our words. If we don't look at fully the
reality of Paul's command in verse five, I believe we will
miss a huge, hugely important foundation from which Paul builds
everything else. What do you mean by that? Well,
Paul has given an outline of deep theological truths in the
first four verses. He's called Titus his true child
in a common faith. Why? We know that already from
the scriptures before, from the sermons before, because false
teaching and false doctrine and false gospel and false conversion
and false churches have become a problem. creep. So Paul is writing, you're my
true child, Titus, just as Timothy was his true child, just as you
see, as Paul writes in other places. Now, there is a good
argument for those who would say, well, this is Paul's opinion,
but we know what the scripture teaches only. Paul not only said
this isn't his opinion, but this is the word of God. And when
Paul is clear that it's just an opinion, he says, not from
the Lord, but from me. I say these things that would
be beneficial for you to listen. But he also says with absolute
authority that those who do not heed his instruction are not
to be considered believers. They're not to be considered
brethren. And so if that's the case, Church, we need to be very
careful with the higher criticism of the text and pacing over this
cultural ideal that this meant something so specific to the
people of Crete that we don't need to practice it in our churches
today. If that's the case, then where do we go in the book of
Acts when Dr. Luke actually shows that the
application thereof of everything that Paul teaches to Titus is
shown clearly and distinctly and precisely in the planting
of churches all through Asia Minor and Palestine. Where is
it? In as much as in the founding
fathers of the faith, and our second century early church fathers,
Justin Martyr of all people, and people of that nature, when
they then orchestrated the explanation of these things, and the theology
of these things, and put it into order, and said, ho, from then
to history, we are to follow the scripture. What's happened
in our churches today? What's happened is that the Word
of God is not taught, but rather that we use the Word of God to
teach that which we want to teach. Does that make sense? Well, I've
got some interesting things I want you to understand. Well, then
let me teach those things to you in philosophy and not try
to make the Word of God do what it doesn't do or say what it
doesn't say. So what is the Word of God saying? The Word of God
here is clear. I left you in Crete. Now, what's
going on here? Well, Paul is in prison, OK? And he planted
the church in Crete, he and the apostles, and Titus is one who
he raised up and taught the right gospel and taught true doctrines.
And he left him there and said, Titus, you are an elder here
in Crete, just like he said, Timothy, you are an elder here
in Ephesus. And I'm now on my way to jail
and I can't finish what we started. So I'm writing to you now to
finish that which has been started. And what I want you to do is
so that you might put what remained there into order. Now let's talk
about that for a second. What does it mean to have something
put into order? What is order? Order means organized. No it doesn't. I've seen a lot
of organized religion. And they know what they're doing
and where they're going and what they believe. And everybody knows
that it looks like a bunch of robots. And I've seen disorganized
religion. I've seen organized groups of
people who call themselves churches to the point that it works like
a well-oiled machine. But yet, is that what constitutes
order? No. That's not what Paul is talking
about at all. He's not talking about administrative
issues. He's not talking about oversight
and the of the 501C3. He's not talking about just these
details of how leaders ought to be brought up and that we
need to start being more orderly and fashionably and focused and
culturally relevant. So we need some people to work
all this stuff out. He's saying what I left there,
that you witnessed me do, I am now not able to finish. So I'm
going to commission you to finish it. And the first order of business
is that you put what is there in order. What's that mean? Well, think about it for a second. What is in the world that, as
Paul says, and I'm sure of this, you remember this? That he who
began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the
day of Jesus Christ. I believe that the Lord has promised completion
of that which he's done. that he started. Salpifically,
justification, glorification, he will finish it. Romans 8 teaches
us very clearly that Paul is so confident he passes his glorification. But in the sense of the moments
between the resurrection of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus,
where are we? What happens now? We have to
be very careful to understand that the foundation of what the
church is supposed to do is now laid out by the apostles. And
we don't have to have history. So history supports this. We
don't have to have man. The man understands this. We
don't have to have bylaws and constitutions, though they should
establish from this the order in which the church ought to
operate. Now, this is foreign in the last 70 years, 100 years,
mainly since the 1930s. Today in America, this type of
teaching is foreign in regards to the order of the church. But
Paul says, I want you to put into order. I want you to straighten
out. That's a better translation there.
I want you to straighten out what's going on. And the first
step in doing that is to appoint elders in every city. Do you
see that? And he tells Paul who is to be
appointed. I mean, Paul tells Titus who
is to be appointed. Why are they to be appointed?
