For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus.
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea.
Higher than the mountains.
Sparking like a fountain.
All sufficient grace for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions.
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
O magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise His name.
Wonderful grace of Jesus reaching the most defiled.
By His transforming power.
Making Him God's dear child.
Purchasing peace and heaven for all eternity.
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus.
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea.
Higher than the mountains.
Sparking like a fountain.
All sufficient grace for even me.
Broader than the scope of my transgressions.
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
O magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise His name.
All right, let us pray.
Dear Holy Father, thank you for allowing us to be back here this evening.
I just pray that this service will be edifying to us as we hear the preaching.
I pray that as we sing to you, that we do it with all our might and that it all be done for your glory.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, next song, we're going to turn to our white handouts or you can turn to your Bibles to Psalm 126.
Psalm 126 in your white handouts or you can turn to your Bibles to Psalm 126.
And said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things for them.
The Lord had done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
And said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things for them.
The Lord had done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
Then said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things for them.
The Lord had done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you need a bulletin, lift up your hand nice and high and one of our ushers can come by and get you a bulletin.
In the inside we have our service and so many times as well as our church stats
and then our list of expecting ladies and our prayer list.
On the back we have the note about our upcoming events.
We have our music recital.
If you should have gotten a communication from my wife on that exact time,
please make sure to be here about 15 minutes before your rehearsal time.
We have the Arlington Soul Winning Blitz on the 29th.
Our Texas Chili Cookoff, the 31st.
The music recital itself will be on November 5th.
And then we have the Matamora Soul Winning Trip, November 10th.
Our Thanksgiving Desert Fellowship is the 23rd of November.
December 2nd is our ladies' Christmas party.
This evening we're going to be doing our business meeting fall immediately after the evening service.
And so it is just for our members, FYI.
Also our church reminders.
Please make sure that your kids are not running in the church at any time.
There's no playing on the stage.
Kids should be supervised by their parents at all times.
Our Mother Bay room area is designed for birth and up to two years old.
However, obviously if you've got to take your three, four, five, whatever age really,
other children with you in there,
please just try to have them sitting down and still trying to pay attention in the service.
Also we have a rule that we don't want any children in the Mother Bay room without their children.
So that is for safety very specifically.
And again, we love having a Mother Bay room.
We like to even have more options.
Obviously we're kind of limited with this space.
But obviously the goal of the Mother Bay room is to make it a little bit easier on mothers to pay attention in the service.
But we still want to encourage all of the mothers to train their children on a regular basis
to pay attention and sit still during the service.
So please make sure you're trying to do that.
It's not just my benefits for your benefits, for your kids' benefit, okay?
Also, children should not be using the ice machine or refrigerator.
They need assistance from an adult.
The gliders are for nursing or pregnant mothers.
If you're not a nursing or pregnant mother, just stay away from them.
Also, children should not be roaming the church for any reason,
especially during a service.
And the church staff and ushers will help aid if they notice anything.
They'll definitely help let everyone know that these rules should be followed.
So part of these instructions are for you ushers to be reminded, too,
that you need to help assist in this and make sure that everyone's behaving appropriately
and we're not having any problems.
We want to have good testimony.
We want visitors to enjoy the church.
They don't want to say, oh, wow, it's just a rowdy bunch of crazy, quiverful people just screaming.
Why would I ever want to have a bunch of kids if they act like that?
And we want to have the exact opposite opinion where they come and they say,
man, how do they have so many kids and they're all well behaved and the church is very orderly.
I love fellowship, and honestly, that's probably one of the best things about our church.
But I don't think it's good to just evaluate fellowship over just neglecting your children.
So make sure that you're still paying attention to your children and that we're good testimony at all times.
That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
We'll sing our last song and then I'll immediately go to our business meeting.
And then I'll share a few things as well.
Because technically a couple of our directors are not even going to be present due to sickness.
I may try to just conference call them in for the business meeting section,
but we're not going to be live streaming or recording it at all, anything like that.
So just FYI.
Let's go to our third song for the evening.
Our third song is one hundred and eighty eight.
The love of God. One hundred and eighty eight.
One hundred eighty eight. The love of God.
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair bowed down with care.
God gave his son to win.
His every child he reconciled and parted from his sin.
Oh, love of God, rich and pure, measureless and strong.
It shall forevermore endure the saints and angels song.
For a time shall pass away and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall.
When men who here refuse to pray on rocks, the hills and mountains call.
God's love to share shall still endure measureless and strong.
Redeeming grace to Adam's race, a saints and angels song.
Oh, love of God, rich and pure, measureless and strong.
It shall forevermore endure the saints and angels song.
We within the ocean fill and where the skies of parchment mean.
For every stock on earth the quill and every man ascribe a trade.
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole through streets from sky to sky.
Oh, love of God, rich and pure, measureless and strong.
It shall forevermore endure the saints and angels song.
While the offering plates are passed around, turn in your Bibles to Titus chapter 1.
Titus chapter 1, and we will read the whole chapter as is our custom.
Titus chapter 1, the Bible reads there.
In Titus chapter 1, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness,
in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.
But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching,
which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior.
To Titus, mine own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace,
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting,
and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee.
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry,
not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre,
but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate,
holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught,
that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision,
whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake.
One of themselves, even a prat of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
This witness is true, wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,
not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.
Under the pure all things are pure, but under them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure,
but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient,
and unto every good work, reprobate.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father God, we thank you for Titus chapter one, Lord, and for salvation, for the free gift of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And Lord, I just pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and just help him to preach his sermon for us, Lord.
And we just pray also that you would enable us to the best of our ability to apply the message
to our lives so we can be better, more complete Christians. We love you.
And I pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Amen. So we're here in Titus, chapter number one.
And look at verse number five, real famous verse here.
For this cause, left I be in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting,
and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee.
So according to the Bible, Titus was instructed to ordain elders in every city.
Now, of course, ideally, we would have an ordained God-fearing Baptist pastor in every single city.
But sometimes that's not always a reality in the world that we live in today.
You have to realize also, if we think about the context of this passage,
he is not saying in this context every city in the world,
but specifically the cities where they went and started a church and formed a church
and they're trying to get elders for those cities and for those churches.
And why I think that context matters is because I do believe it's unrealistic
and never has existed where every city in the entire world has always had a Baptist church
with a saved pastor that's doing great things for God.
That has never existed. I don't believe it ever will exist.
Even in this time, there's huge sections of the world that are essentially not really going to become Christian or want to serve God.
I mean, show me the Baptist church in every North Korean city today.
Show me the Baptist church in every part of China.
Show me the Baptist church in every single city.
We live in America, so we kind of have this rosy glass-colored view of the world.
But in reality, it's never going to always be 100% of the world.
Now, in America, depending on what size you're going to put for a city,
there's probably a Baptist church in every city.
Now, I don't know that they're all good. I don't know that they're all saved necessarily, but there's probably one.
And arguably, I think within a couple-hour driving distance, you could probably find a decent church everywhere in America.
