Titus, Lesson 3 cont.
Titus · JD McCulley · Jul 23, 2023
Titus, No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926193247807

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Let's pick up where Bob left off. We're studying through the Book of Titus. We're looking at chapter 1, verses 5 through 16 is the major section there. And in many of our Bibles, it's titled The Qualification of Elders. And so we've had an opportunity to kind of get started with that. We looked at several of the different aspects of eldership. and qualifications related to.

So question 8, we got kind of halfway through that as I recall. So we'll look at verse 7, the first part of verse 7. And the question is, question 8, how is a candidate judged to be above reproach? And we did address that. Bob did a good job of helping us understand what those words mean. But just as a quick review, Titus 1, 7, you can read along with me. For the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward. So we have the above reproach, and this really kind of sets off the characteristics of the man.

And that's what, you know, we talk about these as qualifications, which, what does the word qualification denote? What does it make you think of? These are your qualifications. It sets up an idea of measurement right away, right? And that's not necessarily wrong, but one of the things that I kind of, as I looked at this, the spirit of this is characteristics. These are the character traits of the man. They're not the do's and the don'ts. That's not the way the man is thinking about these things.

He's thinking about, this is who I am in Christ. And this is the calling that the Lord has given me to lead the flock with these types of characteristics. And guess what? Each of these characteristics tie back to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, not the elder himself. And so really it's a shedding of the old. and a walking and a standing in the new.

And so as we look at these, we'll continue to kind of bring that out. But this above approach, it's actually repeated from verse six. So if you look up one verse, you're going to see this whole, you know, whole concept being talked about there. So anywhere where we see repetition in the scripture, we know Paul is like highlighting, you know, like we would. He's underlining these things. And we'll see another one of those that comes up specifically as one characteristic. that we'll talk about today. But blameless is one of those that's repeated. And we also see that it's combined with above reproach. These are things we talked about last week. So this idea of above reproach is unaccusable.

You can't bring charge against this person for something. That doesn't mean that charges are not brought. It just means that they don't stick. They don't, and even in a, you know, a funky court of law where, you know, wrong has been, you know, determined towards a person, that's not what this is talking about above reproach before the Lord, right? And in some cases, churches fall apart because an elder is, you know, blamed for something that's not, that's not true.

So the blame can still happen, but the truth of the matter is his character is blameless in the matter. And he knows before the Lord as standing, he qualifies because he's blameless. He's above reproach, not deserving any charge of wrongdoing. Irreproachable. It doesn't mean that he won't be approached. But in his character, he is truly irreproachable.

How many times have we been blamed for things that we didn't, we weren't guilty of, right? Many times, you know, we'll say Mike is just a fuddy dud. You know, he doesn't care. Or if we were to say those things, it would be between him and the Lord to recognize himself as blameless.

And those that are under his overseership would recognize this doesn't fit the characteristic of the man, right? It doesn't apply to the man. These are false claims. So I bring up false claims not to overanalyze it, but to think about the fact that it doesn't prevent the world from attacking this man. It just means that they don't stick.

J.D., I think one thing, and I like the way you're putting it, it's characteristic. It's not a one-time thing. It's a pattern. It's a way. Because no welder can make all of these 100% of the time. So I think the way you put it is a characteristic, I think, is a good way to put it.

Because you may have a charge laid against you or something like that. right or wrong or whatever a one-time thing maybe maybe you did mess up yep but it's not the pattern or the characteristic i think which is i like the way you put it is characteristic so it could be a charge brought against you and it may be a valid one it may be but you know it's i think what paul is getting at it's just not a pattern of your behavior yeah so because i like again i don't think any elder can make every one of these 100 of the time right yeah think about you know One of the things that the body can't do is bring blame against your private life. What about that? Does that apply? It absolutely does. I think that this talks about the things that don't stick even in the character of your private life. And those are things that are not seen to be judged in this way, right?

Judged in terms of who is blameless. Christ is blameless. Are you in union with Christ? How much maturity does this believer have in relationship to walking in union with who they are in Christ? Because that's ultimately where blameless comes from, right? It's not our blamelessness. We're guilty. We're guilty sinners right out of the gate. But in this case, an elder is blameless or above reproach as a characteristic.