To keep order, to put things into order and to maintain the
order of the church. He tells Timothy the same thing.
I urge you, Timothy 1.3, verse 70, I urge you when I was going
to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain
persons not to teach any different doctrine. Part of the passion
of the elder is that he protects the church. Remember that two
weeks ago? He fends for the church. He holds fast to true doctrine,
as we'll see just a few verses down, next week. And because
of that, part of the protection and the order of the church is
a good doctrine, a good gospel, a good understanding of theology.
Friends, where is that? Where has that been in our lives?
If it weren't for godly men and godly family members and godly
pastors and people just investing into my life, Lord knows how
bad the doctrine would be. Who invests in everybody? Has
anybody ever really sat down and walked with you through things?
answered your questions, allowed you to aggravate the living daylights
out of them. What does this mean? What does
that mean? What does this mean? What does that mean? None of them.
And in the church today, we're too busy to do that. So we have
a class. We've got a class coming up on
the 15th on a Saturday here for three hours. And we're going
to look at end times. We're going to look at the end times and
the millennium and the Antichrist and all of this. But we're going
to look at the perspective of Scripture. And then we're going
to show you all the different views that are out there common.
And I want you to say which one fits more directly with the Word
of God. Most of you will probably go,
well, I've always believed that, but I see it. Some of you go, I've
never thought about that, but now I see this. And we'll all
leave probably going, well, we're all a little different in our
understanding of how this will play out. But there's one thing
for sure. The Bible does teach us what will play out. And the
Bible teaches us what benefit it will be for the church. Why
is that important? Because the Bible says it. And
the Bible is useful. All the Bible is useful for teaching
and correction and training in righteousness and rebuking and
reproving. For growing into maturity and
to worship and to salvation. So, order. Order. An alphabet must be put
in its proper order in order for it to be ordered. If you've
ever had magnets on the refrigerator, those things hurt when you step
on them, like a Lego. Our children like to see them
in order. Not only are they in order, but
they're in color. And if they're not in color and not in order,
it just, it messes them up. So they're, uh, and then they
each have a different perspective of which color should come first
in that particular thing. But for all intents and purposes
today, An alphabet, though it may be stacked correctly, is
not correct unless it's in alphabetical order. Such is the truth of the
Church. If the Church is not in the right
order, if the foundation is not the Gospel, and then there out
comes the teaching of Scripture, and then from there then comes
the expectation of how the Church ought to operate, including the
offices of the Church, then the Church is disordered, no matter
how orderly it may function. So let's look. Second Thessalonians,
don't turn there, but listen to this text. It's going to be
a little bit of a pretext, and I don't have time to give a 20
minute caveat. Second Thessalonians 2, 11 and
12 says these words. Therefore, God sends them a strong
delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that they
may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness. Now, you understand the context
here. In times. Day of Judgment. There's a lot
of Antichrist discussion right before that. But for the fullness
of what we know, that there will be a person, according to what
Paul teaches to the Thessalonians in Thessalonica, he says that
there will be one who will come and he will deceive a lot of
people. But before that, John says in
1 John, many have come and are already in the world. And friends,
the spirit of the Antichrist is the one who says, what? Jesus
is not the Son of God. He's not forgotten God. And they
don't come as a hater of the Word. Or the hater of God's people. They come with the fashion and
the tongue of eloquence and affection. And they come with the idea that
what I'm teaching you now is going to take you off the heat,
the hot place. And you're going to feel good
about everything. Friends, this is disorder. And
though there may be many opportunities as the church grows and does
what it's going to do and as time continues, whether it's
another millennia or five before the Lord returns, there will
be many opportunities for this type of delusion. So what does
disorder look like? Let's look at that. I started
writing. I had 31 things. Don't write them down. There's
no real outline here. Let me just let me just spout them off.
Disorder looks like unregulated and unwatched doctrinal conclusions. We think this. We believe this.
This is what it means to me. You've heard these things. A
disorder looks like ungoverned obedience without accountability.
It looks like unholy pursuit of worldly joys. It looks like
unbiblical identification of such joys. It's chaotic attention
to minor doctrines. It's prideful leadership when
everybody in the church is, quote, led by God to do something different.
