What God Requires of Your Pastors

Having said that, let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3 for our time of study. In God's word this morning, 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 chapter 3, verse 2. We've already begun wading into verse 2, and my goal originally today was to get all the way through verse 2.

It turns out we're going to get almost to the end. Of verse 2 and the title of the message this morning is what God requires of your pastors. What God requires of your pastors. ultimately there's a list of, I think, 15 things that God requires of those that are serving as your pastors, and today, by the time we're done this morning, we will have looked at 6 of those, those things.

Remember that pastors are elders, elders are overseers. All of those terms are synonymous. Paul in verse 1 and 2 uses the term overseer, but we know that he's talking about pastors and. Overseers, shepherds, elders, all of those terms are interchangeable.

In Acts chapter 20, as well as in First Peter chapter 5. We've talked about this previously. I won't belabor that point, but what God requires of your pastors now. Here's how I want to introduce this.

I know I'm keenly aware of the fact that there are very likely people in our church body that are here in this first service and in the second service that your heart does not leap for joy. At the prospect of spending the next 40 minutes, looking at what God requires of your, pastors. And you may be saying, Pastor Milton, what, I've got my own issues going on. I've got a lot that's going on in my life, a lot of things pressing in on my mind.

I'm worried about my job. I'm, struggling in my walk with the Lord. Some sin issues are really beating me down. Someone I'm ministering to is really struggling and it's not going well.

There's a relationship problem in my life, and my marriage, my children, whatever, and I'm bringing all of those thoughts into the auditorium with me this morning. And to be honest with you, pastor, I'm just not that excited. At the prospect of spending the next 40 minutes talking about what God requires of pastors. 1 Timothy 3:17, just doesn't excite me.

well, if you're feeling that way, I don't want to rebuke you. I just want to say that I, I understand that. but I really think you should care. And I really think 1 Timothy 3:17 should be meaningful and exciting to you in your Christian walk.

And I want to try to help you see why it should be meaningful. And let me, let me do it this way. I want you to imagine that this past week went a little differently than it actually did. I want you to imagine that at some point this past week you got a phone call from someone in this church to inform you.

That one of the elders of this church had been found out committing adultery. How would you feel coming into the service this morning? How precious would 1 Timothy 3:17 be to you. Imagine you got a phone call this past week.

Informing you that one of the elders was arrested for DUI. And everyone in the church is being notified because there was going to be a little article in the newspaper on the next day about it. We wanted everyone in the Cornerstone family to know in advance. How would you come into church this morning if that happened?

How would you come into church this morning if you got a phone call this past week informing you that one of the elders has been involved in an unethical financial scheme that has unraveled, that has been busted by federal authorities and He has been removed from eldership here at Cornerstone. But we're letting everyone in the church know because there's going to be a little write up in the newspaper about it tomorrow. We wanted you to know. Imagine that any of those scenarios happened.

What would you be thinking coming into the service this morning? What would you be feeling right now, knowing that we're going to look at 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7? How precious would these verses be to you? If those things were to happen.

What I want to really hit you guys with is the fact that those things have not happened this past week, by God's grace, partly because of passages like this. 1000 giants have been slain, and 1000 heartaches in your life and in the life of this church body have been avoided precisely because of God graciously providing passages like 1 Timothy 3:17. And what I want all of you to feel as we look at this text is I, every believer, whether you're a pastor or not, every believer in this church body, I, I want you to read 1 Timothy 3:1 through 7 and feel loved.

You don't have to be a pastor to feel the love of God.

God is extremely careful about who he's going to entrust you over to to have care for you. I want you to enjoy the sensation of the arms of God around you. And he's being extremely picky, extremely demanding of those that are responsible to provide oversight and to care for you. God's love is here in this passage for you as the people of God.

I was thinking this week, how would my children feel contemplate this? how would my children feel if I went home, one day this coming week, and I said, kids, your mom and I are going to go out on a date, and we're going to be gone all evening, but I got a babysitter for you, and his name is, what's, what's your name? It's Bob. I found him walking the streets of University Avenue, and he's free tonight.

