Good order requires godly character

Good morning. We're continuing through our series in Titus and Titus is a letter written by Paul the Apostle to Titus the pastor for the sake of God's elect, which is a church. So we want to start by really asking what is a church? That's a funny question to ask because here we are In a church? At a church? With a church? How did you discover us? How did you find us? Did you look for the name on the sign? Was it a steeple on the building? What were you looking for when you came in? Was it maybe the pulpit and the pews? Is that how we identify a church? Is it a choir with robes? Maybe you're looking for really a sign with a clever pun like CH space CH. What's missing? You are, ha. We have different symbols and ideas of what would make up a church. Well, the Bible doesn't leave us guessing when we have questions as important as what is a church, because this is a word that Jesus uses very importantly. Church is the beloved bride, washed, purchased by the blood of Christ. The church is the temple, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit setting apart a people for God himself to be built up in worship, built on the cornerstone, Jesus Christ. It's a body of believers working together, submitting to the head, growing up together towards the head, Jesus Christ. It's a family, a household, adopted by the Father, in and through his son, Jesus Christ. The church ultimately is a people tied to who abide in Jesus Christ and bears fruit from that. A people committed to being together in a way that will build each other up by singing his word, praying his word, reading his word, hearing his word, fellowshipping around his word. Here we get to what does the church need to do? At the time of the Reformation, obviously, there's a lot of confusion as to what the church is. The Reformation, in many ways, is a correction over what the gospel is, but also what the church is, and the Reformers came up with three marks of a church. Right preaching of the gospel, right observance of the ordinances, and the right exercise of church discipline, that being knowing who is part of the church and how are they growing up as part of the church. Good beginning point. Today we're asking this question because church, Jefferson Park Baptist Church, we want to ask, how are we ordered according to God's Word? Or even, are there ways that we could be more faithfully ordered according to God's Word? We saw last week, chapter 1, verse 2 of Titus, God does not lie. He's a God who speaks. He's a God of truth. He's a God our Savior. The God who saved us calls us to an orderliness, instructions included. And so as we think about who God is, and we think about what he expects of us, the real overarching theme of Titus is the word order. Everything that's gonna flow out of this is order for the rest of the series through Titus. And there's an axiom for God's order. Sound doctrine, good works. Sound doctrine, good works. The right teaching and the right practice. A church will be ordered when it has the right doctrine and the right practice. If you're looking for one simple statement for the summary of the message, God has saved us, and he orders us. God has saved us, And he orders us. One of those is past tense. One of those is present. He who saved us orders us. Three points. God requires order. God requires order. Two, order requires elders. Order requires elders. And eldering requires order. God requires order, order requires elders, and eldering requires order in character and at home. First point, God requires order. Titus one, verse five. This is why I left you in Crete. Here, Paul, we don't know of when this missionary journey took place. It appears to be after even the third. We don't have an Acts account of this, but he and Titus appear to have gone through Crete and evangelized and saw converts in every town, and now he's saying, I left you there as I moved ahead, notice the purpose clause, so that you might put what remained into order. the apostle handing over to a pastor, an apostle handing over to Titus to make sure churches have a proper order. This word is actually from the medical field. It means to make straight. If there's a broken arm, the doctor puts it in order, he straightens it. If something's crooked, it's straightened. Order means it's straightened out. You set a broken arm, A church is people who've been saved that gather to rejoice in that salvation. A church still needs order. There needs to be an orderliness about what they do. Well, let's think about that by asking, what does it mean to be out of order? What are some of the things we know of where we've seen kind of a sign out of order? If a vending machine is out of order, what does that mean? It means you can put your money in, but that's a bad investment. You're not getting anything out of it. It's broken. It doesn't fulfill its purpose. If a bathroom says it's out of order, what does that mean? You can go in there, but it's probably risky. What if you sit in your car and all of a sudden you notice somebody else has driven it, your seats moved up, your mirrors are off, it's out of order. That's dangerous. A church that is out of order is not sound in doctrine and or is not promoting godliness. It is dangerous, it is gross, it's a bad investment. Again, if we just look back at the whole theme of Titus, notice how it begins chapter one. He's writing for the sake of the elect, that is the church, for their knowledge of the truth. which accords with godliness. Over and over again, I hope you're reading this throughout the week, over and over again you'll see teaching and good