Now, does that mean that every church is awesome or they're doing soul-winning even?
Maybe not. But just generally speaking, you can find a church.
So the question is for us, as a New Testament local church, what is our goal in this area of ordaining elders?
And here's my vision, and this is what my perspective is on this chapter,
is to ordain as many elders as we end up getting the opportunity to ordain.
So what I don't want to do, though, is I don't want to ordain someone that shouldn't be ordained.
And it sounds pretty simple, but I don't want to lower the bar of ordination so that we can increase the quantity of churches.
We should maintain a high level of quality and say, here's the bar, here's the standard for ordination,
and if that means we have five churches out of that, then we get five.
If it means we have 50, then it means we have 50.
If it means we have one, then it means we have one.
If it says zero, then it's zero.
But you know, as a pastor, while I would love to ordain other men and start at the churches,
and I have no problem with that, I will never ordain someone unless I feel like they meet all the qualifications,
and I feel like it's the right decision to ordain them.
Because to me, it's less important to ordain people and just give churches pastors than to just put the wrong person in,
or even at the wrong time.
You know, we already have enough quantity of churches in America.
What I want is quality.
Now, there are other churches out there, other independent Baptist churches with saved pastors,
and if you have a heartbeat and you kind of want to be a pastor, they'll probably ordain you.
You can go to a lot of Bible colleges, and if you graduate, you'll fall in line and you'll get ordained somewhere.
If you go serve in a lot of churches and you say you want to be a pastor, once you read a certain mark in time,
five, six, seven years, they'll probably ordain you.
There might even be friends that I have or people that I like that are more willing or more likely to ordain people.
I'm just telling you from my perspective that I don't want to ordain anyone unless I feel like it's right.
And here's another thing that I like about this passage.
He's ordaining elders. Notice it doesn't say that he's making sure people are qualified to be a pastor.
And I think there's a disconnect in a lot of people's mind.
They think if I meet the qualifications, I'm getting ordained, but that is not accurate, especially for this church.
And what I mean by that is let's say you had a company and you were going to hire people.
What you first do is you say, here's the job posting, and you have a bunch of people submit a resume,
and you review all the resumes, and then you do interviews.
Well, here's the thing. You would not interview anyone that didn't meet the qualifications.
It's an automatic decline.
It's an automatic like I'm not even going to talk to you about it because there's no point in even talking to you.
But here's another thing.
Almost no company in this world just automatically approves every single person that just meets the basic requirements.
There has to be other aspects of the job that ends up having someone get selected.
And I, in the same way when it comes to pastoring, there could hypothetically be men in our church that meet all the qualifications,
and I will not ordain them because I don't think it's the right fit.
Also, I don't believe that men should strive to meet the qualifications of a pastor only if they want to be a pastor.
I believe that every man in our church should strive to meet all of the qualifications of a pastor even if they never want to be a pastor.
Because there's not anything on this list or there's not anything in these lists of qualifications that are like, well, you know what?
I know pastors need to do that, but regular people don't need to do that.
No, no. Everything on the list is what every man should be desiring.
So ideally, you would have a church full of men that are qualified, but then the only ones that are getting selected are the ones that, you know, have a strong desire and are going to be a really good fit in that particular role.
So the title of my sermon this evening is Ordaining Elders, Ordaining Elders.
And the goal of the sermon is just to kind of lay out for you what I'm thinking when it comes to ordination.
And this is, you say, well, I don't want to be a pastor. Okay, that's fine. But you still need to know this information.
Number one, because our church plans on ordaining people potentially in the future, so you should be able to recognize who that individual is going to be, also helping and assisting them.
Also, though, you should consider these things because you don't want to find yourself in a church down in the future that doesn't even have a legitimate pastor or a pastor that's not even really meeting the qualifications
or isn't really fitting the bar the way that the Bible describes. Because for you and your family, the pastor should be a model in every area of life.
So when the pastor is not a good example in many areas of life, it's going to be a detriment to your family.
You know, I've heard this said, and I think it's actually probably pretty true, is that over a period of time, everybody kind of becomes their pastor.
And what they mean by that is that in a lot of ways, people will end up modeling or having the same viewpoints or ideas as their pastor, whether they like it or not.
Because just like you're like your dad and you're like your mom, it's when you're around somebody and you hear them talk enough and you've had enough relationship, you just start picking up all kinds of different things about that person.
And a lot of it's even subconscious. I remember one of my friends, I hung out with him a lot, and then I finally met his dad.
And it was almost creepy, but there's nothing creepy about it, but it was just creepy to me.
Because I met the guy's dad and I told the guy, I joked or something, and he laughed and smiled, and it looked exactly how my friend laughed and smiled.
And I was like, whoa. You know, how do you have the exact same cackle laugh and the exact same expression?
And it's because monkeys see, monkeys do, in the sense that, you know, you pick up so much from the people around you, even in tangible qualities or things that aren't even communicated expressly, but just body language, just everything.
There's so much you just kind of pick up from people.
And so, to me, it's important if I'm going to ordain a pastor, I want to identify a guy and his family that I say, you know what, I want to press the copy button on them.
Like, if I could look at this family and say, like, man, I wish I could just take them and just copy them about two dozen times and that would be my church, you know, or whatever the number is.
You know, that is what you would think of as a pastor, you know, not just a checklist or not just a few things.
And really, it's not even just about him, it's about the whole package.
And I have a lot of things I want to kind of discuss, but I mostly want to focus on this idea of the package of a pastor and the package of this man.
But look here in verse number six, this is giving some qualifications.
It says, if any, be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly.
Now, he says at the very beginning, if any, meaning that there's not really any qualifications outside of this that Titus has to have.
Meaning that if someone kind of meets all this criterion, then that's sufficient for him to decide to ordain that person.
It's not saying that he can't also think about other things, but it's just simply saying, hey, anybody that meets this stuff, this is your minimum bar, basically.
So for Titus, he basically has a minimum threshold of what has to exist for him to want to ordain a particular elder.
One of those minimum thresholds is being blameless.
Now, again, why this is important is because why would you then want to go to a church that's not meeting this minimum threshold?
You should want to go to a church where they're meeting at least the minimum threshold, not going below the bar.
If someone's above the bar, that's great.
But if they're below the bar, then that's not good.
What does it mean to be blameless?
Well, obviously, we're not talking about sinless perfection because then we'll never have a pastor again.
I personally interpret it blameless.
Again, a lot of these are going to be my personal interpretation because they're mentioned one time in Scripture.
It's a lot of discretion here.
I'm just trying to make it practical for you guys.
Here's how I view blameless.
In the eyes of the general public, there's no obvious problem with this person.
This guy has not been arrested for getting drunk.
This guy doesn't have a bunch of DUIs.
This guy wasn't convicted for murdering his father.
There's pastors out there like that.
You think I'm joking. It's real.
There's not some obvious, he didn't go bankrupt.
He didn't have some scandal.
Basically, just from a public perspective, there's nothing you could look at this guy and just say,
isn't that the guy that killed his dad?
