Father, we bow in your presence,
so thankful that we have the Scripture as a lamp unto our
feet and a light to our pathway. We're grateful that we're not
left at the mercy of our own silly notions as to how the Church
should be ordered in her life, what the function of the overseers
is, who should be recognized for that solemn responsibility
But we thank you that the scriptures are sufficient to make the man
of God complete unto every good work. Guide us then in our study
of your word in this hour as we consider together this very
weighty second question of who should be admitted to that office
of a pastor and teacher and elder and leader among your people.
We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Well, brethren, having sought
to answer the first question in the last hour, precisely what
is the Christian ministry, we now come to the second question,
who should be in that ministry? The Christian ministry, who should
exercise it? Now, here's where we see again
great confusion. A young man comes with the seriousness
of the judgment day all over his face and he says to his pastor,
Pastor, I'm convinced I'm called to preach. Well, if the pastor
has courage to even question his statement, which many don't,
they feel to do so would be blasphemy. They say, now, son, if you're
old enough to call him son, and it's great when you get to that
age, it gives you a little, a little, a little more sense of clout. You say, now, son, I'm glad you're
excited about the Christian ministry, but what makes you think you're
called? Well, in my devotions yesterday, I was reading through
such and such a passage, and when I came to such and such
a verse, it leaped right out of the Bible, and I just knew
God was calling me to preach. And the whole thing is based
on the holy leap of a verse of Scripture. Somebody else, he comes saying,
I believe God's called me to preach. And you say, well, what
makes you think so? Well, I was awake in the other
night, three o'clock in the morning. And when I was lying in my bed,
I was thinking about you and about the ministry and all the
blessing you've been to me as a minister. And all of a sudden,
my heart skipped a beat and I felt a flutter in my left ventricle.
And I knew the Lord was calling me to preach. I felt it in my
heart. Well, I mean, there's reasons just that silly that
people think they're called to the ministry. Well, what are
you going to tell a man like that? Someone who says he's heard
a voice, he felt a flutter, a verse jumped out. Well, you see, we
need to come to the conviction that only those whom Christ has
furnished with the gifts and the graces and the holy desires
to do the work of the ministry are those who belong in ministry. It's just that simple. The Christian
ministry, who should be in it? Only those whom Christ has furnished
with the necessary graces, gifts, and holy desires to do the work
of the ministry. Only those belong in the ministry. Now then, where do we find the
necessary graces, gifts, and holy desires described in the
Bible. Well, we have three key passages. 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 and following,
Titus 1, 5 through 9, and 1 Peter, chapter 5. And what I want to
do is I want to quickly read through these passages, and then
we're going to try to organize what they say under three basic
headings. All right. First Timothy chapter
three. Faithful is the saying if a man
seeks the office of a bishop an overseer a pastor a preacher
all of those terms we use synonymously. He desires a good work. The bishop therefore, now I want
you to look at the next two words, must be. Now, in the Greek, there's a
little particle called the particle of necessity, and for some of
you that at least have had a little remembrance of your Greek, it's
dei, D-E-I. And that little particle of necessity
is the particle that is used when Jesus said the Son of Man
must go to Jerusalem and must suffer and be rejected and rise
from the dead on the third day. In other words it is a particle
of necessity that allows for no flexibility. Now look at this passage. If
a man seeks the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. That's
a faithful saying. It was one of those sayings,
there are five of them in the pastoral epistles, that had apparently
become common sort of holy clichés in the church of the first century. Paul says to Timothy, that is
a trustworthy saying. If a man seeks the office of
a bishop, if a man has desires to be a shepherd and a pastor
of God's people, he desires a good work. But, but, the desire is
not enough. The bishop therefore must be. And then he lists, without reproach. Doesn't say sinless, but no just
cause to censure him. And what's that mean? Then he
goes into detail. The husband of one wife. Temperate. That means self-controlled. Sober
minded. He's got his head screwed on
right. He's not a scatterbrain. Orderly. A man who has structure
to his life and his thinking. Given to hospitality. He loves
people. Apt to teach. No brawler, no
striker, but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money. one that rules well his own house,
having his children in subjection with all gravity. But if a man
knows not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care
of the Church of God? Not a novice, not a recent convert,
lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the
devil. Now look at verse 7. Moreover, he must have a good
testimony from them that are without. His neighbors, the place
where he works, the women in the office, the kids on the street,
from the outside unbelieving world, he must have a good testimony
lest he fall into reproach and snare of the devil. Now, anyone
who becomes an elder who doesn't pass the test of that passage
has intruded himself into the office contrary to the will of
God. That's it. Plain and simple.
