Titus 1:6-9

We are um back in Titus.

Titus chapter one.

It is a hard thing as Christians.

It's against our nature as Christians, but also just as people, as human beings, to submit.

It's against our nature to submit to really anything outside of ourselves.

But especially just, I think, as Americans, this ideal of freedom and autonomy, which we cherish, we value, that also makes it difficult for us to submit to people or to things, to institutions.

And many Christians reject, or many people reject Christianity because they don't want to submit to God.

They think God just has all these rules and regulations that they don't want to then submit to.

There are, though, people who kind of like Jesus, they like the idea of Jesus, they kind of want to keep Jesus around, and they like the idea of the Bible, but they don't follow the Bible.

So they'll acknowledge, yeah, you can get some helpful information there.

It does talk about Jesus.

He seems like a pretty, pretty cool guy, but they're not following the Bible, and they're kind of clear about that.

And then there are yet still people who embrace Jesus fully.

And they seek to embrace the Bible, or they they strive to, but in their life, they don't really read the Bible.

They don't really care what the Bible has to say to them, and so they're not really willing to submit because they're not even willing to study it and to read it.

And so they are outwardly cherishing God's word and declare they follow it, but inwardly they're struggling to submit to it, to fully surrender to the kind of life that God has designed for them, the ways of Jesus.

And as Paul is writing to the church, and he's writing to Titus, he's keeping these kinds of people in mind.

Those who want nothing to do with the faith because they don't want to submit.

Those who kind of want to wear kind of the trappings of Christianity, but they don't really want to submit at all.

And those who want to act like they're submitting, but in their heart they're still unsubmissive.

And so Titus is instructed to begin to set up leaders.

And all through chapters one, two, and three, Paul's writing to Titus saying, listen, you need to remember that what you believe isn't enough.

You have to live it out.

You must care about the issues of doctrinal importance.

Right?

Your doctrine, you need to steward that well.

But he's also addressing issues of love.

And our devotion to God needs to be something we pay attention to, something we care about.

So he's kind of bringing those two things into perspective that yes, your doctrine matters, and yes, your devotion matter.

And you are to submit yourself to these things.

So watch your doctrine and watch your devotion as you strive to submit to the Lord and to others.

So it's in this context, right?

Paul's writing to encourage the church, and he's giving encouragement to Titus, that he then instructs Titus to appoint elders.

And last week we looked at verses four and five, and we talked about what was the what's the role of an elder?

What's an elder do?

We talked about how pastor, elder, bishop, it all means overseer.

It's an overseer, those who are appointed to lead the church.

We talked about how elders pray and they teach and they preach and they shepherd.

Elders are to protect the flock.

They are to help us with understanding the scriptures and understanding even our own selves.

And they are to model faithful obedience to the Lord.

Well, this morning I want to look at verses six through nine, the requirements of the elder.

And this passage is very similar to 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And we'll we'll be referencing 1 Timothy 3 a lot as we talk about what's the requirements, or the qualifications for an elder.

Now it's easy for us to look at these qualifications for an elder and just say, okay, are they behaving correctly?

Do they seem to be behaving correctly?

And much like the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, Hey, I'm following the law, I'm doing, I'm crossing everything, I'm doing everything I need to do.

Jesus gets right to the heart of it, says, Sell everything you have and give it to the poor.

And so it's not just enough that we have elders who are behaving properly and their kind of conduct is lining up, but their heart has to be there.

They have to have a heart for the things of the Lord.

They have to have a heart to follow after the Lord.

So as we lay out these passages, we're going to talk about men, are these are these men, elders, who who are desiring the ways of the Lord?

Do they desire to serve as elders?

Do they display the qualities of an elder?

And do they have the depth needed to serve as elders?

Now, as we get into this, we're also going to kind of touch on God's design for men and women in the church and in the home.

And this is a whole nother series of sermons that we need to talk about.

But we know we see in 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 12, that Paul gives clear clarity to the role of men and women there.

