Titus 1:4-5

So yeah, Titus.

I know it's this is kind of different with uh the three of the pastors preaching through different books, but we're we are in Titus this morning.

Titus chapter one.

If you recall, we we covered the I preached on this two other weeks, two weeks ago, and for a couple weeks, and we we didn't get super far, but we got far enough, and just kind of to recap the first three verses that Paul is providing kind of his credentials, right?

So he writes this pastoral letter to Titus, and he's saying, hey, listen, I want to encourage you, I want to um instruct you in the churches that you're leading.

And so he's writing to kind of encourage them and give them advice.

And he starts out the letter with his his credentials, right?

And kind of why they should listen to him, because he's a servant, a bondservant of God, right?

A slave to the Lord.

He is an apostle, so he has apostolic authority, which is very unique and that's very weighty authority.

And he shares that his mission is to encourage and build up the church and their faith and to help them understand and how to live a godly life, and that their hope is in Christ.

Their hope is in Christ to be with him for eternity.

So he writes to Paul and he gives him this instruction to go and complete the work or finish the work that was begun in the churches in Crete.

And we don't know who began the work.

We don't know if it was Paul or someone else who kind of kicked off the work, but he's writing to Titus to finish this and to appoint elders in every town.

So this morning, if you will read, I'm gonna read actually one verses one through nine, and then this morning we're gonna cover some of those verses.

It says, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness and hope of eternal life, which God who never lies promised before the ages began, and at the proper time manifest his word through the preaching which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Saviour.

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

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

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

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

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

So this is what we're going to look at this morning.

This kind of first chunk that Paul's writing to Titus, saying, Listen, go and appoint elders in every town.

And most likely there at this point there would have been one church in the town.

So he's saying, go to the local church and appoint elders in these churches.

And he's writing to encourage him on how to do these things.

Now, Paul could have said to Titus, listen, go to the churches, right?

And you need to make sure that their systems are in order.

You need to make sure they have a good outreach strategy in place, and you need to make sure all the checks and balances are there.

He could have said, listen, Titus, you need to go to all the churches and make sure that their kind of felt needs are being met.

Or he could have said, hey, you need to go to the churches and have the churches canvas the neighborhood and see kind of what's everyone feel about the church?

What would they like to find in a church?

What kind of church do they want?

And then kind of start kind of developing these churches in that way.

Now I'm kidding slightly.

Some of these things are facetious, but some of these things are important.

But Paul tells Titus to appoint elders in every church.

Now, what even is an elder?

What do elders do?

And why do we need elders?

Now, these are the three questions I want to answer this morning as we look at the role of eldership.

What is an elder?

What do they do, and why do we need them?

And this is kind of a unique situation given that I am one of the elders of the church.

And most people don't have 30 to 35 minutes to stand up before their organization and say, this is why my job matters.

This is why I'm vital to the organization.

But that's kind of what we're gonna do this morning.

And it's not because I'm vital or because there's something that you need from me, but it's that the office of elder is vital.

So what is an elder?

Well, to clarify, there's some confusion around language.

So we live in a culture in America where the idea of elder is something and bishop is something, and a pastor is the guy who gets paid to do things.

And well, based on scripture, it's all the same.

An elder is a pastor, a pastor is an elder.

That's why in your bulletin it says I'm the lead pastor slash elder, and Jimmy's an elder pastor, pastor elder.

It's the same with the it all means the same word.

That's overseer.

We are to oversee the church.

So what is an elder?

They're those who are appointed to lead the church.

Those appointed to lead the church.

So, first of all, to kind of parse that out, those appointed to lead the church.

You need to define what a church is.

We live in a day and age where there's lots of different ideas of what a church is.

But we have to know what we're doing as elders if we're to lead, because elders who are leading will give an account to the Lord for how they lead.

So again, what is a church?

This is a short definition, but I think it's good for us.

This is what a church is.

It's a group of Christians who regularly gather together to proclaim the gospel, affirm one another by the ordinances, and live together as a family of God.

So I'm gonna say that again.

This is a group of Christians, right?

