Healthy Church Leadership

As you're talking about your evening plans, let me remind you of something, make sure you hear it.
It's incorrect in the bulletin the him sing tonight is at 6:00 p.m., not 5:00 p.m.
You're welcome to come early, but we will start the him sing at 6:00 p.m.
What time is the him sing tonight?
6:00 p.m.
Thank you very much.
All right.
We are in a series on the book of Titus because Titus is a book given to us to teach us that the church must be led well.
It was written written by the Apostle Paul to a young protege named Titus.
It was written toward the middle of the first century AD around the year 62 to 64.
It was a book written so that Titus could go to an island called Crete.
Some of you I know have been to Crete.
It's the largest of the five Greek islands.
And Titus was to go and to help this ragtag group of cities in in whom some churches have been planted to straighten them out and to raise up elders.
And so when you get to verse 5 of Titus chapter 1, you see especially the business for which Paul called Titus to the church.
Titus is especially relevant for us and our context because it addresses several matters that are central to Reformed and Presbyterian life as a church.
It addresses elders and church order, and doctrinal faithfulness, and accountability, and the danger, the subtle danger of false teaching.
The book of Titus teaches us that the gospel of grace creates ordered churches, qualified leaders, sound doctrine, and godly lives that are full of good works.
And so if you're willing and able, would you stand with me as we read Titus chapter 1:5-16?
This is God's word.
It is given to you in love.
Please give your attention to it.
This is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remains into 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 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 a drunkard or a violent or greedy for gain but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradicted.
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
They must be silenced.
Since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beings This testimony is true therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth to the pure all things are pure but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but both their minds and their consciences are defiled they profess to know God but they deny him by their works they are Disobedient, unfit for any good work.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but God's word stands forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You may be seated.
Please.
Father, would you take your word now and would you massage it into our hearts and would you change us even on the spot?
Would you show us a picture of your son that becomes so beautiful to us that our affections just melt into his presence.
Jesus, would you remind us that you are the one in whom our souls find rest?
Change us, we pray.
By your word preached in Jesus name.
Amen.
We've all heard the trope that owners and pets over time begin to look alike, right?
Lord and I were to vet this week and we had our golden retriever, obviously that looks like her mother, and then we also have a French ugly bulldog who obviously looks like the father in our family, the husband, the dad.
We were uh we were joking about this trope and then I read this article on National Geographic that studies have actually found that it is true.
There is a woman whose name is Janna Bender.
She's a PhD researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and she's reviewed 15 studies on the connection between dogs and their owners and she found that when people choose a pet, they often choose one that already bears some resemblance to them.
Women with long hair prefer dogs with long fluffy ears.
Women with short hair or hair tied back tend to prefer dogs with shorter ears.
In other words, the resemblance often starts for pet owners with selection.
People are drawn to what feels familiar, but here's the interesting part.
It's not that way with personality.
A pet's personality begins no matter if you selected the pet based upon looks, the personality of that pet.
begins to mimic the personality of the owner.
If that owner is a frenetic and anxious person, guess what?
That pet begins to be frenetic and anxious.
Let that be a little humility for some of us who have crazy dogs.
If the owner is calm and chill and relaxed, then the dog, especially, I mean, y'all know me, I have no idea how to explain cats.
But for dogs The dogs began to imitate the personality of their owners.
Now, over time, we are all shaped by what we tolerate.
And this is true with a group of people.
Through families, it's true entire cultures, you are shaped by what you tolerate.
But what Paul is trying to say to Titus in Titus chapter 1 is that the people of Crete who are known for their sexual immorality, they are known for their mercenary, violent the churches are beginning to reflect the leaders of the church.
And if it is true that a dog's personality is shaped by its own environment because of its owner, how much more true is it of a church shaped by the leadership of that church.
Churches reflect their leadership.
That is the What Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 11, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
He's illustrating this truth.
Christian leadership is not administrative, it is not a board of directors.
They are not trustees, they embody a pattern of shepherding with teaching and humility and vision and care.
And so Paul commenced Titus to raise up men in this very same way.
He teaches us three things about healthy church leadership.
The first thing he teaches us, number one, is that we are to prioritize the importance of elders in the local church.
Prioritize the importance of elders in the local church.
This is why I left you in Creed, he says in verse 5, so that you might put what remains into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.
Now, like Timothy, Titus was not a pastor.
He was not a pastor of a local church in Crete, just like Timothy wasn't the pastor of the church in Ephesus.
