A Noble Task

1 Timothy 3:1

First in a series called: Choosing Church Leaders, God's Way 

PSBC 10/3/99

In a nutshell: The task of leading in the church is the highest position a Christian can hold. Leadership is open to that person who is stretching toward personal godliness and has a hearts desire to be used by God. It is a goal for every believer.

I. Introduction

A. Joke: A friend of mine sent me this story by e-mail the other week...

A preacher was invited to candidate at a certain church to become that church's new pastor. The people of the church worked very hard to try and impress him. They even said, "Whatever you want, just ask."

So, he said, "Well, I'd like to visit the Sunday School on Sunday morning." They said, "Oh, we have the best Sunday School with the finest teachers. The Director of Christian Education is well prepared and the students are really good students of the Bible."

The Candidating Preacher said, "Well, I'd like to visit a few of the classes." So, someone was assigned to take him on a tour. They first went to one of the adult classes. After observing for a few minutes, he was taken to a youth class. Then after he had observed for a while he went to the pre-teen area and visited a class of 5th and 6th grade boys. He decided to interact with the students in this class. So, he asked the teacher, "Would it be alright with you, if I asked the boys a question?"

"Just ask," the teacher said, "these students can handle just about any question you can think of."

So the visiting preacher asked, "All right, boys. Who tore down the walls of Jericho?" Everyone remained silent. Finally one boy raised his hand cautiously and said, "I didn't."

The preacher was a little perplexed by the students' lack of Bible knowledge, so he just said, "O.K." And he left. When he got outside, the person who was taking him around to the different classes said, "Now pastor, I know those boys pretty well. They all have good parents. And I can tell you that if that boy said he didn't tear down that wall, well, you can be pretty sure that he didn't." The man went on, "See we have basic honesty and integrity in this church and we want you to know that if you come to this church, you're coming to a fine church."

The preacher laughed, and went to the sanctuary, where he preached the morning message. After the sermon, one of the trustees came up to him and said, "Now pastor, me and the other trustees just had a meeting and we understand that there is a problem about some walls... and we don't want you to be burdened... so we just voted that no matter who tore them down... the Trustee Board will take responsibility to build them back up!"

B. Elections coming up

There's never a dull moment in Board and committee work in the church! Let me say something this morning before we get started...

–If you are a Christian and you're visiting our church this morning trying to find out more about us; –Or if you're here this morning seeking answers to some of the deeper questions of life–things like a hope for eternity, or true meaning and significance in your life, then I'm glad you're here today.

Because this morning you're going to hear something that will tell you about our church, and about the God we serve.

First of all, we are a church who tries to do things God's way. That means when we have questions about what is right, wrong, proper, or improper, we go to this book–the Bible–God's Word to find out what God says about the matter.

Second, we have found a hope for eternity, and a real meaning and significance in this life, by entering into a love relationship with the God who is spoken of in this Bible. That relationship starts with accepting God's Son, Jesus Christ, as the forgiver of our sins. But it doesn't stop there. We also follow Him as the leader of our lives–our personal life and our life together as a church. It's that area of God's leadership that I'm going to be addressing this morning.

You see, in about 10 weeks time, we're going to be electing people to the positions of leadership in our church. And now is a good time to find out what God says about that entire process.

II. The task of leadership

A. Variety of names

We have a lot of people who have come from a variety of traditions and denominational affiliations in our church, this morning. Some are Baptist by background. Some are Presbyterian. Some are Roman Catholic. Some Methodist. Some from the Reformed Church, or from Independent church backgrounds.

From those different backgrounds have come a variety of terms for church leaders. Some call them elders, some deacons, some have both. Others have presbyters. The old Methodist tradition called them stewards. Some are called Board members. And the list can go on and on. We happen to refer to our leaders as elders. The word in the Bible that all these titles refer to is the word, overseer.

B. Episkopos

In the Greek, that word is episkopos. It literally means "to inspect with an eye toward giving relief".

Explanation: Greek civilization during New Testament times, grew and spread through the planting of new cities by a mother city--much the same way that we plant churches today. A group of people would go out from the mother city with the idea of starting a new city some distance away where no other Greek city existed. Its mission was to spread Greek culture into areas where there was none.

