Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Usurper in the Pulpit: Why a Steward Cannot Be Self-Willed

Transcript

The Usurper in the Pulpit: Why a Steward Cannot Be Self-Willed · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed thinking. Today we are opening a file that
• 0:04
  feels a little bit like reading a crime thriller, but instead of
• 0:07
  a crime scene in a dark alley or, you know, a corporate
• 0:10
  boardroom, the scene of the crime is the pulpit, and the
• 0:13
  suspect is not some obvious villain twirling a mustache.
• 0:17
  It is often the guy everyone thinks is the hero.
• 0:20
  It really is a strange dynamic. We spend so much time in the
• 0:23
  church worrying about the threats out there.
• 0:26
  We talked about secularism or the laws changing or, you know,
• 0:29
  the loud heresies that make the news.
• 0:31
  But the data and the Bible tell us that the call is usually
• 0:34
  coming from inside the house. We are doing a deep dive today
• 0:37
  into the silent threat, the threat that sits in the
• 0:40
  shepherd's chair. We are looking at the biblical
• 0:43
  qualifications for leadership specifically one phrase that I
• 0:46
  think most of us, well, we just skip over it because it sounds
• 0:48
  so generic. It is a phrase that sounds like
• 0:51
  a throwaway line, but it is actually a theological
• 0:54
  emergency. If you get it wrong, it is the
• 0:56
  structural flaw that brings the whole building down.
• 0:59
  The text is Titus 1.7 and the phrase is not self willed.
• 1:03
  Macaladu not self willed. Now before we get into the
• 1:07
  Greek, and I know we have some fascinating word studies to get
• 1:10
  to, I want to set the scene. Context is everything here.
• 1:14
  Paul is writing to Titus. Where is Titus?
• 1:17
  Titus is on the island of Crete and you have to understand 1st
• 1:20
  century Crete was not a vacation destination.
• 1:23
  It was legendary for its moral chaos.
• 1:25
  It was the Wild West of the Mediterranean.
• 1:27
  I remember reading that the ancients actually invented a
• 1:30
  verb critizo, which meant to lie like a Cretan.
• 1:33
  They did. Paul actually quotes a Cretan
• 1:36
  poet in this very chapter who says Cretans are always liars,
• 1:39
  evil beasts, lazy gluttons. That was their reputation.
• 1:42
  It was a culture of deceit, violence and a total lack of
• 1:46
  discipline. So Paul leaves Titus there with
• 1:48
  a mission. He says set an order.
• 1:49
  What remains right? The church is planted, but it is
• 1:52
  shaky. It needs walls, it needs
• 1:54
  structure. And the primary way you
• 1:56
  stabilize a church in a chaotic culture is by appointing elders,
• 1:59
  leaders in every town. So you are looking for men to
• 2:03
  stand against a culture of evil beasts and liars.
• 2:07
  If I am looking for a leader in that environment, my modern
• 2:10
  brain immediately goes to a specific archetype.
• 2:13
  I feel like I need a tough guy, I need a CEO.
• 2:16
  I need a visionary who can come in, crack the whip and get
• 2:19
  everyone in line. That is the modern instinct.
• 2:21
  We look for the strong man. We look for the singular
• 2:25
  visionary who can drive the organization forward through
• 2:28
  sheer force of personality. We want someone who can impose
• 2:32
  his will on the chaos. But Paul throws a wrench in the
• 2:35
  gears. He gives this list of
• 2:36
  qualifications and right near the top he drops this negative
• 2:39
  requirement. He says effectively if you want
• 2:42
  to lead in God's house, you cannot be self willed.
• 2:45
  And that stops us in our tracks because in our culture, and
• 2:48
  often in our business culture, being self willed, being
• 2:51
  fiercely independent, being the guy who trusts his own gut above
• 2:54
  everyone else, we call that leadership.
• 2:56
  We put that guy on the cover of magazines.
• 2:58
  We write biographies about him. We do, but Paul says in the
• 3:01
  church that trait is a disqualifier and the stakes are
• 3:06
  incredibly high here. You pulled some steps for this
• 3:09
  deep dive that were pretty sobering regarding why pastors
• 3:12
  leave the ministry. This blew my mind.
