So leadership, this idea is a billion dollar industry today. It's got books and magazines and websites and conferences, all devoted to teaching and improving a person's ability to lead. And I read an article recently about this, and there was a Harvard professor who's been involved in this industry of leadership for decades. She said that her assessment after decades was this, quote, the leadership industry has not in any major, meaningful, measurable way improved the human condition. all the books, all the conferences, all the seminars, all the podcasts, all of those things. At the end of the day, she says, waste of time. The benefits of the leadership gurus are that they talk about and they pitch to people. She said that they just don't translate to the real world. Well, this morning, we're going to look at timeless principles of leadership from God's word. These are the basics, the bottom line that should mark all the leadership in a local church. These are practical, effective, and they get results. They're not meant exclusively for church leadership positions. They're meant for all people, really, because all people here today are leaders. Now you might be the boss of your own business, or you might lead a team of people, or others, you might lead a ministry, or a small group, or a classroom, or an office. Others here, we try to lead our children. Emphasis on the word try, right? But all of us, and all of us are seeking to lead ourselves. So all of us here in some way are leaders. Now, the context of our passage this morning in Titus chapter one, you can turn there now, Titus chapter one, the context is church leadership. So we're gonna apply it there, but what we're gonna see is that these principles apply to everybody. And finally, I want you to keep this in mind too. Last week I told you, I thought, okay, why are passages like this in the Bible? Why is this personal letter between Paul and Titus and the characteristics of the kind of leaders that should be in churches, why is this in here for us? And the answer is twofold, one, so that we have those kinds of leaders leading this church, but two, so that you have the grid, the discernment that you need in order, as all these people are out there online and in churches and on television saying, hey, you should listen to me, I'm a leader, I'm a teacher, I'm a pastor, you should listen to what I'm saying. You need the grid to be able to say whether or not you should listen to them. And so we need a passage like this. You need to be able to identify bad leaders so that you can protect yourself and those you love from those bad leaders, because bad leaders have led to countless people being damaged and disgusted with church and pastors and leaders in Christianity. That bad leadership has infected people and has given them an excuse for saying, I want nothing to do with that, Jesus, because look at those leaders. We don't want that here, number one. But number two, you need to be able to identify them. And that's what this passage is all about. Now, last week we saw the New Testament calls Jesus the senior pastor of every true church. It calls him the head of the church, the chief shepherd, the great shepherd. But now, second, I want you to know that within each true church, regardless of whether there's 20 people or 20,000 people, every true church is made up of true Christians. Can we agree with that? Right? Every true church is true Christians, people who've been supernaturally born again, who've been raised from the dead spiritually, who've given their lives to Christ. Now, the New Testament calls all Christians by two words that you probably don't think about yourself with these two words, but this is what you are called in the New Testament. One of those words is priest. The other is minister. So if you are a Christian, you are a priest. If you are a Christian, you are a minister. Listen to 1 Peter 2, 9, speaking about Christians. He says, quote, you are a royal priesthood. The New Testament knows nothing of a special office of human priest who stands between God and people, who has some kind of special access to God that you need in order to communicate with God. No, you communicate directly with God if you're a Christian. because you do so through our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. So you are called the priest and then Ephesians 4.12 says that pastors and teachers are given to each church to equip the saints for the work of ministry. So all Christians have a work of ministry. All saints, all Christians, saints are not the super Christians, they're just Christians. And all of us, all of you, have a ministry that God has equipped you for that you're being more and more equipped for as you come here and you go to your groups and other things. So the question is not, do you have a ministry? All of you have a ministry. The question is, are you doing the ministry that God has given you? And are you being equipped to do that ministry? So Jesus is the head of the church. Within every church, every church is made up of true Christians. Those true Christians are priests and ministers. But third, Jesus has delegated his authority to elders, to the leaders in each of his churches. These men are Christians who've taken on the responsibility