Leadership for the Church

Transcript

GR 2282
02/16/2020
Leadership for the Church
Titus 1:5
Gil Rugh

Well, we’re going in your Bibles to the book of Titus, Titus chapter 1. Its a short three-chapter letter as we have it, Paul writing to one of his younger fellow workers. We’re familiar with Timothy who is a little more well known to us than Titus, but we’ve looked and seen that Titus was a key part of Paul’s ministry, even though he’s not as visible to us. He doesn’t appear in the book of Acts where Luke records the history of the early church but he is mentioned primarily in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the second letter. You see something, as we looked at it, of Paul’s confidence in Titus as a mature godly man and one who could be trusted with responsibility. Entrusted to step out on his own and faithfully represent the Lord and Paul in a difficult place like the church at Corinth, and that’s similar to the situation at Crete.

So we mentioned we don’t know how the churches on the island of Crete -- Crete is an island out in the Mediterranean as we talked about -- we don’t know how those churches got started. A possibility in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost when the church begins with the coming of the Holy Spirit. We are told that among the various peoples from various places who were there and heard the gospel and believed and were baptized included people from the island of Crete. So it could be that some of those in that crowd from Crete for Pentecost heard the gospel, believed it, were baptized on that day, and then went back to their homes and shared the gospel, and out of that came churches. The other possibility is that Paul visited the island with Titus after the book of Acts, what we call his first Roman imprisonment, and established the churches there, and then couldn’t stay for a long time and left Titus to complete the work. We just don’t know. We know there are churches there that Paul and Titus have been there together, because he says in verse 5 of chapter 1, “For this reason I left you in Crete,” which most everyone agrees that would indicate that Paul had been there. And for whatever reason had to move on but the work of getting these churches established, organized, and settled to deal with the issues that confronted them. And there are always issues to be dealt with by God’s people as they live in this ungodly world, so Titus has a serious responsibility here.

Paul is writing the letter not just to inform Titus, but so that Titus is recognized by these believers as having apostolic authority. Titus is not an apostle, but something of the authority of Paul the apostle stands behind Titus and his ministry. And, of course, behind the authority of the apostle Paul is the authority of Christ who is the head of the church. That’s why Paul identified himself as a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ as he opened the letter. So even though it’s addressed to Titus it’s not just for Titus because these are things to be implemented in the churches. Titus will be able to share this letter and the contents of it as they work through carrying out what Paul has instructed them.

We’re going to pick up with verse 5 when we really start the body of the letter. The things up till this point have what we call the salutation. Paul introduced himself as the writer, the person he’s writing to, and a greeting. It’s one of Paul’s longer elaborations, second only to the book of Romans as far as length and the salutation. But now with verse 5 he launches into the reason for the letter and why Titus is in Crete. Titus knows but it’s a reminder to Titus and it makes for further clarity with the churches in Crete. ‘For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you.” Now you can even see here there’s authority involved in this. Titus is responsible to appoint elders, put certain ones in charge, and Paul directed him to do it. So any questions that come up from these churches in Crete… and they’re no different than we are today, it seems like we’re always ready to question authority and challenge it. People could say, well, Titus who are you? I know we recognize Paul, the apostle, but why should you have authority here? Why should you be telling us what to do or how to do it? Well, right away, you have Titus having the authority of the apostle Paul behind him. Titus, I left you there to set in order things that are yet to be done that I didn’t get done, and I directed you, so Titus this is a reminder. This is a responsibility he has before God as Paul’s representative and the church knows it.

It’s important because we’re going to establish things for the church here and someone’s going to have to make the decision. And the head of the church is Jesus Christ and He is the ultimate source of the decision. We have here His word, the word of God. It came from Christ, head of the church, to Paul, from Paul to Titus, from Titus to the church, that’s the order we’re going so there should be no discussion, no push back here. We’re going to talk about establishing leadership, that’s what he’s going to do first so that the church can deal in a proper, organized, and effective way with the problems that are already facing them, the infiltration of false doctrine, corrupted practices, and so on. This has to be done God’s way. This is God’s church, the church is the family of God, 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15. The church is the family of God, Jesus Christ is the head of the church, so He’s in charge and this is His word coming, “appoint elders in every city.”