• 3:14
  The research suggests that something like 23% of pastors
• 3:17
  leave their church specifically due to conflict, and another 18%
• 3:22
  leave ministry entirely. They just quit the profession
• 3:25
  because of disputes. That is a massive casualty rate,
• 3:29
  and if you were to do an autopsy on those conflicts, if you peel
• 3:31
  back the layers, you rarely find that they were fighting over the
• 3:34
  doctrine of the Trinity or the hypostatic union.
• 3:36
  That's not usually a theological heresy.
• 3:38
  No, it is almost always a clash of wills.
• 3:41
  It is a leader who could not distinguish his will from God's
• 3:44
  will. It is a man who treated the
• 3:46
  Church like his personal fiefdom.
• 3:49
  That is the core thesis we need to get to today.
• 3:51
  This is not just about personality types.
• 3:53
  We are not saying, hey, try to be a nicer guy.
• 3:55
  This is about the nature of the office itself.
• 3:57
  Right, look at the text again. Titus 1.7 Paul says for an
• 4:01
  overseer as God, steward must be blameless, not self willed.
• 4:05
  As God steward. That is the key image.
• 4:09
  The Greek word is oikonomos. It means a household manager.
• 4:12
  So let's unpack that analogy, because steward is one of those
• 4:16
  tricky words we use without thinking.
• 4:18
  We hear a stewardship campaign and think about the budget, but
• 4:21
  it means something much more specific in the 1st century.
• 4:24
  Think of it like a wealthy estate owner who goes away on a
• 4:27
  long trip. He leaves a manager in charge of
• 4:30
  his house. Now does the manager own the
• 4:34
  house? No.
• 4:35
  Does he own the checkbook? No.
• 4:38
  Does he get to decide what the family eats or when they wake up
• 4:40
  based on his own preferences? No, he follows the master's
• 4:44
  instructions. Precisely.
• 4:45
  A steward manages someone else's property.
• 4:48
  Now imagine that manager decides.
• 4:49
  You know what I hate the master's furniture.
• 4:51
  I am throwing it out and I do not like the rules for the
• 4:53
  servants. I am going to make them work
• 4:55
  double shifts because I want to maximize profit for my own
• 4:59
  bonus. He has gone rogue.
• 5:01
  He has become a thief. He is usurp the master.
• 5:05
  He is acting as if he owns the place.
• 5:07
  That is what self willed means in the context of the church.
• 5:10
  A self willed pastor is a man who has forgotten he is a
• 5:13
  steward and has started acting like an owner.
• 5:15
  He's the usurper. He is.
• 5:17
  And the terrifying thing is, you cannot be both.
• 5:20
  You cannot be a faithful steward of God's house and the king of
• 5:23
  your own castle at the same time.
• 5:25
  I want to dig into the word itself.
• 5:27
  I love it when we get into the weeds of the language,
• 5:29
  especially when it changes how we see the verse.
• 5:32
  The word Paul uses is authentize.
• 5:34
  Authentize. It is a compound word.
• 5:36
  It comes from autos meaning self and hadami meaning to please or
• 5:40
  to take pleasure so. Literally self pleasing.
• 5:43
  That is the etymology, yes, but words have a lexical range, a
• 5:47
  vibe if you will, based on how they were used in the ancient
• 5:50
  world. And Athatos is much darker than
• 5:53
  just a guy who treats himself to a nice steak dinner.
• 5:55
  What is the vibe? It describes a man who is
• 5:58
  absolutely pleased with his own opinions.
• 6:00
  He is arrogant, he is surly, he's fiercely independent.
• 6:04
  Fiercely independent. See.
• 6:06
  Again, that sounds like a compliment.
• 6:07
  In America, he is a maverick. But in the Covenant community,
• 6:11
  it is a cancer. The Authodes man views
• 6:14
  collaboration as compromise. If he has to sit in a meeting
• 6:18
  and negotiate, he feels like he is losing.
• 6:21
  If someone disagrees with him, he does not hear dissent, he
• 6:23
  hears rebellion. I found a connection in the
• 6:26
  research notes to the Old Testament that really brought
• 6:28
  this home for me because sometimes Greek definitions can
• 6:31
  feel a bit abstract, but when you see the word in action it
• 6:33
  clicks. The Septuagint, the Greek
• 6:36
  translation of the Old Testament uses this word.
• 6:38
  Authodes in Genesis 49, yes. This is a crucial theological
• 6:42
  link. We are at the deathbed of Jacob.