works, sound doctrine and godliness over and over again. That is order. Trusting what God said, doing what God commanded. Churches can be out of order by denying true doctrine. Churches can be out of order by denying good works. These two are essentially, the axiom is what I called them earlier, the rule of God's order, they have to go hand in hand. Disorder is when a church overlooks sin and doesn't teach what it means to confess. Disorder is when a church doesn't invite repentance and promote reconciliation and forgiveness. A church that's out of order isn't exalting Christ and emphasizing Him and what He's done for us and what He expects of us. Church is not supposed to be a haphazard organization. Notice chapter 2 verse 14. Church should be zealous for good works. Chapter 3 verse 14. A church should be devoted to good works. There's devotion, there's zeal. Acts 2.42 describes the church, and they were devoted to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. We need order. We need our loves properly ordered by God. We need our lives properly ordered by God. We need our fellowship and our organization and our own church to be ordered by God. Just as God does not lie, we should not lie. That's one way of bringing about God's order. God is not a God of lies. He's also not a God of disorder. Go back and look at Genesis 1. There's two things that really stand out in Genesis 1, which is a hymn of creation. It isn't written like a history. The history begins with these are the generations. It's written like a grand hymn of praise to the God who keeps declaring it good. And notice how orderly it is. Every day has its place and its purpose. He's not like the gods that the other nations worshiped, which were gods of chaos. No, he's a god who first put his finger, he spoke this world into existence, and it was a creation of goodness and order. Well, where does all the disorder come from? It's us. Our sin. Disorder is when we all do what's right in our own eyes. Disorder is when we refuse God and reject God. The church is supposed to be a new humanity, a new creation, a new beginning. 1 Corinthians 14 makes it very clear. He is not a God of chaos. He's a God of peace. The passage Brian read earlier, James 3, there's not to be disorder, there's to be peace. That's how God created us. That's why Jesus redeemed us. There's a number of key decisions that a church needs to make regarding order. I'll say one of the most important ones is what do we do when we get together? What does this gathering supposed to look like? We call this a worship service. Well, what's it supposed to look like? I wanted to walk through the order of service earlier because it's very important that we have an order to it. We're singing God's word. We're not singing our own truth. We're trying to paraphrase and mimic and declare his truth in song. We want to read his word. We want to pray his word. We want to make sure we're going through all the different aspects of what a religious life looks like and that we're praising him, we're thanking him, we're confessing our sins, we're hearing from him. Worship has a fullness to it. Because we are a people who praise God and confess sin and find forgiveness, and we thank him. What I wanna encourage you here is we wanna make sure that as a church, God's word is always central. God's word is always the center, the gospel is always at the center. If you look at what Paul says to Titus to insist upon and to declare, you'll see there in chapter two, it's a gospel declaration. 2.15, declare these things. And then 2.9, insist upon the worthy sayings, the praiseworthy sayings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church, we need a opportunity for self-reflection. How are we ordered? How can we be better ordered? Where do we lack devotion as a church? Here's a very important question. It's one I want you to be praying about and thinking about. Where are we expecting God's blessing, but withholding our obedience? Where do we want God to bless us, but yet we're withholding actual obedience? I have two places I want to challenge us to think about specifically. The first is in our dependence upon God through prayer. Let's just be very, very honest. Prayer is hard. It's taking things out of our control. It's taking things out of our work. It's saying I'm going to stop working and I'm going to do then a very difficult task. I'm going to bring my request to God and I'm going to trust him. Prayer is not easy. Prayer takes practice. It takes training. Many of you are probably like me. I oftentimes fill up those disciples that Jesus said, come up with me and pray and fall asleep. It's hard to be watchful in prayer. Because there's an absolute dependence, there's a focus, there's an intensity, I'm going to be real and honest about all my issues, about all my friends' issues, about my church's issues, about the world's issues, and I'm going to bring them before you, God, even though I don't understand, and I'm going to lift them up to you, and I'm gonna trust you. It's not easy. But it's the invitation of God. Let me encourage you, prayer requires training. Well, first of all, the Christian life requires prayer, and prayer requires training. This is why we have our Wednesday night prayer service. We learn to pray by praying with others. You train others to pray by praying with others. There's a way in which we come together and unite in dependence upon God. I encourage you, if you've not come to our Wednesday night prayer service, it's a time in which we are setting aside a specific, just 45 minutes of prayer, to say together we're gonna depend upon