Leadership Authority for God’s Family

Transcript

GR1761
3/30/2014
Leadership Authority for God’s Family
I Timothy 3:1
Gil Rugh

Alright, we are going to I Timothy chapter 3, I Timothy chapter 3. We are talking about God’s plan for His family as we noted in I Timothy chapter 3, verse 15; a verse that we will be coming to again in a future study here shortly. He’s writing so that we will know how to conduct ourselves in the household of God, in God’s family talking about God’s people. Those who have been saved by His grace, been born-again now truly have God as their Father. Talking about the church of the living God just like it’s God’s family, it’s God’s church and it is to be the pillar and support of the truth because He is as Christ said when He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” And He has established us as His family, His church to be giving forth the truth that He has given and entrusted to us.

One thing the church begins to drift when they lose sight of this and we begin to focus on other things and we turn things around instead of thinking and being concerned what does God expect, what does God want? We begin to think what would be appealing to me? What do I like? What am I interested in? And then the church begins to adjust its message, its ministry, its music, everything is geared to satisfying to what they think the people are interested in and what the people want. When all is said and done all that matters is – is God pleased? It is His church. It is His family and so that is what he is writing about in I Timothy. That’s what the Word of God is about. Particularly He is giving instruction to the church and He has talked about the fact that in His family false teaching, teaching contrary to what He has revealed and made known cannot be tolerated so He began very quickly in reminding Timothy he was left at the church in Ephesus in chapter 1 verse 3, “to command certain men not to teach false doctrines,” false doctrines, strange doctrines as you have it, other doctrines of a different kind, teaching that is not the truth that God has revealed; gone on to explain some of that.

Paul gives his own testimony because this false teaching and false doctrine erodes the foundation of God’s Gospel of salvation. It corrupts it and ultimately destroys it. Paul gave his testimony of how God saved him and he is an example of the power of God through the Gospel to save the ‘chiefest’ of sinners and thus give hope to other sinners that they can come to this salvation.

He entrusts Timothy with a command to maintain the purity of God’s truth. Verse 18: “This command I entrust to you, not to tolerate any false teaching” and this is going to be a fight so you fight the good fight as he said at the end of verse 18. Then we came into chapter 2 and he encourages them to pray the context of the salvation of all men because God desires the salvation of all men. He has provided a Savior for all men. There is one God and one Mediator, chapter 2, verse 5: “One God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all,” the heart of the truth. The truth as we have been hearing transforms a life, makes a person new and now they live a life conformed to the truth. So he gave instructions to men and women. He used the creator. He created, as we saw, man as male and female and His view on His purposes in creation and the distinction He established from the creation has not changed. Men try to alter and corrupt the Word and twist it but the truth of God stands and false teaching is not to be tolerated and you begin to corrupt this. That corruption spreads and contaminates the family.

Now we come to chapter 3 and he has talked about the roles of men and women and the distinctions and some have remarked, “Well why do you spend more time on what he says to women?” We are not done. So we are going to come into chapter 3 now and we are going to talk about the qualifications of godly men. He is going to be talking about elders and deacons because God appoints leadership in His church and the qualification of a leader is godliness. So these should be aspirations of all men. Not that all men have to serve as elders but all of us desire to be godly men. There may be a couple of things here that are unique to being an elder but the qualifications are what you would expect of a godly man. He is going to talk about elders. He is going to talk about deacons and we want to look a little bit at what first these are and then in coming studies we will get into the specific qualifications and characteristics that he unfolds and we will be back in Acts 20. The church at Ephesus, remember, is established in Acts chapter 19 by Paul and he will visit with the leaders of the church at Ephesus and give them specific instructions and they will coordinate with what he is instructing Timothy here as he writes sometime later.

You will note how chapter 3 opens up. “It is a trustworthy statement,” a faithful word denotes something of significance that they already know. This expression has already been used back in chapter 1 verse 15: “It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Amazing, religious people can get upset when you talk to them about their sin. Why do you think Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners? That is a faithful statement, a trustworthy statement, trustworthy word.

So here we have another one in chapter 3, verse 1: “It’s a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires to the office of overseer it is a fine work he desires.” And the emphasis is going to be on godly leadership. This is God’s family. It is His family. It is His church though we saw in verse 15 it is the household of God. It’s the church of the living God. It belongs to Him. He delegates authority and we can understand the family. There is order in the family. The father may be the head of the family. When you may have an older child and when you are going to leave the home you tell the younger children, “Now you do what your brother tells you,” for example. “He’s in charge.” There is a delegation of authority. It comes from you. When they disobey the one you have put in charge, the order in the home is the father, then the mother, then the children.