• 6:45
  The patriarch is blessing and cursing his twelve sons, and he
• 6:49
  gets to Simeon and Levi. Now for the listener who skipped
• 6:52
  Sunday school that week, remind us who Simeon and Levi are.
• 6:55
  These are the guys involved in the incident at Shechem.
• 6:57
  It is a brutal story. Their sister Dinah had been
• 7:00
  defiled by a Prince of the city of Shechem.
• 7:03
  It was a terrible crime, but Simeon and Levi decided to take
• 7:07
  matters into their own hands. They tricked the men of Shechem
• 7:10
  into getting circumcised, claiming it was the only way
• 7:12
  they could intermarry so. They made a religious covenant
• 7:15
  with them. False pretenses.
• 7:17
  And while the men of the city were recovering in pain and
• 7:20
  vulnerable, Simeon and Levi went in with swords and slaughtered
• 7:24
  them all. Every male.
• 7:27
  It was a massacre. It was vigilante justice.
• 7:29
  It was, and years later when Jacob looks back on that moment,
• 7:33
  he does not say, well, they were strong leaders defending the
• 7:35
  family honor. He curses their anger.
• 7:38
  What does he say? He says cursed be their anger,
• 7:40
  for it is fierce and their wrath for it is cruel.
• 7:43
  And in the Greek translation of that verse, the word used to
• 7:46
  describe the nature of their action.
• 7:48
  The spirit behind the massacre is off the days.
• 7:50
  Whoa, so self willed isn't just stubborn, it is burn it all down
• 7:54
  to get what I want. That is the heart of it.
• 7:57
  Think about what they did. They did not care about the
• 8:00
  impact on the rest of the family.
• 8:02
  Jacob was terrified that the surrounding nations would wipe
• 8:04
  them out. They did not care about Dodd's
• 8:06
  reputation. They did not care about justice,
• 8:09
  really. They cared about satisfying
• 8:11
  their own rage. It was self pleasing violence.
• 8:15
  That puts a whole new spin on Titus 1.7.
• 8:18
  When Paul says an elder must not be self willed, he is saying you
• 8:22
  cannot have a man in the pulpit who is willing to blow up the
• 8:25
  family of God just to satisfy his own ego or his own sense of
• 8:28
  rightness. That is why Paul lists not self
• 8:31
  willed right next to not quick tempered in that list.
• 8:34
  They are cousins. In fact, the theologians we
• 8:36
  looked at call self will a root level disqualifier.
• 8:39
  Meaning it is the root that other sins grow out of.
• 8:42
  Precisely, Think of the mechanics of sin.
• 8:44
  If your heart is fundamentally set on pleasing yourself.
• 8:48
  If you're a sadities, what happens when someone crosses
• 8:50
  you? You get angry.
• 8:51
  That is quick tempered. Right.
• 8:53
  What happens when persuasion fails and people will not do
• 8:56
  what you want? You get harsh, that is striker
• 8:59
  or violent. What happens when you view the
• 9:01
  ministry as a vehicle for your own glory?
• 9:04
  You become greedy for gain. It is the soil.
• 9:07
  If you have self will in the soil you are going to grow a
• 9:10
  whole garden of toxicity. And that is why you cannot just
• 9:13
  trim the branches. You cannot tell an arrogant
• 9:16
  leader, hey try to be less angry.
• 9:18
  If the root is self will. The anger is just a symptom.
• 9:22
  The internal governance of the man is upside down.
• 9:25
  He is ruled from within by self, not from above by God.
• 9:28
  This leads us to a really important theological
• 9:31
  distinction because we are reformed thinking and we love
• 9:34
  our categories. There's a distinction in the
• 9:36
  source material between magisterial power and
• 9:39
  ministerial power, and I think this is the key to understanding
• 9:41
  why a self willed man is so dangerous to the soul of a
• 9:44
  church. This is one of the pillars of
• 9:46
  Reformed ecclesiology, the doctor of the Church.
• 9:48
  If you get this wrong, you end up with tyranny.
• 9:50
  So break it down. What is magisterial power?
• 9:52
  Magisterial power is the authority to make laws.
• 9:55
  It is the authority to bind the conscience.
• 9:57
  It is the power to say you must do this because I say so.
• 10:01
  It is legislative power. And in the church, who holds
• 10:04
  that power? Jesus Christ and only Jesus
• 10:07
  Christ. He is the King and head of the
• 10:08
  Church. He writes the laws.
