A Few Good Men

Well, good morning, church family. Good morning. I got Rick in the back, and I’m not afraid to use him, all right? All right, good morning. How are we doing today? Good, good. It’s great to see everybody today. Thank you all for managing the rain and everything else. Good to see everybody.

As we get started, I want to take you back to a moment. Just picture it with me, all right? You’re on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. You’re sitting there. You’ve made dinner over a fire, and the fire has gone from this big roaring blaze down to some embers that you kind of scooted up close to, the roasted fish and the grain still sitting on you. You’re having a good time. The stars are out, and you’re just sitting with a couple of your buddies. You’re just talking about some of the memories you’ve made together over the last couple of years and, you know, reflecting with friends the way you would do, maybe with a college friend or somebody that you’ve known for a while. You’re going over some of the good, some of the bad. Time’s starting to wind down, and you don’t want the time to end. And so instead of talking about the past, you start talking about the future a little bit. Where are we going to go? What’s our friendship going to look like moving forward? How are life changes going to impact what we got to enjoy right here?

We’ve all been in these kind of moments. It may not have been on the Mediterranean Sea or something like that, but we’ve all had these kind of fireside chat moments, right? You’re talking with somebody you’ve gone through some really difficult times with, and you kind of laugh about some of the dumb, stupid stuff you did, and you marvel at some of the incredible things you got to experience.

Well, about 2,000 years ago, that’s where the Apostle Paul was. He’s sitting on the Mediterranean beach with a couple of his buddies from the city of Ephesus. Now, Ephesus is a place in what we now call Turkey over in the Middle East. You see, Paul, in Acts 19, he goes to the city of Ephesus, and he preaches the gospel there. What’s crazy about Ephesus is that that was, it is, the home to one of the ancient wonders of the world, this incredible and this super-sizable temple to this false god. Paul goes into the city center, and he starts preaching the gospel, and people respond so incredibly and to such an incredible degree that it actually affects the local economy. You see, a lot of families made their ends meet by creating these silver figurines that were small representations of the false god dedicated to that temple. Paul’s preaching of the gospel was so effective and so impactful through the Holy Spirit that it actually crashed the local economy. That, you can imagine, created quite an uproar with some of the folks that weren’t exactly sympathetic to the news about Jesus Christ being the only true God.

But, on the flip side of that, what happened then was a church was immediately birthed. And, unlike Paul, who normally parachutes into a city, preaches the gospel for a month, and then leaves, this time, Paul stays for three years. He stays for three years, and he’s encouraging the church. He’s helping establish some leadership structures. He’s walking through the gospel with people every day. He’s in homes explaining the good news of Jesus and why that matters for us. For three years, Paul labors. For three years, Paul forms this incredible relationship with these friends. Eventually, he’s got to leave. He’s got to leave to go do the same thing somewhere else.

A couple years after that, though, Paul knows he’s headed to Jerusalem, and he knows he’s not going to leave Jerusalem. He knows he’s going to be in prisons there. He’s been told by God that he’s eventually going to lose his life for the gospel. So before he gets from one side of the known world back to Jerusalem, he says, I got to see my buddies in Ephesus. And that’s where he finds himself one night on a beach in the Mediterranean Ocean, having a fireside conversation with his friends. Specifically, he’s sitting down with the elders of the church in Ephesus, and he’s got two words for them. If you later this afternoon go read Acts 20, he tells them, hey, shepherd this church really well. Do everything you can to pastor them really well. Because, number two, some false teachers are going to come up, and they’re going to try to tear this thing apart. That’s Paul’s message.

To these leaders in Ephesus. And I start there because this series that we’re in right now, Blueprint, which is taken from, or it’s explaining God’s design for the church. This morning, we’re going to read out of 1 Timothy. You can go ahead and turn there. 1 Timothy. You see, Timothy is Paul’s ministry protege. Paul sends him to Ephesus to finish what he started. This letter that we’re going to read, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, written to a guy named Timothy, supposed to be read to the church in Ephesus. All right? So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to read 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7, and then we’re going to jump in.

This saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work. An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not an excessive drinker, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy. You already start to get the feel for this, right? He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity. If anyone doesn’t know how to manage his household, how will he take care of God’s church? He must not be a new convert or he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as the devil. Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders so that he does not fall into disgrace and the devil’s trap.

For some of us, I have gone from zero to 60. You see, Paul, he is approaching the end of his life and he knows he’s only got a few moments left. So he gets this piece of papyrus, what would have been extremely expensive and costly. Paul’s thinking about those men that he won to Jesus. He’s thinking about those men that he discipled into becoming pastors and overseers or elders of that church in Ephesus. He’s thinking about the men whose leadership is being challenged by false teachers. He’s thinking about those people that sit under their teaching and under their leadership. And he says, I’ve got to pen some words for the sake of my buddies out there in Ephesus. And that’s where we have found ourselves this morning.

We are in this series called Blueprint looking at what is God’s blueprint. What’s His design for the local church? Does God have anything to say about how we’re organized, about what we’re founded on, about what we strive for, about what we seek to accomplish? Does God have anything to say about that? And for us or for those in the room that believe in the authority of the Bible, we would say a resounding yes. God absolutely has something to say about it. And we want to do everything we can to bring ourselves into alignment with the blueprint.

We’ve all seen a house or heard of homes that were built out of alignment, right? You’ve seen a house built on a bad foundation. Maybe you’ve seen a home lacking a cornerstone or things aren’t quite plumb and square. It’s only a matter of time before things come crashing down. So God, in His grace and in His providence, has given us the blueprint. This morning specifically, we are looking at His design for the leaders of the local church.

If you caught something in verse 1 and verse 2, it uses a term that I want to unpack just for a moment. A term called an overseer. Anybody just walking around say, hey, you need to hear the new overseer at our church at Sauldam? Nobody says that and I’m glad you don’t say that. It’s a kind of an odd term. In the Bible, there’s three terms that are used interchangeably to describe the same person. You’re going to get a feel for it. The scripture is going to be on your screen.

In Acts 20, the passage I referenced earlier, this is what Paul says as he’s sitting in that fireside chat talking with the men of Ephesus that are charged to lead that church. This is Acts 20, verse 28. It says, Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. There’s that term overseer. There’s the verb shepherd.

Let’s go over now to Titus chapter 1. I’m going to wrap this up in a second, but it’s going to make sense. In Titus, Paul again writes to a different protege, this time named Titus, about the same topic. He says, the husband of one wife with faithful children who are not accused of wildness or rebellion. Then it says, as an overseer of God’s household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hot temper, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money. If you’re paying attention, you’re starting to notice some interchangeability. Here’s a long story short. The New Testament uses three terms to describe one role. Most of us, or most oftentimes, y’all call me pastor. Pastor is one of those three words captured in this one role. Overseer, elder, pastor. And that’s where we’re at this morning. We are studying the qualifications or the standard of pastors.

So, I just want to kind of lay that out there because the term specifically used in 1 Timothy is overseer. And we’re going to get to why all this matters. I’m going to get off of my academic horse here in a second and get onto my more preaching horse. But here’s what I want you to take away from today, okay? It’ll be on the screen for us. Elders or pastors or overseers are God’s faithful men of noble desire. Elders are God’s faithful men of noble desire.

Pray with me. Lord, I’m always excited to preach your word, God. But today in particular, Father, I don’t know. I feel just a weird heaviness. God, I’ll be really honest. It’s odd for me to stand up and to preach a passage about what I’m supposed to be like as a pastor. Father, this room knows it. I’m imperfect. I’m limited. God, I still struggle with temptation. But Father, I feel it on an incredibly deep level. Lord, God, can you help me please? Can you help me just to say what this says? Recognizing, Father, that I wish I fulfilled these things better. Lord, I love you. I trust you. I believe in you. I believe in your word. And God, I believe in the hope of transformation that you are making me look more and more like these things. God, for the men of the room, I pray that this would be an inspiring day. God, that they would see themselves in this passage, that they would recognize how you were already working in them, and they would rejoice in that, and they would ask for more of it. That, Lord, our church would continue to make a positive impact on our community because you are transforming the men here specifically. Thank you, Father. We love you. And it’s in your name we pray. Amen.