It is the life of Christ that they're displaying. And it goes on. And we can really quickly get into a checklist here. But the point is to talk about the nature of the man in Christ and at a certain maturity level and a qualification for leading the body. So we're going to move on. We talked a little bit about that last week.

He also serves as a steward of God, this idea of steward. is an administrator, you know, the supervisor role. He's the manager of the household. We talk about dispensations. God's dispensations are God's stewardships. We're in the stewardship of the church and therefore God has set up human stewards in the name of an elder and deacon in order to steward the household of the church, if that is fair to say, right? So we have those two parts of verse 7, the first part of that, for the overseer must be above reproach, above reproach as God's steward. And I'll also say that as a steward, damage to a church leader's reputation, in this case is damage to God's reputation.

He's representing, he's overseeing and managing the body. Just like, similar to the way it works in business, you know. The manager is responsible for those that he manages and administers. Who ultimately should be answering for that? The one who's managing and administering. That's ultimately where the responsibility lies. And so, you know, again, when there's damage to a church leader's reputation, it is an affront to God's reputation as well. He represents this body in administration. He's the steward.

So we'll get to the parts that we haven't covered last week, and that's question nine. List the five negative vices an elder must not be guilty of and explain each. So that's where it starts to sound, I mean, vices, not guilty. It starts to get a little personal, right? And that's okay. You would expect this level of expectation, but there's something that's unique about understanding position and condition when it relates to these vices, okay? And we're going to keep that in mind. So, Titus 1-7, second part, 7b, we talked about the overseer must be above reproach and as God's steward, not.

And there's a not connected with each of these five different negative vices. Not self-willed. We'll talk about these each individually. Not quick-tempered. Not addicted to wine. Not pugnacious. Not a word we use a lot. We're going to break it down. Not fond of sordid game.

So Paul resumes his list here. He continues to build on the character of these men. that Titus is appointing in lieu of what responsibility Paul has given him. As a child, one that was raised up by Paul in the faith, he is now helping the body to understand the character of the men that should be left to lead and administer and steward those in the local body. So he moves on to characterize what this overseer must Not only deals with but must not be held captive by so the first vice we talked to that Titus talks of our Paul talks about here and In the book of Titus here is the not self-willed So That strikes at the very heart of Everything that is selfishness seriously not he's not supposed to be selfish not supposed to be self-important the word really kind of hits on the idea of not primarily concerned about your own self-interests. You know, not so concerned about your own issues that you're not considerate about the issues of others. You know, today's hungry heart was all about this. It's kind of interesting there.

Endure is one of the words that came out of the hungry heart. We endure for the sake of others. I'm paraphrasing here what Miles talked about, or quoting, I think it was J.B. Stoney, that there is sadness in not serving others. There's a certain amount of sadness associated with that. But it can't be overly gladness either. There's a level of sacrifice that goes into that. And I think that we could build off of the verses that The Hungry Heart talked about.

Because specifically here he's talking about the characteristic of the elder is not self-willed. He's not self-important. I think one of the keys, and this relates to the shepherding aspect of being an elder, the shepherd looks out for the sheep and is willing to sacrifice for one or all of the sheep. He's not looking out over himself. He's looking over the flock.

And I think that's where the self, you know, you're not so, you know, looking at yourself and you're meeting your needs. You want to meet the needs of the flock. And I equate this, you know, the self-will to the shepherding aspect of being an elder. Your heart is for the flock. Yep. It's not, you know, for years, which sorted gain and other stuff. It's, it's the shepherding aspect that, that I get with self-will. The shepherd doesn't think of himself. He thinks of his flock. He'll go after the one he'll sacrifice later. You know, the good shepherd will lay down his life for the flock.

And the old man does not want to do that. No, no. The old man has no interest in getting up in the middle of the night and doing something that needs to be done to help out a brother. You know in the body To drive across town for a sister who's struggling with something right? I mean this level of This characteristic of not being self-willed is something that only Christ can do in us Because by nature in the old man, it's a hundred percent JD all day JD good As we're talking, I'm thinking, obviously, men are believers. But just because they're believers doesn't mean they don't have issues here.