It's searching out discernment, not from the Word of God, but
from the world. and not coming to the Word and
to the church to satisfy one's differences, such as YouTube
or TVN or whatever you're reading at the present time. Storadic
preaching or personal rants of favorite things rather than exposition
of the full counsel of God's Word. Loss of mission because
so many people are led to do so much other stuff apart from
the Word of God. forsaking of the focus and clear
call of the church to do that which it's supposed to do. And
engagement in the culture as a means to the mission. Also,
a disorderly church looks like one that's being corporately
led, either by majority or by committee. Also, a failure to
exercise church discipline. And church discipline should
be exercised with sinful acts, against errors in doctrine, against
gossip, which is murder, and against division and unforgiveness.
No unity in the shepherding flock. There's no care. Who's taking
care of who? Who's teaching who? Who cares
about what? Who's praying when? No unity
in doctrine. But everybody sure does. We all
believe about it. But what about it? This unity,
disorder. Nothing but love. You know, that's
a disorderly church. Well, it's just nothing but love.
Out of context. Here's a pretext which allows
anyone to believe anything they want to believe about that particular
thing, which creates a relative truth, which is not truth, which
is a lie, which comes from the mouth of the devil, which leads
people astray to a devil's hell. And it's really God's hell, isn't
it? So there's no unity in doctrine.
There's nothing but love because everybody just wants to get along
and love one another. Well, love includes calling sin
what it is. Love includes restoring the sinner
and embracing the one who is broken. Love includes doing all
these things. There is then no gospel in a
disordered church. And because of that, there's
no gospel power. There's no gospel power in salvation. So we have
to add man's responses to that. Say, well, we know these people
got saved because of what they did. And if there's no gospel
power in obedience, they don't live holy lives. We wonder where
they are. Why can't they give straight?
Why is their marriage in such trouble? There's no gospel power
in preaching. Preaching ought to change you
in your seats. It ought to change your heart today. It ought to
be something so direct to your soul that you feel like God has
come down to slap you good. And then it ought to give you
joy because of it. That really hurts, but boy, am I better.
Like when one is drowning, one of the greatest things you can
do is pop them when they're fighting you and you're trying to save
their lives. There's no gospel power in unity, no gospel power
in forgiveness, no gospel power in affection or the needs of
ministry, no empathy, no concern for the brethren. There's no
selflessness. It's just pride and power and
possessions and the church and her ministries all fall into
those. A disordered church has no thought
or care over the responses to life. What should we say about
the gay marriage issue? What should we say about the
abortion issue? What should we say about the politics of the
world? What should we say about this issue of starvation? What
should we say? The gospel answers that. The church can answer that.
But it's not the place of the pulpit to preach about that and
get everybody riled up about political activism. It's the
place of the pulpit to preach the gospel that may lead you
to stand up and be noticed. When we preach, Abortion is murder. Babies are murdered here. Homosexual
so-called marriage is no marriage at all. It's blasphemous to the
institution of the gospel. Marriage was created after the
gospel was created. So therefore, marriage points
to the gospel. Jesus Christ as the head, the bridegroom, and
the church as the bride. So therefore, it doesn't matter
what we think or what we see or what we believe. It matters
what God says. But a disordered church can't
answer that. I just don't go there. I love everybody. You
don't love me if you don't tell me I'm going to go to God's judgment. If I do not repent, believe the
gospel. No biblical evidence of maturity. There's power hungry
men. preying on the weakness of individuals,
and there's power hungry women doing the same. There's a new
God, a new gospel, and a new glory that everybody looks for.
There's a focus on works as opposed to grace, or there's a great
focus on grace without any works coming from it. There's a desire
to be an isolated people. We're not going to be coerced
with those people. We don't want to be anywhere
near those people. a desire to be right, a disdain
of others, a prejudice against differences, a lack of gospel
outreach, good news outreach, a good news preaching. It's been
replaced by no hope, damnation, an affair to name sin and preach
the gospel because people have a fear of men. That's what a
disordered church is. So how do we protect ourselves from
that? What do we do? What are we supposed to be? Book
after book and volume after volume, set after set, video after video,
sermon after sermon, commentary after commentary. Over and over
and over and over, I've read more books. I could not count
them. On how to make this happen and
how to do this. And it's just like, well, if I incorporate
all this stuff, I think I would just explode. A big mushroom
cloud of nothingness cease to exist. So just as God has placed Jesus
Christ as the head of his church to maintain order, God has also
placed overseers among the church to keep the order. So now here we are. In order
to put in order what remains, appoint elders in every city. For what? So that the church
can be ordered, reviewed. An ordered church knows right
doctrine, receives right doctrine, born again through Jesus Christ.
