Men, Check Your Hearts, Church, Check Your Elders

This morning we are going to be looking again at one Timothy, as we've done the past few weeks. And we'll see that we are now in chapter three. You might remember last week we were discussing the end of chapter two, which started changing the theme, the topic of the conversation to leadership. For Paul, as he writes to Timothy and to the Ephesian church. And Paul, particularly there, was talking about leadership and the call of ladies in the church, specifically to honour the headship of men that were called to lead the church. But now, Paul moves on to these particular men that have been called to that position, and he's gonna tell them what this position means for them.

It's one thing to be given the opportunity for leadership, Paul will say. It's another thing to be counted worthy of that leadership. It's as if we thought last week's bar was pretty high, this call of humility and submission, just wait to hear what is expected this week of those men. So let's turn to one Timothy chapter three. We're gonna read the first seven verses there.

One Timothy three, verse one. The saying is trustworthy, Paul says. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. The husband of one wife, sober minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. So like I said, Paul is moving from leadership generally at the end of chapter two, talking a little bit more specifically then into the gender roles of church leadership more specifically.

And now, he starts moving to the qualities of this leadership. And the term given for this church leadership role is the term overseer, which we more traditionally call elder. The word translated as overseer in our ESV Bibles refers to something that has become an official office within the New Testament church, and now more broadly in modern churches as well. It seems that there was a particular church, according to one Timothy and other parts of the New Testament, that was designated for this office, this role of elder. The word overseer is the Greek word episcopos, which is where we get the English word bishop from, or you can hear the connection more closely in Afrikaans, biskop, episcopos.

So that simply means this overseer, someone that oversees the church. The term, however, is synonymous with another New Testament Greek word that Paul uses and Peter uses from time to time, and that is the word presbyteros, which is where we get the English word Presbyterian. Presbuteros. Now that word is more closely translated to our English elder. Both of these Greek terms are used interchangeably to refer to the same role within the church, that of shepherding, that of overseeing the church.

In all of the contexts where these two words are used, the purpose of those roles seem to be identical. It is a leadership position in the church which carries with it the concepts of spiritual maturity, spiritual wisdom, authority, and the directing of other Christians. So when we hear in our passage, read overseer, it's talking about elders. If I was to sum up, however, these seven verses that we've read, and what the purpose for Paul was in writing this to Timothy, and therefore the Ephesian church as well, it would be this. Men, check your heart.

Church, check your elders. The first thing we read is the overarching statement that Paul makes in verse one. And that is Paul calls for the noble aspiration of eldership. Here is a trustworthy saying, says Paul, whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the truth is that contemporary Australian Christians find this idea a difficult one to resonate with.

Perhaps the apostle would have made more sense if he described this office, this overseeing office as aspiring to be brave. Whoever aspires to office of eldership aspires a brave task, an audacious task, a desperate task, maybe. But noble. Do we Christians really believe that about eldership? And then specifically to our men of all ages and all roles within this church, do you, our men at Open House, believe that it is a noble task worthy of aspiration.

I would hazard a guess that for a man to aspire to eldership in a church, they would be doing that something that is actually quite counter-cultural today in Australia. It's no secret that Aussies tend to be rather cynical of leadership generally, and certainly church leadership. We have finely tuned radars when it comes to detecting self-serving abuses of authority, and tragically, the clerical office, all too often, has fallen foul of this scrutiny. As we've seen again recently with the royal commission into child abuse within organisations. Nothing is uglier than tales of heavy-handedness, of bullying, of infidelity, of domestic violence, of sexual exploitation of minors amongst the ranks of pastoral elders and leaders.

All this, Paul will say, disgraces the name of Christ and severely hampers our witness. And it calls to mind Paul's damning assessment of Romans 2:24, that God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. God is being brought into our mess. But sometimes, our Aussie disdain for church leadership has a far less sinister cause. Often, it simply stems from the bare facts that we as followers don't like being told what to do.

So it's no wonder then that churches continue finding it very hard to find elders to take up the mantle of leadership. It's no surprise that our seminaries continue to have very low rates of new students studying pastoral ministry, because we don't view eldership in the church as this one thing, a noble task. We will think of it as brave. We will think of it as foolishly heroic. Do we consider it a noble task?