Well, how will we know? What he’s going to do is give the qualifications. How will we know how to select out men to fulfill this responsibility? Well, the Spirit is going to be behind the action, we’ll see that in a moment, but they’ll be certain qualities and qualifications that believers can look for that will help them in the decision. So this is not just the Holy Spirit giving direct revelation, appoint so and so, so and so, and so and so. But the Holy Spirit as Christ’s representative and, if you will, will direct them as they follow the instructions of the word. That’s the key, He doesn’t bypass His word, but now I’m going to tell you what you’re to be looking for that will help discern the will of the Spirit in this. It doesn’t mean there the only things, but these are the foundational things necessary for a person to be put in a leadership position of the church.

I want to talk about some things broadly together today. It will be a repeat but repetition is good for us. First, I want to look at three words that are used for elder and we have a slide for that so we’ll pop that up for you. Just as we work through this we don’t get confused. There are three different words used for the same position, so I’ve used three words for elders but they could be called three words for overseers or three words for shepherds, but we call our elders a Board of Elders and it’s one of the key words.

The first word we’ll look at is overseer. These are not in the order they’re going to come. I’m going to give you these words, three words, and then we’ll be able to look at them in different passages that come up. The first word that’s used is overseer, it’s used in this passage; you’re in Titus chapter 1 verse 5, he’s to appoint elders and they are to be “above reproach,” verse 6. Then you come down to verse 7 and he says for the overseer must “be above reproach” and you see he uses the word overseer in connection with the word elder. An overseer, I’ve transliterated the Greek word, the Greek word is “episkopas.” I did that because you have in your margin if you’re down in verse 7 where it says for the overseer and you have the little number 1 if you’re using the New American Standard Bible and in the margin it says “or bishop.” Later in time, after the New Testament, the development of church history, they began to call men bishops and structured down through church history until today, episkopas.

You can think of what churches would this be developed from, the Episcopal, Episcopal churches are churches governed by bishops. Now, they’re not using the term interchangeably as we are with the other words. They have developed a whole system and the head of the Episcopal Church, which is the same as the Anglican Church in England, is the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s over the Anglican Church, and the American branch of that is the Episcopal. It’s governed by bishops but that can give you maybe some confusion. The word basically means overseer. We’ve just transliterated over “epi,” the first three letters as we have it there in the transliteration means to be over something and “skopas”, well, we have that, a scope. We’ll say go scope it out, look it over, look it out, so overseer is just bringing the word over into English, over-see, that’s a word that has to do with the responsibility of overseeing God’s flock.

The next word, the word we had first here in Titus is the word elder, and the Greek word is “presbuteros” and you recognize that. Some of you probably come out of a Presbyterian background and the Presbyterian Church developed their structure down through church history with elders governing it, and not just as we have elders in a local church. But then they have elders of churches that form a group of elders, it’s a hierarchical oversight structure that enables the denomination to function, but the name comes from basically elders.

Then the third word we’re familiar with is shepherd. I can’t say that’s carried over into English with our word shepherd the way we put it. We call it a pastor but it’s the normal word for a shepherd, so in the Bible when you talk about shepherds, “poimenas” would be the word, so someone who took care of sheep was a shepherd. It comes to be used as a picture or metaphor of one who has the oversight and care of God’s people.

Now these are three different words, they’re not synonyms because we see they each say a little different meaning. Elder might have originally carried the idea of age because elder is also the same word used if you talked to an older person. It can be used of a woman or a man in its form, when you talked about somebody elderly this is the word you would use but then it came to be used in a special sense. It seemed to indicate not only the age but something of the dignity and so on that goes with the position so each of those bring something to it, but they can be used interchangeably. Now we want to understand that as we go through scripture -- even though down through church history we’ve come to a point where different groups consider themselves different, Episcopal, Episcopalians or Presbyterians -- but basically we’re talking about the same people when we use these three words.

They were the key, they are key to the church, three things that are necessary to have a church. You’d have to have sound teaching, you have to have godly leadership, and you have to have functioning people. So not every group that gets together says, well, we’re a group of Christians getting together therefore we’re a church. A church is identified in a specific way in scripture -- it has a certain organizational structure and this is the leadership provided for it identified by these three different words laying out different aspects of the leaders that will be leading the church. It was important from the foundation of the church.