Didn't that guy get drunk and kill someone in an accident?
Didn't this guy do this thing or whatever?
Obviously, we could have sin.
We're all going to have sin, but it's not like this public embarrassment, this public shame.
Why?
Because that public embarrassment is going to be thrown in your face when you become a pastor.
Whatever that is, it's going to be thrown in your face.
It's basically going to put the cause of Christ to shame.
You'll say, oh, I guess just father killers are great pastors, huh?
It's not like you can't serve Christ.
It's not that you can't get past your past.
I know this for a fact that everything that you've ever done in the past that's bad will come out into the public square.
Because your enemies and every other person that's ever known you or thought about you is going to come and drag that stuff out of the mud.
You hooked up with the wrong person in the past or you did something weird.
Whenever you become a pastor, somehow they'll come out of the woodwork and they'll say, like this Herschel Walker dude that's running for State Senate in Georgia.
It's like all these women are coming out and airing all this dirty laundry about him.
I don't even know if it's true or not.
But if it is true, for sure it was probably going to happen.
Why? Because anybody that's put in a position of pastor especially, especially coming from Step Fast Baptist Church, they will track down your past and they will try to do anything and everything to hurt you.
So that's why it's important to take a guy that doesn't really have that so they don't really have anything to go on.
There's not any truth.
If they came out and said all these lies or whatever, it's just baseless.
You know, there's not any real validity to it.
It also says the husband of one wife.
You know, obviously this, you know, he can't be divorced.
You know, I'll never ordain someone that's been divorced.
Now, if your spouse is dead, you could technically get remarried.
But I still won't ordain you as a pastor.
You know, that one's off the limits as far as that particular.
Also, I would not ordain you if you married a woman that was divorced.
Now, I'm not saying that you can't be a great person.
I don't even care personally.
I'm just saying I won't ordain you.
And, you know, of course polygamy would be off the table, right?
Okay.
So it's just making it clear.
Now, if a man had been married and then was a widower and got remarried, I don't think that that's saying this.
I think it's specifically limited to divorce or polygamy or something weird like that.
It says, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
So, obviously, your children also have to be a good example.
You know, there could be a guy out there that's a pretty good guy by himself, but his children are terrible.
And here's the thing.
I don't want to ordain that guy.
I won't ordain that guy.
There are even examples of this in the Bible.
You know, think about Eli's, you know, he's a pretty decent guy on his own, but his sons are terrible.
Even Samuel.
Samuel's a great guy.
You can't even say anything bad about Samuel really on a personal level because at the end of his ministry, he literally just told all the children of Israel.
He's like, hey, go ahead and testify when I've done anything wrong to any person at any time.
And everybody's like, you never have.
But his sons were terrible and they took bribes and they perverted judgment.
So, you know, Samuel is a priest, but he could not be a New Testament pastor.
And some people get mad about this.
They're like, ah, well, you wouldn't ordain Jesus.
It's like, well, number one, Jesus is the bishop, the chief bishop, so he doesn't need me to ordain him.
All right.
But, yeah, no, Jesus doesn't fit the bill of a New Testament local pastor.
That's okay because, you know, he has a different role.
You know, just like I don't need to ordain the apostles.
Either.
They're like above pastors anyways, you know.
It's like the apostle Paul, the one giving the instructions, isn't even qualified to be a local New Testament bishop because he's single.
Does that mean that Paul's not a great Christian?
Of course.
He's a wonderful Christian.
You know, it's not like being a New Testament pastor makes you the greatest Christian ever.
It has zero impact on you being the greatest Christian.
What makes you a great Christian is loving God and keeping his commandments.
That's what makes you a great Christian.
A pastor is a specific role for a specific purpose.
Okay.
Just like women are priceless in their value, but they're not supposed to be the husband.
You know, it's like it's not like that's degrading.
You know, feminism basically degrades women by trying to tell them that they're not of high value by being a wife and a mother.
It's like, no, no, no.
They're great when they're in that role.
Okay.
And being a pastor is great.
Being just a Christian is great.
Being an evangelist is great.
It doesn't really matter.
But we do want people to still have a desire for this work and to do this work because it is an important role.
You know, humanly speaking, I think it's probably the most important job in the world being a pastor.
You know, I don't think there's a more important job than a man could potentially have.
But just because it's an important job doesn't mean that we just want to hand it out willy-nilly.
And, you know, if we even have less pastors than we need, then so be it because that's always going to be the case anyways.
We'll never have enough pastors.
Okay.
But I'm not going to fix that problem by ordaining people that are bozos.
Now, of course, that could happen.
But I don't want to have a guilty conscience or be like, man, I really kind of felt weird about that guy.
I shouldn't have done it.
You know, I want to have a really clear conscience.
And then if they go bad, that's their fault.
Okay.
And that can happen.
That can happen to the best of us.
But we've already seen enough bozos that my perspective is that I want to be really strict so that I don't make that mistake.
Okay.
Because, again, while it can happen, I also think that if you're really diligent, you know, you can almost prevent that a lot of times too.
No one's perfect.
Judas was even amongst Jesus' disciples.
We get that.
But, you know, I look to a guy like Pastor Roger Menes.
This guy has obtained a lot of pastors so far, and they're all great guys.
I mean, and I don't know, maybe eventually some of them won't pan out.
And that's going to always be a likely probability.
You know, not everybody's going to pan out.
Not everybody's going to be faithful forever.
And that's okay.
But, you know, look at this guy who's really diligent, and he's had a lot of really successful ordinations already.
And, you know, I believe that if you're really diligent, you can have a really successful track record in ordination.
And that's my goal.
Another thing, though, here is having fabled children.
What does that even mean to have fabled children?
I don't believe it's saying that they're saved necessarily.
I believe it's saying that they're obedient.
Now, of course, being saved is an important aspect, you know, especially if they're older.
But here's the thing.
I can't force my children to be saved, but I can force them to obey.
And when it comes to a pastor, as a pastor, you have to rein people in, and you have to help them obey and be obedient to the Lord.
So if I can't even rein my own children in, why would then I be a good example or a good person to then help rein an entire church in?
If I can't even get a three-year-old to obey me, why would I expect grown men to listen to what I have to say or follow my example?
That doesn't make any sense.
That's why the Bible is bringing this up.
And, you know, it really is a poor example when the pastor's children are the worst children in the church.
It's not to say that a kid won't mess up.
My kids mess up.
My kids have done weird things.
I remember, you know, Pastor Anderson, my sending pastor when I was going to Faith Ward Baptist Church, he preached, like, a really hardcore sermon on, like, children being obedient and parents watching their kids and, like, how it's important for ordination, things like this.
I kid you not.
Immediately following the service, immediately, my oldest Clayton, he had gotten a glass of water, and he walks all the way up right to the pulpit and then just starts pouring the water on the ground.
And right in front of Pastor Anderson.
And he's like, oh, he's doing a drink offering.
I was so embarrassed.
I felt mortified.
But, you know, at least this, I felt very ashamed and I corrected the situation.
