A Good Pastor: Christlike Character of an Elder

It's not good enough to be like, well, I'm not a deacon so I don't need to manage my household well. Or like, it's okay that I'm a drunkard. I don't wanna be an elder anyway. No. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about people who are exemplifying. They are modeling Christ like character as they exercise oversight and shepherd the family of God. And it's important that they look like Jesus a little bit. It's important that you can look at them and say, oh, that's what the character of God is like. And if I wanna be like them, it means that I am becoming more like Christ. That is our goal.

It is not that our job is primarily, although I do hope that this happens. It is not that our job is primarily to be Jesus' hands and feet to you. It is that all of us are meant to be Jesus' hands and feet to the whole world. Does that make sense? It is our job to spur that in the whole church family. To equip and instill and catalyze, to mobilize all of us for the work of the Christian life. Okay? Our job is not to do ministry for you, but to equip everyone to minister to the world.

Paul is saying you need to have someone who understands the biblical purpose of marriage. That understands there is a faithfulness that you have towards your spouse spouse that tells the world something about the character of the God that you serve. When you have a covenant marriage, it tells the world something about the covenant faithfulness of the God we are gathering together to worship.

The leaders in this church love you. They love this church. They care deeply for this church. They have wept for this church. They have poured out their souls in prayer for this church. They have made sacrifices for this church. Why? Because they understand our job is preparing all of us one day to see Jesus face to face and to give an account. We are here shepherding this church and I gotta tell you, they are doing it with deep love and commitment and care and humility. And I would ask that you do submit yourselves to the leadership, to the shepherding, and to the oversight of those who are tasked with leading this church.

The first is that you are above reproach. And I I think it's interesting. He begins with the idea of having a good reputation and he ends with the idea of having a good reputation. I think that there is some some chiastic structure in what Paul is doing here but that we'll save that for another deep dive another time. But what what Paul is doing is saying, your reputation matters. It should be that those that lead are well thought of and that they have a good reputation that they are above reproach. The kind of reputation that any accusation against one of these people would absolutely shock you.

And then I think about the church. I think about the necessity of those tasked with exercising oversight and governance in the church and how much more important it is that there is trust, that there is transparency, that people do have faith in those appointed in leadership to govern the church and to shepherd the people of the church.
So how is it that we can build that trust? How is it that we can trust and have faith and confidence in those in those leadership positions? Well, I have a solution. In a word, character. The answer is character. When people have character, it builds trust. And that is what we're talking about through this series called leading with character.

Not violent but gentle. Not quarrelsome he says. Do you know somebody who who just has to get the last word in? Do you know don't point. Do you know, do you do you know somebody who just just likes to argue for the sake of arguing? Do you know somebody who just cannot take feedback without giving it back or getting defensive a little bit? I gotta tell you, if that was a team of people leading the church, that would be exhausting. That is not the case. This is a group of people that exercise humility and are not quarrelsome, are not interested in fighting for the sake of fighting. And when we disagree and when we argue, is always always for the sake of saying how do we make the church more like Christ. Praise God for that.

Not a lover of money. These are people that need to be in this role for the right reasons and the right motives. And I gotta tell you, listen. Guys, you are a very generous church and you have blessed our family. You have taken care of us. Okay? Absolutely. Nobody goes into ministry for the money. Okay? Those that do get, you know, enormously wealthy doing this. That raises my eyebrows a little bit. I am a little bit suspicious of people who become millionaires as pastors. It makes me go, what's going on there? Okay. We do not do this for the love of money and we shouldn't. There is something deeply flawed in a character driven by wealth and gain and material advantages in the world and that is not the case with a group of elders, overseers, and pastors.

And you see that the character traits there are they're they're a little different but there's a lot of overlap. They're very similar. And the point here is in pointing you to Jesus, if if the goal is that you come away from this place more like Christ than you entered, the people that we hold up as examples for you should look like Jesus. Now all of these character traits, both of elders or or overseers and of deacons, they are meant to be desirable qualities for everyone to aspire to.