I have shared in our home there were three boys and a girl and my father made clear he would be gone long hours at work. You better do what your mother tells you and ultimate accountability for a failure to do that wasn’t back to mother, it was back to father because he was the one being disobeyed when we disobeyed our mother, so there is order. So we can understand this. It’s not a difficult concept.

I want you to keep in mind: the authority ultimately for God’s family comes from God’s Word. Those appointed responsibility of overseeing the church do not have freedom to do what they want. They are entrusted with the Word of God. The authority is in the Word of God not in the person entrusted with authority. I am a pastor of the church. We are going to talk about pastors. I don’t have the authority to teach what I want. I am obligated to teach the Word of God. The authority is in the Word and if I am twisting or changing the Word then as Paul told Timothy back in chapter 1, verse 3, “You have to command certain men not to teach different doctrines.”

The church is not the authoritative interpreter of the Bible. The Bible stands as its own authority. That is objective truth outside our selves. It is over our church. Roman Catholicism teaches that the church gave us the Bible. It’s the mother so it has authority over the Bible. That is not true. The church didn’t give us the Bible. The Bible gave birth to the church responding to the truth that God revealed resulted in the establishing of the church. We want to be clear on this as we talk about leadership and more will be said about that.

Alright, he said, “If any man aspires to the office of overseer.” And I just want to review with you these words, “overseer,” “elder,” “pastor” because they are not different positions they are referring to the same position reflecting different aspects of that position. Overseer is just a translation of the Greek word overseer, episkopos. Some of you have in the margin of your Bible “or bishop,” because that was the word used to translate this sometimes and so we have Episcopalian form of church leadership, leadership by bishops. What we are talking about is an overseer, episkopos, epi over, skopos, scope. You say well what are you going to do? We are going to go scope out the situation or look it over. They are overseers. They have the responsibility of the oversight. Very simple, they have a responsibility of oversight, the idea of being in charge or protecting of guarding, keeping watch, not particularly a form of government like government by bishops. There is oversight by those who are episkopos if you want to translate it bishop but understand in the concepts here. It’s not some kind of specialized position. This is one of the names that denote the responsibility. There are synonymous words with this. An elder and the Greek word for elder as you are aware of is presbuteros so we get Presbyterian so we have Presbyterian kind of church government, government by elders. But we are really talking about the same position, the same people. In the Bible they are not different. You could call them episkopos. You could call them presbuteros, overseer, elder. This may refer to the age and dignity of the position because back in its early use it seemed to refer to men of age and dignity that would have responsibility. And as we are going to see in I Timothy 3 there is a maturity to be required.

This title for leader among God’s people goes back to the Old Testament. Don’t get confused. The church is not Israel, Israel is not the church but leaders in Israel were called elders and so it became natural to recognize leaders among God’s people as elders.

Come back to Exodus chapter 3 for an example and we are looking at the word elder, presbuteros which will be used interchangeably with overseer as we will see; Exodus chapter 3 when God is going to send Moses to the people of Israel while they are enslaved in Egypt. He tells in verse 16: “Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them.” You see there is a recognition that within the people of Israel as they have grown into a great nation. Remember when they went down into Egypt they were just a family of Jacob but now they have multiplied to be a great nation but there are recognized leaders within the nation, the elders and you are aware Old Testament the elders, those older men age wise had a respect, their dignity and they were recognized as leaders certain of those. They were a recognized group because Moses could go and speak to them. They were recognized in Israel in the nation even in its captivity.

Over in chapter 4 while you are here, verse 29: “Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel.” This doesn’t mean every age person but those who were recognized as the leaders of God’s people there in Egypt. Number chapter 11, verse 16 we won’t go there indicates they were known and recognized as rulers of God’s people.

When you come over into the New Testament, come over just to Matthew chapter 16. We won’t look at all the references, there are many of these and of course you are aware in the Gospels and in Acts. Matthew 16 and here you have the members of the council. We have synagogues that have developed, local gatherings of the Jews in different areas and these synagogues were overseen by a council of elders and so for example in Matthew chapter 16, verse 21: “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things,” note, “from the elders, chief priests, scribes.” So there are those recognized as leaders in Israel and part of that leadership group would be these leaders that oversaw the groups of Jews, elders in Israel and they come up repeatedly in the Gospels and in the book of Acts so it is a natural transition to use this title for leadership among God’s people and remember the early church established what, with Jews, Acts chapter 2, the Day of Pentecost, they are Jews. For the first ten chapters of Acts it’s primarily a Jewish church. It wasn’t until Acts chapter 10 Peter goes to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile and you are familiar, that took some special revelation from God for him to be willing to go to the Gentiles. So natural, now God has created a new entity, the church but we recognize the leaders there as elders, just a title of leadership among the people of God.

