Preventing Falling Pastors

But let me have you turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 3. First Timothy chapter 3 for a time of study and the word, what we do here at Cornerstone is just take the Bible verse at a time. Just God, what do you want to say to us? And God speaks to us through the Bible, and we should be in His word every day letting God speak to us.

But when we gather here on the Lord's Day, we definitely want to give the bulk of our time to listening to God and we worship Him by listening. to him. And we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and the very end of verse 3. Paul is giving a list of qualifications for pastors, for elders in the church, and The last qualification that's in verse 3 we have not looked at yet.

So what we're going to do is we're going to pick up there, we're going to skip verses 4 and 5 because we looked at those verses last week and we'll come into verse 6 and we'll look at verses 6 and 7 this morning and ultimately we're going to look at 3 of the qualifications for pastors or elders in the church as we find them here and with that we're going to conclude our study of this section. Of First Timothy, if you want to give a title to the message, it would be Preventing Falling Pastors, Preventing Falling pastors.

We're going to see that Paul very much, especially as he gives the qualifications we're going to be talking about today, he's burdened and he's concerned about this issue of falling pastors, and I'll demonstrate that to you in just a moment, but we all know. That this is a problem, is it not?

falling pastors, pastors that are falling morally and in other ways disqualifying themselves from, from the ministry. In fact, I was online this week at a particular website and They were giving these statistics that were put together by Focus on the Family and Barna. And what I read is that 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches. 50% of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.

80% of seminary and bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years. And according to this survey, Almost 40% of pastors admitted having committed adultery since beginning their ministry. That seems high to me, but I don't know, maybe, maybe I'm just naive, but these are unsettling statistics. And when you think of the sheer number of pastors represented here, and then you think of the hundreds of thousands of parishioners, you say, what's a parishioner?

That's you, OK. the people in these churches that are affected by these disturbing realities, when pastors fall in these ways, it leaves the people of God reeling and asking questions of themselves and of the church and of God and of the Bible and of the truth. And even asking questions of themselves, they feel violated and it's just a tough thing for people in the body of Christ to deal with. And so I think all of us would be agreed that if we can do anything to avoid falling pastors here at Cornerstone, we would want to do that.

Amen. And there's a number of things that we can do as a church to prevent falling pastors, and we're even going to learn some things later in First Timothy that will enrich our understanding of that. But one of the things, not the only thing, but one of the biggest things we can do to prevent falling pastors at Cornerstone. is to be careful whom we let be pastors in the first place.

That's not the cure-all. That doesn't solve everything. It's still up to the pastors to daily heed the calling of God to, to live up to the standards and qualifications we find in 1 Timothy 3:17, but it's very important that we as a church, be careful about who we allow to serve as, pastors in the church. And what we're going to focus on this morning is 3 qualifications, and these are that a pastor or an elder is not to be a money lover.

He is not to be a new convert, and he must have a good reputation, specifically with those outside the church or with non-believers. Paul. that that's very important and the thing about these qualifications that make them unique and that enables us to group them together is that all three of them in 1 Timothy are tied to the idea of falling. All right, let me just show this to you.

Later, Paul talks about an elder can't be a lover of money at the end of verse 3. Later in this book, in chapter 6, verse 9, and following, he talks about the love of money and look what he says. Those who want to get rich fall. They fall into temptation and the snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts which plunge men into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil.

And then coming back to chapter 3, verse 6, look what he says in verse 6, that an elder is not to be a new convert so that he will not become conceited and fall into. The condemnation incurred by the devil. Then verse 7, he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. So all three of these qualifications we're going to be looking at today, Paul is delivering them, and he seems to be very burdened.

Certainly all of these qualifications can prevent a pastor from falling. But with these three, he specifically expresses his concern out loud for the benefit of Timothy and us today. And the truth is, guys, think about it. we all fall, right?