So all that’s some groundwork. I wanted us to cover a couple topics already. It’s the fact that Paul is writing to this group in Ephesus, specifically to a buddy named Timothy, and he’s got words for how Timothy is supposed to recognize and develop future pastors of this church. And that matters for us because we are a church that has a pastor that’s going to need more pastors to continue doing what God wants us to do, right? I’m not going to be here forever as much as I would like to. At some point, my time here is going to end. But we need, as a church, to be able to recognize what is a pastor? What is a pastor supposed to look like? And Paul gives us that.

So Paul is saying that pastors, overseers, elders, these are God’s faithful men of noble desire. That’s how the passage starts. Paul says, this saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work. That word aspire is fascinating. It’s used six times in the New Testament, both in negative context, also in positive ones. It’s this idea of stretching out to grab something. Like if you have ever ran like a relay race, I ran track for one year in high school. I was not very good. That’s why I did it for one year in high school. And one time my coach foolishly asked me to do a relay, which is terrible because I was the slowest member of that relay race. And I’m just trying to give the baton off. I have done my lap and I have not succeeded, all right? And I am just trying to give this thing away. I am stretching out. I am aspiring to be done with the responsibility. That’s the idea of aspiring. It’s not a passing wish. It’s not a fleeting desire. It’s not even a short term goal. It’s more of a consuming focus. You aspire. Men of the room, what do you aspire for? What do we aspire for? What are we stretching ourselves out for? What are we just yearning to trying to get? Who are we trying to become? Paul says, pastors, aspire for this noble work. And pastoring is noble.

It truly is. Not because of what I do, but because of who Christ is. Think about it this way. We spent most of the spring looking at Jesus, the king, who was inaugurating a kingdom, which is expressed here in the local church. That means that this is royal territory. Christ is the king who is ruling us. And as His representative here, a pastor, I have stepped into noble work. Not because of who I am, but because of who Christ is. And that’s extremely attractive to my heart. Because I want to be part of something noble. I want to be part of something that matters. I want to be part of something that’s going to last. And men of the room, I think you do too. I think every man in this room wants to give his life to something that matters. Wants to give his life to something noble, something worthy, something difficult, something of consequence. And every married man in the room, your wife does too. Your wife wants you to give yourself to something like that. Your wife wants you to lend yourself to a noble, incredible work.

Let it be known. Leading and serving in God’s church is noble. And my prayer is that more men would join me in this work. There’s a lot of books, a lot of studies done on what local churches need. The fact of the matter is they need a lot of things. They definitely need good pastors. And it can’t just be one. A lot of studies have been done about the pastoral capacity of one man. One man, it says, can pastor 125 people well. Last week, we had 125 adults in this room. Amen. I am reaching the edge of my capacity. We need more men. We need men to step into this noble work because Sauldam Baptist Church needs more pastors. And this community needs a thriving church that’s going to take and advance against darkness. And God certainly deserves that. He deserves us to give ourselves to that.

And it’s not just that men would have a noble desire, but Paul lists over a dozen qualifications to test men. He says there are three arenas of faithfulness that men need to be able to check out. The first one is that they would be faithful to Christ in their hearts. Speaks about inner integrity, spiritual health, who they are on the inside matches who they are on the outside. And he, Paul, goes through this barrage of qualifications in verses two and three. I read them for you already, but they start off by saying an overseer, a pastor, an elder must be above reproach. It’s interesting in the book of Colossians, Paul also writes, and he uses that same phrase, above reproach. He says, in fact, that Christ has made us all to be above reproach. But specifically here for pastors, they’ve got to be above reproach. They’ve got to be of character that can be tested and seen.