And as I got to know him a little bit, he just got out of prison a couple of days ago and I don't know what he was in prison for. He won't reveal that to me, but amazingly, he's free tonight. And so I'm going to have him watch you while your mom and I are gone. how would my children respond to that?

Would they feel the love there? like, man, Dad, thanks for looking out for us. No, they wouldn't respond that way. That would be insane to them.

And they would thereby conclude by my lack of pickiness, and obviously that I'm not demanding of those that care for them. They would conclude that I must not love them or value them. And so when we look at 1 Timothy 3, I just, I want you to listen in as God is saying, pastors and elders, those of you that I'm assigning to care for my people, this is what I demand of you every day. It's a trustworthy statement.

If a man aspires to the office of overseer, God says, it's a fine work that he desires to do. Why is it so fine? Partly because of the people you get to care for and to serve. An overseer, God says, must be above reproach.

A one woman man, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well. Verse 6, he can't be a new convert. Verse 7, he's got to have a good reputation.

listen to your chief shepherd. As he's looking out for you and demanding these things of those that he's going to entrust you over to, that they might care for you, every believer should read this, whether he's a pastor or not, and feel very strongly the love of God for him or for her. What we're going to do today with the time we have is we're going to look at the screen says 7 things. We're only going to have time to look at 6 things that God requires of your pastors because he loves you so much and cares for you.

And we'll look at 6 of these things. The 1st 2 are going to be a little bit of review, but then we'll, we'll get into 4 additional, things that God demands or requires of your pastors and try to work our way through most of verse 2. All right. The first thing that God requires of your pastors because He loves you is He requires that they must be above reproach.

They absolutely must be above reproach. He says it's a trustworthy statement, verse 1. If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work, a beautiful work he desires to do. Anyone who wants to take care of my people, God says, that's an awesome job, an awesome occupation.

I shed the blood of my Son for these people. They're precious to me. I don't just hand them over to anybody. It's a fantastic work of caring for my people whom I have purchased with the blood of my Son.

Verse 2, therefore, because it's such a beautiful work, an overseer then must be above reproach. What that means is that an overseer daily is not to behave in a way that legitimate disqualifying complaint could be brought against him. By the way, let me 0.1 thing out about verse 2. Technically this reads, an overseer then must continually be above reproach.

And then all the other things that are listed. These are not just qualifications to get into the office of elder or pastor. This is part of the job description of elders and pastors. Every day that an elder wakes up, he is called to live above reproach, to be a one woman man, and so forth.

If you're an elder here at Cornerstone and you're trying to figure out something to do. Go to this passage and And follow what you see here. And by the way, none of our elders are looking for something to do. They know what God expects of them.

But the first is that they must be above reproach. And the thing is, guys, God is concerned about this obviously for the sake of the elder, but he's concerned about this for the sake of His people. God knows that if an elder could be involved in some reproachable behavior, it will. diminish the credibility of the gospel, the credibility of God's truth.

It will cause the enemies of God to blaspheme the name of God, and it will also soil your reputation. If you have been receiving benefit from the ministry of that elder or pastor. I like what Alexander S Strou says. He says, since the world cast a critical eye at the Christian community and since Christian leaders lead primarily by example, an irreproachable life is indispensable to the Christian.

Leader. And so pray for your pastors, pray for your elders that they will be above reproach. Now the question is, what does it mean to be above reproach? Well, I think as Carlos pointed out a couple of weeks ago, what follows this qualification is what it means to be above reproach.

The way I like to think of it is this, this command to be above reproach. Just imagine that as an egg. You break that egg and what comes falling out of the shell of that egg is all of the other qualifications that are listed here. All of these things explain what it means to be above reproach for an elder.

So in a way there's one qualification to being an elder, and that is be above reproach. And what does that look like? Paul then begins to tell us that brings us to the second qualification or the second thing God demands or requires of your pastors, and that is that they must be a one woman man. They must be a one woman.