We all, James says in James 3, we all stumble in many ways. So there's a sense in which every believer, including your pastors, we're, we're falling all the time, right? Even Solomon says a righteous man falls 7 times, but he gets back up again. So we know then that Paul isn't concerned here about just the normal falling from which we get back up and repent and continue walking.

In the Lord with all three of these passages that I read to you, the concern is what someone falls into. That's his concern. He's talking about the falling from which a man or a Christian will never rise up again. They fall and they're trapped as in quicksand.

And you can make a list of all of these passages of the things that are dangers for us to fall into temptation, a snare, foolish and hurtful desires, ruin, destruction, condemnation, reproach, and the snare of the devil. Paul is concerned about the falling where we fall into something from which we may not ever become free. And Paul says, I don't want pastors. To be falling into these kinds of things.

And so he says, Timothy, if a pastor does not meet these qualifications, don't let him be an elder in the Ephesian churches where you oversee. In fact, later in this book, he says to Timothy, do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily. Timothy, you be very careful about too quickly putting your hands on someone and commissioning them to the ministry. He says this, and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others.

He's saying to Timothy and to us as a church that if we're not careful, If we too hastily and carelessly put someone in a position as an elder, we lay our hands on them and affirm them and commission them as it were, and they weren't qualified, Paul is saying we're going to have to share in some of the responsibility for the sins they commit and the injury that they do to God's people and to the cause of Christ. And so I want us to go through these 3 qualifications, and I want us to feel something of the burdened heart of the apostle Paul as we look at these final 3 qualifications for pastors and for elders.

And by the way, all 3 of these, every believer should strive for these things. So I want you and I'm going to, I'm going to make sure that we apply this to every believer and not just pastors, all right.

The end of verse 3, the first of the three qualifications we'll look at today is that elders and pastors must not be money lovers. read with me, along with me in verse 2. He says an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, and free. From the love of money.

Now, the expression, free from the love of money in English, that's 123456 words. It's actually one word in the Greek text. All right? And it's literally no money, love.

the word love is in there, it's that Greek word pylos or phleo that speaks of an affectionate regard for something or someone, and then the word that's translated money is the Greek word for silver. And understand Paul here is not, condemning a love of silver, but it's OK to love gold and paper money. No, he's using silver as a just a word that speaks of all kinds of money, and so he's speaking of an affectionate regard for money. Now when we hear that, there's a sense in which all of us say, Well, is it bad to want money?

Or to, to like money? Well, Paul would say there's nothing wrong with liking. think about it, guys. What, what do most of us do that work?

we, we work 40, some of you work 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and why are we doing that? We're working for money. let's be honest. So we like money, we like it when we get our paycheck.

so that we can meet our needs and the needs of our family that we care about and perhaps even the needs of other people, and we can give to the Lord's work. And so Paul obviously is not condemning that. That's not the love of money. a good way to understand money love is, it is a longing for money.

It is a valuing of money above Jesus Christ. It is a valuing of money above God. It is someone who is longing for money, who strives to obtain money, and he does so that's a higher priority in his life than God is in his life. He places a higher value on that than he does on practicing the disciplines through which he can experience God in a deeper and richer way.

A classic example of this is the rich young ruler, is it not? think about the emptiness of the rich young ruler. This guy had a great amount of wealth, but he comes to Jesus and says, hey, tell me how to get eternal life. It's very significant that he would even ask that question.

This guy had everything, but he feels empty. He knows he's lacking something that is the most important, so he says, Jesus, I want eternal life. Tell me how to get it. Jesus said, Keep all the commandments.

And the guy says, Well, I've done that since I was a kid, so what am I missing? And Jesus said, I'll tell you what to do. Sell everything you have, give it all to the poor, and come and follow me. You see the deal he's making.

Get rid of all of your wealth. And you get me in exchange. It says in the scripture that the rich young ruler walked away sorrowful, very sad. And he never took Jesus up on that deal.

