Qualifications of an Overseer (1 Timothy 3:1-7)

First Timothy chapter three starting in verse one.

So if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's Word?

This saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.

An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy.

He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity.

If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's church?

Verse 6.

He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as the devil.

Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the devil's trap.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

Lord, we thank you for 1 Timothy and all that you're showing us, all that you are revealing.

Lord, I pray today that you'd help me to step out of the way and that you would speak through your word to individuals' hearts and to our church as a whole.

Lord, I pray that you would do the work inside of us that you desire, that we would have open ears and hearts and minds to the things that you want to speak to us.

The things that you want to change in us, the things you want to encourage us in.

Lord, I pray that you would have your perfect will and way in each one of our hearts here this morning.

God, again, we thank you for your word and that we have this opportunity to open it up and to study it together.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So if there is ever a sermon that I would love for somebody else to preach, it would be this one.

And also in chapter five, there's gonna be another one of those where it says elders are to receive double honor.

That's another one where it's like, man, I would really love for somebody else to teach that sermon.

Um, but this is God's word, and we're going straight through it.

So here we are this morning.

But I just want you to know that I don't approach this as please look at all my qualifications.

Look at all the things that I have and all the things that I've done, or any of the other elders in the church.

Actually, as I was preparing this this week, it was more really like, wow, I really need to shape up in a lot of ways.

You know, there's a lot of convicting things as going through these qualifications of like, man, I can I can really be depending on the Lord a lot more in this way.

I could really be trying harder, you know, and on a couple of these things.

Um, but anyway, I just want you to know kind of where we're coming from.

We don't look at this, you know, as, hey, look at us or whatever it might be.

And just so you know, I'm one of the elders, Rick's one of the elders, Pete's one of the elders, and Brian's one of the elders.

So those are the four elders of the church currently.

Um, so this is really kind of talking about that.

But I do want to catch us up a little bit.

Two weeks ago, we had Luke teaching last week, so that was kind of a one-off, but the passage right before this, we talked about the do's and the don'ts of men and women within the church.

And we talked about the roles of men and women within the church.

And it was really instruction on how things should function within a church's worship service.

And we really tried to highlight how this is not instruction on our jobs, you know, how things should function at our work.

This isn't really about outside relationships, this isn't about how our government should be structured and how our government should be set up.

This is all within the context of the church.

And if you missed it, I just want to encourage you to please go back and listen.

You can go to the website or anything that has podcasts on it and look up all of our messages from the last five years.

But I think it's important to go back and listen to that because it's going to show you how we function as a church and it's going to show you why we only ordain men as elders as well.

And that was really covered two weeks ago.

And I really want us all to be on the same page of biblical definitions of authority and biblical definitions of submission.

You know, in our American culture, we can look at these definitions differently based on how they're used in our everyday language and how they're used in English.

But it's so important that we understand this from a biblical context.

So today, sorry, I got a frog in my throat all of a sudden.

Trying not to cough in the mic.

But today, we're going to move on from that section and into who is eligible to have that position of authority within a church.

And as we go through this, it's important to note that there are freedom, there's flexibility of how a church is organized, with you know, elders and deacons and church government and things like that.

But what is not flexible is the requirements and the qualifications for the offices that we're going to about we're about to discuss in being elders and deacons.

Deacons will be next week.

Now, as we dig in here, over the next two weeks, you may be thinking, you may be tempted to think, well, I'm not an overseer.

I'm not an elder.

I'm not a deacon.

So this stuff really doesn't apply to me.

So I'm just going to kind of check out until you get into the good stuff that actually does apply to me.

If that's you, I want to encourage you to not check out.

And don't think that this does not apply to you.

And really for two reasons.

First, you should know how abide is organized.

You should know the qualifications and how elders become ordained into this office in our church.

You should really know what the qualifications are of the elders in our church and of deacons as well.

And then the second thing, the second reason I think it's important for you to really pay attention is I hope that you see that these qualifications for elders and deacons aren't for some crazy radical Christians that can somehow pull this off.

You know, as we go through these qualifications, I think you'll see that we should all be living out these qualifications, all the ones that apply to us, you know, at least.

