“The Foundation of Faithful Community”

“If you were doing that wrong, would you want someone to tell you?”

That was the question Lena asked her friend Maggie who was putting the finishing touches on a vase she’d been painting for weeks. Lena noticed Maggie’s brushstrokes were confident yet they were uneven and it left Maggie with a choice. Would she continue to paint as she had learned and had been doing all her life or would she receive Lena’s correction?

That’s a real challenging question for each of us, isn’t it? Lots of times, if we’re honest, we don’t want someone to tell us when we could do something better because that will mean we’ve got to be uncomfortable to learn the right way and we often chose comfort over correct.

In our time together last week, we were introduced to the idea that as a body of Christ-followers, we are preparing to embark on a journey. That journey involves the work of enhancing and renovating this church’s campus. When we’ve completed the journey, we will have seen what God wants done at the campus of First Baptist Church Devine brought to completion.

For now, we’re not ready to set out on the journey. We remembered last time that in any major event like Operation Overlord that saw the Allies reclaim Western Europe from German forces in WWII, there is a significant amount of planning and preparing before anything is carried out. And we are in the midst of planning and preparing. We said last time that because we’re preparing for a journey, we need to be healthy enough to not just survive, but thrive on the journey. And by health, I don’t necessarily mean physically, but I mean as a congregation. We need to know how to function in healthy ways when we begin the journey. And so our purpose in Titus will be to make us a healthier church, ready for this great journey God is inviting us on.

Now, as we’ve read from the Bible, what we’ve just read moves us to what the Holy Spirit is instructing Titus to look for when identifying new pastors along with why sticking to those things is so critically important.

What we’re going to see from this text is that

Godly leaders spark growth, unity, and truth

Now, I suspect that we would each like to think that any one of us are capable of contributing to their church things like growth and unity and truth. But for there to be growth and unity and truth, there has to be attractiveness, tidiness, and healthiness. Tidiness is the sense of putting things in order. Healthiness has to do with what is being understood and believed and proclaimed. Attractiveness has to do with the what emerges out of the lives being lived in the light of the health and tidiness of a church. And none of these things are possible without leadership being a priority. If we get leadership wrong, then everything else will be wrong.

This is true in the home, where God has ordered our homes to be led by parents who have authority over their children. When parents have come under the authority of God’s Word and the Holy Spirit is leading them to apply the Scriptures, it is a beautiful thing to see. But for as much as maybe some of the young people here would dream, a home would be in absolute chaos and disorder if children called the shots. And sadly, though God has clearly defined the leadership structure in the home, increasingly we see the challenges from the world that call into question whether parents have a say about their children at all. Increasingly, children call their fathers by his first name. Increasingly, children view their mothers as equals and don’t submit to her authority. Those are symptoms of God’s design for the home breaking down and I will tell you, when any symptom of something running counter to God’s design is present, there’s chaos.

And why I start with a picture of the order of our families and homes is because the sense of the church family that springs forth from the New Testament draws upon God’s design of the family unit. And it goes to say that if our houses can fall to disorder, God’s house can, too. It’s my observation that many unsolved problems in a church have their roots in defective leadership. So, acknowledging this, let’s first understand the

Function of Elders

Now, what we have to address here at the outset is some terminology. The term “elder” represents an office of authority in a local church, and though it is not one that we have customarily used here at First Baptist, make no mistake, we have elders. And for clarity, when the New Testament makes reference to elder as it does here, it is not referring to individuals who are older than us in age. We have three recognized elders in the church and we refer to them by a synonomous title, “pastor.” There’s Pastor Eli, Pastor Johnny, and myself.

Many times, our english translations don’t help us when it comes to the office of the elder because they choose to translate terms in various ways. For example, what’s translated in english to elder in Titus 1:5 is the Greek word πρεσβυτέρους, from which we actually get the english word presbyter. In Titus 1:7, the word that is translated as “overseer” in english is the Greek word ἐπίσκοπον, from which we get the our english word, episcopal. We see the interchangeable use of these words which may be why our translators simplify terms, but no matter the word used, when Peter writes about the function of the elder or presbyter or overseer, he charges them in 1 Peter 5:2 to shepherd the flock of God so that we understand that the responsibility of the leadership is to ensure that in overseeing the congregation and in leading the congregation, how the pastor cares for the flock is tied directly to leading the congregation by the Word of God.

Let me say this plainly, because it’s crucial: leadership in a local congregation is leadership by the Bible. That’s why I’ve made it a habit of instructing the congregation to read with me from God’s Word before I ever begin to address anything. I’m not suggesting that not following my pattern makes someone unbiblical or me more right, I’m just showing one of my cards about what makes me tick. See, I believe that you can read and that you can figure this out for yourselves, so in part, my hope is to train you to never come under the teaching of someone who would woo you to keeping your Bibles closed. Because as we see in Titus 1:9, the elder… the overseer…is one who is caring for the church by teaching the church.