• 10:10
  OK, so if Jesus has the magisterial power, what do the
• 10:13
  elders have? What does the pastor have?
• 10:15
  They have ministerial power. It is declarative.
• 10:18
  Think of them as the King's heralds, or even more simply, as
• 10:21
  mail carriers. Mail carriers.
• 10:23
  The mail carrier does not write your mail.
• 10:24
  He does not open your mail and edit it.
• 10:26
  He does not decide to slip in a bill that he wrote himself.
• 10:29
  His job is strictly to deliver what has been sent.
• 10:32
  Thus says the Lord. Correct.
• 10:34
  Elders declare what Christ has already spoken in His Word.
• 10:37
  They do not legislate, they apply.
• 10:39
  That is a freeing distinction. But the self willed man, the
• 10:43
  author days, he is not content with being a mailman, is he?
• 10:46
  No, the mailman role is too humble for the self willed man.
• 10:50
  He drifts into magisterial rule. He starts creating rules that
• 10:53
  Christ has not commanded. Give me an example of what that
• 10:55
  looks like practically. It can be subtle, it might be
• 10:58
  cultural preferences, real Christians educate their kids
• 11:01
  this way, or extra biblical standards of holiness.
• 11:04
  You cannot drink alcohol or you must dress this specific way, or
• 11:09
  most commonly, it is a demand for loyalty to his specific
• 11:13
  vision for the Church. If you are not on board with my
• 11:16
  five year building campaign, you are resisting the spirit.
• 11:19
  That is magisterial usurpation. He is binding consciences where
• 11:23
  Christ has left them free, and that is a direct violation of
• 11:27
  the Westminster Confession, specifically chapter 20, Section
• 11:30
  2. God alone is Lord of the
• 11:32
  conscience. When a leader demands obedience
• 11:35
  to human commands as if they were divine, he is betraying
• 11:38
  true liberty. He is stepping into Jesus's
• 11:40
  shoes. He is, and the Bible has a name
• 11:42
  for this guy. We see him in three John.
• 11:44
  His name is Diotrophes. The classic villain of the New
• 11:47
  Testament church. John writes this scathing little
• 11:49
  letter and he says I wrote to the church.
• 11:52
  But Diotrophes, who loves to be first among them, does not
• 11:55
  acknowledge our authority. Loves to be first.
• 11:58
  That is the definition of authorities.
• 12:00
  It is. And look at what Diotrophes was
• 12:02
  doing. He was not just annoying, he was
• 12:05
  kicking people out of the church who disagreed with him.
• 12:07
  He was refusing to welcome the apostles.
• 12:09
  He had created a little Kingdom where he was the Son and
• 12:12
  everyone else had to orbit around him.
• 12:14
  The notes called him a theological rival to Jesus
• 12:16
  Christ, but that feels like a heavy charge.
• 12:19
  But if Christ is the head and you're acting like the head.
• 12:21
  And you are a rival. You are a usurper.
• 12:24
  You are sitting on a throne that is not yours.
• 12:27
  There is another terrifying parallel in the Old Testament,
• 12:30
  Ezekiel 34. This is the chapter that should
• 12:33
  make every pastor tremble. It really should.
• 12:36
  God is bringing a lawsuit against the shepherds of Israel
• 12:39
  and the specific charges. Woe to the shepherds of Israel
• 12:43
  who have been feeding themselves.
• 12:44
  They were eating the sheep. It is a grotesque image, but it
• 12:48
  is theologically accurate for the self willed leader.
• 12:51
  The Hebrew concept there parallels off that OS they
• 12:54
  viewed the flock as a resource. The sheep existed to provide
• 12:58
  wool, which is comfort and money, and meat, which is
• 13:00
  sustenance and ego for the shepherd.
• 13:03
  So instead of the shepherd sacrificing for the sheep, the
• 13:05
  sheep are sacrificed for the shepherd.
• 13:07
  And God says the result is that the flock is scattered, they
• 13:10
  become prey. Leadership sins are community
• 13:13
  wounds. When a leader is self willed,
• 13:15
  the people suffer. They confused, they are hurt,
• 13:19
  and often they are driven away from God because the man
• 13:21
  representing God is so unlike him.
