1 Timothy 3:1-16 "Elders, Deacons, and The Church of the Living God "

Well, if you have, if you've been a Christian or a follower of Jesus for a while, or you've been studying the Bible, then it doesn't take a whole lot of effort or time to realize that central to the Christian faith, central to following Jesus, is the institution of the local church.

As you read through the New Testament, as you see that there is also, yes, a universal church that all believers throughout all time are a part of.

But God has given his people local churches that they might grow in their faith, that they might understand the Bible, that they might learn how to live together and love one another as Christ has called them to.

So God has given us the blessing of the local church.

And the scriptures use different kinds of language to describe the local church.

It's described as a body or a vine, a flock of sheep, a temple, a house, a bride, and a family.

Now, is the local church an institution?

Yes, it is.

It's designed by God and instituted by God, just like marriage and the family is.

The institution of the local church will outlast any earthly, worldly institution that we have.

But if you're not a Christian and you haven't studied the Bible, you're not familiar with that, we're glad you're here.

We pray that you would continue to study and seek Christ and embrace Christ.

But I want to kind of catch you up to speed on the centrality of this local church and why it is so important in the New Testament.

See, in this letter, 1 Timothy, Paul the Apostle is writing to what was one of his disciples, Timothy, who's pastoring a church in Ephesus.

And he's writing this letter to encourage him on how the local church is to behave, how they're to function, what they're to do, and how they're to organize themselves.

And that's what chapter 3 is primarily about.

And Paul, at the end of chapter 3, he then anchors his whole argument for the whole book in the centrality of Christ, in the goodness of Christ and what he has done for us.

So before we jump into chapter 3, I want to just look back at chapter 1 and chapter 2 and kind of recap, if you will.

Chapter 1, Paul just opens up the letter reminding Timothy why we're here.

In verse 5, he says, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Paul reminds Timothy about this because the people in the church, I mean, they were leaving this aim.

They were beginning to teach false doctrine, things that were not true, such as we should keep following the law for salvation, or we should maybe find salvation through genealogies or these ancient myths.

So he writes Paul to remind him in chapter one what's going on.

What is the aim of the church?

Then he reminds him also that Christ has come to save sinners.

That Christ came into the world.

Then in chapter two, Paul is reminding Timothy and the church at Ephesus and us that the church is to be prayerful, to be praying for leaders and people of influence.

And the aim of our prayers as Christians is that we might live peaceful lives, but that we might share the gospel as well, that the gospel might go forth to the nations, that others might hear the good news, repent, and believe in Christ.

So he reminds them to be prayerful.

And then he continues to remind them of how we accomplish the Great Commission.

In the rest of chapter two, he's talking about the role of men and women and God's design for his creation, how men are to lead and women are to learn, and the humility and obedience that we're all to have to God's word.

And we don't trust the wisdom of the world, we don't trust the wisdom of the age.

We rely, we rest in God's word.

Now in chapter three, we begin to learn how the church is to be led and organized, how the household of God or the church of God is to behave.

So if you will look with me in chapter three, and we're just gonna read, beginning with the first uh seven verses here.

1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And church, remember, this is God's sacred and divine word given to us.

The saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He must manage his house, his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the for God's church?

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into the snare of the devil.

So Paul here is laying out qualifications for the office of elder.

What it means, what are these qualifications of an elder?

Now I want to take a note here, or just take a moment and make a note, that we are under the persuasion that proclamation church, our understanding of the New Testament, is that when the Bible says elder or pastor or overseer, those are all interchangeable.

It's a synonym for one another.

If you're a pastor, you are an elder.

If you're an overseer, you're a pastor.

So we don't make this distinction that some church traditions make of having elders and then having pastors.

We see that all as one office, one responsibility.

So this idea of an office of elder, Paul then lists out 16 qualifications for what it means to be an elder.

Now, I thought about how to go through these.

I thought, man, we could take a sermon on each one, but that'd take too long, I think.

But I do want, before I read through these again, I want you to keep in mind, only, and I'll get to this in the end, but only a couple of these qualifications are only elders held to.