you. Together we're gonna lift our request upon you. Together we're gonna train one another up. And the honesty there is praying is difficult. It requires training. The second place I looked at challenges, in our relationships. It would be just fantastic if all we needed to do was take some seminary classes and read our Bible and then grow in godliness. Let me just be very clear, one of the weirdest degree names is Master of Divinity. Those who graduate from seminary get Masters of Divinity. There's nothing more true, or nothing more false in that declaration or that name. Any good degree will teach you what you don't know, actually. But there's a problem where if all we do is listen to good sermons, and all we do is take lectures, and all we do is read, and we're not actually in life together, if we're not actually doing what God has called us in that good works of relationship, we're not really training in godliness. Your head's probably gonna grow a lot. The church is where God has called your head and your heart to grow. Ephesians 4 is where Paul transitions from the great declarations of all God has done, and then he says, now therefore walk worthy of the calling. And one of those ways in which we walk worthy of the calling is to bear with one another. A nice translation of that might be put up with one another. There's something wonderfully honest about that as a church. People are kind of difficult. We can be kind of difficult. It's when that rub takes place and grace has to be exercised. Slow to take offense. Quick to seek reconciliation. There's something there where that's where training takes place. That's where the dross is removed and the gold refined. We need relationships, not just knowledge. God requires order. Second point, order requires elders. Notice how he just jumps right next to that point, and they're related, they're clearly together. I left you there so that, there's a purpose, you might put what remained into order. They need more truth, more godliness, and the way in which they're going to get that truth and the training in godliness is by Titus appointing elders in every town. Now, he's gonna give a list of the ways in which you identify an elder, and there's no way Titus is gonna know who those men are. He's gonna need recommendations from the church. He's gonna look at these men, he's going to inspect them, but he's gonna have to hear from the church, who are the men who have these kind of homes, who have this kind of temperament? The church needs the right leadership. Now notice here it says elders in verse five, and then it says verse seven, overseer. There's two different names, but it's the same office. We can see this from 1 Peter 5, verses one and two. Peter exhorts the elders and tells them to shepherd, that is the word for pastor, and to exercise oversight, which is the word for overseer. An elder oversees and shepherds, a pastor elders and oversees, an overseer elders and pastors. They're synonymous in their title and work. You can see it again in Acts 20. The word elder here, what does that mean? It means maturity. Now, we can look around and we can say we know what physical maturity looks like. We know what it looks like to get old. But what does spiritual maturity look like? Well, he describes that in verses seven and eight. He's to point mature believers, mature men specifically, as we know, in every town, every place where new believers have started to gather through the evangelistic work of Paul and Titus, they're supposed to start gathering, and they need to be put in order, and they, therefore, need elders. I wanna be very clear about something. you can have a church without elders. You can have a people who gather in a home and read the Bible and pray for each other and do many things which Christ calls us to do, but it appears here, Titus is being told elders are needed for that order within the church. It doesn't promise there'll be elders. It doesn't promise there'll be order with the elders. Elders do not guarantee order. But in order for a church to have long-term health, they need to have someone who is going to regularly model godliness and teach God's truth. Notice those two themes show up in the qualification or the requirements for elders. The church, according to verse one, needs truth and godliness. Well, what does an elder need? He needs godliness and truth. He needs to hold fast to the word of God so that he can teach it. He needs to have a life that demonstrates it. Truth and godliness are what's supposed to order the man so that he can then bring God's order to church. There's two main parts. There's truth, he gives instruction, verse nine, and then he models that truth. To back out of here for a moment, there's many things elders are commanded to do. Pray, watch themselves, watch over the flock, teach, correct, rebuke. There's a number of different commands. What's unique here about the elder? I think there's two unique works of the elder. One, Ephesians 4 says the elders equip the rest of the members of the church, what he calls saints, for their ministry. An elder does the job of equipping. The elder does the job of making sure that the members of the church are built up and trained so that they are more capable, more trusting, more able to bless others. So there's an equipping aspect, but if we look at this entire way in which you're looking for elders, the thing that seems to be most unique about the elders is after the so that in verse nine, They're able to give instruction and to rebuke those who contradict it. Elders equip, elders instruct and rebuke. Now we also know that elders are the