• 13:23
  That brings us perfectly to the solution or router, the
• 13:26
  standard, because if the self willed man is the problem, who
• 13:29
  is the model? We have to look at Christ.
• 13:32
  Christ is the anti type. He is the perfect contradiction
• 13:35
  to the self willed man. You know Romans 15.3 sums it up
• 13:38
  in one sentence that should be on the wall of every pastor
• 13:41
  study. For even Christ did not please
• 13:43
  himself. Think about the theology of
• 13:45
  that. If anyone in the universe had
• 13:46
  the right to be self willed to do exactly what he wanted, it
• 13:49
  was the Son of God. He possessed all authority.
• 13:52
  He was in the form of God and yet look at the incarnation.
• 13:56
  Philippians 2 says he emptied himself.
• 13:58
  He took the form of a servant. The self willed man wants to
• 14:01
  ascend. He wants to hoard power.
• 14:02
  He wants to be the man Christ descended.
• 14:05
  He emptied himself of power to serve.
• 14:07
  John 6.38 is another one that stops you cold.
• 14:10
  Jesus says I have come down from heaven not to do my own will,
• 14:15
  but the will of him who sent me. That statement is staggering.
• 14:18
  The second person of the Trinity in his Incarnate state defines
• 14:21
  his mission as submission. A self willed leader defines his
• 14:24
  mission as assertion. I need to assert my vision.
• 14:28
  Christ says I need to submit to the Father.
• 14:31
  And this is not just a theological abstraction.
• 14:33
  This goes to the moment of greatest pressure.
• 14:35
  This goes to Gethsemane. Gethsemane is the ultimate
• 14:38
  showdown of wills. You see the humanity of Jesus,
• 14:41
  they're fully on display. He's recoiling from the cup of
• 14:44
  wrath. He knows what is coming, the
• 14:46
  physical torture, the spiritual separation from the Father, and
• 14:49
  he prays Father. If it is possible, let this cup
• 14:52
  pass from me. That is a real human desire to
• 14:55
  avoid suffering. It is, but then comes the
• 14:57
  sentence that saves the world. Nevertheless.
• 14:59
  Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will, that is the death
• 15:03
  blow to off the days. That is a will trained to
• 15:06
  surrender even when it hurts, even when it cost him his life.
• 15:10
  And this is the point, isn't it? If a shepherd cannot say not my
• 15:13
  will, he is out of step with the very center of Christian
• 15:16
  discipleship. Precisely, you cannot claim to
• 15:19
  follow the crucified king while ruling like a Pagan king.
• 15:22
  Mark 10.45 The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve
• 15:26
  and to give his life as a ransom.
• 15:28
  Self willed turns shepherding into self display.
• 15:31
  Christ turns it into self giving.
• 15:33
  So for the guy listening who is an elder or wants to be an elder
• 15:36
  and is realizing oh I might have a problem here, the answer isn't
• 15:40
  just try harder to be humble. No, moralism will not work.
• 15:43
  You cannot just muscle your way into humility.
• 15:46
  The gravitational pull of the self is too strong.
• 15:48
  The answer is union with Christ. Galatians 2.202.
• 15:52
  I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but
• 15:55
  Christ who lives in me. You have to preach the gospel to
• 15:58
  your own vanity. Daily the Spirit has to apply
• 16:01
  Christ's death to your old man. You have to reckon yourself dead
• 16:03
  to your need to be right, your need to win, your need to
• 16:06
  control. Let's get practical.
• 16:07
  I love the diagnostic section of our sources because self will is
• 16:12
  tricky. It hides.
• 16:13
  It wears a suit and tie. It learns the theological
• 16:16
  jargon. How do we spot it before it
• 16:18
  destroys a church? It rarely announces itself.
• 16:21
  No one walks into a session meeting and says I am an
• 16:23
  arrogant usurper. It usually disguises itself as
• 16:27
  decisiveness or bold leadership, but there are stress tests that
• 16:30
  reveal it. The first one is the reaction to
• 16:32
  no test. I think this is brilliant.
• 16:35
  It is simple. Watch what happens when the man
• 16:38
  is overruled, especially in a plurality of elders.
• 16:42
  We are Presbyterians. We believe in Rule by a group of
• 16:44
  elders, not a single pastor. So let's say the pastor wants to
• 16:47
  launch a new program, let's say new satellite campus.