I see sometimes parents notice their kid do something really bad and it's like it doesn't even seem like they care.
That's a bad example.
You know, your kids are going to screw up.
Your kids will make mistakes at times.
But, you know, your job as a parent is not to make sure your kids are perfect.
It's to deal with them when they're not perfect.
And a parent that won't deal with a child that makes a mistake is a bad person to be a pastor.
Because as a pastor, bad things are going to happen.
People are going to make mistakes and someone has to step in and say no.
Someone has to step in and say this isn't right.
Someone has to say, hey, you believe that?
Hit the road, Jack.
And don't come back.
Someone has to throw people out of church.
Someone has to have tough conversations with people.
And let me tell you something.
It's way easier to discipline children than a grown man.
You know, I've had to have really tough conversations with people and, you know what, I don't enjoy it.
I actually despise doing it.
That's why it's important that whoever is the pastor can already do it for his children because it's so much more uncomfortable and not fun when you're dealing with other people.
And I don't even like, you know, my personality is a people pleaser by nature.
So it's actually really hard for me sometimes to want to tell people that they're doing bad things or wrong things because you're going to hurt their feelings.
You know, but the Bible says faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
Sometimes you just have to tell people like, look, dude, this is bad or, hey, you've got some serious problems here or this needs to get fixed.
And if you really love people, you'll do it.
But as a pastor, you know, or someone that's going to be ordained as a pastor, if they can't discipline their children properly, they're not a good fit.
Okay.
Look at verse number seven.
For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre.
Now, if you were to really look at verse seven, it kind of just is summarized by self-control.
Because think about it, right?
Not being self-willed is controlling your fleshly desires, your own selfish ambitions, your pride.
Not being angry soon is controlling your anger.
Not given to wine is controlling your appetite.
When it says here no striker, that's controlling your physical reaction to negative things, okay?
Not given to filthy lucre is controlling yourself from just having a love of money.
So notice that it has to be a person that's in self-control.
And what I've noticed is that typically being in self-control, it's not about issues.
It's about just being a person of self-control.
So if you can't control yourself in some areas, it's probably that you can't control it in all areas.
It's plausible that there are certain areas that aren't that tempting to you.
But as a general rule, as a pastor, you need to be a person that has a lot of self-control.
And let me tell you some reasons why.
You know, I have a lot of temptation.
I have a lot of opportunity to lose control when dealing with things like protesters, enemies of our church, all kinds of different things.
And here would be a bad thing if I start striking these people and going after them and doing whatever.
You know, that's not going to be good.
It's not going to set a good example for the church.
So men that can't maintain self-control in certain areas of their life, it's probably just they're not a good fit for a pastor because you have to exercise so much self-control.
I mean, as the pastor of the church, you know, I'm in control of the finances.
I'm in control of the spiritual direction of the church.
I'm in control of the future of the church.
I'm in control of, like, all these different things that are so important.
And if I can't exercise self-control in small matters, how much more in the lofty matters?
How much more in the big matters?
And you've got to be faithful in that which is least.
And so, you know, if you want to become a pastor, you have to learn how to have self-control in every area.
You know, here's the thing.
I tell my church, like, hey, don't yell at the protesters.
Don't interact with these people.
And you know why?
I don't.
But someone that can't follow that instruction, I question them, like, what other things would you not be able to be in self-control on?
And, you know, there's a lot of men in this church that do a great job with that.
And I'm sure, I'm confident that you could have a comeback that would be better than theirs.
I'm confident that if needed, you would pummel their face in and you would win that battle.
Okay?
It's not that you have to show off to me how manly you are.
I get it.
You know, it's taking candy from a baby from these effeminate queers.
Okay?
But exercising self-control is an important trait here that is not just for that one instance, but for all manner of instances.
You know, isn't it great that Joseph, when tempted to sleep with his boss's wife, just ran away from the situation?
You know, do you really want a pastor that can't say no to things?
I mean, what is he going to do with the money?
Where is he going to go?
I mean, because, again, if he can't have good oversight in small things, how is he going to have oversight in big things?
You know, that's a scary proposition.
And so what people have done is they say, oh, we need to have an oversight board.
Oh, we need to have a deacon board.
And they basically say yes to every transaction at the church.
Or we have the oversight board and anything the pastor does that we don't like, we're going to have a talking to.
And we're going to vote on everything.
And they basically say, well, we can't give this guy a bunch of authority and a bunch of power because, you know, what is he going to do?
Here's the problem.
Is when have we ever seen a model in the Bible where we were reigning in the good leader and it was a positive thing?
Or was it like, hey, we've got to counsel together, Moses, and you're off on a few things?
No, the biblical model is always to have a strong leader dragging everybody to the direction they don't want to go.
So if you want to fix this problem, you don't fix it by stripping away the power of a pastor.
You fix it by ordaining really great pastors, by having really high standards, and not just saying like, well, let's just give anybody that rodeo.
No, no, no.
We want to have a high threshold, we want to have a high bar, and we want to retain the right type of people.
But we still want to give them all the power to make the positive impact in their church, to spend the money wisely.
You know, I've been to business meetings where the old ladies are quibbling over $500 spent on the church, you know, money.
And I'm thinking like, what are we doing here?
I've seen, you know, business meetings where women are getting up and criticizing not the main pastor, but a lower pastor, for making like $45,000 or $50,000 a year.
And I'm like thinking, like I looked at his salary and I was thinking like, this guy is way underpaid.
And then this lady's over here like criticizing like, well, I think, you know, burgers were a nickel back in my day and, you know, it was just a pot of money.
And it's just like, lady, step aside.
Number one, you're living on Social Security.
You don't even know what it's like to support a whole family.
Why is any woman telling men what it's like to support a family or how much money they need?
That's stupid.
Well, how are we going to trust the guy?
You are dang good guys.
And it's like, well, what if it goes bad?
Then go to a better church.
You know, my philosophy has always been go to the best church in your area.
If there's a better church, go to it.
Why would I want to slow you down in your spiritual walk?
That makes no sense.
In fact, if there's just so much better church in this area, let's all quit and just join their church.
Why not?
Philosophically, I have nothing against that.
The reason why we have this church is because we want to be a bright and shining light.
We want to emphasize soul winning.
We want to emphasize a lot of important doctrines that are not being thundered forth in this area.
You know, I didn't even want to start a church here initially when I had thought about it.
This is kind of like around the steadfast actual church planning time.
Because I was thinking, you know, Don and Romero's already there.
Why would I want to start a church in an area where there's already a good church with Pastor Romero?
You know, if there's a great church within a few hours driving distance, why would I want to start another church right next to it
when I could go to another area that doesn't have a church that's doing great things, okay?
And, you know, someone that's going to get ordained has to show a lot of self control in a lot of areas.
Because being a pastor is an important job.
You're going to impact the spiritual walk of so many Christians.
And really, we can talk about the carnal things and that's what people get really hung up on.
You know, more important than managing the money and managing the finances, managing the buildings,
managing people's Christianity.