And I think, like the one we're talking about now, sometimes a guy with a strong will, you know, expects things to go his way. And through the process of shepherding, you've got to learn to listen. So my point is, is that some of these things are learned in the job. Yes, that's a good point. Yeah, you recognize that if you, as an elder candidate or a young one, that you have some of these characteristics. You go through that whole process that Maya Sanford talks about. You try really hard to suppress them and replace them with good Adam characterizes it. We're not talking about Adam here. Right.

And so in order to demonstrate this kind of behavior that comes from Christ himself, there's a lot of understanding and spiritual growth and information that goes into this and the work of the Spirit and God's heart. That's why I'm curious how Titus is going to go to Crete and join elders, and the Cretans were notorious for being liars. Yeah. Well, it's interesting how each of these, so you mentioned listening, and you mentioned also learning on the job, too, I think.

Sorry. There's a check and balances to this list that keep that are not meant to be broken apart. So let's tie some of these others together here real quick. Did you have a thought? Yes and no. With Mike and what he said, I think a lot of these characteristics have to be evident prior to a elder being put in that position.

Is it a sprout or is it a full-grown vine? Yeah, I mean I think you'll grow into it, but there's got to be a pattern. If he's a strong-willed guy, you know, it's my way or the highway. I would say I'm he would not be my first candidate for an elder because of that. You're betting that he's going to change.

I think most of these have to be a pattern before you're selected as an elder. Because if you're just a strong-willed, you're angry, you're pugnacious, you're, you know, well, he'll just grow into the role. I think these have to be relatively evident prior to a selection as an elder. You'll grow in these areas for sure, you know, no doubt about it as you step into being an elder, but I think these have to be somewhat evident prior to the selection. I would say, when it comes to doctrine, you have to be really strong-willed. Yeah. So you have to learn, that's what I meant by learning on the job, you have to learn both, right, and the basis. Circumstance presented to me a major doctrinal issue.

One of the sheep is, and he's going to address this as we go on, or is it, well, I've never run into this before, and in fact, you don't have to worry about it, and I have to consider the personality of the sheep, What's the best way? The job is a dependent job. In my opinion, that's a terrible one. And the motor can be stronger in some of these environments and not as strong in others.

My pal was an incredible good counselor and a good teacher. What's really cool about this is this is explaining what a godly steward is. And we have the life of Christ to look to for this. And so it takes the checkbox and the qualification and you applying for a job kind of concept, and it has us looking at it from the lens of the Word of God. It's the beholding. As we behold, we see the characteristics of what we behold in the Scripture in this person.

And the second one has to do with not being quick-tempered. So it kind of builds on. And these continue to build. So let me maybe string a couple together, and then we'll swing back to this. It's really a good one. Well, I mean, a couple of those things. I think what Mike says is true. And this gives the rise to the necessity of plurality of elders. One may be weak in an area and others are strong. It's like the board of directors.

I equate that. We're all different. We have strengths and weaknesses, you know, and the strong one sharpened me who, you know, doesn't have that, you know, HR perspective of life. I'm engineered more, you know, square plumb to it, you know, build it, get it done. But the other guys are, you know, complete me and the board of directors. Elders are the same way. That's why there's plurality. There are strengths. Howell is a great counselor. but he may not have been strong in another area. That's where the other elders come in and fill that void or fill that weakness.

Not that it ever gets ahead, but in verse 9, one of the criteria is holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching. So yeah, you can be strong aspect or the, again, my way or the highway on everything. We're going to meet at 9.05 exactly. Those type of things are the things that I think this self-willed part is.

Let me explain someone to you. So you've got a guy that you're thinking, would this person qualify for an elder? And so you're thinking, I'm going to look it through Titus. you know, and Timothy, and get my characteristics together. So he doesn't think of himself as more important than others, as a character pattern, right? He's not quick-tempered, he's not short. He doesn't jump right on top of your words, and he doesn't display a sense of anger about something, right?

Like, you didn't show up to this, or you didn't do this, or, and there's an anger, you know, a kind of stubbornness associated with this person. So you see a little bit of self-willed, you see a little bit of anger, and then you get to the third one in the list, not addicted to wine. So, yeah, he drinks a little bit too much on occasion. So he's got, you know, maybe he's addicted, maybe he's not, or maybe he totally is.