The ability to teach, not being a recent convert, and this idea that you must aspire to the office.

All the other qualifications are what all Christians should be living, how all Christians should be living and what they should be doing.

So sometimes we can elevate pastors and say, well, they're their pastor.

Of course they should be living that way, and they should, but so are all Christians.

First qualification: Aspire to the office of overseer.

Those who do this, they desire a noble task.

If someone does not desire or aspire to be an overseer, they probably shouldn't be an overseer.

They shouldn't be tasked with shepherding a flock if they have no desire to shepherd the flock.

It must be above reproach.

It doesn't mean that they're perfect, but it means they have a reputation where if someone are to make an accusation, you're not thinking, oh, that makes sense.

I can see that.

But rather, man, that does not sound like that person's character.

That doesn't sound like them.

The husband of one wife, he's a faithful man.

He's a one-woman man.

Some people argue about this, whether that means he has to be married.

Some churches take the position that you have to be married to be an elder.

Some churches take the position that you, if you if your wife passes away, then you can't be an elder.

Or if you've been divorced and you're remarried, you can't be an elder.

I think the simple taking the text for what it is, it means a man is faithful to his wife.

There's faithfulness in the marriage.

Sober-minded.

This idea of sober-mindedness, approaching life with eyes wide open.

You're not kind of stuck in the clouds, you're not kind of chasing the wind, but you're sober.

You're awake to the realities of the things around you.

Your own nature, the threat of the world and sinful desires outside of you.

You're sober-minded.

There's self-control.

You're not giving over to every kind of desire that comes to you.

You're able to kind of control yourself and decide when to step in and say something, and when to hold your tongue, and when to step in and intervene, and when not to, when to give in and fulfill a good desire, when to hold back and not give in to a desire.

Respectable.

It's kind of a theme with, again, above reproach, respectability.

They're respect it.

They have the respect of the church.

And hopefully there's some respect from those outside the church as well.

It's hard to submit to someone that you do not respect.

It's hard to take teaching from someone that you do not respect.

If you're a member of Proclamation Church, you've heard us talk about this in our membership class.

That we, as we seek and we pray as a church to be raising up elders, that if that time comes when we're voting on an elder and there's someone in our church and they're like, hey, I'm just, I'm not gonna vote for this brother.

I'm gonna vote no on this.

We say, come talk to us as elders.

We want to hear why you're gonna say no.

Not that you can't vote no, but if this brother is unqualified, we want to know about it.

But if they're not unqualified, but you just don't like them for some reason, we want to talk to you about that because they're gonna, if they are voted in as an elder, they're gonna be have authority over you, and you're gonna have a responsibility to submit to them.

And so, as pastors, we're gonna help you think through that.

So you want a brother who is respectable, hospitable, someone who uh aims to be hospitable, who can show hospitality with their home, with their relationships.

You know, when this was written, the context, there weren't like a whole lot of hotels or inns.

So the church was tasked with kind of putting people up.

If there are other Christians coming through the area, they kind of come to the church and man, who can house these brothers for a little while, these sisters for a little while?

And we don't live in that context anymore, but the ability to be hospitable is still a requirement.

Do you make people feel comfortable?

Do they feel welcome around you?

Are you then able to teach the next qualification?

Now, this does not mean that you have to preach.

We're not saying you have to become a preacher, and if you want to be an elder here at proclamation, you have to preach.

I know that that was kind of unique.

When we began as a church, there were three elders, myself and Jimmy and Ron, and we all took turns preaching.

That's because one, we all have the desire and the gifting to do that from the front.

Ron has now gone to Plant Grace Church and he's preaching there full time.

But can you teach the word?

Can you help people?

Can you help people open God's word and make sense of it and then apply it to their life?

And not in a haphazard way, but in a helpful way.

Are you able to teach?

And then the next qualification, not a drunkard.

You're not giving over to drunkenness.

You're not giving yourself over to just indulging in fleshly desires so that you can run away from the problems in your life.

Not a drunkard, not violent.