If you ever want to know if a pastor loves or cares for a congregation, gauge whether the pastor is studying the Bible. It will be obvious when the caring has stopped when the pastor’s message is filled mostly by jokes and stories. The ultimate sense of a pastor’s love for a congregation comes from studying the Bible for the preaching of the Word of God. It is far more important than any other expression of love like a hug or what have you. Why? Because in the pastor’s study of the Word, the pastor is preparing to feed the flock of God the Word of God so that the people of God may be able to stand the attacks of the evil one and may be able to train their children.

Now, the Lord Jesus is the Chief Shepherd who, as it is written in Psalm 23:3 “… leads [us] in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” That’s why, in the list of qualifications for the elder here, you see the importance of the elder’s ability to teach the Word in Titus 1:9. The elder must, Titus 1:9 “be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

Something else we should observe is that the New Testament guards against the sense of one individual exercising this authority alone in a congregation so that we see that there is safety in numbers. The picture of the New Testament is a plurality of elders, or if you will, a team of pastors serving a local congregation, to keep any one individual from becoming little popes unto themselves or a little pope in a congregation. We need this plurality, because with the role comes great responsibility. What’s that you wonder? Well, notice that Titus was left by Paul in Crete (Titus 1:5) to appoint elders. An equally valid translation there would be to put elders in charge. What is an elder in charge of? Titus 1:7 says that an overseer is God’s steward, or again, an equally valid translation, an overseer is the manager of God’s house. When we acknowledge what comes with the office of elder, we can see why a team approach is important.

Now, we are all equally subject to the leadership of Jesus Christ. When we are born from above, when we are transferred from darkness to light, we are brought into God’s family, and we are all brothers and sisters. We are all subject to the leadership of Jesus, who is the Chief Shepherd, and at the same time, the New Testament also makes clear that some of us are responsible for leading others. And there’s a word of correction for this church to hear in light of this. And I’m only half kidding when I wonder if I’ll be looking for moving boxes after I make this point, but it needs to be said for the health of our church.

The responsibility of such leadership, according to the Word of God, is given to the elders of the church, or again, using the term we use here, the pastors of the church. Specifically, no where in the New Testament will you find deacons entrusted with the expectation to be in charge and manage God’s house, yet, in this church, in my ten years as a member of the congregation and with now in my sixth year serving you as a pastor, there seems to be a congregational belief that deacons have more authority than the Bible affords them and in part, that’s because deacons have taken upon themselves responsibilities they are unfit for. If you’re doubting what I’m saying, ask someone who has been around here for any length of time, how often they have heard it asked, “Well, what do the deacons say?” as if they have the final authoritative say on all matters. If you require printed evidence about the over-emphasis of deacons here, I’d refer you to our church’s bylaws which has a single paragraph about the pastor and four full pages in size 10 font of a Word document about deacons. Seems to be excessive when in Acts 6, the office of the deacon was established for the express purpose of serving the physical needs of the congregation so that the pastors can lead flocks by the Bible as God intended for them to do.

“If you were doing that wrong, would you want someone to tell you?” comes full circle. Now, let’s remember that the focus of our series in Titus is for us to be a healthy church, where health has to do with our alignment with and obedience to God’s Word. So what’s it going to take for us to get healthier on this subject? It’s going to take boldness on the part of everyone here to be biblical and to abandon business as usual. It may take some deacons welcoming training and it may take some stepping down. Setting comforts aside, my love and care for this church demands that I speak God’s truth to you as plainly as I can and trust that the Holy Spirit will have his way with you all.

Now, as I understand the recent history of this congregation, we are where we are in part because in a previous generation of the church, as corporate boardrooms became a normal governing practice for business a century ago, our church’s own meeting minutes indicate that we installed a “deacon board” and it’s very apparent that Bibles weren’t consulted when it came to church organization. Perhaps this was something of a comfort for the congregation because, in a community like Devine where so much rides on our ability to trust others, it’s been said to me, “pastors come and go, but our deacons remain.” In other words, it’s implied that we can’t trust pastors like we can deacons because we haven’t necessarily seen pastors stick around long enough to be deemed trustworthy. That way of thinking needs to be challenged with what Paul outlines here concerning the

Qualifications of Elders

As if the last heading wasn’t challenging, please know that our next focus will be incredibly challenging for me to teach. I’d much rather listen than be the one proclaiming this.