They produce biblical evidence of such rebirth, and they have
the proper oversight according to and from the Word of God.
How? How is the Church supposed to
be this way? Why is it so important? Because
if the Church doesn't live orderly, it is giving a wrong testimony
about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not saying, if it's disordered,
the power of God, which surpasses all of the cosmos, whose spoken
it came into being, has no power over us because he's too weak
and feeble. He can save us if we let him,
but he can't do anything else. Is that the God that's going
to save you from judgment? No. Only the God that says you
can't save, you cannot be saved, and I will save you. And I will
satisfy my judgment against you by sending my son to take your
place. That's how you're saved. The church must be organized.
It cannot be left to itself. One of the biggest lies that
Satan has given the church is that it's OK for a congregation
to do as it pleases. When scripture is very clear
that what we do as we please is not biblical. And so elders
in the churches are the beginning of order. Pastor, elder, shepherd. I'll show you in a minute that
those are all the same office. Without a pastor in the church,
it's not order. Now, can the church be without
a pastor? Yes. Yes, there were no pastors in
all the congregations of Crete. There's people we're getting
together. And I'll tell you, especially when men get together
and get a new idea. Whoa, did you read Paul's letter
last week? This. And then another one goes, well,
let's not teach that, let's teach this. And another one says, let's
teach this. They're all excited about the
teach, but God has to give a clear direction for what these people
are, how they're going to go and how they're going to move.
Has God given you that call? And maybe you should be an elder
in a grassroots church. Seriously. But the elders oversee. They
are the beginning of order in the context of the church living
out the gospel through the Word of God and the power of the Spirit.
Appoint elders in every town, not just Crete. This isn't just
subject to Crete. This is also subject to every
town. Listen to Acts 14.23. And when
they, the apostles, had appointed elders for them in every church
with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in
whom they had believed. So this is the how. How are we supposed
to place all these things in order? We're still appoint elders.
The word appoint means to put in charge of them, to put over,
that they may see and govern. And the word rules, scares people
to death. A few people in my last church
after I left started getting aggravated with me. And I started getting these snide
thoughts and comments via email and just I could tell in the
tone as I talked to some of them. What happened? And I finally
asked a brother, I said, what is going on? Why are they upset
with me? Because I came to Georgia? And no, it's about an article
you put up on your website about elders ruling. They don't like
that word. We don't like that word because
we think that the elders are our ruler. That's not what it
means. Jesus Christ is our ruler. And
he says appoint elders to oversee his ruling. See the difference? There's no man of authority except
Jesus, the God-man. But at the same time, there's
still roles within the church. This is among several things,
but this is one of the top three issues that a lot of people have
with Grace Group Church. Why are you going to be elders?
Why should it be Presbyterian? Well, we won't go there. So Titus
appointed. Notice that he didn't call every
Christian together in all the cities of the region and say,
y'all got any elders around here you want to vote in? You want
to appoint some people. You think these people have the
spiritual wherewithal to recognize who an elder was, which is what
Paul then tells Titus in the next verses, what an elder should
be, must be. No. So Titus had the burden now
of going, oh, Lord, I've got to be discerning. I've got to
know these people. I've got to judge what they're
doing. I've got to really look at the reality of their lives.
And I've got to measure it by that which the scripture has
given me. And I've got to appoint them. And it's not the majority.
Though they who are spiritual among the body, if they know
that this man is not fit, they must say he's not fit. It doesn't say how these men
were placed, but it does say why. We have a word in our churches
today called autonomy. Autonomy. And what it means is
that each congregation is able to discern certain things on
their own and function. For example, do we have children
in our service who like to sit on their knees or what? Do we have babies in the service
or do we have a nursery? Do we have a band or just a guitar,
an invisible guitar player? You know, what do we do? Do we
sing hymns or do we just sing songs? Do we use the King James
or the ESV or the JHT or whatever it might be? What do we use?