Let’s look at elders, so we’re going to take the middle word first since that’s what is first here in the book of Titus, elders be appointed in every city. Come back to Acts chapter 14, this is Paul on his first missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas are appointed to carry the gospel out in Acts chapter 13 through the direction of the Spirit through prophets in the church, so that was direct revelation from God, if you will. God speaking to His prophets so they could tell them this is what God says and what He wants you to do, set aside Paul and Barnabas. So they journey out and they’re north of Jerusalem, they’re up in Antioch of Syria, and they go up around the sea and over into regions of Galatia and then they return the same way. So come down in Acts chapter 14 to verse 21, Paul’s in the city of Derbe from the end of verse 20 and then verse 21. “After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and Iconium and Antioch,” so on the going out on that trip they visited these cities, preached the gospel, led people to Christ. Then when they get to Derbe, they’re going to turn around and come back and retrace their steps and return home, different than subsequent missionary journeys. Now as they return there, verse 22, “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith.” The pressure is already on, you’re now a believer, saved out of a pagan environment. Paul knows they need encouragement so he encourages them, they’re new believers. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” You note they didn’t enter the kingdom when they believed, the kingdom is a future entity and it’s still future today, but that’s the ultimate end as we saw in the book of Revelation. We are going to end up in the kingdom, that was promised and prophesied long ago. So expect tribulation and trials. We could take that to heart, too. We haven’t entered the kingdom yet so they’re will be many tribulations, many problems, many troubles.

Somehow -- and this is important as we’re going to talk about what’s going on in the churches at Crete -- believers can get to expect, you know, there shouldn’t be trouble. Trouble comes from within, that’s what he wants to prepare them for, the outside problems, the inside problems. Soon, as people come to know Christ and a church is being established, the devil wants to come in and join the group with his servants, who come in disguised, as believers, and this is just an endless battle for the apostle Paul and the churches he establishes. He gets them established and already you have counterfeit believers in there that are going to be disruptive and then you add to that immaturity on the part of believers, so what does he do in verse 23? “When they had appointed elders for them in every church.” So you see here these are new churches, these aren’t 10 years old. Paul has traveled through here, and then returned, back to those same churches, people are relatively new believers. That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be anybody here who had not heard, but that would be rare, and he appoints elders for them in every church. We are going to see a pattern here: plurality of elders, single church, elders in every church. Crete at the time was an island but it had all these little communities in it. Evidently, in these different communities, there were groups of believers, people who had become followers of Christ, and each of these areas are churches, and in every church he appoints a plurality of elders.

Then we are going to see a plurality of elders in each church. We see that as a pattern down till today, we have a plurality of elders. Why? We get it from the biblical pattern of elders being appointed in every church. It’s not just one elder; some structures like the Baptist usually have one elder. Being a former Baptist and a former Methodist, but in my Baptist background there was one elder, the pastor, and then there were a group of deacons who worked with him. I think the more biblical pattern is there’s a plurality of elders. The important thing to see here is elders are established at the beginning, these are new churches, new believers. He appoints elders, a plurality in every church, and then they moved on, so that’s the pattern that he gives.

The title elder comes from the Old Testament, it was the title of leaders in Israel in the Old Testament. Now the Church is not Israel but it’s natural since the Church comes out of Israel in the sense in Acts chapter 2. The Church is established with Jews, and Gentiles won’t come into the church, really, until we get to Acts chapter 10, Peter goes to the house of Cornelius. So it’s natural that they would pick up and we do today, we use the same title. In legal documents I might be titled when I sign for the church as the President of the Corporation. Well, we just picked up a title that is part of the terminology of the day for the person-in-charge kind of thing.

So come back to the book of Exodus. You can see this early. Sometime during the Egyptian captivity, the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt, we’re in Exodus 3, elders were established to help provide oversight for the people. We don’t know how. Remember when the Jews went down into Egypt they were just a large family, all family, 70 people. But now that you’re ready for the exodus out of Egypt 400 hundred years later they’ve grown to be about 2 million. We know that because like in the book of Numbers they number the men who are qualified to be the army, and they are men from 20 years old up to 50, and there are 600,000 men. Well, then when you add the women, the children, and the elderly, estimates come in somewhere around 2 million people would have been there. Well, it’s not surprising there’s some structure, even though the Jews are enslaved in Egypt.