Not a violent person, you're a controlled person.

He's gentle.

You're a gentle person.

It doesn't mean that you're weak.

It doesn't mean that you can't stand up for yourself or that, you know, if you get attacked, you're you can't do anything to defend your family.

That's not what it's saying.

But is your life marked by an attitude of gentleness?

There's something going on in the church, there's an issue in the congregation.

Do you come in just kind of throwing your weight around and showing who's boss and getting things done?

Are you gentle?

Do you seek to help people grow?

To understand.

Not quarrelsome.

It's amazing how important this qualification is.

Because it's amazing how naturally quarrelsome we all are.

And I mean that.

Even if you're sitting there, you think, I'm not a quarrelsome person.

But when something happens in your life and in church life, or you get upset about something and someone does something that offends you, we just have an attitude to become defensive and make kind of it about ourselves, and we kind of begin to quarrel a little bit.

We're not out in public probably quarreling, but we're having little conversations.

We're saying things, negative things that are maybe disheartening to people or discouraging to people.

That's quarrelsome.

You're saying unhelpful things that are not true.

It's quarrelsome.

Not a lover of money.

You're not bound to money.

You're not finding your identity in money.

You're not chasing after money.

And this is this is subtle.

This is an easy one to kind of overlook.

You're like, well, I'm not blowing cash on big purchases.

I'm not living an extravagant life.

It's not what he's saying.

Do you have this love or this security, this thing that you just you really like money and you just want more of it.

You don't even want to live like you're rich.

You just wish you were rich and chasing after that dream.

Not a lover of money.

Fourteenth qualification must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the church of God?

This is one that's a difficult one, especially difficult as a guy with four kids.

You're trying to manage your children.

It's understanding that kids are kids, kids are not adults.

And when your kids grow up, I'm not ultimately responsible for my kids.

But kids cry, right?

Right on cue.

That's my nephew, by the way, and he doesn't like my preaching.

This idea of managing a household, it doesn't mean that your kids are just under your thumb either.

If you've been a Christian, you've been around the church, you've probably met pastors' kids.

And the joke is either they're crazy, right?

They're just wild because they've been under their parents' thumb for so long, or they just don't care about the things of the Lord.

They're kind of aloof.

And there's no, there's no doubt, it's a hard thing to, as a pastor, as an elder, because you're you're living, you're you're raising your family under a spotlight.

But that's part of the job, that's part of the qualification.

So you seek to manage well and to seek to be faithful with those things, to lead your family well.

How easy it is to get in a room with other leaders and have bravado or have great thoughts and have these things, and you're a strong leader at work, and you're a strong leader in the community, and then you get home and you just flounder.

You're not leading anything.

You're not leading your wife, you're not leading your kids, you're the first one to kind of sit down for the meal, you're the first one to get up and go do something else that you want to do.

It's so easy to lead everywhere else, but not lead in your marriage, and not lead in your own home.

It's a qualification here.

The 15th one, he must not be a recent convert.

This would make sense, right?

If you're new to the faith, how is it that you're to shepherd and understand and teach others with authority?

Doesn't mean you can't teach, doesn't mean you can't encourage and get those around you and encourage them.

That's not what he's saying.

He's saying for those who are to hold the office of elder and the authority that comes with that, they should not be a recent convert.

This is just wisdom of the heart.

We must be proven over time to be faithful to the Lord before we are put in a position to lead others and have authority over others.

The 16th one, this goes back to the respectable above approach, is well thought of by outsiders.

Now, this doesn't mean that everyone in the community loves the person, loves the guy, and he just has friends everywhere.

And we know that if you're a follower of Christ, the Bible says you're an enemy of the world.

The world's gonna hate you.

That doesn't mean everyone who's not a Christian hates you, right?

But in general, what you're seeking to do, bring light into the world, the world is seeking to hide from and to cover up and to stay in their darkness.

So there's an enmity there.

But at the same time, in the midst of God's common grace in the world that we live in, hopefully, if you're an elder, there's people who are outsiders, outside the local church, and maybe even outside the Christian faith, who still respect you because you're honest, you're truthful, you deal fairly, you keep your word.