And, you know, why would that be a problem? Well, self-willed has you looking at the center of yourself as your guide, as opposed to the Lord. Quick-tempered, has you not slow to listen, not slow to speak. So you're not able to hear, like you were talking about. And then you got addicted to wine.

He's got something that has enslaved him, right? He's got something, and it may not be wine. It could be other things as well. The idea here is that he's discussing a context of addiction. And this could be anything that produces a life of enslavement. We know that because we see it elsewhere in scripture, and it doesn't even have to do with anything about an elder. That's just a believer, right, where we read that, but a devotion to something, whether it's sin in general, it could be food, alcohol, wealth.

In this case, it's specifically wine. I understand that it's not to be, you know, it's specific. But in 1 Corinthians 6, 12, it tells us all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. And it goes on to say, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. That has to do with a believer.

So if addiction to wine or substance or wealth or if there's something that is enslaving that individual to the degree that it becomes so selfish to them that they can't stop that, then that's not a characteristic pattern that fits an elder. Fair to say? that pattern would be exhibited before and or during the process of whether one was considered to be an elder. I think so. Yeah.

And I think all of these knots are focused away from Christ. Christ is not the center. This is all personal. This is all self. It starts with self-will, but these are all things that satisfy the self and are not focused on Christ. The knots are anything not focused on Christ.

Well, it's funny because 1 Corinthians 6, 2 has us expanding this one specific addiction, which I think is probably very clear for the Cretans. You know, that must have been specific. And it's repeated in Timothy as well. But not all things are profitable. Don't be mastered over by anything. There's only one master for the believer.

And it's not a substance. It's not a status. It's not an accumulation of something. And the other thing is we're not talking about total abstinence in the case of wine here. We're talking about the idea that this word carries is one who sits long with the cup. It doesn't mean that they don't sit with a cup and have a glass of wine over dinner with friends or whatever. It means that they don't sit long. That's where the addiction side comes into it.

Right? But the question will arise for the elder, is it profitable for me to even do what is permissible to me? Is it profitable? And they start to think that way rather than I can't drink. I'm a teetotaler. I just don't do it. Well, that's fine. It's absolutely fine. But this is not talking about T-Total, T-Totaler. This is talking about one who looks at the situation and says, OK, just because it is lawful for me, it's not necessarily profitable for me. And I make decisions based on that.

So it's clear that an elder must not be mastered by wine. And the underlying principle is that slavery will never satisfy a person. This person needs to be satisfied in the Lord Jesus. Otherwise, he's going to be mastered by something on the side. And that will ultimately take him away from his role as being a steward or administrator over the body.

That's what it says, right? You know, Macaulay uses the metaphor of a guy who's addicted to gardening. Addicted to gardening? Yeah. He comes home from work and without even taking his coat and tie off, he's in the garden, you know, and he's late for dinner and he's all these things because that's his addiction.

Gardening kind of makes it seem a little bit more personal for some of us, right? It's like, well, okay, what is it that I really flock to? But the idea is becoming overcome and enslaved to something. where your life starts to revolve around. You start bending things in order to make that possible for yourself, right?

I think we put it in a class. We've gone through this. It's any, can you live without it? Yeah. Can you live without it? If you can't, it's mastering you. Yeah. I found this, or I wrote some of this, but, you know, we often talk about addiction as dependencies, and I'm like, ooh, good word. You're supposed to be dependent, just not on those things, right?

So the answer to addiction, this is said very succinctly, so I know we could break it into a lot of it, but I really like the way that, I'm really proud of myself for coming up with this. We're gonna have to have a talk. I got myself into a talk. I said that the answer to addiction is spirit-enabled self-control through dependency on the resources of our new life in Christ.

What are those resources? In short, we refer to these as identification truths. And we'll break this down if we want to here. From our eternal position in Christ, our experiential freedom and growth are carried out as we do three things. And this is Miles now. First of all, we know and reckon upon the identification truths. You got to know and reckon.

Second, abide and rest in our liberator. We're free from that addiction because of the liberator himself, not because I can control this in nature. I know and reckon upon my identification. I abide and rest in my freedom, my liberator. And finally, I depend upon and walk in the spirit.