The Egyptians are over everything but you can see the benefit of them having and there being leaders among the Jews. So I say that because when you come to chapter 3 down in verse 16, God tells Moses (He’s met with Moses), tell him now’s the time, you’re going to be the leader, you’re going to go down, and you’re going to gather. So we come to verse 16, “Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them,” so there’s a recognizable group of men who are leaders in Israel at this time. He doesn’t have to address all 2 million people or even all 600,000 men of military age, he’s addressing the elders, it’s a group that he can communicate to. Verse 16 continues, “And say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me,’ saying” and I’m going to bring you out of Egypt and I’ll bring you into the land I have promised.

So come over to chapter 4, Moses gathers all the people with Aaron and you’ll see verse 29, “Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel” and spoke to them, and then he did signs, miracles to validate the word. We’ve noted miracles appear in the Bible in connection with new revelation, they’re not going on all the time everywhere, they would lose their ability to be a sign of new revelation. What Moses is telling you here with his brother Aaron is a word from God, so the people believed, but you’ll note, they assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel, so that leadership position. And we know in Israel the elderly were given respect so there could have been age, we expect there would have been age connected with it and maturity. So they were recognized as people to be respected and that will provide direction for us.

Now come over to the book of Numbers chapter 11, Numbers chapter 11. You know the problem with leadership, it gives you someone to complain about, you know, people don’t like to complain directly about God. Because – God, I don’t like what You’re doing, I’m not going to follow it, I’m not going to listen -- well, none of us wants to do that as professing believers. And the children of Israel, you know, what they do, they didn’t complain directly to God, they complained about the people God put -- look at how, chapter 11 verse 1, “Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.” Remember that when you complain and the Lord has told us don’t mumble, don’t complain, you know who’s listening. Well, the person I’m talking to, it’s just the two of us. Well, the Jews weren’t just talking among themselves. The Lord was listening and He took it personally because it was really a complaint about Him, because He had told Moses, he had told the elders what to do, and the people are unhappy about it and complain about it to one another. God’s listening, they’re complaining about Me, so they’re crying out to Moses because fire had come down from the Lord. The Lord says these people have a complaint about Me. There’s certain things you can’t do and the Lord takes it to heart, takes it personally when you complain about Him. Enough said about that.

There’s rabble among them, verse 4, the rabble says this is part of the problem. The devil mixes in his children and they’re always discontent with the Lord and what the Lord’s doing. They’re always looking for a reason to be unsettled, to be unhappy, because they don’t want to serve the Lord and they serve the devil, they do his will. We’ve talked about this, so you come down to verse 16, “The Lord therefore said to Moses, ‘Gather for Me seventy men from among the elders of Israel.’ ” What happened is, you know, leadership has it’s pressures and it’s problems. You’ve got 2 million people, and you’ve got this grumbling and complaining. And you’ve got the unbelievers that are mixed in called the rabble here and they have greedy desires and they have their own reason for complaining but then they get the believers in Israel, they get the nation, they’ve got people stirred up. You know, it is amazing how people get stirred up by what they hear, what they are told.

Finally Moses says to God, verse 14, “I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too burdensome for me,” and Moses is serious (laughing, I like the next line) “so if You are going to deal with me this way, please kill me at once.” I mean, let’s not drag this out, I’m being killed by a thousand pricks and stabs, Lord, just get it over with, kill me, if You’re not going to help me out here, kill me. And the Lord is gracious, what does He do? Verse 16, “The Lord therefore said to Moses, ‘Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel.’ ” You see, the elders are a recognizable group, but it’s too spread out, it’s too diverse, it’s not centralized enough, so God says select 70 men from the elders. So this is going to be leaders among the leaders, if you will, elders who will be an inner circle with Moses and Aaron in carrying the responsibility for the nation, and then it’ll be delegated out to the other elders and then from there. So the point we want to see is the elders come in, they help for the order, and part of the things they’re going to have to deal with is complaints, problems, and difficulties. You know, if these were just all God’s people and we’re just marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful city, and we’re going to the Promised Land -- that’s not the kind of people we deal with. We’re on our way to glory and we find more things to fight about. It’s a problem, so there’s a leadership structure established.

You come to the New Testament, we’re not going to take the time to look at those passages, but you find it in the gospels, you find it in Acts. You have the leadership and you’ll see the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders -- the elders were leaders of individual synagogues that developed in the inter-testament period -- and they together formed a leadership -- with the elders, the Pharisees and the scribes -- to lead the nation, so this had leadership structure. Naturally Paul would have grown up with it being raised a Jew. Elders led these individual synagogues; well, we’re going to have now individual churches. What would their individual leaders be? They’d be men of dignity, men of responsibility, men who take charge; we’ll call them elders, so that’s the background. Where does this come from? The word “overseer” because it’s used interchangeably with elders as we saw in Titus chapter 1. In verse 5 he calls them elders, down in verse 7 he calls them overseers, so it’s interchangeable in that sense.

