Latest / Reformed Thinking / Roots Before Fruit: The Danger of the Novice Elder

Transcript

Roots Before Fruit: The Danger of the Novice Elder · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to reformed thinking.
• 0:01
  It's good to be here. So glad you could join us for
• 0:03
  another one of these deep dives. Today we are tackling a piece of
• 0:08
  biblical instruction that I have to say, feels like it's from
• 0:12
  another planet compared to the world we live in now.
• 0:14
  Oh, it really does. It's a command that just cuts
• 0:17
  right against the grain of, well, almost everything our
• 0:20
  culture values. You can say that again.
• 0:22
  I was just, you know, scrolling through my feed this morning and
• 0:24
  it's all about speed, acceleration, scaling up.
• 0:28
  The 30 under 30 lists. Yes, the prodigy.
• 0:31
  The young genius who changes the world overnight.
• 0:33
  We are. We're obsessed with it.
• 0:35
  We celebrate the person who gets there the fastest.
• 0:38
  And that mindset has absolutely bled into the church.
• 0:41
  We have this obsession with immediacy.
• 0:43
  If someone shows a spark of talent, our first impulse is to
• 0:46
  put them on a stage. Instantly.
• 0:48
  Instantly it feels like waiting is wasting their potential.
• 0:51
  If you've got a gift, you should be using it in the most visible
• 0:54
  way possible right now. But the passage we're looking at
• 0:57
  today, it functions like a giant stop sign.
• 0:59
  On that impulse, we're going to be focusing on First Timothy
• 1:02
  chapter 3, verse 6. It's the specific rule against
• 1:06
  ordaining a novice a recent convert to the Office of Elder.
• 1:11
  And what's so arresting about it is how Paul frames it.
• 1:14
  This isn't, you know, some helpful tip from a leadership
• 1:17
  seminar. Right, it's not best practices.
• 1:19
  Not at all. He frames it as a life or death
• 1:21
  safeguard. He says if you ignore this, the
• 1:24
  person falls into the condemnation of the devil.
• 1:27
  That's a phrase that should just stop all of us in our tracks,
• 1:30
  the condemnation of the devil. We're going to get into what
• 1:33
  that really means later. And it's even heavier than it
• 1:36
  sounds. It is.
• 1:37
  But I think the big question, the why that we want to get at
• 1:39
  today is why the Bible commands this slowness when the world
• 1:43
  screams for speed. Why is this a firewall and not
• 1:47
  just a friendly suggestion? And our mission, really, for
• 1:49
  this deep dive is to see why spiritual maturity is a totally
• 1:53
  different category from giftedness.
• 1:55
  Just because someone's talented doesn't mean they're ready, and
• 1:58
  elevating them too soon isn't kind.
• 2:00
  It's actually dangerous. It could be spiritually
• 2:03
  catastrophic. We've got a good stack of
• 2:05
  sources to get through some Greek word studies, some great
• 2:08
  theological writing, and we'll even pull in the Westminster
• 2:11
  Confession. So let's start with this concept
• 2:14
  our first source brings up, which I think just nails it.
• 2:16
  It's called the Idol of Immediacy.
• 2:19
  I think that is a perfect diagnosis of the modern
• 2:21
  evangelical heart, the idol of immediacy.
• 2:23
  We want the harvest without the seasons.
• 2:25
  We want the fruit without the long, slow work of cultivation.
• 2:29
  And the source uses this fantastic analogy from nature to
• 2:32
  explain the problem, the oak versus the mushroom.
• 2:36
  Oh, it's such a great visual, isn't it?
• 2:38
  It really is so simple, but it sticks with you.
• 2:40
  Walk us through that. Well, you think about a
• 2:42
  mushroom, you go out into the woods after a good rain and
• 2:45
  they're just everywhere. They pop up overnight.
• 2:48
  Yeah, you go to bed, there's nothing.
• 2:50
  You wake up and there it is, looking all finished.
• 2:52
  Right. It looks substantial.
• 2:54
  It has volume and takes up space.
• 2:56
  But here's the question, What's underneath the surface?
• 2:59
  Almost nothing. A few little threads, no real
• 3:02
  root system to speak of. Exactly.
• 3:04
  It's all surface. So what happens when the midday
• 3:06
  sun comes out and beats down on it?
• 3:09
  Or if the humidity drops. It's gone.
• 3:11
  It just shrivels up, turns to. Nothing.
• 3:12
  It dies. It can't handle the heat or the
• 3:15
  pressure because it has no deep connection to the soil, to the
• 3:18
  water down below. OK, so that's the mushroom.
• 3:21
  Now you compare that to an oak tree.
• 3:23
  An oak can take 100 years to reach maturity.
• 3:27
  For the first few years, it's just a little sapling.
• 3:29
  You could step on it. It's not impressive.
• 3:31
  Nobody's taking a picture next to a one year old oak tree, no.
• 3:35
  But while it seems to be growing so slowly above the ground, it's
• 3:39
  doing the most important work underground.
• 3:42
  It's building the root system. It's driving a taproot deep,
• 3:45
  deep down. It's anchoring itself, wrapping
• 3:48
  its roots around rocks, searching for those subterranean
• 3:51
  water sources that the mushroom doesn't even know exist.
