Title: The Shepherd's Character
Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:2-3
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
Well, every Christian has a story. We call it testimony. It's how God called us out of darkness, the Bible says, and into his marvelous light.
Now, obviously, the details and the situation for each of us is different from person to person, but the basic shape of all of this is the same. At some point in time, if you're a Christian, you've come to know who God is. You've ascertained his holy and perfect and righteous character.
You've learned that he dwells in unapproachable light, that he loves righteousness and hates wickedness, that he punishes all sin and disobedience. And then you come to a realization that although you were created in the image of God, that you, as well as the rest of humanity, has transgressed God's law and are deserving of God's righteous punishment. But then you heard the good news about Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, who came to earth, lived a perfect life, a life of holiness and obedience to the Father.
And in his act of sacrificial love, he gave up his life by dying on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins. And on the cross, Jesus took the punishment for our sins. He satisfied the wrath of God.
He earned forgiveness for us. He died, was buried in the ground, and then rose again the third day according to the Scriptures to finish the work of salvation, to demonstrate God's satisfaction and acceptance of Christ's atoning sacrificial work. And then also to grant everlasting life to anyone who would repent of their sins and believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
And so it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. Christ can save you, not on the basis of your deeds or your works or your any inherent goodness, because we have none, but he can save you based on his righteousness and his salvation.
Again, every Christian affirms that they have been justified, declared righteous by God in his grace through faith in Jesus. And even though, as it's said, God will take you as you are, thankfully, he will not leave you the way that you are. Salvation really is only the beginning of our life in Christ.
That's the beginning, the foundation. And once we are in Christ, once we've been born again and live in him, he begins to grow and change us, transforming us into the likeness of Christ. And the more that we grow in him, our minds, our hearts, our mouths, our deeds, everything begins to change.
Our character, who we are, what we think, how we act, all of it is changed from who we used to be in the flesh to who we are now in Christ as Christians. Our character is to bear the fruit of the Spirit who dwells in us. We become, according to Galatians 5.22 and 23, more loving, more joyful.
We become more peaceful, more patient, more kind, more good in terms of our righteous deeds outwardly, more faithful, more gentle, more self-controlled. In other words, we become more like Jesus. And not only does God desire you to grow in Christian character, he actually produces it within you.
The Bible says, he who began a good work in you will continue it and complete it in the day of Christ Jesus. Now, keep in mind that we all grow at different speeds and different ways. We're not all the same, but the more that we submit to the Lord, the more we are transformed.
And even within the church, Christians, we dwell together. We live a life together in love and in patience and in forbearance. We press into each other.
As Galatians 6 says, we bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. But what happens when believers do not manifest Christian character? Well, for starters, it damages our conscience. It damages our feelings.
It damages our testimony. Not bearing Christian character hurts us as believers, but it also hurts the church. But there's an even greater question to ask here, and this is where we're going to be landing and directing in our study today.
What happens when church leaders do not possess godly character? It's absolutely destructive to unity in the church, to the church itself, to our witness, and to the advance of the gospel. That's why the Bible insists that church leaders be above reproach, which is where I want to look together today. If you have your copy of Scripture, turn over to 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy 3. We've been looking at the qualifications for pastors and elders here in chapter 3, and we've been saying that the elder, the elder qualifications, ultimately are really just Christian qualifications.
Of course, what God desires for all believers, He requires for church leaders. And there's many reasons for this, but primarily it's because according to 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 3, church leaders or shepherds or elders, there's many different names for the office, but shepherds, leaders, pastors are to prove to be examples to the flock. We must emulate what God desires to produce in every believer.
And so we read in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 7, the apostle Paul says, it is a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. 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, free from the love of money.
He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God? And not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. And 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.
Again, last week we talked about how shepherds, overseers, pastors, another word for it is bishop, it's all again the same office. Pastors and elders must be above reproach. Above reproach, remind you, doesn't mean sinless, it doesn't mean flawless, it doesn't mean perfect, because no one is able to accomplish that apart from Jesus Christ.
But above reproach means above any credible accusation of fault or wrongdoing. That there would be nothing that a person could accuse you of that would stick and weigh on you and hold you. Nothing to be held against you.