And walking away, the rich young ruler was saying something about how he valued and loved money. He was also saying something about how he valued Jesus. And he was saying, Jesus, this money I have is of greater value to me. I love it more than I love you.

I would rather have this money than have you. And let's not be too critical of the rich young ruler without at least taking an honest look at ourselves, because there are ways that we as believers are guilty. on maybe lesser levels but very significant levels where we're, we're essentially doing the same thing that the rich young ruler did in various ways. In fact, let's just linger here.

Let's experience a little conviction, shall we? How many of you have heard of the condition MLS? A couple. Actually, I don't think any of you, unless there is actually a condition by that.

I, I actually made it up. so someone's been reading my sermon notes, It's money love syndrome, all right. Money love syndrome. We'll call it a disorder, and you may be wondering, do you have money love syndrome?

And, and to evaluate whether or not you are afflicted with this, and by the way, all of us are at different points in time. I find, I find some of this in myself also. think about it. If you're a lover of money, there's two ways you can go with that love of money, or even both.

You can love the money you have excessively, or you can love the money you don't have excessively. Both of those and Up heading you in the wrong direction and on a path to destruction if you're not careful. So someone who has money love syndrome is someone who loves the money he has so much that he takes pride in it. And there are people like this.

They, it's like I got a lot of money in my checking account and, what am I going to do with it, and man, I feel really good about this, and, and so they think through ways that they can, they, they know I can't go around saying, hey, check out my checkbook ledger here. How much you got in your account? So they, they know that's tacky, don't do that. But people will come up with other ways of advertising their financial status.

And so by the cars that they purchase, the clothes that they that they wear the home that they may buy, which is maybe way more than what they need, but hey, it informs the world about where we are financially. They're actually car commercials that cater to this desire that people have to somehow flaunt and show off their status in this world, especially their financial status. And so someone who loves his money and idolizes his money so much that he takes pride in it, he finds his meaning in it and his value in it, and he wants the world to know it and to see it, that is someone.

Who is afflicted by MLS.

Also, someone who is afflicted with money love syndrome, who loves the money he has so much that he's stingy with it. In other words, I love my money so much I don't want to lose this. And so you see someone in your life that has a need, and you're like, Dear Lord, please send someone into his life to address that need, but you're not going to give. You're not going to help to meet the need of that brother or sister, and even in giving to the Lord's work, you hold on to your money.

You love your money so much that you're not a giving and a generous person. Also, you can, one of the manifestations of money love syndrome is loving the money you have so much that you worry and you fret about losing it. And the tough economic times we're in and retirement portfolios and so forth that that we watch dwindle, all of that, there's, there's value in that in the sense that it can sometimes expose. some idolatries that may be in our heart.

You could add to this list loving money you have so much that you find your security in it. and if that's the case, you're finding security in that rather than in God, and that's, that is a symptom of money love syndrome. Also, money love syndrome shows itself not just in loving the money you already possess, but loving the money you don't have. maybe it's money that you don't have, but someone else has, and you love that money so much so that you're discontent., maybe you're just going along in your life and you're totally happy, but all of a sudden somebody just got a brand new car and it's nicer than what you're able to.

to buy or you, you see, you go into someone's home or or whatever or some opportunity or privilege that they have that that you can't afford and suddenly you're, you're seething with discontent. That's money, love. You're, you're loving the money that you don't have to the extent that you're losing sight of and being grateful for what you do have. Also loving the money you don't have so much that you're greedy.

And there are people that in search of the almighty dollar they will sacrifice. They will sacrifice biblical priorities. Biblical priorities and the pursuit of God. They don't have time for God because they're making money.

When God says to such people, He says to all of us, If you seek first me, if you seek me first in my kingdom and my righteousness, I will add all these things to you. You just seek me first and put me first. I will be the one who will take care of you. I will provide for you.