You know, maybe one or two of these is gifting specific, but for the rest of us, it really should be our goal to live up to these qualifications.

Living in a maturity, a Christian maturity that exemplifies these qualifications.

I mean, when you think about it, we should all try to be self-controlled, shouldn't we?

We should all try to not be excessive drinkers, shouldn't we?

Because as we'll see, almost all of these qualifications simply point to a person that is abiding in Christ.

They point to a person that's truly surrendered to God.

And Paul will simply point out to the ones that are actively doing these things, faithful in doing these things, to the ones that are truly abiding in Christ and living a surrendered life, then you need to take those people and recognize them before the church as elders and as deacons.

So this passage really is for everybody here.

So here's what I want everybody to do, myself included.

I want us to take some time today as we're going through, this is a long list of qualifications, but let's take the opportunity for self-examination.

Let's ask ourselves on all of these fronts that we're about to go through, am I succeeding?

Am I struggling?

Or am I failing in these things?

And it's just a great time to self-examine and then to ask the Lord, Lord, what can I do in all of these ways to depend on you more?

What can I do in all of these ways to strive?

You know, I don't want to say, you know, in a legalistic way, to strive to be better.

Let's just try harder, let's buckle down, let's white knuckle it.

But how can we be more dependent upon the Holy Spirit to help us in all of these ways to become really better at these things and to surrender these things even more so to the Lord?

So, am I succeeding, struggling, or failing?

Keep that in mind as we go through.

Let's look at verse one here.

This saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.

Now, I think this can often be misinterpreted as the desire to be or the aspiration to be an overseer is a noble thing.

But no, the work of an overseer is a noble task.

Some of your translations will say, a good work.

Therefore, not everyone can or should do it.

And I think the Holy Spirit had Paul start off this way just simply to say, it's a noble work.

Therefore, you must choose wisely.

I always think of that old saint in the um Indiana Jones movies, choose wisely.

Do you remember that?

But if you get the wrong person and leadership in the church, you're gonna be in a world of hurt and headaches.

But it does happen.

That just it simply does happen and it will happen.

You know, if one of the 12 disciples went off the rails, you know, we can't pretend that we're not gonna allow that to happen to us as well.

But that's really why the process really needs to be stringent.

The process of ordaining elders and deacons, it needs to be very thorough.

And the person being considered really has to prove themselves in a lot of ways before they can even be considered for one of those two offices.

Now, the word overseer here in verse one, your translation may say bishop.

It's used synonymously in scripture as pastor and elder as well in the New Testament.

So when you see overseer, bishop, elder, pastor, they're pretty much interchangeable in the way that we see them in the context of scripture.

Now, we don't tend to use the word bishop in our current Christian culture, but as a church, I want you to start calling me that.

Because I think it would just no, I'm just kidding, totally joking.

Please don't actually.

Um, but in our circle of Christianity, we don't tend to use that word.

But I want you to know that I'm an elder, a pastor, and an overseer.

Pete is an elder, a pastor, and an overseer.

Rick is an elder, pastor, overseer.

Brian is an elder, pastor, overseer.

All of those things.

It's not like one's one and one's the other.

This is how we interpret it uh here at Abiden, how we see it.

You know, if somebody comes on staff at Abiden, we will give them a title with their job description.

That's something we always do.

We give them a job description and then a title for that.

So I'm the lead pastor, that's part of my job description.

Ben, when he was here, he was the associate pastor.

But it's not because there is any difference in authority or anything like that among all of the elders within our church.

You know, when our elders sit down at the table, we have uh meetings twice a month just to discuss all kinds of different things.

But when we sit down at that table, we're equals.

You know, it's my job as the lead pastor to set the talking points and keep the conversation going.

But it's open every time.

You can ask the guys at the every email that I send out with the our talking points for that week, it's like if I missed anything, anything you want to add, throw it in there.

You know, it's just open for everybody to jump in.

So in that way, I don't have more authority than they do.

I'm just the initiator, really, in that way.

And my vote, when it comes down to voting, it doesn't count any more than any of the other elders.