1 Timothy 2:12

Now, he says, and this is something we believe as a church, that the office of elder is reserved for men.

Now, if you wanna if you want to make a statement that's just gonna make everyone angry, it's the most unpopular thing to say in 2022, that's about it right there, that God has a specific design for men and for women.

Now I want to make some clarifications.

Why I think Scripture teaches that men are to serve as elders and women are not.

It's not that women are not smart enough, or that women are not capable, and they're not wise, and they're too emotional, or they're too afraid.

That's not the argument we see in Scripture.

To make that argument is to make an argument from the position of human sinfulness or human lackingness, if I can even say that.

But I think the argument scripture makes is that this is God's design.

So we're not left with like a, well, who's stronger, men or women?

Well, let's just try the men for a while and see how that goes.

And well, that hasn't gone that well, so let's try the women and see how that goes.

But rather, God has a design for us.

He did not create the universe and put the stars in the sky and the plants on the earth and create the animals and send everything into being and then say, Well, men, women, you guys figure it out.

And for the first few thousand years, men have just kind of stormed over women and had their way, and now things are about to flip.

And you know, that's not God's design at all.

God's design is for a man to fulfill his role of leading his equal, his wife, in the home if you're married.

God's design in the church is for qualified men to lead the church.

Not not to act as if they're better or they're superior because they're not.

But this is God's design.

Candace and I were talking about this this morning as I was kind of working through some of these things, and and she's like, you know, it's just hard sometimes.

And we were talking about like, why is it hard?

Why is the the kind of term here is complementarianism?

That the the roles complement one another.

Why we're talking about like why is this hard?

And and we were talking about how like it's for for women, men are here, right?

Your your authority that you're supposed to submit to, your husband is here.

Or the elders of the church that are here.

You can see them, you can talk to them.

But men, we're to submit to Christ.

We are to submit ourselves to him completely, and we're to model to our wives what submission looks like by the way that we submit to Christ.

But again, it makes it difficult because where's Christ?

He's not walking in and sitting down at the dinning room, the dining room table, he's not having dinner with you.

He's not coming in here and you know, us submitting to him.

So it's it's a different kind of relationship in a sense.

And there's most difficulty there.

I don't want to just brush over it, say, women, you submit to men.

Bible says so, get over it.

These are issues of the heart, and these stem all the way back to Genesis 3 and the fall.

This is a curse of the fall, the frustration, the tension between men and women.

And then you leave the scriptures and you go to any part of society, anywhere, and they're gonna tell you this is ludicrous, this is belittling.

And I will be the first to say that for generations there are many, many Christians and churches who proclaim the name of Christ, who are then oppress women and treat them as lesser.

And that is a great shame, for that is not what we see in Scripture at all.

But we do see the Lord in his design laying out the plan for men and women and how they're to function in the home and how they're to function in the church.

This is God's design.

One commentator put it this way: being made in God's image as male and female is not a matter of one's own autonomous preferences.

That's an offensive statement today.

Right?

Being male and female is not a matter of one's own autonomous preferences.

Rather, it is part of God's beautiful design and plan.

And the more that we rail against God's design and plan, not only do we see things begin to crumble in our society, but in our own hearts.

This is the same thing that happens when you're when you're choosing to sin.

Man, it eats you up, it convicts you.

You feel guilty, you feel the weight of it because it's against God's design and his plan for us.

Again, the the danger with this doctrine, as with all doctrines, is that we get it wrong.

We misapply it.

So we need to be people who strive to contend for the truth and people who do so lovingly, graciously, as Christ has done with us.

So, again, looking at the requirements for elder, the desire, the display, and the depth, and read with me in Titus chapter 1, picking it up in verse 4.

Titus 1 · chapter mention

It says, To Titus, my true child, and a common faith, grace, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

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

If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers, and is not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach.

He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or drunk, a drunkard, or violent, or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

He must hold firm to the trustworthy words as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

And in that, he the verse one of 1 Timothy 3.

It says, the saying is trustworthy.