They were emissaries.
He knows that's a big word for saying, they were sent by the Apostle Paul with specific tasks.
In the Greek here, you could translate it, Titus, tie up the loose ends and get this place into shape.
I want you to take the affairs of Crete, and I want you to help them get their act together.
There's disorder, there's false teachers infiltrating the church.
And how, Titus, are you to do that?
And Paul tells him, "Look at the text, appoint elders in every town." Now, a little Greek work here, the word elders in the original is presbuteros.
Sounds like a familiar word around here.
The word I didn't grow up Presbyterian.
And I don't If you didn't grow up Presbyterian, raise your hand.
Anybody Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought.
Yeah, there's about all three of us in this house, you might have.
The word Presbyterian just is the Greek word for elder.
It just means it's not talking about the culture, it's not talking about the socioeconomics, it's not talking about the kind of worship.
The word presbyterian simply means the church is led by elders.
It speaks of how the church is governed.
Which also means that the elders of this church rule together.
It's plural, we all rule.
In other words, it is not a pastor-led church.
In our church, it is an elder-led church and that is what's commended here in Titus.
When you look and you find what is like on our website for example, when we explain what does Presbyterian mean because like many of us we group in other denominations or no denomination at all.
The first scriptural foundation for that word is this verse, Titus chapter 1:5, presbyteros.
It just means elder.
He says you are to raise up presbyteroi.
You are to raise up elders.
And we don't exactly know how many churches there were in Crete, but in the 19th century BC, even by the 9th century BC, Homer says that Crete is an island of 100 populous cities.
And so by the time that Titus is there, certainly there are multiple churches that were planted on the island of Crete.
Maybe not a hundred, but there were perhaps dozens.
And his job was to raise up elders of the church.
When this church first started in 2011, the core group met in 2010-11, I came and and the the session that We had borrowed from neighboring churches that ruled over uh this church, that led this church.
Our only task for the first three years was to raise up men to be elders of the church locally.
And God raised up Will Parker and Nathan Keltner and Mike Phelps to be the first elders of this church.
And Titus likewise, he says, "You are to raise up a church.
Your mission is to raise up elders, not celebrity leadership.
You don't You raise up qualified, tested, accountable elders in the local church.
Okay.
Are you with me so far?
Healthy churches need healthy leadership because churches reflect the leadership.
How do you do that?
Point number two, you use Paul's interview guide.
You use Paul's interview guide versus 6 to 9.
When you interview someone for a job, the interview team often has a set of questions that they ask every candidate because they're trying to cut through the personality and then compare the qualities that are necessary for that job.
And Paul gives Titus a similar guide.
He gives 17 social, personal, and doctrinal qualifications.
First Timothy chapter 3 gives us a similar list.
He gives us 15 and there are many that are identical.
He gives us first social qualifications.
An elder must be, what does it say in the text?
It says an elder must be in verse 6, if anyone is above reproach.
Paul begins here and he begins here in 1 Timothy chapter 3 as well.
They must be above reproach.
Oh, competencies are important, but we idolize competencies.
If you get a polished and You get a decisive, and you get a strong, intelligent, and productive elder, but he's not above reproach, friends, you have lost.
Because first thing is the nature of the heart, above reproach.
Above reproach doesn't mean that you're perfect, of course not.
Doesn't mean you don't struggle.
Above reproach maybe mean that somebody has so overwhelmed his peccadilloes and his sins or his that he has overwhelmed them by his own model of repentance and humility over time.
I mean, there are elders in the PCA, there are elders in many churches where men have been to prison and you have been so repentant of what they've done and they have become elders in the church over time.
Not many, but in some cases, men who at one time you would never think would be qualified for an elder.
And so I just say that to some of you men, don't count yourselves out.
Because some of you may have gifts and strengths because at first, the first quality is that you are above reproach.
If perfection were required, there would be no elders.
But what Paul is commending to Titus is that there is no obvious flaw in his character or his conduct that would bring justifiable criticism to the church.
One writer puts it well.
He says, "In admitting a man to the office of elder, the primary consideration must always be the integrity of his character rather than his spectacular gifts." Second, he must be the husband of one wife.
Literally, he must be a one-woman man.
He must currently be a morally faithful husband.
Now, this does not mean that he can never have been divorced, but it does mean that if he has been divorced, the elders must be able to discern whether he is above reproach in that matter, either with biblical grounds or in clear repentant ownership of his sin and every effort where possible toward reconciliation and forgiveness.