So it's a group, it's a defined number of people.

You're Christians, you're you're you're born again.

These aren't just people who are in the room.

These are people who are gathering as believers regularly together.

They're gathering to do what?

To proclaim the gospel.

So that implies one, that we know the gospel.

If you've gone through the membership process here and you're a member, you know one of the questions we ask you is, what is the gospel?

Why do we ask you that?

Because that's what part of what the church does is proclaim the gospel.

And if we don't know the gospel, we can't be faithful to proclaim it.

We believe that God is the creator of all things and he's good and he's holy.

We know that man has sinned and separated ourselves from God without hope and without a savior.

Can't save ourselves.

But we do have a savior in Christ.

He came for us to die for our sins, to atone for us completely, and we choose to follow Him, surrender our life to Him, or we can reject Him.

But we must respond to what Christ has done for us.

So we proclaim the gospel, we proclaim it on Sunday morning, we proclaim it when we get with our friends, we proclaim it in our workplaces, we proclaim the gospel.

We affirm one another by the ordinances, baptism and communion.

We affirm one another, right?

So baptism is when you're a believer, you're saying, man, I'm telling the world I'm a believer.

I'm standing up saying, I am following Jesus Christ.

And that's what you do when you're when you stand up and you desire to be baptized.

But the second element of baptism is it's the church saying, you know what, we know you, we're seeing your life, we're we're looking at what's going on here, and we we affirm.

We affirm this person's a believer.

Now we don't confirm, right?

We don't have the ability, nowhere in Scripture to confirm someone's salvation, right?

By golly, you're a savior, or you're saved for sure, Jesus has saved you, but we affirm them.

Yeah, I think it looks like the Lord has done a work and we affirm that.

So that's the first ordinance.

We affirm by the ordinance of baptism.

So that's kind of the doorway, if you will, into the church, right?

You're a believer, you're among believers.

And then communion is us gathering together regularly to remember what the Lord has done, that He has paid the price for our sin, that we we stand free before God.

But we also gather together to reaffirm one another.

Man, we're still here.

We're still relying on Christ for our Savior.

We're still partaking, declaring that Jesus Christ is our Lord and our Savior.

Now, both baptism and communion can be twisted, and people can do those without being truly believers or do those things from selfish motives.

But it's the part of the church is to affirm one another through the ordinances and to live together as the family of God.

To live together, to be in each other's lives.

We don't just show up and spend a few hours here on Sunday morning, kind of tick the box and go home.

It's not, this isn't an hourly thing, or I, you know, I do this as a hobby or on the side.

We are to live together as a family.

And elders are to lead the church in these things, proclaiming, affirming, living as the family of God.

Pastors can have influence in other areas.

They might write books or have a platform to speak into cultural things or different things.

But you cannot be a pastor of anything other than a church.

You cannot be a pastor of a community or a pastor of a nursing home.

You might be bringing shepherdly things to people and encouraging them and counseling them, but by definition, a pastor, elder, overseer is of the local church.

So they're appointed to lead the church.

They're to lead, they're not to govern over.

Leading is a difficult task, right?

So if you're leading something, it's easier to lead if you have some distance from yourself and those that you're leading, or the organization you're leading.

And the thing about church is it's not designed by God that way.

It's much like a family, it's it's close and it's personal.

People see your shortcomings.

They see your failures and your even your sin.

That's why we are to lead the church well as elders, but we're not to just demand and rule over them.

Actually, uh, part of the way that our church is structured, and there's a um there's a big theological term for this called your um ecclesiology.

Ecclesiology is the doctrines of the church.

Why is the church the way it is?

Ecclesiology, it's from the Greek word ekklesia, meaning the gathering of the church.

So we as a church, we are elder-led, congregation-ruled.

Elder-led, congregation-ruled.

We have a members' meeting this evening, Lord willing, and we will gather in the congregation.

Those who are members will rule on things.

They will vote on membership, they will vote on different elements of the church, and how is the church doing?

Now, the elders are leading the charge in these things, but the final authority rests with the members who are committed together.

