- Hey, Rockpoint family, Ryan here. I'm on staff here at Rockpoint Church, and it's great to be with you this morning. Please grab a Bible and open up. We are going through the book of first Timothy, and we're going to be working through chapter three today. So thanks for being with us. We are talking about leadership character. That's what we're gonna talk about, and this is really, really fascinating stuff. I read an article this week that said that 93% of people who quit a job say the main reason they quit a job was because of a bad boss. Isn't that interesting? Lots of reasons why people make job changes, for sure, some in their control, some out of their control, but the ones who've made their own decision, cited it on a bad boss. We can see what's happening in our world and our country today, that leadership is really, really important. Jesus actually said "As a leader, that the greatest among you will be your servant." So when Paul told Timothy this, when he said "I hope to come to you soon, Timothy, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God." How do we behave in the church? What should we do in the church? How should we work? How should we operate? "Which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth." The church holds up the truth. We hold up the truth. So what does that group of people who hold up the truth look like, and how do they operate? That's why this letter was written. And as we go along here, I want to start with the end in mind. As we read through this scripture, I want you to ask yourself three questions. So go ahead and write these down. These three questions right here. Write these down. We're going to talk about these a couple times, but I want you to know them upfront and be thinking about them as we go along. Number one, who are you following? So who are the leaders in your church? Who are the spiritual leaders in your life? Who are you following spiritually? The second question is, who are you leading? Whether you are a teenager who volunteers with kids, whether you're a single young adults who babysits maybe, whether you're a college student or a young married couple with no kids, whether you're parents, empty nesters, grandparents, or whether you are involved in the business world of any kind, all of us have someone in our lives that we are leading. So I want you to ask yourself, how are you leading? How am I leading? And the third question is, which quality do we need to grow in? We're gonna look at a lot of qualities of a godly leader in the church, in this chapter. And I want you, you're gonna read a lot of these character qualities, and even as you look in the mirror and look at yourself, there's some qualities you're gonna think "I'm pretty good at that. I'm pretty good at that, I'm pretty good at that." But there's gonna be one. There's gonna be one quality that we look at that you go, "Ooh, ah, I need to work on that one a little bit." Circle that one, pay attention to that one as we go. That's important. So think about these three questions. Who are you following spiritually? Who are you leading? And then which one of these qualities we're gonna look at, do you need to grow in? Okay? Let's start in first Timothy, chapter three, verse one, here we go. It says, "The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task." Now there's a lot of words in the original language, in the Greek for leader or overseer. There's overseer, which is Episcopas, there's Elder, which has Presbuteros, there's ruler, which is Proistamenos, and there's also leader, which is Hegumenos. Now these words are all interchangeable in the New Testament. So these words are all referring to the office of elder or overseer over the church. The word pastor is often used as a leadership office as well. That word pastor comes from Ephesians chapter four, verse 11. And the word pastor actually means the word shepherd. It's also listed next to these spiritual gifts of evangelist and teacher. And so shepherding is a spiritual gift. And a lot of people have the gift of shepherding who are not necessarily elders or overseers, but shepherding is one of the functions of an elder overseer, you see that in Acts chapter 20, verse 28, and also in first Peter chapter five, verse two. But we are focusing on the office of overseer and elder here. Now, it says, "This saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires", that word aspires, and the Greek is the word oregó, which is to reach out or to stretch, you get the sense of duty. And then it says he desires a noble task that word desires in the Greek is the word epithumeó, which means to set your heart on something or to almost lust or desire it. So you see two things at play here in verse one. When he's talking about overseers, he's saying "if you aspire to the office of overseer, you desire a noble task" You aspire and you desire. So there's a sense of duty that I need to be an overseer in the church, but there's also a sense of desire of, I want to do this, I'm called to do this. And you see both of those pulls on the heart of a godly man, to be an overseer in the church. First, Peter chapter five, verse two says "Shepherd, the flock of God among you exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily. According to the will of God and not for sort of gain, but with eagerness." I want you to notice the end of verse one there. What does it say? He desires a what task? A noble task. In our culture today, just imagine it. If you're around the coffee pot at work at the office with a bunch of your coworkers, and guys are going around saying, "Hey, what's new in your life?" And one guy says, "We