Elders in Every City

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Titus chapter 1, again, and we’re going to pick up where we left off. Last week, if you’ll recall, we looked at the first four verses of the chapter last week, where Paul wrote to Titus and sort of explained again, although Titus I’m sure knew, but as a reminder to Titus of why Paul engaged in the ministry that he did, why it was so important that Titus engaged in the ministry that he’d been called to, and by extension why it’s important for all of us to live up to the calling that God has given us as believers to take the gospel with us everywhere we go because there is a promise that God has made of eternal life to those who trust in Jesus Christ and the church really is God’s plan A for getting that message out to the world. God could have gone about sharing the message of the gospel to the whole world any way he chose to do so.

Tonight he could light up the sky with fire, writing in fire that tells everybody to repent. He could do that, but for numerous reasons, and some that we don’t even know about, God and his all-knowing counsel has chosen to use his churches to accomplish that task. And so if we don’t do it, nobody’s going to.

They are not going to hear. The world is not going to hear what it desperately needs to know. He’s not going to hear the gospel if the church doesn’t do its job.

He goes on and after verse 4, he starts in and talking to Titus. You’ll remember that I pointed out, and this still is later on in chapter 1, but I pointed out to you that he was in a place that was probably not the cushy assignment as far as places to go and minister. We had a, I think it was a staff meeting.

I want to say it was a staff meeting on Wednesday at the school, and we were discussing things that we always said we would never do. And one lady said, well, I said, I’d never marry a preacher. Somebody said, well, I said, I’d never go to Mongolia, and he’s going to Mongolia.

And somebody just blurted out, God, I’ll never go do ministry in Hawaii. I said, yeah, if that works out, you let me know. But we have a way of saying, God, I’m not going to this hard place.

I don’t think I’ll ever do this hard thing. And then God sends us there. And I’ve told you before, I can say this because Dorothy’s not here tonight.

I never had any plans of going to Arkansas, but, you know, God sends us where he chooses. There’s always, though, the place that we’d rather go. You know, sometimes Hawaii sounds like a good place to go do mission work.

Now, I know it’s not easy there either. But Crete was certainly not Hawaii. It doesn’t sound to me like any place that anybody was just banging down the door to get to.

Because I went through explaining to you what it says about all the people on Crete being liars and being, I can’t even remember exactly what he says, liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This does not sound like a group of people you want to go work with. And there were bound to be problems. I mean, there were problems in the good cultured cities of the Roman Empire when they would plant churches.

Corinth was one of the centers of culture in the Roman Empire, and yet we look at the book of 1 Corinthians and see all of the, not only the doctrinal heresy, but just the gross immorality that was going on in the church, and think, how did these people even think that that was representative of the Christian life? And Paul had to write and straighten them out. So if even in the good areas of town, if we can put it that way, I know it’s the Roman Empire, but if even in the good areas, they’re going to have these problems in church, They were bound to have problems in the not so desirable areas.

And so Paul writes to Titus, instructing him a little bit and telling him how this is going to work, what needs to happen in the church. Really, it seems like before you even get into the problems. It’s just a letter of, here we go, this is what you need to do to get the church off on a healthy footing. And so he begins to talk about the idea of leadership and says that the church needs good, strong leadership, but it needs godly leadership.

Folks, it’s true of anything. I heard for years that everything rises and falls on leadership. I had to take some of the classes I took at OU.

I still don’t know why I had to take them. But they were about leadership. And we had to read books by John Maxwell and some others who’ve got some really good thoughts on leadership.

I also think maybe you’re a little obsessed with this leadership thing. There are other things in the world. God can still work in and through people who are not the best leaders.

I’m not always the one who wants to be out on stage. I’m happy being the one behind the scenes, Martha cooking dinner while Mary’s out front at times. I’m okay with that.

And I still believe God can work in and through us and use us in ministry regardless of what our talents and our things like that are. But it’s not so much the strength of the leadership he talks about as the character traits. And any organization, which the church is not like any other organization, that any organization needs leadership or it’s not going to go anywhere.

I mean, there’s a reason. There is a reason France took over most of Europe under Napoleon. Man was a great leader.

There’s a reason. Please understand what I’m saying here. There’s a reason why Hitler took over half of Europe as well.

I’m not saying he’s a good man or a good person, But he had leadership qualities that people responded to. And so you can take leadership and you can use it for good or for evil. Let’s understand that.

But a church is like so many other things, that we need leadership in churches. But it’s not so much that somebody has this charisma and has an ability to command an audience spellbound. I don’t have it.