But there are people who love the money they don't have to such a degree that they are discontent and greedy. In fact, surveys have been done. I remember reading this about a decade ago where they surveyed people who made $50,000 a year and asked them how much money would you need to make in order to be happy, and the average answer was 75,000. In the survey they asked people who made 75,000 a year the same question How much would you need to make to be happy?

And you can guess what they said 100,000. And the same with those that made 100,000, they said 125,000. It seemed like in this survey everyone was loving that extra 25,000 that they didn't have. If I could just have that, I would be happy.

In fact, in our culture today, one of the ways you can love the money you don't have is to go ahead and spend the money that you don't have, and that's part of how we've gotten into the trouble that we are in as a society, because people, it's like, I don't have it. I don't have the money to buy this, but I want this, so I will buy it with money that I don't have and go deeper and deeper into debt. That's covetousness. It's discontentment.

It is greed. Also loving the money you don't have so much that you envy. You fall in love with the money or the possessions that someone else has, and that becomes your focus, and you envy them. You begrudge them.

Also, loving money that you don't have to such a degree that you actually steal what somebody else has, and the Bible has much to say. About that those who swindle, those who steal, they're driven by covetousness, and they're driven by the love of money. So these are just some of the ways I'm sure there's probably others that money love syndrome may manifest itself and hopefully that helps as a guide for you. And if you find out that any of these are, are in your life, then just confess that to the Lord.

The Lord will delight to forgive and ask Him to free you from The love of money and to replace the love of money with the love of Him and the trust of Him and God will say, I will happily forgive you and I will be your God, and I will, I will work to transform you. in a way that will bring great blessing into your life., I wanna, I feel like I need to rush on cause, we went a little over in the first service, but, Paul himself in the New Testament was criticized for being in the ministry for money.

But he has to bring this up because charges were made against him and even to this day, one of the typical charges you hear against pastors and in some cases it's a well earned reputation is that they're in it for the money. They're trying to fleece people and and they're crooks.

and some people deserve that reputation. Well, that those accusations were flying even in the first century, and Paul, like in Acts 20, says, I've coveted no one silver or gold or clothes. First Thessalonians, he says to the Thessalonian Christians, when I was with you, we never came. With flattering speech, as, nor with a pretext for greed.

God is witness. First Peter 5:2, Peter says to elders and pastors, Shepherd the flock of God, not for sordid gain. Don't be in the ministry for money. One of the ways that, if we have a church of elders that are driven by the love of money, they're going to show favoritism to people in the church that that have more money.

And and that's a danger that they'll treat people who have more money differently than those who have less money. I want you guys to know that here at Cornerstone we've intentionally set it up to where I, Mike, and Carlos, none of the elders that do any of the preaching, we have no idea what any of you give, and we have no desire to know. And part of the agenda of setting it up that way is to just preserve the integrity of our ministry to you, the people of God, that it doesn't get corrupted like, well, this person gives such and such to the church, and man, if I rebuke them they might leave, and what would that do?

And we don't even want to mess with that.

It's just we want to minister with all integrity. to you without any regard to that, but someone, an elder or pastor that is driven by the love of money is going to be calculating over who he spends time with and who he maybe rebukes and who he doesn't rebuke, and we don't even want to mess with all of that. Also, lastly, one of the reasons that elders should not be driven by the love of money is because they need to be about the business of, of laying hold of eternal commodities so that they can bring those eternal commodities to you, the people of God.

After talking about the love of money, Paul says to Timothy in verse 11, look at the screen in chapter 6, flee from these things, Timothy, you man of God, and pursue righteous.

This godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you are called. What we need to be doing is chasing after and laying hold of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, godliness, and eternal life and all of those eternal commodities, and then coming to you, the people of God, and giving those eternal commodities to you that never go down in value.