Titus chapter 1. Get a feel for these passages.
Titus chapter 1. Having children that believe,
bad translation, should be translated having trustworthy children that
are not accused of riot or unruly. No elder can put grace in the
hearts of his children. but he must have sufficient control
over the children under his roof that they are trustworthy and
that means they are not accused of riot or unruly. They are basically
respectful to the rule of that home. For the bishop must be
blameless as God's steward, not self-willed, not soon angry,
no brawler, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but given to
hospitality, a lover of good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled,
holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching
that he may be able both to exhort in the sound doctrine and to
convict the gamesayer. Now that old English word, gamesayer,
means one who speaks against. That is, one who speaks against
the truth. He must be able, not only with healthy words, to build
up the hungry people who desire the truth, but to shut up the
mouth of those who oppose the truth. That's exactly what it
means. And then first, Peter chapter
5. 1 Peter chapter 5. He writes to
the elders, verse 1, and then he says this, shepherd the flock
of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, and here's the
part that is vital, not of constraint, not because you're forced into
it, not because it's the only way you can make a living, not
of constraint, but willingly according to the will of God,
nor yet for the sake of money, nor yet for filthy lucre, but
of a ready mind, neither as warding it over the charge allotted to
you, but making yourselves examples to the flock." All right, now,
in the light of these passages, we ask the question, the Christian
ministry, who should be in it? And taking these passages, putting
them all together, boiling them down, let me suggest we come
up with three categories of the requirements for those who would
assume this office. Number one, there is an underlying
assumption in all three of them. First Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter
5, there is an underlying assumption as far as the requirements are
concerned. The underlying assumption is
that the man being considered for the office of an elder, a
shepherd, a bishop, a pastor, has experienced a real work of
grace in time and is truly in vital saving relationship to
Jesus Christ. Now that is assumed. Because
all of those graces, self-control, not soon angry, not a hot head,
all of those things, where do those come from? According to
Galatians 5, 22 and 23, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control,
You see, there is an assumption in every one of these passages
that no unconverted man should ever take on himself or be pushed
into the office of the ministry simply because he's got the gift
of gab and knows enough of the Bible to hold people together
while he talks. about God and Jesus and sin and
salvation and heaven and hell or whatever else is in the Bible.
You see, one of the great tragedies recorded in Scripture is the
tragedy of blind leaders of the blind cursing God's people, both
in the Old and the New Testaments. You read Jeremiah 23 and that
horrible description of the false prophets, the false shepherds,
Ezekiel chapter 34, the false prophets, Matthew 23, the Pharisees
who were blind leaders of the blind. And Jesus' words in Matthew
7, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy
in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your
name do many mighty works? Then will I say unto them, Depart
from me, I never knew you, ye that work iniquity. Oh, they
could preach up a storm. I mean, they could whoop for
hours on end. They could get the crowds blessed. to the point where they were
all ready to weep and shout. But he said, I don't know you.
Why? You are workers of iniquity.