My opinion is not more important than any of the other elders.

All of our major decisions that we make, they're done unanimously.

And if we aren't in agreement, it's one of two things.

We either don't move on, or we just take more time to think and pray and discuss, we'll push it to the next meeting.

Like, hey guys, we we're not on the same page, let's continue praying about this, let's keep discussing this, and we'll move it to next time and then we'll see how it goes.

But if there isn't unanimity, then we just simply won't do it.

Won't move forward in that.

We've never come to a point yet where it's like we have a deadline and we're not in agreement.

Thank the Lord.

Um but uh but so far that it's worked out in that way.

So that's just a little bit about how we function.

So I just we're gonna talk a little bit more about how we function here in a little bit, but that's a little bit here.

But first let's look at verse two.

It says, an overseer, think overseer, elder pastor, therefore must be.

So here comes that list that we've been talking about of qualifications for elders.

And this list to come, it's not exhaustive.

There is also a list in Titus you can look at if you'd like to.

It's slightly different than this one.

But you're gonna see in both, and I really want us to focus on this, that the importance of these lists is on character.

And that there's a few that we'll see that are gifting specific, but the vast majority of these lists are based on character.

It far outweighs the gifting side of ordaining elders, which is important, I think, for us to remember.

It's way more about character because we live in this age of American idol, of America's got talent, of influencers on TikTok, of TED Talks and podcasts, and just all of this information and entertaining people and intellectual people and all of these things.

And if you want your pastors to be as entertaining as those influencers and the best podcasters, or you want your worship leader to sound like some voice competition or something like that, and you end up holding those things above their character, and maybe even pick a church based on those things, you're gonna be burned.

You're gonna get hurt, you're gonna end up disappointed.

Character has to come first.

You know, as we go through this list, as we're about to right here, just one more time.

Remember, am I succeeding?

Am I struggling?

Am I failing?

So the first one, second half of verse two here says, above reproach.

That really means you cannot be laid hold of, or you're without a handle.

And I love that definition.

Nothing in your life that an enemy um can even hold on to.

There's nothing that they can grab a hold of, even if they're specifically looking for dirt on you, they just can't find it.

You know, I always think about this um whenever, you know, I think about what this means.

I was a competitive swimmer when I was a kid.

And at the end of the year, we'd always have this huge pool party, and one of the last things that we would do is they'd split the team into two different teams, and one stands on this deck of the pool, and one stands on this deck of the pool, and they would get a watermelon and they would cover it in Vaseline.

And they would throw it into the middle of the pool.

And if this team could go get it and move it to this side of the pool, they won.

And if this team could go get it, move it to this side of the pool, they won.

And then they would throw it in the middle and they'd say go.

And these, you know, I'm we're talking probably 50 people or something, jumping in the water, going after this greased-up watermelon, trying to get it to the other side.

And there's times you get in there and you would grab it, and it's like, you know, it would just you couldn't hold on to it.

It was without a handle, and then once you got the Vaseline like on your arms and chest, there was just no chance.

And so, usually, you know, it was just this long drawn-out thing, and some team would win.

They had to stop the last year because somebody kicked the watermelon and it burst and it got into the filters of the pool and stuff like that.

That was the last year we did that.

But I always think of a grease-up watermelon when I think of above reproach in this way.

There's just no handle that you can you can you can grab onto it with.

Now, the next one: the husband of one wife.

So, really, if you really break this down, it means he's a one-woman man.

It doesn't say anywhere that he has to be married, an elder has to be married, but if he is, it needs to be the one woman in complete fidelity.

And nobody else, no other woman in which he gives his affection.

You know, in the Roman culture, a man having a mistress was not uncommon, and it wasn't even looked down on in that culture.

So, in order for an elder to be an elder, he has to be a one-woman man.

The next one here is self-controlled.

It simply means you don't give in.

You don't give in to wrong desires and impulses and things like that.

You have control for the most part.

Doesn't mean that you don't sin.

There's gonna be moments where you're gonna sin, but you generally have control over things like lust and food and gossip and anger and the you know the list goes on, but they have that self-control.