And, you know, it seems like all these oversight boards and all of these deacon committees,
all they talk about is the money and the physical and all the other stuff. Nuts to that stuff.
I would rather our church be running a deficit and doing great spiritually than having all this money
and the spiritual walk of all our church sucks.
So why does that even matter? That's stupid.
It's stupid to get so concerned with those things when they're not even the most important.
But whoever's going to be ordained needs to have self control.
Verse 8, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.
So there's a lot of qualities here. A lot of them just are based on discretion.
Go to 1 Timothy 3. I want to look at that list as well.
So you kind of have two lists and really there's a lot of similarities, very similar.
A couple things that are pointed out as being a little different.
Verse 1, if a man desire the office of bishop, he desire the good work, a bishop then must be blameless,
the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober of good behavior, given the hospitality, apt to teach.
So again, a lot of the same things.
Obviously someone has to be able to teach well.
You know, you could have all the knowledge here, but if you can't communicate it in an effective manner,
then you're just not the right person as being a pastor.
There's nothing wrong with you not being the best communicator.
But why would I put someone in a position that their job is all communication if they're not good at communicating?
Okay, so it needs to be someone that's very articulate.
They have a command of the English language if they're going to be a preacher in English.
Someone that understands the Bible, you know, and can communicate in a really effective manner.
You know, I don't want to get some hillbilly Joe up here that's like,
well, I just believe the Bible by faith.
I don't even understand half the words on this page, but you know what, I just believe them.
You know, that's a bad person to be a pastor or to be a leader because, you know,
the person that's leading and teaching should be an example to everybody else,
not up here like, I don't even understand the Bible.
That's dumb, okay?
You don't understand half the words on the page.
You don't even speak English, okay?
But it also says in verse 3, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of philly lucre,
but patient, not a brawler, not covetous.
Again, kind of that self-control aspect.
Verse 4, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.
For if a man do not rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?
Again, notice in the qualifications, it's just like one-word items, sober, grave, you know.
It'll bring up things like no striker.
Okay, those are really short.
Notice it gives two whole verses to explain one other thing, him being a good manager of his house,
because this really, in essence, is going to tell you how good of a pastor the guy would be.
Someone that is not good at managing his house is not going to be a good manager of the house of God.
So, you know, there could be, and I believe that there is and will be, men that they themselves,
I look at and I say, you're great.
You know what?
I like your sermons.
I like your preaching.
You're zealous for soul winning.
But here's a problem.
Your household is not a household that I want to hit repeat on.
You're just not going to be a pastor.
That's okay.
Not everybody has to be a pastor.
Now, obviously, you should work on that and you should try to improve in that area.
You know, if someone is great on their own but their household's not great, I don't want to hit the repeat button.
It's not, and you say, well, where's my list?
Here's your list.
Genesis to Revelation.
You know, I don't have, I'm not going to give you a checklist, okay?
You know, and don't be ad infinit about it like I decided I'm ordained, ordain me.
That's not how it works, okay?
It's not just a checklist.
But I want to give you some things to think about because I believe in understanding the essence of this passage.
There's some intangibles that should exist in a man that's a pastor.
And here's something I do to test in my mind whether I'm right or not.
I think about pastors I have respect for.
So I think about men like Pastor Steven Anderson.
I think about men like Pastor Roger Menes.
I think about men like Pastor Bruce Mejia.
I think about men like, you know, a lot of my friends, Pastor Aaron Thompson and Pastor David Berzins and, you know, other men that I know really well.
And there's certain intangibles about a man that should exist in him for him to be a pastor.
Now, one of those would be an infectious zeal for God.
And what infectious means is it inspires other people.
Meaning that other people feel like serving God more when they're around this person.
This person just has an innate ability to cause other people to, you know, I wasn't going to go soul winning, but this person motivated me to go soul winning.
I wasn't going to have another kid.
This person motivated me to have another kid.
I wasn't going to, you know, show up at church.
Now I'm going to church because of this person.
You know, they have some quality about them in their preaching and their teaching and their lifestyle.
You know, they just infect other people.
I want to read the Bible more now.
I want to memorize more scripture now.
I want to, you know, X, Y, and Z for God.
Whatever it is, they want to do it more.
You know, this is an important quality that exists in someone that's going to be a pastor.
Another thing is they have a family that I think should be replicated.
And you say, well, how do I know if that's right?
Well, this is another test you can think of.
What if every single woman in our church was like your wife?
That's a good test to say, like, what if every woman was like my wife?
What would the church be like?
Because, again, a lot of times people will model themselves after you, whether they realize it or not.
Or that might be the bar or the example.
You know, and I was thinking about women that I know that are pastor wise.
You know, my former pastor, sending pastor, his wife, Ms. Juja, or Leslie Berzins, or Joanne Jimenez, or Sarah Mejia, or Sherry Thompson.
Now, I've been around these women enough and I've seen them.
They're often the hardest working person in their church.
Like, there's a camp that Pastor Berzins puts on every year.
And his wife, like, makes all these meals and plans all these events and does all this work for their church event.
And it's real evident.
You know, it's not even like she never gets up and is like, hey, guys, I'm working really hard.
She would never say something like that.
I'm just saying, like, you're around them and you see what's going on and you notice all the planning and you notice all the things they're doing.
You're like, wow, this woman is such a hard worker.
You know, Ms. Juja's like this.
Pastor Jimenez's wife, Joanne, I mean, it's incredible to be around people like this.
This is how I feel when I'm around my pastor friends and their wives.
I feel like I'm a crappy person, okay?
And I always joke because like Pastor Anderson, you know, at one point this was after I'd already been ordained.
He got up and he's like, man, if you don't if you're not like A plus, I'm not going to ordain you.
And I was like, man, I'm so glad I already got ordained.
I eked out, you know, right before all the really tough stuff.
But again, you know, I think that should always be the case.
You should be A plus, period.
You know, now, again, you don't have to be the greatest person ever.
But you should be A plus in general.
You know, everybody should just look at you.
You should just be obvious.
And not just you, even your wife.
Your wife should have an infectious zeal about her in the church.
You know, when you look at Proverbs 31, this woman is the hardest working woman in the Bible.
And she just cares about so many other people.
She cares about her children.
And again, you want all those attitudes to permeate your church.
And the woman's actions speak louder than her words.
You know, what does 1 Peter chapter 3 talk about?
It talks about the conversation of the wife winning over her husband.
Meaning what?
That her good works are going to speak louder than her actions.
You know, it's one thing to talk about how great you are.
It's one thing to talk about what's right.
It's another thing to do it.
You know, it's really important.
You know, what are these things?
Look at verse 11.
Even so must their wives be grave, not slander, sober.
Notice this.
Faithful in all things.
You know, when I look at other men's wives and I think, what is it about this woman that is a good fit?
Or why is it great that she's a pastor's wife?
Well, she's not a busybody.
You know, she's not concerned with what other people are doing, spreading gossip.
She's not involved in the gossip.
She's not involved in all the drama.
You know, and let me tell you something.
This is important as a pastor's wife.
Why?
Because as a pastor's wife, every woman will want to come to you and tell you all of their drama.
Here's another important thing is that she's not a tail bearer.
What a tail bearer is is someone that repeats something that's true.
And why that's also important is I'll tell you what.
People have told me and my wife all kinds of things.
And that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But if me and my wife were a bunch of tail bearers, then we have lots of dirt.
We could spread about lots of people all the time.
You know what?
As a pastor and a pastor's wife, you can't be involved in that at all.
That's shameful.
It's shameful when a pastor's wife is spreading gossip about church members in the church based on their private information.
You know, as a pastor, I get a lot of privileged information.
But it should be for my eyes and ears only.
In fact, I like to tell my wife everything, but there's even things I don't even tell my wife because it's not necessary.
If a man comes and I have counsel with him, a lot of times I don't tell her that because it's just between us.
I don't need to tell anybody else.
I have no desire to tell anybody else.
My wife has zero desire to tell other people.
And, you know, it's important that whoever this woman is is not going to be spreading a lot of gossip.
You know, if they're involved in this kind of things, it's probably just not a good fit.
You know, here's another one.
She manages the children well.
You know, to brag on my wife, I had never helped my wife in a church service.
And she is able to sit there with all the kids virtually almost all the time.
Now, obviously, they're sick today, so she can't show up today.
But, you know, if she can't manage the children well, that is going to be a problem because think of it this way.
If your husband becomes a pastor, you know how much help he's going to give you during the service?
Zero.
And wouldn't it be embarrassing if just the whole service, my kids are screaming and out of control and running up and down the aisles and I'm, you know, a distraction to the whole service?
I mean, that would be embarrassing.
You know, and she has to manage the children so well, not just for, you know, one hour.
All the time.
Why?
Because I have to be a pastor.
I can't just sit here and be a mother.
I can't sit here and do all the things for my wife.
You know, she has to deal with all those things.
And when you look at Progress 31, this woman's not just managing the children.
She's managing everything.
You know, you say, well, this is a tall task.
It is.
But, you know, we don't want to just put somebody in a position where they have a needy wife.
Now, I'll say this.
I think every wife is probably needy when you first get married.
Why?
Because, frankly, you don't have kids and she desires a lot of attention and you're the one to give it to her.
And that's okay.
And it's okay for your wife to always want your attention.
But you, as a man, have to learn how to balance keeping your wife from being too needy.
You know, she can't be bothering you at work because then work's going to suffer and that's not good.
You know, she can't be too needy with her chores because then how are you going to get your stuff done?
Now, I like to help my wife with certain things.
But, you know, as a general rule, I try to, you know, set up a household where I don't have to do anything.
I can choose to do anything I want.
If I want to help out with dinner, I can.
If I want to help out with dishes, I can.
If I want to help out with laundry, which I never do, then I can.
But, you know, I help out with laundry, like, never.
And I'm not telling you this is how your household should run.
I'm telling you it's like my best attempt at helping is putting the laundry in the right basket.
And she's lucky if I do that, okay?
I'm just telling you.
That's how it should be. Why?
Because I have too many important things to do than to do her job.
And at the same time, you know, there's been men sent out and then their wife is too needy and then they fail.
And I'll tell you what, I don't want to do that.
If your wife is too needy, then you're too busy to be a pastor.
You know, to be a pastor, you can't be so busy with everything else.
I mean, you've got to step up to the occasion, you know.
And some people think, well, if I was a pastor, I'd finally have time to, like, manage my life. Wrong.
If you cannot manage your life right now not being a pastor, you should never be a pastor. Ever.
Because it will only be way worse.
Yeah, but if I was full time, it'd be better. No.
Look, I've had lots of jobs in my life.
And I've even had multiple jobs at the same time.
When I went to Faith Forward Baptist Church, I had a full time day job.
And I had to drive an hour to work both ways.
And if it was really bad traffic, it'd be an hour and a half. Okay.
And I'm having to be there for over eight hours.
And I couldn't even go home for lunch because it's so far away.
I then had a side job where I worked about another 20 hours a week. Okay.
Then I also preached every Thursday night.
I led a soul winning time on Tuesday. I led a soul winning time on Thursday.
And I showed up at every event that Faith Forward had.
I went to the men's preaching class on Tuesday. Every single time.
I am more busy right now than I was then.
Okay. My life is way harder than it was back then.
It was like easy, it felt like, by comparison.
So, I'm telling you this. If you can't, you say, well, how do you even do that?
Well, I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't chew. And I don't go with girls that do. Okay.
You say, well, how do you do all that? Well, I didn't do the laundry.
I'm not having to make meals. Okay.
I don't have any hobbies. Okay. Whenever I pick up a hobby, my life starts suffering. Okay.
So, I have to kind of sacrifice a lot of those other things.
But it's amazing what you can do when you don't waste it on a bunch of dumb things. Okay.
And, you know, I still set apart time for my family. We still went out.
We had lunch together on Tuesdays. We went out on Friday nights. We'd do things on Saturdays.
So, I still had time to hang out. You know, but every second I could, I was working.
And, you know, as a pastor, it should be the same way.
A man, you know, Pastor David Berzins has never been a full-time pastor.
To my knowledge, he's always had secular jobs.
And, you know, he's like a really good software developer. So, he's like a really high level.
And when you're this really high level, I mean, you're on call 24-7.
At any point, they may have a server go down, a deployment issue, a thing.
So, they're, you know, he's working way more than 40 hours a week on a secular job on top of pastoring a church.
It's like that's a lot. And then he has lots of children and a wife and all these other.
I mean, that's a lot of stress. That's a lot of pressure.
You know, Pastor Anderson, when he started pastoring, he was doing full-time fire alarm work.
He worked 80 hours in his secular job on top of pastoring.
80 hours a week. I've done that occasionally, but I haven't even gotten to that level.
That's insane. Okay? The guy's a little bit insane, though. Okay?
It's like Jesus when he's like, you're beside yourself, aren't you? And it's like, yes.
You know, if you want to become a pastor, you know, you have to be able to manage what you have already
because it's only going to get more stressful, more problems.
I mean, look at – show me the guy in the Bible that didn't have a lot of problems
when he started leading the children of Israel or leading a New Testament church.
I mean, the apostle Paul's got a lot of problems, my friend. Peter's got a lot of – you know,
and think about this. How did the apostles and the disciples go out and preach in the gospel everywhere
if their wife was so needy? Well, but look, do you think that Peter was texting his wife every five minutes?
They didn't even have cell phones. Was he calling her every five minutes? No.
You're just mad at wives who are texting their husband every five minutes.
Well, you know, if they're at work, it just shouldn't happen.
And the pastor, you know, he needs to be able to help his wife learn how to be self-sufficient.
You know, one time I was at work, and this is in Phoenix, and my wife called me,
and she's like, there's a scorpion in the kitchen.
Now, again, I would, of course, help and kill the scorpion, but I was an hour away.
And I'm like, I'm not driving home to kill the scorpion for you.
And she's like, what do I do? I said, kill it. How?
And I'm like, well, you trap it and smash it, you know?
So I kind of walked her through, and I talked to her. I said, look, if you don't, I could buy one of the kids.
And I didn't think it would happen, but I was trying to convince her to do it.
She's like, oh, no, I better kill it now.
You know, and then Mama Bear came out, and then she kills that scorpion.
You know, but that was me thinking about, like, how do I motivate this woman that's terrified of scorpions to kill it?
And it's like, you know what, if you don't kill it, it could hurt a child.
And I physically can't even be there within an hour, so you've got to do it.
And then she killed it.
You know, the Bible says about women in the Bible, she had killed her beasts.
She had mingled her wine.
You know what, sometimes women got to kill that beast.
Jail took the spike to Sisera's head and smote off his head.
You know, go jail.
So sometimes you just have to help your wife, educate your wife, teach your wife, encourage your wife.
You know, that's what you have to do as a man.
You know, there were certain things in our life that no pastor told me, but I just told my wife and I told my children.
I said, look, if this is not how you are, I refuse to be a pastor.
I said, this needs to be fixed or this area needs to improve, and if it does not happen, I won't pastor.
It didn't matter to me if a pastor came up and said, I'll ordain you.
I said, I refuse to pastor if this isn't fixed, if this is existing.
You know, and one of those was I told my wife, I said, you have to be soul winning for over a year faithfully for me to be a pastor.
And that was a requirement I came up with.
No one told me that.
No one put that pressure on me.
That's just something I came up with.
Now, I'm not saying you have to come up with that, but I'm telling you this.
If your wife's not a zealous soul winner, why would I want to replicate that in another church?
We already have enough churches where the women are not zealous for soul winning.
Why would I want another one like that, you know?
And look, my wife is an excellent soul winner, and she was a silent partner for a very long time.
But you know what?
She finally, once you're a silent partner for long enough, you're like, this is boring as crap.
I want to talk.
And so she started talking, and you know what?
She's an excellent soul winner.
It's funny to me, because I've gone soul winning enough with her that I'll go soul winning with men,
and I'm thinking like, man, you need my wife to teach you how to go soul winning.
Because it's like, but here's the thing.
I want the women of our church, there's women in our church that are great soul winners.
That's what we want.
We want to foster an environment where the men and women in our church love soul winning, and they're zealous.
And you know what?
If you want to be a pastor, your wife needs to be zealous in these areas.
As a man, you need to always be willing to do everything.
No excuses.
Did I say no excuses?
No excuses.
Genuinely care about other people.
Go if you would the first time before it, you're probably just there.
Look at verse 12.
Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
You know what?
You should be an example in every area of life, and especially a family, because that helps anyone see how good you would be at managing a church.
And when I look at my friends, they have really great families and really great wives, and I think, man, this guy knows how to manage his house.
This guy is a great person to be a pastor.
And in our church, there's a lot of men that probably desire to be a pastor.
I hope so.
That's great, but frankly speaking, most of them, if not all, will never become a pastor, and that's okay.
I'm just being honest with you.
You know, the only guy in my church that's even anywhere close is Tanner Ferrer.
Tanner Ferrer is the only guy that I personally believe is anywhere close, and the reason why is because of what I'm describing today.
You know, Tanner is someone that is always getting things done without me having to ask him, and man, is that refreshing.
You know, there'll be things that he does, and I'm thinking like, man, I never even said that, but he did it.
And I'm like, wow, that was great.
You know, one thing that I like about Tanner is he really thinks about other people.
You know, he's not always concerned about him, and you know what he never brings up to me is things about like, hey, when am I going to get ordained?
Or what do you think I should do to become a pastor?
He's brought that up to me zero times.
Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to.
I'm just saying like any time Tanner talks to me, he's always talking to me about other people.
And not in a way of like how to help them, or he's thinking about them, or he wants to encourage them, because he's a humble person.
You know, a humble person is thinking about other people, not themselves.
The decisions they make in their life are to better other people, not themselves.
You know, another thing I love about Tanner for is his family is a great family.
You know, his wife is one who's very meek, and yet she's zealous about soul winning.
You know, she goes soul winning.
She can get people saved.
You know, she cares about that.
She's not – she allows her husband – and here's another thing that's important.
She allows her husband to go on all these evangelism trips and stuff like that.
It's not like, hey, Tanner, do you want to go on this soul winning trip?
Oh, I can. I've got to stay home with the wife or something, or I've got to take care of the kids.
It's just like, yeah. It's just a – yeah.
You know, I don't even have to know.
I don't have to go home and ask mommy if it's okay.
It's just like, hey, she's going to – I'm going to go out there and I'm going to get a bunch of people saved.
And, you know, a woman that's willing to stay home with the kids and let her husband go out there and preach the gospel, that's a woman that's zealous about soul winning, too, because she realizes the importance of it.
And, you know, I want women to be great soul winners and do their own soul winning, but sometimes you have to realize you're not always going to be in the captain's chair.
Sometimes you have to let your husband take the lead and maybe he's going to do a little bit more work, just like a silent partner.
You know, the silent partner isn't going to do the talking. That's okay.
They're still valuable and important to someone.
You know, someone that was a silent partner, every single day they go out soul winning, I would say that person's zealous for soul winning.
It doesn't matter if they're the talker or not.
But, you know, what if your wife is like nagging you about you going soul winning, like, oh, you're going soul winning again?
When are you going to hang out with me or when are you going to do this or that?
You know, that's a bad attitude in your spouse that should be corrected because, you know what, it's not appropriate for a wife to drag her husband down and not encourage him to go soul winning.
Now, of course, if you're going soul winning 24-7 and never coming home, okay, yeah, she has a legitimate complaint there, okay.
But let's be real, who's doing that?
No one in this room.
If you're going soul winning one hour a week and she's complaining about that one time, she's not even zealous for soul winning.
You know, that's pathetic, okay.
You know, another thing I love about Tannefer is his kids are really well behaved and they're really sweet kids.
And, you know, if I could just press a button and have a dozen Tannefer families in my church, I would do it right now.
And I'm not saying just Tannefer, I'm saying his wife and I'm saying all of his children, just bam.
Now, again, does that mean he's going to become a pastor?
I don't know yet.
But I am saying that, you know, what I'm looking for, he's doing a lot of.
And, you know, he's doing a good job as an evangelist.
Now, there's some things that I want Tannefer to work on and hopefully, you know, he'll get better at.
And hopefully one day, you know, if Lord willing, it's the right fit, maybe he will be ordained as a pastor.
But at the same time, you know, I want people to realize what I'm actually looking for in practicality.
Something you can kind of look at in a tangible example.
But, you know, you say, I want a checklist, you're never going to get one.
You probably even have the wrong mentality because it's not a checklist.
It's an attitude of just I want to serve Christ in every year of my life and doing the best that I can.
And what I like is one of my theater teachers said this because we'd have musical tryouts every year.
And I did musical in high school, don't look it up, okay.
But what we do in tryouts is I remember one of our directors said after someone had auditioned,
immediately the guy auditioned and immediately the guy got up and he says,
I love it when someone auditions and they already just took the role.