So there's this idea of being well respected by outsiders.

And then there's one more that we don't see in this text in 1 Timothy, but we see in Titus.

Titus 2 has similar or 1 has similar qualification lists, and it just says that an elder needs to be a lover of good.

I think that's so helpful because it kind of summarizes all these things.

If you're to be an elder, to be a pastor, you need to be a lover of good.

Not a lover of people's praise, not a lover of achievement or size or growth or accomplishment or accolades.

A lover of good.

You love good.

And you run from things that are evil.

You don't indulge and give yourself over to wicked things.

Just a lover of good, which is like Christ, a lover of good.

So you have all these qualifications, all these things that an elder is to be and to do.

And I'll be honest, as a pastor, as an elder, I read through these, and I read through the qualifications in Titus, and sometimes I just read this and I think, I gotta get a different job.

Like, you just read it and it's kind of crushing because you realize, and you guys all know this, no one's perfect.

I'm not perfect.

I fall, I come up short, I miss the mark.

But yet, these qualifications are here for a reason.

Because we're given, as Christians, we're given these responsibilities to follow the Lord.

And it's the job of an elder, a pastor, to teach with authority, and then to live as an example, and then to protect the church.

There's a lot of different ways you can nuance this out, but that's kind of the three things, the three responsibilities of an elder.

To teach and instruct the church how to faithfully follow God's ways, be an example for others to follow, not perfect, because it can't be, but we're striving for faithfulness, and then to protect the church from false doctrines and false living.

So this idea of teaching and instruction.

Look at if I mean I'm gonna read for you Ephesians 4, 11 through 12.

And he gave the apostles and the prophets and the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

In Acts 20, verse 28.

Acts 20:28

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the Church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Then in Titus 1, verse 9, he must hold firm to the trustworthy saying as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

Titus 1:9

So this idea of teaching and instructions the responsibility of an elder is to teach and instruct, to help those grow the people, to help those in the flock grow in their understanding of God.

God's word and apply it.

So it's no good if we all just puff up with knowledge and we understand a whole lot of things about God's word, but we don't apply God's word.

See, the Christian faith is about following Jesus, following the way of Jesus.

It isn't about just knowing who Jesus was or trusting that he was a good person and hoping that we can get to heaven.

It's about following Him.

Elders are to teach and instruct in these things.

It's the responsibility as an elder to do that well.

And to the degree that they they're not doing these things.

The church flounders, it begins to fade and get weak and thin.

And then in comes false doctrine and false teaching.

So it's important that a brother has the ability, the understanding, the ability to teach the word.

This is a quote from David Platt regarding elders and their ability to teach.

Elders can't just know the word extensively.

It is imperative that elders communicate the word effectively.

An elder must know the word and spread the word throughout the church and from church from the church throughout the world.

He must be able to persuade people with the word, plead with people from the word, comfort people with the word, encourage people from the word, instruct people in the word, and lead the church according to the word.

So it's not that you can necessarily just have to preach and engage people and hold their attention.

It's that you can take God's word and effectively use it to help grow disciples and reach the nations.

The blessing for us as a church is that we are able to keep praying for more elders.

We desire that men would aspire to the office.

Men would say, I desire, I aspire to be an elder.

Not so that I can have a title or that my name can be, I can be recognized, or I can have authority to kind of throw around.

But I want other Christians to grow in their faith.

I want other Christians to mature in their faith.

I want to be an example for those to follow, that they might understand what it means to be a Christian, how to lead their family well, how to understand God's word, how to apply it.

It does us no good if we seek to have just a bunch of men stand up and say, Well, I want to be in charge, I want to have authority, I want to have a vote.

To be faithful to God's word, to be teachers of God's word, first to themselves and then to one another, that we might understand God's word.

So an elder is to teach and to instruct, an elder is to live as an example.

This is pretty self-explanatory, or to help kind of be an example.

And this is what it means to strive, not be perfect, but strive to be like Christ, to seek to lead our families well.