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

A noble task.

But we see there has to be a desire.

You must aspire to this.

So we're talking about the qualifications as of an elder.

Again, I mentioned this last week.

It's a little bit of a kind of an awkward thing as an elder telling you, hey, by the way, I'm going to stand up and spend 20 minutes telling you why it's important that I have this job and why I'm important and why I fit the role here.

But this is for our instruction as a church.

One, as we learn submission, that means to submit, because that's what elders are to model.

But two, as the church, as members, you're responsible for approving and bringing, approving new elders.

So if the elders come to you and say, hey, we found a guy who wants to be an elder, he, you know, seems like a good chap, he's given a lot, and all these things are good, like we're gonna make him an elder.

And you guys say, okay, well, you guys said so.

That's not how it should work.

Scripture tells us what is required of elders.

And so we're instructing the church so that we as a church can hold fast to these things.

So the first requirement, a desire.

Right?

This is a desire to shepherd people.

This is a desire to shepherd people, not just processes.

You'll find people who come into positions of leadership because, man, I can really design a process for you.

I can get things done for you, but you must have a desire to shepherd people.

People and their messes and their problems.

Shepherd your own family and your own messes and your own problems.

You must have a desire to shepherd through perseverance.

You must persevere as an elder, not just posture.

You can't just posture up and say, hey, I'm looking the part.

But you are to persevere, trusting the Lord, and do that through shepherding the people.

So much of our faith, our time on this earth, deals with this idea of persevering.

Right?

We're to remain faithful as the day of the Lord approaches.

We're to trust Him and to persevere.

And as elders, to shepherd the people in that.

Not kind of give them kind of cotton candy so it tastes great, you know, for 40 minutes on a Sunday morning, and then there's nothing left for them for the rest of the week.

Or there's no desire for the word to help shepherd people through hard things.

There must be a desire to protect the flock.

Again, not just not just practice good theology.

Not just say, here's our white paper on everything we believe in.

If you have a question, well, that's well, I'm a my my marriage is in a crisis.

Well, you should read our document on that.

Well, my kids are black.

Well, you should read our document on that.

Right?

You are you have a desire to protect and to help people understand, man.

What does the word say?

What does God say?

What's the world saying?

And how's that seeping into our lives?

It's my desire as you're as an elder and a pastor that if by God's grace I can.

Every week we open the word, and hopefully you're you're being shepherded by the word.

You're being challenged.

I'm hoping most Sundays you hear something that's like, man, that's a little bit, that kind of, you know, that prickles a little bit, that hurts a little bit.

I'm a little sensitive there, but you also hear, man, just kind of like balm to a wound.

That you're encouraged and built up.

So a desire to shepherd people, a desire to shepherd through perseverance, a desire to shepherd to protect.

There also must be a desire or the aspiration to serve.

A desire to serve needs, not just ideas.

Again, so many times we think we have these ideas, we we kind of draw them out, like, oh, these are great ideas.

And so we want to serve the ideas rather than serving the people.

There must be a desire to serve the needs, right?

To set up chairs, not sit back thinking, well, that's for someone else to do.

I'm an elder.

I'm too good for that.

A desire to serve.

And even a desire to do it with the right heart.

Not looking for thanks, not looking for a pat on the back or praise or acknowledgement, or maybe they see me doing that, we unstack that chair until they come back, you know.

This is a heart that desires to serve because it's what the Lord has called us to do.

To give without expectation of return.

And then there must be a desire to suffer.

To suffer for the sake of truth.

Again, standing up here and proclaiming that we believe that God has a design for men and women that's unpopular today.

To say that, but we believe that as far as gender goes, the Lord has designed these things that are set.

That's unpopular today.

But there could be days in the future where that's illegal.

So we must be willing to suffer for truth.

But you more than just the in regards to the law and prison and those things, we also just suffer as people who are willing to contend for the truth of Christ because it's unpopular.

People don't like it.

To be honest, I feel like suffering is a strong word that can kind of bring the idea of persecution.