only people who teach. Women are actually gonna be called to teach what is good in just the next chapter. It appears here what elders are doing is they're pace setters. They're teaching regularly what should be heard by the church. They're teaching regularly what is good and profitable and right and worthy. Elders are the thermostats. They're setting the pace. They're setting the temperature of the church. They're not putting their finger up and trying to figure out what does the church want. No, they're looking to God's word. They're trying to move the church forward to greater godliness. The goal is to help the church trust Christ more. by being trustworthy. The goal is for the church to love Christ more by constantly pointing to him. An image I like to use here is a picture of a flock, a sheep. Well, the work of the pastor is to point to the center of the field where Christ is. where the church gathers and just rejoices him and the constant push is to say, go, go and worship him. Go and grow with him. And the church gathers there and they rejoice and grow together. The elder, he stays on the outside. He helps those who are still on the fence between loving the world or loving Jesus. He tries to pull them off that fence. That the elders on the outside with the sick sheep and the hurting sheep trying to help them heal, to push them on the inside so they would love Jesus more. The elders on the outside, holding out, holding off the wolves that want to get on the inside so they can devour the sheep and cause chaos. They instruct the sheep, go worship Jesus. They let off the wolves, no, you will be silenced. You will not hurt the flock of God. They do this by making sure that what the church regularly hears is what's most important. This is a good opportunity for you to be thinking about what do you normally hear? What do you normally hear at Jefferson Park? What do you normally hear when you're putting on your favorite music or your favorite podcast or your favorite TV shows? What are you normally hearing? But right now, I want to think about what do we hear when we gather? Because what we are always and regularly talking about is what's going to be regularly forming us. There's a danger in being a teacher. I could have my favorite hobby horse and I could make sure it becomes yours by regularly repeating it. That's a danger, I wanna be aware of that, and I want you to be aware of that, and I want you to help me be aware of that. We should think about our services as like a word cloud. What are we normally talking about? What's most important? What's reverberating? What do we hear? What are we consuming? I'll give you an example. I could just be so emphatic about the work of reconciliation that every sermon ends up about reconciliation. Now, let me be very clear, that's one of the grand doctrines of all Scripture, but it's not in every Scripture. If every Scripture's about reconciliation, we're missing a lot of other key themes and ideas, and the main point there is, even if it's a good doctrinal God-taught truth, if that's all we're hearing, we're not getting the whole counsel of God and not growing up into full maturity. Another example, through Titus, there's two words you're going to hear over and over again. Somebody shout it. What are they? That's not rhetorical. I need Isaiah. Self-control. Well, that's part of it. That is five times. That's a good one. Doctrine, truth, and good works, godliness. Every single section of Titus is built around truth and godliness, doctrine and good works, and self-control. That's part of the good works. It's right there in the middle of it, always. We think about the word cloud of a book. Samuel, what did you hear about a lot? I hope it was king. It's about a king. The goal of the elder is to present to God's people God's word in the way and emphasizing what God says. There's an order in the commitment, devotion, zeal for good works. There's an order in communication. What are we prioritizing and what we talk about? The work of an elder is to bring order by what we teach. Now let's get to the meat of it, and this is going to be the longer section. What is required of an elder? This is verses 6 through 9. What is required of an elder? Let me read it in its entirety. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For a naiver seer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it. Okay, let's just make some simple observations. Let's make sure we look at this text and think about it before we try to systematize it and expose it. Notice, above reproach is mentioned twice. That seems like a significant word. He must be above reproach, and then he mentions the home life of the elder. the first thing we see is that above reproach, and we'll answer what that means, I hope, but the first qualification there is that he says, first requirement, is about the home, husband of one wife and children who behave a certain way. Then look at verse seven, that was the elder title, now same person, same group, overseers, they need to be above reproach again, and then look, must be above reproach, must not be arrogant, must hold firm. Requirements, must. It's of absolute necessity. Now, if we back out a little bit more, I'm gonna clarify. Verse six is one sentence, and then verses seven and nine are one sentence. Greek doesn't always translate into English well. That's what we get there. It's a very helpful translation. It does not lose anything because what is captured in verses seven through nine is what an elder must be. Above approach, a man of character, a man who holds firm so that he can teach. Make sense? So there's three basic