Candace can attest, as well as my extended family, that I'm not perfect as a husband or as a father.

I fail, I come up short.

But I strive to set an example for others to follow.

Elders are to live and to model Christ.

Sometimes you're reading in the scriptures, you're studying God's word, and you're like, I just, I want to be able to see this.

What does this look like?

Hopefully, to some degree, you can look to your elders and see what it means to follow Christ.

Or to live as an example.

And because we're fallen and sinful, there should be a good amount of repentance and humility.

If you meet a pastor who's never willing to admit their wrong, they're not humble, they're not repentant, it's a dangerous person.

Or if you meet a pastor and all you know is them on Sunday morning from the pulpit.

You've never been in their life, you've never been in their home, they've never been in your home.

You don't know them at all.

How is that brother living it as an example to you if you only see them for 30 or 40 minutes one time a week?

So to be to live it as an example, an elder must be, a pastor must be present with the flock.

The third responsibility is pastors are to protect the flock.

There's so many times in the New Testament.

Almost every time we open up a book in the New Testament, there's something about false teachers.

False teachers, almost ever all of Paul's epistles, his letters, they're dealing with false teachers, fighting heresy.

And you can read this and you can think, man, that's all the early church did was fight heresy and survive.

And I would say, yes, that's primarily what they did is fight heresy and survive, and the Lord has been gracious to spread the gospel around the world.

But we don't live in such a different time either.

I would argue that, although we're not having all these discussions, all these kind of counsels to figure out, well, do we think Jesus was fully God and fully man?

Or what do we think about the Holy Spirit?

Those things are settled, praise God.

But there are a lot of heresies in our day.

There's a lot of false teaching going on, and some of it is very subtle.

And I just want to mention a couple.

There's this idea of new revelation from God.

And what I mean by that is, and hear me, I don't want to be insensitive, but from one end of the spectrum, there's people who think that God is putting new apostles on the earth.

The new apostolic reformation, there's new apostles with new apostolic authority, and God gives them a special revelation and speaking to them, and they have the authority of the apostles to say this, thus, thus saith the Lord.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, I think this is the danger where some of this is kind of blends together.

There are people who just they act as if God can tell them something.

And although it contradicts Scripture, it's like, well, God's just telling me that it's okay to be with, to live with my girlfriend.

God's just telling me it's okay that I can live in this lifestyle.

He didn't tell you that.

Because what he did tell us is that those things are sinful.

And so I'm not saying the Holy Spirit can't speak to us and encourage us or those things.

But we must be careful that whatever intuition or feeling or sense we get, it's much more helpful to say, I'm getting this feeling that the Lord's pressing this in on my life.

Where is it at in Scripture?

Where is God saying these things in his word?

Because he's not gonna say anything that contradicts his word.

So this idea of new revelation that kind of trumps God's word, that's that's one common false teaching we have.

The false teaching of universalism.

Very common in our day that God will eventually save everyone, that no one's gonna actually go to hell for eternity, but God will save everyone.

It's a false teaching.

The prosperity gospel, this idea that God desires you to be healthy and wealthy and wise, and that if something bad is going on in your life, it's because you don't have enough faith.

It's a false gospel.

It's false teaching.

This idea that God just wants me to be happy.

That again, this is the prosperity.

His desires for me to be happy.

I'm not happy, then something has got to change.

My spouse has to change, my job has to change, my career has to change because I'm not happy, and I know God's will for my life is to be happy.

Another one we see kind of in our context more often is this idea of baptismal regeneration.

That you have to be baptized to be saved.

That it's in the act of baptism that you're then born again, you're made new.

It's called baptismal regeneration.

These are false teachings that are common in our day, common in our area.

So as Christians, we we can combat those things.

We teach against those things.

It's the job of the pastors to protect the flock from those things, as well as our own sinful nature.

It's easy to be able to have a false teaching, hear a false teacher, and say, hey, that's false.

And here's why it's false.

It's much more difficult as a pastor in a relationship with someone from the church to say, I think there's sin in your life that you need to deal with.