They never fluctuate. But if we're caught up in pursuing the almighty dollar and that's our obsession, then we're not chasing after these things and then we're going to come to the pulpit and our various venues of ministry and our hands are going to be empty because we've not been taking hold of the eternal stuff that we need to be giving to God's people. Paul says to Timothy, I don't want you ever picking an elder who is bound by the love of money. There's a second thing that we'll look at today, and that is that, and this is in verse 6, that an elder, elders must not be a new convert.

Paul says to Timothy, when you're picking an elder or a pastor, don't ever put a new convert. A young Christian in that position. Look what he says in verse 6, and not a new convert. By the way, the Greek word translated new convert is the Greek word we get our English word neophyte from.

You ever heard that? It's a word I'm sure we all use daily. well, maybe some of you have heard it. I don't know.

Maybe it's not even a word, but, Well, it speaks of someone who is a baby in Christ. They're, they're undeveloped. There's a lot that they, they're saved. They've got the life of God within them.

Their sins are forgiven. They're clothed with Jesus' righteousness, and they've got the Spirit of God inside of them. But nonetheless, there's a lot of experience they don't have. There's a lot of things they don't know about themselves and about God and about God's word and about His ways, and there's a They don't know about the people of God and so it would be a dangerous thing to take a brand new believer and to say, Hey, now that you're saved, we're looking for a pastor.

Would you want to be a pastor here at our church? Paul says that's a dangerous thing. Look what he says in verse 6, and not a new convert so that he will not become conceited. By the way, is there anything wrong with a new convert?

No, well, I know there's something wrong with all of us. So in a way, yes, but no, there's nothing wrong with a new convert. God's not up in heaven frowning at new converts like, like that's a bad thing. No, it's a beautiful thing.

God loves new converts. he rejoices over them. And as a church, we would love to have hundreds and hundreds of new converts. It's a beautiful thing.

But God says these new converts don't ever for their sake, put them in this position. It's a protection of them to not elevate them to a position of this magnitude and responsibility as a shepherd over God's people. He says here, so that he, the new convert, will not become conceited. There are things about a pastoring, eldering ministry that could generate pride, destructive pride.

In In a new convert that might be serving as a pastor, you say, well, what could a guy like that get proud about? Well, he might become proud about being lifted up to such a fine work that Paul speaks about in verse one. He could be thinking, Man, I'm, I've known the Lord 4 months and I'm already a pastor or an elder, and I'm probably the, the fastest one in the history of the church to rise to this position. And he's just no way spiritually ready to handle those temptations towards pride.

Also, he could become proud over his giftedness. Think about it. In most cases, where somebody is elevated to a position of pastor too soon, in most cases, it's because they're exceptionally gifted in a particular area, right? And maybe they're a great preacher, communicator, teacher, whatever, and people are like, man, God's hand is on this person, and they elevate them.

And yes, they may be very gifted in that area, but they may still be infants in other areas that are going to wreak havoc upon them. But someone elevated to that position might be thinking, hey, I'm really gifted in this area and so I belong here, and they become so obsessed in that area of giftedness that they're not being developed and focusing on the areas where they're, where they're weak, and that leads to the next thing, and that is that they can become proud and thinking.

That their ministry position and their giftedness makes them an exception somehow., I've read accounts from pastors that have fallen, and as they're telling their story, this is a big thing right here that they say, I, I just started to buy into the lie that I was above the rules and that what applied to everyone else didn't apply to me and for everyone else, yes, your sin will find you out, but I began to believe that somehow I was immune to that, and they thought their giftedness and their position would protect them.

And they found out tragically that it did not.

Also, a neophyte or a new convert elevated to the position of pastor could take pride at success in his ministry. Maybe he's like, he starts off and he's actually doing a good job and he preaches a message and everyone's like, wow, that's an incredible message and, and we're really blessed by that and, and we're so thankful, Billy. That you preach today, finally, we're being fed the word. We're not accustomed to this preaching from the normal pastor who preaches.