That's the idea of above reproach. And there are many different areas in which this must exist with the shepherd. The first area of qualification resides within their marriage, and we looked at that last week.
Elders are to be the husband of one wife. The Greek literally means a one-woman man. A one-woman man.
He must be marked out by his faithfulness and fidelity to his wife in heart, mind, eyes, and body. He must love his wife like Christ loves the church. But if a church leader cannot love his own wife, he will not be able to love Christ's bride.
The two have to go together. And so an elder, a pastor, must be faithful in his marriage. And again, as we're saying, elder qualifications or Christian qualifications, God desires husbands, Christian husbands, to love their wives.
And desires that wives love, respect, and submit to their husbands. And so faithfulness in marriage. But then starting here in the middle of verse 2, which is what we're going to pick up today, we see all the way to verse 3 that Paul lays out 10 qualifications of Christian character that mark out a church leader as being above reproach.
This is after the husband of one wife. But 10 qualifications. And so we're going to look at these together here.
The first three have to do with self-mastery. Self-mastery. Look at your Bible here.
Verse 2. Middle of verse 2. Church leaders are to be, he says, temperate, prudent, respectable. The first word here, temperate, nephileos in the Greek, it refers to sobriety from alcohol. That's literally what the word means.
But used here in the context, most scholars actually treat this a little bit more generally. The ESV renders this as sober-minded. Sober-minded.
And so this is someone who is clear-headed, a clear-thinking man, one with good judgment, good principles. Because ministry throws a lot of curveballs at you, a bevy of unique challenges. Every week I'm surprised with a new challenge that comes up and you look at it and you say, I didn't see that coming.
Nobody in seminary told me about this. There's nothing in the church guidebooks that talk about this specific situation. It happens all the time.
Well, why? Because life is messy. We're all unique and there's just always challenges. And so in order to be able to deal with those unique challenges, you have to be able to think clearly and exercise sound judgment.
Again, none of us are perfect at this, but you must excel in sober-mindedness. Of course, again, this is not just for pastors and elders. Even in verse 11, when it talks about women who are faithful in service, that's the section that talks about deacons.
But women who are faithful in service are to be, Paul says, dignified, not malicious, but temperate. It's the same word. Temperate.
And then he says, faithful in all things. And so God desires women to be faithful in this way as well. But so are elders and church leaders.
They are to be temperate, but they must also be prudent. Sophron in the Greek means self-controlled, as the ESV translates. This refers to how you exercise wisdom thoughtfully and in moderation.
Church leaders cannot be erratic or whimsical, bouncing from thing to thing. I've known situations where a church has a pastor who's all over the place, and guess what? The church is all over the place too, bouncing from thing to thing, and it's very hard to stay grounded when you're all over the place when you're not prudent in judgment. And so we must be prudent and calculated and intentional in ministry.
That does not mean overly strict. It does not mean unimaginative, but able to see things through to the end. This is not like a speedboat that can bounce from wave to wave.
This is more like a battle cruiser that's just cutting through wave after wave after wave. It's hard to turn a large ship quickly. You have to stay the course and ride that storm through to the end.
That's the idea here. We have to be prudent and specific in how we approach these things. Disciplined, self-control, these are all synonyms to this word prudent, but they also must be respectable.
Kosmios in the Greek refers to orderliness or appropriateness. One scholar, Homer Kent, considers this as referring to a well-ordered life. A man must have his priorities in the correct order.
God, wife, children, church, and so on. We must have a well-ordered life, a life that is lived appropriately and respectably. Again, John Stott groups all of these terms together under the heading of self-mastery.
Church leaders must be one who has self-control, control over themselves. Because the question is, well, how can you lead and govern and rule over others if you can't govern and rule over yourself? A person who's out of control themselves is going to lead a church out of control as well. But if a man can order his life in a way that is pleasing to God, then he will be able to bring order and clarity and discipline to the ministry as well.
He must be, the Bible says, temperate, prudent, respectable. But then Paul goes in a slightly different direction with the next word here. Not as much about personal discipline, but rather to the shepherd's heart here.