We have the autonomy as a people to say, hey, this is sort of
what we do. And it doesn't make us wrong to dress a certain way
or to look a certain way as long as it's not against the Word
of God. We don't come in here in thongs and bikinis. You know,
there's a modesty that must come. But at the same time, not everybody
has to wear a tie. And not every woman has to cover
her head. But autonomy does not include
self-reliance. Autonomy does not include self-doctrinal
pursuits. Autonomy For so many people,
it means undenominational, nondenominational. You see these, I saw the first
undenominational church the other day, as I'm writing back from
Samantha. I'm like, what does that mean?
Undenominational? I've heard of non, in other words,
we're not affiliated with a specific denomination that you know of,
but we're not all denominations. Nondenominational is a denomination.
And what's crazy is that a lot of these nondenominational churches
are so much like some of the denominations, they just don't
have the name on the sign. But what is undenominational?
We're non-demonstrative. We're undemonstrative. We're
not going to demonstrate anything we believe. We're just going
to be here. I don't know what you'd call that. What is wrong
with autonomy? Well, nothing is wrong with autonomy,
but what it doesn't mean are these things. Autonomy is not
an area of entitlement for the church. It's not an area of rights. Because the Word of God and everything
in the Word of God governs the church of Jesus Christ. No man
can change that. No denomination can change that.
No affiliation can change that. The Word of God alone is given
to men to govern themselves by the will of God, through the
power of the Spirit of God. And it will take place. Elders
are those who have the responsibility to oversee that which God is
doing. Not as the superior people, but as those who are given the
burden and responsibility thereof. So let's look at the terms of
elders. See how easy it is to overlook this sign. There's so
much stuff in here. You must know this. You have to know this
to understand what Paul means. Because few of us, I don't know
if many of us have ever come from the Presbyterian. Are we
even, you know, are we Episcopal? Are we Presbyterian? Are we Reformed
Baptist? You know, some of us understand
a little bit of the concept of the elders, but I'll tell you, from
our church growth days and our this days and our Jesus Movement
days and our WWJB days, we all have a bunch of stuff that can
come together and make a pretty ugly cake. It tastes pretty weird
too. So we need to get it foundationally
understood as Titus understood it so that he might teach it. Elders. The Greek word there
is presbyteros. Or if you're a real southerner,
presbyteros. It's where the word presbytery comes from. Or presbyterian. Elder. It means old. Presbyter. Presbyteros. It means old. But
not just in age. Because we see the elders, the
presbyteros, in the New Testament. Those who are older. But then
there's also the office of the older. Those who have the responsibility
that they must have wisdom as if they were older. Well, then
only older men. Well, who constitutes older?
What about Timothy? Anybody look down on you because
of your youth. But free youthful passions. Don't
act young. You're young. You better act
old. That doesn't mean decrepit. It
means wise. Exodus 3.16, the nation was governed
by elders in the days of Moses. And when, listen, when the Lord
spoke to Moses, Moses wasn't the King Poupal. What did he
do? He went and reported to the elders
what God had told him. He had to. He went and reported
to the elders. The Lord spoke unto me these
things. Why? Because they were concerned with
the oversight of the people of God. And then the rulers of the
people, like in Numbers 11-16, the overseers and the rulers.
Acts 4-5. So, elder, presbyteros. Then
there's another word, pastor. Poiminos in the Greek. It's translated
into English, shepherd or pastor. One who cares for the flock. Like in Ephesians 4-11. Pastors. Shepherds, teachers, preachers,
that type of thing, depending on the translation. And in 1
Peter 5, it's an action. Shepherding is the action of
the elder, or presbytery. Shepherding is the action of
overseeing and caring for the flock of God. Shepherd the flock
that is among you, Peter says. And then the next word is Episcopos,
which is overseer, which is where you get Episcopalian from. And that's why it's so confusing
to so many people to see a Baptist church with elders. But we like
the term because it's different and it's defined more focused
on the word than just say pastor. Because most people, if you say,
what is a pastor and you give them a card, you may get a different
answer from every person you ask. There may be some similarities,
but what is the calling? What is the responsibility? Well,
episkopos means overseer. It's translated directly in the
New Testament as bishop, which is why that word is so weird.