You are known for having self-control, really.

And the next one is sensible.

And this, some of your translations will say sober-minded.

And really, what this means is you can still have a sense of humor, but you know when and how to be serious, how to be sober-minded as you're going through the different things that that come up.

The next one's respectable, and really it means good behavior, behavior, and that you are modest.

This is the same exact word used in 1 Timothy 2.9 from two weeks ago, telling women to be modest.

So the same thing is required of men to be an elder.

And really, one when we broke it down two weeks ago, it means to not be flashy, to not do things to draw attention to your outward self.

You know, it should be our good works, as we went over two weeks ago.

If if we're gonna draw attention to ourselves, it better be through the good works we're doing and not because we're drawing or trying to draw attention to ourselves or being flashy or dressing crazy or whatever it might be.

The next one is hospitable.

So this is somebody that is generous and welcoming to guests, you know, whether it's at home or whether it's in the context of a church.

I think, you know, I said there might be one or two of these that are gift specific.

Some people say this is gift specific because it is listed as a spiritual gift.

But I think it's also that something that can be learned by a mature Christian as well.

How to be welcoming, how to make people feel comfortable.

Regardless if it's a gift or not, an elder has to have it.

They have to be somebody that can show hospitality and does so willingly.

The next one, teaching.

So, this I believe really is a gift.

This is not something everybody can do once they have spiritual maturity.

You know, it's not like they get to a mature enough stage and wow, all of a sudden they can start teaching.

These people have a gift of teaching, and they just have a way of presenting things that it just makes sense to other people.

People can listen to them and be like, yeah, I get it now.

I understand it.

It doesn't mean, though, that you have to be a great orator, like we saw with Apollos in Acts.

It doesn't even mean you have to be good at doing a sermon on a Sunday morning.

It could simply be that you're really good in one-on-one situations or in a Bible study setting or something like that, where you just have a way of saying things that people are like, I get it.

That makes sense.

I understand this now.

Some people just simply don't have this gift.

I had a college professor that did not have the gift of teaching.

It was so hard.

And it was for calculus, too.

Yeah, and uh I just remember he would he was a genius, absolute genius.

And I don't think he wanted to be teaching calculus, honestly.

I think he wanted to be like in the the way up side, because he would explain something and he'd put it on the board, and you would raise your hand and be like, you know, I don't fully understand this.

What about and you'd be like, I just explained it.

Sorry.

It was a rough class, but he just he did not have the gift of teaching, but he was an absolute genius.

I don't know if I've met anybody that's had more of an understanding of math in my life, but he just, it's not the same thing.

Knowledge and teaching are not the same thing.

And I think teaching, having the gift of teaching is so important for an elder because it's such a key part of making disciples.

Of teaching somebody younger in the faith the things that they need to know to become more mature in their faith.

I mean, that's discipleship.

It's that's teaching.

You know, one of the main responsibilities of a pastor elder is teaching as we go through scripture and what the requirements are and what they should be doing.

In Titus 1 9, Paul says regarding elders, he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching.

And to refute those who contradict it.

2 Timothy 4 2, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching.

In Acts 6 4, the elders appointed the first deacons to serve the tables for the church so that they could devote themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

So teaching is a huge part of shepherding, even if it's simply one-on-one, like I was saying.

Now, we're going to get into verse 3 here, and it switches to the don'ts.

These are the musts that we just went through, and now we get to the don'ts.

So look at verse 3.

Not an excessive drinker.

You know, they really either don't drink, or when they do, they do it sensibly.

They don't get buzzed, they don't get drunk.

They don't allow the effects of alcohol to have any control over them.

You know, scripture flat out calls this sin.

You know, I think it goes back to being sensible, to being self-controlled, once again.

If you lack self-control or sensibility with alcohol, you just, you know, you're not going to be an elder, but you need to just stay away from it.

And then the next one says, not a bully, but gentle.

Bully here has a physical connotation to it.

The King James Version literally says, not a striker.

But they need to be somebody that's gentle, fair, and patient.

He's not going to be acting out of unrighteous anger.