just bought a new house" and everyone goes, "Yeah! Woo, new house, that's awesome!" And another guy goes around and he says, "We just bought new car!" And everybody goes, "Yeah, woo, yeah, fantastic, congratulations, new car, woo!" And then another guy says, "We just went on this amazing vacation to Hawaii for three weeks." And everybody goes, "Wow, that's incredible, congratulations!" Another guy goes around and says, "I just got a promotion, I'm gonna be the CEO!" Everybody says, "Yeah, congratulations, woo!" And then it gets around the circle to you. And you say "Guys, guess what? I get to be an elder at my church." How does everybody react? I don't know, I'm not sure. But it seems like in our culture today, when we think about leading in a local church, it doesn't seem like it's always that exciting or people are thrilled by that. Or people even highly revere or respect that leadership role, sometimes. But, the word of God says right here, "if anybody aspires to do this, he desires a noble task." To be a leader in the church, it's a noble task. It's a servant leadership task, but it's a noble task, it's a good thing. And so I would challenge you to think about if you're a godly man and you've been walking with Jesus for some time, and these character qualities sound like you, you should pray about maybe God calling you to a leadership role in our church. Look at verse two. It says, "Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled respectable, hospitable, and able to teach." Now that first phrase right there that says "above reproach", that does not mean perfect. Okay. To be above reproach does not mean perfect. There's this idea, I don't know where it comes from, but to be a leader in the church, some people think you have to be perfect. You have to be completely perfect and never do anything wrong. That's not what it says. It says above reproach. To be ever above approach is to be above accusation. It's to be, you cannot be accused of major obvious wrongdoing. It doesn't mean you're perfect. It means you're above accusation. Anybody who wants to see can grab my cell phone and just look at it. And I don't think you're gonna find anything you're going to be shocked by. I regularly just sit there on my phone and my wife will come up and just grab my phone out of my hand, just look at it, look through all my pictures, look through all my texts, look through everything I've looked at online and I'm not ashamed of anything she's gonna see. I work hard as a leader at this church to be above reproach, to be above accusation. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. It doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. It doesn't mean I'm not a work in progress, but above reproach, that's the first qualification. Next. It says the husband of one wife. Now that phrase the husband of one wife, as we saw last week and first Timothy chapter two and Roy, Pastor Roy first did a great job explaining and teaching a tough text of scripture. The role of overseer and elder is an authoritative role and there's some teaching involved and the New Testament makes that pretty clear that that role is reserved for men. Not because men are smarter or better or more capable, it's just the way that God set it up, and Paul refers to the garden of Eden when he says that, go back and watch that talk from last week that Roy did, it was really, really good and really important and enlightening. But that phrase, the husband of one wife, that phrase literally means a one woman, man. That's what that phrase means. A one woman, man. It means faithfulness to one woman forever, for your whole life. And that's the character quality that we want to see in a leader of the church. Someone who is, who can be committed to one woman his whole life, the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, I'm here, I'm not leaving I'm with you. That kind of marital commitment for a lifetime is one of the first character qualities that you need to be, to be a leader in God's church. And, I think about faithfulness over a long period of time. I've said it before, I'll say it again, I think about our Senior Pastor Roy Fruits, Roy has been here for almost 20 years, he's been faithful to this church for a long time, and I really, really appreciate and respect that from him. And I'm really honored to serve alongside him in this church. And the next word there says "husband and wife", and then it says "sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, and able to teach." Now, first of all, hospitable, the ability to care for someone to invite them into your home, to serve them, to put their needs before your own, that's hospitable. In our culture we think being hospitable as a feminine characteristic, it is not, it is listed here as a male leadership characteristic. So as overseers we need to be hospitable, and one person I think about when I think about hospitality is our Executive Pastor Wes Oren. A lot of you don't know Wes, but he's a great guy, you need to meet him, he's fantastic. And I've been over to Wes's house before, and even though he's the leader and the manager of our whole staff team, when you go to his house, he serves and he is hospitable, and he's a really, really good guy. And I am buttering them up because he is my boss, but I'm also being honest. He really, really is very hospitable, and he's a great example for me of somewhat a leader in a leadership role in the church who is also hospitable. Now those next phrases, "sober-minded, self-controlled, and respectable". You get the idea from sober-minded, self-controlled and respectable that an overseer can think