So not just in that first step, not even in the first and second step, but all three comprise the walk of reckoning. That's the way Miles put that. So when we're talking about, you know, well, what if I do have something that's mastering me? Okay. Well, now you know something about yourself. You at least got to the point that you admitted it, right?

And again, this is for eldership, but it also applies to every single believer. And how do you deal with that? You have an entire set of resources available to you in the life of Christ. Your new life in Him. It's your responsibility to understand what that is. Because otherwise you cannot reckon upon it. You can't rest in it. You can't know it. You can't reckon. You can't abide. You can't rest. You can't depend. You can't walk if you don't know it.

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. That's the new life stuff. that you may know him in the power of his resurrection. Death happens first, but this characteristic is exhibited in the new life of Christ for the believer. Not in the death. Death is what makes it possible. But the new life is what is being exhibited with these characteristics in the elder.

Is that fair to say? So that's a mouthful. And that's why You know, it's so easy to run into Titus and just start seeing the checklist. This is talking about a freedom in a person, a new life that this man understands and is reckoning upon in order for God, in his dependence, not a dependency on another thing, not a substance dependency, but a person dependency. And it's a totally different person than themselves. So I liked thinking about things that way and I kind of harbored a little bit more on this particular one because I think it hits home in one way or another for many of us.

But it moves on to use the word pugnacious, not pugnacious. And so this idea is a bully. He's a bully. He wants to get his way. It's like, I don't think we should do it on Labor Day. I think we should. No, not Courtney's house. You know, we got to do it somewhere else. Not Bob's house. It's got to be this way.

And he just gets his way and it comes into the doctrinal space, too. It's like, really contentious, you know, everything just seems like it's an argument. And I've had really good godly conversations with other believers that did sharpen me, like Courtney was talking about. But there's times where it just got contentious and it got like, are you trying to wound me here? You know, or am I trying to wound you and really like, Really kind of happens when you get dispensationalism and reformed theology and you throw them together in a room and you ask them about, you know, paternal security. Well, you pretty quickly see, you know, if there's a pugnacious spirit about maybe that leader, that elder. But yeah, he has no problem wounding the conscience of his brothers.

And my mom used to call me, so I guess I'm saying I'm guilty. She used to call me a fire starter. She said, it's because you're a redhead. It's okay. You're just a fire starter. You always cause, you start something and you just leave and then they keep fighting. And then you just like look and laugh. And that sounds like funny, but I actually did that kind of thing. And that was out of my own selfish enjoyment, just watching two people go at it for some reason, you know.

But contentiousness, um, there's those of us that kind of thrive on a good good solid argument now A logical argument is one thing An emotional heated wounding argument is yet another and that's what this is talking about pugnacious one. That's shows a characteristic pattern of being Striking that this word actually has the idea of striking and is like hitting And I don't know that it's used in other contexts as actually striking and taking physical violence. But it's just as applicable to emotional violence and that kind of thing, too. I'm guilty, too. In our family, when Angry got introduced to our family, the Wild Irish, we would fight for fun. And we'd get into these arguments about the time of day. It's not 303. They don't do that anymore. They don't do that. I've hopefully got the better. But that was it, you know, eye opener.

Because we fight and then the next morning, you know, we're all fine, have a cup of coffee, have breakfast. And Eric's like, you know, what went on? You guys are all fine? Yeah, we just, we get into these great arguments over nothing. And then in the next morning, it's fine. We didn't, it's just, yeah. That's spirited, right? Yeah, spirited, yeah. You know, and it's like. So was this passed down to all the kids? No. I hope I've changed. I think Nick got some. But that is quite different.

I think it's their confidence. So there is a continuity of person in each of us, and each of us has a personality that God designed specifically. Some of us are passionate, and that passion can lead to pugnaciousness. Right. But it doesn't mean that we're not passionate, that we don't have spirited conversations. It just means that you're not out contentiously to wound this person and to like beat them down and have them, you know, grovel over the fact that, you know, I've defeated you. You're wrong. I'm right. You're wrong. You know, that's just the spirit.

