Elders: Under Shepherds of Christ | Titus 1:5-9

Dr. Grant Castleberry preaches "Elders: Under Shepherds of Christ" from Titus 1:5-9 at The Lord's Day Service at The King's Chapel, Sunday, April 26, 2026.



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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I invite you to open your Bibles to Titus chapter 1. We're going to be looking at verses 5 to 9, the passage that I just read. When you study the New Testament epistles that Paul wrote, you notice very quickly that Paul understood sanctification to be a corporate endeavor, that it takes place in the life of the church. Even the epistles of 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy and Titus were written to pastors and evangelists, and they were meant to be read in the local churches. As Americans, sometimes I think we look at our Christian growth as an individual endeavor, that we grow as individuals. And in many ways, that's true. We are instructed to read the Word of God. We are instructed to pray. We are instructed to meditate on the Word of God. And all of these things we have to take responsibility for. We have to put sin to death. Nobody can put sin to death for you. You have to turn away from temptation. But yet at the same time, it's also very clear that your sanctification also depends upon your involvement in the body of Christ, the local church. So Paul, an apostle, an apostle was someone who had seen the risen Christ and had been appointed by Christ to serve as an apostle. That office has since come to an end. So obviously, with the death of Paul and then later John, there are no more apostles. The apostles would travel. They were not local leaders, they were global leaders. And their responsibility was to bring Christianity to the uttermost parts of the earth. And they would proclaim the good news of the gospel, the good news of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. And through that proclamation, the Holy Spirit would bring pagans. We're talking about pagans all over in the Roman Empire to the east. He would bring people to faith in Christ. And the apostolic method was then to organize these new believers into churches. And that's exactly what Paul would do. Everywhere he went, he would proclaim the gospel, people would believe, and then he would organize these new believers into a church. So when you read the book of Acts, you remember Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, and then he appealed to Caesar. They took him eventually to Rome. And the book of Acts ends, Acts 27, Acts 28, where Paul is shipwrecked, and then he eventually makes his way to Rome. Well, you read in Acts 27, on the boat ride to Rome, they stopped on the island of Crete. Crete is, it looks on a map like a hot dog in the middle of the Mediterranean. But it's it's over a hundred miles long. I think it's 130 miles long, 30 miles wide, has 600 miles of coastline. So this is a this is a huge island when you're there. We went there uh last year, a group of us. It's a huge island, rocky coastline. And most likely what happened, so Paul was imprisoned in Rome. He was released from that imprisonment and went back to Crete. Maybe he liked the beaches there. We don't know. But he went back to Crete and he proclaimed the gospel. Lots of people became Christians, and then there's lots of different harbor towns all over Crete, and he began to organize those people into churches. But the work was not done. Remember, he's an apostle. His responsibility is to travel around. So he leaves Titus there. He says, Titus, your responsibility is to ordain and appoint elders in every church because the elders are going to be the leaders. The elders are to be the stationary local leaders in the church. They're not to be itinerant, they're to stay there, and they're to lead those individual congregations. And so what you have here in this passage are instructions to Titus, and clearly Paul had given this via oral directives, because remember, he says, look at verse 5, he says, appoint elders in every town as I directed you. So these were already instructions that he had given to Titus. Now, what type of men was he to appoint? That's an important question. I think it's a question that many churches fail to ask and fail to answer. Because when we look at the world, we see one standard of leadership. We see a type of leadership model that in many ways achieves results. Y'all remember a fellow by the name of Steve Jobs? There's a legend about Steve Jobs that if you got on an elevator with Steve Jobs, nobody wanted to get on an elevator with Steve Jobs. He would ask you, what do you do for Apple? And if you couldn't give a coherent answer in about 30 seconds, you were packing your bags. You were done. There's uh stories about General Patton, World War II. One time there was a soldier that was installing a communication line up on a pole, maybe 20, 30 feet in the air, and the Nazis were shooting at him. And Patton rolls up in his Jeep and he sees rounds going off wood, wood chips flying. This soldier's being shot, and the soldier's just up there bravely wrapping the wire, doesn't hesitate, doesn't falter, climbs back down, and Patton comes up to him and he says, Soldier, that was incredible bravery. That