But one of the ways that I feel like I suffer in this way is even contending for my own heart for the truth.

My own desires rail against the truth of Scripture.

And yet I am to contend, to die to myself for the sake of truth.

There must be a desire to suffer for the sake of others' salvation.

So this isn't just an inconvenience.

This isn't just like, well, you know, they're kind of calling it a bad time, we're sitting down for dinner.

This is a suffering, a giving of yourself, a sacrifice to you, a sacrifice to your family, to the things around you for the salvation of others.

There must be a willingness for that.

I just wonder, these are all things that all believers are called to.

There must be a willingness and a desire to suffer for the sake of others, sanctification.

Some of the times the easiest, most rewarding, most exciting thing as a pastor is to see people make a declaration of faith.

But some of the hardest things, some of the most grueling things as a pastor, but also as brothers and sisters in Christ, is to encourage others in their pursuit of Christ, in their sanctification, to say hard things to people, to take a stand that's unpopular, to go ahead and occupy that space and say, brother and sister, what you're doing does not honor the Lord.

What you're doing is bringing destruction to your relationship with others.

But we must be willing to do hard things, to suffer for the sake of others.

So there has to be this desire first for someone who's to serve as an elder, a desire to do these things, to fulfill this role.

And then there must be an outward display.

An outward display.

Some moral character.

Above reproach.

And I'm gonna kind of read like a sentence for each of these.

And now this this is not a sentence I came up with.

This is a wonderful, helpful uh diagram that John Piper put together, but he must be above reproach.

This is 1 Timothy 3, 2, and Titus 1, 6, and 7.

He lives in a way that gives no cause for others to think badly of the church or the faith or the Lord.

Right, so he's above reproach.

This is not perfection.

This is above reproach.

He has to be a husband of one wife.

So the question is probably one of notoriety.

What is this man's reputation with regard to whether he has had one wife or not?

Is he a one-woman man?

Sober-minded, not a drunkard.

He exercises self-control and mastery of his appetites.

He prizes freedom from enslavement to such a degree that no bondage is yielded to him.

He must be self controlled.

He is sensible, he is prudent, he is reasonable, he has good judgment.

He sees things as they really are.

He knows himself well.

He understands people and how they respond.

He is in touch with reality such that there are no great gaps.

Between what he sees in himself and what he sees and what others see in him.

And if we've been, if you've grown up in church and you spent several years, probably many years in church, you've probably met or been under a pastor or an elder who you've seen like these kind of disconnections.

Who you think you are and who everyone else thinks you are are two different things.

And it's always got like the awkward, like, you know, do you really see the giant stain on your shirt?

Kind of a thing?

Do you understand?

Do you see what's going on?

Like everyone else seems to see this, but but you don't.

So there must be this idea of self-control.

He's aware of what's going on.

He's aware of his desires and the things around him.

He knows himself well.

The sixth one is he must be respectable.

He is honorable and dignified.

He comports himself in situations so as not to step on toes unnecessarily.

He does not offend against propriety.

He's not someone who's offensive.

He's respectable.

He's hospitable.

He loves strangers.

He is given to being kind to newcomers.

He makes them feel well at home.

His home is open for ministry.

He does not shrink back from having guests.

He is not a secretive person.

Hospitality.

This is something we see all through the New Testament.

Be hospitable literally means to love strangers.

He must not be violent or belligerent.

His temper is under control.

He is not given to quarreling or to fighting.

He has a desire to kind of make things work.

Not that he's going to gloss over things, but he has a conciliatory bent to himself.

He's not given to quarreling or to fighting, right?

He does not wear his feelings on his sleeve.

He does not carry resentment.

He's not hypercritical.

So it's not just, well, he doesn't beat people up all the time, right?

It's not where the standard.

Again, all these standards, are they from the heart?

Does he desire the good of other people?

Does he desire to protect and to make things work well?

Must be gentle.