Self controlled. You know, sometimes, especially among the pastors in the LT, sometimes we disagree. But never once have I ever experienced in disagreement anyone raising their voice or anyone flipping over a table or anyone standing up and walking out in a huff or slamming the door. Not once have I ever seen that. Do you know why? This is a group of people that I would say exhibits self control. We can have these conversations and we are still perfectly in control of all of our faculties while we do it. And I know some of you have been in in work context where that's not necessarily the case. I gotta tell you, it's wonderful. Sometimes I take it for granted that we get along so well because this is a group of people with character that is exhibiting great self control.

Someone who's able to teach. Know, just a few minutes ago, Michael came up and he facilitated our our time of communion. And and he was able to proclaim well the gospel and demonstrate an understanding of the gospel. Do you know when we talked about him doing that? Yesterday. That is a combination of my laxity towards, ah, people will get back to me. They'll say yes. It's fine. And people who say no and take two or three days to say it. That's fine. That's okay. Not everyone's available all the time. But I gotta tell you, it gives me so much confidence to know we have a team of people that can say, yes. I can articulate the gospel well. I understand this. I can convey this to the church family. That's my role in shepherding and exercising oversight.

If you come here and have trouble seeing Jesus because we're in the way, we have failed. But if you come here and you so clearly see Jesus because the people that you see in leadership are pointing directly to Jesus. Amen. Praise God. That's exactly what we want in creating a beautiful family of Christ that looks like the kingdom of God.

We have to fill in some gaps a little bit more as we read through other parts of the New Testament and kinda see, well, what's the difference? What's the role? What's the outline here? We already get some of that here. You see that word exercising oversight. I think that that is absolutely part of the role. There is also this role of shepherding. So if I can say this is kind of the the big picture, that the role of an elder or overseer or pastor is in exercising oversight and in shepherding the family of the church.

And even that word faithfulness, I hope that you've seen words like that come up. Other fruit of the spirit all throughout these character traits of an overseer. Faithfulness, gentleness, kindness, self control. Why? Because a good pastor has the Christ like character of an elder. The whole point here is that we exhibit these traits because that is what Jesus is like.

This is actually the same word that Paul uses in the previous chapter to describe the the kind of way women should interact within the church life. Respectable, orderly, people who conduct themselves well. Hospitable. This word literally means lover of strangers. Maybe you have that in in in a footnote or a column note in your bible. A lover of strangers. There's all sorts of different hospitality characteristics. But let me tell you this. I have been inside of every one of these people's homes. And I've been welcomed in and treated with hospitality as a guest. It's people who open up their lives and share it with you. And I would venture a guess that many many of you can say the same thing. That you've been in these homes. That you know these people and the way that they open up and they want to share their life with you. These are people that exemplify the hospitality that Paul is talking about in first Timothy three.

And so the the first thing that I want to say when we talk about overseers, this word that is used here in in in describing in verses one through seven is that elders are overseers. Does that make sense? Elders are overseers. These are two different Greek words that are used in the New Testament, but I believe that there is overlap.

And so there you see that word shepherd. Whenever you see that word in the New Testament, shepherd, it is the same word as if you saw the word pastor. In fact, in most languages, there is not a difference between those two words. Pastor and shepherd. Now, what he's saying here is he's talking to the elders but he's describing their role as pastors. Those that shepherd the flock.

it's important to go, wait, who are we what are we talking about here? Are we talking about an elder or an overseer or a pastor? And let's clear up some terms. There there are a few things that I wanna highlight here, but sometimes these terms get thrown around. Some people are a little bit more fundamental. They're a little bit more categorical categorical and black and white and concrete in the way that they use these terms.

Someone who is not a recent convert. Someone who is spiritually mature. Someone that we know is faithful because they have been around professing these things and staying engaged in church life for a while. This is not a flash in the pan. This is not a season of enthusiasm. This is someone who's demonstrated steadfast faithfulness.

It is a good thing for us to say your life, the other hundred and sixty seven hours of the week should look a certain way. There is a character standard that we are setting for those that are going to be serving in any kind of visible leadership in this church.

what our job is not to do. Our job is not to do ministry on your behalf. Our job is not to do ministry for you. It is not as though you all come with the expectation that you're outsourcing your Christian life to the professionals

makes room at the table. And this morning, if there's anything that I want you to remember and take away from the sermon, it's this, that a good pastor has the Christ like character of an elder. A good pastor has the Christ like character of an elder. And so we are this morning in first Timothy chapter three. If you have a copy of scripture with you, I encourage you to,