Shepherds, elders, pastors, he says, must also be hospitable. Hospitable. Philozenos.
It's actually a neat word. I like this word. Phileo in the Greek is love.
It's one of the words for love. And zenos refers to strangers. So, literally, this word for hospitality or hospitable means to be a lover of strangers.
In the early church, missionaries would travel from town to town bringing the gospel. But in those days, there were no hotels or no inns. Today, if you have a missionary that's traveling or someone coming to your church, it's customary to put them up in a nice hotel, give them transportation to the church or to whatever ministry they're going to, and you provide for their dwellings.
But in the early church, there were no hotels and inns in the way that we would think of them today, and many of them were not safe havens for Christians, to be frank. A lot of pagan dwellings and pagan homes would have been a nightmare for them, and so they relied heavily on other Christians to host them in their homes and provide for their needs. Lodging, a warm set of clothing, a dry set of clothing, or food in addition to that.
Now, certainly, all Christians would have been participating in that kind of ministry, but church leaders were charged with excelling in that kind of ministry. And so, even though times have changed, the principle remains the same, that elders and pastors are those who are to love strangers. Of course, it's easy to love those who are easy to love, but what about those that you don't know? Now, we have to be also a little bit cautious.
We have to exercise discernment when someone walks in off the street and says, I'm a Christian missionary, and you can smell last night's excitement on their breath. You maybe can know that they're not of the Lord. It's possible.
You have to be discerning with who you welcome into your home, but there is a core principle there. What is the principle? That you are to love people. You're to love people.
Remember Jesus' words in Matthew 22, that while we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we are also to love our neighbor as ourself. We are to be those who love people, particularly within the Christian community. John 13, 34, Jesus says, you must love one another even as I have loved you, so you ought to love one another.
Well, why? So that they might know that you're my disciples. So, Jesus has a very high calling for us to love other people in tangible ways, and one of the most tangible ways that you can demonstrate love for other people is to have them in your home, to host people, to have lunch or have dinner or whatever it may be. 1 Peter 4, 9 says, be hospitable to one another without complaint.
Elsewhere, Hebrews 13, 2, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. And so, we are to excel in hospitality. Our family does our best to be hospitable.
We've had many of you in our homes. The size of the church has continued to grow, and so we're about two years backlogged right now, but we do endeavor to have people in our home and get to know all of you, but we can't do this alone. Our elders must do this.
Our deacons must do this. Guess what? You all must do this. Don't just wait around for someone else to invite you.
Invite someone else into your home. It's a great way to get to know somebody. I'll tell you, share a meal.
You get to know them really fast. You get to spend some concentrated time with them. They get to see you in your element.
It's great to look pretty in here, but bring someone into your home and get to know them in their home environment with all of the trappings that that is. And let me encourage you, especially let me encourage the ladies, the moms, the wives here. Run a vacuum through your house, but honestly, don't make your house perfect.
Don't do that, and I know some of you are like probably having a heart attack. You can't do that, but it really isn't about putting on the absolute best perfected version of yourself when someone's in your home. If you have five kids, your house is going to look like you have five kids, and if the other person can't accept that, then they need to learn to be gracious to you, but the idea is not to be perfect in front of each other, but to get to know one another, to bear with one another, to love one another as you really are.
That's the sense of it. That's the sense of it, and so when it comes to spiritual leadership, again, what is the driving command behind all of this? It's not just about having dinner together. There's something greater.
Elders and pastors must love people. You have to love people. You can be temperate, prudent, respectable.
You can be a phenomenal teacher. You can be a wise counselor, but if you don't love people, you are not qualified for pastoral ministry. It's as simple as that.
You must love other people, and so temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, and then, very quickly here, Paul mentions the elder's responsibility that he is to be able to teach, able to teach. Now, I intend to focus on that next week. I'm going to do a whole sermon.
That's my intention, to do a whole sermon on what it means to be able to teach, so we're going to skip over that for now, and we're going to do, what is that? Chapter 3, verse 2c, or whatever, however that enumeration works out, but here we're going to move into verse 3 here because Paul is noting some negative traits as well, things to avoid, namely that elders are not to be addicted to wine or pugnacious. Now, in the Greek, there's only two words that are used here, and they're oftentimes linked together because one is an extension of another, generally speaking. The first one that's used here is in the Greek, which literally means alongside wine, alongside wine.