In Titus 1:6 it says “if anyone is above reproach…” in the ESV. In other translations, it says “if anyone is blameless.” To be above reproach or to be blameless is not the same as being flawless because if God’s expectation were for pastors to be without flaw, then no one would ever meet the very first qualification except for one - that being Jesus Christ.

We need to understand what Paul is telling Titus and why Paul is saying it and that cannot be separated from where Paul left Titus behind. Paul left Titus behind in Crete and that fact is important because it informs what it means to be blameless with what follows. If we weren’t concerned about where Titus was, we’d read on in Titus 1:6 about the pastor being the husband of one wife and it’d leave room for people to conclude that someone would be disqualified from being an elder because they were single or because their spouse died and they remarried. Is that what Paul’s intending to communicate to Titus, who is supposed to be putting people in charge of churches in Crete? Would it matter to know that it’s well-documented that polygamy, the practice of marrying multiple people, was commonplace in Crete during this time? Might it be more reasonable to conclude that what Paul’s guiding Titus to in Crete would be to say that whomever would be an elder must be blameless when it comes to the matter of marriage and sexuality? “None of that multiple wife stuff for elders, Titus.” Why? Because Christ died for his only bride, the Church.

The same can be said in terms of the expectation of a pastor’s children. Is Paul actually saying that the pastor’s children are expected to be perfect little church mice? I love my kids. I think they’re great. But perfect? Hang around them for ten minutes and you’ll see they how much perfection they’ve inherited from their parents. And I got news for you, no pastor’s children will ever be perfect. But what’s Paul saying when he brings up the pastor’s children? He’s saying that if anyone is to be in charge and manage the house of God, the house of the pastor must have order. The house of the pastor cannot be filled with debauchery. There cannot be insubordination. Because how could one ever lead the family of God if they cannot lead their own family? How could a pastor ever keep an unruly church member in line if the pastor’s children were insubordinate? We have got to get at what Paul is saying here about the elder and if we stand far enough back from it, we might see that his purpose isn’t that the pastor be flawless, but that we would see that the marriage and parenting of the pastor is the testing ground for real leadership in God’s house. Marriage and parenting will test your character and if you haven’t been proven there, you won’t stand the test of leading God’s house. Perhaps that’s why Paul tells another pastor named Timothy to not rush laying hands in ordaining new elders (1 Timothy 5:22).

Following those come five must-nots and six musts. The pastor Titus 1:7–9 “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.” And notice, of that list of must’s and must-not’s, giftedness isn’t the standard. What is? Godliness! Just look at the first, “must not be arrogant.” That’s challenging to find today. I harp on this quite a bit, but our society does nothing but build up our arrogance! Do you know what is one of the top songs at a non-religious funeral? Frank Sinatra’s, “My Way.” A godly leader isn’t keen on arrogantly getting things done their way, but lovingly guiding the family of God to follow Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

This list of characteristics speak to the godliness which must exist with a pastor. And speaking directly to our church family, my brothers and sisters, these characteristics are exactly why the expression I’ve heard said around here, “pastors come and go, but deacons remain” needs to go the way of the dinosaur if we’re going to be a faithful community, ready for this journey. If anyone meets the qualifications in this text, the congregation should extend them trust because they are the people God has called to manage his house, no matter if they’ve been here six weeks or sixteen years. I also say this with knowledge that there are some pastors who have served here in the past who have violated this sense of trustworthiness because they failed to maintain a sense of godliness in their lives. I know that. However, you cannot make everyone pay for the sins of one, so unless you choose to forgive them by releasing them from their offenses as God in Christ chose to release us from our sin when he went to the cross, then their sins and the fallout from it will keep us from surviving this journey. I’m not being an alarmist when I say that. We cannot move forward without God’s renewal and alignment with God’s Word.

Lastly,

Elders Promote Truth

In addressing this heading, I want to reiterate, leadership in a local congregation is leadership by the Bible. And elders are the ones God has called to lead the congregation and they must do so by Titus 1:9 “…hold[ing] firm to the trustworthy word as taught…” The pastors have got to be able to do that because there’s going to be problems pastors will face in leading people. That’s getting us to Titus 1:10. There’ll always be problems confronting the church and the specific problem that Paul’s dealing with has to do with the problems coming from within the church. We might be quick to assume that the problems the church faces come from the outside, where non-believing people would challenge the Bible, but as it turns out, challenging the Bible can come from inside the church, too. Where from? Well, for Paul and Titus, it at least started with the circumcision party, meaning Jews who were struggling with the grace of God and found comfort in doing things the old way. It’s people from within the church because we also see that Paul says in Titus 1:16 that they are people who claim“… to know God, but they deny him by their works….”