to feed, lead, protect, and care for a group of Christians in a local church. And I want you to see up on the screen what the New Testament says about these men. Ephesians 2, 13. I'm sorry, Hebrews 13, 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them. Why? Because they're keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Look at another passage, 1 Thessalonians 5, 12, and 13. We ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. And now one more passage, 1 Peter 5. Peter's talking to the leaders in the churches that he's writing to, and he says this, quote, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. So I'm exhorting you, hey elders, I'm commanding you, I'm charging you with this. Verse two, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. Exercising oversight. There's that idea of leadership. Not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those, it says, in your charge, that you've been charged with leading. but being examples to the flock. Let me say that last line again, but being examples to the flock. We'll come back to that. That's key for this morning. So all Christians in a local church, like this one, are to obey, submit to, and respect the leaders Jesus as the head of the church has placed over our lives to lead us. So you can think of it in this way. All Christians are called ministers, but only some are called to the ministry of leading, feeding, protecting, and caring for a local church. These are the under shepherds. They are servants of the king of kings, and they are servants of the local church. That's what Jesus said, right? The greatest among you must be your servant. The top must be the bottom. The highest must be the slave. And that's what these men are supposed to be. And notice, maybe you remember from what we just read, they're there to keep watch over your souls, shepherd you, exercise oversight, never for money, never harshly, but always by being examples. And I want to drill down into that idea a little bit this morning. See, what I've said just now has disqualified many of the men that you watch on television, if you watch Christian television. It's already disqualified them. And the problem is, is that many churches will read the passage that we will look at today and read them as options, suggestions. but they are not. They are the standard by which every leader in a church, the highest levels of leadership in a church must attain to, must have. They cannot do that on their own, right? It's only the work of God's spirit to produce that in any church leader or really in anybody here. It is God's work in our lives that produces these things. The difference being this, and I'll say this a few times to make sure this is plain. The leader must have attained to these standards. All Christians must strive for these standards. That's part of the difference. Here, when it comes to the example of leadership, church leaders call them pastors, elders, priests, clergy, bishops, presbyters, ministers, whatever. The primary qualification for church leadership is an exemplary life. a life others should imitate. They must be able to say with Paul, Philippians 4, 9, look at the screen, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. I just like steps up church leadership a little bit, right? He told Timothy, 1 Timothy 4.12, set the believers an example, be an example. And he just doesn't say that in general, he says, be an example in these ways, in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. The standard is always 1 Corinthians 11.1, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. That it is Christ is the example, it is he is the standard that all Christians are striving for, and it's the elders, it's the leaders who are saying, hey, follow us as we're following him. It is never a moment where none of this, I said this at the end, but I want to front load this today in this message and say this. Nothing that I'm going to say today has anything to do with putting leaders on a pedestal. Remember I said leadership in Christianity is servant of all. It's under everybody. But what happens is we take the world and we import it into the church and what we do is we create a celebrity culture around our pastors and we either put them on pedestals or pastors demand to be put on pedestals. And that is not biblical. That is not New Testament Christianity. That's not a biblical church. Pastors are under everybody. Even though it says we're to respect and all of those things, yes. But it's to respect them for their work, not their office. For their work. And so as we go through this, keep those things in mind. And also keep this in mind, their lives will never be sinless. ever. No leader, no Christian's life will ever be sinless, but their commitment to Christ, their life before Him, and all the people that they have the privilege of leading must be a Spirit-produced, Gospel-saturated, Bible-based, God-honoring example to all of the people that they get to lead. Now God has standards for the conduct of every Christian to pursue in His Word, Again, but God requires church leaders to be visible models of those examples. So, if you're not in Titus chapter 1, you can turn there now. If you are, we're going to be in verses 5 to 9 right now. These