Come over to Titus. You were in Timothy so come back to Timothy and then you go through I and II Timothy you come to Titus, one of the books called the Pastoral Epistles. In Titus chapter 1 I want you to note just a connection here. In Titus chapter 1, verse 5 he had left Titus in Crete to do the same thing Timothy was doing in Ephesus. Verse 5: “I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.” Then he gives some of the qualifications. In verse 7: “For the overseer must be above reproach.” So you see he calls them elders in verse 5. He calls them overseers in verse 7. The elders have the responsibility of the oversight of God’s people. So they are terms used interchangeably for the same individuals carrying out the same responsibilities.

A third term is the term “pastor,” perhaps the one we are most familiar with in Protestant churches. In evangelical churches we often refer to pastors. That’s a word that means a shepherd so you can see a similar idea. An overseer has oversight to guard, to protect and to lead God’s people. A pastor is a shepherd. What does a shepherd do? He oversees the sheep. He protects the sheep. He leads the sheep; similar kinds of ideas.

Again, the background for this, we go back to the Old Testament because the leaders of God’s people were called the shepherds because God’s people are sometimes pictured as sheep and they are under the care of a shepherd.

We will look at just two passages, Numbers chapter 27 and here this is in anticipation of the leadership of Israel being transferred from Moses and remember there were 70 elders who were appointed to serve with Moses in the oversight responsibility. Moses had the leadership obviously, among the leaders. And in verse 15 of Numbers 27: “Then Moses spoke to the Lord saying, ‘may the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh appoint a man over the congregation who will go out and come in before them who will lead them out and bring them in so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.’” So you see that responsibility to shepherd God’s people. Moses is concerned since God is not going to allow him to lead the people into the land but he doesn’t want Israel to be without leadership and Joshua will be appointed the leader among the leaders.

Come over to Ezekiel 34, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, a little past the middle for Ezekiel. Ezekiel 34: “Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Son of ma prophesy against the shepherds,’” the pastors of Israel. “Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘thus says the Lord,’ ‘woe shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves.’” “Should not the shepherds feed the flock?” And he is speaking to the rulers of Israel, the kings, the leaders of the nation instead of looking out for the welfare of the people they have been using the people to take care of themselves, selfish reasons and the people of God have been scattered and they are in poor condition because the shepherds haven’t cared for them. So that idea of the leader of God’s people being a pastor, a shepherd, again drawn out of the Old Testament.

Come over to Acts chapter 20. Now in Acts chapter 19 Paul established the church at Ephesus. He spends three years at Ephesus. That is a long time but that is not a long time. I have been here over 40 years. Paul was there three years. There were still things to be done and in chapter 20 Paul comes near Ephesus but he doesn’t want to take the time to return to Ephesus so in verse 17: “From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church.” And we will note this later but you will note and this is consistent in the Scripture, the New Testament, elders are always in the plural in the church. That’s why we have a plurality of elders. So he sent for the elders, plural, of the church, singular at Ephesus and he is going to instruct them and he reminds them of what his time with them had been like and verse 20: “He didn’t shrink from declaring to them anything that was profitable and he taught them publicly, he taught them in their homes.”

Verse 21: “Solemnly testifying repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” And he says, “I don’t count my life as precious. God has revealed to me I am going to be suffering, imprisonment, bonds await me,” but verse 24: “I don’t consider my life as of any account. I want to finish my course,” what we were talking about in Hebrews. The ministry I have received from the Lord Jesus, this is the race I have to run. I want to run it well whatever is before me, whatever difficulty, whatever suffering, whatever pain, I am committed to that. To solemnly testify of the Gospel of God’s grace.

And in verse 26: “I testify to you this day I am innocent of the blood of all men for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.” We want to encourage pastors. This is the standard by which you will be measured. Have you faithfully taught the whole council of God? We lose our perspective and now we want to appeal to what people like. You have to preach the Word in season and out of season. And then he warns them: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among them which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.”

We appoint men to these responsibilities of elders or deacon not because we have some kind of great authority but we are acting in the place of Christ as His representatives looking to the men that the Holy Spirit has marked out for us to put in those responsibilities. He wants these elders to realize it is not my appointment that made you an elder, an overseer, it is the Holy Spirit’s appointment. This is a serious responsibility.