A man. Now Carlos talked about this a couple of weeks ago at length. I'm not going to belabor the things that that he went over. The only thing I want to say is some people read this and they get obsessed about what the technicalities of this, that, well, what does this mean?

Can a guy have been married before? or what if his previous spouse died and he got remarried and they get hung up on the legal details of this when really the emphasis is, Paul is literally saying a one woman kind. Of men, and I like what one writer says. He says the point here is how one conducts himself in his marriage.

There may be a guy who's a one woman man in the sense that he's married to one woman. He's been married to one woman for 30 years, but he has been anything but. A one woman man. He's been unfaithful.

He's had a roving eye. The man has been involved in adulterous relationships, but nonetheless, he's been married legally to one woman. That's not what Paul is talking about. He's talking about a character issue.

He's talking. about how a man behaves inside of his marriage, that his heart belongs to his wife, his body belongs to his wife. He is devoted to her in every way from a positive standpoint, obviously it means that an elder is abstaining from sexually. wrong relationships with anyone other than the spouse that God has given to him, but from a positive standpoint, a one woman man is a man whose heart is devoted to, and whose number one treasure and ministry is his wife.

A one woman man as an elder is a man whose heart is devoted to his wife, his wife is his number one treasure, his wife is his number one ministry. To those of you that are elders in this room, just, just an encouragement, your ministry starts here. Your shepherding ministry begins with your wife, Paul, this is a job description in part. And other than being above reproach, which means don't mess up.

positively speaking, the next thing he says is, be a one woman man. You want to know what to do as an elder today? Be a one woman man. Your ministry starts here.

Make your wife your number one treasure and your #1 ministry. I remember a number of years ago reading James Dobson in a book on parenting, and he made the point to dads, you're expecting him to talk about here's how to deal with your kids, but he starts off talking about the marriage relationship between the husband and wife. And he says to the dads, he says, the, the greatest gift you can give to your children is to love their mother. And to moms, he says, the greatest gift you can give to your children is to love your children's father, Love one another as husband and wife, and you're well on the way to being.

An excellent parent, I think the same thing could be said of elders that second only to an elder's love for God, the single greatest gift, not the only gift, but second only to his love for God, the greatest gift that an elder can give to his congregation is to love his wife and to be devoted to her, to make his wife his number one treasure and his number one ministry. This is where our shepherding ministry begins in the home, in our marriages, and with our wives. I have to confess as a pastor that in my 17+ years as a pastor here at Cornerstone, especially in my early years here, there were a number of occasions where I put ministry over my wife and I put her in a second position underneath the ministry.

And I made those unwitting decisions to her great hurt.

And God has shown me how wrong that was, how contrary that is, even to what is being taught here in verse 2 and elsewhere. God continues to grow me in this area. But one of the exciting things that I see is when I get up in the morning, it's like, Lord, I'm an elder. I'm a pastor.

What do you want me to do today? It's like one of the first things I hear him say is love your wife, love your wife. That's where your ministry begins. Well, there's a third thing that God requires of elders, and that is that elders must be temperate.

Elders must be temperate. Pastors, elders, overseers, shepherds must be temperate men. In verse 2, an overseer then must be continuously above reproach, the husband of one wife and temperate. What does the word temperate mean?

The Greek word here literally has the idea of being sober as opposed to being drunk. OK. God is saying in part, I don't want elders who take care of my people to be drunk, because see, drunkenness gets in the way of pastoring. you, you need to know, and God is very burdened about this actually, because in verse 3, he brings it up again that an elder is not to be addicted to wine.

He's not to be a man who sits long beside the wine cooler, and literally and, and gets drunk and is under the control of, of alcohol. So an elder must be sober as opposed to being intoxicated. This term was understood even more broadly to just speak of someone that is self-controlled, someone that is free from debilitating excesses or rash behavior. One of the things about, being an elder is that you find yourself in some really pressure cooker situations where you need, you absolutely need to be self-controlled.