And imagine a young convert hearing that. In fact, even here at Cornerstone between Mike and Carlos and I, There are times where most of the feedback we get is, hey, great message, here's how God used that in my life, but sometimes, sometimes we will occasionally get feedback and compliments that, that separates. us from one another. and how do you handle that?

How do you handle that? Like, man, I'm really glad to finally hear the word today. How do you deal with that? In fact, we as a staff, we joke about that and Act somewhat competitive with each other.

Mike Barry tells me that when he preaches, he restrains his giftedness. So as to not steal the spotlight from me. And so in our staff meeting after he preaches, we're talking about, the good things that happened, and he's basically saying there's more where that came from and But I, I will thank him, like thank you for restraining yourself and holding back your giftedness. that's a great sacrifice on his part, but, but we're actually making light of an instinct that genuinely is in all of us.

and it's something to be aware of. Think about it, guys. listen to what one guy says, I'm reading this book right now, and the author, Murray Brett says this, pride is essentially competitive. It does not take pleasure in simply doing something or being someone or having something.

Pride takes pleasure in doing better, being better, and having more than everyone else. That's the nature of pride. It's a relational sin, and it has to do with comparison and competition. And so a young elder who maybe is exceptionally gifted, he's elevated to a position and he's starting to get feedback and he starts maybe comparing himself to other people, and he always comes out on the winning end of that comparison, and it feeds his pride and he sets himself up for failure.

What does Solomon say? Pride goes before a fall, right? also, there's another manifestation of this, and that is envy and jealousy. Imagine this young.

neophyte is elevated to this position and let's say he's working his heart out but he's not doing very well. He's not as successful as maybe the other pastors or elders are or pastors or elders at other churches, and he starts comparing himself and he comes out on the losing end of those comparisons and before he knows it, he is seething with envy and jealousy because he's less successful. Than other elders or pastors. Listen to what CS Lewis says here.

He says it is comparison. That's the key word. It is comparison that makes us proud. The pleasure of being above the rest.

Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone. Pride will lead you to take a spot in the band, in the play, or on the team, not because you want the position, but just because you want to prove that you are better than the other person, better than everyone else. Anyone familiar at all with This working of sin. at Cornerstone, I'm sure none of us struggle with this.

But we all have this, don't we? And we compare and, and when we're on the, the winning end of that comparison, we feel good about ourselves and, and gloat inwardly and, but when we're on the losing end, we become jealous and envious and, And even jealousy and envy is a manifestation of pride. So imagine this new convert. He loves God, He's walking with the Lord, and he's gifted, and all of a sudden the church puts him in some position before he's ready and he starts serving in all good conscience and before he knows that he's just boiling over with all of these temptations that he's not mature enough to handle.

And look at what it says here. he says, and not a new convert so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. What, what happened to the devil? He was an angel created by God.

He was not content with the position God gave him. He wanted to usurp God's place. And because his heart was lifted up with pride, he lost his place altogether. Not only did he not get what he wanted, God's place, he lost what he had.

And what can happen to a new convert is his heart gets lifted up with pride. And he ends up Losing his place, losing his place altogether. So a new convert in the ministry could be proud in various ways. It can show itself in envy and jealousy when anyone is.

More successful. Let me just throw one more in here, and that is pride due to youthful naivete. and the only way I can illustrate this is with myself. I gave my life to the Lord November 13th, 1982, and, it was like after that I was like on cloud nine.

It was almost like my sinful nature just went into remission. And you ever had seasons like that, where it's like, man, I'm not even struggling with some of this stuff anymore. And I remember in January of 1983, I was sitting at a men's breakfast and And I was sitting by myself. People were coming in, and I remember thinking to myself, what, I think I have this sin thing licked.

And I wasn't doing that proudly. It was, to my knowledge, I was like, I'm not really struggling like I used to, and I'm sure I'll stumble a few times from now on, but I think I pretty much got this figured out. I'm 45 now, and I know the depravity that's in my heart, way more than I ever dreamed as a 19-year-old I would ever have been capable of. But imagine that at that point in time, I was a pastor.