Not many preachers I’ve ever heard have that just natural innate ability. But what you need in a church is godly leadership. Not so much the charisma, but you need people who are going to lead with a godly spirit.

And that’s what he writes about. Because God can take care of the charisma thing. Moses, if you’ll recall, said, how am I supposed to do this?

I’m slow of speech. I feel slow of speech sometimes. I get up here and I’m just tongue-tied.

You know, we all are that way to some extent. We all have that issue that we think God can’t use me, and then God can work around that. God can even use that to his advantage.

But what we can’t avoid is the need for godly leadership, the men of character. And so he starts in verse 5 and says, For this cause left I thee in Crete. Recall, this is after he’s talked about the reasons for their ministry.

He says, For this cause, the preaching of the gospel, the advancement of the kingdom, for this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. He said, because of this ministry that we have together, because of the need to advance the gospel and to further the kingdom, I’ve left you on the island of Crete, Titus, so that you can appoint elders in every city. And that doesn’t just mean appoint elders.

That means they were starting churches in every city, and they were going to need elders. They were going to need godly men to be able to lead these churches, he said, as I have appointed thee. He said that you should set in order the things that are wanting.

Now, it’s good when people get together and worship, but every time there’s people getting together for worship and teaching, it’s not necessarily a church. There’s got to be some order about it. There’s got to be some teaching and some consistency and some stability about it.

I’m not going to go into all the marks of a church tonight, but he said you’ve got to set in order the things that are wanting. There’s a difference between starting a Bible study group and starting a church. One, the latter is a more serious business because you’re talking about accountability to one another.

You’re talking about making a covenant together. There’s just all sorts of things that go into it. And he said, you need to set in order the things that are wanting.

Where things are lacking in these churches on Crete, it’s your job to go and help them set things to right. And so I’ve appointed you to ordain elders in every city. That it was Titus’ job to go and establish these churches and to set them off on a right footing with godly leadership.

And he says here in verse 6, If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly, for a bishop must be blameless, the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word, as he hath been taught, that he may by sound doctrine, that he may be able both by, excuse me, what I said a minute ago about sometimes I get tongue-tied, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. So, he says, here are the characteristics you want of people to be in leadership of the church. These are the people that you want to put in place.

These are the people that you want the flock to look to. Not that they’re going to be perfect, but these are the kinds of men that God is looking for to lead. And incidentally, ladies and gentlemen, I think this is not a bad standard to look for in any leader.

What would be so wrong with our nation electing men like this to positions of leadership? I’m guessing by the silence, nothing would be wrong with it. You know, whatever happened to looking for the best among us?

And I know I’ve said this before, but where are the people like early on in our history? And folks, please understand, I’m not saying they were perfect men. I’m not even sure, you know, we talk about our founding fathers being Christians.

I think they were probably influenced by Christianity. I also know that some of them with their doctrinal beliefs would not be members of our church. I mean, that’s just the long and short of it.

But they were men who were influenced heavily, influenced heavily by the Bible and by Christianity. And where are the men like George Washington who said, you know, they want to crown me king. I could very easily become a dictator.

But you know what? I’m going to go and serve for a few years at great personal cost. They didn’t make money in the early days being president. They were tired, broke and in debt from the cost they incurred.

I’m going to go serve for a few years and then I’m going to go back to my farm. Where are the men of integrity like that that we should be looking to for our leaders instead of electing the worst among us? the sheep are getting together and electing the wolves to decide what’s for dinner I think these are good standards not just for the church but for anywhere that’s not in our constitution so that’s up to us to to look at when we’re evaluating evaluating things you know in our families men these are the things that we need to try to be these are great characteristics of leadership that that hold true anywhere but he says for the churches, these are the kinds of men that you should be looking for to lead the church.

These are the kinds of men that you should be looking to for an example. In any church today, these are the kinds of godly men that God says are going to help put a church in good stead. And even outside of the local church, when we’re watching, when we’re listening to teaching on the radio, when we’re watching teaching on TV, these are the kinds of men we need to be listening to.

You know, there are preachers who are still on TV today who for decades have been caught in lie after lie, who have been caught in embezzling church funds, who have been caught with prostitutes on numerous occasions, and millions of people still flock to hear them speak. What is wrong with Christians in America? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get on my soapbox.

This is way off from what I had intended to talk about. But what is wrong with us? Are we totally, we must be totally ignorant of the scriptures to say, well, he sounds good, or maybe it’s just the itching ears when God says these are the kinds of men that we should be looking to and listening to.

