Godly Leadership

Introduction:

As we continue with our worship of the Lord this morning and continue with our study of Titus, I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Titus 1:5-9 with me this morning as we Study the word together.

Hear the Word of the Lord....

5 The reason I left you in Crete was to set right what was left undone and, as I directed you, to appoint elders in every town. 6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife, with faithful children who are not accused of wildness or rebellion. 7 As an overseer of God’s household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hot-tempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money, 8 but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled, 9 holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it. (Titus 1:5-9)

As we get ready to dive into this word this morning, let us prepare our hearts to hear what God would want to say to us through this text.

Let’s Pray Together.

If you have ever applied for a job or have been looking for a job, what is one of the first things you start looking at once you find a job you are interested in applying for?

Some people might say the salary, and for sure that is a very important thing to consider when looking for a job. You want to make enough money. Other people might say they look at the job description. What exactly am I going to be required to do in this job? That is also a very important when looking for a job. Am I going to enjoy this type of work?

After a little while and the salary looks good and maybe after we have read the job description.....we begin to think to ourselves....MAN, I think I really want to apply for this job....then usually the next section that we come to is the qualification section of the job. It is in this section that the employer is telling those who are considering applying for this job .... Hey, if you are wanting to even be considered as an applicant for this opening then you must meet certain standards for the job.

That seems fair right? Not just anyone should be able to be a doctor or a medical professional. Not everyone should be allowed to be a lawyer or a banker. Not everyone should be allowed to do whatever it is that they want to do. No one in their right mind would ever hire me to be a singer or music producer. I know NOTHING about that line of work.

When it comes to different professions, they all have different requirements in order for you to hold that position. You must have this education or skill, with this many years of experience with customers, you must know how to use excel or adobe, or whatever. In the world of professionalism, they have certain qualifications for you before you are allowed to do the job.

Body:

And it may surprise us that God has designed the church in the same way. Really, the business world stole it from God because He thought of it first.... but that is beside the point.

God set certain qualifications for the leaders of the church that they must be walking in before they are able to do the job that God has called them to. Now, the difference between what the world looks at and what God looks at are two different things. God is not looking at what degree a person has, even though I believe that a person can benefit from formal education, it is not a requirement. Most of what we see here in this text and 1 Timothy 3 is the qualifications deal with character more than knowledge. God cares more about how you are as a person than what kind of achievements you have.

Main Point: God Designed The Church To Have Godly Leaders.

What I want us to see as we move through this text, and really as we move through this book as a whole is what kind of direction God would have us move in in the future. So, as we are looking ahead for the church, and remember the church is not this building… the church.... even when we are talking about the local church.... is a group of people who have placed their faith in Christ and are meeting together. We could lose this building and be meeting in a house for all that matters and we would still be the church. But, as we are thinking about our own future, I want us to start praying about and asking what God would have us change as we move through this book together.

Let’s walk through this text. Look at verse 5 with me.

5 The reason I left you in Crete was to set right what was left undone and, as I directed you, to appoint elders in every town.

As we said last week, the churches in Crete were left undone. We do not know why that was the case. We really are not even sure on how these churches got started, and truth be told that really does not matter. What matters is that they were incomplete and were lacking something in them…and Paul has given Titus the mission to go and fix it. What we see here in verse 5 is part of the problem. The church was missing leaders… and notice what is said here about the leaders....how many leaders are to be appointed? It is PLURAL, meaning, that there was to be more than 1 Pastor is the church.

So the first thing I want us to see is that The Church Should Have Multiply Elders.

Now, the way that word Elder was used here and in other places in the New Testament did not mean Old Person....like we would tell our kids to respect their elders. That is not what we are talking about here. The Term Elder is used in the New Testament to refer to what we would call Pastors. In fact, we see terms like Elder, Pastor-Teacher, and Overseer, used interchangeably throughout the New Testament....and what is so interesting is the fact that it is always in the plural form… except when it is giving the qualification because the term is being used to talk about the individual who would hold that position and not the office.

Think about how different this is when it comes to how we normally “run” the church. So many churches function with 1 Pastor, because that is all that they can afford (which is fine), and sometimes some Deacons (which we will hit on towards the end) and that is it. It is no wonder that 50% of those who go into ministry leave within the first 5 years. 80% leave within the first 10%…and only 10% of those who entered the ministry will retire as a Pastor. Is that shocking to anyone? It is to me!!!

When the church does not have qualified men in the right positions, it leaves the church hurting and lacking. It leaves the church in a state of undoness that it cannot survive for very long.

So, as a church I want us to think about what this could mean for us in the future. Maybe this is a topic we study a little further to see exactly what God says about the matter. Maybe we start moving in this kind of direction. Maybe we start praying and asking God to show us the men who could serve in these roles.

But, before we start just throwing people into these roles we should ask a very important question, What Are The Qulifications?

This is what we see Paul list out in the rest of the chapter in verses 6-9.

6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife, with faithful children who are not accused of wildness or rebellion. 7 As an overseer of God’s household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hot-tempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money, 8 but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled, 9 holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.

We see a similar list given in 1 Timothy 3 when Paul is instructing Timothy about the leaders in the church. We do not have time to read through that list, but I want to encourage you to go home and read through it to see what is also said there.