Now, the Bible warns about the dangers and the follies of drunkenness. Proverbs 20, wine is a mocker, strong drink, a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise, and so drunkenness is folly, it's futility, it's even mockery. What does it do? Well, it dulls your senses, it mutes your IQ, it feeds your flesh, it silences the Spirit's voice in your mind and heart, it leads you into twisted and perverse thinking.
Just read Proverbs 23, verses 29 to 35, over and over and over again, we see the folly of this. It's because of this the Old Testament priests were actually prohibited from drinking alcohol at all, Leviticus 10, 9. Proverbs 31, 4 discourages rulers and kings from drinking because it compromises their judgment, and yet it's interesting because in 1 Timothy 5, 23, Paul actually prescribes, he says, a little wine to Timothy to help him with the stomach problem that he had. In those days it was medicinal in small doses, and so we don't see here in the Bible a total prohibition for church leaders necessarily, but extreme caution against excess.
Now some pastors and elders have seen this and says, you know what, I'm not even going to take the chance, and so complete abstinence. I think that's wise. I think if you can do it, if you desire to do that, it's very wise because what's the alternative? Again, you don't want to be alongside wine, you don't want to be addicted to wine, that refers to habitual lifestyle.
A person who's living their life alongside a substance, delving into drunkenness, Paul says it in Ephesians 5, 16, do not get drunk with wine. That's a command. He says, for that is dissipation, but what's the alternative? He says, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
One commentator says, you cannot be inebriated and be filled with the Holy Spirit. They work in contradiction to one another, and so Paul's not offering a suggestion, nor is he advocating for testing the boundary. This is not a matter of, well, how close can I get before I start to wade into that? Don't do that either.
A person who gives themselves over to alcohol demonstrates that they are not being controlled by the Holy Spirit, but rather they're enslaved to their own flesh, and that's the real issue. That's the real issue. Elders and pastors are not to be mastered by their sinful passions.
It's the issue of self-mastery, whether it's sexual immorality, impurity, substance abuse, drunkenness, or even what comes next here, pugnaciousness. This is a fleshly endeavor. The Greek word is plektes.
It literally refers to one who strikes or brawls. If you're the kind of person who's prone to fighting, prone to hitting people or striking people, then you're not qualified for pastoral ministry. Now, we have to rightly apply this because it isn't as though in our elder and deacon's meetings we go out to the Quonset hut and duke it out with gloves.
That's not how that works. That's not what he's talking to, I think, specifically here. There's more going on.
Obviously, if you're a violent person, you're disqualified for ministry, but there's more because many scholars have noted that this actually has a further application. A person who's abrasive, a person who's abusive, quick-tempered, a bully. Some of you have been through ministries where your pastor was a bully.
I'll tell you, it's hard when a man is always looking for a fight, always taking offense, flying off the handle, picking on people harshly, driving you down. He's demonstrating his heart that he's pugnacious. I'll tell you, bullies make terrible pastors.
But sadly, these are oftentimes the kinds of men who are drawn to ministry because they desire to have control over other people. At least that's their perception of it. But pugnacious, abrasive men are not qualified to lead Christ's church.
There's no room for that. And there are many men out there who've been disqualified in ministry because they've been abusive to their churches. Shameful.
And so we're not to be pugnacious, we're not to be enslaved to wine and fleshly, but rather, he says, you are to be gentle and peaceable. Gentle, peaceable. The Greek word translated gentle is actually the polar opposite of pugnacious.
The words are very similar in the Greek, but it's the flip side of it. It has a wide range of meaning. The word for gentle here, it can mean equitable, fair, moderate, kind, forbearing, even measured or even-handed.
But the sense of it is actually a graciousness. Graciousness. Now, graciousness is not wimpiness.