These people have a routine, but they don’t grasp the reality of the gospel. They are good folk, but they’ve subscribed to doing church or living a life that resembles the world far more than Christ. They are, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:5, people who “hav[e] the appearance of godliness, but [deny] its power.” See, anybody here can make external changes in their lifestyle but never experience inward renewal. The church family can be lulled into celebrating that the town drunk is coming to listen to the preacher on Sunday. We can celebrate that the gay man is working at celibacy. But all that’s really gone on is someone has gone from no religion to religion. Said another way, they’ve gone from no restrictions placed on their life to rules placed on their life. And the danger in that is that all the while the religious person has no clue that their religion is keeping them from entering into the truths of Jesus, like the fact that no one here can ever think about standing before God on the basis on what we’ve done. They haven’t actually gotten the fact that if we’re not banking completely on what Jesus has accomplished as the sacrifice for our sins, making the case for their own goodness before God Almighty will not work out for them in the end.

And apparently there are many of these people in the churches in Crete, according to Titus 1:10. Paul says there are many who are insubordinate. These are people who were a walking contradiction. They joined a church and put on the uniform, enlisted for the division of Christ’s army known as First Baptist Crete, perhaps. But when the bullets started flying, they disobeyed the orders of their commanding officer. And it makes me wonder, why would anyone sign up and put on the uniform if you never intended to obey the commanding officer? It’s odd to me because the elder, the commanding officer, in my little scenario, isn’t leading anyone by personal will or desire, but by the very Word of God and charged with such responsibility based on God-given qualifications which make them trustworthy. It’s why the writer to the Hebrews said, Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” And it’s important to note, that the elders aren’t giving an account to you, even though we are certainly accountable to one another in Christ, but pastors are giving account to God, in the same way that parents are responsible to God for how their children have been raised.

So you have these insubordinate people and it turns out that they’re empty talkers. What they say has no real substance, but it’s the kind of stuff that just draws people in, nonetheless. This is the real danger to our churches, today. People who come in to a congregation and they start to trickle out things that sound…good to the ear. A few years ago there was a man who attended a Sunday service here and went around asking people if they were saved and if so, on what basis did they think that. He then asked me about salvation and whether, as he put it, I subscribed to a works-based salvation. I said of course not, salvation is the free gift of grace from Jesus received by faith in him. He then asked, “So, can someone be saved and their life not be changed?” I said, “No. If anyone has been born of the Spirit then assuredly there will be transformation in their life as the Holy Spirit sanctifies them.” He accused me of works-based salvation by levying the expectation of God taking sinners and making them more like Jesus. That’s not works-based salvation, that’s salvation and its affect according to the Word of God when Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord.

When I asked him where he could refute what I was saying from Scripture, he preferred that we not open our Bibles. See, people like who Paul is writing about in Crete will woo you away from the truth.

Listen to me, Christianity isn’t about keeping a set of rules. It isn’t about walking an aisle to pray with the preacher and then returning to your life without your desires changed. Lots of people get wooed into think that, though. They tell themselves, “If I just clean up what people can see, I’ll be accepted.” Our problem starts on the inside. It’s a heart-level problem. That’s what Paul’s getting at in Titus 1:15 with “To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.”

See, pastors promote truth by teaching the truth as plainly as possible. But that’s not the full extent of how pastors promote truth. Do you see how Paul instructs Titus to handle the insubordinate, empty-talking, liars? He says in Titus 1:11 “They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.” This sounds rude, but Paul’s emphatic enough here for us to say, “Just shut them up. Silence them.” How are they to be silenced? That’s for the pastors to determine, but the point is that you certainly don’t leave them in charge of a Sunday school class at FBC Crete because they’re going to destroy everything if you do. Then, in addition to that, Paul says in Titus 1:13 to “… rebuke them sharply…” Rebuke who? The false teachers? The congregation? We can’t tell, but my guess would be to rebuke them all. Rebuke the ones for misleading others and rebuke the ones who listened to the nonsense. Call them all to devote themselves to the gospel. Call out the error and point to Christ. That’s how pastors promote truth.

As I said last week, this is all about our collective thriving as a church as we prepare for the journey of addressing this campus. It’s not going to be easy, but godly leaders will spark growth, unity, and truth. The elder, overseer, pastor of a church isn’t about power, but is about leading in a manner like Jesus.

Picture a flock of sheep in the lush valleys of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. When the shepherd leads, the sheep follow closely, finding safety and sustenance under his watchful eye. Just like the Good Shepherd, godly leaders nurture their flock, guiding them toward green pastures of spiritual growth, fostering unity among them, and establishing a foundation of truth that empowers the body of Christ to thrive together.

That can be us, if we are willing.