You never partook of my saving grace that changed your heart
from a sin-loving heart to a righteousness-loving heart. You knew nothing of my
grace in you, though you knew much success of my word being
preached by you. That's frightening, men. But
that's in the Bible. Many are going to say in that
day, Lord, Lord, did we not preach in your name? So the underlying
assumption of all these passages is, brethren, that if we cannot
testify to a true work of grace in our own hearts, If we have
not come to the discovery of our own sin, of our own guilt,
of our own wretched, hell-deserving condition, and if we have not
discovered the glory of God in the face of Christ crucified
as our only hope of salvation, If we have not been brought to
behold in Christ our only hope, and in that look of faith, united
to Christ, if we cannot say that our greatest longing is to know
Him, to please Him, to obey Him, and to serve Him, we've got no
business in the ministry. The underlying assumption in
all these requirements is that a man has experienced the real
work of grace in his heart. but then secondly the basic qualifications
what are the basic qualifications the underlying assumption we're
in the state of grace secondly the basic qualifications what
are number one a consistent and high standard of personal godliness
before the church and before the world a consistent and high
standard of personal godliness before the church and before
the world. Now, where do I get that? Well,
that's just summarizing 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, isn't it? If a
man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. The bishop
must be without reproach. He must be a one-woman man. There must be no question about
his morals. One woman in his eyes, one woman
in his heart, one woman in his bed. Just that simple. I know a little something. Lived
long enough to see the tragedy, the tragedy of man after man
falling in the area My friends, it doesn't start overnight. It's
when a man begins to have more than one woman in his mind that
he ends up having more than one woman in his bed. Doesn't happen
overnight. And I don't care who you are
sitting here this morning, if in the presence of Almighty God,
with judgment day honesty, you can't say that you are the husband
of one wife, one woman, not only on the marriage certificate,
but in your heart, in your eyes, and in your bed. Got no business
being in the ministry. Self-control. That doesn't mean
just with wine. It means self-control with your
food, not a glutton. in your whole manner of life,
because the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. And we must
manifest as ministers the power of the gospel before we ever
open our mouths to be its official spokesmen. That's why this consistent
and high standard of personal godliness before the church and
the world is put first. We must be those who are orderly,
sober-minded, people that rule well our own houses. Having family
life that is an example of godliness. Having family life that indicates
we know how to be loving and yet firm and firm and yet loving. We know how to take care of nurturing
our wives while filling all our other responsibilities. To nurture
and care and give direction to our children. To be intimate
with them so that they love us as their dad and yet to be such
leaders that they have that respect for our authority. And Paul argues,
if a man can't order his household with that wonderful combination
of foresight and responsibility and authority and love and humility,
if he can't make it in his house, his little church, how is he
going to make it in the bigger house of God's people? You see
how he argues? If a man knows not how to rule
his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? And
yet, brethren, ministers are notorious for having spoiled
brats, and either bitter or bossy wives. I've met them all over
the country, preachers' wives that are bitter and resentful, because their husbands are so
busy with their almighty ministry they have no time to nurture
and cherish their wives. And their wives sit there Sunday
after Sunday and have to bite their lip to listen to that character
preach. I tell you, if I can't preach
with my wife's eyeballs on me and my kids, and even though
they're all married, two of them sit there with their spouses
every Sunday morning and look their dad straight in the eyeballs.
And the day I can't preach, they write through to the back of
their retinas and know that their consciences listen to me with
peace. I'm through. I'm done! I've quit
the ministry, and I've taken that position for over 30 years. It's been called extreme. Well,
until I can read my Bible otherwise, I say it's biblical. If a man
know not how to rule his own house, how should he take care
of the church of God? And that consistent high standard
of personal godliness must not only be seen by the church, but
verse 7 says he must have a good testimony from them that are
without. The bank where you got your loan to get your set of
wheels, you got a good testimony? You make your payments on time
and you get second and third notice. Good testimony from them
that are without. What about your neighbors? Do
they know you to be thoughtful, sensitive, caring? Or if somebody
says, hey, I go to such and such a church, who's your preacher?