There's a difference between being gracious and just being a coward who doesn't want to ever do anything difficult and hides behind, oh, I'm just being gracious. No, we have to have character and manage things charitably, but we also must be gentle in the way that we deal with situations. I'm oftentimes reminded of Paul's words in 2 Timothy chapter 2 when dealing with difficult or disobedient people.
Let me just read these verses to you. These are actually a great comfort to me just when things are difficult. 2 Timothy 2.24, he says, "...the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will." And so, you don't act gracious or gently with a person because you're a pushover.
That's not why you do it. Well, why do you act gracious toward people? Well, in this context, it's to create a pathway for them so they can exercise repentance and the Lord can deliver them through his mercy out of their sinful habits. And so, pastors who get angry at the sheep and retaliate and just talk them down or yell at them or scream at them, that's not graciousness, that's not gentleness.
We are called to be gentle with all people, kind to all people. What about people who really upset me and hurt my feelings and wrote me the wrong way? The Bible says, kind to all, kind to all. And then he adds to that, peaceable.
Amachas in the Greek means uncontentious or not quarrelsome, not combative. It's a person who keeps their temper, a person who keeps their temper. Or to say it another way, one who acts like Jesus.
At his arrest in his trial, Pilate poked and prodded Jesus. Remember that? Looking for some kind of response. He was asking him all these kinds of questions and sort of trying to get a rise out of him.
But the Bible says that Jesus said nothing. He didn't respond. Even when Jesus was slandered, even when he was attacked, even when they slapped him across the face.
The Bible says in prophecy he did not open his mouth. Isaiah 53, 7. He didn't fight. He didn't quarrel.
Even when they insulted him. I mean, Jesus, out of anybody in the world who had the right to defend themselves to an opponent, it was Jesus. Jesus could have said to them, who do you think you are? Do you know who you're slapping? Do you know who you're insulting? He could have called down, as he told the disciples, 12 legions of angels.
He could have rained down holy fire on his opponents. And yet, he didn't say anything. Not because he's a coward.
Far from it. But because he was self-controlled, gentle, and peaceable. He didn't open his mouth.
I'll tell you, so many young men right now, and I see it everywhere, I see it with young pastors too. They fancy themselves to be defenders of the faith, and they do so through being abrasive, contentious, divisive, shouting people down, chest-thumping. I'll tell you, nothing of that is godly character.
All it demonstrates is immaturity. It used to be called the young, restless, and reformed movement. That was kind of where I came in.
Now we're just old, crotchety Calvinists. But the bottom line is that there's always a desire to want to assert yourself, but it's not mature. It's not mature.
A godly man, a mature man, will be gracious, will be gentle, will be kind, will be measured, and metered. Jesus said in Matthew 5-9, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Well, if that's what Jesus says we are to do, I think we should do it.
And so do your best, Romans 12-18, to be at peace with all men. He says do the best you can to be at peace with all people. Now sometimes that's very difficult, and maybe you do have to remove yourself from a situation.
There are warnings. I mean, I think about Titus chapter 3, where it talks about rejecting a factious man after warning him several times. There are times when you must remove yourself or remove that person if they will not relent.
But when someone insults you or comes at you, is your first response to just fly off the handle at them? Or is it to be gracious and understanding? We are called to be self-controlled, loving shepherds, gentle, peaceable. And then Paul includes another category or another quality, I should say. Verse 3, the very end he says, free from the love of money, a philogouros in the Greek.
It's not loving silver. That's literally what it means. It's a prohibition against greed.
And typically this is a huge problem with false teachers. We're told in Titus 1-11 that Paul says in the letter to Titus, he says there's going to be many empty talkers and deceivers that are going to come into the assembly. And he says what they do, he says they teach error, they upset whole families, and he says they do it for the sake of lurid or lucrid or ill-gotten gain.
That's the right word, is ill-gotten gain. They swindle people into giving them money. This is the main problem with the prosperity gospel movement.
We don't have it as much up here in New England, but you go to the south, it's everywhere. You go to Africa, it's everywhere. It is here in some fashion, but when a person comes in and lies, they're ungodly, they're greedy men, and they lie to poor and hurting people who then turn around and give them money, and then they profit.