And so just a few principles, and instead of doing what I normally do of going through and explaining verse by verse and then coming back and giving the application, we’re just going to go through it once tonight, talk about what these mean sort of in broad principles, maybe not every detail that’s in here, but broad principles of the people that we need to look to for Christian guidance and Christian leadership. And the first principle in here is that each church needs godly leadership. And I’ve already hit on that some.

That seems like it’s so obvious it need not even be said. And yet Paul told Titus, you need to appoint elders in every city. You need to appoint elders in every city.

You need to have godly men in leadership in every church. Otherwise, the church is going to suffer. The advancement of the kingdom in that small corner of the world is going to suffer.

And so he said, I left you in Crete for that purpose to set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed you. And then he goes on to talk about what kind of men they are. And first of all, you know, there are four verses here and I see four major principles.

We can look at all the details and that’s fine. But tonight I see four major principles, one taught in each of these verses. And the first one is that elders must be faithful men of good reputation.

Wow. Faithful men of good reputation. What a revolutionary thought, huh?

He says that he must be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly. He’s got to be a man who has a good reputation in the community. And I’ll be honest, I don’t want to spend too much time on this verse and make it sound like, well, he’s just trying to justify himself.

I had a lot of trouble with this verse over the last year. Not that I doubted it, not that I disbelieved it, but praying and saying, God, what do you want me to do? Because I feel like, God, you’ve still got ministry for me to do.

I feel like I’m praying and saying, God, if you want me to get out of this, then that’s what I’ll do. If you don’t look at me as being worthwhile anymore, it’s been God’s ministry from the beginning, not mine. I’m just doing, but as I prayed about it, I never got a sense that he wanted me to leave.

And yet I’m in the situation where my wife has run off with another man and okay, do I still qualify here? And I prayed about it and prayed about it. Folks, my views on this did not change because of my situation.

They changed a long time ago. So I don’t want you to think, well, he just changed his interpretation of the Bible to suit it. A few years ago, I was talking with Brother David Pickard and he pointed out to me, I had a really bad attitude about somebody in particular and I don’t even remember who it was.

But I brought up this verse. I said, well, he’s not the husband of one wife. And he said, do you know what that means?

I said, yeah, it means he’s been married once. He’s the husband of one wife. And most of you know Brother David, knows more about Greek than I ever will pretend to.

He said, do you know what it means in Greek? I said, no, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me. And he said, the word husband there is andros, which means man.

He said the word wife is gune, which means woman. I’m somewhat familiar with both of those words. I didn’t realize that was the Greek there.

He said, when you look at it in context, it’s talking about a one woman man. Is he a faithful man? Is he a man who’s loyal to the woman that he’s married to?

And I started, about four or five years ago, I started studying this out for myself and came around to, okay, that sounds like the right conclusion. And so, just being honest with you here tonight, I struggled with this verse because I already, when things happened to me that were beyond my control, I looked at it and I was willing to step out of the ministry if God told me to. Even believing this, you know, believing that, okay, I have been absolutely loyal here and have done nothing to cause this.

God, if you want me out of the ministry, I still will leave. I just need you to show me what it is you want me to do. And it kept, as I’d pray through it and as I would talk to other believers, especially other pastors, they would say it’s talking about the character of the man.

It’s talking about the character of the man. So I prayed and I had to ask myself, have I been faithful to my commitments? And I believe I have.

And I’m not telling you this tonight to make you feel better about me or anything, or make me feel better about myself. I want you to understand the process that I went through. So you don’t think, okay, he’s up here preaching about the husband of one wife, and guys, I did everything I could.

And nobody, nobody, it says blameless. I believe that’s talking from a human standpoint. And as far as God’s concern, none of us are blameless.

There wouldn’t be a pastor in the world. But it’s talking about the pattern of the man’s life. And I still fully admit, I still fully admit, and I would be the first to tell you, if a man comes forward to be a pastor or an elder in a church and have been through a divorce, that should be a red flag.

It should be a red flag and say, okay, what is wrong here? But if somebody has been faithful in their commitments and has been and still has a good testimony, that’s what this is talking about. All of this talks about his faithfulness.

It should be a faithful man who has a good reputation because it talks about a man who’s been faithful to his wife. Was he a polygamist? First of all, that’s crazy to me.

I’ve always said, what sane man thinks he can handle more than one? Most of us, gentlemen, don’t we do well to handle the one we’ve got. I don’t understand the thought process of these men who are like, yeah, I’ll take four or five, six wives.

You need to check yourself into a mental hospital. No sane man thinks he can handle more than one. So they didn’t want a polygamist. You know what? They also didn’t want a man who’d had a string of divorces.