Come over to Acts 20, Acts 20. Paul, he’s traveling and he’s on his way back to Jerusalem so he’s on a time schedule. He’s stopping at a port, Miletus, and further inland is the city of Ephesus where Paul has ministered. He will write to Timothy, the 1 and 2 Timothy, while he’s at Ephesus. He’ll write the letter to the Ephesians, his ministry at Ephesus is recorded in the book of Acts. But here in verse 17, at this seaport since he doesn’t want to take the time to go inland, he calls. It says “From Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders (plural) of the church (singular).” Again, you see the connection, a plurality of elders in a single church. They came to him and he gives them some instruction on how he’s taught them the word of God, and he’s willing to put his life on the line for the word. What he’s doing here is setting an example for these elders, because Paul’s moving on and the apostles will soon move off the scene, Paul sooner than John. John will survive Paul by 30 years, but the apostles are not going to be there and Paul’s not going to be at Ephesus.

It will be like this, the elders are left with the responsibility to carry on the ministry, so Paul tells them in verse 26 and 27 he’s free from responsibility for them because he taught them the whole counsel of God. Elders have to realize the key responsibility being passed on to them. This is what gives you a clear accountability record before God, that you’re faithful with His word. Elders can’t control other people, but elders have no excuse for not being faithful to the word. Elders have to be the kind of men that will not be moved away from the word because of the pressure, because if they do then everything is thrown into confusion and the problem comes. Savage wolves are going to make their way in among the church at Ephesus, verse 29. Verse 30, “And from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things.” You know sometimes it gets hard to tell, who is the believer and who is the unbeliever. The elders have to be men with their feet firmly planted and they’re not going to be crushed by opposition.

Now I want you to note something, verse 28, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.” We’re going to see guidelines for selecting elders but the ultimate authority for a man being in the position of an elder is not other elders or people in the church, it is the Holy Spirit. Now He’s not doing it directly, He’s doing it indirectly, that’s why we’ll look through qualifications in Titus chapter 1, that’s why He’ll give them their responsibility in His word. It’s not like, well, we don’t know what to do. Well, go to the word and see what it says. It’s sufficient, the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, there’s a principal of leadership here. I mention this but I know every time something comes up, p-shoo! You know, we want to be faithful. God says in Romans 13 that He has appointed all the authorities in their various capacities, including the governmental authorities. When you disobey them, you are disobeying God’s word, He put them in authority. That doesn’t mean when they tell you to do something unbiblical, but we can’t dress ourselves up as spiritual, godly people and disobey the leadership God’s put over us. And I always use the example, this is God’s plan, there’s order within the godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There was order from the beginning of creation. Two people created and put in a perfect environment, one called Adam, one called Eve. You know what, why do you need a leadership structure? You’ve got two people, they’re the first husband and wife, and they have no sin. You talk about perfect harmony and God has appointed one as the leader over the other. The Bible tells me, so the order of creation established the leadership structure, God created the man as male first then as female second. God says through Paul that established an order of authority and all God’s order, in the angelic realm, in the unfallen angels, there is an order of authority. We know of Michael, the Archangel. There’s sinless angels serving in the presence -- there is still order established, so I want to be careful that we understand.

And note also here in verse 28, “guard for yourselves,” that’s a responsibility of the elders, they have a responsibility to guard the flock. The Holy Spirit appointed you to oversee the flock for that point, for that purpose, to shepherd the church of God. Now here you see, you see all three of these words used here. He called the elders of the church up in verse 17. Then you come down to verse 28 and it says, “the Holy Spirit has made you overseers,” that’s our word, “to shepherd,” there’s our word “poimenas,” pastor, shepherd. So all three words of those are used here interchangeably, and you can see you are elders you’ve have been entrusted with this responsibility to have the maturity, and you are to exercise oversight, you are to shepherd.