They figured out how to game the system, how to take the desperation of people who are desperate to do anything to receive God's blessing, and they pry on them, and they exploit them for money. It's unconscionable. I think about 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 3. Paul says, If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those are of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with a doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.
If I can get into ministry, I'll make some money. That's how some of these men think, that if I can build my platform really, really big, I'll get rich. It is a temptation the more successful that you are in ministry.
It's always stalking everywhere you go to do ministry for ill-gotten gain. But he says, but godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.
If we have food and covering with these, we shall be content. 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. 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.
Now, we understand that it is not money that's the problem. Money is not the problem. In fact, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9, argues for the importance of compensating faithful gospel ministers.
That's not the issue. There's nothing wrong with a pastor having a salary. I'm grateful that I am not paid to preach.
I'm paid so that I can preach. That's how I think about it. I'm grateful our family survives because of the generosity and faithfulness of this church.
Without the generosity of the church, your obedience to the Lord, we would have nothing. And so I'm grateful for that. But the issue is greed.
Do pastors, elders, ministers, do they long? Do they strive after money? Is it only for money? I'll tell you, it's a hard thing to wrestle with those things. To have needs and yet not desire money. It's the heart is the issue.
The problem is when you have a man who is motivated and driven by attaining wealth. By building up his empire. Paul's very quick to address this and dispel the concerns over his own ministry.
Because again, this is always an accusation. Because I write books, I have people online who have accused me of being greedy. Someone actually told me I was a millionaire and I'm, you know, whatever.
I'm like, I don't remember being a millionaire. Publishing is wonderful, but it does not make you a millionaire. Trust me.
In the world sometimes, but in Christian publishing, I mean, it's not a lot. But again, that's not why you do it. I write books because I love to write and I want to extend the ministry as far as I can.
My books can go places I can't. And so I'm thankful that God allows me to write. And I'm thankful that it does a little extra to help our family.
And I don't mind talking about that. I've had several of you ask me questions about how does that all work? I'm fine to share that information. Happy to talk to you about what that is.
But Paul says here, because he was accused of it too. In Acts 20, he says, Paul was accused at times of being greedy, but he says, listen, I can prove that I'm not. Look at the way I minister.
Look at the way I do my ministry. Paul didn't want money. He wasn't in it for silver and gold.
If he wanted money, he would have stayed in the Sanhedrin. He suffered the loss of all things, he says. Paul was free from the love of money.
And so now at this point, you might be thinking to yourself, okay, well, that's all good. I want to manifest godly character. I want to do all these things and be all these things.
But right now, I don't know if I actually do. What do I do? Because it's very easy to come up here and preach a sermon about all the things that you should do and should be. But then the question is, well, how do I go from here to there? How do I grow in some of these areas? And so I want to help you this morning.
Because in the time we have remaining, I want to give you some possible areas of help to grow in godly character. And I would even add to this, if there are men here, maybe you don't feel like you're qualified to serve in pastoral leadership or spiritual leadership, but you desire to, well, then pay close attention. And ask yourself, consider this, what would it take to be qualified as a leader, as a church leader, in, say, five years? I mean, just because you might not be qualified now, you might be qualified in the future.
So don't just look at this and say, well, that's not me, and just throw your hands up. We need all men to pursue this, frankly. But think about this, and we'll work through this together.
On the issue of self-mastery, temperate, prudent, respectable, how do you grow in the area of self-mastery, of discipline? Well, I think the way you do it is you practice personal and spiritual disciplines. Practice these things. 1 Timothy 4, 7 exhorts us to discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.
Paul, and he uses analogies there in many other places there, also in 1 Corinthians, like training. He says, I discipline my body, I beat my body as like a slave. I'm a shadow boxer, I'm an athlete, I train.
And so discipline your body, discipline your life, discipline yourself spiritually. Because here's the thing, and here's the secret to it, discipline begets discipline. If you're disciplined in one area of your life, you're more likely to become disciplined in other areas as well.
But generally, if you're not disciplined in lots of other areas, it's because there's nothing behind it either. So discipline begets more discipline. Let me just give you a couple of practical things.