1 Timothy 3, 3.

We we live, there's there's kind of like this idea in parts of like Christian evangelicalism where like men just need to like bolster up, grow beards, and just be tough again.

Which is there's a whole other sermon there.

But let's just remember one of the requirements for being an elder is to be gentle, not harsh or mean-spirited, is inclined to tenderness.

You find someone who, in their moments of frustration, they deal tenderly with their spouse, they deal tenderly with their kids.

I'm gonna tell you, that's something that's I mean, all those things, but that's convicting even for me.

Even for, as an elder, striving to lead and model these things, to be inclined to be tender.

He resorts to toughness only when the circumstances command this form of love.

Not this form of bravado, not this form of one-upmanship or pride, but when the circumstances command this form of love.

His words are not ascitic or divisive, but helpful and encouraging.

Number 10, he's not arrogant or quick-tempered or quarrelsome.

He is peaceable, slow, he's slowly and lowly in his demeanor, not speaking much of himself or his achievements.

He counts others better than himself and is quick to serve.

He sincerely gives God the credit and honor for any accomplishment.

Be humble.

A steward, number 11, a steward.

His children are faithful, not insubordinate.

He's a good manager of his own household, cares for God's church, keeps his children in submission.

So there's this idea that if you scripture says if you can't manage your own household, how can you manage the household of the Lord?

And this is where people want to get really legalistic and say, well, you know, what does good management look like?

You know, does that mean their kids have to all be professing believers and they have to do that?

Do they have to do that by the age of seven, right?

Some people say, well, if you're as an adult, if your kid's an adult and they leave the faith and you're disqualified.

This is what Piper says.

He is a leader of a well-ordered household.

If he has children, they are submissive, not perfect, but well-disciplined, so they do not blatantly and regularly disregard the instruction of their parents.

His children revere him.

He is loving and responsible to lead them spiritually.

He respects and tenderly loves his wife if he is married.

There is their relationship is openly admirable.

There are this idea that as elders, we are to steward our own families.

This is again convicting yourself.

If I come to you and I'm like, guys, things have not been going well, and Candace and I, and the boys, you know, just we're just gonna take a break.

We're gonna separate for a while.

It's your job to come to me and say, brother, we love you.

Brother, you're not gonna serve as an elder right now.

It's the most loving, gracious thing you can do is to come and say, We love you, we believe the Lord's doing things in your life.

But but you're not to serve, to model at this time what it means to follow the Lord.

We're 12 there to be well thought of by outsiders.

He meets the standards of the world for decency and respectability, which this day and age is not much, because the standards of the church are much higher than the world.

So we see these outward displaying, this modeling to the church, but also to the world.

Man, these are these are humble people, these are kind people, these are gentle people, these are people who are who are wise and slow to act, they're not wearing their emotions on their sleeve, they're not kind of firing off loose, they're not arrogant.

They're well thought of, they're serious about loving others, serious about displaying their character of godliness, not as a way of look at me, but this is just how they live.

This is who they are.

And then there's an inward depth, there's a spiritual characteristic.

A lover of good.

Apart from Christ, there is no way to be a lover of good.

He says he loves to be involved in doing good.

More than merely just doing good.

He has a bent and a love to see goodness done.

We read that again.

More than merely doing good, oh that's great, he should have a desire for that.

He has a bent and a love to see goodness done, to see it done around him by others, a lover of good.

Love comes from God and God alone.

And if there is one who has a love for the things of God, to see the things of God kind of displayed and to see people enjoy the things of the Lord, to give credit to the Lord.

He must be upright.

He cares about whether people are treated fairly.

He has this sense of justice that nowhere else in the world can you find apart from the scriptures.

Because there is no justice apart from the true and just one.

He's upright, he has a desire to see justice done.

There is this holy.

He's a person of devotion to Christ with a life of prayer and meditation.

He loves worship and has a deep personal relationship with the Lord.

Someone who cares about these things.

They're walking the ways the Lord desires them to walk.

He's not a recent convert.

This is out of 1 Timothy 3.6.