Now you will note in verse 17 he called the elders. In verse 28 he says, “The Holy Spirit has made you overseers. So you men in the responsibility of being an elder have been given the responsibility of oversight of God’s people to lead them, guide them and protect them. Note the next statement in verse 28: “The Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd, pastor the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” So here in this passage you have all three titles in you will used of the same group of men. They are elders. They are overseers. Their responsibility is to shepherd God’s people. They are appointed by the Holy Spirit. It is God’s church. They are reminded this is not theirs now. They don’t come with an independent authority. They have been delegated by God with the responsibility. Their responsibility is not over the Word, their responsibility is with the Word and they are warned here.

“I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock. From among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.” This is what’s happened in this church with the passing of more time. Why did Paul leave Timothy in Ephesus? The first thing he said when we got to verse 3 of chapter 1: “You command certain men not to teach other doctrines.” What has happened? Somehow man infiltrated. They got into positions of responsibility. He told them here, “From among your own selves,” that means it could even come from among those who would be elders.

Nobody has authority over the Word. We are all subject to the Word. I am subject to the Word of God. I am not the authority. God’s Word is the authority because it is His church. He is the authority and His Word gives His will.

“So you be on the alert,” verse 31. “Remember for three years I admonished you with tears. Now I commend you (verse 32) to God and the Word of His grace which is able to build you up, give you the inheritance among those who are sanctified.” And then he gives testimony of his own service among them, should be reflected in them. So I want you to see here the passage used all three of the titles of the same position. So we use the title pastor commonly. We have the board of elders, It’s the board of pastors. They are those who have the oversight of the church. Again they are not the bosses of the church. They have been delegated a responsibility.

Come back to Timothy. There are going to be two major areas of responsibility given to the elders and we will just look at these and it will come up as we move into the section but clarified here in I Timothy chapter 3, verse 2, the end of the verse: “He must be able to teach,” and then in verse 5. He has to be able to manage his own household in verse 4 well because if a man doesn’t know how to manage his own household how will he take care of the church of God. He will be managing God’s people, the oversight of God’s people. So he has the responsibility to lead. He has the responsibility to teach and then he has to know the truth because he is going to have to stand against false teachers and false doctrine. He’s going to have to be able to lead God’s people.

Back up to Thessalonians just before Timothy, Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. In I Thessalonians chapter 5 and we are going to look at verse 12: “But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate or know those who diligently labor among you, have charge over you in the Lord, give you instruction.” This is serious work that had been entrusted to the elders, to the overseers and to the pastors. There are those who labor and have charge over you and give you instruction. So you see those areas of responsibility. Their area of labor is having charge over you and giving you instruction. That doesn’t mean all the leadership is done by them but the oversight of the church comes under them. Many other under them have leadership. It doesn’t mean they have to teach everything but they are responsible for the instruction that goes on in the church to maintain the purity of doctrine in the church. Know why Paul’s instructed them about the serious of false teaching now he is going to review with them what it means to be an elder and the godly qualifications of an elder.

I had a pastor come see me who is starting a church a little while ago and he wanted to talk about eldership and how you come to the position of elders and what they do. I cautioned him. You want to be careful to do this Biblically otherwise you will get in trouble because any kind of leadership seems to be working until you get in trouble and then the failure to be Biblical with your leadership is a disaster; not that it’s not important all the time. Sometimes well you say, “This is what we have, it’s working.” Well that’s not the standard. Is it Biblical? And if we don’t have men of the character required in Scripture then you have false teaching come and well I don’t know, I’m doubtful. In the difficulties we have had, the conflicts we have had over the years it is the godly men that God has put in the position of eldership here that has enabled the church to go through those situations. So it is crucial to be Biblical in these areas.

Come over to Hebrews chapter 13. We will get to this in Hebrews if the Lord doesn’t come first. In Hebrews chapter 13; the people’s responsibility as we just read in Thessalonians so we have here in Hebrews 13:17: “Obey your leaders. Submit to them. They keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy not with grief. This would not be profitable to you.” This doesn’t mean you obey them and turn off your mind. The leaders have to be Biblical. False teaching can’t be tolerated but in the general pattern you have godly leaders and the teaching is Biblical. You submit to them and that’s God’s plan like we use the family. If I didn’t do what my mother told me she didn’t give me a spanking. She just told me to go to my room and wait until my dad came home. That took care of her. God says “here’s the leader I put in charge, the leaders I have given.” Well, I don’t think I should have to do what they want to do. I’ve got my own ideas. That’s not the way the family runs. Again the leaders aren’t dictators. And what has been a blessing at Indian Hills is that God has provided godly leaders and God has provided people who will follow the leaders and that becomes crucial when we get into difficulty and conflict. This is the disaster, if you will, of congregational government. And I can tell you a number of churches that I have had contact with. You know the church gets torn apart. Well we have to get a vote and everybody’s appealing to people to their vote and you’ve got the false teacher who gets his circle. You have to have men who are godly, who are appointed by God, who know the Word and will be faithful to the Word whatever the cost. And sometimes that means family and friends. It is not my family. It is God’s family. It has to be done His way. And these emotional entanglements and that can’t be what makes the decision. Truth has to override. Now if the elders are not being Biblical they need to be driven to reevaluate. We need to examine the doctrine. Our board of elders has spent hours in different situations and weeks and months even working through doctrinal issues. But it has to be settled and so it is the responsibility of the leaders, responsibility of the people.