categories. There's home life, there's personal character, and then there's faith and teaching. Home life, that's verse six, there's personal character, that's verses seven and eight, and then there's faith and teaching, verse nine. This list is important for us, and I wanna be clear, please do not check out if you're not an elder, if you don't wanna be an elder, if you know you'll never be an elder, and here's why. All of these descriptions are what's expected of every Christian, except for what follows the so that after verse nine. This is what we all should be growing up to. Tell me which Christian should have more than one wife? Which Christian should not be a lover of good? Which Christian should avoid self-control? Which Christian should be greedy for gain? Now, what he's describing here is Just a mature believer. He's helping the church, he's helping Titus. No, here's what you're looking for. Here's the identity markers. Here's things you want to see before putting somebody in a position of responsibility and authority over the bride of Christ. That's what Karen of Bayway calls a well-cooked Christian. Elders don't come out of a microwave. They're well-cooked. They've been seasoned, they've gone through difficulty, they've gone through trial, they've studied the word of God, they've been faithful and proven. The aroma of Christ is in their commitments and their conduct and communication. It's also important because church, we ask for your recommendations regularly and we're gonna ask for them soon. For who you see as an elder and a deacon. You should be looking for these kinds of people. You should be praying for these kinds of people. You should be seeking to know how to help train these kinds of leaders. Let me be very clear here. You should expect from your elders these kinds of commitments and qualifications. Godly family, godly conduct, godly faith. Why should you expect these kinds of commitments out of your elders? Why? Because your elders are gonna expect the same kind of qualities out of you. This is what Christ expects of us. This is why Christ died for us. so that we can have godly homes, so that we can have godly character, so that we can have faith that's built up and steadfast. And God has simply said, I'm going to take some of the sheep and I'm going to appoint them to be under shepherds so they can help the rest of the sheep grow up more faithfully in me. All right, let's look at the words above reproach. This does not mean sinless. That would mean only Jesus could be your pastor. Praise God, he is your true chief shepherd. He is the good shepherd. He's the ultimate pastor of the church. He's the one who's purchased her. But then he appoints undershepherds, and it doesn't mean sinless. Above reproach means beyond the rebuke, that there's ways in which the elder, if confronted, he repents of sin. It doesn't mean he's sinless. The elder, he might not see sin, but when someone comes alongside to help, he seeks to repent. He has a life that models and demonstrates a regular pattern of commitment, godliness, repentance, confession. One pastor described it as, there's no significant buts when you talk about it. Yeah, so and so, but. That clear, public, Known flaw. That should be rebuked. That's a constant entangling sin. There's no pattern in their life that would say, but, and the reason here isn't just so they protect the church, but it's because they're gonna disgrace the name of Christ. We talked about in Samuel, a man after God's own heart. That's someone who isn't sinless. It's someone who repents of sin quickly. and obeys God's command quickly. I believe it's the same thing here. So we're not looking for sinless men, we're looking for men who take responsibility for sin by confessing, we're looking for men who take responsibility for commands by obeying, we're looking for men who take responsibility for other people by loving them and caring for them. Another word here I wanna make sure we get, verse seven, God's steward. I once was looking for a pastor friend, and I wasn't sure of the name of the church, so I called the church, and I said, hey, is this so-and-so's church? I was thinking Bill, is this Bill's church? And this sweet lady from Georgia, well, no, sir, this is Jesus Christ Church, but he does work here. Would you like to talk to him? The shame I had. I said, no, I'll call back whenever he doesn't know I was just rebuked so wonderfully by his secretary. The church belongs to Christ. We're all stewards of it. But the men God calls to be pastors recognize that it's Christ's church that he's purchased and that they're seeking to be obedient for the purpose of glorifying him. Let's get into these more specific qualifications. Husband of one wife. This doesn't mean not polygamy. It's specifically focused on being a faithful husband who loves one woman. There's an exclusivity. He knows how to control his passions, his desires, his emotions. His eyes don't wander. He knows how to be disciplined in a way that he keeps a covenant. It's important for an elder. Covenant keeping. Marriage love requires an affection that says no to so many feelings and options. Discipline and desires. This is important because there's a way in which the elder is called to care for Christ's beloved bride. There's an importance there of being a man who just loves one woman. He has to know how to love her. He must show he first loves her before he can think about how to love Christ, the love bride. Sadly, we know how sex scandals in churches have brought shame in the name of Christ. You know what's interesting is it doesn't speak anything about the wife's