was absolutely amazing. How did you do that? And he looked at Patton and he said, Because, sir, I'm more afraid of you than I am of the Nazis. My point is that there's a type of leadership in the world that achieves results, is there not? Is that the type of leadership that Jesus expects in the kingdom of God? Jesus said this, uh jot this verse down. Matthew 20, 25. Jesus called to them, his disciples, and said to them, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. In other words, how do they lead? They lead by fear, intimidation. If you don't do this the right way, I'm coming for you. He says, It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. The point is, is that the type of men that Titus was to be looking for is not necessarily the type of leader that the world looks at and commends. Leaders in Christ's church are not CEOs. They're under-shepherds of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are to follow the pattern of leadership of Christ Himself. I once heard Alistair Begg say that there are five important qualities of a Christian leader. They are, first, character overgifting, character overgifting. Second, integrity, honesty. Third, a servant heart, a willingness to serve others, to put the interest of others ahead of himself. Fourth, faithfulness to the word of God, faithfulness to the word of God. And fifth, self-examination. That you look internally and you ask the question, does my life measure up to the standards of Christ? Charles Spurgeon said there were three qualities that he looked for in a leader. Leaders in Christ Church, first he said, must be saved men. That's obvious, right? They must be regenerate, they must be believers. Secondly, he said they must be godly men. They must have a spiritual vitality about them. And then third, he said they must be virtuous men, they must be men of character, men of integrity. So what we're looking for in leaders in the church is godliness. Godliness. We're looking for men who serve Christ. They love Christ and they want to serve him no matter the cost. That's so important, isn't it? Because it's so easy to desire to make a name for yourself, to lead in such a way that tries to pull at the results and do the bidding of men rather than the bidding of God. It's so important to have Christ-like leaders, somebody who trembles at the word of God. We need men who fear God more than they fear men. There's a verse in Galatians, this just came to me, but I've been I go back to this often. This is Galatians 1.10. Paul says, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. That's big. How often are we trying to please people? How often are we worried about what people think about us more than what Christ thinks about us? Paul says he lives with this mentality where he's concerned about what Christ thinks, not what people think. And that's the type of leader who is to serve in the church. So this morning I want to answer two questions from this text. Two questions. First, what is this office of elder that Paul mentions in verse five? And then the second question, what do elders do? What do elders do? So that's it. Those two questions. And then next week, we'll look at the qualifications of the elders. We'll begin to look at what type of character is required for the office. So as we said, the New Testament office of leadership in the local church is the office of elder. Jot down these verses. This is mentioned in Acts 11 30 at the church in Jerusalem. Luke records, they they did so sending it to the elders, the elders at the church of Jerusalem, talking about a gift by the hand of Barnabas and Paul. So at the church in Jerusalem, there were elders. Plural. Notice that. In Acts 14, 23, this is really the apostolic method that I was telling you about. Luke records, when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. James records, this is James 5.14. So I want to make three observations about this office of elder. First, notice that it's in the plural. Notice that it's not the singular, it is in the plural. There were multiple elders to lead in every church. Now, this word elder is the Greek word presbyteros, and it's where we get our English word presbytery or presbyterian, which means elder rule. But this was an old Jewish word, and it meant an older man, an older man. Religiously in the Sanhedrin, the synagogue, they were to be led. In Jewish life, they were to be led by these men called elders. For example, I was reading just this week in Ezekiel. This is Ezekiel 14. It says, certain men of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. So this was something going on way back in the Old Testament. And when the apostles begin planting churches, they take this idea from the synagogue. So the synagogue, they're led by a plurality of elders. They take this same type of office and they begin using it in the local church. So they essentially adopted this form of leadership. Does this mean that an elder is to be an older man? More than often, but it speaks to the level of wisdom and maturity that an elder has. So for example, Titus and Timothy, were they old men or young men? Probably younger men. These are younger men, but yet they're appointing elders. So these men would be qualified to be an elder. So it doesn't necessarily