I've been in situations where I'm ministering to somebody in our church, and they've been angry and hurled profanities and thrown stuff at me. And in those situations, temperance is called for. In my mind, I've got to go to a happy place when that's happening and figure out a way to just stay under control and to not lose control in that situation. An elder is to be a man, especially because of the nature of things that he encounters in the pastoring ministry.

He's a man that needs to make sure he's not under control. of anything other than the Holy Spirit, not under the control of alcohol, not under the control of his emotions, not being controlled by the heat of the moment, not being controlled by any foreign substances for that matter. think about it, if If the elders of Cornerstone were obviously under the control of foreign substances, they're not even in control of themselves, but foreign substances are dominating and controlling them.

How in the world are you ever going to respect them when they tell you, Hey, you're free from sin.

Don't let sin control you. When I was a kid in my junior high years, we attended a church in South Carolina for a couple of years where the system of government in that church was different. It was a deacon form of government, so the deacons were the equivalent of elders here at Cornerstone, at least in some ways. And one of my memories is that every service right after the closing prayer, the chairman of the deacon board and another deacon or two made a beeline for the steps at the front of the church, and they would break out their cigarettes and just start smoking.

That was my Sunday afternoon memory after every service, and I don't want to judge them for that. we all struggle with different things, but it's like They couldn't even wait until they got home, and here are leaders in the church that all of us could look at and say these guys are under the control of that stick that's in their mouth. And so any words coming from those men to the body saying, Hey, you're free from sin and don't let these things control you would not carry the weight that God would want it to carry because they were obviously and visibly under the control.

of something else.

We need to make sure as elders we're not being controlled by people. And what they do. And then make excuses for that. We have to make sure we're not being controlled by circumstances we find ourselves in.

I like what one writer says. This guy was writing in the 16th century. He says, How shall I be able to rule over others if I have not full power and command of myself? By the way, this goes for parents too.

Parents, you will never be able to successfully control your children. Until you're able to control and rule over your own spirit, how can you expect to control your children when they see that you cannot control yourself and your own spirit? And also, you'll never be able to control your children when they know that they can control you, right? You see, when my children can't control me.

Do they not control you? Do you, do your children, or at least some of your children know how to press all the right buttons to get you to fly off the handle and start popping off and behaving in ways that you later regret? If your children can do that, then they're observing that they can control you, and you will never control them if they see that they can control you in That way, deep down in all of our children is a sinful desire to control their parents. But deeper down in our children is, I believe, a stronger desire to know that they cannot control us.

In fact, the most insecure children you'll ever meet are children who know they can control mom and dad. And so our children want us to be in control so that we can then exert leadership and influence over them. That's true in the home. It's also true in the church, in the ministry of pastors and of elders.

Elders absolutely must be temperate men controlled by the Holy Spirit and by nothing else. OK. There's a 4th, thing that God requires of elders that's related to the temperance we just spoke about, and that is that they must be, be prudent. This means something very similar to temperate, but there's a little bit more of a focus on the mind.

Elders are to be men of good judgment. They are to be careful thinkers. They are to be objective. They are to be sensible.

And then they speak and they act according to that careful thinking. An elder speaks before, or he thinks before he speaks. He's careful in the decisions that he makes, how he behaves and how he speaks, and just in Encouragement to to all of us because all of us need to be prudent, but, but especially an encouragement to the elders that we can do as much thinking as we possibly can. But at the end of the day we're dependent upon God and His wisdom to come through for us.

Amen. And we need to depend upon Him. There's a number of counseling situations I've found myself in over the years that as the need is being poured out, I don't have a clue what to say. And so when I'm in that situation and I don't even know what to say, I just keep asking questions and I'm praying, God, I, when it's time to speak, I'm just asking that your wisdom will be there.