And imagine some 40 year old came up to me and said, Hey, Milton, I'm really struggling with this and this. what I would have said? I would have said, dude, are you even saved? Because I don't struggle.

I put my trust in Christ and I'm not struggling with that. I would have ended up giving him very naive counsel that would have left him hurt and discouraged. But up to that point, that was all that I knew. But God would say that's why a guy like me at that age had no business being in the ministry.

Alexander Strau says a new Christian does not know his own heart or understand the craftiness of the enemy, so he is vulnerable to pride. Strau goes on to say this. For a recent convert, the temptation of pride would be too great if he were a pastor. Pride would destroy the man, causing personal disgrace, loss, exposure, divine chastisement, and possibly wrecking his faith.

There are people I know who got into the ministry too early. Terrible experience for them. They got butchered in the ministry, and they, you couldn't get them to get involved in ministry now for anything. And some.

In this situation end up losing their faith altogether. And so Paul is like, listen, love the new converts, and one of the ways you can love them is by not prematurely elevating them to a position of ministry before they are ready. Well, hurrying on, there is a 3rd and a final. qualification that Paul wants Timothy and us to make sure is descriptive of the life of an elder in the church, and that is that they must have a good reputation with non-believers, with non-Christians, with non-church attenders.

Paul is saying, Timothy, obviously, you want people in the church to think highly of this person. but Timothy, check out what nonbelievers say about this person. Check out what people who don't attend church might say about this person, family members or people that this person works with or in the neighborhood. Find out what they say about this individual.

You see, often it's nonbelievers that see Someone, a potential elder for who they really are, it's easy when we come to church to put on a smiley face and to use biblical terminology and to bring our Bibles and just act really spiritual and say yes, praise the Lord and how you doing brother? and it's easy to, and I pray that this doesn't happen often, but it, but it's easy to put on a show, but then when we go home. To our families, what are we like? And when we go into the workplace and we're surrounded by nonbelievers, do we just blend right in and talk the way they do and enjoy the things that they enjoy, or are we any different?

Do they observe integrity in our life? Do we cheat along with the best of them out in the world, or do they see That there is a difference in our lives. The whole key here is consistency of life. That's the core of the idea here, that who a man is at church is the same guy out in the workplace.

who a person is when he is around believers, he's the same person when he is around those that maybe do not know the Lord or are not believers. Now we have to be careful with this because Is Paul saying that if there's any nonbeliever anywhere that has a negative thing to say about a guy, then he can't be an elder? Is that what he's saying? did every nonbeliever love the apostle Paul?

No, they stoned him, they beat him with rods, they imprisoned him. they whipped him. Paul had some problems with what non-believers thought of him, right? So Paul certainly is not saying that.

If a nonbeliever criticizes a man, then he's not qualified. But here's the difference. Here's what Paul means. If any nonbeliever or non-Christian can level a criticism against a Christian man who's a potential elder and the criticism sticks, it's a justifiable criticism, then that man should not be put in a position.

Of shepherding or pastoring, and this is so important to the cause of Christ. a few years ago there was a pastor of a large church up in Colorado who was publicly outed, just exposed for immoral behavior that had been going on over a period of time. And the reason that the person that he had been immorally involved with, the reason that they outed him was because this pastor from the pulpit and in other venues was preaching publicly against the very thing that he was engaging in privately, and it was the hypocrisy.

that this unsaved man observed that caused him to get mad and say, what, I'm going to show you and the whole world is going to know what you've been doing.

And that's why it's so important. And when that stuff happens, people in the world don't say, Well, I guess that's one rotten apple. No, they say, see, that's this whole Christianity thing is a farce. All pastors are like that.

All churches are like that. And this, the theology they believe is rotten to the core, and they just make all these inferences from something like that, and then they excuse themselves and their own sin. And so just like when King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered Bathsheba's husband, God said to David, you have caused the enemies, my enemies to blaspheme. To blaspheme me So Paul is saying we have to be very careful.