four verses, really 6 to 9, these four verses are going to help us establish the criteria for church leadership. That's what the goal is, establishing what kind of people should be leaders in the church where Jesus is the senior pastor. What kind of leaders? No, better, what kind of Christians should these men be? Leaders for the churches on the island of Crete is the historical background behind what we're gonna read. And remember, there's false teaching all over this island. There's ungodly living that's actually coming out of the churches. Christians are like, ah, grace, I can live how I want, because I've got all this grace. And so Paul's saying, hey, no, you need to shore that stuff up. You need to straighten them out. You need to bring these churches in line with God's word and what they teach and in how they live. And in order to do that, in this letter, Paul starts with leadership. He says, Titus, these are the kinds of men, these are the kinds of people that need to lead your churches. And so what would happen is Titus would get this letter, he got this letter from Paul. And then he would take it to the individual churches on this island and go, hey, Paul sent me, here's what I'm supposed to do. And then he would give them this letter. And they would read this first up and go, these are the kind of people that need to be leading in your church. Well, that would mean some of these men need to get out of leadership, other men need to be in leadership, or the ones who are in leadership need to repent and get right. That was what would happen when these churches would read this passage. And so let's take a look at this passage and see what Jesus wants the leaders of his church to be like. Titus 1.5, this is why I left you in Crete. You might put what remained in order. See there's all that problems, put it all in order, get it in line with my word, with God's word and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain. but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it." So before we jump into the details of this text, I want to start with the big picture idea. We'll call it point number one, the basics of church leadership. The basics of church leadership. Now notice the word church leadership. Okay, we're not talking about leadership in a classroom in the sense of like, this is what leadership in a classroom should be. We're not talking about this is leadership at your business. That's not what this is. This is leadership in a church. Now, some principles will apply. There'll be crossover, but some principles won't. As we go through this, you'll see. So this is the big picture defined and explained here in Titus chapter 1. It's not exhaustive, because we could do this for a year. Like I said, leadership is a billion dollar industry, so there's a whole lot of information out there, even on church leadership. We're not going through all of that. We're going to stick to the text. I want to outline some of these big picture ideas, I'll give you 10 of them there, that kind of lay the foundation for the criteria that we just read. Be hospitable, love what's good, all that stuff. What is the foundation for all of that? So maybe the first one here, it goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway. No one should ever be an elder or a pastor in any church unless they are not first day Christian. Alright, so point number one, church leaders must be Christians. By telling Titus to look for these men in the churches, in the towns, Paul is assuming the men that he will find there are Christians. Now listen, we should love non-Christians, love them deeply, but no non-Christian should ever lead any ministry in any church, let alone be given the highest levels of spiritual leadership in a church. This is the first non-negotiable. This is kind of the, well, duh. Well, recent events have shown that non-Christians can get to the highest levels of spiritual leadership in a church and even in evangelicalism country and worldwide. So we're not gonna just, well, let's just move from that. No, this is critical to make sure that the leaders, the pastors, the elders are Christians. This is the first non-negotiable Christian ministry. Second, church leaders should have two titles to mark their ministry. Church leaders have two titles to mark their ministry. We saw them both, they were used interchangeably. First, in verse five, it says appoint elders. So that's the first title, elder, but then there's the second one in verse seven, Four, an overseer. So elder and overseer, these are being used interchangeably because they're the same office, they're the same idea. Elder just speaks to his maturity, his leadership, overseer speaks to his function, again, managing, overseeing, those kinds of ideas. So elder, overseer, you could put a hyphen between, that's the leadership in the church that we're talking about, as well as pastors. Third, there's a very similar list to this, Two books to the left in 1 Timothy 3, so let's take a look at that one quickly too. See, Paul has a ministry associate, Timothy, he's in the city of Ephesus in modern day Turkey, and so he leaves him there, and Timothy's gotta do the same thing. Identify elders, appoint elders, and so he gives Timothy a very similar list. So