So and so. I'd never come to hear that guy preach. You ought
to be his neighbor. Yeah, that's what Paul's saying,
isn't he? How can the gospel have any credibility if it doesn't
make you a good neighbor? Can't have any credibility. And
that's the first requirement. It doesn't say nothing about
the gift of Gath. It doesn't say nothing about anything except
a high consistent standard of personal godliness before the
Church and before the world. In fact, the only thing that's
even hinted about gifts here in 1 Timothy 3 is, it says, absedeech,
and there's question among exedeech as to whether that means having
an ability to teach, or having a heart to teach, and it's speaking
more of a servant's heart rather than ability. It's a debated
point. And then it says he must have
an ability to rule, but you see how the great emphasis falls
not upon gift, but upon character. And the same is true in Titus
chapter 1, and the same is true in 1 Peter chapter 5. a character
marked by a willing servant's heart, not a desire to get into
the ministry so you can go around and crush people and have your
own way and push people around, not lording it over God's flock,
but making yourself an example. When people say, preacher, if
I believe what you preach and if I obey what you preach, what
will it make me like? You ought to be able to say,
it will make you something like me. be followers of me, even
as I am of Christ." Making yourselves examples to the flock. Well,
I thought we're only supposed to follow Christ. He's the only
perfect example, but the Bible says you're to mark those which
so walk as you have asked for an example, Paul says in Philippians
3.17. Making yourself examples to the
flock. Every one of your people has
a right to come to you and say, Preacher, if I really take serious
what you're preaching, what kind of lifestyle it will produce?
Come and live in my home for a week and watch me. This is
what it's producing. Making yourself an example to
the flock. Basic qualifications, a consistent
and high standard of personal godliness. Secondly, A proven
ability to lead others with wisdom, grace, and authority. A proven
ability to lead others with grace, wisdom, and authority. That's
1 Timothy 3.5. If a man knows not how to rule
his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? A
man must have a proven ability to lead with wisdom, with grace,
and with authority. And your home is the great proving
ground. I'm glad my wife's not a wimp.
She's got a good head. She thinks. She thinks critically. I couldn't lead her with any
kind of authority if I didn't lead her with wisdom and with
grace. But I lead her as only one set of pants in our family.
Not two. Only one. But I would not be embarrassed
to have my wife come and stand here right now because I ask
her periodically, and it hurts. It hurts. We try to have a practice
at least once a year, having what we call our personal judgment
seat. Well, we get away for a few days, and one of the questions
I asked her, and she asked me, is if there's anything about
me you could change as far as you see the Word of God, what
would it be? And I tell you, she zinged me
just two weeks ago, and it was hard to listen. There were a
couple of things that she pointed out that I wasn't aware of, and
it stung me. She was right. And I've had to
deal with the issue. It takes grace to lead a wife. It takes wisdom. Husbands, dwell with your wife
according to knowledge, and just when you think you're getting
to understand what that complex human being is called a woman,
and we have one here, so I have to be careful what I say. Just begin to think you're learning
how to dwell with her according to knowledge, and lo and behold,
she starts into the change of life. and all the hormones cause
all kinds of disruption, and then you gotta get all your knowledge
of her all rearranged, and just when you think, then she becomes
a grandmother. And then she's a whole different
character. And then you gotta look. So it's
an ongoing thing. But you see, isn't that true
of your people? You don't put them into little boxes. As they
grow and develop, you learn to respond and be sensitive to your
sheep. For man knows not how to rule
his own house, starting with his wife. How can he take care
of the Church of God? You see, that's why it's so essential
that we have this proven ability to lead others with wisdom, grace,
and authority, proven in the home, the same way with our children. You can't lead children without
wisdom. You certainly can't lead them
without grace. Oh, how you need tons of grace, and you can't
lead them without authority. You let your kids run all over
you, and they will. They won't even say sorry for
the footprints they leave on you. But you see, mere authority
isn't enough to tower your kids into the corner and they jump
when you say jump. But when you turn your back,
they know and God knows what they do. If that authority is
not permeated with wisdom and grace, you're not really leading
them. So there must be a proven ability
to lead others with wisdom, grace, and authority. And then thirdly,
under that heading of the basic qualification, a consistently
high standard of personal godliness before the Church and the world,
a proven ability to lead others with wisdom, grace, and authority.
and then a proven ability to be a safe guide in the truth
of God's Word. A proven ability to be a safe
guide in the truth of God's Word. Titus 1.9 Holding to the faithful
word which is according to the teaching that he may be able
to exhort in the sound doctrine and to convict those who speak
against the truth. The game says. What is the requirement
for an elder, for a shepherd, for a bishop, for an overseer?