Shepherds had to give their life for sheep. Remember David the shepherd said when he was out there and a lion or a bear got one of the sheep he went after it and if all he could bring back was an ear, he brought back the ear to show he didn’t give up on that sheep. He was accountable for it and he could give an account, and He would fight with the bear, he’d fight with the lion. That’s all right, my responsibility is to protect the sheep, so you see what is happening here. So he tells these elders, overseers, shepherds, “be on the alert,” verse 31, and “I commend you,” verse 32, “to God and the word of His grace, which is able to build you up,” so this is the responsibility that he is talking about, those are overseers, the pastor, it’s used here, the shepherd. The shepherd, that’s the word used of the kings in Israel, so this metaphor, because the people are used to it. What’s a shepherd do? It protects the sheep, he guards the sheep. Jesus used it, He said I am the good shepherd, I give My life for the sheep. That metaphor permeates scripture, for if one has the oversight to carry the responsibility, it means you do what’s inconvenient, but you do what you are supposed to do.

Come back to the Old Testament, come back to Numbers, Numbers 27. Now Moses has come to the end of his leadership responsibility for Israel, he can’t go into the land, he sinned, God says you can’t lead the people into the land. Moses is concerned for the people. He says 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, and 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.’ ” That’s the most damaging thing, that the sheep have no shepherd, I think that’s one of the reasons we don’t go back there. But in Numbers chapter 16 one of the sins most directly dealt with by God Himself was the sin of Korah. You know what Korah did? He counseled rebellion against the leaders, Moses and Aaron, that God had appointed. David murdered and committed adultery and murdered and he didn’t get punished like Korah.

You know what happened to Korah and his family? The ground opened up to them and they went immediately to Hades, and then fire came out from the Lord and burned up those 250 men of renown who thought they were more spiritual than the leaders God appointed. I mean, that’s a lesson! Why? Because if Korah had succeeded in overthrowing Moses and Aaron where would Israel have been? We would have appointed our own shepherd. Korah would have been the one. Well, it’s not God’s appointment. This is serious business. You know, we as Christians, and we’ll talk about this as we move through Titus 3, we pick out the sins we want to call bad so we can still act spiritual when we’re committing our own sins. And that was the sin of the Pharisees; we want to be very, very careful? So you know what he’s going to do? Next verse, verse 18, “the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit and lay your hands on him.” Verse 20 “You shall put some of your authority on him, in order that all the congregation of the sons of Israel may obey him.” Now he’s got men with him, he’ll have the seventy elders of Israel… That structure has not been dismantled but it all is built accordingly.

We want to take this seriously. Come over to, l Kings chapter 22, 1 Kings 22, 1 Kings 22, you’ve studied it. But this is about Ahab, and the nation is divided, you have ten nations in the north and two in the south, that happened under Solomon’s son. Years have gone by now, we have Jehoshaphat is the king in the south. Ahab, we all know Ahab a lot because he’s married to a famous woman, Jezebel, yes, Jezebel, and he’s a godless man. Well, the king of the southern kingdom Jehoshaphat and Ahab are going to join together to go to war. A bad idea, Jehoshaphat shouldn’t align himself with such a king, and so they get together and Ahab has all his prophets who are godless prophets. Jehoshaphat’s uncomfortable, he says isn’t there a man of God up here that we could call on the name of the Lord to ask His direction before we go to war. And you know, people pick and choose their leaders, this is what happens. Ahab: Oh, yeah, there’s a man of God here but he never says what I like to hear, so I don’t want to listen to him. We don’t want to be like that, well, yeah, there’s a man of God here, but I don’t like what he says. In other words, I don’t like what God has to say to me so I don’t listen to Micaiah, Micaiah the prophet. Jehoshaphat insists, well, let’s have him come, so they send for Micaiah, the prophet. And the messenger who comes to Micaiah has some good advice, “the messenger,” verse 13, “who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, ‘Behold now, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king,’ ” referring to Ahab, “ ‘Please let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably.’ ” Look, we’ve got a good thing going, don’t ruffle feathers Micaiah. Everybody that’s spoken agrees Ahab ought to go out to war with Jehoshaphat, all you have to do is say I think they ought to go to war, that’ll make it a 100 percent, we’re good to go.