That when someone is a pastor or an elder that they live a consistent life of integrity, whether they're with believers or nonbelievers. Look what he says in verse 7, and he must have a good reputation with those outside. Literally, he must have a good witness from those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil, so that he won't fall into reproach, a reproach from which he will not be able to get out of. And he'll be trapped by the devil permanently, that reproach will haunt him and follow him for the rest of his days.

So let me just, close with this is the last slide. Let me give you guys some things to think about regarding this last qualification. I would ask you, are you consistent in your lifestyle? Or are you different when you're around Christians than when you're around people at home or, when you're around nonbelievers, do nonbelievers see any difference in you?

I would ask you, is there anyone both in the church and outside the church who can reproach you justifiably? They, they have a legitimate significant criticism to bring against you, and they are justified. And that criticism And if your answer to that is yes, then what I would encourage you to do is to just go before the Lord, ask Him to help you to deal with that. You may need to go back to somebody and apologize to them, even if they're a nonbeliever.

When I worked in the screen printing industry, there were a few times I had to go to my unsafe boss and ask his forgiveness. And by the way, nonbelievers are a lot of them are very uncomfortable granting forgiveness. He did everything he could, like, oh, it's no big deal, no big deal. It's like, no, I sinned, I need you to forgive me.

Oh, don't worry about it. It's OK. No, it's not OK. I need you to say that you forgive me.

And it was very hard for him to just say I forgive you. so sometimes we blow it around those that don't know Christ and we need to be humble enough to go back to them and to, to respect them enough and to respect the cause of Christ enough to make that right. And so ask the Lord for ways that you can go about doing that. And then one final question here, have you done all that you can to proactively make amends for pre-salvation sins?, maybe there are things that you did before you were saved.

God has wonderfully changed your life. but there are people from your pre-salvation days that could justifiably bring criticism against you, and I, I suppose we can't go back to every single person or think of everything, but I would just ask you, does the Lord bring anyone to your mind? And if he does, I would just ask you to ponder, have, is there something I can do by way of going back to this person? And apologizing, making amends, making it right.

By the way, that's a powerful testimony if, if people see that brokenness and humility in us and take steps to do that, if the Lord gives you wisdom to do that and brings things to your mind. Well, I want to ask you to bow your heads this morning. Yeah, I feel like we could linger long on, On each of these qualifications, there really is so much that I think God has for us and hopefully as you discuss these things in your care groups tonight and pray over them and talk about them as a family, that God will take you even deeper into an understanding of these things.

We're going to take up an offering in just a moment.

We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads. No pressure, but if God leads you to give, to support his work, we would encourage you to do so. There's a comment card in your bulletin. We would encourage you to fill that out.

if there's any way we can minister to you, let us know. And Any prayer requests that you have, praises, put those on the back and we'll pray for those in our Tuesday staff meeting. And put them on our church family prayer sheet. If you would like for us to do so.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, the sheer weight of going through all of these qualifications, 16 of them total has just the cumulative effect of them has really been wearing at my heart. I feel I'm looking at the 10 Commandments. There's not a one of these that I look at and say, I'm nailing it.

I fall short in every one of these, and I just sense that probably everyone in our church feels that way. So we thank You, Lord, for the grace, for the forgiveness that is ours in Christ. We've already blown the opportunity to be models of perfection in these areas, but help us to grow and to be models of progress. And advancement in these very areas help us to be like you, Jesus, and thank you for being our best friend long before we reach perfection on any of these qualities.

But thank you for befriending us now, when we have so far to go, and for the power of that friendship with you to change us and transform us. And to make us what you want us to be. We thank you for the privilege of giving this offering to you. We don't just give to you our money, but we give ourselves to You, Lord, as a sacrifice and ask that you use these funds and use us for the spread of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.