• 16:50
  And the other elders look at the budget and the manpower and say
• 16:52
  we do not think that is wise. Right now we are voting no.
• 16:56
  What does the self willed man do?
• 16:57
  He implodes or he explodes, he sulks, he manipulates, he uses
• 17:02
  passive aggressive withdrawal. Maybe he stops talking in the
• 17:04
  meeting, crosses his arms and checks out.
• 17:06
  Or he plays the ultimate card. Resignation.
• 17:09
  Well, you do not trust my vision.
• 17:11
  Maybe I should not be here? Emotional blackmail.
• 17:13
  Correct. He views the plurality not as
• 17:15
  safety in the multitude of counselors their safety, but as
• 17:19
  an obstacle to his dominion. A godly man might be
• 17:22
  disappointed, he might passionately argue his case, but
• 17:25
  when the vote is cast, he submits because he trusts God
• 17:29
  works through the body. The self willed man cannot yield
• 17:32
  without an internal revolt. The second diagnostic is
• 17:35
  correction resistance. This is huge.
• 17:37
  How does he handle criticism? The self willed man reframes
• 17:41
  every question as an attack. If you say pastor, I'm not sure
• 17:44
  about that illustration you used.
• 17:46
  It seemed a bit uncharitable. He hears I hate you and I want
• 17:49
  you fired. And he spiritualizes his
• 17:51
  stubbornness. I answer only to God.
• 17:53
  Which sounds pious, but it is actually dangerous.
• 17:56
  It is a way of dodging accountability.
• 17:59
  The source material calls this the confession versus
• 18:01
  justification test. When he airs and all leaders
• 18:05
  air, does he confess or does he justify?
• 18:07
  Does he say I was wrong full stop?
• 18:09
  Or does he say, I'm sorry you felt hurt by what I said, but
• 18:12
  you have to understand the pressure I am under?
• 18:14
  The non apology apology. The self willed man spins the
• 18:18
  narrative to maintain his image. He is allergic to the phrase I
• 18:22
  was wrong because his authorities build on the
• 18:24
  illusion of his perfection. If he admits a mistake, he feels
• 18:28
  like the whole House of Cards will fall.
• 18:30
  Another one that I found really interesting is Process.
• 18:32
  Contempt. This for the administrative
• 18:35
  nerds, but it matters. It really matters.
• 18:37
  The self willed man hates the slow work of persuasion.
• 18:41
  He dislikes meetings. He dislikes policy.
• 18:44
  He views them as hurdles to getting things done.
• 18:47
  So he creates workarounds. Yes, the meeting.
• 18:50
  Before the meeting he calls 3 elders individually to get them
• 18:53
  on his side so that the actual meeting is just a rubber stamp
• 18:57
  or he creates informal decisions that become irreversible facts
• 19:00
  on the ground. Well, I already signed the
• 19:02
  contract for the new sound system.
• 19:03
  Sorry guys, I thought we were all on the same page.
• 19:05
  That is the move. He treats the shared governance
• 19:08
  of the church as a nuisance. He wants to move fast, and
• 19:11
  biblical wisdom is often slow. Then there is coercive
• 19:15
  persuasion. This is about how he wins
• 19:17
  arguments. Does he win by opening the Bible
• 19:19
  and patiently teaching, or does he win by using urgency, shame,
• 19:23
  or fear? If you really cared about the
• 19:25
  lost, you would support this building project.
• 19:27
  That is it framing disagreement as spiritual deficiency.
• 19:31
  You have a spirit of fear. You are resisting the spirit.
• 19:34
  You are legalistic. The result is a culture of
• 19:37
  silence. People learn that peace means
• 19:40
  agreement. If you disagree, you are labeled
• 19:43
  a troublemaker. One more diagnostic preference
• 19:47
  absolutism. This is where he confuses his
• 19:49
  personal taste with biblical principle.
• 19:51
  He expands the must category. It's not just we must preach the
• 19:55
  gospel. It becomes we must preach the
• 19:57
  gospel using this specific microphone, with this specific
• 20:00
  lighting, at this specific time, using this specific translation.
• 20:03
  And if you suggest a different microphone, you are compromising
• 20:06
  the gospel. Precisely, He burdens
• 20:08
  consciousness where God has left liberty.
• 20:10
  He makes his preferences into laws.
• 20:12
  These diagnostics are painful because I think we have all seen
• 20:15
  them, or maybe, if we are honest, we have been guilty of
• 20:19
  them in our own spheres of influence.