And what this does is it indicates the gravity of the office of
pastor. the seriousness, the responsibility that comes. So
pastor, elder, shepherd, bishop, overseer, they have the same
job, the same role, the same office. And it centers on the
teaching of the word of God with bright doctrine, as we've already
seen and as we will see in the weeks to come. But in the context
of where we want to go here today, I want you to understand the
vitality of the church is directly related to the godliness of the
men who shepherd it. You see that? Now, do you see
what that puts me in? I don't like it. I have the authority and the
position to point this and paint this any way you want, any way
I want. But God's Word speaks to what it is. I can make it
take the heat off of me and put it on me. I can go to Hebrews
13 and say, make their oversight of joy. And I may preach that
one day. But the shepherds of the church,
Notice that it's shepherds, elders. They have responsibilities, they
have a role, and they are to oversee the order of the commands
of scripture. But yet they don't have the authority
to pass judgment on those who don't. Who does that? Who has the role and the authority
to pass judgment on those in the church? Remember Paul's teaching
to the Corinthians? Don't you know you should not
pass judgment on one another? He doesn't say that, does he? No. He says,
don't you know you should not pass judgment on the world, but
you should rightly judge each other. The word judging has a
hard whistle to it. I like the word measure. We ought
to measure ourselves as I have to measure myself to the following
verses in the next three weeks. You have to measure me by them.
But you're not off the hook just because it's a list for elders.
Where did it come from? It came from the apostles list
for every believer who says they're in Christ in the church. So every
one of them. Now, of course, I've had one
of my children go, so I've got to be the husband of one wife.
OK, smart man. But you know what I mean. And
we'll see that as we come. So elders. are plural. Here's
a summation of what is being taught here. Though they may
be gifted differently, they are called in unity to care and put
watch care over the people of God. They may be called up to
different specific roles because of gifting. Not everybody is,
one, going to have the time to prepare To have the calling to
truly just say, I'm the teaching shepherd of this church. Not
everybody's going to be called that. It doesn't mean that you're
not called to be an elder in the church. I can imagine Moses
preaching was very lacking. Paul's preaching was very lacking.
Paul wrote wonderfully, but by Paul's own admission, he came
in fear and trembling, barely able to utter words. He still preached. No church should be one man.
No church should be single-minded, single-pastored. It is a violation
of Scripture. What about churches that side
of the power? We've got four men in this congregation
who are esteemed as elders and who have answered that call. Four! Why? Because two might get along too
well. Three! Well, that's two against
one. Four! Friends, there's protection in
a plurality. There's a protection in oversight.
When something I say falls on the ears of those brothers, they
go, meh. And then they can email me or call me or confront me.
And it's not just their job or their role. We all have the role
of discerning truth from error. We all have the role of being
accountable. And I may be a pastor of this congregation, but I'm
still a brother in Christ to you. So the roles apply. No man is untouchable. No pastor
is above reproach. Don't you see the very first
thing? What are they to do? Elders are
plural. They also ought to be about the business of preaching
and teaching and praying. The preaching and the teaching
of the word of God is coupled with the oversight of living
out the word of God. Therefore, the man of God must
certainly effectively reveal God's gospel power in his own
life. But it's also, as I've stated, true of every believer.
And so then the oversight of the church, it's not just some
flippant thing. Paul says, be careful before
you lay hands on a man and appoint him as an elder. Be slow. Watch
him. Let him not be a new convert
lest he get puffed up. And I have to stand here and
readily admit to you that at my ordination, I was puffed up. But it was just the right time
and right place, the right occasion, and they needed to have the pastor
be ordained. And so there you go. How do we deal with that? You
learn from it. You learn from it. The oversight of the church is
heavy. The oversight of the church is not this glorious spotlight
of esteem. I know sometimes y'all look at
me and go, man, that's just wild. It's just the Bible. I promise
you, it is not me. God's Word is sufficient to teach
you. The Spirit of God is sufficient. And if I died before I finished
this sermon, God would raise up a man that can take this church
to better places. To greater places. And don't try to bring me back.
This is what I'm living for. So the oversight of the church
is heavy. It's a grave responsibility. It's like being the guy that
has the button. You know that every few, back
in the Cold War, I don't want to do any of that now or not,
but in the Cold War, during the Cold War, they probably still
do, but our nuclear arms, every random moment, any given moment,
randomly, they went through these drills where they would get the
codes and push the button to turn the keys and two men had
to turn the keys together and push the button to put in the
codes. And there were several different shakes and bounces
with it. And that's a heavy position. But they did it so much and so
often that when the real thing ever, if it ever did have had
happened, they would not have known it was the real thing.