point number three, church leaders have two lists to mark their lives. Church leaders have two lists to mark their lives. Together, Titus chapter 1, 1 Timothy chapter 3, put together, that creates the criteria, the non-negotiables for church leadership. So let's read it here. And some of it's going to sound familiar. Let me back up and say one thing before we continue. If it doesn't feel like it already, this is going to feel more like teaching than preaching. I got into a little preaching a minute ago, but for the most part, this is information that you need, that I need in my mind, in my heart, so that I can understand what is it supposed to be like in the churches. As a four-year-old church, these messages are going to set the foundation that is built on for the next Lord-willing 50 years of ministry here. And so I hope that when it comes to a passage like this, that's what's happening. So that's why, that's partially why I'm going so through it. But like I said last week, I'm going slow because we all need to know it because there's so much bad leadership out there. And so this is gonna feel a little bit like teaching today, but that's because we need this foundational information in order to understand leadership from a biblical perspective. So, 1 Timothy chapter three, let's look at these qualifications. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. That's a key word, task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach. The husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. Not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He 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? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit, fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into the snare of the devil. So you heard a lot of things in that list that were similar to the list in Titus. Again, putting those two together, those are the qualifications, the criteria for church leadership. Now turn back to Titus chapter one. Number four is the controversial one, but that's okay. While our sinful flesh and definitely our God-defined culture hates what we're gonna say in number four with a passion. Leadership. Now I'm talking about pastors, elders, overseers. That level of leadership in a church is reserved exclusively for men. So point number four, church leaders can only be men. Look at verse six, Titus chapter one, verse six. An elder is to be, quote, the husband of one wife. Doesn't say spouse of one spouse or something like that. It identifies the leaders as husbands, as men. Now this is talking about leadership in a church context, not outside the church context. It's talking about leadership in churches. So it has nothing to do with your job or the business that you started or the small group at your home. Like that's not what it's talking about. It's talking about in a church. Now, saying that, there should be biblical support for that. And do we see biblical support for that? Absolutely. Jesus chose 12 men. Paul and 1 Timothy chapter 2 both support this idea. Jesus' example, Paul's teaching, 1 Timothy 2, both support this idea that the responsibility to lead, feed, care for, and protect a church falls on the men of that church. Now leadership, listen, doesn't mean better. It doesn't mean closer to God. It doesn't mean more special or more capable. Not at all. What it means is deeper level of service. It means higher visibility, and it means greater accountability. That's what that means. Number five, we often put leaders into these special, unattainable, supernatural categories, and then excuse ourselves that we'd never be like them. But point number five, church leaders don't need gifting. They don't need gifting. The language of gifting and calling is not found in Titus 1 or 1 Timothy chapter 3. Now in Ephesians 4, Paul talks about the gift of pastors and teachers. In Romans 12, Paul talks about the gifts of leadership and teaching and preaching. However, an elder is not a calling and it's not a gifting. We just saw it in First Timothy 3.1. It's a task. It's called a task. What that means is this, teaching and managing or leading are things the elders should be able to do. They are not things, listen, that they must be gifted to do. Well, I don't have the gift of fill in the blank so I could never do that. No, that's not what it is. Leadership is not something that's open only to the gifted. It's a potential for all who qualify. All who can look at those character qualifications and skills and go, that's me. Number six, I think the order of Titus 1 is significant. So notice for church leaders, point number six, character comes before doctrine and skill. Character comes before doctrine and skill. Notice the last thing on the list that Titus is supposed to assess is what the men believe and their ability to teach and defend that truth. So we typically think about, care about, examine doctrine and a leader with great attention and just kind of like, well, whatever with his life. But on the list, character comes first. And why? I think bad character can ruin a man's good doctrine, right? Right? Like they could be preaching the truth and truth and truth and defending it against all kinds of false doctrine. But if they step off the pulpit and are horrible to