He is the husband of one wife.
Now, of course, there's so much more I could say about each of these points, but let me go to number three.
Paul says he must be a techna echon pista, a child who is a believer Or, if you look at the little footnote in your ESV, look at the bottom of the page, whenever there's a footnote in the ESV with an alternative translation, it means that the editors didn't quite know exactly how to translate it.
And if you look at the footnote, it says faithful.
And commentators go back and forth on does this mean that the children of elders must all be professing believers?
What does that mean?
Or does it mean that they must be Faith full.
John Calvin is helpful here.
He says that the best way to understand this passage is that Paul would never give Titus a more stringent command than he gives Timothy over in Ephesus.
And in Timothy first Timothy chapter three, it's all about the external behavior.
The children are submissive, they are obedient, they've been instructed in the faith.
But Paul is not talking about determining the condition of the children's heart.
He is saying are they outward obedient, respectful, kind to their father?
to their mother.
Calvin says that a child must be disciplined according to the faith, they must be taught sound doctrine.
They must be devoted, John Calvin says, to temperance, not to be spoiled with luxury.
And they must be people who are obedient, it's a misnomer respectful.
And that doesn't mean that children have to be perfect, of course.
And sometimes time Satan loves to attack the families of elders and even one of the elders this morning said to me, "Hey, if you're going to teach on this passage, remind people that when you become an elder, look out." And I beg of you to pray for the elders for that reason.
We're a young church.
And yet there are stories of how Satan has attacked elders' families in this church.
in ways that are very deep, very tender, very hard.
And we need your prayers and your support and your love.
We have to use scripture to interpret scripture.
And 1 Timothy 3 emphasizes the management of the home and the children who have an outward behavior that blesses their parents.
It is not speaking about the internal state of their heart and many commentators disagree and I'm glad to show you more if you're curious after the service if you can talk and do a deeper dive into this passage.
Next, Paul turns not from social but now to personal qualifications.
The fourth requirement he says is that elders must not be arrogant, they must not be self-willed or obstinate, they must not be possible to correct.
They must not insist on their own way.
And this exposes to us to the people and to the leadership, the idol of control.
Some leaders want to control the church through force of personality and some members want leaders who will make the church safe on their terms to create a little country club for us to just love and become inward-facing.
But then out and this is not the role of the church.
Our elders are to love you so well that yes, we want fellowship, and we want picnics, and we want to know each other deeply, but we always want to know each other deeply so that we can be an outward-facing church that welcomes sinners here.
Because when I ask you, who is the greatest sinner in this room, every one of us should follow my hand and say it's me.
Because we know the depth of our need for grace, the older and older that we get.
An elder is not arrogant.
The fifth through the eighth, Paul just gives in rapid fire, the elder must not be quick-tempered.
He must not be ruled by anger.
He must not be be a drucker.
Notice, it speaks of overindulgence and wine, not complete intolerance of drinking wine, that is not what's prohibited.
He assumes that it will be like all things done with moderation and to God's glory.
He must not be violent or a bully.
He must not be greedy for gain.
He must not treat ministry as a way to use people for his own spiritual advantage.
And then in verse 9, you get the positive traits.
You see the contrast in Allah in Greek, but he must be hospitable.
He must be xenophilic, not xenophobic.
He must be a lover of others.
A lover of strangers is literally what it means.
He must be a lover of the good.
He must be self-controlled.
He's sensible.
He's sober-minded.
He must be upright, fair, and just not perfectly, but these are the general qualities that we expect.
He must be holy.
He must be devoted to God.
Which means as he sees the beauty of God's holiness, he is humbled in contrition.
He is the one who says the confession of sin the loudest because he needs it the deepest.
He must be disciplined.
He must be able to govern himself before he seeks to help govern the church.
And then Paul gives doctrinal qualifications.
Verse 9.
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught.
An elder must feed the sheep.
He can't feed the sheep if he himself is starving.
He must feed the sheep.
He must be able to teach.
He must be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, it says.
That means that he can encourage and he can challenge others with scripture.
Paul goes on to say he must rebuke those that contradicted.
This is the 17th qualification.
He's able to rebuke those who contradicted.
He's able to discern our world view that is not centered on the gospel.
So all that to say friends, an elder of a church is not merely a nice Christian guy.
He's not a successful business owner.