And then there are times where God will give me wisdom and I'm thankful for that. But then there are times where this is pretty bizarre, where I'll just open my mouth. I don't even know what I'm going to say, but I know I'm supposed to speak because they're sitting there quietly waiting for something. And I'll open my mouth and begin speaking, and words come out of my mouth that not only have I never spoken before, I've never thought them before.

And in those moments I am so grateful to the Lord and mindful of the fact that God is actually going beyond my own wisdom, my finite brain power, and He's speaking to them through my mouth anyway, wisdom, and sometimes the words that are coming out, I'm like I can't believe how perfect that is for this person. And I've learned over the years you just depend upon God for that wisdom to be there in those moments where it is needed, but in shepherding and pasturing, prudence is called for.

Careful thinking is required. I've told you guys about this before, but I remember a number of years ago, I, I don't think I'd been in the ministry for more than a year before a man came to me struggling with anxiety attacks and, I said, well, I, I can help you with that maybe, but I can more help you if there's scent issues in your life.

And he began to, tell me about some of the sin issues in his life, and one of them was that he had committed adultery on two different occasions. And I asked him, I said, Are you afraid your wife is going to find out? He said, Yeah. And I said, Well, maybe that could be where your anxiety is coming from, and I'm going to counsel you to confess to your wife.

And he says, OK. And so the next day his wife came in and they, he began to confess to her. He didn't even get the full confession out before she knew where he was heading. And she just flipped out, began physically assaulting him.

And I'm sitting there, 27 year old pastor. I, I, it's like, I didn't learn about any of this in seminary. So it's like, I don't know. I don't know what to do.

And anyway, she got done beating on him and then she grabbed her purse and walked out and she said, get to the car. I'm taking you home. You're going to pack your bags and you're out of here. Well, she walked out and then he looked at me when the dust settled and said, Well, this went well.

And And I put on a brave face, although I was quivering inside, and I, I just said, don't second guess this. You've seen the face of God in your wife. That's what this sin is. And you needed this experience.

And he said, Well, why did such and such Christian counselor tell me that I didn't have to tell my wife? And I said, Listen, we made the right decision here and, I think God is pleased with the step you've taken, and He's going to honor that. And by the way, God did in a few weeks. He called me and said they were back together and getting counseling and well on their way towards reconciliation.

But anyway, he walks out of my office and as soon as he left, I closed the door and just sobbed. And then I picked up the phone and I called John MacArthur's personal assistant and said, Did I do the right thing here? because I was having second thoughts about whether I had done the right thing and I was encouraged to be told, yes, I had done the right thing. Thing, the thing is, in eldering and pastoring, there's a lot of situations that defy common sense that go way beyond any natural wisdom that you possess and requires extremely careful thinking, great prudence, and sound judgment.

I got a call from a pastor, I'll just say within the last month, who's dealing with a situation in his church where a woman in his church years ago married a guy in one state. And that guy left and the marriage never got dissolved. No divorce ever took place. Years later she's in another state and marries another guy and now that couple is in this church and they come to the pastor saying, what do we do about this?

So this pastor calls me saying, what do I do about this? I give him the name of another pastor to call. But the thing is, guys, sin, sin is the great complicator, and it can complicate lives to where in a pastoring, eldering ministry, you're like faced with some of these, and it's like your heart goes out to people whose lives have been complicated by sin, but a wisdom and a prudence is being called for that. that can only come from God above.

And part of why I'm sharing all of this is to say pray for your pastors, pray for your elders, because they need prudence, and this prudence only comes from God. As a pastor, you also become privy to a lot of information about people. That comes out as you minister to them in counseling and a pastor, an elder needs to be prudent about what he does with that information. He needs to be very discreet and careful, and there have been times in my ministry where I'm privy to this information about a person and this person though doesn't like the way I'm handling the situation.

They'll talk to other people in the church and complain to them, and then it gets back to me and someone comes to me and says so and so's not happy with how you're handling this. This person doesn't have full information. And a part of me wants to say to this other person, Well, let me give you the full story. But I can't do that.

