He was not an oil-on-canvas, not a die-cast martyr, a flannel graph figure, or a religious notion. He was man. He was God. And he still is, this Lamb of God.
God was pleased to focus all his Love, and all his Truth into this caller and leader of fishemen, and tax collectors and prostitutes, this friend of lepers, this rabbi who welcomed little children.
But he didn’t stay around long. His life was over when he was still a young man. His ministry lasted just months longer than I have been here at Monroe Christian Church.
And yet, what a priceless, eternal, treasure Jesus is. I say “is” because he still is, he always “was” and always “will be.” Peter and James and John, and the rest of the Apostle, not to mention Mary Magdalene and Janna, and the women who travelled with and ministered to Jesus, and Zaccheus and the demon possessed man: they all saw Jesus in the flesh.
Daily these men and women were taught God’s truth by the one who is God’s truth. It took them a while to understand who he really was, and it wasn’t even really until his resurrection when he spent 40 days with them teaching them many things that his truth finally began to sink in.
But even after he went to the Father, he left them with an indispensible, indescribable Gift who would guide them into all Truth. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does many things, but one of his key roles was to ensure that the truth of God, even the Good News, would be faithfully passed on for generations, until Jesus’ return, so that we could know Him and not be deceived. In His wisdom, God endowed upon the apostles the foundational role of teaching Jesus’ followers, the church, God’s truth.
One of the apostles main functions was the “ministry of the Word.” This meant they were given the weighty responsibility for faithfully proclaiming and transmitting the truth of God, the teaching about Jesus. As eyewitnesses of Jesus, they proclaimed what they had seen and heard through the power and knowledge given by the Holy Spirit.
Now, the last I checked, two thousand years, maybe, 10,000 generations, 104,000 Sundays, roughly 2,190,000 meal times, and billions and billions of McDonald’s hamburgers separate you and I from the ministries of these eye-witnesses, these apostles of Jesus, these faithful proclaimers of the word.
That is a lot of time and space. How can we trust that what we hear today is what was taught back then? Because I don’t want to be led astray. I don’t want to miss out on the treasure of living with our Lord for eternity. I want to know the truth. I want to pass on the truth so that others, like me, can experience the saving grace of Jesus daily enjoying his blessings even as they take up their crosses to serve and glorify Him.
What an amazing and perplexing responsibility the Lord has placed on people to take care of his Truth.
People are fickle! People have hidden agendas! Some people have low IQ’s! Some are too smart for their own good! Some are selfish, preoccupied, uncaring, greedy, self-serving, soft, too busy, why some . . . are even Ohio State supporters!
That is why Jesus—very God himself—spent three solid years personally training 12 men to fully understand and proclaim his truth. That is why he promised, and gave, them the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth. That is why God’s people have always been people who took God’s words and wrote them down, being careful in accurately transmitting them. whether it was in the times that led up to Jesus, or whether it was in writing down portions of his life and teaching—as John the Apostle says:
John 21 24 This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.
25 Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
We read about what Jesus began to do and teach in the Gospels, and we read what he continued to do through his church in Acts and the rest of the New Testament. God has never been one to leave his creation. God, as long as there is a day to call “Today,” is always seeking and calling people to himself through his son Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. We are called to God through him, and none other, and that never changes. And that is also why God has called for elders to shepherd his church.
Titus 1:5-16
5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. 6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. 7 Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. 8 Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. 9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
One of the key functions of one whom we call “elder” is found in verse 9. Let us read that again:
9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
An elder is entrusted with holding on to, guarding and protecting, the “trustworthy message”, that is, the truth that is found in, and taught about, Jesus, the Son of God. An elder is given responsibility to preserve the preciousness of the treasure that is the Good News.
We will come back to that point in a minute
An elder is a leader of the local church. Now, there are many types of (I like to use the term) Servant-leaders within a church, but an elder has a special function within the family of God.
Several words are used, some interchangeably, to describe what we commonly refer to in Christian churches as “elders.” Perhaps you have heard the terms: bishop, presbyter, shepherd, and pastor. These are just some of the many words we use in English to describe three main words that the Greek Bible uses.
1. poimainoi—Shepherd/pastor
"a man who is responsible for the care and guidance of a Christian congregation"
See Eph. 4:11 (cf. Acts 20:28; I Pet. 5:2).
2. episkapoi—overseer/bishop/care-giver
"a man who has responsibility for the care of someone" (Note: Often this word has
been viewed as stressing a position of power, but in reality the focus is upon the
responsibility of caring for others.) See Acts 20:28; Phil. 1:1; I Tim. 3:1,2; Titus 1:7.
3. presbuteros—elder/presbyter
"a man of responsibility and influence in a community"; “an older one” (Note: The Bible provides no guidelines with regard to the age of elders; perhaps it could be assumed that these “leaders" would be older than the average person in a group.)
"a council of elders, with emphasis upon maturity of judgment more than mere age."
See Acts 11:29-30; 14:23; 15:2, 4, 6, 22, 23; 16:4; 20:17; 21:18; I Tim. 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; I Pet. 5:1. See I Tim. 4:14 for the reference to "body of elders." (Most of the Definitions of the above, along with comments and scripture verses taken from Dr. Robert Lowery’s handout “Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind: What the Bible Really Says About Elders and Deacons, Spring 2007, Lincoln Christian Seminary)
I show you these words because many of us come from different traditions, familiar with different words. Sometimes the words we are used to, like “bishop” are really just words that sound like the Greek word, but really don’t tell us what the word means. Like our word “baptism” is from baptizo, but its meaning is really “to immerse”. If we hear the word bishop, we might be thinking of a “powerful religious man” who wears robes, etc. But as you can see, one of the main means of the Greek word it comes from is “care-giver.”
I ask you to note how these three words have a strong “relational” and “responsibility” and “caring” flavor to them. They are used by the New Testament writers (and Jesus!) to refer to men who are to care for the church as a whole.
Early I said that “An elder is given responsibility to preserve the preciousness of the treasure that is the Good News.” But after looking at these descriptions of elder/shepherd/care-giver, it is quite apparent that they are also to guard the preciousness of “the flock” as well.
And really, these two functions go hand in hand. As we have clearly seen so far in our study of Titus, sound (or healthy) teaching (doctrine) is directly tied to sound/healthy living. An elder is to help ensure that the church is sound in what it believes as well as how it lives.
The Message of the Cross, which flows from the Man/Son of God of the Cross, is powerful and effective to transform lives. It is the one truth that rises above all other truth, and is to be guarded and lived.
And elders are key servants of the Lord to help the body of Christ remain healthy in these regards.
Big Idea: Elders are spiritual men whose specific qualities enables them to guide the church to hold on to and live according to the truth.
Since elders are so key, perhaps we delve in a little bit to who Paul says are to serve as elders. (I want to thank Dr. Lynn Anderson for his book on Spiritual leadership, “They Smell Like Sheep” for his wisdom after 4 decades of serving as a leader of God’s flock, and for a simple approach that I will use as the main outline—and some content--of the sermon)
Let me say that “any man” can be an elder, Paul says
1 This saying is trustworthy: The one who would an elder be, A noble task desires he.
But not every man should be an elder, as they are. There are certain qualities that we look for. The qualities we will look at today can fall under two broad categories: Experience and Character.
An Elder has Experience.
Words and phrases in our text that point to experience:
• v. 5 “elder”
• v. 6 “children”
• v. 7 “above reproach”
• v. 9 “able to give instruction”
• 1 Timothy says “not a new convert” (3:6)
a) Experience with Life—
Age: Been around a long while
By the very nature of the word “elder” we are looking at someone who is tested over time. They have put some miles on the road of life. Exactly how old, the Bible does not say. I have known some elders to be in their mid-thirties, but those are more rare exceptions.
Age is not always respected in our culture, but that is where we need to depart from it: Age should bring with it, wisdom. Wisdom comes with Experience. Experience comes from encountering situations time and time again.
Their Savior: Been around Jesus a long While
In my first church I got to know a young teen who was very mixed up. He lived at home with his mom. His dad was nowhere to be found. This young man felt abandoned and had no male role model to express love and guidance. Consequently, to make sense of his world he turned to dabbling in magic, and struggled with homosexual feelings. What I didn’t know at the time was that his dad had, at one time, been a leader in the church. But he hadn’t been tested. He was a guy with lots of great ideas, and a lot of enthusiasm, and for a short period, seemed like a great fit. But he burned out and left a trail of destruction, not to mention an abandoned wife and son, in his wake.
Perhaps the church had been to hasty in selecting him for leadership. What we are looking for are men who have consistently shown growth in the Lord. Walking with Jesus over time can and should lead to growth and maturity.
(one way to think of who might make a good elder is to ask some questions like
[READ from book] Lynn Anderson’s “practical approach” to describing what an elder “is” (pp. 124, 125. Lynn lists several “who would you go to . . .” type of questions to help us think about who naturally, already, functions in the way the Bible describes shepherds)
“Been around the Devil a long while, too”
Shocker? This just means they are wise to the schemes of the devil and wise with the wisdom of the Lord, and can give practical advice in dealing with temptations that are bound to come.
b) Experience with the Word
v.9 says “able to give instruction in sound doctrine.” Our source of doctrine, or “teaching” comes from the Bible. First and foremost it is about Jesus. Not just “about him”, but a life with him. Jesus came, taught, was crucified and resurrected, and now is head of the body, that is, the church. The OT points to, and leads up to him, and the NT opens a window on his brief but impacting life and his continued influence and direction upon his people, or, as the Great Shepherd, his flock.
An elder “will not only be at home with the Bible, but at home sharing it with his flock.” (Lynn Anderson, smell like sheep, p. 141)
One of the marks of an elder is that he is able to teach the Word. This does not mean he has to be a gifted public speaker, but he needs to be able to open his Bible and give instruction, bringing it to bear on life.
c) Experience with Successful Family Relationships.
“the husband of but one wife” (v. 6)
This does not mean an elder has to be married. It means he needs to have demonstrated faithfulness to his wife that he has.
Some think this means a man who is divorced is automatically excluded. I had a professor in college that taught that. And certainly many Christians hold that. Any time a divorce happens, it is not a good thing. And any time a man desires to be an elder, but has been divorced, that situation needs close examination.
But the phrase here is not “can’t be divorced”, but is literally he must be a “one woman man.” This stresses his faithfulness to his wife.
Part of Paul’s concern is that an elder “be above reproach,” especially as outsiders see him. Divorce itself would not have brought condemnation from outsiders, but unfaithfulness or a track record of ruined relationships would have.
Instead, “a one woman man” highlights a healthy intimate relationship with his wife that is unmarred by infidelity, and built up by steadfast and concrete, committed, love.
“A man who brings a glow to the face of his wife will brighten the lives of his flock as well.”
The Message says:
6 As you select them, ask, “Is this man well-thought-of? Is he committed to his wife? Are his children believers? Do they respect him and stay out of trouble?”
The true story of one Christian brother, Jim, shows the importance of a man with experience in loving his family. He recalls:
“I . . . met this girl at a church in Dallas where I had begun worshiping on my way back to the Lord. We fought, fussed, and argued all the time. We argued in front of people, even at church. One Sunday, our song leader invited me to dinner at his house. HE was a very gentle, king and gracious man. Although I did not know him well, I admired him greatly. After dinner he brought up my dating relationship and gently talked with me about how a Christian man treats a Chrsian young lady. I felt this man gently shepherd me that evening. I was not surprised when some months later the congregation asked him to serve as an elder.” (They Smell like Sheep, p. 135)
This leader’s experience and success within his own family led him to be able to guide, or shepherd, a younger man who desperately needed some counsel—even though he didn’t recognize it himself.
Dr. Anderson concludes:
“If a man’s life cannot stand the scrutiny of his wife and children, we dare not put our souls under his care.”
But a life long relationship with our Lord, visibly worked out within the context of a man’s own family or close relatonships, will go a long way to ensure that he will be a shepherd, who like God, loves the sheep.
There is a proper balance that needs to be had here. The very title of the book on spiritual leadership, “They Smell Like Sheep,” means that a shepherd will “smell like sheep” if he is ministering as he should. He will be out among them, guiding, and caring. But he will also balance that with his family. If his family is being neglected time and again “for the sake of the church,” he will not be effective in one of his primary roles.
[NOTE to Sermoncentral readers: I cut the sermon off at this point, due to time, and scuttled the original conclusion. What follows are some quick, on the spot thoughts I used to end it]
I have known several men who served as elders, and none of them were perfect men. But all of them, according to their gifts and strengths established by the Lord, did "set the bar" for others to model themselves after.
What is important to remember that the key function of elders is to serve within relationships, not to wield power. Lynn Anderson observes:
"The authority of an elder grows, not out of a title embalzoned across a church letterhead, but out of the quality of the elder’s life: the credibility of his walk with God, the genuineness of his service, the authenticity of his relationship with the sheep. This is why the qulaities of his life are so crucially important." (They smell like Sheep, p. 127)
May we uphold our current elders in prayer, honor them for their service, and may our men continually and humbly live in such a way that they too, may serve a crucial role in the life of God’s church.