He can be incredibly young like Timothy, by the way.
There is no qualification of age in scripture for an elder.
And Paul emphasizes the heart issues always go before the competency issues that we see.
And the reason why we often resist leaders like this is that we want leaders who will serve our own preferences.
And so your questions as we approach September 13th through the 27th as we nominate elders and deacons in this church to be officers for us if you remember, your questions towards them ought to be how they're doing, their own self-awareness, are they the kind of people that you want to follow, not do they share your preferences, do they want this or that about the church, are they men of integrity, and you can trust the Holy Spirit to use this session as a whole.
They have authority together, not separately.
To govern his church.
So, prioritizing importance of elders in the local church.
Number two, use Paul's interview guide.
Number three, watch out for insubordination, however subtle it may sound.
Why do we need such extensive requirements for elders in the church?
Paul anticipates that very question.
He says, "For there are many who are insulting subordinate, empty, talkers, and deceivers.
Notice that word, many.
Titus had a real job to do.
And notice how it showed up.
It didn't show up in what you saw.
It first showed up in what you heard.
The way they taught.
Set a guard over the door of my lips, oh Lord.
Let my heart not be drawn to what is evil.
Scripture puts so much emphasis on the way you use your tongue.
And by the way, that also means the way you use your thumbs in these days.
What you write on social media, what you speak out into the world.
You hear it, you read it many times before you see it.
Paul's teaching does not begin with someone saying, "I am here to hurt this church." It often begins with just subtle resistance, spiritually sounding criticism, suspicion, flattery, private conversations that begin the undercut trust.
And this sometimes affects extended families.
Paul says they must be silenced, why?
Because they're up sitting whole households.
House churches, families, damage was spreading, generations in Crete were being affected.
Both teachers were not just holding private opinions, they were destabilizing homes.
And why were they doing it?
Paul says that they were doing it for shameful gain.
It may not have been material gain, but it might have been spiritual gain.
They like the epinephrine hit of manipulating people spiritually.
Whether they were chasing money, or influence, or praise, Paul calls it shameful.
And as Paul grew older, greed of all the topics, greed and our use of money was more and more on his mind.
And he warned that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
So he just hammers the threat of shameful gain.
In verse 13, therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.
This is important.
Biblical church discipline is always meant to protect the sheep, always meant to reclaim the sinner, it is never punitive.
I have had dear friends of my life who've confronted me and with such an incredible rebuke of love and care that I knew that they loved me even though it stung and some of you have experienced that too.
You know the amount of energy it takes to rebuke these days, it would be so much easier to just go to the pool 5:00 somewhere.
It takes energy and it takes love and it's done in love.
And one of the beautiful beautiful things of the church is this is the only environment where you can be rebuked not for the benefit of the rebuker but actually for the benefit of the one that's rebuked to bring them back to restore them.
And that is the case always in church discipline.
You want to win them back but there are times when those you are trying to rebuke are so obstinate that they then need to be cast out excommunicated.
In order ultimately still to win them back but to protect the sheep.
They want to flatter, they want to manipulate, they want to you know they want to just be the lead complainers to gain influence and a louder megaphone.
But in the gospel you are already approved and that approval of Jesus's of you is what matters most and so you don't need to try to manipulate people.
You can rest in the righteousness that Jesus gives to you.
And Paul says that they must stop devouring their themselves the Jewish myths and the command of people who turn away from the truth.
And And Paul says in trying to turn people away, they're actually devouring themselves.
It's like the old Alaskan wolf trap that you've heard where they the Eskimos have put a a blade in midst of ice and put meat around that blade and and and freeze it and the wolves would come and lick the meat and they would find themselves thirsty and after the blood not realizing that they cut themselves on the blade and the meat and the blood they were thirsty after was their own until the wolf eventually died.
There's one line in here that I want us to rest on for just a minute before I close.
It says to the pure all things are pure verse 15 but to the defiled and the unbelieving nothing is is pure.
One of the greatest threats in the Church of Crete were actually those who knew the truth.
They were the Jewish expats who were living on Crete who were mixing up Jewish mythology.
They were the ones who were saying, "Yes, I know that Paul says that you can eat and drink everything, but really it's the dietary laws, they still matter." Your outward behavior according to the old law still matters.
And we see that even today.
We built an entire massive subculture around evangelicalism that says, "If you want to be apart, these are the certain things that you must do and you fall back into a kind of Babylonian captivity." What Paul is trying to say is if you have no faith, nothing you do is actually pure because everything's defiled because you don't have faith.