And this is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

It's beautiful because as an elder, it means I'm not responsible for everything that happens.

This is as a shared responsibility with the members.

And as members, you are responsible to step and say up and say, Where, how is the health of the church?

How are we doing?

Who are we, who are we bringing into membership?

I need to know them, I need to pray for them, I need to care for them, I need to bear their burdens.

You can't just show up and not participate.

Elder-led congregational rule.

We also believe in a plurality of elders, more than one.

A plurality of elders.

We see this as a clear pattern in scripture.

I'm gonna read some passages out of Acts 1 Timothy.

Acts 14, 23, and when they heard when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fast, and they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 21, 17.

When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly.

On the following day, Paul went with us to James, and all the elders were present.

First Timothy four, do not neglect the gift you have you have received, which was given to you by prophecy when the council of elders lay their hands on you.

James 5.

Is anyone sick?

Call for the elders to come and pray.

So there is a led by a plurality of elders, for not to lord it over.

If you will, turn with me to 1 Peter.

So to the right, towards the end of the Bible, 1 Peter chapter 5.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

1 Peter chapter 5.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

This is what it says, verse 1 through 3.

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the suffering of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.

Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being an example to the flock.

Being an example to the flock.

So the elders are not to lord it over and say, listen, this is just, I'm the boss, I'm the pastor, we're going this way, you can get on board or you can get out.

No, this is a different kind of leadership, uh backwards from the world.

Now, something that is kind of great gaining traction in secular business, even, is this idea of servant leadership.

Right?

People are kind of beginning to realize that people will follow you better if you serve them, which is true.

And the reality is this is what Jesus taught in Mark 10, 45.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The difference between the church and the world is that servant leadership in the business world, and you're trying to get people to do something for you.

The church, you're to serve them because God has called you to serve them, not because you're expecting something from them.

So again, the church is led by elders of appointed elders.

Nowhere in the scriptures do we see someone appointing themselves.

There's no self-appointed elders.

You're appointed by others who recognize that they meet the requirement for elders.

They agree with what's going on and they have a desire to serve.

They're appointed.

So this is what an elder is.

Those who lead the church, the biblical office, it's one that we must submit to and follow.

But what does an elder do?

What do they do?

Well, they do three things primarily.

They pray, they preach and teach, and they shepherd.

They pray.

Acts 6 4.

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

Again, and I will be referencing very similar verses or repeat the verses, but James 5.

Is anyone among you sick?

And the elders are to pray for the sick.

They're to pray for the needs around them.

What's going on?

We're to pray when we get together in our elder meetings.

We're to pray when we're together with the congregation.

We're to pray in the mornings and the evenings.

We're to pray for the needs of the church.

We're to pray.

Elders are to preach and to teach.

First Timothy 5, verse 17.

1 Timothy 5:17

Let the elders who rule with well be considered worth of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

1 Timothy 3 2.

Therefore, an overseer must be able to teach.

It's one of the requirements of an elder.

And next week we're going to get into the requirements of an elder, but just want to say that you don't have to be able to preach on a Sunday morning like this to be an elder, but you do have to have the capacity to teach God's word.

James 3.1 says, Not many of you should become teachers.

My brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

2 Timothy 2, 15.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightfully handling the word of God.

We're to preach and we're to teach.

We're to do this Sunday mornings, we're gonna do this when we gather with smaller groups, we're to do this uh one-on-one, we're to do this to our own souls, to preach and teach, and then to shepherd.

To shepherd the body.

Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17.

Hebrews 13:17

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

Again, we just read this passage in 1 Peter 5.

Exhort the elders among you, as fellow elders, shepherd the flock of God that is among you.

Be an example to the flock.

So, under this shepherding, right?

So, so praying it feels task-oriented, and even preaching and teaching is kind of task-oriented, but this shepherding, what does shepherding look like?

And if you've if you've seen um shepherds or people working with even sheep, there's there's a mundaneness to this.

There's kind of a, you're you're following the sheep around, you're making sure what they're eating is okay and it's good for them, but are they getting what they need?