people, Or like, thinking about our list, they're violent, angry drunks. Like, clearly this stuff doesn't mean anything to you because your life is not being changed by this truth. Great skill with the truth coupled with a bad heart can deeply damage people. can deeply damage a church. So can good character and false doctrine, so don't get me wrong. My only point is this. I think character comes first because character must be there. It has to be there. And only then should his beliefs and his skill be considered. Number seven, at the top of the list of this criteria for a church leader is the quality of his home. So before personal leadership, point number seven, family leadership is most important. Again, before personal leadership, family leadership is at the top of this list. Why? Because the surest test of leadership will be seen in a man's wife and kids. So if a man is an example, if he has the kind of life other Christians should follow, it'll be most obvious in his closest relationships. So there used to be family standards, I'm told. I don't think I was alive when that was a thing. Used to be that family standards were required for leadership positions in our culture, but not anymore. You could be a CEO, a politician, a doctor, a fireman, a school teacher, all kinds, probably every job on the planet, probably, and at the same time, be an adulterous, abusive, abandon your family kind of person, and it not affect your job at all. You know, how they live in their own personal time, like, as long as they're meeting their numbers, right? Not here. Not in a church. Only for elders, only for pastors, is their family a criteria for leadership? Meaning if their families don't meet these criterias, really, if they don't meet these criterias of leadership in their families, they should not lead in the church at the highest level of being a pastor or an elder. Number eight, the criteria for leadership should be met before a man becomes an elder. So point number eight, meeting the criteria must precede church leadership. In other words, these are not characteristics that's like, okay, now that you're an elder, here's your standard. Okay, now that you're an elder, you've gotta follow this stuff, you've gotta take this stuff more seriously now. These are tests, criteria, qualifications for a man's eligibility for church leadership, for his entrance into being an elder. Really, not only must the criteria on both lists precede church leadership, these criteria must continue to mark his life for as long as he's a leader. And if at any point in his life, his life does not match these criteria, he should step out of leadership voluntarily or be removed from leadership. Notice, this is not just my like, oh, this is what I think. Look at verse seven. Titus 1-7, foreign overseer, as God's steward, it'd be good if he was above reproach. Is that what your Bible says? Be a good idea? What is that word in your Bible? Must. Must. This criteria is found in God's word. Therefore, no church, no group of leaders has authority to ever lower these standards or to disregard them simply because of gifting, nor do we have any right to elevate our other standards like personality or results or charisma or humor or anything else above these standards because these standards are God's word. The goal, the charge is faithfulness to this text when it comes to leadership. I said this next one before, but I want to emphasize it here again. This criteria for spiritual leadership in the church is no different at all than what God expects from every follower of Jesus. Each item on the list is represented somewhere else in the Bible for Christians. So point number nine, meeting the criteria should describe all Christians. meaning the criteria should describe all Christians. Philippians 2.15 and 1 Timothy 5.7 use close relatives of our word above reproach there to mark the lives of ordinary everyday Christians, not just leaders. And look back at Titus 1.7. Think about it this way. Is it okay for a Christian to be arrogant but not a leader? You know, do we give ourselves a pass for being arrogant? But you know, those leaders, you know, they better be humble. Is it okay for a Christian to be quick-tempered but not an elder? What about being a drunk? Well, hey, I'm not a leader, so you know, woo-hoo, we can. Like, is that what we do? Is that how we think as Christians? What about violent or greedy? I mean, do I need to keep going? Isn't it obvious the qualities, the criteria for church leadership are simply standards all Christians should strive for. That is why, as I said before, these criteria are meant to ensure that the leaders in each local church are examples of what it just looks like simply to be a Christian. Their lives are examples to be followed because their lives embody what every Christian's life should embody. Godly, Christ-like characters seen in these lists. And tenth, everybody agrees there is one criteria that summarizes all the rest. It is the criteria, it's the highest for all levels, for the highest levels of church leadership. Look back at verse six, if anyone is above reproach, look back at the first seven, an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. Above reproach is the qualification for holding church leadership