They didn’t want a man who’d had affair after affair after affair. You know what? Anybody, I want to be careful how I say this.

Well, I’m just going to say somebody who commits adultery and repents and commits adultery and repents and commits adultery. You see where I’m going with this? After a certain point in time, you’ve got to start questioning their sincerity about the whole repentance thing.

So you look at the life of the man, And you look at him over a long period of time and say, is this a man who has been faithful to his commitments, to his wife, to his children, to his church, to his Lord? In everything that he does, does he try? You’re not looking for a perfect man, but is he a man who is working hard to honor his commitments?

Is he a faithful man? Is he a man that we can trust? Because he should be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly.

And therein is another thing. If he can’t control his household, if his children are running amok, if his children are the worst children in the church, you’ve got to question his ability to lead in a godly manner. Now there’s a line drawn somewhere there because I’ve had men who were deacons ask me about this verse because it says something similar for deacons.

Well, my children are out of control. Okay, your children are 40. At some point, they become responsible for their own choices.

And I fully realize you can do everything right as a parent. I mean, theoretically, because none of us are perfect. You could do everything right as a parent and still have your children go astray because it’s that pesky free will.

I mean, God is perfect and his creations run him up. But does he control his house? Does he rule his house well?

And again, we’re not looking at it, oh, the preacher’s little boy said a bad word. My son has gotten in this habit of using bathroom words. I don’t know where he got it from, but he thinks it’s the funniest thing ever.

people keep telling me it’s a little boy thing I don’t think I ever went through the stage where I thought that was hilarious but evidently he got in trouble at school one day last week not bad trouble but in trouble at school for using a bathroom word constantly okay we’re not looking for an instance where the pastor’s son says something he’s not supposed to so he’s out now because his children are unruly again we’re looking at the long term here is this a faithful man does he have a good reputation? Does he honor his commitments? I’m here to tell you, if a man stands for church leadership or leadership in our country for that matter, and he’s not a man who honors his commitments, why would we think he’d honor his commitments to us?

If he can’t honor the most basic promises he makes, the Bible says that talks about a servant who’s been faithful in little things, being able to be trusted in big things. If we’re not faithful, if a man is not faithful in the most basic, I don’t say little thing like marriage and fatherhood or little things, but in the most basic things that everybody’s expected to do. Why would we entrust them with greater responsibility?

So elders must be faithful men of good reputation. Elders must be men of self-control. Oh boy, this is a good one.

Elders must be men of self-control. Verse 7 says, for a bishop must be blameless. And that word blameless is used in verse 6 again.

It means above reproach. It doesn’t mean perfect, but it means his life is above reproach. You know, if somebody were to go through his life, there aren’t going to be any surprises.

A bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre. So we could look at each of these individually, and we can for just a second, but it’s talking about him being the steward of God. That word steward means someone who takes care of something that’s entrusted to him.

And so he’s got to be blameless as this steward of God of this ministry. It says not self-willed. A self-willed person is someone who’s got to have what they want, when they want it, how they want it.

And I’m here to tell you, as a leader in church, you don’t always get that. You know, I’ve had people, not here, but I’ve had people in other churches complain about they didn’t like the way something went at business meeting, complaining to me, well, I’m leaving the church because that vote didn’t go my way. Are you kidding?

I’m the pastor here, and I don’t get what I want all the time. Why do you think, you know, why do you think everything’s supposed to go your way? But do you really want a man in leadership who it’s my way or the highway on every little thing?

Well, I think we need to have blue carpet. I don’t care what you all want, so that’s what we’re going to do. I think we need to, I’m trying to think of, I’m trying to think of, it’s just not in me to be that way, so I’m trying to think of an example.

Well, Brother Shank, I think you wear your hair too long. You need to do something about it because it’s my way or the highway. You know, I have to be in control of every decision that’s made.

Can we go buy paper towels for the rest? I don’t know. Better ask the pastor.

Only if you buy the brand I like. And y’all laugh, but I’ve seen this. From pastors and from church members.

What’s that? Yeah. I’ve been in a business meeting once where people got into it.

I’m serious. Somebody took a swing at somebody over who got the mail. This is not what we want in church leadership.

This is not what we want in leadership anywhere. Self-willed, have to have my way all the time. We need people who are flexible, who are responsive to the Holy Spirit and to the needs of the people, not soon angry.

You don’t want somebody that is temperamental, do you? I realize a pastor is not the same as a boss, but they’re both in leadership. Do you want to work for somebody who flies off the handles all the time at work?