They would have just done it like a drill. Friends, that's not what the
ministry, that's a heavy position. That's not what the ministry
of shepherding is. The ministry of shepherding, there's no drill
here. We're not running through the motion. And I'm wondering, it's
every day. Every day. The gravity of your
spiritual well-being and health is on my prayers and on my shoulders. But thankfully, it's not my burden
to bear the Lord back and forth. But it's a serious place. And
it's time that the people of God see that it is not a place
It's not a place to get the guy that looks the part or dresses
the part or has the voice or has the charisma. It's not somebody
that's going to come in and reach a certain people or a certain
demographic like we were talking earlier. Oh, we've got to find
somebody that relates to these people. You know who relates
to me the best when it comes to teaching Scripture? The older
the better. Really. There's just this For
me, an esteem of a true elder brother in ministry, when they
say, hey, let me tell you what the Lord's been doing. I want
to hear. It's not that I don't want to
hear from anybody else, but I hold heavier weight on those. And
I'll tell you, the ones who have brought me up have always been
older, because when you put a bunch of 10 year olds in a room, they
jump over the chairs. They bust out the windows and
they spill their Kool-Aid. You put a bunch of people my age,
shepherding a church together, and we're going to do exactly
what we think we would enjoy doing if we're not careful. The oversight is heavy, but friends,
it is joyful. Shepherding a church is the greatest
joy that I will ever know apart from salvation of Jesus Christ.
And I know that sounds crazy, but it is the thing that God
has put in my heart above all things to do in context of his
call for me. Because my joy comes when I see
you mature, my joy comes when I see your question, my joy comes
when I see you disagree and understand that the Lord's gospel, that
his word will then settle those disagreements. My joy comes when
you fight and make up and you're stronger in your relationship
before you were there, before you had a disagreement. My joy
comes when people are sick and down and they didn't, nobody
knew and they get their feelings hurt and then the church goes,
we're sorry and they forgive them. And my joy comes when I
see you care for one another and have empathy. My joy comes
when I see you memorize scripture or forget and do it anyway. My
joy comes. seeing you live out the gospel
with joy. It is the measure through which
I believe the oversight of the church begins. I write these
things to you, for those who were there Wednesday night, I
write these things to you, or these things are written, that
our joy may be complete. Is your joy complete? The oversight of the church is
heavy, joyful, It is for the maturity and for the joy. It's
for the holiness, the salvation, the instruction, the correction,
the testimony and the treasure of the body of Jesus Christ,
who lived a holy life as a full man while he was fully God. He
died a holy death, unwarranted, unmerited and unnecessary, except
that through his death, now we can be the righteousness of God.
Now he is alive because he rose again. And he lived and he died
and he rose again for the church. And so as stewards of Jesus'
church, elders, those are the ones whom God has called to oversee
the church. It's very, very backward to the
culture in between. And I'm here to tell you that
if we are backward, even if we think it's working, it's not
working. So I would suggest that we learn
to worship the God of the Bible with all fullness so that we
can show the world that we are set free in Christ Jesus. Because
of that, we're free of the world's ways, we're free of the world's
temptations, we're free of the world's affections, and we may
fight, but we will overcome. Maybe sometimes, when we get
through with a sermon like this, we say, well, where's the Gospel,
men? Friends, this is the result of the Gospel for the people
of God. That we heed the Word, and we obey Him. And because
of that, our joy is full. Let's pray. Lord God, We are overly grateful, we are overly burdened, but overjoyed
because you are indeed the God in heaven who rightly and justly commanded that we be holy. You
are the God of all creation that rightly and justly condemned
and purpose to bring wrath upon all sinners. Lord, you are the
righteous and merciful, loving God who saved the people for
yourself by placing your Holy Son in the midst of creation
to take the wrath that belonged to us upon Himself willfully
and joyfully. We pray you for that. Love you for that. We hold fast
to Christ, who is our eternal hope. Lord, righten our spirits
to the truth. Let us be free of the doctrines
that are legalism. And let us be free to walk in
obedience to the law that you've given us to walk in with joy.
Let us be free to absolutely lay down our rights and our entitlements
that we might be a people for your glory. Father, that you
would protect us from the enemy, protect us from temptation. She
told us to pray. We pray those things, knowing
you hear them and answer them. Lord, we pray that as we finalize
our moment together, that our spirits would continue to be
united in the perfectness of Christ and the gospel of Christ. Which is why we stand here learning
these things, because we are the body of Christ. To the praise
of your glorious grace. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.