behavior. It just says his love for his wife must be obvious. His focus and exclusivity of being a one-woman man must be obvious. But his children, they're supposed to be witnesses in their behavior. And his children are believers not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. Now, I earlier said that this translation is helpful, reliable, except for this one word, believers. I find that to be unhelpful. There's two options for this word. One, you could translate it believers, that is actually an accurate way of translating that word, or you could translate the same exact word the way that it's translated in verse nine. Trustworthy. Same word. Believer means somebody who has received it. Trustworthy means somebody who's faithful or reliable. I am opting to not go with believer because I don't know how any parent can take responsibility for their child having faith. I believe there is a way in which a parent must take a responsibility for a child's trustworthiness. Faithfulness. We can train those things. You can't create faith in your child. But you can train a faithfulness in your child. If you have questions about that, please come talk to me afterwards. There's no way we can infuse faith in our child. Oh man, I really wish it were so. We can be a distraction from the gospel. We can train them to be faithful, and notice the qualification there, and not open to the charge of wild living or insubordination. Why is this here? The way a dad trains, disciplines, corrects, instructs his children will demonstrate the health of his character and conduct. A dad who's always harsh, a dad who never corrects and is lazy and apathetic and doesn't ever speak to the children is most likely going to promote a child who is not faithful, who is open to the charge of debauchery and subordination. A dad must be able to gently and lovingly speak kind words, gently and lovingly Discipline be clear with expectation be clear with instruction. That's what kind of elder we want Now I need to be also very clear a Child's behavior doesn't always reflect the parent The disqualification here would be if you could see that that parent has a clear one-for-one connection. The parent acts like this, and now that helps explain why the child acts like that. There are pastors who I think have rightly said there's obvious qualification, depending on what kind of connection there is between the parent's lifestyle and the child's behavior. You have to be very careful about giving those qualifications. The child's behavior demonstrates, the main point here, that the elder is able to lovingly, kindly, clearly instruct, train, and correct. That's why the family matters. Next, next full sentence, the overseer, the one who's giving oversight, the one who's watching over God's people as God's steward, must be above reproach. Notice there's five negatives, six positives, five vices, six virtues. Now, it's helpful to realize this is not an exhaustive list. 1 Timothy 3 is also a list, and there's other words there. There's other expectations, there's other Negations. There's other qualifications. It's not exhaustive. It's also, I want to repeat, because you got to get this, the elder is simply someone who models what a mature Christian is. And he needs to have this order in his life so that he can help bring order to the church. Let's walk through the negatives. He must not be. These are things that need to be excluded. These are things that need to be set aside. The first is arrogance. The word here actually means something along the lines of self-willed. Now if it isn't obvious why you would want to avoid a self-willed pastor, if the whole point of a pastor is to pray thy will be done, if the whole point of the pastor is to promote the will of God, a self-willed pastor isn't going to be much of a Christ promoter or much of a team player. A self-willed pastor, a self-willed man is going to insist upon his own opinions and his own convictions. Again, what do you regularly hear coming out of somebody's mouth? Is it clearly the words of Scripture that they can show you from Scripture, or is it opinions and convictions? We need to have wills that are washed by Christ, transformed by Christ. Someone who is bent in on themselves cannot help others be bent back to Christ. So the first thing you're looking for is someone who is not self-willed arrogant. The second one is quick-tempered. Now this one makes sense out of arrogance. Someone who's arrogant, when they don't get their way, what do they do? They blow up. Someone who insists upon his own way loses their cool pretty quickly. There's a temper. They're not disciplined in their anger. They're not disciplined in their expectations. You know, when you see a child throw a tantrum in a store, that's just kind of awkward. You know, you don't want to look. It's just kind of embarrassing to see and kind of annoying to hear. When an adult throws a tantrum, it's just gross. The man needs to have control over his temper. He must not be a drunkard. That's a lack of self-control. There's a sense here in many of these. There's a sobriety, a sensibility, a seriousness. A drunkard's someone who is simply unhappy and discontent. Someone who's seeking some kind of satisfaction outside of Christ because he is not enough. Violent. A way of translating this would be a bully. He wants to make sure people are in their place. He wants to make sure people know that he is in charge. He wants to make sure people know that he is not to be threatened or questioned. He wants to make sure that people are belittled in a way that he is above criticism. There's a test of maturity