The mother city would supply building materials, soldiers, food, money and most of the necessities needed for the new city to be successful. But because these resources were limited, and because there would be no more of these things given from the mother city, a group of people were sent with the new settlers who were called the Episkopos. Their job was to do things like... -approve sites for settlement, -approve building plans, -approve the use of funds and resources, -and give direction for how the city would look and function. The "episkopos" also would oversee the sale of food, the planting of new crops, and law-enforcement.

In short, the job of the Episkopos was to... ...inspect the progress of the new city, ...identify where things were not going as well as they should, ...and give relief or help from the supplies that had been sent with them by the mother city.

When you think about the elders of our church, "Episkopos" is a very appropriate term! Our elected elders need to be inspectors of our church, who give relief, who encourage, who give oversight and direction, who make sure we work within the rules of our Constitution, and with the resources we have, so that Palm Springs Baptist Church, can thrive and be successful by God's standards–not human standards!

C. The Ephesus situation

Everywhere Paul went in his ministry, he appointed these kinds of leaders to guide the churches he had established, once he left and moved on to the next area God sent him.

But toward the end of his ministry, he faced something new. As the churches grew, they needed more leaders, as well as the older leaders he had originally chosen, needed to be replaced because they had either died or moved away.

Also, as the church grew, Paul couldn't be everywhere to hand pick every leader. The task was just too big. So God directed Paul to write down specific criteria for choosing leaders, and we find these criteria in the letter in the New Testament called the book of First Timothy.

With all that in mind, let's take a look at the first verse of this section...

1 Timothy 3:1 1 Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.

In this verse there are 3 key phrases I want to look at this morning that will give us the proper perspective for the messages we'll hear in the coming weeks, and our elections coming up in December.

III. Trustworthy saying

A. Define "Trustworthy Saying"

The first phrase is a term that is used just 5 times in the whole Bible. "Here is a trustworthy saying."

–If you were a geometry student, you'd say..."Here is an axiom--something that is always true--something that is foundational for everything else to build upon." –In business terms, you would say, "This is something you can bank on." –To a gambler it would be like saying, "You can bet the farm on this one." And what Paul is saying is..., this is the truth--count on it.

B. Used another time

Now, we can see the relevance of this statement in another verse in this book. You see this same phrase is used earlier in 1 Timothy, by Paul, in connection with another "trustworthy saying."...

1 Timothy 1:15 15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the worst.

Do you see the connection? The truth we are about to find out in 1 Timothy 3:1, concerning leaders in the church, is on a similar level of importance in God's mind, as one of the fundamental beliefs of our faith..."Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners..."

That tells us that the instructions in this section of scripture are some pretty weighty matters. And it means we had better pay close attention to them!

IV. "If Anyone sets his heart on being an overseer..."

The next key phrase tells us what this weighty matter is all about. "If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer..."

A. Stretching

Illustration: I am a Tom Clancy fan. One of my favorites books that he wrote is Clear and Present Danger. When it was made into a movie, I went to see it. The hero throughout many of Clancey's books is a CIA figure by the name of Jack Ryan, who is played by Harrison Ford, in the movie. In this movie, the hero was trying to escape some members of the Columbian drug cartel.

In one of the last scenes, Jack Ryan's friends, who were in a helicopter, flew to the roof where Ryan was shooting it out with the bad guys. There came a point where this Harrison Ford character had to make a decision. Either he was going risk his life to stay and fight against overpowering odds, or was he going to risk his life by jumping into the helicopter that was hovering about three feet over his head. He chose to jump on the helicopter.

But he didn't make it all the way before the pilot took off, leaving Ford's character dangling from the landing struts of the helicopter. And in the scene, Harrison Ford kept trying to pull himself up into the helicopter. But because of exhaustion and the erratic flying of the pilot, and the bad guys shooting at him, he couldn't climb in, and he was about to fall. That's when his CIA buddy reached out his hand and told Ryan to reach up and grab his hand, and he would pull him to safety.

The camera focused on Harrison Ford's face, and you could sense the thoughts of uncertainty going through his brain. Then he made a decision. The camera focused on his hand swinging through the air reaching upward as far as it could stretch, for the hand of his friend. In a dramatic moment, the two hands met, grabbed onto each other, and Jack Ryan was pulled into the safety of the departing helicopter.

Well, friends, that's the gist of the words, "if anyone sets his heart". It literally means "Stretching oneself, to reach as far as you can reach."

Now, the things for which Paul is telling us to reach are the qualifications of an overseer that are listed in verses 2-7. Those are the things we'll be looking at in our next weeks together.

The things we'll be looking at are lifestyle and attitude decisions that result from a person's inner core that is committed to following Jesus Christ as the leader of his or her life. The things we will be studying in this series of messages are practical ways of living, to which any Christian man or woman is encouraged to stretch.

B. Problem in the church

But can I tell you a problem we have in most Christian churches today–including ours? We don't have enough people making the commitment to stretch after these qualifications. And what has resulted in the Christian church in north America today, is that we have a shortage of qualified leaders.

You see, leaders get tired. They need rest from time to time. They need qualified replacements.

Illustration: I can remember my senior year at Wheaton College. We were playing Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Carthage's football field was on a hill. The winds would come whipping off Lake Michigan and often contributed to a wind chill factor of 30-40 degrees colder than what the outside temperature was. In late November of that year, the wind chill was nearly 10 degrees below zero. Combine that with the fact that a flu epidemic had hit our campus the week before, and had wiped out nearly one third of our football team, and you can see why we weren't real excited when game day came around.

The flu was just starting to hit me, but I decided to play anyway. I was the starting strong-side offensive tackle. About midway through the third quarter I was barely standing. My 102 degree temperature was sapping all of my strength. I looked over to the sidelines for someone to give me a breather, but I realized that the two guys who played behind me were both down in the locker room with the flu as well. There was no one else who knew my position, so I felt I had to keep playing.

Naturally, as the game went on, I became less and less and less effective. When a play was called on my side of the line, it failed each time because I couldn't do my job of blocking–I was sick, I was worn out, and there was no other qualified person to come in and play the offensive tackle position. The result was that our team lost a close game.

Now I tell you that so you understand an important point of application of this verse. Like any other church–we have limited human resources. Some of our leaders are getting tired. Some are burned out. Some need time for recuperation. Some need to come out of the game for a while and rest. And in their place we need people who are healthy and able and qualified to take their spots.

What I'm saying is that we need more people in this church to "set their hearts on being overseers" and less people who... set their hearts on being spectators!

Our church needs to be an army of people who are making a commitment to stretch their lives and grasp a-hold of some very specific things, like... -knowing the qualifications for church leadership, -putting those actions and attitudes into practice with all seriousness and purpose, and -desiring in the deepest recesses of their hearts to be used by God to do whatever it takes to help this church fulfill its mission.

V. Conclusion: "a noble task

A. Noble Task

That brings us to the last phrase of verse one. In essence, Paul says, "when you set your sights on committing to do what God requires of an overseer, you desire a noble task."

Illustration: If I were to offer you your choice of a one dollar bill or a 20 dollar bill, which one would you take? You'd take the 20 dollar bill, because it was worth more.

If I offered you a week's vacation in a mud shack in the middle of an Indian reservation in Arizona, or a 19 room beach house in Malibu, which one would you take? You'd take the Malibu beach house because it was a much better situation.

If I offered to give you your choice of two cars--a 1989 Geo Metro, without air-conditioning or a fully load 1999 Lexus, which would you choose? You'd take the Lexus because it was much more valuable.

Your answers just defined the word "noble ". Noble means "the best". Noble Task literally means, "The best use of doing labor."

B. Application

Here's the point of this introductory message this morning... This is the truth...Stretching to reach the qualifications of an overseer is the best use of your time and effort.

Each one of us committing to these qualifications and each one stretching to put them into practice in your life is essential to... -the future of this church in God's plan, -to the spiritual health and development of our children, -and the spiritual future of your grandchildren. It's the best use any of us could make of our time and effort.

My challenge to you is this, "Are you willing to begin stretching your life to be one of God's leaders?" ***Your response to that challenge will determine whether you will be a hindrance or a help to this church and it's ability to do the part of the "Great Commission" that God is asking us to fulfill here in the Coachella Valley and the world!*** Amen.