He's not going to use intimidation at all, and especially physical intimidation with the authority that God's given him.

Yeah, we talked about this two weeks ago.

Men struggle with anger.

One of the biggest sins that I've seen men struggle with is anger.

The other one is lust.

But if he doesn't have his anger under control, if he doesn't have anger submitted to the Lord, he shouldn't be an elder.

But even beyond that, he should actually be known for his gentleness and his kindness and being fair-minded.

The next knot is not quarrelsome.

This means not prone to fighting or bickering.

The previous one had a physical connotation.

This has more of a verbal connotation.

They're not the ones that are stirring up strife or drama within the church.

You know, some people find a self or a sense of self-importance if they're always in the middle of drama.

An elder cannot be one of those people because they need to be the ones that are helping settle those things down.

They can't be the ones that are creating those things within the church.

Sometimes elders are called to be mediators between two parties.

Sometimes when things get really bad, we're called to judge certain situations.

Our calling is to help settle those things down, not start those things.

The next one, it says, not greedy.

And this really means not loving money, not coveting.

You know, elders really need to be somebody that's content.

The King James Version, I love this, it says, not greedy for filthy lucre.

Some way that just sounds way more serious, doesn't it?

You know, elders are often exposed to church finances and big financial decisions for the church.

So if they're greedy, are they going to make the best decisions for the use of God's money for God's kingdom?

They may make decisions instead to build their own kingdom.

Or they may be hesitant to be generous with God's money because they would rather use it for something that aligns closer with their own interests.

Now, verse 4 here, it says, He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity.

If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's church?

A husband's first ministry always needs to be at home.

That needs to be his first priority.

That's the first place that he should be shepherding and pastoring.

I mean, that's what pastoring means.

It means to be shepherding.

His kids are his most important disciples.

If you have kids, they are your most important disciples.

If he can't shepherd his family, how can he possibly shepherd God's family?

Is really what this is saying.

You know, if his wife and kids think he's a joke, how can he possibly shepherd a church?

Husbands, I want to, all husbands here, I want to ask you a question.

If you have kids, who does more spiritual shepherding in your home?

Is your wife shepherding more than you are?

Or are you allowing your kids to shepherd your home?

Are they making the big spiritual decisions for you?

You know, you can ask my wife this.

One of the things that crushes me the most is when a couple will tell us, we go to this church wherever it is, because that's where our kids like to go.

I so badly, I don't do this, but I so badly want to say, you let your kids make one of the most important spiritual decisions of your life for the whole family.

You know, one of the best things that you can ever do for your kids is get involved in a church that you love, that you can get behind, that you want to be at, a place where God can use your giftings and you can really hold on to it as your church.

That way your kids can see your example.

They can see their parents participating in a church.

That I promise you, that will be the healthiest church that they can grow up in, is one where you, as a solid believer, are able to participate and to really dig into that church.

You know, if they see you just attending a church and not making church a priority because you really don't like being there, you're just there for them, they're gonna see you disengaged because it's not a church that you love.

Because you're only going there for them.

And if you're only doing that, guess what they're gonna grow up doing as well?

You know, think about what you hope your children's participation will be when they are adults in a church, and then be that example.

Don't let your kids run your house and make those huge spiritual decisions for you.

All right, verse 6.

He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as the devil.

Notice Paul doesn't write that he must not be a new convert because he doesn't know enough.

It's because he might become conceited.

You know, this is as much about saving this brother from conceit as it is about saving the church from this guy's immaturity, I believe.

The longer we walk with Christ, the more humble we should become.

You know, as we recognize our dependence on Christ, the more humble we should become.

The more trials we face, the more humble we should become.

God desires humble servants that are not new to the faith.

That's who he wants, shepherding and guiding his church.

He wants his overseers, really, I think, to be seasoned believers.

I don't remember who said it, but it was some older pastor that died a long time ago.

But he said, the longer I walk with Christ, the less I sin, and the more I find myself repenting.

That should be the truth about each one of us as we continue to grow in Christ.

The longer I walk with Christ, the less I sin, and the more I find myself repenting.

That's who God wants shepherding his church.