mean old, but it means old-like. That you're wise, that you have a modicum of biblical maturity. This is a quote from Calvin. He said, Because of their wisdom, seriousness, and sound sense, it was as if they were already advanced in years. Don't you love that? It's like they're already a methuselah. They're already advanced in years because of their wisdom. So under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the apostles would appoint a plurality of elders in every local church. And that was to be the stabilizing leadership. And why is a plurality important? Why is a plurality important? Because in the local church, you have so many issues that you deal with, church discipline issues, uh, questions of leadership, uh, questions about how to shepherd somebody through a very difficult circumstance. And it's important. God has gifted his church with a multiplicity of spiritual gifts. And on that elder board, what you want to have is a multiplicity of gifts, where men are have different giftings, and when when a problem happens, men know how to tackle that problem. Whereas if you just have one person standing alone, oftentimes that person quickly can become overwhelmed. And so this is the pattern plurality of elders. Second observation, notice this. They are often called by another title. So not just presbyteras, they're often called overseers. The Greek word is episcopus, where we get our word episcopal, which means bishop role. So uh literally the word that we would use to translate this, overseer, is bishop. Okay, let me break this word down because when you see the etymology of the word, you can understand what it means. So the word episcopus, it's the it's the Greek preposition epi that comes in front and then scopus. What do you do with a scope? You look, you look through it. Epi means above. You look from above. So the the bishop leads from above. He looks from above, he leads from above. So look at verse 7. Notice this in verse 7. So he's talking about elders, right? The Presbyteroi. What does he talk about in verse 7? An overseer. Notice he uses this different title to describe the same office. He does the same thing. If you read in 1 Timothy 3, which is the parallel passage where he goes through the qualifications, he does not use the word elder, he uses the word overseer, for an overseer must be above reproach. So that's in 1 Timothy 3:1. In Acts chapter 20. This is uh verse 17. Remember when Paul is selling to Jerusalem, he gathers the elders from Ephesus, and then in verse 28 of Acts chapter 20, he he tells them, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. So he called for the elders, and then he gathers the elders, and he says, You are to shepherd the flock over which God has made you bishops or overseers. Now I want to put this all together for you if you will turn over to the book of 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 5. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. This is an amazing passage, a passage that every pastor needs to visit again and again and again and again. This passage is important because Peter in this passage puts together three ideas, three words. He puts together the idea of an elder, the idea of an overseer, which we've already seen that those two go together, and then this function of shepherding. What's a shepherd? A pastor. A pastor is somebody who shepherds sheep. So look at this. 1 Peter chapter 5. So I exhort the elders among you. Again, notice it's plural, right? Plural elders. And notice he calls himself as a fellow elder. Maybe at this point he's writing from Rome, over which, even though he's an apostle, he's also functioning as an elder of a local church. So he, as an apostle, he could serve in multiple roles. He says, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. What's that? He's talking about the second coming. When Jesus returns, there will be great glory. His angels, we will see him in his glorified body. Then he says this. Notice the verb shepherd the flock of God that is among you. So that is the function of the elder of the bishop. They are to shepherd, they are to pastor. He says, exercising oversight. What's that word, oversight? What's the noun form of that word? A bishop. Episcopus, episcopal, right? Oversight. Not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge. We looked at that, right? Patent? Not as a patent, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd, the Archapoeman, appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. He says, Therefore, likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the The proud, but gives grace to the humble. Question: Can the elder shepherd you if you're not willing to be shepherded? No. Doesn't matter how great of a leader you have as an elder, as a shepherd, if you have a sheep that wanders away, you cannot be led. Note that. We'll return back to that. So in summary, elders and overseers serve in the same office, it is the same office, and their role is to shepherd the flock. Third observation. Third observation. So turn back with me to Titus. Third observation. Actually, turn with me, keep going to 1 Timothy chapter 5. Keep going. Turn past Titus all the way back to 1 Timothy chapter 5. Because this is the third observation. Amongst the