There's rebellion in your heart against God that you need to deal with.

Protecting the flock from a sheep who is going wayward.

It's not our job to kind of beat them and into correction, it's to point them to Christ.

Love them as Christ has called us to love them.

It's the job of an elder to protect the flock, to teach, to live as an example, to protect the flock.

So we have this, all these verses about elders.

And then in verse 8, we get into deacons.

And I'm going to pause.

There are some church traditions who have, can you kind of get this backward?

And what they what I mean by that is they'll have a pastor or a couple pastors, and then they'll have a board of deacons that function as elders.

You understand?

So that they're like, well, our deacon board is voting on what Bible translation we should use, or what pastor we're going to hire next.

And then although they're calling those brothers deacons, they're functioning as elders.

Deacons, per what Scripture tells us, are those who lead in serving the church.

Look with me in verse 8.

We'll read through verse 13.

Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

They must hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

And let them also be tested first, then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.

Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober minded, faithful in all things.

Let deacons, let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their own children and their own households well.

For those who serve well as deacon, as a deacon gain a good standing for themselves, and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

So this idea, these qualifications for deacons are very similar to the qualifications for elder.

But there's a few different ones.

One, there's no qualification for the ability to teach.

Deacons are not instructed to teach or to have this kind of authority that the elders are to have.

There are many brothers and sisters who I love and respect who believe that the office of deacon is reserved for only men.

Now we think scripture is very clear the office of pastor, elder is reserved only for men, for qualified men.

But as we look through the text here, and I'll make this my point in a moment, I believe that the office of deacon, the way that we practice as a church, is open to both men and women.

If you look at verse 11, it says, their wives likewise.

And different Bible translators handle this word differently.

But this this word for used for wife, you know, the Greek word gunoi actually just means female.

It can mean wife.

It can also mean female.

The vast majority in the New Testament, predominantly it means a woman.

And the word there isn't in the text.

So in the Greek, it's women likewise, must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.

So this idea, as we see in Romans 16, that Phoebe is given the title of a deacon.

And the word deacon means servant.

This is why it gets confusing.

It's because many times it's used both ways in the New Testament.

It's used to mean the office of deacon, but it's also just someone who is a servant.

They're functioning and they're acting like a deacon.

This work of a deacon.

So here, as we look at the qualifications, it's like, man, these are to be brothers and sisters who are faithfully following Christ, who are holding to the faith with a clear conscience.

It means they're not kind of like, well, I'm serving in a leadership role, I'm helping serve the church, but I'm not really even sure what I believe.

They're confident in their faith, in the gospel.

They're sober-minded.

They're not slandering others.

See, one of the responsibilities of a deacon is to function kind of like a shock absorber.

So there's tasks that need done.

Children need watched, things need set up, meals need cooked, all these things need done, and organization must be brought to these things.

I think the role of a deacon is to serve these practical needs of the church.

How do we help serve one another and organize the church to help the or bring organization, excuse me, to these things to serve them?

I think that's the role of a deacon.

They don't have the authority of a pastor or an elder, but they do have this ability to serve and to meet needs and to lead others in doing that.

And in order to do that well, then there needs to be some qualifications for that.

We don't just want anyone to lead.

It's got to be someone who can help bring people together, who can bring unity, who can help instruct with a graceful attitude.

Those who see what need to be done, needs to get done, and they can bring others along with them in an encouraging, thoughtful way.

Not just kind of steamroll over people or neglect responsibilities.

So this office of deacon is a blessing to the to pastors because it frees us up of all the other responsibilities that we take away from the responsibility of studying the word and praying and shepherding the church.

So as we seek to be faithful as a church, we want to pray.

Lord, help us to raise up more elders, help us to raise up more deacons.

May those who see needs, who just naturally see needs around them, who have an attitude, a desire to help serve, and who can help bring people along with them and not discourage them.

May they see those needs and start meeting those needs.

And then we get to the last part of this text where Paul anchors all of this.

It feels like a hard shift almost.