clearly, they can think biblically, they're not easily swayed or rattled by things, and they see things through the lens of scripture. You know, in Philippians chapter four, we just studied the book of Philippians in recent past, and it was great. And in Philippians chapter four, it says, "let your reasonableness be known to all." And I don't know about you guys, but man, when I look at what's going on in the world today, like just on the news, for example, it seems like there's two options. It seems like one option is, you know, you're a Confederate flag waving conservative, or the other option is you're protesting violently and you're throwing rocks through minority owned businesses. And you know, you're decked out in all black and you're somewhat being criminal. Are those the only two options? I don't think so. There's actually a third option and I'm not talking about an option like on the spectrum in between those two options, I mean a third option altogether. A godly leader, a godly overseer who is sober-minded. self-controlled, and respectable, I think is the type of person who can see a third option. Friends, we live in a world today where there's such polarization, we need leaders, and we ourselves need, to be able to see that there's a third option in the polarization of what's happening, there's a third option. And you see that in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't always pick sides when he got into dilemmas sometimes quite often he said, "no, no, there's a third option." There's a third separate way to go about this, to dialogue about this or to move forward. This last phrase, it says "able to teach." Now that phrase "able to teach", that does not mean that an overseer or an elder or a leader in the church has to be an amazingly gifted teacher cause teaching is a spiritual gift, kind of like shepherding and evangelism as listed in Ephesians four are spiritual gifts. But it does say they need to be able to teach. They need to have a basic construct of true Orthodox biblical doctrine, and they need to be able to explain that to someone else. They need to be able to articulate their faith and some of the deeper things of the faith and the scriptures, they need to be able to teach. It doesn't mean they have to teach at a certain frequency. Doesn't mean they have to be a fantastic, amazing teacher or even really comfortable upfront, being upfront and teaching is, it makes me nervous, it makes almost everybody I know that teaches, nervous. But it means they are able to teach. They are confident enough in their faith in Jesus, that they can get up and teach when they are called on, and when they need to. Let's keep going in verse three, it says the overseer is "not a drunkard, is not violent, but gentle, is not quarrelsome, and is not a lover of money." Ephesians chapter five, verse 18 says "do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit." When you consume alcohol and you over consume alcohol, the amount of alcohol that you consume, determines how you act. If you drink eight drinks, that determines how you act. If you drank six, that determines how you act, or if you drink two, determines how you act a little bit, if you just drink one, doesn't really affect you very much. To be not a drunkard, to be explicitly stated not a drunkard, a godly leader, an overseer needs to not be a drunkard. They need to have self control. They need to let the spirit of God be the one who's controlling their actions and leading them and guiding them. And then Galatians chapter five, verse two, because it says not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome. Galatians chapter five, verse 22 says for all believers, when it talks about the fruit of the spirit, it says "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such there is no law." A godly leader or overseer is not violent. They don't love to pick fights. They don't love to argue. And finally it says, "they're not a lover of money." It's okay to have money, it's okay to have a lot of money, but the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. I want you to ask yourself those three questions in light of the qualities we just looked at. Remember those three questions. First of all who are you following? The character qualities we just looked at for the last couple of minutes. Do those describe the leaders of your church, in your opinion, do they, who are you following? Second question, how are you leading? Did the character qualities we just looked at? Do those, describe how you lead your family, how you lead your business, how you lead even some friends or how you mentor, if you're the coach of a sport, do these describe how you lead? And then thirdly, which one of those qualities we read, do you think I might need to grow in that one quality? That's important, those are important questions. Cause I think these character qualities of an overseer or elder in the church, there are principles that we can all pull out of this. And we should all apply these to ourselves, as we apply them to our leaders. Let's keep going verses three through four. It says the elder or overseer "must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?" Now, the general principle is the overseer or elder or leader in the church must manage his own household well, in general, so general household management. How's your marriage? A godly leader needs to have a above average marriage. They need to have a good marriage. They needed to be intentional in their marriage. Their household, their children. He mentioned children specifically with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. Now notice it