So that they do not incur the same condemnation as the devil, as it says right here in our verse.

This is really speaking of pride, which is they get tired of bringing glory to God, and they want some of that glory or all of that glory for themselves.

And anybody can be susceptible to this.

It's not just younger believers, but it's especially those that are young in the faith and haven't been tested in all of the ways that we're talking about here.

Look at number seven here.

Verse 7.

Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders so that he does not fall into disgrace in the devil's trap.

A good reputation in church is very important, obviously.

But a good reputation with everybody else in that person's life from Monday through Saturday is equally important.

You know, if you talk to people at his work or in his neighborhood, will they say, well, yeah, he's a very respectable man.

He's a man of integrity.

He has a good reputation.

You know, and on the other side of that, maybe they find out he is an elder within the church.

They shouldn't be surprised if they find that out.

They should be like, yeah, yeah, that totally makes sense.

Even if they're not a believer.

It shouldn't surprise that person at all if they find out that the elder is an elder at the church.

Because the thing is, if you're two-faced, you're gonna be found out.

You're going to fall into the devil's trap, as it says right here.

If you're a different person on Sunday morning than you are the rest of the week, you will be found out.

That brings us to the end of our list here.

So, to sum up, if you have all of these qualifications, and if you meet these requirements, now you can serve the church by leading it.

Jesus said in Matthew 20, 28, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus is the chief shepherd, and pastors and elders are Jesus' undershepherds.

We work for him.

We work for the chief servants.

And we get to serve by leading within the church.

You know, the best definition that I've heard to distinguish between an elder and a deacon, and we'll cover the second half of this next week.

But the best definition I had is that elders serve by leading, and deacons lead by serving.

And I'll admit, sometimes it's hard to serve by leading.

Sometimes you want to jump in and just do everything on your own.

Or sometimes you're like, man, it'd be really nice to serve behind the scenes this Sunday, you know, for whatever reason.

But elders are called to serve in the ministry of God's word, in the ministry of prayer, to prioritize taking care of spiritual needs of the flock.

While deacons are to prioritize taking care of the physical needs of the flock.

And there's definitely crossover, especially in a small church, especially in a church plant.

There has to be a lot of crossover.

I think the line gets a lot more blurry, at least that was that's been our experience in a in a small church plant.

But elders should never be above emptying the trash.

They should never be above vacuuming a floor or showing up for a workday at the church.

But an elder's main priority has to be the spiritual care of God's flock.

That's how God has called us to serve.

So with all of that, I thought it'd be good for us to tell you a little bit about the process that we go through specifically with the elders at our church.

After looking at all of these requirements that we just saw in 1 Timothy, the question becomes okay, so what do we do if we find somebody that meets all of these qualifications?

What are the next steps?

Well, I want to be clear that these are the requirements for elders, but it doesn't mean that if a man meets the requirements in this list that we just went through, that he should automatically be ordained as an elder, pastor, overseer.

There should be three things present, really, before being ordained.

You need to have the calling, you need to have the gifting, and you need to have the character in order to be an elder.

Verse 1 speaks of a desire, doesn't it?

You know, I know men that meet these requirements, but have no desire to be a pastor elder.

I also know men that desire to be a pastor, but they don't have the gifting.

I've also known some that have the gifting and the character, but they don't have the time.

Their priorities need to be somewhere else for that season.

You know, being an elder here at Abide is very time-consuming.

It requires a lot of sacrifice, not only from the man, but from his family as well, if they have a family.

So I just want to encourage you as a church, if you get a chance today, would you thank Rick, Brian, and Pete and their families for all that they pour into this church on a volunteer basis?

Because it's a lot.

Now, back to our process here at Abide.

So, how do we find and recognize an elder?

Well, first we look for people that are already shepherding.

Our elder team from time to time will sit down and we'll just ask that question.

Are there any men in our church that are already shepherding?

It's just naturally what they do on their own because they can't help themselves.

It's just it's who they are, it's what they do, and they just naturally will do it no matter the circumstance that they're in.

You know, we just went through this process with Rick last year, so I'll embarrass him.