Like he's talking about practical things.

This is a really kind of a practical, somewhat dry sermon.

Because it's like, well, there's qualifications, and there's applications, and then there's this HR department, and all these things, you know?

It's like, well, what are we doing here?

Well, Paul is giving instruction on how the church is to function.

Because the church is the pillar, the church is the way that the world will see and hear of Christ.

Look at verse 14.

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness.

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up to glory.

Again, the whole point of Paul's letter is anchored here.

That the church is the household of God, the church of the living God.

It's a pillar, it's a buttress of the truth.

If you don't know what a pillar, a buttress is, a buttress is, if you look at old church buildings, you'll see like the building, and then on the side, you'll see these like things that kind of come out, like walls that come off at a different angle.

And they're there to support the building, to hold it upright, just like a pillar is there to bring support, structural integrity to the building.

And as the household of God, it's the church that commends Christ.

It's the church that confesses that Jesus was who he says he was, that he came to earth, that the Holy Spirit proved he was the Son of God, that he taught the angels, that he is proclaimed among the nations, believed upon in the world, and taken up to glory, that this person, this Christ, who he said he was, he was.

And how does that message in the gospel that Jesus Christ came to die for your sin and my sin?

That those who are dead in their sin have no hope without Christ.

How does that message go forth to the nations?

How does it change lives?

How does it move about and reach the lost?

It's through the household of Christ.

It's through the church.

The church is to be doing these things.

That is why Paul cares so much about instructing the church in how they are to behave.

Great indeed, we confess, Christ.

So we encourage ourselves and one another as a church to be faithful to what Christ has called us to.

To honor Him, to commend Him to the nations.

We must be careful that we don't err on one side or the other here.

One side is we get, we read all these qualifications and we read all the things that the church is supposed to be doing.

We say, well, we've got to do all these things.

We become just just caught up and obsessed with doing things.

Well, do we pray for all these things?

And do we meet all these things and good things?

We get caught up with those things, right?

We become people who are dedicated to tasks and checking boxes.

That's not why we're here.

That's not why God didn't send his son to die for the church, so the church would be obsessed with the kind of organization and just getting everything right.

But the other side, the other ditch we can quickly fall into is when we read all these things and we say, listen, let's just, let's just, what did Jesus do?

Now he was homeless, he kind of went from town to town, and kind of just kind of lived like it seems like a kind of a carefree life.

I mean, he it was hardship for sure.

But he just kind of went out and caught a fish.

And why can't we just be more like Jesus?

Why do we deal with elders and deacons and this structure and we're supposed to be praying for all these things?

You understand this other ditch, it's kind of, if we're not careful, becomes, if that one's legalism, this one's just laziness.

I don't want to have to think about all these things, I don't want to deal with all these things.

Why don't we just love people as Jesus loved people?

Well, if Jesus loved us, and he does, and he did, he gave us his word.

He said, This is how you're to live.

If you're a part of the church, this is how you're to behave.

And so we must be careful that we don't get into the ditch of legalism.

Just getting things done to get things done, checking off boxes that no one is even, we're creating our own boxes to check off.

Because we like checking off boxes.

And then the other side is can't we just like this?

Isn't we don't have to be so technical.

Let's just be more free-spirited.

Let's just kind of get together and and and read and pray and just see what happens.

And there's good in both these things.

So, church, hear me when I say, if God isn't giving us instruction on how the church is to behave, then we need to follow God's instructions on how the church is to behave.

Paul is writing Timothy to instruct him.

He reminds him that Christ came into the world to save sinners.

This whole thing is about Christ redeeming his people so that we would glorify him, make much of him, follow after him, begin to follow him, to live like him, that we would enjoy him forever.

Therefore, in what seems to be lesser things, we want to be faithful to him.

Because Christ has redeemed us.

So may we be a church that holds that tension well.

We're praying for more elders, we're praying for a good process to raise and train up elders and deacons.

We're holding to the mystery of the gospel that Christ came, that He is perfect, He lived a perfect and sinless life for us.

Church, let's pray.