That would not be prudent. I would betray confidence. And so in those situations, you have to bite your lip, ask them to pray, and to trust the Lord. And you have to let the Lord be your defender in those situations.

And so God is saying, listen, anyone that's going to take care of my people, I love them, they're precious to me, but they've got indwelling sin and some of their lives are incredibly complicated, by sin. In fact, all of their lives are complicated by sin to one degree or another, and I only want temperate. Men, I only want prudent men, characterized by careful thinking and sound judgment to be responsible in overseeing them and caring for them. There's a 5th thing that God requires of pastors and elders, because God loves you so much.

He makes yet a 5th demand of those that are responsible to care for you and to oversee you, and that is that they must be respectable. He says in verse two, an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, and respectable. Now the word translated respectable is an interesting word. It's the Greek word cosmoios.

Does anyone remember that? We've seen that before. None of you do. OK.

look at verse 9. we saw this word actually twice when Paul was speaking to women. Literally, it says in verse 9, I want women to cosme themselves with cosmos attire. And we understood that as meaning orderly and attractive.

In other words, women are to beautify themselves with beautiful attire. And now Paul is speaking to men. He's speaking to elders, and elders are to be cosmios. Well, again, our English word cosmos speaks of the idea of an orderly arrangement.

That's the root meaning of this term. It speaks of orderliness. Things are in order in the life and in the heart of an elder or a pastor, and with this orderliness comes an attraction. ive ness he makes godliness appealing and attractive.

And when we talk about orderliness here, he's not saying that an elder's house needs to be immaculate and there's got to, everything's got to be neat and tidy, although I'm sure that this qualification has some bearing on how tidy an elder might be, which I've got work to do on, but But it's more the idea of, of this order. Jesus Christ, as he's revealed in the Gospel is at the center of the elder's life. And in the solar system in the cosmos of the elder's life, everything revolves around that.

There is an order to his life, and it is a gospel order where the gospel is being brought to bear upon that elder's life.

He's got priorities and his priorities are right. What should be a first priority is first, and what should be last priority is last. What should not be a priority at all is not a priority in that elder's life. There is an order that is reflected.

It is a gospel order. that is evidenced in that elder's life, which causes people, respectable is a good translation here, causes people to look at that elder and respect him. Paul knows that an elder being respectable, just like a parent being respectable to their children is crucial because if an elder is not respected by the people, then the words coming out of his mouth will not be respected, right? Just as a parent, if your children respect you, they will respect the words that come out of your mouth.

If your children do not respect you because you've not earned that, Then even when you speak respectable words that are true, your words are not going to be respected because you are not respected. And so elders are to live lives that command respect. And by the way, if you give respect, you receive that. So elders give respect to people.

They're very respectful to those that they are ministering to, and they receive that respect in return, and that lends credibility to the words they speak. Now you may be a parent, you may be an elder and go, Man, I've blown that because I've, I've failed in a number of ways, so. I've lost people's respect. what?

No biggie. well, it is a big deal, but here's what you do. If you mess up, you confess that and you make that right and you seek for forgiveness and restoration. If you've messed up with your children, you behave towards them and in front of them in a way that causes them to lose respect, go back to them.

And confess your wrong and make that right. If you behave towards a brother or sister in the church, towards anyone that has caused them to lose respect for you, then, then seek to make that right in a spirit of humility and a spirit of grace. in my, in my book, people that seem perfect, they frighten me. All right, I don't know what to do with people like that, but people that mess up and yet they're humble about it, they make it right, they confess it.

And if they wrong you, they come back to you and make, they make that right. Those people are like at the top of my list of people I respect. I'll follow those people anywhere. I think you guys are the same way.

I remember when I was in high school. This is like one of my standout memories when I was in the youth group at our church in Indiana. We were at a summer camp and one of the things we were doing during that camp is we played games and one of the games one day involved water balloons and Our youth pastor brought out 5 gallon buckets of water balloons, and as soon as he did, I and a few others A few other brainless teenagers like me forgot about the game and we ran toward the 5 gallon buckets to grab the water balloons so that we could create our own game.