doesn't say his children are perfect. I have two little boys. And if the Lord allows me to stay at Rockpoint for a long time, which I hope he does, my boys, you're gonna see my boys grow up and they are not perfect, and they will make mistakes. And I would hope that they would get the grace that I give all the teenagers I work with and that a lot of our amazing kids ministry workers give to all the kids they serve. You don't have to have perfect children, but it does say "with all dignity, keeping his children submissive", you are the leader of your home. It's not a child centered home. It's an adult centered home and your children listen and obey relatively to a degree, somewhat. For someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? I read in "Car Talk" recently or heard on the radio show, "Car Talk" that 75% of people who own a home with a two car garage can not get one house, I mean cannot fit one car in their garage. I thought that was hilarious. 75% of homeowners that have a two car garage can't even fit one car in their two car garage. Cause it's full of junk. And it's not explicit in this passage, but in general the principle "to manage your own household well", I mean, is your house managed well? When was the last time you changed the oil on your car? What does your garage look like? What is your house look like? Is your house a disaster or is it in order? To lead the church of God, which is God's bride and the bride of Jesus Christ, and the people of God. To lead, to organize, to manage, to keep things movin', to know where things are, to be good stewards of our resources. We gotta be good stewards of our resources at home first. Godliness often starts in the home as we see here. And if you're going to care for God's church and leads God's people, how are you leading the people in your own home? And what does your house look like? Is your house in order? You know, we talk about when people are close to death or close to passing away, they even use the phrase, "get your affairs in order" or "get your house in order". Well, let's not wait until we die to get our house in order. Let's get our house in order now, and that will be a reflection of our ability to lead God's people. Let's look at verses six and seven. The overseer "must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation of the devil." Now, this is not a statement of age. I want you to notice that, this is not a statement of age. This does not say to be an elder or a leader in the church, you have to be at least 47 years old. It doesn't say that. And it doesn't say 37, and it doesn't say 27. There's no age here. It says you shouldn't be a new believer because you see in scripture, especially in the Parable of the Seeds, the sower and the seeds and the four different soils, following Jesus takes time. A friend of mine named Lisa as a personal trainer and a former fitness guru and bodybuilder. And she's amazing. And she's an amazing lady. And one of the things she used to always tell me about diet and exercise is she gave me this little math equation and it said consistency over time equals results. Consistency over time equals results. And I think spiritually the same thing's true. You got to consistently follow Jesus for a good period of time and that will equal results in your life. And if you're gonna be a leader in the church, you can't be a brand new Christian. It's just too early. Let's see you walk with God for awhile. Let's see you be faithful for awhile. And then you get to step into a leadership role. But I want you to notice this does not give an age. This does not say you have to be old to be a leader in the church. As a matter of fact, I think churches everywhere across the country need to work on inviting younger people into leadership. I think that's an important need because the age of the leadership of a lot of churches are aging. And our Executive Pastor Wes joked around with me one time he said, "life is a conveyor belt". He said, "you fall off at the end, you don't stay on it forever". And he said, "we need to always be thinking about the younger generations". And I said, "Amen". I agree, that's absolutely true. Let's keep reading verse seven. It says, "moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into the snare of the devil." Isn't it fascinating that to be a leader in the church, it doesn't just matter what church people think about you. It doesn't just matter what your family thinks about you or how they operate. It's gotta be bigger. The average person you drive past on the road, the average person you interact with, your next door neighbors, your coworkers, the people you hang out with at the playground while your kids play. Non-Christians, normal people that are not part of our church, who are not believers, who are outsiders, they need to think you're pretty great. I think it's interesting that what non-Christians think of us is really, really important. Sometimes we don't care about that. I know I've been working in the church for 16 years. Sometimes I'm tempted to think, "ah, what everybody thinks about me, doesn't care, I'm doing what God wants me to do." No, actually what outsiders think of us really matters, it's really important. And so again, I want to ask you, looking at these qualities, who are you following? Do these qualities reflect the leadership of your local church? How are you leading? Who has God put you over to lead and serve? And then which quality do you need to grow in? Personally. The next section talks about deacons and this is really neat. There's a lot of repeated things. Likewise deacons, which is another board of leadership in the