Set your alarm so you can get up in the morning to read your Bible. People tell me all the time, I don't have time to read my Bible. And I like to say this, and you've heard me say this a hundred times, if I gave you a million dollars to get up in the morning for 30 days and read your Bible, you'd find a way to do it.
You'd probably skip work to do it, frankly. Don't do that. But you know, it's not a matter of not having the time, it's not making the time.
What's most important to you is what you're going to devote yourself to. So set your alarm, get up in the morning, or whenever you can get up and read your Bible. Spend some time day by day.
Limit your TV, your phone, your media usage. Limit your internet. Delete apps, delete social media, whatever you have to do.
I know I go through periods of time where I'm like, gone, gone. I don't need it. It's just chatter, information for no purpose.
So limit your time so you can focus on the Lord. Work hard at your job, whatever your job is. Whether you're working outside the home, whether you're working inside the home with family, work hard at your job.
Be on time. Be disciplined and be on time. Commit to times of prayer.
Be a person who says, I'm going to pray. If you tell a person you're going to pray for them, don't just have it be well-wishing, pray for that person. Be disciplined in some of these things.
And I'll tell you, discipline begets discipline. The more disciplined and obedient you are to the Lord, the more your character is going to become transformed and you're going to be changed. And you're going to notice patterns that you didn't used to have, and you're going to say, wow, praise the Lord.
I think I'm actually getting somewhere with some of these things. And so discipline. Number two, on the issue of love and hospitality, if you're the kind of person who's not particularly loving, some people are, it's very easy.
I mean, some of you, you just love love. And everywhere you go, you're just loving people. And it's a wonderful thing.
Some of you are naturally very exuberant in your love. For other people, it's hard. It's hard to extend yourself and be loving.
And so how do you do that? How do you grow in your love for other people? Let me just give you three practical things. Number one, learn to forgive others and resist the urge to find fault. Ephesians 4.32, be kind to one another.
The Bible says, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Why? Because God in Christ has forgiven you. If you recognize that God has forgiven you, then you ought to be forgiving of other people.
Because a lot of times we fail to love because we have something against them. We become embittered to them. But if you learn to forgive and to stop finding fault, your disposition toward them will begin to change.
And you'll manifest love for that person. Number two, practice serving others and considering their needs first. That's the essence of biblical love, by the way, is self-giving.
That's how God demonstrates his love for us, by giving of his only begotten son to us. God gives us all things that we need. So Philippians 2, 3, and 4, he says, with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourself.
If you're the most important person in your life, you're going to have a hard time loving other people. And so if you grow in thinking about other people, what would that person want? What do they need? How can I bless them today? If you think about other people, then you'll grow in how you love them. Number three, remember God's grace and mercy in your own life, and you will be more apt to loving, to be loving and be gracious to other people.
If you really ponder, what is God's love toward me? What has God done in my life? How has he reflected that? How has he been good to me? Ponder that. It's really hard to be stingy with other people in love when you realize how gracious God has been to you to love you. Love and hospitality.
What about not addicted to wine or pugnacious? Again, this is an issue of fleshliness. Romans 8, 13 says that rather than living according to the flesh, which is going to kill you, by the way, he says in Romans 8, 13, you must by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body. Well, what does that mean? Well, first of all, that involves humility, recognizing that you're in sin.
It involves repentance, and it involves radical discipline, frankly. This is when Jesus talks about the metaphorical cutting off of arms and legs and plucking out eyes. Again, he's not saying that literally.
It's a figurative thing. If there are sins and fleshly attitudes in your life that are ruining you, you've got to get rid of that. You've got to cut it off and remove it from you.
That's the issue of fleshliness, but what about if you're an angry, abrasive person? I think most times, many, many times, a person gets overly angry because they're trying to control someone else or trying to control a situation. I think that's the root of anger, and we think about it in James. It talks about how the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
We think that we can somehow get God's vengeance and get God's righteousness to work in our favor if we're angry about it, if we blow up and try to control, but Romans 12, 19 says never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, and so you're trusting in God's justice and God's righteousness. Don't try to enact your own vengeance or try to control other people through anger and rage. It never goes well.