And our youth pastor had said, Don't touch these, but we ran after them anyway, and I, I reached in.

I remember I got to the 5 gallon bucket. I reached in to grab one and my youth pastor's hand grabbed my forearm. And he said, I told you not to touch these. And I, I backed off and left him alone, and he didn't yell at me.

He didn't grab my forearm too hard or anything, and I didn't think anything unusual. I deserved that. My dad was a Marine, so I was used to being treated that way. So no harm done.

Didn't think another thing of it. Two weeks later, this youth pastor came to me. And he said, Milton, I need to, I need to talk to you. I need to confess sin to you.

And I said, well, what? He took me back to that incident and he said, what, when I grabbed your arm and I told you not to touch the balloons, I was, I was in the flesh in that moment. And I said, Well, I didn't notice that. you, you should have done what you did.

And he said, I'm just telling you that in my heart I was in the flesh at that moment, and I believe I sinned against you, and I wanted to ask you, will you forgive me? And I, I forgave him. My respect for him just went through the roof. And he's always been at the top of my list of people that I would just follow anywhere.

In fact, I see him every few years. Every time I see him, I remind him of that incident, not where he was being in the flesh, but when he came to. When he came to me confessing sin, and I tell him, I said, you have no idea how much that meant to me as a young man. No adult had ever, ever come to me in my life to ask my forgiveness for anything.

And so that youth pastor was not perfect, but he commanded huge respect because of his humility and his willingness to make right what he believed was a wrong that he had done. So even if you've messed up, it's not too late. We command respect by a spirit of humility that seeks to make right the wrongs that we have done. As a pastor, I do.

it's, it's pretty regular. I'm asking people to forgive me. I, Ask someone yesterday to forgive me for a wrong that, that I had done, a slight that I had rendered against them. So, I've given up being perfect a long time ago, but as elders, we can be models of progress, can't we, in all of these areas.

Don't look at these qualifications and go, I got to be perfect in all these. No, I think the thing is that God's people need to see that we're making progress, that we're models of progress in these areas. Well, let's look at one final thing that God demands of of pastors, because he loves you so much. God demands that elders that your pastors be hospitable, hospitable.

One of the things you observe as you read through the New Testament is that one of the crowning virtues of the early church is hospitality. It is a forgotten virtue in today's church. In Acts 2:46, on the, right at the very beginning of the first church, we see that day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God. There was stuff going on at the temple where they all gathered, but there was a lot of activity going on from house to house.

That's hospitality. And they were eating together. Beyond that, there's a lot of commands. In Romans 12:13, we are to be practicing hospitality.

3rd John 8, we ought to show hospitality. First Peter 4:9, Peter says, Be hospitable to one another without complaint. Hebrews 13:2, Do not neglect to show hospitality. And now in this passage today.

1 Timothy 3:2, Paul says an overseer must become or must be hospitable. What does it mean to be hospitable? It's basically the word hospitality is a combination of two words in the Greek. It's the word pylos that speaks of friendly, affectionate love.

And then the Greek word xenos, that means stranger. I could speak of a foreigner or just a stranger, somebody that you don't know, and don't look at that and go, OK, so hospitality is only hospitality if I'm showing hospitality to someone who's a stranger to me. No, this word is used to show the scope of our hospitality that we show hospitality to all, including those that are presently outside of the circle of those that we know and are already comfortable with. It shows the full length of the ministry of hospitality.

Let's define hospitality. It means to warmly reach out to and welcome others into your heart and into your home, including those presently outside your circle of family. And friends, it's a friendly disposition, a welcoming disposition, and then it certainly involves what you do with your home, what you do with your stuff, and most of our stuff is at our home. I like what Alexander Strauss says about hospitality.