• 3:54
  So it's preparing for something it can't see yet.
• 3:56
  It's preparing for the storm because when the Gale force
• 3:59
  winds come, and they will come, the mushrooms just torn apart,
• 4:02
  it's gone, but the oak stands. Not because it's lucky.
• 4:06
  But because it's anchored, and the critique in our sources is
• 4:10
  that the modern church has in many ways become a mushroom
• 4:13
  farm, we are captivated by the spectacular, the sudden, the
• 4:17
  overnight success. That hits home.
• 4:20
  You see someone who's charismatic or they're a great
• 4:22
  speaker or maybe they have a big social media following, and the
• 4:25
  first thought is we have to platform this person.
• 4:29
  We have to use their gifts. Right.
• 4:30
  If we don't give them a title or a microphone, they might go
• 4:33
  somewhere else. But what we're doing is
• 4:35
  confusing the leaves with the roots, right?
• 4:38
  We're mistaking natural gifts for spiritual graces.
• 4:41
  Charm is not character. Eloquence is not endurance.
• 4:44
  You can have a lot of leaves and no roots.
• 4:46
  You absolutely can, and that's a dangerous combination.
• 4:49
  So let's connect this back to the text itself.
• 4:51
  First Timothy 3.6 Paul says an overseer, an elder, must not be
• 4:56
  a novice. Can you break that word down for
• 4:58
  us? What are we looking at in the
• 4:59
  Greek? Yeah, the Greek word is
• 5:00
  neophytos. Neophytos.
• 5:02
  It's a compound word, which is really helpful.
• 5:04
  The first part, neos just means new.
• 5:06
  The second part, fee, is a verb that means to bring forth or to
• 5:11
  plant or to grow. Oh, so it's right there in the
• 5:15
  word itself. It's right there, so a literal
• 5:18
  wooden translation would be newly planted.
• 5:21
  Wow. So this whole agricultural
• 5:23
  metaphor, the botany of the soul, it's not something
• 5:26
  theologians are just reading into the text.
• 5:28
  Paul is thinking like a gardener.
• 5:29
  He is. He's looking at a new convert
• 5:32
  and seeing a sapling. Now.
• 5:33
  This is a really key point. A sapling is alive, it's in the
• 5:37
  garden, it's drawing life. We're not questioning the
• 5:41
  genuineness of the conversion. This person isn't a fake.
• 5:44
  No, absolutely. I think that's a huge
• 5:45
  distinction. This isn't about someone
• 5:46
  pretending they have vibrant leaves.
• 5:49
  They look healthy. They love Jesus.
• 5:50
  They look great. They're probably full of
• 5:52
  enthusiasm, maybe the most excited person at the prayer
• 5:54
  meeting, but from a structural standpoint, they lack that
• 5:59
  hidden underground root system. And that's what's needed to bear
• 6:02
  weight. To bear the weight of
• 6:03
  leadership, which I think we sometimes forget is an immense
• 6:06
  weight. People see the platform, they
• 6:09
  see the authority, they don't see the burden.
• 6:11
  They don't see the spiritual strain.
• 6:13
  And leadership is like a magnifying glass.
• 6:15
  It enlarges everything about you.
• 6:18
  It'll enlarge your strengths for sure, but it will also enlarge
• 6:21
  your weaknesses, your character flaws, your blind spots.
• 6:23
  So if you have a crack in your character.
• 6:26
  Leadership will turn that crack into a Canyon.
• 6:29
  It will put pressure on it until it breaks.
• 6:31
  That's a sobering thought it. Should be.
• 6:34
  And the sources we're drawing from, they talk about these Gale
• 6:37
  force winds of adversity that come with leadership.
• 6:40
  And what are we talking about here?
• 6:41
  This isn't just having a bad week at the office.
• 6:43
  Oh no. This is the reality of spiritual
• 6:46
  warfare. It's the weight of carrying the
• 6:48
  sorrows of other people. It's dealing with constant
• 6:52
  criticism, both fair and unfair. It's the temptation to despair.
• 6:57
  It's a spiritually hostile environment, it.
• 6:59
  Is so to take that sapling, that newly planted Christian, and
• 7:03
  transplant him to the top of a windy hill, which is what the
• 7:06
  eldership is. You're not doing him a favor.
• 7:08
  You're setting him up to be destroyed.
• 7:10
  You're killing him, and that is such a paradigm shift because
• 7:14
  you know, when we fast track a promising young leader, we think
• 7:17
  we're encouraging. Them we think, we're saying we
• 7:20
  believe in you, we see your calling, and we want to affirm
• 7:22
  it. Exactly.
• 7:24
  But the sources argue that placing a new believer in a
• 7:26
  position of authority is not an act of encouragement, it's an
• 7:31
  act of spiritual cruelty. Wow, cruelty.
• 7:35
  That's a strong word. It's.
• 7:37
  Cruelty masquerading as opportunity.
• 7:40
  We are exposing them to spiritual elements they are
• 7:42
  simply not built to withstand yet.
• 7:45
  It's like taking a toddler and asking them to carry £100
• 7:47
  backpack. It doesn't matter how strong
• 7:49
  they are for a toddler. No, their skeletal structure
• 7:52
  can't handle the load. You will injure them.
• 7:54
  You will break them. And I want to get one point of
• 7:57
  clarification in here because I know we have listeners of all
• 7:59
  ages. When we say novice, we're not
• 8:02
  necessarily talking about a person's biological age, are we?
• 8:05
  That is a crucial, crucial point.
• 8:07
  Paul is not talking about the number on your drivers license.
• 8:10
  I mean, remember who he's writing to.
• 8:12
  Timothy himself was a relatively young man.
• 8:15
  Right, he tells him, let no one despise your youth.
• 8:18
  So he was probably, what, in his 30s?
• 8:20
  Maybe even late 20s. It's likely so.
• 8:23
  The word neophytos refers to being young in the faith.
• 8:26
  It is about your spiritual age, not your chronological 1.
• 8:29
  So you can have a 55 year old CEO who's run a massive company.
• 8:33
  A Fortune 500 company, he knows how to manage 1000 employees.
• 8:37
  He can read a balance sheet in his sleep.
• 8:39
  But if he got saved six months, he is a spiritual novice.
• 8:42
  He's a sapling. But wait a minute, I can't hear
• 8:45
  someone pushing back on that. If a guy can run a global
• 8:48
  corporation, surely he knows how to lead, right?
• 8:51
  Don't those skills transfer? And that's the pragmatic trap we
• 8:54
  fall into. We assume leadership is this
• 8:57
  generic, transferable skill, like knowing how to use
• 9:00
  Microsoft Excel. Well, it's not.
• 9:02
  Leading a business and shepherding A flock are two
• 9:04
  fundamentally different things. One is built on strategy and
• 9:08
  power dynamics, the other is built on humility, patience and
• 9:12
  utter dependence on God. So his corporate skills might
• 9:15
  actually be a liability. They could be if he relies on
• 9:18
  them instead of the spirit. He'll try to run the church like
• 9:21
  a business. He'll manage people instead of
• 9:23
  loving them. He'll crush the sheep because he
• 9:26
  doesn't know how to be a shepherd yet.
• 9:27
  He has the executive skills, but not the gospel roots.
• 9:30
  That's it. And on the flip side, you could
• 9:32
  have a 30 year old plumber who has been walking with Christ
• 9:36
  through incredible trials for 15 years.
• 9:39
  He may not have a business degree, but he might be an old
• 9:42
  soul. Spiritually, he is not a novice.
• 9:45
  OK, that's a very helpful distinction.
• 9:47
  So the roots matter more than the leaves.
• 9:49
  Now let's get into the pathology.
• 9:51
  What actually happens to this novice when we make this
• 9:53
  mistake? Paul gives a very specific
• 9:55
  warning, lest he be lifted up with pride.
• 9:58
  This is where the Greek just opens up a whole world of
• 10:00
  insight that you just don't get from the English translation.
• 10:04
  The word for lifted up with pride is Taif gaze.
• 10:07
  Taif Face. That sounds almost like a
• 10:09
  medical term. It does, doesn't it?
• 10:11
  And it has a connection to the word typhoon, but its root is
• 10:13
  the word typhus taifus, which means smoke or cloud or mist.
• 10:18
  Smoke, You're kidding. So it's not just about having a
• 10:21
  big ego. No, it's so much more vivid than
• 10:24
  that. The image is of a man who is
• 10:27
  wrapped in smoke or blinded by a fog.
• 10:31
  Think about, you know, a fog machine at a rock concert, right
• 10:34
  When that smoke billows out, you can't see anything.
• 10:38
  You lose your bearings. You can't see the edge of the
• 10:40
  stage. You can't see the people around
• 10:41
  you you. Lose touch with reality.
• 10:43
  That's it. Pride in this Pauline sense,
• 10:46
  isn't just strutting around. It is a cognitive distortion.
• 10:49
  Yeah, it is a fog that obscures reality.
• 10:52
  The novice who gets promoted too soon literally cannot see
• 10:56
  himself or God or other people clearly anymore.
• 10:59
  He's blinded by the fumes of his own perceived success.
• 11:03
  You can't see straight. Yeah.
• 11:04
  And there's a grammatical detail here that the sources point out,
• 11:07
  which is just fascinating. I know grammar can seem dry, but
• 11:10
  this really changes how you read the verse.
• 11:12
  The verb is in the passive voice.
• 11:14
  OK, so for those of us who maybe weren't paying attention in high
• 11:17
  school English, why is the passive voice a big deal here?
• 11:20
  The passive voice means the action is happening to this
• 11:22
  subject. It suggests that this swelling
• 11:25
  of pride is something that overtakes him.
• 11:27
  It's not that he wakes up one day and decides, you know what,
• 11:30
  I think I'll be arrogant today. It happens to him.
• 11:33
  It's like an external force acting on him.
• 11:35
  It is when you take a man with shallow spiritual roots and you
• 11:39
  suddenly put him in a position of high visibility, with
• 11:42
  authority, with people praising him, with the dignity of the
• 11:46
  office, that environment itself generates this smoke.
• 11:51
  And because he's immature. He doesn't know how to handle
• 11:53
  it. He doesn't have the spiritual
• 11:54
  ventilation system to clear it out, so he gets enveloped by it.
• 11:58
  He gets intoxicated by it. He starts to believe his own
• 12:00
  press clippings, as they say. He does.
• 12:03
  He starts to confuse the gifts God gave him with the fruit he
• 12:06
  hasn't yet grown. He hears people say that was a
• 12:08
  great sermon and a part of them starts to think I am a great
• 12:12
  preacher instead of God was gracious to speak through me.
• 12:15
  This explains so much about what the source is called the
• 12:17
  Celebrity Convert Syndrome. We see this play out all the
• 12:20
  time. All the time.
• 12:21
  It explains it perfectly. Let's just paint the picture.
• 12:24
  You have a famous musician or an athlete or some kind of public
• 12:28
  figure and they have a genuine conversion and praise God for
• 12:32
  that. Absolutely.
• 12:33
  We rejoice in that. But the church, we often do
• 12:36
  something very dangerous. We are so starved for cultural
• 12:40
  validation, we think, oh, if we can just get this famous person
• 12:43
  on our side, the world will finally take us seriously.
• 12:47
  So we put a microphone in their hand the next week.
• 12:49
  We asked them to give their testimony, then we asked them to
• 12:52
  lead a small group, Then we asked them to speak at the men's
• 12:54
  retreat. They've been a Christian for
• 12:56
  what, a month? We're not treating the church
• 12:58
  like a hospital for sinners, we're treating it like a fan
• 13:01
  club. We want their fame to rub off on
• 13:04
  the gospel. And in doing that, we are
• 13:06
  pumping that typhus, that smoke, directly into their lives.
• 13:10
  We are blinding them to their own desperate need for grace and
• 13:13
  discipleship. We're telling them they're a
• 13:15
  teacher before they've even learned to be a student.
• 13:18
  And the result is almost always tragic.
• 13:21
  It's heartbreakingly predictable.
• 13:23
  The public deconstruction, The moral failure, this scandal.
• 13:27
  And then everyone stands around and acts surprised.
• 13:30
  How could this happen? He was so on fire for the Lord.
• 13:32
  But we shouldn't be surprised at all.
• 13:34
  We took a sapling and we planted in the middle of a hurricane.
• 13:37
  We took someone who needed the quiet safety of the nursery and
• 13:41
  we shoved them onto the front lines of a spiritual war.
• 13:45
  It's pastoral malpractice. And Paul says this whole tragic
• 13:48
  process leads to the condemnation of the devil.
• 13:52
  Crema 2. Diablo, that phrase, it sounds
• 13:56
  incredibly serious, right? First here I think of, you know,
• 13:58
  demonic attack or something. This is where we get into the
• 14:01
  theological deep end of the pool, and we need to spend some
• 14:04
  time here because this is where the real gravity of Paul's
• 14:07
  warning lands, so. What does of the devil mean?
• 14:10
  Is the devil accusing him? Is he setting a trap for him?
• 14:14
  Well, there's a grammatical debate here.
• 14:16
  Some scholars argue for what's called the subjective genitive
• 14:20
  OK, which would mean it's the condemnation that comes from the
• 14:22
  devil. The devil is the source, so he
• 14:25
  sets the trap of pride and the novice falls into it.
• 14:28
  That makes sense on the surface it does.
• 14:31
  But the majority of reform commentators and the sources
• 14:33
  we're looking at lean very heavily in the other direction
• 14:37
  toward the objective genitive. OK, so break that down for us,
• 14:40
  Objective genitive. Think of it this way.
• 14:42
  If I say the judgement to the court, I mean the judgement the
• 14:45
  court pronounced on someone. The sentence they received.
• 14:48
  Right. So the condemnation of the
• 14:50
  devil, it would mean the novice falls into the same kind of
• 14:53
  judgement that the devil himself received.
• 14:55
  Whoa. OK, that is a whole different
• 14:57
  level of serious. He's not just being tricked by
• 14:59
  Satan, he's repeating Satan's own story.
• 15:03
  He is, in a sense, re enacting the devil's own fall.
• 15:07
  To get our heads around this, we have to go way back before
• 15:09
  Genesis 3. We have to look at the fall of
• 15:12
  Satan himself, which we get glimpses of in places like
• 15:15
  Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Right, Satan wasn't created as
• 15:18
  this monstrous figure. Not at all.
• 15:20
  He was created as perhaps the highest of all angelic beings,
• 15:24
  the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty, a
• 15:27
  creature of incredible power and glory.
• 15:29
  So what was the original sin? What went wrong?
• 15:31
  He couldn't handle his own glory.
• 15:34
  He had an aspiring heart. You can hear it in the language
• 15:36
  of Isaiah 14. It's this repetitive chorus of I
• 15:40
  will. I will ascend into heaven.
• 15:41
  I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
• 15:45
  I will sit on the mount of Assembly.
• 15:46
  I will make myself like the Most High.
• 15:48
  It's the ultimate power trip. It's a creature refusing to be a
• 15:51
  creature. And that, right there, is the
• 15:53
  essence of pride. It's the mutter of all heresies.
• 15:57
  The very first sin in the universe wasn't murder or theft.
• 16:00
  It was pride, a desire to take God's place.
• 16:04
  And the result was immediate and catastrophic judgement.
• 16:07
  You are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.
• 16:10
  He tried to ascend, so God cast him down.
• 16:13
  OK, so now connect that cosmic story back to the new elder in
• 16:16
  the small church. How does he fit into this?
• 16:19
  This is the frightening implication.
• 16:21
  By ordaining a novice, by taking a man who is not ready and
• 16:25
  artificially lifting him up, giving him status, authority,
• 16:28
  praise, the Church is in effect tempting that man to repeat the
• 16:33
  primordial sin of the adversary. We're handing him the devil's
• 16:35
  script. We are.
• 16:37
  We are placing him in a position of glory without the necessary
• 16:41
  ballast of humility that comes from years of being humbled by
• 16:44
  God. We're fanning the flames of the
• 16:46
  very sin that turned an Archangel into the devil.
• 16:49
  And we know from Scripture that God opposes the proud.
• 16:51
  He gives grace to the humble, but he actively opposes the
• 16:55
  proud. So the condemnation is to be
• 16:57
  cast down. God will not share his glory
• 17:01
  with another. If a novice puffed up with pride
• 17:04
  begins to act like he is the source of his own gifts, God
• 17:07
  will oppose him. And to be opposed by God is to
• 17:10
  be crushed. So Paul's prohibition isn't
• 17:13
  about being restrictive or, you know, keeping people down.
• 17:16
  It's about saving a man's soul, he's saying.
• 17:18
  Don't put this brother in a position where he is tempted to
• 17:21
  reenact the fall of Satan. This connects so deeply with our
• 17:24
  Reformed understanding of sin, doesn't it?
• 17:26
  Because someone from a different tradition might say, well, hold
• 17:28
  on, he's a Christian now, he has the Holy Spirit.
• 17:31
  He's not going to act like Satan.
• 17:33
  And that's a well meaning but naive view of sanctification.
• 17:37
  The Westminster Confession is so helpful here.
• 17:39
  In chapter 6 Section 5 it talks about how even in the regenerate
• 17:43
  and that true believer, there remain remnants of corruption.
• 17:47
  Remnants of corruption. That's a vivid phrase, it is.
• 17:50
  It means the war against sin has been decisively won at the
• 17:52
  cross, but skirmishes and battles continue to break out in
• 17:56
  our hearts every day, indwelling sin is still active.
• 17:59
  We're not perfected yet. That old nature is still there,
• 18:02
  kicking and screaming. It absolutely is.
• 18:04
  Now you think about a seasoned St.
• 18:06
  An older godly elder, he has spent decades in what the
• 18:10
  Puritans called the mortification of sin.
• 18:12
  Mortification. That means making dead.
• 18:15
  Right Killing sin. He has been in the trenches,
• 18:17
  fighting a long war against his own pride, his own selfishness,
• 18:20
  his own ego. He knows he's weak.
• 18:23
  He has been humbled by God's discipline time and time again.
• 18:26
  He has failed and been restored. He has scars.
• 18:29
  He knows from experience that he is not God.
• 18:31
  He has scars, he walks with a limp like Jacob after wrestling
• 18:35
  with the Angel. But the novice?
• 18:38
  He hasn't fought that long war yet.
• 18:40
  He might know the doctrine of depravity from a book, but he
• 18:43
  hasn't felt the sting of his own persistent pride over years and
• 18:46
  years. So when you give him authority.
• 18:49
  You are pouring spiritual gasoline on those remnants of
• 18:52
  corruption. Authority acts as an accelerant
• 18:56
  to his remaining sin. If there's a pocket of pride he
• 18:59
  hasn't dealt with yet, the office will cause it to explode.
• 19:02
  OK, so the danger is crystal clear.
• 19:04
  We have the botany, the pathology, the theology.
• 19:07
  But let's get practical. What does not a novice actually
• 19:10
  look like? I can just hear a listener
• 19:12
  thinking, OK, is there a number? Do I have to wait five years, 10
• 19:15
  years? Give me the checklist.
• 19:16
  And that's the tricky part, because the Bible deliberately
• 19:19
  doesn't give us a stopwatch. That would just lead to a new
• 19:22
  kind of legalism. You must.
• 19:23
  Be a Christian for 7.5 years before you can be an elder,
• 19:26
  right? And it's not about Gray hair
• 19:29
  either. That would be ageism.
• 19:30
  And we already said Timothy was young.
• 19:32
  And it's not about having a seminary degree, which would be
• 19:34
  a form of intellectualism. So if it's not a number of years
• 19:37
  or Gray hairs or a diploma, what is the true metric?
• 19:42
  The true metric, according to the sources, is time observed.
• 19:46
  Time observed. OK, unpack that.
• 19:48
  What does that mean? It means there needs to be a
• 19:50
  sufficient track record for the Church to observe a man's
• 19:53
  character over time in a few different seasons.
• 19:56
  The writer to the Hebrews says in chapter 5 that maturity
• 20:00
  belongs to those who have their powers of discernment trained by
• 20:03
  constant practice. Constant practice that implies
• 20:06
  repetition. It implies a pattern over time.
• 20:09
  It implies a track record. You need to see how a man
• 20:12
  handles prosperity and how he handles adversity.
• 20:15
  You can't know if a man is steadfast, as James says, until
• 20:18
  his faith has been tested. You don't know if the ship is
• 20:20
  seaworthy until you've seen it go through a few storms.
• 20:23
  Exactly. Anyone can look like a great
• 20:25
  Christian when life is good, the job is secure and the family is
• 20:28
  healthy. But what happens when tragedy
• 20:31
  strikes? What happens when he gets that
• 20:33
  phone call in the middle of the night?
• 20:35
  So if I'm on a search committee or an elder board, what are some
• 20:38
  of those positive markers I should be looking for beyond
• 20:41
  just He's a good communicator? You're looking for stability
• 20:44
  under pressure. Has this man walked through
• 20:47
  suffering and come out with his faith intact, or did he become
• 20:50
  bitter and cynical? If he's married and has
• 20:54
  children, has he parented in a way that has earned his
• 20:57
  children's respect over the long haul?
• 20:59
  That takes years of patient faithfulness.
• 21:02
  And what about service? The sources talk about the
• 21:05
  Gymnasium of Humility, which is a phrase I just love.
• 21:08
  It's a great phrase. The gymnasium of humility is
• 21:10
  where you build the spiritual muscles that allow you to handle
• 21:13
  the weight of authority without it crushing you or puffing you
• 21:16
  up. And real preparation for
• 21:18
  eldership doesn't happen in the pulpit.
• 21:20
  It's not the stuff that gets you noticed.
• 21:22
  No, what it looks like stacking chairs when the service is over
• 21:25
  and everyone else has gone home. Looks like cleaning the church
• 21:28
  bathrooms because the janitor is sick.
• 21:30
  It looks like consistently visiting the elderly shut in who
• 21:33
  can offer you nothing in return. It's the unseen, unnoticed,
• 21:37
  unglamorous work. It's the work that kills pride.
• 21:41
  A man who thinks he's too gifted or too important for that kind
• 21:44
  of meaningful labor is, by definition, too proud to be a
• 21:49
  shepherd of God's people. That's a powerful litmus test
• 21:52
  right there. If a man says my calling is to
• 21:55
  preach, not to plunge toilets. He has just disqualified
• 21:59
  himself. And on the flip side, we should
• 22:01
  also be looking for the negative markers, the red flags.
• 22:04
  OK, give us some of those. A craving to be seen and
• 22:07
  noticed. A man who talks far more than he
• 22:09
  listens in a meeting. Is he the guy who always have to
• 22:13
  have the last word? That's a big one.
• 22:15
  Defensiveness, one corrected. Can this man receive criticism
• 22:19
  even if it's delivered imperfectly, or does he
• 22:21
  immediately get his back? Up the person who can't just say
• 22:23
  you're right, I was wrong, please forgive me.
• 22:26
  Yes, or they tried to spin it so it wasn't really their fault.
• 22:29
  And there's one more the sources mention that is so insightful.
• 22:32
  Doctrinal swagger. Doctrinal swagger.
• 22:35
  I think I know that guy. We've all met him.
• 22:37
  It's confidence that is out of proportion to character.
• 22:40
  It's the young guy who learns a bit of theology.
• 22:43
  Maybe he just discovered the doctrines of grace and suddenly
• 22:46
  he wants to argue with everyone. He uses truth as a weapon to win
• 22:50
  debates rather than as a balm to heal souls.
• 22:54
  He's a theological bouncer, not a gentle shepherd.
• 22:56
  Precisely. That is the classic mark of a
• 22:59
  novice. He has the information, but he
• 23:02
  does not yet have the heart of Christ.
• 23:03
  Now I have to play devil's advocate for a minute.
• 23:06
  I can hear the desperate church planter listening to this.
• 23:09
  He's saying, look, you guys don't get it.
• 23:11
  I'm in a tough city. We have no money.
• 23:12
  We have no staff. We're setting up and tearing
• 23:14
  down in a school gym every single Sunday, and this sharp,
• 23:18
  energetic guy walks in. He's a leader in his field, and
• 23:21
  he wants to help lead the church.
• 23:22
  Are you really telling me? I have to say thanks, but no
• 23:25
  thanks. Come back in three to five
• 23:27
  years. That feels like rejecting a gift
• 23:28
  from God. We need leaders and now WI.
• 23:31
  Hear that, and I feel the weight of that pressure.
• 23:34
  But that is the pragmatism objection.
• 23:36
  It's the belief that if it seems to work, it must be right, or
• 23:40
  that a desperate need gives us permission to bend God's rules.
• 23:43
  But isn't necessity the mother of invention?
• 23:46
  Maybe in business, but not in the Kingdom of God.
• 23:48
  In the Kingdom, obedience is the mother of blessing.
• 23:52
  And the sources are very blunt here.
• 23:53
  They say scarcity does not nullify a divine command.
• 23:57
  Just because you are starving does not give you permission to
• 24:00
  eat poison. That is stark.
• 24:03
  And Paul links this directly to pastoral integrity.
• 24:05
  In First Timothy 5.22. He tells Timothy do not be hasty
• 24:09
  in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others.
• 24:12
  So if I ordained a man who isn't ready and he flames out and
• 24:16
  hurts the church, I'm complicit in that.
• 24:18
  You share in the guilt. The laying on of hands isn't
• 24:21
  just a ceremony, it's an act of public endorsement.
• 24:24
  You're putting your stamp of approval on that man's
• 24:26
  character. If he's a spiritual time bomb,
• 24:29
  you help light the fuse. It's better to have no elders
• 24:32
  than the wrong elders. Far better.
• 24:34
  It is better to go slow and stay small and be healthy than to
• 24:38
  grow fast and big and then explode.
• 24:41
  What about the other big objection?
• 24:43
  But he's just so gifted. We're wasting his talent if we
• 24:45
  make him wait. God gave him these gifts to be
• 24:48
  used for the Kingdom. That goes right back to the
• 24:50
  beginning, to that confusion between ability and stability.
• 24:54
  And a great biblical example of this is Apollo's in the book of
• 24:58
  Acts. Apollo's the eloquent preacher
• 25:00
  from Alexandria. That's him, the text says.
• 25:02
  He was mighty in the Scriptures. He was fervent in spirit.
• 25:06
  He was incredibly gifted, but when Priscilla and Aquila, these
• 25:10
  two faithful lay people, heard him preach.
• 25:12
  They realized something was missing.
• 25:14
  They. Realized his theology was
• 25:15
  incomplete. He only knew the baptism of
• 25:17
  John. So what did they do?
• 25:18
  Did they say, wow, let's get this guy a bigger platform?
• 25:21
  No, they took him aside quietly. They took him home with him and
• 25:25
  explained to him the way of God more accurately.
• 25:27
  He was gifted, but he needed discipleship.
• 25:30
  He needed to be taught. A bright flame is not the same
• 25:33
  thing as a steady lamp. That's a great way to put it.
• 25:36
  The church needs oaks of righteousness, not shooting
• 25:39
  stars. Shooting stars are brilliant for
• 25:41
  a moment, but they burn out fast and they leave nothing but
• 25:44
  darkness behind. What about the Paul objection?
• 25:47
  I hear this one a lot. What about the Apostle Paul?
• 25:50
  He got saved on the road to Damascus and started preaching
• 25:52
  in the synagogue's almost immediately.
• 25:55
  That's a common but slightly inaccurate reading of his life.
• 26:00
  First, Paul was a unique foundational apostle, so we have
• 26:04
  to be careful about making in the norm.
• 26:07
  But even Paul didn't go straight from conversion to his major
• 26:09
  ministry. You're talking about the silent
• 26:11
  years. I am.
• 26:13
  Between his conversion and when the church in Antioch sent him
• 26:16
  out on his first missionary journey.
• 26:18
  There's a gap of probably 10 to 14 years.
• 26:21
  A decade. A decade where he was in Arabia
• 26:24
  and then back in his hometown of Tarsus, God in his wisdom kept
• 26:28
  the Apostle Paul in relative obscurity for over a decade to
• 26:31
  prepare him. If God made Paul wait, I suppose
• 26:34
  we can ask the 25 year old business major to wait a little
• 26:36
  while. I think that's a safe
• 26:37
  assumption. We cannot use extraordinary
• 26:40
  exceptions to overturn ordinary rules.
• 26:42
  There's one more modern error the sources highlight that I
• 26:45
  think is really relevant, especially with the generation
• 26:47
  gaps in the church. They call it the Rehoboam error.
• 26:51
  Yes, from first Kings 12. Such a tragic, avoidable story.
• 26:55
  Remind us of what? Solomon dies and his son
• 26:59
  Rehoboam takes the throne. The people come to him and ask
• 27:02
  for a lighter tax burden. So Rehoboam goes to the old men,
• 27:06
  the elders who would advise his father Solomon.
• 27:08
  And their counsel is wise. They say be a servant to the
• 27:11
  people. Lighten their load and they'll
• 27:13
  serve you forever. Wise, humble counsel.
• 27:16
  But then he goes and asks his peers, the young men who had
• 27:20
  grown up with him. His buddies, His entourage.
• 27:23
  And they give him the exact opposite advice.
• 27:25
  They say no way, you need to show them who's boss.
• 27:27
  Tell them my little finger is thicker than my father's waist.
• 27:30
  It's all about dominance and power.
• 27:32
  And Raya Baum listens to the young guys.
• 27:34
  He does. He rejects the counsel of the
• 27:36
  elders for the rash advice of his friends.
• 27:39
  And the result? It split.
• 27:40
  The Kingdom in two permanently. It was a national disaster, and
• 27:44
  the source connects this to our modern idol of generational
• 27:47
  relevance. We have this pervasive idea that
• 27:50
  a 25 year old is automatically better suited to lead other 25
• 27:54
  year olds just because he's relatable.
• 27:55
  Because he knows the memes, he gets the culture right.
• 27:58
  But relatability is not a substitute for wisdom.
• 28:01
  Relatability might draw a crowd, but it's wisdom and character
• 28:05
  that will keep a church faithful to the gospel over the long
• 28:08
  haul. We cannot trade the tested
• 28:11
  counsel of the elders for the impulsive ideas of the novice
• 28:14
  just to seem cool. So we've spent a lot of time on
• 28:17
  the law, the prohibition. Don't do this.
• 28:19
  Don't be a novice. Don't be proud.
• 28:21
  It's heavy stuff. But let's pivot now to the
• 28:23
  gospel because the law says you are too young, you are too weak,
• 28:27
  you are too proud. The gospel has to have a better
• 28:30
  word for us. It does.