elders, so you have a plurality of elders leading the church, there are two separate orders of elders, or two separate classes of elders. Now, some flatten the eldership completely and say there's no distinction amongst the elders. And historically, that's what the Plymouth Brethren would do. It's just a plurality of elders, no distinction. The Reformed churches have always seen it differently. The Reformed churches have always made a distinction between two different types of elders. And this is following what Calvin wrote in the institutes and in his commentaries on this passage. Okay, so if you look at chapter five, verse 17, Paul says this let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. So all elders are to lead and to rule in the church. But notice this distinction, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. So amongst the elders, they all are to lead, but some are called to labor in preaching and teaching. They are called to give their lives to the preaching, to evangelism, to the proclamation of the Word of God. Now don't turn there, but you can jot this verse down. But in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, Paul says that Christ, the ascended Christ, has given gifts to the church. He said, He gave some men as apostles. Obviously, that office is no longer present with us. He gave some men as prophets. That office is no longer present with us. He gave some as evangelists. And then fourthly, he said he gave some as pastors and teachers. And that's one office. The office of pastor-teacher. That's not two separate categories. One office, the pastor teacher. And the pastor-teacher was called to be primarily, he was to be this 1 Timothy 5.17, to be devoted to the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. So the way that they delineated this in Geneva with Calvin, the way that they delineated it is they said, we have some elders that are called teaching elders. Those are the pastor teachers. You have other elders, they are what's called ruling elders. And we might call those lay elders. What's the terminology that people use? Some people say, well, so-and-so is a pastor and so-and-so's a lay elder. That's the same thing. We're talking about a teaching elder and a ruling elder. We're talking about a pastor-teacher versus a lay elder. Another interesting possibility of where you might see this. Remember in Revelation 2 and 3, where Jesus Christ is speaking to the different churches. And he says, Each message to the seven churches is addressed to the angel of the church. Greek word is Angelos, and it simply means messenger. An angel is a messenger. An angel is a messenger that brings a word from God to men. That's one of their functions. But it also can refer to people. So many expositors believe that when John is recording this and Jesus is recording these messages to the seven churches, that it's an address to the pastor-teacher of that specific church. Now, most churches, uh, we're not big churches. Most churches, you would have a plurality of elders, and you would probably only have one pastor-teacher. Because they're small, small churches. So you would probably only have one man who was devoted full time to teaching and preaching the word of God. Is that still true? Yes, absolutely. You go you go across most of the churches in the world are small churches. But it was important, the apostles believed, that there would be plurality of elders and yet also this distinction with a pastor-teacher. Let me give you a quote. This is from Arby Kuyper. I read this book in seminary. It's from his book, The Glorious Body of Christ. And he says this He says, although the minister, you could say pastor, is both a ruling and teaching elder, for good reason he is usually denominated a teaching elder. His central task is to teach men the word of God. That is incomparably his most important business. So do you see this distinction? The pastor teachers, and our church would have multiple pastor teachers. Their responsibility is to dedicate their lives to the preaching and teaching of the word of God. They all serve together. They all make up a corporate body that is to lead the church. So, in summary, the elders are all bishops or overseers. Their role is to shepherd the flock under the lordship of Christ. And then within the elders, you have two orders, what we might call the ruling elder, and then the teaching elder, the lay elder and the pastor teachers. Now, the ruling elders and the pastor teachers are to work together. The ruling elders are also called to be able to teach the word of God. Now, I think there's an important implication here, something for you to think about, and hopefully not for a long time, because you understand what that when you hear what I'm going to say. When a pastor dies or retires, whose responsibility should it be to select the next pastor teacher? The next senior pastor, if you will. This is what we sometimes call it in American language. Whose responsibility is that? Let me tell you what most Baptist churches have done. Most Baptist churches say, well, let's select, let's go to the congregation and select people from various demographics of the congregation and pull what people think, and then they're going to select the next pastor-teacher. Do