I like Micaiah, (verse 14) he said, “As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I shall speak,” that’s what you have to have. So he comes to the king, Ahab and Jehoshaphat’s there but Ahab becomes the key here. “The king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go up to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” Micaiah: Well, sure, “Go up and succeed, and the Lord will give it into the hand of the king,” now the way he says it you know he’s being sarcastic. So don’t get upset when I get sarcastic, I’m just following Micaiah. But Ahab realizes, what’s he say to him? “The king said to him, ‘How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?’ “

You know how conflicted unbelievers are, I don’t want to hear what the Lord has to say, now I keep telling you tell me what the Lord says. Now, why do you want me to tell you what the Lord says when you don’t want to hear what the Lord says. So Micaiah tells him, “he said, ‘I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep which have no shepherd.’ And the Lord said, ‘They have no master.’ ” You see what it is, you know what he’s prophesying, the death of Ahab, when Ahab dies. The king, he is the shepherd of Israel, the master. Then they’re like sheep without a shepherd. What do sheep do? Scatter, we’ve got to get back home. That’s what happens when the devil’s successful in destroying the leadership. One of the Puritans I like to read, Jeremiah Burroughs, he says (he’s writing in the 17th century) you can know that the devil will always attack the leaders so that he can scatter the sheep. That’s what the shepherds are, and Ahab is a wicked shepherd but you see he’s called a shepherd of Israel.

Well, we’ll go jump to Ezekiel 34, we don’t have time for the others, but you have to come to Ezekiel 34 because we’re going to come back to this in a future study in Titus, but Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel is commanded in Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 15, Jeremiah had a similar command and several other passages in Jeremiah, but we’ll pick up Ezekiel, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.” Who is he talking about? He’s talking about the kings, “and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock?’ ” Instead of taking care of the people, like Ahab, like subsequent kings, they’re taking care of themselves.

They’re in it for what they get, it’s a characteristic of godless people, they enrich themselves, look at leaders around the world today. I was reading of one in a communist country, they said he has a billion-dollar spread at a certain place in his country and that’s just one of the places, 250,000 men assigned to his protection. He’s taking care of himself, so much of the country is starving but he’s doing well. That’s what Israel had come to, you know, power, control, greed. There’s coming a day, come down to verse 23, “Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.”

You see, its God intention that His people have a shepherd. Jesus will be the Chief Shepherd, he is, he always is, was for Israel, is for the Church as we saw. But even in the kingdom, I take it, David will reign, I think he’ll reign in Jerusalem, probably over Israel; Christ will reign in Jerusalem over the world. Some take this to be a picture of the greater Son of David, My servant David referring to the greater Son of David, Christ. But it seems to me the language is clear, it’s My servant David, My servant David. But at any rate you’ll see being a shepherd, leading God’s people, that’s the responsibility.

Come back over to Titus. So we have these responsibilities, the leadership is committed to the elders, those that God has established, God made them overseers. Come over to 1 Peter chapter 5, I might as well put this verse in, we’re getting near the end. First Peter chapter 5 and the chapter opens up, “Therefore I,” Peter writing, “exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder.” He’s not only an apostle, he’s an elder; his apostolic authority and ministry, of course, encompasses all the churches but he can identify as an elder with them as well. He says to them what? Elders “shepherd the flock of God.” It’s My people, it’s God’s people, that’s why it has to be done according to His way, it’s His flock, it’s His household, and He appoints the leadership, exercising oversight.

There’s our three words again, shepherd “poimenas,” pastor oversight, the “episkopas,” the elder, the “presbuteros” exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily and so on, not lording it over those but being a godly shepherd, doing God’s will. And Hebrews 13 tells us that those put under the authority will be held accountable for their submissiveness and the elders will give an account. Their leaders will give an account and if they have to give a poor account like Moses often did to God about Israel it will not be well for them.

Now the elders are not independent bosses. Well, who are the elders responsible to? Back up to 1 Timothy 5, we won’t go into detail with this but I just mention it, the elders are accountable. It doesn’t mean I can do what I want as an elder or other elders can do what they want. We serve under the Chief Shepherd, Christ, He’s the head of the church, I am not, I am appointed here as His representative as the other elders are, it’s not my church, I am not the head of the church, Christ is.

Verse 17 of chapter 5 of 1 Timothy, “The elders who rule well are considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.” Now you have two aspects, pastors and teachers, leadership and teaching are two things required in an elder. A person might be a teacher but not a pastor-teacher as we had in Ephesians 4.