out there. How does somebody respond to criticism? How harshly do they give it? Violent. Can't mean physical. But there's a way to be a bully in criticism, in harshness. Bullies are belittling. The fifth vice, greedy for gain. We can think of money, we can think of power. There's many idols we could be wanting to gain more of. But here there's a sense of just coveting. not satisfied with what God has given you, not satisfied with God's role, not satisfied with God's boundaries, not satisfied with the goodness of God. There's a coveting, wanting something outside of either God's boundaries or God's goodness. A man who lives like this, arrogant, quick-tempered, drunkard, violent, greedy for gain, He's abusive to his family to be abusive to the church. He's disordered in his loves. He's disordered in his commitments. He's prioritized himself over others and God. That's wisdom from below and it will cause disorder in every vile practice. Now this is what's supposed to happen right now as we think about those negatives and now we're gonna look at the positive. Help us understand, what are we doing right now? How are we supposed to personally respond to this? What we just did was look at one part of God's good law. Let's just walk through this, make sure we understand what's happening with our own souls. What happens when you look at God's good law? What's it supposed to do? If it in any way made you feel like you just checked off boxes and that you feel good about yourself, the law didn't have its proper purpose. That's not what's supposed to happen right there. The first goal of the law is to show us our sin. It's a mirror. God's goodness presented shows us how we all fall short. I am terrified of anybody who wants to be an elder who thinks they just checked off the boxes. I want the man who says I can grow here. I want to be better here. I know Christ is better here. I want to be more like him here. The first thing is to realize how short we fall. That's what happens when you look at the law. That's what should have just happened as we looked at what God said should not be in our lives. These are sins that entangle everybody and anybody. The next thing the law does is it shows us who Christ is. It shows us our need for Christ so that we see he is the one that heals. If you're not a believer, if you watch and inspect enough, you're gonna see that every single professor of Christ is guilty of all of those things, if not one of those things, if not all of those things. We're not here because we're just better people. We're here worshiping Jesus because he was the perfect human being who was without arrogance, who was without pride, who was without anger in a way that's quick-tempered and just abusive. He is not a bully. No, he is the God who comes and lives the perfect human life. He himself laid down his life. He took our sin upon himself, died in our place so that our sin was punished. God is just. And then for all those who believe in him, He declares you're forgiven for your arrogance, for your quick temper, for your drunkenness, for your violence, for your greed, and for every other sin. The gospel heals us of our self-will and then teaches us how to actually have a right healthy life, which is a life focused on loving the one who saves us. If you're a believer this morning, I pray you'll see that all of these things that we're gonna discuss, we all fall short. Only Jesus has lived that perfect life, and only Jesus can save you from the sin we've committed. Believer, as we look at these things, as we look at those negatives, then we're gonna turn to the positives. We were like this. But we've been purchased, and we're to be trained to set aside those passions. We're to be trained to be changed by the power of Christ. And so now we look at the positives. What should he be like? He must not be arrogant, quick-tempered, drunkard, violent, greedy for gain. But, verse eight, six things we're looking for. Those are things we're trying to make sure we don't see. Here's things we want to see. That's actually an interesting word. The literal translation would be lover of stranger. He's someone who loves the stranger. He doesn't just love those who are like him. He doesn't just love those who are lovely. He loves the stranger. If an elder is going to love the church of Christ, Christ saves all different kinds of people. An elder must see them as Christ sees them. Image bearers. He must not see the differences, he must see that they have been made like them in Christ, and he must see that they have been redeemed by the same blood of Christ. His home is open, his life is open. If you wanna think about that particular godly characteristic, study Jesus' words in Luke 10, 15 to 27. Write that down, Luke 10, 15 to 27. That's the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus makes it clear who is a good neighbor. Who is a lover of the stranger, Luke 10, 15 to 27. The second one, I love this, it's so simple. Lover of good. His affections are on the right thing. He has set his heart to love what is good. He has set his mind on the things that are above, where Christ is, at the right hand. He has decided that he will think about what is pure, what is right, what is worthy, what is noble. A passage to meditate upon here is Philippians 4, 8, and 9. He has an ordered life in what he meditates upon. He has an ordered life in what his affections are set upon. Third, self-controlled. This is mentioned for all believers. This is how we know this is not just elders. Older men are called to be self-controlled. Younger women, self-controlled. Younger men, self-controlled. Elders, self-controlled. If