Are they in a safe place?

Are they all accounted for?

Are we all here?

There's a sick one.

We we tend to that.

We're keeping back uh the dangers, the threats to the flock.

There's an element of shepherding that you you can't just kind of clock in and clock out to.

We're to shepherd the flock as elders.

We're to lead.

That's part of shepherding is leading.

Where are we going?

Where's the the pasture?

It seems like we've kind of eaten all the grass here.

We need to we need to move to new pastures.

We need to find some water, we're to lead the flock.

But an element of shepherding is that we're to watch over ourselves and our families.

1 Timothy 4, 16 says, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Right?

Acts 20, 28 says, 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 is which He obtained with His own blood.

We know that one of the qualifications for being an elder is that you're managing your household, you're attending to the needs of your family.

It's not good if you can go and lead a wonderful meeting and give an inspiring speech to people, but your own family is crumbling or your own soul is withering away.

There is no point for you to be spiritually leading others if you can't spiritually lead yourself and your family.

Now, this puts elders in a very peculiar situation because we all have our own sin and our own shortcomings and our own failings.

So it is a test of learning to submit to the Lord, turn from sin, and as well as learning to walk in grace and trust the Lord.

But I must first and foremost tend to the needs of my family and the needs of my own soul for the sake of the church.

For the sake of the church.

Robert Murray McShane famously said, the greatest need of my people is my own personal holiness.

The greatest need of my people is my own personal holiness.

Now, this is again the gifting of a plurality of elders.

It's not just one man saying, Well, I gotta be perfect because everyone else needs me to be perfect, but it is multiple qualified men leading and designed and modeling what it looks like to follow after Christ.

Now, there's a ditch on both sides of these things, right?

On the one side, you can neglect your duties as a pastor and you can just kind of hang out most days and just kind of loaf around.

It tends to be more rare from my experience.

But the other side are those guys who think, man, if I don't do it, if I don't get it done, it won't get done.

And it's that's not only unhealthy, it's also unbiblical.

Again, that's why we have a that's why we have membership.

That's why we have congregational authority.

It also rests on the congregation to love and to care and attend to the needs of the members and of the elders.

So, elders, they pray, they preach, they shepherd.

This is what they do.

But why why do we need them?

We live in a day and age where man.

There's just plenty of books.

There's books everywhere.

You can buy a book on any kind of topic about spirituality or the Bible or living as a Christian.

There's podcasts, there's sermons, there's YouTube.

Whatever you need to know, there's all kinds of resources.

So, like, why do we still need elders?

You need elders for protection, right?

Protection from yourself and from outsiders, right?

So protection from false teachers.

We see all through the epistles, Paul's writing, listen, listen, deal with these false teachers.

But also from ourselves.

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

Acts 20, verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves in the flock.

Acts 20:28

Acts again, pay careful attention to yourselves in the flock that you're an overseer of, which was obtained by the blood of Christ.

So as a group of Christians together, we need elders to say, man, this looks like false teaching.

And let's say examine it, and it's false teaching.

Hey everyone, just to be clear, this is false teaching.

But we also need elders to protect us from ourselves.

And I say it's like, I need elders in my life to protect me from myself.

To say, hey, that's unwise.

That's sinful.

That's not good or healthy for yourself.

That's not good and healthy for the church.

Most of our life is lived out very contextually.

So rarely does an issue come up that's just kind of a black and white issue.

Right?

Black and white issues are, we don't, those are very simple.

What the Bible says is clear.

But we need others who can bring wisdom and insight into our life.

So we need elders for protection.

We need elders to understand, help us understand, man, help us understand God's ways.

Elders are to point to Christ and say, look, this is the way to life.

This is the way to truth and eternal life.

Elders are given to help people understand and follow God.

And what God says.

But also, elders are also to stand and say, man, this is the way to sin.

That's the way to death.

So we're to call out sin and to clarify.

Man, help people understand this is the way to life and this is the way to death.

Elders are to model faithful obedience.

2 Timothy 2, verse 15, it says, Do your best again to present yourself as one approved.

2 Timothy 2:15

Right?