He must hold to the faithful word. He must have a grasp upon
the word. And with that grasp, have a proven
ability to be able to handle in such a way that he can take
believers and encourage and build them up in sound doctrine, or
sound or healthy teaching would be a literal rendering. And then, not only to do that,
but have such a hold upon the Word that when he sees some of
those wolves that Paul talks about in Acts 20, the wolves
that will prey upon the sheep with their false teaching, you
must have a grasp on the Word and be able, not merely to point
out the wolf, but to drive him away with the truth, to convict,
to bring to the test, and to shut the mouth of the gainsayer. Now, a man must have a proven
ability to be a safe guide in the truth of God's Word before
he should ever be admitted into the office of an elder. Well, having looked at the underlying
assumption that a man is converted, the basic qualifications, now
then I close with this third heading, the God-ordained means
of initiation into the office. By what means should a man be
initiated into the office? And here I give you three simple
headings. Number one, a sober self-assessment. Romans 12 and verse 3. Romans
12 and verse 3. I say to every man that is among
you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but so to think as to think soberly, according as God
has dealt to each man a measure of faith. Every man is responsible
who aspires to the ministry to make a sober self-assessment
of himself in the light of the Word of God. Let me give you
an example of one of the most wonderful examples of this we
saw just recently in our own congregation. The dear brother
Elton Bavard is his name. I was talking with one of the
brethren here earlier. Dear black brother that the Lord
brought to us several years ago and there were clear evidences
that God's hand was upon him for the eldership. We were praying
about it as elders and we approached him in his first response. He
was absolutely overwhelmed. He just never thought that we
would approach him because he doesn't have that high opinion
of himself. This true humility. And I said, well, we want you
over the next month, Belton, to pray about this matter, and
then I'll get back to you. So a month later, I got back
with him, and I said, well, Belton, tell me, where are you in your
thinking in the light of our overture to consider the eldership?
He said, well, I'll tell you what I did. After you approached
me on behalf of the elders, I completely restructured my personal devotion
so that every morning since that time a month ago, I've been praying
through Psalm 139. Oh Lord, you have searched me
and known me. You know my down sitting, my
uprising. And he said, when I've come to the last two verses,
search me, oh God, and know my heart. I've been crying to God
that he'd help me to look at myself with judgment day honesty
in the light of the Word of God. And then he said, after praying
through Psalm 139 every morning, I've been taking one of the qualities
of 1st Timothy 3, been using my concordance and my commentaries
and doing an in-depth study on that requirement, and then each
night at family devotions I've been expounding that requirement
to my family, and his family consists of his mother-in-law
lives with him, his wife, 22-year-old daughter, two teenage sons, and
a teenage nephew. He said, I've been expounding
that part of the biblical requirement, and then I've been asking everyone
in my family with Judgment Day honesty, tell me, do you see
that quality in me? Now that's what I mean by sober
self-assessment. And I tell you, when that man
was unanimously recognized as an elder, he knew and we knew
that he had a grip on the conscience of that whole congregation that
there was a man that didn't push himself into the office. He didn't
get some flutter at three o'clock in the morning or have some verse
jump out. He did what Romans 12 says. He soberly assessed himself in
the light of the word of God with the quality control of his
immediate family as the backup system. There must be a sanctified desire
for the task. Not only a sober self-assessment
of our fitness, but a sanctified desire for the task. 1 Timothy
3.1, faithful is the saying, if a man seeks the office of
a bishop, he desires, notice, a good, not reputation, good
name, good position, but a good work. There must be a sanctified
desire for the task. That's why Peter says, exercise
the oversight not of constraint, not being pushed into it by others,
not being pushed into it because there's nothing else you can
do, but because God has given you a heart to live and bleed
and die for the sake of Christ's sheep, that they might get to
heaven safely. That's what I mean, a sanctified
desire for the task. Men, let me state it as bluntly
as I know how. The ministry is either the most
subtle form of personal indulgence in an easy job, or it is the
most demanding, draining, flesh-withering task on the face of the earth.