• 20:21
  But God gives us guardrails. We are not left defenseless
• 20:24
  against this kind of leader. No, Christ loves his Church too
• 20:28
  much to leave us without defenses.
• 20:31
  That is what ecclesiology is. It is not just boring committee
• 20:34
  structures. It is a defense system against
• 20:36
  sin. It is a blast wall.
• 20:38
  So what are the guardrails? The 1st and most obvious is the
• 20:41
  plurality of elders. Shared oversight.
• 20:43
  Authority is joint. It is not monarchical.
• 20:46
  In a healthy church, no one man holds all the cards.
• 20:49
  This forces a man to persuade others.
• 20:51
  He cannot just command, he has to convince.
• 20:54
  And that slows things down, which is good.
• 20:56
  It normalizes accountability. Brother, I think you were wrong.
• 20:59
  Should be a normal safe sentence in an elder's meeting.
• 21:01
  Another guardrail is transparent process.
• 21:04
  Self will feeds on ambiguity. It loves unwritten rules.
• 21:08
  Healthy ecclesiology demands the decisions be made in the light.
• 21:11
  We have documented procedures. We have minutes.
• 21:14
  We have clear budgets. It sounds bureaucratic, but it
• 21:17
  protects the sheep. It does if the rules are clear.
• 21:21
  The strong personality cannot just make them up as he goes
• 21:24
  along. Transparency is the enemy of
• 21:27
  tyranny. What about confessional
• 21:28
  standards? We mentioned the Westminster
• 21:30
  Confession earlier. How does a confession help
• 21:33
  against a self willed leader? It binds the leader.
• 21:37
  It is a contract. It prevents the Bible alone from
• 21:40
  becoming my interpretation alone.
• 21:43
  If a pastor comes in with a crazy new idea, say, he decides
• 21:47
  the church needs to start observing Old Testament dietary
• 21:49
  laws, the elders can say, wait a minute, we subscribe to the
• 21:52
  confession and that is not in there.
• 21:54
  It protects the Church from doctrinal novelty driven by a
• 21:57
  charismatic personality. And then there is discipline.
• 21:59
  Rightly used discipline. If a leader is bullying people,
• 22:02
  there needs to be a mechanism to stop him.
• 22:05
  Not just gospel, but formal charges, witnesses, a trial.
• 22:08
  Than the right of appeal. This is the beauty of a
• 22:11
  connectional church like Presbyterianism.
• 22:13
  If your local session is dominated by a tyrant, you could
• 22:15
  appeal to the presbytery. You can go to the broader
• 22:17
  church. It reminds the local leaders you
• 22:19
  are not the Supreme Court, you are under review.
• 22:22
  That brings us to the So what section application?
• 22:25
  Let's talk about hiring. If a church is looking for a
• 22:28
  pastor, how do they avoid hiring a self willed man?
• 22:34
  Because these guys can be very charming in an interview.
• 22:37
  This is where most search committees fail.
• 22:39
  They look for the gifted communicator.
• 22:41
  They look for the guy who looks good in a suit and can cast a
• 22:44
  vision. The CEO type.
• 22:46
  Right, but you need to test for character, and you cannot do
• 22:49
  that with hypothetical questions.
• 22:51
  If you ask what would you do if the elders disagreed with you,
• 22:55
  he's going to give you the textbook answer.
• 22:57
  Oh, I would listen and pray. It is a performance.
• 23:00
  Exactly. You need the history test.
• 23:02
  Ask about the past. Give me some questions.
• 23:04
  Tell us about a time you were corrected by a layperson.
• 23:07
  Tell us about a time you lost a vote in your previous church.
• 23:10
  Tell us about a conflict you had and how you resolved.
• 23:12
  It and if he says well I've never really been corrected
• 23:15
  because I am usually right or I have never lost a vote.
• 23:18
  Run away. Run fast.
• 23:20
  You are looking for patterns of submission, not just
• 23:22
  performance. And call as references.
• 23:24
  Do not just ask is he a good preacher?
• 23:27
  Ask how does he handle being told no?
• 23:30
  Does he have a temper? What about for current elders if
• 23:33
  you are in the seat right now? You need to cultivate habits
• 23:36
  that kill self will. One powerful habit is the
• 23:39
  practice of silence. Learn to listen more than you
• 23:42
  speak. In a meeting.