positions. It is to be. So the idea here, as the very beginning of the list, is that the rest of the list explains what it means to be above reproach. So to be above reproach in your marriage is to be, verse 6, the husband of one wife. To be above reproach financially is, verse 7, to not be greedy. To be above reproach emotionally is to not be quick tempered. Do you see how that works? So it's above reproach. Here's what it looks like to be above reproach. And then there's that list. So we're gonna spend the rest of our time this morning digging into this one idea. So point number 10, church leaders must have a good reputation. That's what it means to be above reproach. He must have a good name. He must be well thought of by those who know him. Whether it's his wife and kids, his family, his friends, his coworkers, his church, the non-Christians he interacts with at the store, he has a good reputation. All of the criteria that follow explain in detail what it means for him to be above reproach. He has a good reputation in regards to this criteria. There are no credible reports of sin in his doctrine or his life. A good place to start is what do the people closest to us think about us right now? He's not known for ungodly, unchristian behavior. And this is what we'll call point number two, the bottom line of church leadership. The bottom line of church leadership. Let's dig into this idea of being above reproach. The meaning of this word, the basic meaning of this word is unaccusable. Words often used to help define this idea are unblemished, irreproachable, untarnished. It's used in the context of law courts of someone who is free from a charge. There are no grounds for an accusation against him. He's not even subject to an indictment, let alone a trial. His record is clean. Remember, the problem in Crete was the false teaching, the ungodly living, that was coming out of the churches. So the churches were full of false doctrine, the churches were full of ungodliness, and they were exporting that out into their culture on the island of Crete. And it was destroying their witness. and it had to be stopped. So starting the list as this summary criteria of the whole list, here's Paul saying, above reproach, that is the primary criteria for church leaders. A person is above reproach when he lives what he believes. Well, that's every Christian, right? We should live what we believe. A life that doesn't accept compromise, it's integrity, it's righteousness, doing what's right in accordance with God's word. It's living before the face of God, under the authority of God. It's a private life that is no different than the public reputation. This is, Acts 16.2, it describes Timothy as a man, it says, he was well spoken of by other believers. Not just his mom. You know, not just his best friend, but he's well-spoken of by other believers, not just in the city where he lived, but in the neighboring city. The Christians in those cities recognize him. He is well-spoken of. Actually, we just saw this in 1 Timothy 3, verse 7. It says that he is to be well-thought of, the elders to be well-thought of. Someone marked by this word is not deserving or worthy of a credible charge of wrongdoing in regards to the rest of the criteria, verses six to nine. This is behavior over a long period of time that produces a reputation that has no disgrace. There's nothing in their lives that would justify calling their character into question to indict them, nothing to disqualify as a model Christian. One pastor said the man is quote, not grossly or scandalously guilty so as to bring a reproach upon the holy function of being an elder or upon the name of Jesus himself. And I just want to pause and think, you know, for my own self, like, it's freeing that God doesn't expect elders, leaders to be entrepreneurs or to accomplish great things or to be superb managers or funny or great preachers. He expects the same thing for men who lead churches of 20 to 20,000, that they will be examples of integrity. that the Christians they have the privilege of leading will do well to imitate. Only men like that are worthy, qualified to lead and feed Christ's church. So this criteria is so important. Look at verse seven. It's repeated for emphasis. And notice again, those words must. These things, this above reproach, he must be above reproach. So being above reproach is necessary. It's not optional. It's not negotiable. It's not, well, he's so funny, or, well, he's really worked in my life, or, wow, he's just such a good teacher. These are non-negotiables. These things are never to be overlooked, to be passed over. Without it, no man should lead in the most influential parts of a church. There are other areas of leadership he can have. Wonderful areas of leadership. Areas where they can be used, where he can be used mightily for the Lord. But not the highest levels of church leadership. Not pastor, not elder. Now, I want you to see that this word, to try and understand what does this word mean, above reproach, it's used twice for the Christian when they stand before Jesus. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 1.8, Jesus himself, quote, will sustain you to the end, guiltless, there's our word, guiltless, nothing you're guilty of, no charges against you. and He's gonna sustain you in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end, when you stand before Jesus, there will be no credible charges against you. It says the same thing in Colossians 1.22. Jesus, quote, has now reconciled you in His body of flesh by His death. Why? In order to present you holy and blameless. And here's our word, above reproach before Him. No grounds for any accusation. You're record wiped clean by his blood. When you're there with him, there'll be no credible allegations against you. Which by the way is insanely wonderful, right? Knowing how many crimes we've actually committed against God and credibly could be charged for. Wiped clean. Record expunged. Actually record replaced. by the perfection of Christ. Now you might be thinking above reproach, free from charges. That's great when we stand before Jesus, praise God, but that's impossible. Right, anybody thinking that? That's impossible. No one is above a credible charge of wrongdoing. If they seem to be, just follow them along, follow them for a little while and eventually you're gonna see some pretty credible charges. Well, some important qualifications of above reproach. The first one is this, it doesn't mean sinless. It doesn't mean perfect. It doesn't mean without fault for his whole life. Paul knew 1 Kings 8 46 which says, there is no one who does not sin. If it meant sinless, only Jesus could be the pastor and only the Trinity could be the board of elders. And this text doesn't say that. This text says, find men who are above reproach. So it can't mean sinless. Number two, above reproach cannot mean that every single person who the leader has ever interacted with thinks they're wonderful. That wouldn't even apply to Jesus, right? He was called the false teacher. Insane? A demon possessed? He's called all those things. So people saw him in negative ways. And Jesus did say, John 15, that the world is gonna hate his followers. Paul said that his followers will be persecuted. People will have very negative pictures of Christians. So it can't be that nobody has, that there's just no one person that could ever say anything bad against them. So what does it mean? Above reproach means all things being equal based on a fair evaluation, each criteria on the list will mark the leader's life. It doesn't mean that they're sinless. It means any accusation against his life based on this passage won't stick. Since First Timothy 5.19 says, quote, you can see the screen, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses, that means two or three people will have evidence, meaning they've witnessed behavior that's not above reproach. So like a portrait, his life is being shaped, it's being conformed to the image of Jesus. Christ is at work in his life, transforming him to look in very tangible ways like the list in First Timothy 3, Titus 1. So he may have been a drunk, but he's not anymore. He may have been violent, but he's not anymore. He's hospitable, which means he loves strangers. He's self-controlled. All of that as he's becoming more and more like Jesus. Think about it. Jesus wasn't married and didn't have children, but look at 1 Timothy 1, 7. Jesus was humble and not arrogant, right? He was not quick-tempered at all, though he did get angry when God was dishonored, right? He's not a drunkard. He was not violent. Twice he did take a whip and clean out the temple. He's not greedy for money. He was hospitable, a lover of what's good, self-controlled, upright, holy, disciplined. He held to the truth. He taught the truth. He defended the truth. So all of this really, at the end of the day, is the character of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the desires of Jesus, the passions of Jesus, coming out of a group of men. Not that they're like, oh, we're striving for this. They are striving for this, but in very real ways, they've obtained what is here in this list. Unlike Jesus, you won't see perfection in them. James 3 2. We all stumble, including leaders. We all stumble in many ways, including not living up to this criteria. But leaders will see this criteria in the overall direction of their lives, and the people that they lead will see it, too. They won't read a passage like this in their daily, their Bible reading plan and come to this and go, oh, wait a minute. That's that's not good. I'm thinking a pastor so-and-so right now, he needs to read, does he read this? Does he know about this passage? And as I said before, it's not just church leaders because church leaders are meant to be examples of what all Christians are supposed to be. And so this really, as we go through this list over the next couple of weeks, It's not just for church leadership, it's really for all of us. It's for all of us as we seek to shape our lives. Okay, I'm not gonna shape my life anymore based on the world. I'm not gonna shape my life anymore based on my upbringing and my background. I'm not gonna shape it anymore based on the latest book out there at Barnes and Noble. I'm gonna shape my life around the teaching of God's word. I'm gonna shape my life around the person of Jesus. It's His life, it's His will, it's His ways that I want to shape my heart and my life. And that's what we're going to see in this passage.