you think that's the biblical model? What you want to have is a plurality of elders. These ruling elders who know doctrine, and they are to lead the church in finding this next pastor-teacher. Again, like I said, hopefully this won't be an issue for 40 more years for this church. But if the if something were to happen, and the elders need to be the ones that are leading the church, even with selecting the next leadership. And I say that because so many churches do this wrong. And it ends up derailing the ministries of the church. The elders, the lay elders, the ruling elders, they are to lead. They are to lead. Okay, that gets to the function of the elders. Second question: what are elders to do? What do elders do? Look at verse 5. He says, This is why, Titus, I left you in Crete. So that, purpose statement, you might put what remained into order. Underline that phrase. They are to put what remained into order. So think about for a second. Let's use a farming metaphor. Did Jesus ever compare the kingdom of God using agricultural terms? Kingdom of God is like seed planted in a field. Kingdom of God is like wheat that is sown. The devil plants, yes, all the time, right? Always using farming metaphors. So if you think about the church as a farm, what the responsibility of the overseer of the elder is to make sure the crop is growing up in rows, to make sure that weeds aren't growing. To make sure that rabbits aren't coming in and eating the harvest. If you use a shepherding paradigm, the responsibility of the shepherd, the elder, is to lead the sheep, to shepherd the sheep. So three functions that we see of the elders. First, let me give you these three quickly. The elders. This is so simple. So simple. The elders lead the sheep. The elders lead the sheep. And they do this, by the way. Do you remember what Peter said? As under-shepherds of Christ. Am I a shepherd or am I a sheep? Answer both. I am a sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am an under-shepherd of Christ. But elders are called to lead the sheep, to shepherd the sheep underneath the chief shepherd. This is putting, this is the primary function of an elder. An elder is not serving on a board of directors. And this is something that is is, I think, uh probably the most prevalent view in the American church is that elders function essentially as a board of trustees. Do we have the finances in order? Do we have the is the building and grounds taken care of? Do we have a budget for this next year? Things like that. But the general idea of the elders, the general function is that they're shepherds, that they're watching over the souls of the people, that they are shepherding. And one of the primary ways that they do this, we saw this earlier in 1 Peter 5, but one of the primary ways that elders are to do this is by setting the example. Elders cannot say, Do as I say, but not as I do. Elders lead by setting the example in their personal Christian life. Paul said, Philippians 3, 1, follow me as I follow Christ. Paul told Timothy, 1 Timothy 4 12, set the believers an example in speech and conduct and love and faith in purity. So elders are to shepherd, and they are to shepherd first and foremost by setting the example. But to shepherd, can a shepherd be an absentee shepherd? Like, think about this for a second. Can you say that I'm a shepherd and my flock is like 15 miles away? You can't? Isn't that kind of what the American church has done with all this multi-site stuff? Oh, yeah, I pastor all those people. Who are they? Oh, I have no idea. I'm never around them. Is that shepherding? No. I mean, that idea is so foreign to the New Testament. The elders are to shepherd the people. They have to be amongst the people. If you're a shepherd, there was a reason why shepherds were looked down upon. You know why? They stank. They weren't allowed in polite society because they were around the sheep. The shepherd should smell like his sheep. The shepherd is amongst his people, not in some ivory tower somewhere. Certainly not on some screen abstracted from his people. I've seen it now. There's churches in Texas that use hologram preachers. Let's just bring in the hologram to speak to you. Is that shepherding? And it's no wonder why churches are floundering. People are not being shepherded. Second function. So the elders are to lead the sheep. Secondly, they're to feed the sheep. And we're going to skip down. We're going to come back to verses six through eight. Okay? We're going to come back through to verses six through eight next week. I want you to skip down to verse nine. Notice this. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. So that, there's another purpose clause. He may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine. So the elder is called, this is all elders, by the way. This is not just the pastor teacher. This is all elders. They're all called to be able to give instruction in sound doctrine. The word give instruction means to call alongside. To call alongside. You come alongside something. The parables. It's a really an amazing picture, right? What does a shepherd do with the sheep? He walks next to the flock. He's calling them. Come here. Come on. He's calling to the sheep. He's coming alongside them and he's speaking to them. What is he to speak to them? Notice. Very, very simple, right? Very simple. What does he say? Sound doctrine. Sound doctrine. That word sound is where we get our English word hygiene. Who gainos? It means healthy. It's doctrine that is healthy. What is doctrine that is healthy? It's the doctrine of Jesus Christ and the apostles. That's it. You're not to reinvent the message. You're not to come up with something on the fly. You speak the message that I delivered to you. That's 2 Timothy 2.2. What you've heard from me in the presence of faithful men and trust to other faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So you take the message that you heard from me, which is sound. It leads to health. So leader, as shepherds, we're not to lead by force of personality? As if with our own personality, we can coerce people to live the Christian life like some sort of spiritual cheerleader? Come on, you can do it. Is that what we're supposed to do? To pump you up? No. Our job is to get out of the way so that you can hear from Christ. How do you hear from Christ? Answer his word. You need to be fed the word of God. But guess what? I need to be fed the word of God. Amazing statement in 1 Timothy 4. He says, if you, Timothy, teach the Word of God, he says, you will save both yourself and your hearers. In other words, even the preachers being fed the Word of God. We need to be fed. What do sheep need? Sheep need a pasture. They need to be fed. What does a crop need? A crop needs fertilizer, water. It needs to be fed. And so as shepherds, we are called very simply to feed the sheep and get out of the way. Remember Jesus to Peter? What did he say? Peter, do you love me? Three times. Feed my sheep. Tin my lambs. Feed my sheep. So the responsibility of an elder is to be able to handle the word of God in any situation. If somebody's struggling with anorexia, the elder needs to be able to bring a word from God. If somebody's downcast, the elder needs to be able to bring a word from God. If somebody's struggling with a doctrinal issue, how do we know Jesus is the Son of God? I just had some Mormons come and tell me otherwise. The elder needs to bring a word from God. Third, so the elders lead the sheep, the elders feed the sheep, and third, the elders protect the sheep. Notice, final clause in verse 9. Also rebuke those who contradict it. Rebuke those who contradict it. That word rebuke means to convince someone of their wrongdoing or wrong thinking. This is necessary. And here's why. You say, well, that's that's uh that's uh sounds mean-spirited. False teaching takes people away from the Lord Jesus Christ. It takes people away from the Lord Jesus Christ, it damages lives. And so we live in a world, I think somebody called it toxic empathy, where we want to be so nice to people at the derelict of our responsibilities. If we're simply nice to everybody, nicety send people to hell. So we have to be able, when necessary, in love, give a rebuke to someone who has wrong thinking or wrongdoing. Look at uh skip down to verse um, if you if you I think I left you in 1 Timothy, turn back to Titus and skip down to verse 13. He says, This testimony is true, same word, therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. The rebuke is given in order to help them be sound in their faith, to be sound in their thinking. And by the way, guess who uses the rebuke? God the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, John 16, 8, and we when he, the Holy Spirit, comes, he will, same word, convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment through the rebuke that the elders, the evangelists, the apostles give. So if you're thinking about the church as a field, the elders, they lead the church, they put the crop into rows, they keep it in order. Second, they fertilize the crop, they feed the crop. And then third, they protect the crop, they protect the field, they protect the flock. They don't allow the deer and the rabbits to come in and eat the crop. When I was growing up, I would read about Peter Rabbit. Remember Peter Rabbit? And he and his friends, what were they called? Flopsy, mopsy, cottontail. And where would they go? Into Farmer McGregor's crop. They were just these nice creatures. They just want to go eat, eat, eat, eat, eat. And Farmer McGregor is always chasing them, trying to kill the rabbits, right? Now, the older I've gotten, the more I sympathized with Farmer McGregor. Isn't this the role of the elder? You keep out the bad guys from destroying the harvest that Jesus Christ has planted. If you don't keep them out, what happens? Naive farmer, what happens? Where's Lee Holder? Is Lee Holder here? Lee Holder, right there. Yeah. I used to walk. This guy is a gardener extraordinaire. And Lee would put up these wiring around his garden, keep the birds, keep I mean, he's doing everything he can to keep out the rabbits, the birds, the squirrels, everything. And that's the picture, isn't it? That we gotta keep the false teachers out in love. And when necessary, give a rebuke. Now, what's the key to being able to do this? What's the key to being able to do this? He tells us. Look at the very beginning of verse 9. The elder must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, as taught by who? The