• 23:43
  Make it a rule that you let everyone else speak before you
• 23:46
  Give your opinion. That is hard for a leader.
• 23:48
  We like to shape the conversation.
• 23:50
  It is hard, but it breaks the need to dominate and act of
• 23:53
  repentance. Make confession a normal rhythm.
• 23:56
  Do not wait for a scandal. When you interrupt someone, stop
• 23:58
  and say I am sorry I was rude, please continue.
• 24:01
  Small acts of death to self. Precisely.
• 24:05
  Seek out the people who disagree with you and wash their feet.
• 24:07
  Serve them. Take them to coffee.
• 24:09
  Ask them about their lives. Prove to your own heart that
• 24:11
  they are not your enemies. Now a word for the congregation,
• 24:15
  because sometimes, let's be honest, the congregation wants a
• 24:17
  self willed leader. We have the idol of pragmatism.
• 24:21
  We want results. We want the church to grow.
• 24:24
  We want the parking lot paved. We want the youth group booming.
• 24:27
  And we think, well, this guy is a bit of a bully.
• 24:29
  He leaves a trail of bodies. But hey, the church is growing.
• 24:32
  He gets things done. We trade character for results.
• 24:35
  That is a deadly trade, yeah. Do not demand a saw, a head and
• 24:39
  shoulder strongman. Understand that strong
• 24:42
  leadership in the Bible is not dominion, it is service.
• 24:46
  And a very practical warning from the sources if a leader
• 24:49
  demands NDA's, non disclosure agreements or absolute loyalty
• 24:53
  oaths. That is the author Dia's spirit
• 24:56
  manifest. The Church is a family, not a
• 24:58
  secret society. If transparency is treated as a
• 25:01
  threat, self will is on the throne.
• 25:04
  Before we close, I want to make an important distinction because
• 25:06
  some people might hear this and think, OK, so an elder should
• 25:09
  never be firm. He should just be a pushover.
• 25:10
  We want to damn brag for a pastor.
• 25:12
  No, absolutely not. Titus 1.92 versus later says He
• 25:16
  must hold fast the faithful word.
• 25:18
  He must be able to exhort and refute.
• 25:20
  Elders must be firm. So what is the difference
• 25:22
  between holy firmness and self will?
• 25:24
  It comes down to the source and the tone holy firmness comes
• 25:28
  from submission to scripture. I am standing here because God
• 25:31
  says so. Self will comes from ego.
• 25:34
  I am standing here because I say so and the tone holy firmness is
• 25:38
  gentle. It is patient.
• 25:40
  It wants to win the brother. It weeps while it corrects.
• 25:42
  Self will is irritable. It is punitive.
• 25:45
  It wants to crush the opposition.
• 25:46
  And the reaction to loss. That is the tell holy firmness
• 25:50
  yields peaceably in matters of wisdom.
• 25:53
  If it is not a sin issue, the godly man can say OK we will do
• 25:57
  it your way. The self willed man plots to
• 25:59
  regain control. That is a helpful diagnostic.
• 26:02
  We need men with backbones of steel, but hearts of velvet.
• 26:06
  That is a good way to put it. We need men who are fierce about
• 26:08
  God's truth but flexible about their own preferences.
• 26:10
  So to summarize, not self willed.
• 26:13
  It is not just a personality quirk.
• 26:15
  It is not just don't be a jerk. It is a mercy to the sheep.
• 26:18
  It is a safeguard for God's honor.
• 26:21
  The Church needs crucified stewards, not crown
• 26:23
  personalities. I want to leave our listeners
• 26:25
  with this final thought from the research, which I found
• 26:27
  incredibly provocative. The world screams at us.
• 26:32
  Assert yourself, Build your brand.
• 26:34
  Be the main character. In Christ whispers, deny
• 26:38
  yourself. Pick up your cross.
• 26:40
  The safest churches are not the ones led by the most forceful,
• 26:43
  dynamic personalities. No, they are led by men who have
• 26:46
  been conquered by grace, men who are willing to lose their way
• 26:50
  when Christ's way is clear. That is the kind of leader we
• 26:53
  need, and that is the kind of leader we should pray to become.
• 26:56
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into Titus One Point.
• 26:59
  Seven, it has been a pleasure. See you next time on reformed
• 27:02
  thinking.