We are to model, rightfully handling the word of God.

D.A.

Carson, talking about the qualifications, the requirements for eldership, said, it's the remarkable thing about the qualification for the office of elder is that they are so unremarkable.

The qualifications that you read to be an elder are quite unremarkable.

They're rather simple and mundane.

They're actually the same standard that all believers are called to.

I'm not called to a higher standard of holiness than you are.

But I am to model and to show as an example, as an elder, what it looks like to live this out.

Again, as we go, as we go through this passage on eldership, this passage and next week, there's an element where, like, I'm standing and saying, this is what the Lord says, this is what the Lord says.

And as you know me, it's like, well, we know Rick's really good at this, and Rick's really good at that, but he's really falling short in here, or whatever.

So it's a hard tension to hold, but we must press in as elders to model for the congregation, for the church, what it means.

Again, we cannot do that perfectly.

I don't model what it means to follow Christ perfectly.

But that's what we strive to do.

It doesn't that we have to be super Christians.

Again, this is a standard, and it's not remarkable.

It's simple.

It's to be faithful and obedient to the word of God.

Still dealing with our own sin struggles, our own insecurities, our doubts, our fears, not knowing what we're doing, trusting the Lord, obedient faithfulness.

So this is why we need elders to protect, to give us understanding and instruction and to model faithful obedience.

So what does this mean?

You know, Paul's writing to the to Titus to encourage a church.

What's it why is it so important that he says, listen, go and appoint elders in every church?

We must understand God's design for his church.

And I don't mean from an ethereal, like, well, there's a blueprinter, here's five points.

I mean, genuinely, if biblically speaking, if we're believers, we're a part of the the body of Christ.

What's that mean?

We need to understand that this is God's design.

The church is designed with great care and intentionality by God.

We shouldn't, we should study the scriptures and follow his design.

We should not be careless or loose with how we do church.

That's the first thing.

Why does this matter?

Because this is God's design for the church.

We need to know and submit and follow it.

God has designed us, the second thing, to submit to the local church, to lay down our own desires and preferences and to love and serve one another.

This is not a hobby or something we do again on the weekends or when we have some free time.

There is no clocking in and clocking out as a church member.

You don't just check in when it's convenient.

If you're married, you don't just clock in and clock out based on how you feel, what's going on in your life.

You are a part of this all the time.

Similarly, not exactly, but similarly, as a member of the church, you belong to the church, and you're a part of that church all the time.

All the time, bearing one another's burdens, all the time, thinking about, praying about, encouraging one another.

Does that feel overwhelming?

Because it should.

And apart from Christ, we cannot do that.

Apart from Christ, we say, well, this is that sounds good, that rich community, but I just need some space.

And I you what we have going on Sunday morning?

Great, cool.

All about that.

I need a little bit of space though.

Okay, I don't need jumping my business.

I'm doing okay.

I'm not, you know, I'm I'll figure it out.

But it's not the kind of life that Christ has called us to.

He's called us to give our lives to one another.

Now hear me, I'm not saying we're I'm not saying we're starting a commune, okay?

We're not going there.

But we are to be intentional.

We should give of our days and our hours to one another and to those around us for the glory of Christ and for the building up of his bride.

The third thing is what we're going to take away from this passage is we are to pray for the elders.

Pray for us.

Pray for our holiness.

Pray that we would serve and love our families well.

Pray that protection for us from the enemy, from the evil one.

Pray for wisdom for us.

Pray that we would love and serve and give well.

This Paul's writing, and he's encouraging Titus.

And again, next week we'll get into the requirements.

But this is not this great thing that separates us, like we're some kind of super Christians.

But this is God's design for the church.

This is God's design for all of us in our sanctification, in our growth, in our pursuit of holiness.

May we submit to Christ and his design.

I just want to say before I pray if you have any questions about this or about church membership or really about anything, I would love to talk to you about that.

So please feel free to come talk to me or we can we can meet up or whatever.

But I don't want to let kind of unknown questions or things go.

Let's talk about that.

Let's pray.