apostles. Hold firm. It's the picture of grasping something till your knuckles turn white. You're gripping it so hard you're not going to let go. Paul says that's the idea is you're holding fast to the apostolic teaching and you're holding it fast so hard, you're never going to lose your grip. Because when you lose your grip, bad things happen. Bad things will happen. In the Marine Corps, uh, every Marine in basic training, whether it's boot camp or OCS, all the Marine bases, there's a standard Marine obstacle course. And it's over 100 yards long, various obstacles, poles that you flip over, and walls that you climb, and all this, and you're and you're running the obstacle course. And at the very end of the obstacle course awaits a 20 or sometimes 22-foot rope. That's at the end. So you see all the obstacles, you look past all the obstacles, and at the very end is the big rope. And you got to navigate all the obstacles as quick as you can. But the whole time you're thinking, I better not waste all my upper body strength because I know what weights me at the end. And then you get to that rope. And by the way, you know what the secret of climbing the rope is? Use your legs. Use your legs. You don't just want to tarzan it. You want to use your legs and help help. Anyway, I wish I could show you, but uh I know we got some Marines here. Is Marshall here? Where's Marshall? Yeah, right over here. You know what I'm talking about. Um but I was a series commander at Paris Island. And so I was dealing with all the recruits, and I would you know, help the recruits. We would teach them, we would train them how to run the obstacle course. And what we would tell them is look, when you get to that rope, you you climb up and and you have to touch the wooden bar at the top to finish. So you gotta climb all the way to the top. We would tell them, don't let go. Don't let go. And I saw recruits let go. Because you keep climbing and you're just using that upper body strength, and and the your forearms are getting so sore, and you and you get up there and your arms begin to shake, and then just let go. And when you let go, you fall all the way to the deck, all the way to the ground. Of course, we had some wood chips to to soften the fall a little bit. Um what's the responsibility of the elders? Don't let go. I don't care if the secularists are bait are beating down the door. We can't let go. Because the church is to be a pillar and buttress of the truth. We hold fast to the trustworthy word as taught. Closing story. Do we have time for a closing story? No, we don't, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Okay. Martin Lloyd Jones, y'all know I talk incessantly about Martin Lloyd Jones. I did my dissertation on Martin Lloyd Jones. Perhaps the greatest preacher in the 20th century. London, people came in droves, joined Westminster Chapel under Martin Lloyd Jones' ministry, and God blessed it tremendously, unbelievably, uh, influenced so many Christians all over the world. In 1968, Martin Lloyd Jones was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and he had to have surgery immediately with this stomach cancer. And he had to recover for probably, I think it was three months in the hospital. And after he recovered, he informed, and the church had what they called trustees. He informed the trustees of the church that he was going to retire. That was it. He felt led to travel and write, and he would go on to live until 1981. Um but my point is, in saying all this, if if there was a weakness in Lloyd Jones, if there was a weakness in Lloyd Jones, it's that he failed to raise up men to serve alongside him as ruling elders or lay elders. Because when he left, there was a leadership vacuum. And really they they did not handle the transition well, and they ended up hiring a guy. I'm not going to say his name, but but the next pastor, they didn't have strong leadership in place. The next pastor led them into essentially Pentecostalism, where they became a charismatic church. When I went back to uh Westminster Chapel and I went and visited a couple summers ago, they said, Who's Lloyd Jones? They had no idea. Um and today that church is a shadow of what it once was when Lloyd Jones was there. My point is that for churches to flourish over a long period of time, it can never depend on just one man. It can't depend upon me or whoever the next pastor teacher is. There has to be a plurality of godly men shepherding the church as under-shepherds of Christ. That is the apostolic model, and that is what Christ promises to bless. So this is the design. The church is to be led by elders, the congregation is to submit to the leadership of the elders as much as they can under the lordship of Christ, and the elders are to shepherd. And we're going to pick it up next week with their character and their qualification. So with that, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these instructions regarding your church. Elders serving as under-shepherds of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that we as elders here at the King's Chapel would shepherd your sheep well. That we would be committed to leading the sheep, feeding the sheep, protecting the sheep, and that we would do it all for your honor and your glory. Amen.