you're a believer, self-controlled. This denies the power of self. It's seeking to say I'm not ruled by sinful passions. I'm ruled by Christ. I have control over my tongue and my actions and my passions and my emotions. You want a passage to meditate upon that? James 3, 2 to 18. And that's specifically talking about the tongue. Who can bridle the tongue? James 3, 2 to 18. We read part of that earlier. Upright, upright. This isn't speaking of good posture, even though that might be not a bad thing to try to have. Sober, sincere, serious. He doesn't show partiality. He has an uprightness about him in that he's serious about the things God is serious about. He does not show partiality. He does not get hung up on his own opinions. He is transformed and renewed in his mind to think God's thoughts after him in a way that keeps him balanced. passages you can meditate upon for this one is Romans 12, one to two. Romans 12, one to two. The next one, holy. This is one of those words that's used to describe God in unique ways. It's the only word that's used to describe God three times. Holy, holy, holy. How are we supposed to be holy? God has set us apart for his people to be his people. First Peter, 1, 13 and 19 tell us to be holy in our conduct. Holy in our conduct, 1 Peter 13. Finally, the word disciplined. That's key to discipleship. There's practice involved. What are we getting better at? Your passage here to meditate upon, 2 Peter 1, 3 to 11. 2 Peter 1, 3 to 11. There's three key words, three key declarations in 2 Peter 3, 1 to 11. Make every effort, be diligent, practice these qualities. I give you those verses because I want to encourage you to think about how to grow in these particular virtues. There's two ways I'm going to prescribe. One, you can read one of those passages every day for the next six days. Meditate upon it. Talk about it with your spouse, your friend, your roommate, your neighbor. Meditate upon it and think, how can I be a better lover of the stranger? How can I be a more faithful lover of good? How can I be a better man committed to holy conduct? A better woman who is committed to an upright mind? That's one way. The other way is every Wednesday at 4.30, we're gonna go through each one of these in order. That's our next Wednesday study. We'll do six and see what happens after that. We'll be looking at each of those passages in order Wednesday at 4.30. Why should we be like this? And here's where I wanna make sure the gospel's very clear. If you're a believer, it's because of who you are. When you believed in Christ, you're united in him. When you believe in Christ, you've been washed by his blood. When you believe in Christ, you are now a new creation and in that old way of life of arrogance and violence and greedy for gain, that needs to be set aside. Put it to death, put it off. It's unnatural for you. Because your new identity in Christ is to put on lover of good. lover of stranger, holy, diligent. When you think about these two sides, things we avoid and things we pursue. I'm gonna deal with verse nine more next week as I think about how the teaching ministry then involves correcting false teachers, but I wanna just do the very first part of this, verse nine. This is still what every member, every Christian should be known for. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. There's a teachability there. That declaration, hold firm. He has a clear grasp of God's word as it's been taught. He has a firm grip on it. It's what his life is built upon. And I want you to see very clearly there's a tower here. Strong faith in God's word leads to a godly character that then leads to a godly home that then lets you be the kind of person God uses to bless his church. Begins with a holding firm that changes who we are that then allows us to be having a healthy home and then be part of a healthy order in church. We're a book religion. God has spoken in words, recorded in a book. We don't worship the book, we worship the God who wrote the book. But it's clear who God is and what he expects of us. He cannot lie, he teaches us who he is, sound doctrine, what he expects of us, good works. We need to recognize our call to grow in godliness by trusting him. I'll leave us with this last word, it's ballast. Ballast. Ballast is the part of the ship you don't see. It's under the water. There's a weight there. And it keeps the ship straight. It keeps the ship from being blown by the winds and the waves. It keeps the ship steady and sturdy. One who depends upon God's grace. One who trusts what he says. One who seeks to obey what he says. One who confesses his sin. One who repents of sin. One who forgives sin. There's a ballast there. There's a steadiness that brings order. Church, we be looking for men like this. We be praying for men like this. We be training men for like this. males, let me speak to you very clearly and directly. We're looking for men, not boys. We're looking for men, men of God's word, men of character, men of godly conduct, men who are dependable, men who want to take responsibility for others, men who can be trusted. There is something just wonderful about a godly mundane life where you know what to expect from somebody. Men. Men, grown up in Christ, and let me be very clear, that doesn't happen by accident. It takes devotion, zeal, every effort, and practice. It takes a church. It takes a church to come around side and for you to be present enough, be faithful enough, be trained and taught. Church, we should be looking for men like this, developing men like this, and praying for men like this. Will you pray with me?