I mean, I'll use him as an example really quick.

But Rick was already shepherding.

A lot of things that he was already doing, it was just natural he was already shepherding.

So he checked that first box for us.

He was already shepherding.

So we went through these requirements in Timothy and Titus, and we asked those tough questions.

Well, how's his marriage doing?

From what we know, before we even talk to him.

You know, what about his kids?

He has adult children, so that makes things a little bit different.

Is he given to alcohol?

Well, not that we're aware of, you know, and we just went through all of those things, et cetera, et cetera.

And as far as we knew, he checked all of those boxes as well.

So we approached Rick.

We asked him, Would you pray about this?

Would you pray about, do you feel called to this position?

You know, during that time we gave him an elder handbook, which we have, which anybody in the church can have if they would like that, so that he knew exactly what we were asking and what he was considering and what he was praying about.

And we told him to take a month and let us know if he was feeling called to this position.

And he came back and said, Yeah, I think I am.

Then we announced it to you all for those that were here to the church body, and we just said, Hey, we're gonna give you a month.

If you have any hesitations about Rick being an elder, come talk to the current elders and let us know if if he doesn't meet these requirements and we just don't know about it yet.

Then during that time, while you guys had a chance to respond, I sat down with Carrie, his wife, and I asked, What do you think of this?

From your perspective, does he meet all of the qualifications?

Do you think he would make a good elder?

Do you have any hesitations that we should know about?

Are there any hidden sins in his life that we should know about?

And then all of after all of that, we came to a place where we were confident that he met all of the requirements, that he was being called, and that he had the giftings present.

So what did we do?

We just recognized that before the church through ordination.

You see, we don't select elders, we don't appoint elders here.

We just recognize what they're already doing.

And then we ask them to come along for the meetings and start helping to make some of the decisions for the church.

You see, we look for called, gifted, and qualified people that are already shepherding.

That we don't have to say, you know, here's how you shepherd, now do these things.

There is some training and stuff that can be involved in the process, but it's not like, hey, I like that guy.

Now let's teach him how to be an elder.

It's quite the opposite.

It's like this guy's already doing the work, we should recognize this before the church.

And if you were here two weeks ago, you know that being ordained simply means that you get to serve by laying down your life, by watching over souls.

That's really what it what it means, that we get to be the chief servants, under shepherds.

We get to to help him being the chief servants in his body.

And the thing is, one day, each one of us is gonna have to give an account of how we did as shepherds to the church.

You know, if this is your home church, that means that you're our church, our sheep.

We take that very seriously and hope that you do as well.

This means that God has given us a spiritual authority over you that we take very seriously, and we try not to hang over your heads in any way.

Reality, that means how do we get to serve you more?

You know, if this is your home church, I want to read you something that's hopefully an encouragement.

Here's your responsibility now in all of these things that we just talked about.

And it comes from Hebrews 13, verses 17 through 18.

Hebrews 13:17–18

It says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief.

For that would be unprofitable for you.

Pray for us, for we are convinced that we have a clear conscience, wanting to conduct ourselves honorably in everything.

And I read you that partly because I want to ask, will you commit us to prayer?

We need it.

We're not perfect, we are fallible human beings.

But just as it says at the end of 18 there in Hebrews, we truly want to conduct ourselves honorably in everything.

So will you please pray for us?

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for this these verses.

We thank you for how you have things set up within your church.

And God, we just want to honor you.

We really do.

We want to take what you say in your word and to put it into practice.

Lord, I pray for our elders, myself included, Lord, that you would show us how to lead and how to guide, how to shepherd, how to watch over the souls of your sheep as your under-shepherds.

Lord, I pray that you would show us how to serve well.

You would show us how to make wise decisions that are not based on our kingdom or anything that has to do with that, but that's led by your Holy Spirit.

So would you speak to us?

Would you guide us?

And Lord, I pray that the congregation as a whole would jump in and take that seriously, not just for the week, but for the rest of our lives, Lord.

We just want to to do what you're calling us to do, Lord.

So lead us and guide us and show us how to do that well, how to be the chief servants under shepherds, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.