Or some commentators say it this way, it’ll be on your screen. That term above reproach describes a person of such character that no one can properly bring against him a charge of unfitness. This is not describing sinless perfection, because no man can do that. I will not get up here and say that I’ve never sinned, I never will sin, or I’ll never ever make a mistake. That’s not true. In fact, one of my favorite conversations I’ve had with somebody here at Sauldam was when they said, hey, you said A, and it sounded like B. Can we talk about that? I loved that, because I got to talk with that person about how I miscommunicated in a moment, and our relationship, I think, got better through it. They could tell me later if it did or did not. I am not perfect. I’ll never be perfect. This is describing faithfulness. This is describing inner integrity. This is describing the ability to say, hey, I did mess up actually. Let’s make this right and growth in that direction.

If they’re above reproach then, then they would be self-controlled. They would be sensible. It’d be prudent. They’d be able to rein in their desires and their emotions and their words. And if they’re reining in their desires, emotions, and words, then they also wouldn’t be excessive drinkers. Verse 3, not an excessive drinker. It’s funny, in Ephesians 5, Paul writes, he says, that we should not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. We are all consumed and influenced by something. The question is, are you being influenced by your desires and what you consume, or are you being influenced by God and His work inside of you? The standard, the goal for a pastor is that he would be influenced not by what he consumes, but by the God that has consumed Him. A pastor then would be able to control his tongue and his thirst. A pastor would yield to the Spirit, not consuming temptations. Then he’d also naturally not be greedy. It says that in verse 3, he would not be greedy. The love of money would not run his life. He would be free from needing more. This American insistence on more, more, more. You feel it, right? You feel it. All of our advertising is directed against helping you feel like you need more. If nothing else, look at all the self-storage places that have popped up around Charleston. Man, if there is not a greater indictment on our thirst for more than acres of forest being cut down for me to store my junk. That is tied to this idea of being greedy. I just, I can’t get rid of anything. I just got to get more and more. And unfortunately, I think this is where we see so many issues of the American church. If I could be so bold as to say there are money-loving masqueraders that call themselves pastors that are really good at speaking in public. Way better than I’ll ever be. And they love money. And they just want to get this influence, this platform, this following. And it destroys churches and it destroys ministries. And the very worst part about all that is that I see a kernel of that in my own heart. Where I want more to. Where I want to just say more, mine, yes, please. And again, I stand up here saying, I’m not perfect. None of us ever will be. But man, it’s about faithfulness.

The second arena of faithfulness then would be being faithful to Christ in the home. Paul writes about that. He says that there is a household conduct worthy of pastors. He starts off in verse 2 by saying that he’s got to be the husband of one wife. Now, this isn’t crazy, right? Adultery is spoken of at least 15 times throughout the New Testament. And it’s always a prohibition for all believers. All right? Now, here in America, modern day, that’s pretty easy to satisfy. Just have one wife. Just be married to one person. However, what Paul is saying is that it’s deeper than just having one marriage certificate to one person. It’s deeper than that. It’s the, are you emotionally, intellectually, dare I say sexually, united with anybody else other than a spouse? Is there any sort of room for a different, or for a relationship with a different person? And here we’re talking about a pastor, which has got to be a man. And so, men, is there any room for a relationship between you and a woman you’re not married to? Paul says you’ve got to be a one-woman man. And it’s pretty clear there’s no way to be a good pastor and a bad husband.

I love Becca so deeply. And one of the things that I just continue to be amazed by God’s grace with, it’s not just how she complements my strengths, but, man, it’s how she can give me a good word in season to help me see where I am falling short as a good husband. We were able to go on a date yesterday morning. Some other church members freed us up for that. And we got to have a conversation without two delightful, yet pretty high-volume children that we love deeply, seriously. And we got to just talk and just have a check-in. I call it a State of the Union address. We just got to have a State of the Union. It’s like, hey, how are we actually doing? What do you see? What’s going on? Are you sniffing anything? Is there a conversation we need to have? I’m so grateful for her. She’s able to point things out and say, hey, like, no, you’re doing a good job. But, like, hey, I do have a question about this. Or, hey, let’s talk about that conversation.

The idea here of a pastor is not that he would be perfect, but that he’d be faithful. He would have to be. But that faithfulness to Christ in the home wouldn’t just be to his wife, but it would actually be also to his children. Ephesians 6:4 denounces any sort of fatherhood that stirs up anger in the children. In verses 14 through 16, where we started a month ago, we see the church is compared to the house of the living God, which means that a pastor’s home ought to in some way resemble the church family, or at least the way he leads in the home will be mirrored in how he leads the church family. You can’t be good here in the church and be disengaged or angry here. Authority’s got to be wielded for the benefit of the vulnerable. In fact, that verb manage, it’s like this. Some other commentators write, the term manage demands an effective exercise of authority bolstered by a character of integrity and sensitive compassion. It’s the fact that authority is a good thing. This world is telling us authority is bad, but authority is a good thing. But it’s got to be wielded well for the good of others, which means compassion’s got to be wrapped up into this. Or in other words, I would simply say the home is the proving ground for church leadership.

You got to ask a wife, hey, how’s Jeremy actually treat you? Jeremy’s telling us all the right stuff, but hey, is he actually like loving you? Is he caring for you? Is he stirring up the kids toward anger? I wonder what tomorrow’s going to look like if you guys call and text Becca later today and say, hey, Jeremy told us to ask you these things.

But that unity and integrity in the home wouldn’t just actually be to the family, but it would even be to outsiders. Paul says in verse 2 that an overseer would be hospitable. He’d have people in his home. He would open up the doors of his household and say, hey, come on in. Come, have some rest with us for a little bit. Hey, come and see how our family operates for a little bit.

I had an incredible mentor at my previous church. He opened up his home literally. And this is crazy. I don’t recommend this for everybody. He and his wife had somebody else in their home almost every night of the week cooking them dinner. He was an incredible model of hospitality because he realized that something different happens around the dinner table that you don’t get to just over coffee or on Sunday morning. So he would have people in his home all the time. And that was where he did the bulk of his ministry. Yeah, he teaches on Sunday mornings. He sent emails. He does all that other stuff that’s got to come with it. But people would be one to his heart in his home. He would open up his home. He was truly hospitable.

So elders, pastors, overseers, they must be faithful in the arena of their heart, of their home, but also in their relationships. Specifically both to the church and to outsiders.

Verse 2 says that the pastor must be respectable. It’s this sense of being appropriate, being modest. In fact, also in 1 Timothy chapter 2, that same word for respectable is given to women’s clothing. Verse 9. It says, We’re not going to get into all that stuff. But what we are going to recognize is that respectability comes with being a pastor. And it’s not merely a demand for good breeding or flawless manners. But it describes a person whose orderly outward life is a reflection of inner stability. The man that’s supposed to be a pastor is respectable because he’s so tethered to Christ. He’s just healthy on the inside. Healthy on the inside, respectable on the outside. That’s what Paul is talking about here.

And as an outworking of that inner health and stability is that he wouldn’t be a bully, but he’d be gentle. I think about God Himself. God Himself who does not bully us into anything, let alone His leaders.

Now I want to say, I want to kind of back out from the sermon for a second and say, some of us, not here, I’m not saying here, but some of us have been hurt by poor church leaders. And if you have, I’m sorry. If you’ve been hurt by somebody, a poor word or an abusive action, I’m sorry. If your friend has, I’m sorry. That is unbefitting to the pastoral role. And unfortunately it happens in local churches all the time. But God’s model for pastors is they wouldn’t be abusive.

One of the words or pastor, it’s also a shepherd. Listen to how God describes Himself as a shepherd. The Lord’s my shepherd. I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life. He leads me along the right paths for His namesake. Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger for You are with me. Your rod, Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me In the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely, goodness, faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

That’s what a pastor is supposed to look like. One that would guide, that would lead, that would comfort, that would feed, that would nurture, that would protect. That’s what Paul is saying. He’s saying, you can’t be a good pastor and be a bully. You just can’t. You can’t use the pulpit as your opportunity to weaponize or to hurt people. Just to get your point across. That’s not what this is like. But instead, God wants just a few good men to be elders of His church to pastor and care for them.

I hope that when I close the book on my time as a pastor, I will be able to say, I made some mistakes. I didn’t understand how some things landed. But man, I wasn’t a bully. Here’s the thing. I need y’all’s wisdom. I need to be able to talk through some ideas with you guys. I certainly am not gifted in all the ways that our community needs our church to be. But I do get to control how I treat y’all. And I really hope it’s said at the end of the day that I’ve treated you well. I really need that to be true.

So this is where I’m inviting something here that makes me extremely uncomfortable. The moment you feel like you’ve been bullied by me, can you tell me? You just find me and say, hey, Jeremy, man, I like you. But that wasn’t cool. I promise to give you the decency to hear you out. And we’re going to make it right.

But Paul is saying pastors can’t be bullies. They can’t be quarrelsome. Fascinating. Verse 3, that word quarrelsome. We don’t get it in the English, but that verb or that adverb, that adjective quarrelsome is the same word as a sword. Which means pastors aren’t just flinging a sword around. They’re not just stirring stuff up. They’re not just cutting people with their words or their actions.

Certainly then they wouldn’t be able to be, verse 6, a new convert. It’s not this chronological age. It’s not just a young person, but it’s a spiritual maturity. It’s spiritual age. We’ve all seen where people get into positions of authority that their character doesn’t carry them into. We’ve certainly seen that. And the demands of church leadership would require a few good men that Jesus has control over.

In 1 Peter, we’re going to study this passage in a couple weeks, Peter describes Jesus as the chief shepherd. Which means no matter who preaches every week here at Sauldam Baptist Church, no matter what my business card says in relationship to you guys, I am not the lead pastor here. It sounds a little trite. It sounds a little cliche, but Jesus Christ ought to be the lead pastor because He is the chief overseer. He is the shepherd of our souls. He is the good shepherd that has won our hearts. Which means everything I do is merely as His associate pastor. Everything I do is supposed to just be submitted to Him.

Which is why, for me, we keep doing these candles. For me, I need to be reminded that this is God’s church. It’s not Jeremy’s church. In fact, when I talk with people in the Charleston Baptist Association, I’m trying really hard not to say, you need to come to my church sometime. It’s not my church. It’s Christ’s church. It doesn’t say Jeremy Baptist Church outside. It does not do that. This is not a place I own. But Christ owns us because He has bought us with His blood.

Therefore, for a pastor then, he’s got to recognize, no matter where he pastors, he’s an interim. This is Christ’s church. The only skill that Paul gives for the qualifications of a pastor then is that he would be able to teach. I think it’s fascinating. Paul, he’s writing from prison. He’s writing to his protege, Timothy, who is pastoring this church in Ephesus. It’s at the heart of idol worship. Enormous city, full of potential and opportunities. And Paul says, hey, if I am creating a job listing for you, I’m going to give you one skill. Just got to be able to teach. Just got to be able to give away the faith. Just got to be able to refute some error. Got to be able to help other people understand what the gospel is all about. But I’m going to give you 14, 14 qualities of His character. These qualifications is not how I would write this list. How would you have done it? If you were to write a job listing for Sauldam Baptist Church, need a pastor, how would you have said or how would you have described what the church needs or the ideal candidate, right? The search committee was incredible. I loved our conversations with them. They did a good job of helping us process things, and they were extremely great to work with. I’m curious. If you had to do it all over again, how would you rewrite what you need? I know for me, I wouldn’t put 14 character qualifications versus one skill. I would have put 15 skills and two character qualifications at best. But Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recognizes that something else is at play here.

I’ve already gone for a long time, but I want to give you three observations about these qualifications, okay? The first one is that God designs proper church leadership. We are not left to decide what we need. No church is able to fully take their own voice here. No church is just given free reign on saying, hey, we need this type of person and that type of person. And yeah, this guy, he’s qualified to be a pastor. Or hey, this person could do it. No, God designs proper church leadership.

The second thing then would be that the best elders are just healthy followers. What I mean there is that if you remember 14 character qualifications versus one skill, Paul is obsessed with pastors just being healthy Christians. He’s saying, hey, what you need to look for, just find the guys amongst you that are doing a really good job following Jesus. If they can teach, then you’re good. Just run with that guy. That’s what you need.

The third observation is that the gospel empowers proper church leadership. The gospel empowers this. Because here’s the deal. The gospel empowers the same thing as God wants to know. The gospel empowers the same thing as God wants to know, and that’s what he wants to know. The gospel empowers the same thing as God wants to know. is as faithful to his wife and his family as well as he needs to be. Nobody is as well thought of by non-Christians as they need to be. None of us are, not in ourselves at least.

But Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5 verses 16 through 21. He says, from now on then we do not know anybody from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know Him in this way. Therefore, and here’s some hope for the men of this room, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old, that’s passed away, but you see the new, oh boy, the new has come. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. Not counting their trespasses against them, but, and He has committed that message, the message of reconciliation, He’s committed that to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making His appeal through us, we plead on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Friends, men of the room specifically, no one lines up with this. Not a single one of us measures up to these qualifications, not in ourselves. But the hope of the gospel is that despite your failures, despite your mistakes, despite your sin, despite your shortcomings, God qualifies and God empowers and God makes us into new creations because of what His son did for us on the cross.

Oh man, I am not going to finish this sermon by telling you just go and work harder at following Jesus. I am not going to do that. I’m not going to say, hey, if you don’t measure up, then man, you will never measure up. You might as well just pack it up now and go home. I’m not going to do that. What I’m going to do is I’m going to say, God can redeem and can make new anything you’ve messed up. God has life for us. And that gospel, this good news of His son coming and living a perfect life in your place, the life you were supposed to live. But because of sin, you can’t. God wants to take that message and save you with it, but also transform you with it. Because it’s not just that the gospel is like this diving board that you jump off of into the pool of Christianity as if you graduate from the gospel at some point. That’s not how it is. But Paul also in 2 Corinthians says that we with unveiled faces are beholding the glory of Christ. And that transforms us from one degree of glory to the next until the day that we get to embrace Christ our Savior, the chief shepherd and overseer of our souls. And we get to say, thank you so much for making me new. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for rescuing me. Thank you for delivering me from that domain of darkness and transfer me to your own kingdom of light.

Is anybody excited about this? Or is it just me? Because I know I am not the man. I’m not this. But none of us are. And that’s the hope and the mystery and the joy of the gospel. It’s that in Christ we can be new. And this message is for everybody. But men, I’ve got a question for you. How would your life change if 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7 described your life? How would your habits change? How would your home life shift? How would the people that you work with, the waitresses at the restaurants you go to, your neighbors, how would they start to think about you if your life looked like this? We’re going to end our service, or at least the sermon, considering that question.

This might feel a little funny for you, but I want to invite everybody, close your eyes and put your heads down. And here for the men, I want to invite you. If you want your life to look like 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7, you just raise your hand. For the men of the room, if you want to be described as faithful in your heart, in your home, in your relationships, you just invite God into that right now. I give you a moment just to pray by yourself.

God, please change me. God, I have failed. God, I recognize I am a sinner, and I need to be transformed from the inside out. God, will you please do that in my life? Lord, I really am praying, God, that you would transform me. The men of the room, you can put your hands down now. God, I really am inviting you to change me. I need that deeply. God, my beautiful family needs that. They need me to look like this. God, this incredible church needs that. They need me to look more like you, because frankly, I’m just, I’m not that great. God, this community needs that. Lord, you care too much about the low country for me to be unchanged. God, you care too much about this place for me just to be me. God, you care too much about this place for the men of our church to just be themselves too. God, as much as I love them, as much as I respect them, as much as I already think highly of them, God, I think every man in this room wants to be transformed. We want to continue to enjoy what it means to be a new creation in you, to be ambassadors, not of our own little kingdom, but of the kingdom that your son came to establish that one day will be fully consummated in this world where we get to be with you forever. God, I’m begging you to transform us. Please, Lord, we are a church submitted to your will, inviting your work in us. God, asking for you to do something in us. Please make it happen.