church. The elder board overseer role is the primarily authoritative role where they're able to teach, it's reserved for men and they lead and shepherd the spiritual aspects of the church. Deacons are primarily servants. The word deacon means servants. And so it says, "deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first and then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless." So you see here that there needs to be a time of faithfulness, consistency over time equals results, before you can be a deacon, for sure. And a lot of those same character qualities of an elder are the same there for a deacon, as we saw. The next verse says "Their wives, likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, not sober-minded, faithful in all things." I think this scripture is true for the wife or the spouse of a deacon. However, in the Greek that word woman or wives here, it's actually translates as women half the time in some manuscripts that translates as women. And it also translates as wives. And so I think it's pretty clear here that women can absolutely serve in the role of deacon. I think that for three reasons. First of all I think women can be deacons because this word is actually translated "women" quite often. Second of all, you'll see in the list of qualifications for deacons, that teaching is not included. Earlier in the list for elders, it says they need to be able to teach, teaching is not listed as a requirement here, which first, which Paul talked about in chapter two, and then thirdly, in Romans chapter 15, there's a lady named Phoebe who is actually listed as a deacon. So I think women can be deacons, for sure. So this would apply to a male or female who's serving as a deacon. It says, "let deacons be the husband of one wife". Again, the idea behind husband of one wife doesn't mean it has to be a man, it means you are faithful to one spouse, "managing their own children and households well." For those who serve as deacons, "gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence with faith that is in Jesus Christ." I think that's incredible. If you serve faithfully as a deacon, that will strengthen your faith. You know in the world today, so many people talk about, wanting to be a leader and aspiring to a leader and leadership this and leadership that and leadership podcasts and leadership articles and leadership blogs and leadership books and leader to leader leaders, and I love my favorite is when people say "I'm not just a leader, I'm a leader of leaders." Good, good for you. Look at what this says about deacons. For those who serve as deacons, which means serving, the role of deacon is a servant role. You "gain great confidence in the faith" and a good standing for yourself. See Jesus said "the greatest among you will be your leader"? No, no, no. Jesus said "the greatest among you will be your servant." So whether you serve as an overseer or whether you serve as a deacon, by serving, by laying your life down, you will find it. And the greatest among us are servants. After this, Paul wraps up saying again, the reason for this letter to Timothy, "I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to use so that, if I delay, you may know how you ought to behave in the household of God." And Paul ends with this manifesto, with this poem, which is a summary of the good news of Jesus, which is a good place to end. It says Jesus was "manifested in the flesh, He was vindicated by the Spirit, he was seen by angels, he was proclaimed among the nations, he was believed on in the world, he was taken up in glory. That's the story of Jesus. God loves you so much, he sent his only son to die for you to live the perfect life for you to die on the cross, to pay the payment for your sin that separates us from God. But then, he was believed on and he was taken up in glory, Jesus beat death, he was raised from the dead. He was resurrected, he is now seated at the right hand of the father. He is praying for you and for me right now, which is awesome. And he modeled leadership to us by washing people's feet. And by laying his life down. To lead is actually to serve. So let me ask you again, who are you following? Does this chapter in the Bible reflect the leaders in your local church? For me at Rockpoint when I look at our leadership, I think it does. How are you leading? How's God laying it on your heart to be a better leader to the people he's put you in charge of. And also which one of those qualities that we read through, that you might need to go back and read through, look at, pray about, maybe call someone and talk about today. Which one of those one qualities do you need to grow in? I'm sure there's at least one. So let me pray for you right now. Jesus, thank you for my friends who were able to join me for this time and your word this morning. God, we all want to follow good leaders. God, bring us good leaders into good local churches who love you and who teach your truth. Bring us good leaders, God, we need them. God, for all of us who are looking at this scripture right now today, help us to be better leaders of the people you've put in our care. And Lord, out of that list of qualities, the one that pops up out to us specifically, help us really focus on that and pray about that, and even talk to somebody about that today, so that we can serve you better, so we can know you better, and so that other people can know you better, cause God, we want to know you, we want to grow in you and we want to go and help others do the same, cause that's making disciples in a healthy church and when we ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks.