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Respectable Shepherds: Public Holiness and the Elder’s Call (1 Timothy 3:2) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back. We are diving straight in today.
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  This is reformed thinking. Glad to be here.
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  I'm your host and I'm here again with our resident expert to well
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  to get into the theological wiring of the church.
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  It's good to be back and today we're looking at a topic that it
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  might seem a little administrative on the surface.
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  A bit dry maybe? It could seem that way, but I
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  promise you what we're really talking about is the fabric of
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  reality itself. OK, that's a pretty big claim,
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  But before we get to the cosmic level, I want to start with
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  something very, very current, a sort of vibe check on our
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  culture. Go for it.
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  If you spend any time on social media or listen to any modern
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  interview, there is one virtue that is held up above everything
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  else. I think I know where you're
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  going with this. Authenticity.
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  Authenticity. Yes, it is the golden calf of
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  our age. It really is, but what's
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  interesting is how we defined it.
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  In today's world, authentic almost always means something
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  like I'm a mess and I'm not afraid to show it.
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  Right, it's this idea of unchecked vulnerability.
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  Exactly. You see these leaders, pastors
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  even, who get up and their whole brand is about how they yelled
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  at their kids that morning or how their spiritual life is a
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  shambles. And people applaud.
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  They say he's so real. He's relatable.
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  We've started calling it performative brokenness.
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  That's a great term for it. It's this notion that your
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  spiritual maturity is measured by how publicly you can display
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  your own personal disasters. The logic seems to be that if a
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  leader is falling apart, then he must be honest.
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  A hot mess equals transparency. And the flip side of that is if
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  a man is, you know, well put together, if he seems stable,
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  then he must be fake. He's a Pharisee, he's hiding
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  something. Precisely.
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  But today we're going to dig into a text that just, well, it
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  shatters that whole cultural assumption.
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  We're looking at the qualifications for an elder for
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  an overseer in First Timothy Chapter 3.
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  That's right, And there's one specific word in that list of
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  qualifications that stands like a fortress against this whole
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  culture of messy leadership. And in most of our English
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  Bibles, that word comes across as respectable.
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  Respectable. Now I have.
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  To be honest, when I hear that word, it feels a little beige.
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  A little boring. Yeah, it sounds like we're
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  talking about a guy who, you know, tucks in his shirt and
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  remembers he's a coaster. It just sounds like good
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  manners. And that's the common
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  misunderstanding. So you're.
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  Telling me this isn't about social etiquette.
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  Not at all. It's a theological command to
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  wage war against chaos. The whole thesis we're exploring
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  is that this qualification is the biblical antidote to what
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  you could call ecclesiological entropy.
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  Entropy. That's a term from physics,
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  right? It is.
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  It's the second law of thermodynamics, the principle
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  that everything in a closed system naturally moves from a
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  state of order to a state of disorder.
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  Things fall apart. Things fall apart, and the
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  church is not somehow immune to that process.
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  You have to remember the context.
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  Paul is writing this letter to Timothy.
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  And Timothy is an Ephesus. He is, and we have to ask the
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  anchor question. Why the specific requirement?
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  Why here? Because Ephesus was not a calm,
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  orderly place. No, the letter mentions all
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  sorts of problems. It was a community under siege
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  from false teachers, from myths, endless genealogies.
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  It was a hotbed of theological confusion.
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  It was making things up, causing argument.
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  Absolute chaos. So when Paul says an overseer
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  has to be respectable, he isn't saying, hey Tim, find a nice guy
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  who won't embarrass. He's saying something much more
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  urgent. He's saying find a man whose
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  very life is a bulwark against chaos because your church is
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  currently drowning in it. OK, so let's get into the
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  mechanics of the word itself. The English is respectable, but
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  the Greek is Cosmios. Cosmios and as soon.
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  As you say that, I can hear an English word hiding inside it.
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  You hear Cosmos. Right, Cosmos, which makes me
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  think of, you know, outer space or theologically, it makes me
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  think of the world in a negative sense.
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  And this is where getting our definition straight is so
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  important. In the New Testament.
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  Yes, Cosmos can definitely mean the fallen world system that's
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  opposed to God. But that's not its only meaning.
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  Not at all. In the classical Greek
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  worldview, and really at the root of the word itself, cosmos
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  meant order. It meant arrangement.
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  It meant to system. So the opposite of chaos.
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  The total opposite. Think about an ancient Greek
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  philosopher looking up at the night sky.
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  No light pollution. He sees the planets moving, the
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  stars and their constellations. He's not just seeing random
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  dots. He's not seeing a random spray
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  of glitter. He is seeing a cosmos, a
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  beautifully arranged, predictable mathematical system,
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  an army of lights moving with precision.
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  It was beautiful because it was ordered.
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  So when Paul takes the adjective form of that word cosmios, and
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  he applies it to a pastor, he's. Saying the elder must be well
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  arranged, his life must be cosmic in that original sense of
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  the word. His life shouldn't look like a
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  spilled box of Legos. It should look like the night
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  sky, should have a structure, a predictability.
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  It should be beautiful because of its inherent order.
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  Wow. That is a completely different
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  way of looking at it. It's not about being dapper or
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  polished. It's about being an agent of
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  divine order. Exactly.
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  There's a definition that came up in our research that I think
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  is perfect ordered propriety. Propriety.
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  That's another word that feels a bit old fashioned.
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  It does. We think it means being stiff or
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  stuffy, but all propriety means is that things are in their
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  proper place. And to really get the force of
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  this, we have to look at the words around it in the text.
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  In First Timothy 3, right before Cosmios, Paul uses another word,
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  saffron. Saffron.
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  That's usually translated as sober minded or prudent.
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  Correct. And Saffron describes the
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  internal reality. It's a mind that is curbed, that
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  is saved from being intoxicated by pride or passion or anxiety.
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  It's a sound mind. So 1 is internal, one is
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  external. Precisely, you have to see the
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  relationship. Saffron is the cause, Cosmios is
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  the effect. OK, let me see if I can put that
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  in my own words. You're saying you can't have a
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  cosmos life on the outside, or your finances, your schedule,
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  your words are all in order if you don't first have a software
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  mind on the inside. You've got it.
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  If a man's mind is chaotic, if he's driven by every impulse,
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  every fear, every ambition, eventually that internal chaos
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  will bleed out into his external life.
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  You. Can't fake it forever.
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  You can't. His desk will be a mess.
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  His marriage will be a mess. His digital life will be a mess.
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  The external order is the visible fruit of an internally
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  ordered mind. You can't have one without the
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  other for long. There's another connection in
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  the text that I found really compelling.
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  In the chapter just before this. In First Timothy 2, Paul uses a
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  verb form of this same word. Yes, Cosmin.
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  He uses it in reference to how women should dress in worship.
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  He says they should adorn themselves.
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  And the context there is crucial.
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  It's corporate worship. His concern is that nothing in a
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  person's external appearance should distract from the main
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  event, which is the worship of God.
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  It's the same idea, adorning, arranging, ordering.
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  And the logic flows perfectly. If the members of the
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  congregation are supposed to be adorned with modesty and order
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  so that worship isn't disrupted, how much more so the person who
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  is leading them in that worship? The standard is even higher for
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  him. It has to be.
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  There's a great line I read that describes the elder as a living
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  vestment of the church. A living vestment.
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  That's a powerful image. Think about it.
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  A priest's robes in the Old Testament.
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  They covered the man. They signified his office.
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  They were clean, distinct, Paul is saying.
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  The elder's entire life, his habits, his demeanor, his
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  reputation, is that vestment. So if his life is loud or
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  disorganized. Then he's like a priest showing
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  up in a ridiculous outfit. He becomes a distraction from
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  the Gospel. He's supposed to be the calm,
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  ordered center of the gathering, not the one kicking up all the
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  dust. This moves us into the bigger
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  biblical picture. We call this Reformed thinking
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  because we always want to see how these ideas fit into the
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  whole story of Scripture and this concept of order versus
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  chaos. It's not just some tip for
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  church management. No, it's the spine of the entire
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  biblical narrative. You have to start in Genesis 1.
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  You have to before God speaks a word.
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  What is the state of the universe?
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  It's Tohu Wabohu, it's formless and void.
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  It's chaos. It's an uninhabitable, dark,
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  watery mess. And what is the very first thing
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  God does? His primary creative act.
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  He separates. He makes distinctions.
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  He brings arrangement. He separates light from dark.
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  He separates the waters above from the waters below.
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  He separates land from sea. God is the great organizer.
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  He brings Cosmos out of chaos. So when an elder is called to be
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  Cosmios, he is reflecting the very image of God in a primary
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  way. He's acting as a little sub
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  creator, a region. Adam was placed in the garden to
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  work it and to keep it, to maintain and expand that created
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  order, but. The fall messed all that up.
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  The fall introduced disorder. Shame is a kind of spiritual
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  disorder. Hiding from God is relational
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  disorder. The breakdown of the family was
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  social disorder. So a man who lives a
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  respectable, ordered life. He is actively pushing back
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  against the effects of the fall. He is demonstrating in his own
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  little corner of the world. Here in this household, in this
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  church, we are reclaiming the good order that God intended
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  from the beginning. That's a beautiful way to put
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  it, but let's look at the other side of that coin.
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  Because in the Old Testament, God's demand for order wasn't
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  just a gentle suggestion. No, it was.
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  Well, it was deadly serious. I'm thinking of Leviticus.
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  You have to go to Leviticus 10, the story of Nadab and Abaiku.
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  This is the text that should make every pastor lie awake at
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  night. Can you set the scene for us?
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  The Tabernacle has just been built and consecrated.
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  The glory of God has descended. Everything has been done exactly
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  according to the divine blueprint.
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  It is a microcosm of the perfectly ordered universe.
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  And then Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, decide to improvise.
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  They offer unauthorized fire or strange fire, they grab their
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  own sensors, put in fire that God had not commanded, and they
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  just walked into the holy place. Now, in our modern culture of
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  authenticity, we might say. We'd say, well, their hearts
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  were in the right place, they were just being spontaneous and
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  passionate at. Least they were trying.
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  And if fire comes out from the presence of the Lord and
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  consumes them, they die on the spot.
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  Because the Tabernacle was not a stage for human self-expression.
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  It was a zone of absolute divine order.
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  Their liturgical disorder was a direct insult to the perfect
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  holiness of God. That is a terrifying story.
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  It shows that God cares deeply about the details of how He is
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  approached. Think about the priestly
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  garments. They were made for glory and for
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  beauty. You could easily translate that.
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  As for respectability, the whole system was about order.
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  So the argument is if the shadow required that much order.
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  If the Old Testament system, which was just a copy, required
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  such strict adherence to order, how can we possibly think that
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  the New covenant, the reality, requires less?
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  Some might argue that we're under grace now, that Jesus sort
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  of, you know, relaxed all the rules.
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  Well, that's just a very low view of Christ in the Godhead.
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  A sloppy, disorderly elder suggests to his congregation
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  that the God they worship is casual or careless.
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  But the God of the New Testament is the same holy God who
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  consumed Nadab and Abihu. The difference isn't that God
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  has changed. The difference is that Christ
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  has absorbed the fire, the wrath for our disorder.
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  But that doesn't mean God now delights in US continuing to
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  live in chaos. And Speaking of Christ, he has
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  to be the ultimate model here. If Cosmios is the standard,
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  Jesus must be the perfect fulfillment of it.
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  He is the perfect Cosmios. I mean, He is the Logos, the
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  divine logic, the divine reason, the organizing principle of the
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  entire universe. And you see that in his life.
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  Look at his life in the Gospels. It's incredibly demanding.
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  Crowds are always pressing in. People are yelling.
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  The religious leaders are attacking him constantly.
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  But do you ever get the sense that Jesus is in a panic?
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  Never. He's sleeping in the middle of
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  the storm. He is never hurried, he is never
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  frantic, and yet he is never late.
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  He's not running around putting out fires like a stressed out
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  middle manager. He moves with this absolute
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  sovereign purpose. His life is perfectly arranged.
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  What about the cleansing of the temple?
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  People often point to that as an example of Jesus being chaotic.
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  Flipping tables, money flying everywhere.
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  It was certainly violent, but it was not chaotic.
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  It was the restoration of order. Also, what was happening in the
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  temple courts. It had become a den of robbers.
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  It was a place of loud, chaotic, distracting commerce.
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  It was preventing the Gentiles from being able to worship.
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  Jesus drives out that disorder to restore the temple to its
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  proper function as House of prayer.
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  He was re establishing the cosmos of his father's house.
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  Exactly. Jesus is the Prince of Peace and
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  we have to to remember the Hebrew word Shalom isn't just
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  the absence of conflict, it's the presence of right ordering.
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  It's everything being in its proper place, flourishing.
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  That is what Jesus brings. This is where I want to shift
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  gears a little and maybe get a bit controversial.
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  We've established what Cosmios is.
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  Now I want to use it as a lens, as a standard to evaluate some
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  modern theological trends. Because if order is this central
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  attribute of God, that has to push back against some popular
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  ideas in the church today. It absolutely does.
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  It requires us to do a little bit of polemics.
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  Let's start with the doctrine of God himself.
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  Theology proper, The Westminster Confession describes God as most
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  holy, most wise, most free, most absolute.
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  And it says he is without parts or passions.
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  He is simple, which doesn't mean unintelligent.
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  It means he isn't composed of different pieces.
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  There is no randomness in God, no confusion.
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  As Paul says in First Corinthians, God is not a God of
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  confusion, but of peace. So if the church is the House of
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  God, as Paul calls it in this very same chapter, First
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  Timothy, then the house should reflect the character of the
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  architect. The house should be orderly.
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  It should be, and this brings us right to a critique of certain
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  aspects of continuationism, specifically within the
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  charismatic movement. That's a big one, because in
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  many of those circles, the presence of the Holy Spirit is
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  often equated with a loss of control.
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  Right. You hear phrases like the spirit
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  just took over, and what that usually means is I started
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  acting in a bizarre and disorderly way.
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  Shaking, falling down, chaotic services where multiple people
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  are speaking at once. The underlying assumption is
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  that the more wild and out of control it gets, the more the
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  spirit must be present. But the text seems to teach the
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  exact opposite. It does. 1st Corinthians 14.40
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  Let all things be done decently and in order, and that word for
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  order, taxis is a military term. A military term.
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  Yes, it describes A regimented line of soldiers, a battalion
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  holding its formation. It's the picture of discipline
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  and structure. So Paul is saying corporate
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  worship should look more like a well drilled unit than a riot.
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  And then you go to Galatians 5. What is the fruit of the Spirit?
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  Lovejoy, peace and self-control. The Holy Spirit doesn't bypass
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  our minds. He renews and illuminates our
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  minds. He produces Saffron, the sound
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  mind. So the cause meals elder, the
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  well ordered man, is a direct contradiction to that
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  charismatic impulse. He's a living, breathing
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  rebuttal. If a leader is behaving
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  erratically, or if he's intentionally whipping a crowd
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  into a state of emotional frenzy and disorder, he is not acting
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  in concert with the Holy Spirit. He's acting against the very
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  nature of the Spirit, who is a spirit of order.
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  That's a very clear line to draw.
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  OK, let's tackle another one. Egalitarian Aryanism, the view
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  that there are no God-given distinctions in roles for men
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  and women in the church or the home.
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  How does Cosmos speak to that? Well, it goes right back to the
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  internal logic of the passage. In First Timothy 3, Paul makes a
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  direct link between the household and the church.
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  He asks if someone does not know how to manage his own household,
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  how will he care for God's church?
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  The order of the home is the training ground for the order of
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  the church and the Reformed view.
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  The biblical view is that the home has a God designed
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  structure. It has a head, a hierarchy of
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  role, not a value. Exactly.
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  And what egalitarianism does is it flattens those distinctions.
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  It tries to erase the roles God has designed.
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  And when you flatten a God ordained hierarchy, you don't
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  get true equality, you get a cosmia, you get disorder.
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  So the respectable elder is a man who is modeling that ordered
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  structure in his own home. He is modeling loving headship
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  and ordered submission. He's reflecting the relationship
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  within the Trinity itself, where the Sun joyfully submits to the
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  Father, yet is in every way his equal in glory.
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  In essence, if an elder erases those lines in his own home,
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  he's importing a principle of entropy right into the heart of
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  the Church. OK, one more ISM before I move
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  on. Antinomianism.
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  Lawless. This brings us right back to the
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  messy pastor we started with. This is the idea that because we
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  are under grace, our behavior doesn't really matter that much.
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  It's a reaction against legalism, which is a real
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  danger, but it swings the pendulum way too far into
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  license. The argument is usually framed
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  as I just want to be real, I don't want to be a fake.
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  But real in the Bible doesn't mean sinful and chaotic.
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  The most real human whoever lived was Jesus, and he was
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  perfectly ordered and sinless. The Antinomian mindset uses
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  grace as a cover for immaturity and disorder.
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  And pragmatism often feels. This Yes, we excuse a lack of
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  cosmos in a leader because he's a gifted speaker or he's
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  effective. That's a perfect transition.
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  Yeah, let's talk about the modern counterfeits of
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  respectability, because disorder doesn't always look like a mess.
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  Sometimes it dresses up and calls itself success.
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  And the number one counterfeit is pragmatism, the philosophy
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  that says if it works, it must be right.
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  You hear it all the time. Yeah, the pastor has some
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  character flaws, but look at the numbers.
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  The church is growing. We're reaching people.
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  As if God is somehow impressed by our metrics.
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  The Reformed answer has to be Christ never ever trades
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  holiness for momentum. God is not desperate.
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  He doesn't need your skill if it kind of packaged in chaos and
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  sin. You can build a big crowd with
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  disorder, you can build a mob, but you cannot build a true
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  church that way. What about celebrity culture?
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  The pastor as a brand is an influencer that's everywhere.
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  Now think about. The values of online celebrity
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  It rewards the hot take. It rewards novelty, shock value
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  and constant self promotion. It's all about grabbing
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  attention. But Cosmios rewards the
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  opposite. It rewards quiet, consistency,
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  steadiness, being boringly predictable in your character.
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  The elder should be the same man in his living room on a Tuesday
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  night as he is in the pulpit on a Sunday morning.
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  Celebrity culture demands A persona.
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  Cosmios demands a person. What about the nice guy, the
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  seeker sensitive model that defines respectable as just
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  being inoffensive? That's a very subtle and
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  dangerous counterfeit. It redefines respectability as
• 18:53
  just being polite and diplomatic, never rocking the
• 18:56
  boat. But the Bible commands elders to
• 18:58
  do some serious boat rocking. Titus, one says an elder must be
• 19:02
  able to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine.
• 19:05
  You can't rebuke anyone if your primary goal is to be liked by
• 19:09
  everyone. So there's a huge difference
• 19:11
  between being respectable and just being a people pleaser.
• 19:14
  A massive difference. The distinction is this.
• 19:17
  The cross of Christ is offensive.
• 19:19
  The call to repentance is offensive.
• 19:21
  The elders personal hypocrisy or cowardice must not be the source
• 19:26
  of the offense. If people reject our message,
• 19:28
  let it be because they are rejecting Christ, not because we
• 19:32
  are weird, rude, or disorderly. OK, let's bring this down the
• 19:35
  street level. We've done the deep theology.
• 19:37
  What does a respectable life actually look like in practice
• 19:40
  today? Because I think a lot of guys
• 19:42
  hear this and struggle to know what to actually do.
• 19:44
  Let's start with the place that gets almost everyone into
• 19:47
  trouble these days, Digital stewardship.
• 19:49
  The respectable thumb. We should trademark that the
• 19:51
  respectable thumb. A man who does not have a filter
• 19:54
  on his social media account does not have a saffron mind.
• 19:57
  It's that direct a link? So if an elder is constantly in
• 20:00
  petty online arguments. If he's dunking on his
• 20:04
  theological opponents for retweets, if he's spreading
• 20:07
  unverified rumors or conspiracy theories, he is actively sewing
• 20:11
  a Cosmia. He's a chaos agent.
• 20:13
  A lot of leaders feel this pressure to engage the culture
• 20:17
  online. But engagement doesn't mean
• 20:18
  becoming like the culture. If you jump into a mud pit to
• 20:22
  wrestle, you're going to get covered in mud.
• 20:24
  An elder is called to be above reproach, to be clean.
• 20:28
  The fundamental question is one of self-control.
• 20:30
  Can you control your impulse to react?
• 20:33
  If you cannot control your own thumbs, you have no business
• 20:37
  trying to shepherd the Church of God.
• 20:38
  That is a very straightforward test.
• 20:41
  What's next? What about money?
• 20:42
  Financial Order First Timothy 3 says an elder must not be a
• 20:45
  lover of money. But the idea of Cosmios implies
• 20:48
  more than that. It implies competent management.
• 20:50
  So a life of just constant financial chaos is a
• 20:54
  disqualifier. A life of chaotic debt, of
• 20:56
  living paycheck to paycheck because of undisciplined,
• 20:59
  impulsive spending that brings reproach on the gospel.
• 21:02
  It makes a man vulnerable to temptation and compromise.
• 21:05
  It shows he can't delay gratification.
• 21:07
  Right. The Westminster Larger Catechism
• 21:10
  talks about the duties required in the 8th commandment and it
• 21:13
  includes things like moderation and frugality.
• 21:17
  If a pastor is always chasing the next get rich quick scheme,
• 21:21
  whether it's crypto or some multi level marketing thing,
• 21:23
  he's signaling a deep seated discontentment and a lack of
• 21:27
  trust in God's ordinary means of provision.
• 21:30
  He's introduced financial chaos into his own home.
• 21:33
  And that home is the next area, family governance.
• 21:36
  I want to be careful here because having a respectable
• 21:38
  family doesn't mean your kids are perfect little angels.
• 21:41
  No, absolutely not. We're not talking about raising
• 21:43
  robots. Kids are sinners.
• 21:45
  They will send. So what?
• 21:46
  Are we looking for? We are looking for a principled
• 21:48
  home. Is there a visible structure
• 21:50
  when a child disobeys? Is there a predictable, loving,
• 21:53
  biblical response of discipline and grace?
• 21:56
  Or is the home environment chaotic, where sometimes dad
• 22:01
  ignores the behavior and other times he explodes in rage?
• 22:04
  So it's more about this system of governance in the home than
• 22:07
  the minute by minute behavior of the children.
• 22:09
  Yes, the home is the laboratory. It's the proving ground for his
• 22:13
  leadership. If a man is calm, dignified and
• 22:17
  gracious at church, but his home is a war zone of yelling,
• 22:21
  disrespect and bitterness, he is a hypocrite.
• 22:24
  His public piety has to be consistent with his private
• 22:27
  reality. Last practical point, personal
• 22:30
  appearance. We touched on it, but let's be
• 22:31
  direct. Does an elder have to wear a
• 22:34
  suit and tie? No, not necessarily.
• 22:37
  But he does need to embody the principle of modesty that's
• 22:41
  inherent in cosmos. He shouldn't look like a slob,
• 22:44
  but he also shouldn't look like a fashion model or a rock star.
• 22:47
  The goal is for people to look past him.
• 22:49
  The goal is transparency. People should be able to look
• 22:52
  right through him and see Christ if he's wearing a $500 hoodie to
• 22:56
  look cool and relevant, or if he's wearing ripped jeans and a
• 22:59
  stained T-shirt to look authentic and relatable.
• 23:01
  In both cases, he's making it about himself.
• 23:03
  He's creating visual noise. He's a distraction.
• 23:05
  The goal should be a kind of quiet predictability.
• 23:08
  The sheep should know what to expect from their shepherd.
• 23:10
  That consistency creates a sense of safety and trust.
• 23:13
  So if I'm a person in a church, maybe I'm on a pastor search
• 23:17
  committee. Yeah.
• 23:19
  How do I discern this in a candidate?
• 23:21
  Because a lot of guys can put on a good show for an interview
• 23:24
  weekend. You have to start asking
• 23:26
  different questions. We tend to ask, is he a dynamic
• 23:28
  speaker? Is he a great leader?
• 23:30
  Is he visionary? Those are the wrong questions.
• 23:32
  They're not the primary questions.
• 23:33
  The first question should be, is this man well ordered?
• 23:36
  What are some specific things you could ask a potential elder
• 23:39
  to get at that? Ask him what do you do when you
• 23:42
  get angry that reveals his self-control or lack thereof?
• 23:47
  Ask where in your life are you most tempted to present a better
• 23:51
  version of yourself than what is actually true?
• 23:54
  That gets right to the issue of hypocrisy.
• 23:56
  You could ask him about his screen habits.
• 23:58
  How do you guard your eyes and your time when you're online?
• 24:01
  If he gets defensive or dismissive about a question like
• 24:04
  that, that's a huge red flag. You're looking for consistency
• 24:07
  across all areas of his life. What are some other red flags?
• 24:10
  The big warning signs of a Cosmia.
• 24:12
  A man who is chronically divisive, he's always at the
• 24:15
  center of some conflict. Another is secrecy or
• 24:18
  compartmentalization. If you get the sense that there
• 24:21
  are these walled off areas of his life that his wife or his
• 24:24
  fellow elders are not allowed into, that's a sign of disorder.
• 24:27
  And the Bible itself gives a huge red flag.
• 24:29
  Yes, First Timothy 3.6 explicitly warns against putting
• 24:34
  a recent convert a novice into leadership.
• 24:38
  Why? Because respectability.
• 24:40
  This ordered life. It takes time to develop and
• 24:43
  prove. If you elevate a man based
• 24:45
  purely on his giftedness without a proven track record of
• 24:48
  character, you are setting him up to fall into the snare of the
• 24:51
  devil. We have laid out a standard
• 24:53
  today that is, well, it's incredibly high, a fortress of
• 24:56
  order, a living vestment, A cosmic life.
• 24:59
  And I have to be honest with you, and I'm sure many of our
• 25:01
  listeners are feeling this right now.
• 25:03
  This feels really heavy. It is heavy.
• 25:05
  It's meant to be. I mean, I look at my own life.
• 25:07
  I see the disorderly desk. I see the chaotic schedule.
• 25:09
  Sometimes I see the moments where I've lost my temper.
• 25:12
  If Cosmos is the standard for leadership, or even just for
• 25:16
  Christian maturity, I feel like I'm disqualified.
• 25:19
  Are we just preaching a new kind of legalism here?
• 25:22
  If we stop the conversation right here, then yes, we
• 25:25
  absolutely have just preached a new and impossible law.
• 25:29
  If the take away is go clean up your life, get your act together
• 25:32
  and then God will be pleased with you, then we have
• 25:35
  completely abandoned the gospel. So where is the hope?
• 25:38
  How do we hold up this high standard without crushing
• 25:41
  everyone under its weight? We have to look away from
• 25:43
  ourselves and look to Christ, our righteousness.
• 25:45
  In Reformed theology we talk about the act of obedience of
• 25:48
  Christ. This is so critical.
• 25:49
  Jesus didn't just die for our sins.
• 25:52
  He lived for our righteousness. He lived the perfect Cosmio's
• 25:55
  life. He lived the perfectly ordered,
• 25:57
  respectable, well arranged life that you and I fail to live
• 26:00
  every single day. Every thought in his mind was
• 26:03
  soft run. Every action he took was
• 26:05
  Cosmios. And the gospel promise is that
• 26:08
  when we place our faith in Him, that perfect record of obedience
• 26:11
  is imputed to us. It is credited to our account.
• 26:15
  So when God the Father looks at me, the guy with the messy
• 26:19
  thoughts and the sometimes chaotic life, he doesn't see my
• 26:22
  disorder. He sees the perfect order of his
• 26:25
  son. Exactly.
• 26:26
  And we have to go even deeper. Think about the Cross.
• 26:28
  The Cross was the one moment in history where the perfectly
• 26:31
  Cosmius One, the source of all order, willingly entered into
• 26:35
  the ultimate chaos. He stepped into the Tohua bohu
• 26:38
  of God's wrath. He took the darkness, the
• 26:40
  separation, the ultimate disorder of our sin upon
• 26:42
  himself. He allowed his life to be torn
• 26:45
  apart so that ours could be put back together.
• 26:47
  That changes the motivation for everything.
• 26:49
  I don't pursue an ordered life to try and earn God's favor.
• 26:52
  No, I pursue order because through faith I've been united
• 26:55
  to the very source of all order. It's all about our union with
• 26:58
  Christ. The same Spirit of Christ who
• 27:01
  hovered over the waters in Genesis 1 now dwells in US.
• 27:04
  And what does he do? He hovers over the chaos of our
• 27:07
  hearts, and he begins to speak, to separate, to bring order out
• 27:12
  of our internal mess. So the pursuit of a respectable
• 27:15
  life isn't legalism, it's just learning to live out who we
• 27:19
  already are in Christ. And it's not a dead end.
• 27:22
  We're actually headed somewhere. This isn't just about tidying
• 27:24
  things up for no reason. Eschatology is key here.
• 27:28
  We are marching toward the New Jerusalem, and if you read the
• 27:30
  description of that city in Revelation 21, what do you see?
• 27:33
  It's perfect. It's measured.
• 27:35
  It's a perfect cube. Its length, width and height are
• 27:38
  equal. It's mathematically precise.
• 27:40
  It is a city of perfect order. There is no more night.
• 27:43
  There is no more acosmia. And no more sea, which in the
• 27:46
  ancient world was the symbol of chaos.
• 27:48
  The sea is gone. The chaos is vanquished forever.
• 27:51
  So when an elder lives a well ordered, respectable life in the
• 27:54
  here and now, he's acting as a prophetic figure.
• 27:57
  He's giving the church a little foretaste of our final home.
• 28:00
  He's a walking, talking preview of the new creation.
• 28:03
  That turns respectability from a boring, heavy burden into a
• 28:08
  beautiful promise. It really does.
• 28:10
  It's a taste of heaven on earth. We're coming to the end of our
• 28:13
  time, but I want to leave our listeners with one final thought
• 28:15
  from the text. It's a warning, but it's also, I
• 28:18
  think, a challenge. It's that phrase about the snare
• 28:21
  of the devil. First Timothy 3.7 says an
• 28:24
  overseer has to have a good reputation with outsiders so
• 28:27
  that he may not fall into disgrace and into a snare of the
• 28:30
  devil. A snare, A trap.
• 28:32
  We tend to read disgrace as just meaning social embarrassment,
• 28:36
  you know. Oh, I'll look bad in front of
• 28:37
  people, but Paul connects it to something far more sinister.
• 28:41
  He says disgrace is a form of spiritual captivity.
• 28:44
  How's that work? When a leader lives a disorderly
• 28:47
  life, when he has secret sins, hidden debts, uncontrolled
• 28:50
  anger, he is basically handing the enemy a leash.
• 28:54
  He can be blackmailed, He can be manipulated.
• 28:57
  His hypocrisy. Silence is his witness.
• 28:59
  He's trapped. So living an ordered,
• 29:01
  respectable life is a form of spiritual warfare.
• 29:04
  It is the best defense, a transparent well order of life
• 29:08
  gives the devil no handle to grab on to, no crack to wedge
• 29:12
  himself into. So my final challenge to you
• 29:15
  listening, whether you're an elder or you hope to be one day
• 29:17
  or you're just a church member praying for your leaders, is
• 29:20
  this. Stop idolizing authentic messes.
• 29:24
  Start praying for and looking for respectable warriors.
• 29:28
  Treat this qualification not as a boring rule to check off a
• 29:31
  list. But as Christ's profound
• 29:33
  kindness and protection for his flock, he loves his sheep too
• 29:36
  much to entrust them to the leadership of chaos.
• 29:39
  Amen to that. Thank you for walking us through
• 29:41
  this. It turns out that being
• 29:42
  respectable might be one of the most radical, countercultural
• 29:46
  things a Christian can be in this chaotic world.
• 29:48
  I. Think you're right?
• 29:49
  This has been reformed thinking. We'll see you next time.