And yet, a quick overview of Scripture will tell you exactly how highly regarded this role is within the church. The role of elder, according to Ephesians 4:11, the role of pastor is one that is appointed by Christ Himself. It's a position of headship over a spiritual family, which our passage will also tell us is a family of Christ, just as Christ is the head. So these rulers are to rule as head under Him. It's a position of being under-shepherds, according to one Peter 5, even as Jesus is the head shepherd of His church.

The role of elder is one of being builders, one Corinthians 3 will tell us, even as Christ is the one who builds His church. There is a wonderful working together between Christ Himself and elders. And so in the eyes of the New Testament, eldership is not a pragmatic affair, a case of simply nominating one volunteer so he can do some work and free us up to do other things. It's no less than a Christ-ordained means by which the chief shepherd has determined to tend His flock. And since it's an indispensable office, the church actually requires it for spiritual health.

There isn't an option for a church of whether they have elders or not. We can get away with not having a worship band. We can get away with not having a church building. We cannot get away with not having elders. We cannot be a church without them.

And for this reason, Hebrews 13:17 tells Christians that we must gladly submit ourselves to these leaders. It says, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will one day give account. So every family needs a father, every flock needs a shepherd, and every church needs elders. To aspire for eldership is desiring a noble task because you have the privilege of working with Jesus Christ amongst His people firsthand. So does it take courage?

Does it take someone to be brave in order to be an elder? You can say, sure. You have to be courageous a little bit. But is it a good and honourable thing to desire? Absolutely.

So as we begin this morning, I wanna say to our men, men of Open House, will you pray now? And will you pray regularly in the future when the need for eldership arises? And will you dare to ask, Lord, is it me? Are you sending me? So verse one tells the gentlemen in our church that it's not a question of whether you should be an elder.

The actual question is, as we will explore in the next point, are you qualified to be one? It's not a question of if, but are you qualified to be one? And so from this noble aspiration, Paul moves on to say that a noble task requires a noble character. Verse one has spoken to the men generally. Verse two and seven begins to speak to the entire church and says, this is who your elders must be.

Men, examine your hearts right now. Examine your lives right now. And church, examine the hearts and the lives of your men. Kent Hughes, in his commentary writes, church leadership is a peculiar thing. It often attracts those with mixed and sometimes downright sinful motives.

The seeming prestige of leadership attracts some. The lure of power attracts others. He says, some, I think, like the idea of having access to the secrets of others, and access to the mysterious inner workings of the church. I say all this, he says, to emphasise that Christian ministry and leadership is without question a matter of character. And Paul's words here make this very clear.

For leadership in the church, character is king. For leadership in the church, character is king. A person's authentic spirituality, their Christian morality is everything for that leadership position. And Paul tells the church, here are the criteria that you need to look at. Here are some of these criteria, not all of them, as we will see.

Firstly, he says, an overseer must be above reproach. He must be the husband of one wife. Sober minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. Not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. Now, you look at this sentence, you will notice that there is one overriding thought, one overriding quality that is put right at the start of the sentence.

Then after this, all the other qualifications come to support this one main thought. And the overarching qualification Paul gives elders is that they are to be above reproach. Elders are to be above reproach. Being above reproach means that the elder lives a life that is above accusation. He's unblameable.

He is someone that cannot be charged with sin. Now obviously, the call to being above reproach doesn't imply that elders are sinless. If that is the case, well, then not even Paul could have been an elder. The call of being above reproach is a call to be an example, however, of Christ-likeness to the church. And so whether an elder becomes a teaching elder, which I am, or an elder just within the church, like John is, either way, they are teachers.

Even when Paul talks here, they should be able to teach, their lives become teaching elements. Being above reproach is nothing less than living as a model of how to be a Christian. As an elder, you live your life before a watching congregation. And so, when an elder speaks as our elder John has this morning, and when an elder shares about encountering the grace of God in some part of their life, their thankfulness to God's grace will teach us how to be thankful. When an elder prays, like John has prayed this morning, he teaches us how to pray.

And it was a wonderful prayer, it was a prayer of praying for the world, praying for our nation, praying for our families. Those are respectable prayers. When an elder sins, not when or if rather, but when. When they sin and then they repent, we see how someone should behave when they repent and ask for forgiveness. When the elder worships, when the elder works, when the elder loves, when the elder leads, we see a real life example of how we, as Christians, are to do the same.

And this is part of the noble calling of an elder. If we want to see what it looks like to live a Christ-like life, we should look to our elders. That is the bar that we're being given. And this is why Paul then lists these other qualifications which flow out of this life above reproach. He is to be a husband of one wife.

Now, people have said, well, this was said because they lived in a time of polygamy and they had multiple wives, and so, you know, this is a call to monogamy. No. This is not what Paul is talking about because in this time, people generally married just one wife. Paul is saying, an elder must be a one-woman man. An elder must be faithful to his wife.

They are to be sober minded and self controlled. Now, like I said before, this is not an exhaustive list. Paul's not saying it can only be these things. Elders should be this and more. But what Paul is giving us here is a flavour of what it means to be above reproach.

And the main meaning is clear. The elder must be able to recognise ungodliness, not falling into it themselves, and must avoid it. But saying no to sin isn't all there is in being an elder. The elder must endeavour towards embracing godliness, which means in a world of the one we live in today, a world that says no to nothing, an elder will stick out like a sore thumb. He's gonna look boring, plain, maybe.

He's not gonna be characterised with things like insults or boasting, and therefore, may not get much of a following on Twitter or Facebook. He's not gonna be disrespectful, combative, argumentative. If he is domineering or explosive, he has no role to play as an elder. If he has addictions to substances or money, he has no role to play in leading the church. An elder is a peacemaker.

An elder is a peacemaker. He is a tender father rather than a troublemaker. And so even as Paul labels eldership as a noble pursuit, he says to the church, make sure that these blokes match it with a noble character. A noble pursuit deserves a noble character. But someone with noble character in their inner life will be recognised by the evidence of their outer life.

And that moves us to the next point. Noble character is always reflected in a noble lifestyle. Remember what we said a few weeks ago, what the context was of the Ephesian church to which Paul was writing to Timothy. The major problem in the Ephesian church was its leadership. From within the ranks of the church, there was a group of false teachers.

Paul calls them certain men. They've sprung up amidst the leadership of Timothy and the other elders, and they were perverting the gospel. Now obviously, you can argue then that they had gained some level of spiritual authority to have been given the platform to teach. So perhaps, these are even elders in the church. Now, our passage this morning is therefore perhaps pointing out that not only was their theology wrong, these men's lives were reprehensible.

In their teaching, not only were they wilfully bringing disunity to the church and undermining the power of the gospel, but they are also resisting the authority of someone like Timothy, who's been called to be their elder teacher. So it's not a big leap to think then that when Paul is writing about these qualifications for elders to Timothy, generally, he's speaking to these elders specifically. And so seemingly, these elders are ones that are sexually promiscuous. They lacked reserve, they lacked dignity. Some were teaching for financial gain. Some of them got drunk.

Some of them liked fighting with members in their church. Those who were married had messy, chaotic households. And so ultimately, as a result, they were bringing reproach on themselves, on the church, and ultimately to Jesus Christ. And so even this week, as I was praying for these things, I'm asking Lord, may my church have elders that represent these qualifications? I also caught myself short by saying, Lord, please make my church more like the New Testament church.

If my eldership looked like this, like these guys, promiscuous drunkards, quarrelsome. I hate to be the pastor of that church. Paul doesn't stop in verse three by simply listing, however, the inequalities of these elders. He says, those inequalities will be seen now in their lifestyle. And so as an elder, Paul says, they must manage their own households well with all dignity, keeping their children submissive.

For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? Verse six, he must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Lastly, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Now this makes logically a lot of sense. If a person can't be a leader of their own house, how can they lead the church?

If they are a new Christian, how do they lead mature Christians? If they are called to reach non-Christians with the gospel, but are hated by the outsiders for their disgraceful lifestyle, they cause a pitfall that Satan can use to drive those outsiders further away from the gospel. But here is the radical counter-cultural call of leadership according to the Bible. It is upside down completely. According to the Bible, leading is serving.

According to the Bible, the greatest leader becomes the lowest servant. Compare that, however, to leadership in the world. When we talk about leadership in business or in politics, how often do we hear people say, you have to separate the person's private life from their public life? What does the Bible say about leadership in the church? And when a leader in the business world is evaluated, they are examined solely on the performance of his or her sales numbers.

We don't look at their marriage. We don't look at their kids. The world says, who cares what they do at home as long as they're bringing in high numbers. But it's not like that with the church. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, one of the richest men in the world, also considered to be one of the best business leaders in the world.

Guess what? If that man was to be considered to be an elder of this humble little church, Open House Church, he wouldn't make it. The best leader in the world, in terms of business, he would not be an elder in this church. Why? Because he treats his bride and has treated his bride who he's divorced from now, in a way that an elder would never dare to treat the bride of Christ.

How an elder treats his children will tell us how they will treat the children of God. So while the world tries desperately to overlook the lifestyle of its leaders, and look only at their resume, the elder's resume is his family and his children. His resume is his lifestyle. This is why it's so important for a church to be led by a plurality of elders. There must be more than just a pastor elder who leads the church, because character is exposed by our relationships.

It's very easy to be a saint when you live like a hermit. There's no one around to push your buttons. You don't have a wife that nags. You don't have children that get into trouble. But elders live as a husband.

Elders live as a church member with other church members, and then quickly, your character will be exposed. So that's why we need a number of elders to keep one another accountable in relationship. Jeremy Rinn in his book Church Elders, puts it really well. He says, when a plurality of elders exist when a plurality of elders exist rightly, it's harder for one man's views to dominate. The gentler elders temper the fiery elders.

The activists move the analysers towards actually making decisions. The big faith elders keep decisions from being exercised in risk management, while the practical elders prevent stupid decisions from happening under the pretence of trusting God. This sort of mutual balancing creates an environment that's hard for egotists to survive in. So at Open House Church, we have more than one elder. I am not the boss.

Now, in light of what Paul tells us, church, look at your men. Men, examine your hearts. Do you aspire to this noble task? Well, some of us men, and perhaps even some of our ladies, will think who is sufficient for these things? As Paul writes in two Corinthians 2:16.

Who is sufficient for these things? And Paul says this in the context when he is writing to the Corinthian church, where he says, we as apostles have been called by God to bring this gospel for people to hear, and for some it will be the fragrance of life. And for other others, this same message will be the aroma of death. And in a moment of just being overwhelmed at the burden of that thought, he says, who is sufficient for this? And a few verses later in chapter three, verse five, he says, we are not sufficient in ourselves to claim anything from us.

But our sufficiency is from God, he says, who has made us sufficient to be the ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Who is sufficient? None of us. No elder, no man will ever live up to that noble calling, but God makes us sufficient.

And the Holy Spirit who has given us the gospel of the new covenant, the good news that Jesus Christ has cleansed us and renewed us. That is our comfort and our hope. Ian Bounds, the great author on prayer and spirituality wrote, the church looks for better methods. God is looking for better men. The church looks for better methods.

God is looking for better men. May we find great men in our church. Let's pray. Father, we come to bring these words to one another and ourselves as we examine our hearts, and we look at these qualifications, Lord. And our Lord, so many of us will realise how far short we have fallen.

We pray, Lord, that you will give us the confidence that even as we realise we are not sufficient for these things, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can make us good enough. We pray, Lord, for our men who are in leadership positions, who are leaders of this church, for Tom, for John, for Tony, for myself. And we pray, Lord, that you will give each one of us the grace to carry ourselves in such a way that we shine a Christ-like character to anyone who will investigate our lives. Help us, Lord, to understand that we don't walk this path alone, that we are empowered by the Spirit and not the letter that kills, not the burden of holiness in your law, but that we have the Spirit of Christ in us who promises to make us Christ-like. And then for those of us who are led by these elders, Lord, I pray that we will submit ourselves humbly to our leaders because we understand that they have been called to oversee our souls as ones who must one day give account.

And so, Lord, help us to listen carefully. Help us to be obedient. Help us to weigh up their words with Scripture always. But Lord, help us to see that they have been called not simply by men, but by God. Father, we pray as well for those future elders, those that you will call to lead in this way.

Lord, we pray that you will be so present in their progress and development as Christians, perhaps as young men, that you will guard their lives, that you'll protect them so that they may be men of one wife. That they will be men who are self-controlled, sober minded, and diligent. That they will be men who have no reason to frustrate or embitter outsiders who look on to the church of Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that you'll give us grace, much grace, because we need it. Your church, Lord, needs it.

And we entrust ourselves to you again, our great shepherd, our great elder brother. In your name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.