That’s not fun. That is stressful. And that anger will lead to rash decision-makings, and it will put the church in bad stead.

You don’t want somebody who’s soon angry. You want somebody who’s even-keeled, who’s tempered, not given to wine. They shouldn’t be drunk all the time.

And even in, I want to say, 1 Timothy, it says not given to wine. It says of the deacons not given too much wine. So I guess that sounds like if the deacons want to take a nip every now and then, it’s okay.

I still wouldn’t. I still, no. I’m not encouraging that. Please understand that was just a joke.

But Proverbs says that wine is a mocker. First of all, any Christian, why would you want to drink? I have a hard enough time making good decisions sober all the time.

Are any of us so possessed of strong mental faculties that we can lose some of our mental faculties and still make good decisions? We all need all of our wits about us to get through this world. but especially those who are in leadership who are responsible for making decisions that affect other people.

You don’t want a man who is drunk. You want a man of self-control. No striker.

Well, that would be a good testimony for the pastor. See him at Walmart flying off the handlebars and slapping his wife and punching his kids. Who does that?

Not a godly man. So you don’t want a striker. Not given to filthy lucre.

You don’t want somebody who’s greedy. And so all of these things that it refers to are things that we’ve got to have control over. The world is getting to where it teaches us and society.

Here on the radio today, some of the reports back from Black Friday and people punching and kicking each other and biting each other over stuff that they’re not even going to remember a year from now. We are being trained in our society to act like animals and just do what you want when you want to, wherever the mood strikes, no self-control. And the Bible says no. And especially for those who are in leadership over God’s people, you don’t want that kind of behavior.

You want somebody who’s self-controlled. Elders must be men who will serve the brethren. It says in verse 8, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.

All of these go to how you’re going to treat the people in the church, how you’re going to treat the brethren. We talked a few weeks ago about the book of 3 John, and we talked about Gaius, and we talked about Diotrephes. And Diotrephes, so much wanting preeminence in the church that he was not willing to welcome anybody in, not willing to show hospitality, not willing to even let John’s letters be read and how John was going to come deal with him face to face.

And then you read in the beginning about how Gaius loved the brethren and welcomed the missionaries into his church. And that gives us a perfect illustration there of what we’re talking about. Is it somebody who is so self-absorbed that they don’t care about the needs of the flock?

Or is he a man who’s going to love the flock that he’s been entrusted to by God, or that’s been entrusted to him by God? You know, we’ve lost something in our society of this idea of servant leadership. Didn’t Jesus say, whoever desires to be the greatest among you should be the servant of all?

I still think that’s a pretty good way to look at it. The leader shouldn’t be the one who’s having everyone do everything for him. The leader should be serving the people.

That’s what he’s talking about, a lover of hospitality, showing hospitality to the believers and to strangers as they appear. A lover of good men, someone who’s going to seek out good men and invest himself in them. Someone who’s sober, just, holy, temperate.

These are characteristics of a man who’s going to treat the believers the right way, who’s going to treat his people the right way. So elders must be men who will serve the brethren. And finally tonight, elders must be students, teachers, and defenders of the word.

students, teachers, and defenders of the word. It says in verse 9, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. So you don’t want people in leadership over the church who are totally ignorant of God’s word and what it teaches.

But it says men who hold fast the faithful word that they’ve been taught. So men who’ve already been taught the scriptures, and I don’t mean that they’ve gone to seminary, gone to Bible college, But someone who has been a student of the scriptures, whether that’s been in the local church, learning, feasting on God’s word, whether that’s been at Bible college, there’s nothing wrong with that either, or whether just on his own. Now, regardless of where else he studies the word, he should study it for himself on his own.

But you want someone who studies the scriptures, who realizes I don’t have all the answers, but God does. And I want to learn more what God says and grow in the teachings of this book. And who’s then, it says, holds fast the faithful word as he’s been taught, who not only has been taught God’s word, but now holds it out for the people, now teaches the people, is able to teach.

In 1 Timothy it says someone who’s apt to teach in the classes at school before they can take their test in each subject. They have to learn the scripture that goes along with it and they have to be able to recite it by memory. And one of the kids this week was saying his verse to me and says, what does that word apt mean?

Because it’s the verse about being apt to teach. I said it just means able. And that’s all it is, being able to take what you’ve learned from God’s word and put it out there for other people where they can understand it.

And it talks about the men being defenders of the word, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. Those who argue against the faith, those who mock the faith, those who try to discredit it, you want somebody who’s got not all the answers but enough knowledge to be able to give a response. Because we’re all commanded to give a response.

be ready to give an answer to those who ask the reason for