And legalism often leads to bullying. I think the legalistic approach to these qualifications and legalism in general leads to the tactic of saying, unless you accept our point of view, you aren't one of us. And that's how churches get split up. Not to say that all splits are wrong, but a lot of them happen over, it's our way or the highway. And that's really the spirit of what this characteristic is not to be for the elder.

I wrote down, um, ostracism is a very powerful persuader of young believers. So while it's not legalism to have high standards, it is legalism to try to impose those standards on others as a system of spirituality. Why? And I even just cringe now, having been blessed by the truth of God's word at Holly Hills specifically, that The word system of spirituality really irks me because that's a measurement.

It's a system. It's the kind of thing that you like to see, but it's not biblical in the sense that it's not grounded in a person. It's grounded in a system. And that's where legalism and then eventually ostracism kind of enter into, well, you're not like us. But that's not the nature of an overseer. It's not the characteristic. And he's also not fond of sordid gain.

That's our fifth vice that we talk about here. What does fond of sordid gain mean? We don't use those terms really today in that way. So how would we say it in our terminology today? Greedy. A greedy guy? Is it greed or, you know, I look at this and does that mean you shouldn't have money or you shouldn't be wealthy?

I think, and maybe I should look Sorted is the operative word here, I think. You got it dishonestly. Yeah, you got it dishonestly. I think it's not that having money is an issue. You're greedy to the point that you bend. Well, yeah. You got to not cleanly.

You kind of bent the rules that you didn't pay your taxes or your company kind of went this way or you didn't report things right. You added 40 hours to your time sheet, those type of things. I think those are the – that to me is – the important part here is the sorted part. It's It's just how you got it.

Right. Yeah. I noticed that the wealthy people within the body of Christ are the ones that don't hold it as an idol. They're really willing to give it away and, you know, use it for whatever. Yeah. What I find is that it's not so much that maybe I cheat to gain advantage monetarily.

It's that it becomes a thing that controls me. You hoard. I hoard it. I save it. It's your identity. Yeah. And it's who you are. And I won't use it for anything other than myself. Or a tax break. It also goes to the same thing you said before. It doesn't master you. If you lost it all tomorrow, does it change you? Does it take your identity away? If you lost it all tomorrow, are you gone? Right.

So I think it's that kind of thing. Not only giving it away for people, but if it disappeared because the bank disappeared with your money or whatever, are you I was still okay. Yeah. Yeah. Being so desirous of acquiring wealth that it brings disgrace and shame on a person too. Right.

They chase it. Um, and they do it not to every expense, but they'll gladly cut some corners to hoard it. First Timothy six, nine through 10 says, but those who want to get rich fall into temptation. and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. Now that is pretty heavy. Timothy's got some pretty heavy stuff about falling into that temptation or that snare as he talks about. He says, for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. So you want to chase after money? You want that to be at the forefront of your your passion, and the warning is from, you know, here in First Timothy, okay, it's harmful.

It's going to plunge you into destruction and ruin, and it's going to cause many griefs in your life. Those are the warnings that Timothy gives us, the book of Timothy. And so, you know, not only is this desire of acquiring wealth disqualify you from the characteristic of being an elder, it also leads you into ruin, destruction, and grief.

And that's for all believers. It's not a characteristic of an elder only. That's for us too. Well, you see it in churches where there's a group of fairly wealthy type A type guys and they not only want to earn money, but they want to run the church, too, through their checkbook.

Yeah. Well, I've gone over. So next week we'll pick up with question 10. And I went a lot slower than I was supposed to. It's always your fault, though. You have good ideas and good thoughts. All right, let's pray. Father, how we thank you for this book of Titus and just what it means to see the characteristics of an elder and how we ultimately recognize that that is your your work in the life of a man, and that it not only applies to elders, but many of these also apply to each of us as being new creatures in Christ, and they cannot be acquired, they cannot be part of our life until we rest upon who we are in the new life of Christ. And so, Lord, I thank you for that union that you are working and conforming and transforming us into your image. And that involves the way that you look at things is the way we want to look at things, Lord. So we just pray that we might think your thoughts after you. Again, we thank you for your grace and your love as the environment to do that. And it's your name we pray. Amen.