But if you do have faith, Jesus has completely fulfilled the law so you can go and enjoy all of God's good Yes, for his his glory with moderation and care, of course.
But don't let people judge you because you you you're wearing what or you eat that or your diet is this or that.
We must be a church that is radically diverse in even our own personal preferences because we're centered on the gospel.
And we don't create levels of purity based upon whatever you want to put in the blank.
We are centered on the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and we recognize that it is sound doctrine that we promote and unashamedly so.
And we want to center ourselves on that not mere personal preferences that the culture wars want to take you and try to help you identify with before the gospel.
Titus 1 will not let us trust leaders naively, but the gospel will not let us distrust anyone reflexively either.
And for those of you who have been hurt by the church and there are so many in this room who have been hurt by the church, Jesus knows exactly how corrupt religious leadership can become.
He was betrayed by Judas, he was condemned by priests, he was abandoned by his disciples and he was crucified by those who claim to guard the truth and yet Jesus didn't give up on the church.
He died to win you.
Don't give up on the church either.
Jesus rose from the dead and he gave gifts to his people including shepherds and teachers to build up his body.
Yes, they're imperfect.
Yes, some of them even resemble French Bulldogs.
Yes, they will not always lead you like Jesus.
Of course.
But we repent of the idol those that distort our view of leadership.
We repent of wanting to impress leaders or want impressive leaders more than godly ones.
We repent of trying to control Christ's church.
We repent of needing approval more than needing faithful preaching of God's word and the administration of the sacraments and the discipline of his church.
We repent of any kind of moral superiority that's disguised as holiness and we repent of cynicism that's disguised as wisdom.
We have too much to do.
The vision is too big.
We're taking you there.
We want you to come with us.
When we look to Christ, we see that Jesus is the true and the better elder.
He was perfectly above reproach.
He was the faithful bridegroom of the bride.
He is the son who is perfectly obedient to his father.
He is not arrogant or quick tempered.
He is not greedy.
He is not violent.
Jesus is hospitable to sinners.
Can't we also be at this place?
He holds firm to the trustworthy word because he is the word made flesh.
He resorts us in sound doctrine.
He refutes the serpent's lies and he rebukes us, but not to crush us, but to reclaim us, to bring us in.
At the cross, Jesus was treated as though he were disqualified.
So the disqualified sinners like me and like you could be welcomed in.
He was accused so that we could be declared above reproach.
Hallelujah.
He was cast out so that we could be brought in to the household of God.
That's why the church can pursue healthy church leadership.
Because we have Jesus who is the true elder, who shepherds us.
And as you leave worship every week, you see above the doorway as you leave that Jesus is the true shepherd.
And so, would you help us to sustain an environment of healthy church leadership because it begins actually with us.
Pray for your elders.
Encourage them.
Hold them a cannibal, yes.
But also follow them as they are held a cannibal by a wider group of elders called a Presbytery.
And as they follow Christ.
May we lead not with our preferences, but may we lead following the true shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep.
And this desire for maturity amongst elders is one of the marks of the maturity of the people in the church.
We expect a lot of of our elders.
We also know that grace changes everything.
And may we see Paul's list here not of a checklist merely for officers, but as a portal for each of us, every one of us as a pathway for our own Christian maturity and discipleship.
And may we be a church where leaders imitate Christ and where the people increasingly reflect the beauty and the humility and the truth and the courage of Jesus as he lays down his life for his bride, the church.
And yes May we, as a church, in time, begin to reflect our true shepherd.
Not just the elders temporarily, but ultimately through time, the true shepherd of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It continues to remind us that we love because he first loved us and laid down his life for us.
Let's pray together.
Father, thank you that you have given us the example of the true shepherd in your son, Jesus.
to thank you that you have moved by your spirit to call the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road to write these 13 amazing books of the New Testament of which Titus is one of your last and would you help us to prioritize the importance of elders in your local church.
To use Paul's interview guide and to watch out for insubordination however subtle it may sound.
And would you teach us again and again that churches reflect their leadership and may this your church reflect your humility, generosity, sacrifice, service, and love for the world.
As we continue to welcome others in our midst, and would you bless our response through our faith as you come to the table and our tides and offerings as we give online or in person in worship generously and joyfully and regularly for your glory.
And we pray these things in Jesus name.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.