Text: I Timothy 3:1-7,14-15 Title: The Noble Task of an Elder Let s open our Bibles this morning to I Timothy 3. There s a pretty good chance that many of us limped into church today. I m not talking about physically, though that may be the case. I m talking about spiritually. You ve struggled to connect with God this week. You haven t opened your Bible since last Sunday. Your praying was really shallow. You blew it big time and you re sure that God is mad at you. So you limped into church today and I m glad you did. You re exactly where you need to be. When Jesus walked this earth He noticed people who were like straying, struggling sheep sheep without a shepherd. That s why the church is important. Each church is a flock with shepherds. We all, like sheep, go astray and we need shepherds to watch over our souls to lead, feed and care for us spiritually. That role is assigned to elders in the church. Our church is preparing to install the first group of elders under our new bylaws. We have a brochure listing the biblical qualification for elders and inviting you to make recommendations. The forms are available in the Welcome Center and in the West Building. Please make your recommendations by Sunday, August 26 and remember that, with the exception of myself, the men on the Qualifying Council listed in the brochure are not eligible to serve in the first group of elders. This morning from I Timothy 3 I want to show you the kind of men God wants to serve as elders in a local church. Read I Timothy 3:1-7. ILLUSTRATION Leadership is crucial in every realm your family, the nation, and the organization you work for. I heard TCU coach Gary Patterson say one time that you know a player is a leader because the team is better when he s on the field. God leads His church through the church s leaders. A healthy church has healthy leaders. And God has much to say in His Word about the role and the work of leaders among us. 1 Thessalonians 5:12 - Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Because elders are such an integral part of the church, we re not surprised that the Bible gives the qualifications for elders in places like here in I Timothy 3. Paul writes to Timothy to instruct him on how elders are to be chosen. I say elders because we know there were multiple elders in just about every church we know anything about in the NT.
Rather than going line by line through the qualifications, I want to categorize them under three headings: 1. THE ELDER S CALLING 1 Timothy 3:1 - If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Notice that the leader is referred to by the name overseer. In the NT the titles elder, overseer and pastor are used interchangeably. Notice also that the elder is referred to with the masculine pronoun he. I won t take time to develop this today but the pattern is that this office is to be held by males in the church. And this is an office that one may aspire to as he feels the calling of God. If God has given you leadership giftedness, part of that is the desire to lead. Some men will feel the call of God and aspire to be an overseer, though he is not to campaign for the position. It s a noble task. The work of an elder/overseer/pastor is hard, sometimes thankless, often discouraging work. And men might be reluctant to take on the task. ILLUSTRATION I was a student minister for about five years in two different churches before I became a senior pastor. During those years I struggled with the call of God to be a pastor partly because I had spent five years working alongside and observing pastors. I saw how hard it was. I heard the criticism that was hurled at them. I saw the long hours they worked the evenings from their family being on-call 24/7. As a young man I wasn t sure I wanted to sign up for that. But God was calling me and part of the work God did in my life is that He gave me a love for the church that was greater than my own desire for comfort and ease. To this day, when young men ask me how to know if God has called them to be a pastor I say, You will have a love for the church that is greater than any other consideration. It s a noble task. OUTLINE - Leadership is about service, not about status. So there s the elder s calling and then there s 2. THE ELDER S CHARACTER
OUTLINE - The greatest contribution that elders make on the congregation is in the realm of personal godliness. That s why elders are admonished as in Acts 20:28a - Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Last week in my personal devotional time I came to Psalm 36 that talks about the man who has no fear of God. Psalm 36:2 - For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin. I put my Bible down and prayed, Lord, help me to be humble enough to detect and to hate my own sin more than I detect and hate the sin of others. I have to keep watch over myself. Elders are not spiritual super heroes. The character qualities for elders are to be discovered and developed in the lives of all believers. But those who are in leadership as an elder must be seen as good examples of what that character looks like. 1 Timothy 3:2 - Now the overseer must be above reproach The brochure we have printed for you says it this way: (His) life exhibits an overall moral uprightness, though he does not exhibit arrogance or a sense of superiority He cannot justifiably be accused by those inside or outside the church of unethical or immoral behaviors We re not talking about sinless perfection. We re talking about a man who, when he stumbles, is quick to confess it to God and those he has offended. He s walking in the light and sin is not a pattern in his life. There are no question marks hanging over his life. And the following verses show us what it looks like to live above reproach. First there are virtues. 1 Timothy 3:2 - The overseer must be the husband of but one wife
Literally, he is a one woman man. I don t think this means that an elder must be married. The construction of the phrase here leaves open the possibility that he may be single. The main point Paul is getting to here is that if the elder is married he is singularly and sacrificially committed to his wife. So this is not a requirement about marital status, but about marital faithfulness. I don t think that this necessarily prohibits divorced men from serving as elders. In the Gospels Jesus allows for remarriage after a divorce that was caused by the mate s infidelity. Again, this is not about marital status but about marital faithfulness. We need leaders who model faithfulness in marriage. 1 Timothy 3:2 - The overseer must be temperate, self-controlled, respectable What a powerful bundle of virtues. Temperate means he is well-balanced, calm and careful. Self-controlled is very similar. The word was used of an athlete in training who restrains himself for the sake of the race. Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit evidence that a person is filled with the Holy Spirit. All of this leads to a weightiness about a man s life that makes him respectable and highly esteemed by other believers. 1 Timothy 3:2 - The overseer must be hospitable The word means a friend of strangers. He s not a cliquish person who hangs around with just a few people. His life is open to others, even those he doesn t know that well. He s interested in the needs of everyone, not just those who are his close friends. For some this is a gift; for all this is a virtue to be developed. Those are the virtues in v.2. I ll talk about what it means to be able to teach in a moment. In v.3 we have the vices that must not be seen in elders. 1 Timothy 3:3 - The overseer not given to drunkenness This is the opposite of the self-control talked about in v.2. For the sake of his influence the leader is not under the influence of alcoholic beverages. Don t do anything that would impair your judgment and diminish your influence. 1 Timothy 3:3 - The overseer not violent but gentle
He s not a bully who pushes others around emotionally, verbally or, certainly, physically. Instead he is gentle. Gentleness is also a fruit of the Spirit, evidence that a man s life is controlled by the Spirit of Jesus and not by his sinful impulses. 1 Timothy 3:3 - The overseer not quarrelsome Elders have to deal with difficult, sensitive issues. If he is quarrelsome and contentious he will be difficult to work with. Instead he s to be a man that pursues peace. 1 Timothy 3:3 - The overseer not a lover of money. A man who loves money puts money above everything else. He is greedy, covetous and self-serving. We don t need that. Elders will be among the most generous people in our church. Now jump down to v.6 as we continue to talk about character. 1 Timothy 3:6 - He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited An elder must be spiritually mature. To put someone in a leadership role before the Spirit of God has forged in them the character of Christ could cause a man to become proud, arrogant and conceited. Elders must be men who are humble. 1 Timothy 3:7 - He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil s trap. An elder must be well thought of in the church and out into the community. So there s the elder s calling and character. And to go along with those there s 3. THE ELDER S COMPETENCE I love what the Psalms say about King David in Psalm 78:72 - And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them. OUTLINE - The primary duties of elders is to feed and lead.
1 Timothy 3:2 - Now the overseer must be able to teach, God communicates to and leads His people through His Word. The church is strengthened and sanctified through the thorough, consistent, faithful teaching and preaching of the Word of God. 1 Timothy 5:17 says that some of the elders primary duties are preaching and teaching. But all of the elders are to have such a grasp of the Word of God that they can insure that the church is being fed on the Scriptures and protected from false teaching. When issues arise in the church elders are responsible to say, Let s see what the Bible says about that and follow Scripture. So elders must be competent to feed the church with the Word and to lead the church. And one way you can know if they can lead the church is to see how they lead (manage) their family. 1 Timothy 3:4 - He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. To manage is to lead by influence. He s not a heavy-handed tyrant with his wife or kids, but they respect him because he s a man that walks what he talks, who lives what he leads. He s not perfect, nor are his wife or kids. He s an ordinary guy with an extraordinary calling and task who leads his family well. Why? 1 Timothy 3:5 - (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God s church?) Once again, elders are charged with the task of ruling, leading and directing the church. They must be men who can think missionally and strategically. They re not going to be involved in the day-to-day operation of the church. Staff and deacons will tend to that. Elders are at the 30,000 foot level overseeing the big picture issues of the church. They must be men who have the wisdom to marshal the resources of the church to fulfill the mission given by Jesus to make disciples of all nations. So they will be men of courage who can make difficult decisions about what is best for the life of the church. So on those Sundays that we limp into church like straying, struggling sheep we have shepherds who watch over our souls who lead, feed and care for us. I look forward to having men like this around me. And I hope you re starting to catch the vision of how healthy our church can be when we re led by men like this, working
alongside staff and deacons to build up the church. Let s pray for God to give us such men.