It's one or the other. If you've got a gift to gab,
and you can bluff it, You've got people never heard real preaching,
never seen real elders functioning. You can get by and collect your
salary, preach your sermons, be called Rev., and have a little
bit of respect, and have a soft touch. But if you take seriously
what it is to be a shepherd to God's people, what you mean is
you're willing to open your heart and take on all of their burdens
and make them yours. You're willing to live transparently
and pour your guts out for people only to have them to turn around
and see your open, pulsing heart and stick a knife in it, spit
on you and walk away. God alone knows the knife wounds
here. But how else are you going to
live? If you say with Paul, we seek not yours, but you, we are
willing, he says, to spend and be spent, though the more we
love, the less we be loved. I tell you, that costs. That
costs. That's why Paul could say, laboring
night and day. He said, I admonished you day
and night with tears. In 1 Thessalonians, he says,
I was with you like a nursing mother. Oh, the demands upon
a nursing mother. Every time the little one hollers,
her milk comes in. She's got to get up, grab that
little one, put her or him to the breast, lay him down. A few hours later, starts fussing
again. Paul says, we were among you
as a nurse, cherishing your own children. And then he says, we
were like a father. and all the task of being a father,
keeping on top of all of the areas of the needs of your children.
He says in that same chapter, as a father, we, he said, were
admonishing you and exhorting you and testifying to each one
of you. There must be a sanctified desire
for the task, a willingness to spend and be spent for the salvation
and the maturity of God's people. And only God can give that desire.
And then thirdly, there must be a recognition by the church
acting under the rule of Christ's word. A recognition by the church
acting under the rule of Christ's word. No man can go to any group
of God's people and say, God has sent me to you. You must
take me as your elder, your pastor, your shepherd, your overseer.
No. A church must In looking to the
Word of God, seek to recognize this man as a gift of Christ,
because they see that Christ has furnished him with the gifts
and the graces and the sanctified desire to give himself to the
task of being one of their shepherds. And one of the great problems
in our day is that men have not thought biblically about the
work of the ministry, therefore they've not taught their people
biblically, and therefore churches are calling men to become pastors,
but not by the rule of Christ, but by the rule of their traditions,
by the rule of their own notions, by the rule of their own whims,
and their own relatives, and their own friends. instead of
by the rule of Scripture. Brethren, if you do anything
with your people, teach them, teach them how they're to recognize
the gift of Christ. You may be preaching yourself
out of a job. And they may say after you've
preached what a gift of Christ is. Hey, man, if that's what
we're to look for, you sure don't see it in you. far better to face the facts
and step down than go to God and answer before the day of
judgment for being a false shepherd. God says, I will give them shepherds
after my heart who will feed them with knowledge and understanding. And what greater knowledge and
understanding can you feed your people than how to recognize
a true shepherd? The world is full of false shepherds.
And the church has been cursed with the influence of false shepherds.
What a privilege you and I have to instruct our people on what
a true shepherd is, and then by the grace of God be made such
man. Well, I said we were on very
basic stuff today, men, but I think this is where we have to start.
Two questions we've looked at. What is the Christian ministry? According to the scriptures we
have seen, we must think of it in terms of the office of an
elder, and then who should be in it, only such as Christ furnishes
with the necessary graces, the necessary gifts, and the sanctified
desires to take up that solemn responsibility.