He is a mature believer.

There are evidences in his life that humility is a fixed virtue and not easily overturned.

One of the things we'll see in our culture is someone will come to the Lord and they're passionate, they're passionate about the things of the Lord, they're reading the scriptures, they're on fire, and like, man, this guy cares more about the Lord than I do.

Maybe he should be the leader.

But just like all things, just like falling in love, things fade.

And the emotions of the day pass.

But is there steadfastness?

Is there consistency in their walk with the Lord?

Then number five, able to give instruction and able to teach.

This is Titus 1.9 and 1 Timothy 3.2.

These are the things that separate elders out.

This is a requirement that is not placed on deacons or any other believer outside of those who are serving as elders.

So if you have a brother who's meaning all these things, but he cannot help someone understand the scriptures.

He's not able to teach and to give instruction.

And I don't mean preach.

You know, we have a pretty unique situation here at our church because right now there's three elders and we all preach.

And that's not probably always going to be that way.

Hopefully the Lord brings us more elders and men who are able to teach and to instruct, but maybe they don't have the desire to preach on a Sunday morning.

And that's that's fine, that's good and right.

Not everyone's called to do this right here on Sunday mornings, the Lord's day.

But he is an apt teacher, skilled in teaching.

He knows biblical doctrine well and is able to explain it to people.

He is astute enough theologically that he can spot serious error and show a person why it is wrong and harmful.

So to protect and to guide and to shepherd the flock well, an elder needs to be able to give instruction to know the word.

There must be a spiritual characteristic of this man.

Again, these are challenges for us.

Because we can't just read and say, okay, well, it looks like he's gentle, it looks like he's not a drunkard, it looks like he's not going after kind of selfish gain, check, check, check.

We want people, men of character, who desire the things of the Lord because they desire to serve the Lord and nothing else.

As a church, we want to see men raised up and lead and serve as elders, men who have a desire, men who display these characteristics, and have a spiritual depth.

But we also need men who align with what we're our church, right?

We're not gonna bring in someone who checks all the theological boxes who have a very different position on baptism than we do.

Maybe a godly brother who loves the Lord and we can learn a lot from them, but who's gonna serve this local church?

I mean, you need to agree with what we believe in our statement of faith and how we practice life together.

We're serious about what we believe.

We're serious about relationships with one another.

It's not that we just hold up our doctrine, we must hold fast to our devotion.

It's not that we just say, here's the requirements from scripture, find a guy who just kind of checks that.

Truth done, but who loves the Lord, who loves to follow the things of the Lord, who is not yet perfect.

This is the tension we live in as elders, is man, I know my sin.

I know it better than anyone else.

I know Jimmy's sin, Ron's sin, I know their hearts, I know their tendencies, they know mine.

So, like we're we're seeking to honor and to model, while we're also seeking to shepherd our own selves and to just like you, figure out, man, why am I still frustrated about this, or why am I struggling with my my doubt here, or why does this sin creep back into my life?

There's not these two levels of kind of there's the there's the church and there's the the clergy, the pastors, the elders, the professionals, but rather just we're striving to model and to display what it means to be broken, what it means to have fear, to have doubt, to have insecurity, and to yet still put our faith in the Lord, to wake up day after day and follow him, to submit to him.

So as we're seeking to model submission ourselves, we're then calling the church to submit to the Lord as well.

And this is God's design for the church to follow after him in love and in truth.

I know submission is not it's not easy for us, but it's required by all of us, and it brings life to us.

Again, submission is not easy for any of us, but it's required of us, and it brings life to us.

This is God's design.

So I have just two questions to leave you with.

What part of God's design do you struggle with the most?

What part of God's design do you struggle with the most?

And do you desire to surrender and submit to God?

So, what part of God's design do you struggle with the most?

And do you desire to surrender and submit to God?

We are about to partake of communion, and this is a symbol of God's design for our salvation.

It's a symbol of God's love and his affection for his people, and it reminds us of our submission to him.

Let's pray.