• 28:31
  The gospel points us away from ourselves to the ultimate non
• 28:34
  novice. He is the plant of renown, the
• 28:37
  root of Jesse. He wasn't a mushroom that sprang
• 28:40
  up overnight. He's the ancient oak of
• 28:42
  eternity. And think about his life at 12
• 28:45
  years old. He's in the temple.
• 28:48
  And he's astounding the greatest religious teachers of his day
• 28:52
  with his wisdom. He knew more than all of them
• 28:53
  combined. He was God in the flesh.
• 28:55
  He could have launched his public ministry right then and
• 28:58
  there. He could have said, all right,
• 29:00
  I'm ready, I'm the Messiah. Let's get this started.
• 29:02
  But he didn't. What did he do instead?
• 29:04
  The text says he went back down to Nazareth with his parents and
• 29:09
  was submissive to them. He went home, and for the next
• 29:13
  18 years he worked in a Carpenter shop.
• 29:15
  He swept sawdust. He built yolks and tables. 18
• 29:18
  years of total obscurity for the Son of God.
• 29:21
  The Creator of the cosmos spent 30 years in hidden faithfulness
• 29:24
  before saith. He spent three years in public
• 29:27
  ministry. He waited.
• 29:29
  He embraced the long, slow path. Why?
• 29:31
  Why would he wait so long? To fulfill all righteousness for
• 29:34
  us, He accepted the discipline of obscurity that we are so
• 29:37
  desperate to avoid. He's sanctified the waiting
• 29:40
  room. He showed us that true greatness
• 29:42
  is found not in the public platform, but in quiet, humble
• 29:46
  faithfulness. And while Satan, who was in a
• 29:49
  sense the original proud novice, tried to ascend.
• 29:52
  Jesus descended. That's a heart of Philippians 2.
• 29:55
  He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
• 29:59
  emptied himself. He went down, down into the
• 30:02
  womb, down to the Manger, down to the cross.
• 30:04
  And on that cross, he takes on that terrifying phrase from
• 30:07
  earlier. He does.
• 30:09
  On the cross. Jesus absorbs the condemnation
• 30:12
  of the devil. He takes the divine judgement
• 30:14
  that our pride, our cosmic treason, deserves.
• 30:17
  He was lifted up on a cross in shame and agony so that we would
• 30:20
  not have to be lifted up in pride to our own destruction.
• 30:23
  That's the great reversal. He takes the smoke of judgment
• 30:25
  so we can breathe the clear air of grace.
• 30:28
  And that is such good news for the person who feels called to
• 30:30
  leadership but is stuck in a season of waiting.
• 30:33
  It really is. It changes the whole perspective
• 30:35
  on it. It means you don't need a title
• 30:37
  to validate your existence. Your identity is not pastor or
• 30:42
  elder or leader. If you are in Christ, your
• 30:44
  identity is already beloved child of God.
• 30:48
  You are a son of the King. The verdict is in.
• 30:51
  So the restriction that no, not yet, it's not a punishment, it's
• 30:54
  actually a form of protection. It's a severe mercy.
• 30:58
  God is saying to that aspiring leader, I love you too much to
• 31:01
  let you carry a weight that would crush you.
• 31:04
  I love you too much to let you reenact the devil's fall.
• 31:07
  I'm going to protect you and hide you and grow you in secret
• 31:10
  for a while. He's not forgetting you.
• 31:12
  He's forging you. He's giving you time to grow
• 31:15
  those deep roots in the soil of His grace without the pressures
• 31:18
  of public performance. He is patiently making you into
• 31:21
  an oak. It's not a barrier, it's a
• 31:22
  greenhouse. It's the greenhouse of God.
• 31:24
  Exactly. So as we wrap this up, let's
• 31:26
  bring it all home. The sources leave us with a
• 31:28
  final, very probing thought, a diagnostic question for anyone
• 31:32
  who is frustrated by a season of waiting.
• 31:34
  If you feel ready, but the Church is saying not yet, you
• 31:37
  need to ask yourself this one question.
• 31:39
  Are you eager for the work of the Ministry or you just eager
• 31:43
  for the status of the office? That's the question right there.
• 31:45
  Because the work of the ministry, the praying, the
• 31:48
  serving, the loving, the studying, the bearing of
• 31:50
  burdens. You can start doing that right
• 31:52
  now. No one needs to vote you in to
• 31:55
  allow you to pray for a sick brother.
• 31:58
  No one needs to give you a title to let you study the Bible with
• 32:01
  a younger believer. You don't need a title to serve.
• 32:04
  And if you find you're only willing to do the work, if you
• 32:07
  get the title that reveals your heart, it shows you're not
• 32:11
  seeking the grind, You're seeking the glory.
• 32:14
  And that, ironically, is the clearest possible sign that you
• 32:17
  are not ready. The answer to that question
• 32:19
  tells you everything. If you are content to serve
• 32:21
  faithfully in the shadows, you might just be growing the roots
• 32:24
  that will one day be able to withstand the storm.
• 32:27
  Amen to that. Let's be a people who value the
• 32:29
  slow growth of the oak over the sudden appearance of the
• 32:32
  mushroom. Trust in God's timing is hard,
• 32:35
  but it's always good. Thank you for listening to
• 32:37
  Reformed Thinking. Grace and peace.