Let’s walk through these qualifications of a Pastor:

Blameless. We see this listed twice in these verses, in both verse 6 and verse 7. It is that important. Now, this does not mean that a Pastor should be prefect… that would be asking too much. No one would ever be up to that task. But, blameless here means that they caring themselves in such away that no one could accuse the person of fault easily and everyone believe it, does that make sense? It is like everyone should be surprised to hear something bad or sinful about that man.... not like everyone in town know that he is a liar or a cheat. That is what we are talking about when it comes to blamless. That man should be walking with the Lord closely and everyone should know them as such.

The Husband of one Wife. This one is also tricky. Does this mean that an elder must be married? We would have to say no because Paul himself was not married and had no kids. Then does this mean that a person who has been divorced could not be an elder… even if this was his past life before Christ. Again, I think that we would have to say no… it does not mean that. What this text is saying is that a man must be a one woman man…that is literally how this verse is translated. The man who is seeking to be an elder must be committed to his wife, if he has one. He should not have a reputation of running around.... as was common in their culture. He was to be faithful.

Faithful Children. Some translations here state that an elder must have believe children. So, which is it? Are they to be faithful to believers in Christ? Here we have to ask ourselves which one does the elder have a responsibility over or control over? Can you make another person believe the Gospel? We would have to say that a person, even a person called by God to serve as an elder does not have the power or ability to make someone believe the Gospel. That is why I think that the translation here of faithful children fits better with the context and actual responsibilities of the leader. An Elder is manage his own household well. He is to have good control of his own kids. They are not to be running wild or crazy. Does that mean that his kids will be prefect? NO! But, that does mean we should expect the elder to loving discipline them as the Lord would direct him. should expect from me that I would manage my house well....because really, if I cannot manage my own household, how can a person manage God’s household? That is the question that Paul gives Timothy in chapter 3 of 1 Timothy when going through these qulifcation.

What we see happen next is that Paul gives 5 Negative things that the Pastors are not to be like.

They are NOT to BE....

Arrogant.

Hot-tempered.

Excessive drinkers.

A Bully.

Greedy for money.

I think that we generally get that list. No one would want to follow a leader who is like this.

That is why God does not just say…Do not be like this… but actually gives us what we should be looking for instead.

Leaders Must Be...

Hospitable.

A Lover of Good.

Sensible.

Righteous.

Holy.

Self-controlled.

This is the exact opposite of the list we just saw about what an elder should not be. A person who is walking in these qualities is a person who is walking close with the Lord. Christ has transformed their heart and it shows by how they are living their lives.

There is one more major qualification for Elders.

He Must Hold ONTO the Gospel Message.

In 1 Timothy 3, Paul tells Timothy that an elder must be able to teach. This is one of the things that sets an elder apart from other leaders in the church. They have a calling to teach the scriptures. An elder must be one who knows the Word well and is holding onto its message. He must be able to encourage with sound teaching those who need to hear it. He must be able to feed the flock that God has given him. He must study to show himself approved, rightly handling the word of truth. He must preach in season and out of season. This is his calling.

But not only is he able instructed to care for the flock, he is to refute those who contradict the Gospel message. He is a defender of the truth.

This really is the one and only characteristic that is about ability more than character. 95% of an Elders qulifcation deals with him being a MAN of God… 5% deals with what kind of gifts has the Lord given Him… because listen me…as James tells us, “not many of us should presume to be teachers my brothers because we will face a greater judgment.” This is serious business.

This is how the church should be picking elders in the local church. There is so much more we can see on this topic, but today I just want to build this foundation for Godly leaderships.

So, if you will, real quick flip back with me to 1 Timothy 3:8-13

8 Deacons, likewise, should be worthy of respect, not hypocritical, not drinking a lot of wine, not greedy for money, 9 holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 They must also be tested first; if they prove blameless, then they can serve as deacons. 11 Wives,, likewise, should be worthy of respect, not slanderers, self-controlled, faithful in everything. 12 Deacons are to be husbands of one wife, managing their children and their own households competently. 13 For those who have served well as deacons acquire a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. (1 Timthy 3:8-13).

Not only should the church have Elders, but The Church Should Have Godly Deacons.

Just as Elders were the main teachers in the early church and were responsible for leading in the ministry of the word and prayer, Deacons were the leading servants in the church. Their primary function was leading ministry efforts to care for the church members.

They too had a list of qualifications that they had to meet before the were allowed to serve.

Conclusion:

I am not going to walk through those qualification as we did with Elders…because truth be told they are closely related....and that is because there is nothing in terms of character qualifications that an Elder or Deacon is suppose to be doing that is not also required from anyone who claims to walk with Christ. Everything that is said about their character is also said about each and everyone of us. All of us, if we have placed our faith in Christ, should be seeking to live life this way. It is a qualification for the leaders because they must be examples to the flock on how this looks in day to day life.

Now, I want to shift the focus a little bit to talk about why this is important to you…because I am sure that many of you came in here this morning beaten up this week and were not expecting to have this much information just thrown at you.

How Do Godly Leaders Help You?

They Care For Your Soul.

They Minister To You.

They Equip You For Ministry.

They Watch Over You.

They Have A Shared Responsibility.

They Work Together For Your Good.

Main Point: God Designed The Church To Have Godly Leaders.

As we think about the day and months ahead, I really want us to think about what this could look like for our church.

Here is what I want you to do this coming week, spend some time in prayer. Ask God for direction and our next steps moving forward as we think about Godly leadership. Pray for leaders.

Let us be a church that is moving in the direction God wants us to.

Let’s pray together.