You will never ultimately satisfy what you're looking for by becoming a person who's abrasive and angry and pugnacious. What about gentleness and peaceability, number four? Well, I think that comes through practicing the Lord's patience. After all, the Lord has been patient and gentle to us.
We ought to reflect that to other people, or you could consider Matthew 7, 12 when Jesus says the golden rule, as we know it, treat others the way that you want to be treated. It's very simple. If you want people to be gracious to you and gentle to you, then you need to be gracious and gentle to other people as well.
You can't blow up and get in people's face and be abrasive and then get upset when they're act the same way toward you, and so use wisdom. If you want others to be kind and gracious and peaceable, then you have to do the same. Lastly, what about greediness? What about the issue of greed? How do we learn to not be greedy? Hebrews 13, 5, he says, let your character be free from the love of being content with what you have.
For the Lord has said, I will never desert you, nor will I forsake you. That's what Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, 6, he says, godliness when accompanied with contentment is great gain. The problem with greed is not that you don't have enough, it's that you're not thankful for what you have.
You can have very little and be content and feel rich. You can have more than anybody else in the world and not be content and you'll always feel poor and you'll always feel entitled. The dollar amount has nothing to do with it.
It has everything to do with your heart. Are you thankful to God for what you have? Are you grateful to him? Are you content with his provision? If you're thankful for what the Lord has done in your life, then you're not going to lust for more. You'll be gracious, you'll be grateful when he gives you whatever he gives you.
And so again, my overall exhortation to all of you, but certainly to those who are aspiring to pastoral ministry or eldership, is wherever you are, seek to be faithful. Seek to manifest character. Character is something that's missing in culture today.
Very few people have upright character and very, very few people have godly character. I think if we're going to have a revolution of anything, again, culturally, beyond the gospel, mind you, but even just how we deal with one another, let it be that of character. Let it be that of those who are faithful and respond in godly ways.
Because if you are faithful, beloved, if you're faithful, God will use your gifts, he'll use your talents, and he'll do it all for his glory. And if a man qualifies himself in such ways, God may call him to the honorable work of shepherding the flock. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your loving kindness to us. We thank you for your word. Lord, I'm so thankful just personally that this is not me having to get up here and give my opinion about any of these things.
Lord, you've said very clearly in your word what you desire for pastors and elders and shepherds. But Lord, you've also been very clear about what you desire for all Christians, that we are all to live in a way that reflects your holiness and your righteousness and godly character. Lord, you desire for us to reflect the work of Christ that's been done inside of us.
And yet, Lord, we recognize that we all struggle. Lord, every single one of us, we are like sheep who've gone astray. We turn to our own ways all the time.
We wander off the path, O Lord. We're just, we're foolish sometimes. We don't take these things seriously.
We're not mature in some of these areas, O Lord. And so, Father, I pray that you would help us confess that. Wherever we are individually, Lord, you know the hearts of your people here.
Wherever they are individually, Lord, would you please convict us of our sins, the areas that we're falling short, the areas that we're trying to be faithful. Lord, please encourage us. Help us to keep going and be strong.
But Lord, the areas where we're weak, would you please reveal those and help us to face them and repent for those and learn to be godly and obedient to you. Lord, we don't want to be just hanging on by a thread, being dragged behind. We want to stand, as Ephesians 6 says, to stand firm in the faith.
We want to grow, O Lord. Not because we're the ones that are doing anything. You deserve all glory and praise.
But we want to follow you. We want to live like you, O Lord. We want to imitate you.
So please help us to do that. And Lord, for those of us who are called as leaders here, as under shepherds here, Lord, would you please be merciful. Have mercy on us, Lord, and help us to be faithful.
Help us to stay faithful. Lord, we're under attack all the time. Please help us to stand firm.
We thank you, O Lord, that we don't have to do this by ourselves. We can't do this by ourselves. The Spirit of God strives with us.
We can be encouraged to know that your grace is sufficient and your power is even perfected in our weakness. So Lord, thank you for loving us so much to send your only begotten Son to give his life for us. And not only to give his life to die, but also to and give us the power of the resurrection to live righteously for you.
Thank you, O Lord, for being faithful to your word. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.