The pattern from the beginning in the New Testament is the plurality of elders. Come to Acts 14; the book of Acts chapter 14. We are on Paul’s first missionary journey. He’s established churches. He goes through an area, establishes churchs, now he is on the return going back retracing his steps. And in Acts chapter 14, verse 21 gives you the scenario here. “After they had preached the Gospel to that city, had made many disciples they returned to Listra, Iconium and Antioch.” So they are retracing their steps. They are strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith reminding them through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

We are not in the kingdom but there will be trials and tribulation. When they had appointed elders for them, plural in every church they prayed with fasting and commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. This was the pattern from the beginning as Paul, the one who receives the fullest revelation on God’s purposes and plans for the church as he says in Ephesians 2 and 3. His revelation concerning the church was fully given to him. What is the pattern? Here from his first missionary journey established churches out here in these new areas and I appoint elders there. Keep in mind many of these come from a background of having known the Scripture, the Old Testament and there is a relativity to it. Be careful but we will see as we go the congregation.

When I came to Indian Hills we were a young church. We were a less mature church. I was a less mature man. I was 26 and I was a pastor and elder. Others young too but for our church we were the men that God had appointed and we go from there. So as churches get older, obviously we are an older church, more mature church. We have people who have grown in the Lord in a greater degree. It would be less likely that there would be men of as young an age.

One of our young pastors, I’ve shared with you many years ago said, “I’ve given up. I’ll probably never be old enough to be an elder here because the age keeps going up.” You know there is an element in truth in that but a balance there. But he appointed elders in the church; plurality of elders, singular church.

Come over to chapter 20 where we just were and I mentioned this so we just pick it up in chapter 20, verse 17 when he sent to Ephesus and called the elders, plural of the church, singular.

Philippians chapter 1 and note verse 1: “Paul and Timothy bond servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi including the overseers and deacons.” So you see in the church at Philippi there were elders and deacons, plural; two groups that we will be examining in some detail in Timothy.

And then in Titus chapter 1, verse 5 Titus was to appoint elders in all the cities because obviously in these early days there would have been one church in the city. There weren’t multiplicity of churches like we have today as God has blessed us with more believers so we have seen churches growing and we have more churches.

So, we will pick up with this point next time, chapter 3, verse 1: “If any man aspires to an elder.” It is something that a man must desire, must be seeking. He must meet the qualifications but it must be a desire the Lord has put upon his heart and there will be a balance. The desire on an individual’s part and the recognition by the church and the leaders of the church that this is a man that the Lord has raised up for this position.

You see how God gives attention to the details. We have talked about the Gospel, the teaching, that’s important, God’s plan of salvation but for this to be carried out in a way that honors God and for God to work powerfully, what? He wants us to be functioning as His people, recognizing the differences He has designated for man as male and man as female, mankind and in honor recognize those so we will not have a woman serving as elder because they are not to lead or teach. Those are the two qualifications of elder so for sure there won’t be women pastors. Something is happening in even our evangelical seminaries where more and more women are accepted into the programs. At first, well this is just to train them in limited area and pretty soon, but they should know broadly and pretty soon now they are just there along with the men. We say well somewhere along the line we lose our way and we fail to submit ourselves to the authority of Scripture. This is God’s family. His instructions are clear. He will work through the qualifications of an elder. This helps us recognize and narrow down who might the Spirit might be appointing for our congregation. That doesn’t mean that every man who meets the qualifications will be serving officially but any who are serving officially must meet the qualifications and that’s our desire to be a church that God honors.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word, O Lord, its clarity. You gave Your Word to be understood. You gave Your Word so we, Your people, would know Your will and would submit our will to Your will and live out the truths of Your Word. Thank You for Your blessings on us as a local church. Lord thank You for the blessings You have provided in the leadership that You have appointed here. Thank You for the blessings of a fellowship of believers who have been supportive of the leadership who are committed to Your Word so we serve together with one purpose and that is to honor You with our faithfulness. We pray that our testimony will be strong and that You might use us to bring others to the knowledge of the Savior whom we love and serve we pray in Chris’s name amen.