Then what if the elders do the wrong thing, what about if the elders sin? Well, there’s the same pattern as for everybody else. We’re familiar with Matthew 18, if your brother sins you go and reprove him, if he doesn’t listen, you reprove him again, if he doesn’t listen, you reprove him again, if he doesn’t listen then you cut him off. Basically the same thing, verse 19, “Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.” Elders get no more consideration, no less consideration, one witness against an elder is not enough nor do you need five witnesses against an elder. It’s the same thing as from the Old Testament to the New Testament, to Matthew 18, two or three witnesses if (verse 20) “those who continue in sin,” they don’t respond. Paul gives an abbreviated account. In Matthew Christ broke it out, first, you confront them, second, you confront them, third, you confront them, and if he’s still going to persist in continuing in sin then you rebuke him before everyone. So here, “those who continue in sin,” a present tense translated here continue in sin “rebuke.” And that’s a word, it’s a word used in the context of disciplining other people, it’s not a very serious harsh word, hard word as I was reading, but it’s a word often used. It’s used in Matthew 18 in the first step of discipline, if your brother sins go and show him his fault. Show him his fault could have been translated “rebuke,” it’s the same exact word as here, in fact, it’s in the imperative mood as well it’s given as a command. There is an aorist imperative; here is a present imperative, but the same word. You rebuke him, you show him his fault, you show him the correction that needs to be made, that’s what you do. “Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all,” if he doesn’t accept the rebuke and continues to sin then you deal with him. The same thing as there.

So elders…, oh well, I’m an elder, I don’t have to worry about if I sin, well, that’s all right, it’s not so serious. No, I’m accountable! Where is that accountable carried out? First, the account is carried out among the elders, of course, but then to the congregation. Anybody in the congregation can bring the accusation, but be careful. When the elders sort through this, this is…, sometimes we get into things, people don’t know what the elders have gone through before they even become aware. One person who’s told five friends doesn’t make six people who are witnesses, there’s only one witness. I at times ask people. Well, there’s somebody else, and then you talk to them. Well, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge, I heard it from… Well, then you can’t be a witness. What evidence? Well, I heard it from some… Well, that’s how gossip gets out, and so on. So elders, yes, they’re accountable the same way you are.

I’m accountable just like you are, two or three witnesses, and you have to come before the elders, and it is shown to be sin and I take if it gets to that where you have to have the multiple witnesses are pointing out, then it has to be dealt with, and if he won’t stop you follow through. So the elders are accountable. So when we’re talking about the leadership elders, it doesn’t mean elders can do whatever they want or elders say I don’t have to give an account to anybody else. The elders are responsible, we try to hold one another accountable. And anybody can bring an accusation, but one thing we want to know. How do you know this is true, is there anyone else besides you that knows this? You try to sort it out, you try to trace down. And some people think, well, I don’t know. But the elders can’t blab everything, sometimes the elders can’t say everything they know because it wouldn’t be fitting to make it public, and not proper. We have that…, we see it going on in what’s going on in government. But that’s why God appoints them. Well, I don’t trust the elders, I think they had ulterior motives. Well, deal with what you know, and I have a slide on that but I’ll have to save it for next time so you have something to look forward to next time. God has organized the church, He has brought structure and when we function according to His word we function under His authority. Christ is the head of the Church. You believe in verbal inspiration, we claim to believe it, but then we end up denying it when the pressure builds if we don’t follow through on it… So we want to repeat these things, fix them in their mind so that we’re not like Israel always running off the rails. And we read about it, why do they keep doing this?

Well, why do we keep doing it? Well, something supersedes the words, my emotions, my thinking, what I think should be done. I can’t find anywhere in the scripture, you can look it up, send me a note, we’ll look at it, where God appoints someone over the elders in the local church. I realize the apostles were over the local church; if you say you’re an apostle and you’re over the elders, it’s not going to go anywhere. But I don’t see anywhere there’s super elders. I’ve had this talk with so many people, it just seems to me you’re here as a super elder, you have appointed yourself to decide whether the elders are doing what’s proper. Like Korah appointed himself to decide the leaders that God appointed didn’t do the job the way he thought they should and the fact that he had 250 men that agreed with him wasn’t good enough.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of Your word, Lord, basic things that some might consider mundane but, Lord, they are of utmost importance. We are Your people gathered together as Your family, Your sheep in this place. We want Your authority, Your leadership, to guide and direct us, so we want Your word to be our final authority in all we do. I pray that might be true in our lives personally and in our walk day by day and then our life together as a church. Bless this day and all that we do, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
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