And shepherding, he says, giving oneself to the care of God's people means sharing one's life and home with others. An open home is a sign of an open heart and a loving, sacrificial serving spirit. A lack of hospitality is a sure sign of selfish, lifeless, and loveless Christianity. My dream and the dream of the elders is that we have a church that is strong in hospitality amongst all of our membership, but we realize that that must begin with us as elders.

Paul wants hospitality to be fashionable, as it were in the church. And so the way to make hospitality and all these other virtues fashionable is Paul wants them to be seen by the leaders just like Nike. They want their gear and equipment to be fashionable. Amongst the general populace, so they pay Tiger Woods that people look up to $40 million to wear their stuff in the hope that people will make that attachment and go, Man, I want to look like him.

God is the same way. God wants hospitality to be common in the church. And so part of his strategy is, I want people in the church to see this amongst the leaders that they respect and follow. And so the point I want to make from this is that Pastors should not always and only have to go out of their home in order to do the work of pastoring.

Some of the most significant pastoring that a pastor should do should happen inside the walls of his own home. November of last year, I had the privilege of speaking at a men's conference in New York, and while I was there, I got to stay at the home of the guy who was putting on the conference. I got to stay in his home for a couple of days and, and during my time there in his home, they were having another family of 5 just living in their basement whose home was getting remodeled, and I just saw this spirit of hospitality in the life of this pastor and his wife, and it just utterly amazed me.

Probably in about 365 days of the year.

He said something to the effect that probably at least 300 of those days, someone was either living with them or coming through their home for a meal or to be ministered to in some way. And his home was like, it's not something he had to leave to go do ministry. He did that to a degree, but a lot of his ministry happened as people came through their home and lived with them and ate with them. And so it wasn't surprising for me to observe that the whole church body, it was just a small church of about 90 people, but it's like everyone is given over to a spirit of hospitality with their own homes to such a degree that this church purchased 200 acres of land in the Adirondacks of New York just like 1 mile or so from the church.

And there was this lodge there on the property that was run down. It has like 16 bedrooms, 21 bathrooms. It's a monster lodge, and as a church they're all working together to get this place fixed up so that they can expand their ability to show hospitality to people around the country and around the world. Anyone that wants to come and just live there, be a part of their church community for a while, someone who's hurting, struggling with sin.

Who wants to just come and live there. The church has this as a means of showing hospitality to that person, and a lot of what we would consider quote unquote counseling ministry in this church community happens within the context of hospitality, not in some clinical office setting, and they're they're seeing lives that are being impacted and changed, transformed by hospitality. So the thing is, guys, I'm going to say this and wrap it up. Hospitality is not just something an elder needs to make sure he does, amongst many other things, and that we all need to do in the church, amongst many other things.

No, hospitality is one of those supreme virtues, and inside of hospitality are multiple opportunities for life transforming ministry. To one another, as we seek to do community with one another. And it's for that reason that Paul, amongst the other things that God demands of elders, that God demands that elders be hospitable, because much of their pastoring ministry happens in the context of hospitality. Well, let me ask you to bow your heads this morning.

I, I want to just say to all of you, God loves you. He loves you so much that he is extremely demanding of pastors that are assigned the responsibility of caring for you. And so take that love, just breathe that love in, and know how much God cares for you and treasures you. That he would be so demanding of those who care for you.

We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. You're welcome to give to the Lord as the Lord leads. You have a comment card in your bulletin, you're welcome to fill that out. Any prayer requests or praises, just put that on the back of the card.

We'll pray for those things in our staff meeting and put them on our church family prayer sheet if you like. OK. You're welcome to put that card in the offering bag as it goes by this morning. Let's look to the Lord in prayer.

Lord Jesus, you are the chief shepherd. You shed your blood for your people. Your people are precious to you. So precious to you that you are extremely careful and demanding of those who are assigned to care for your sheep.

Thank you for this love that you have for all of us, Lord. We see the love here. We relish it. And may we cherish the pastors and elders that are in our life.

May we pray for them. And may those of us who are pastors and elders, may we manifest that same heart of love towards your people that you have for them. And we just ask all of these things, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, And then