And what he was saying is the guy showed up and he was just like, you're the person.
Like, we don't even have to audition anybody else.
It'd be like you're having a James Bond play and Sean Connery shows up.
It's just like, okay, he's James Bond, you know.
It's like you just take on the role.
It's like just be a pastor without having to be a pastor.
And then we'll all look at you and be like, let's make this guy a pastor.
You know, because it just makes so much sense.
It's just so obvious.
And you know, Brother Fur is one of these people like that a little bit for me
because he wanted to move here to train to be a pastor.
And even, you know, he would be somebody just personally, like selfishly,
if I could just have him like work for the church, I would just do that because that would be excellent.
You know, he would be a great asset and he would be somebody I would love to work with.
But I was like, you know what, I think that that would be selfish of me to have those things.
And so I told him, you know, just stay there.
And I don't even, you know, I don't even know that he like selfishly would want to be an evangelist
or lead a church there in Oklahoma because it's Oklahoma folks, okay.
You know, people are not coming down the aisles and coming to me and they're like,
Pastor Shelley, I want to start church in Oklahoma.
In fact, let me tell you how many times that's happened.
Zero.
So someone that's willing to do that or someone that's, you know, even wants to,
that's just someone that cares more about other people than themselves.
And you know, Oklahoma, it's not like it's bad, okay.
Every county voted for Trump folks, okay.
No, I'm just kidding.
Obviously, I mean, Oklahoma City is like a million people.
Do we really want that area to not have a great church?
Do we really want the people and the brethren in that area to not have some great opportunity?
We do, okay.
And I think there could be a big, giant, great soul winning church in Oklahoma.
I mean, they have one of the biggest independent Baptist churches there already in Southwest.
But you know what, they're not that great at soul winning.
And they're not that great doctrinally.
And so just because they have a great singing program, I don't care.
I'd rather go to a church that has a good soul winning program than a great singing program.
And I'd rather go to a church of ten people that are zealous for God than a thousand people that are lukewarm.
And so, you know, if I lived in Oklahoma City and I wasn't, you know, already part of our church,
I would definitely go to the church where Brother Fur is, you know.
And they're doing a great job over there.
And I really like that church.
You know, me personally, I don't want to ordain anybody until I've pastored successfully for five years.
So even if someone hypothetically met all the criteria, I would want to ordain them until that point.
Now, that'll happen August of next year.
So, you know, God willing, of course.
But, you know, I kind of thought it was weird.
Like, how could I ordain someone to be a pastor when I haven't even been a successful pastor for any length of time?
You know, it kind of seemed weird to me.
So even before I became a pastor, I'd already thought about that.
And, you know, it just kind of worked out that I haven't really even had that opportunity.
And currently, I don't.
But, you know, at that point and in the future, I may consider ordaining people.
You know, taking over our church plan in Oklahoma or taking over our church plan in Pure Words,
I will keep those churches as church plans until Jesus comes if the right guy is not available to be ordained.
I will not hand that church over unless I think that it's the right fit.
And even Jacksonville.
I personally, sincerely, in my heart, believe that Pastor Boyle was the right fit to take on that church whenever I gave that to him.
I didn't think, like, you know, I just got to get rid of this thing.
I thought this is a right fit.
It's someone that meets the qualifications.
That doesn't mean I would personally have ordained the guy.
I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying, like, I sincerely believed it was a good fit at the time.
And so I want to also believe that about whatever next guy comes down the pike.
And look, Jacksonville is still a soul winning church with, say, people going to it.
They're King James only, for sure.
And, you know, it's not like we gave the church and it's now Adam Fanon or something.
Or it doesn't exist.
It's still a literal, real bonafide church with its own new pastor, Pastor Theo Matthews.
He was, like, recently ordained by Boyle.
And they're still soul winning and zealous for God.
And you know what?
Great.
But, you know, when we come to our other churches, you know, I want to make sure that they're legit.
You know, we got another evangelist, Brother Duncan, and he's doing, you know, a good job.
And maybe one day, God willing, if he wants it, he would become a pastor someday.
But let me tell you something.
No one is just locked in that, hey, in five years you get a church.
If every one of the things I've said tonight isn't true about you, I don't want to ordain you.
And I'm also preaching this for another reason.
If I'm about to ordain someone, and look, my ordination process is going to be that
I'm going to ask the entire church to privately message me about any concerns they have about any person.
I want you to take this sermon and throw it in my face if I'm going to ordain a bozo.
Right?
If I got Adam Fanon on the pike and you're like, look, guys, you know, don't ordain this guy, you know,
I want to know, and I want people to tell me, and I want you to hold me to a high standard
because I don't want to ever get to a point where I'm just ordaining things that don't make sense.
You know, it makes sense to preach exactly what the standard is so that we can hold each other accountable to that standard.
Right?
I can hold the person I'm ordaining to that standard, you can hold me to the standard of who we as a congregation ordain,
and then we can all rally behind and get excited about someone being ordained and starting a church.
You know, we also have a lot of children in this room.
Maybe one day, God willing, one of these men, one of these young men in this church will become a pastor.
You know, I would love that.
And it doesn't have to be me that ordains the person, but I'm just saying, God willing, they'd be ordained.
You know, I hope they will take heed to these things that are written in the Bible that they could potentially one day
be a great man of God and could be used in the role of a pastor.
We need more pastors.
I'm not saying we don't, but I refuse to lower the bar.
It's already been lowered so much.
I want to raise the bar.
And, you know, maybe somebody is thinking like, well, I could get a certificate online, go for it.
But, you know, don't think that it's in the bag coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Go to 2 Timothy, chapter 4, it's the last place I'll have you turn.
2 Timothy, chapter 4, verse number 5.
But watch now in all things and do reflections, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
You know, one thing that's also really important to me and I haven't emphasized as much, but it's just be a really zealous soul winner.
You know, that would be really disappointing to me to ordain somebody and they let soul winning go by the wayside.
You know, I want someone that their heart is about soul winning.
Their heart is about getting people to say.
I mean, what is the first works of a church is soul winning.
You know, and here's the thing.
I have mentally certain things that I expect of anybody that I would ordain as a pastor.
But I'm not going to tell you.
And there's a reason why.
Because I don't want someone to do it because I said it.
But I want them to do it because it's the right thing to do.
And, you know, there's a lot of things about soul winning that, you know, if the guy's not doing it.
And, again, I'm keeping this a secret, again, but I'm just letting you know that there are even things that aren't on the checklist, so-called.
Because, you know, it's not for me to just see if you'll just do things to do things.
I want to see if you want to do them because you sincerely want to do them.
Because here's a really important job of a pastor.
You have to make decisions that no one else is going to tell you to do.
No one told me to do a soul winning marathon in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Nobody told me to have the soul winning times that we have.
Nobody told me where to go soul winning or to have what map to have or where to go.
Or how much money of our church money are we going to spend on soul winning.
Nobody tells me any of those. I get to make all those decisions.
And whatever pastor it is, we make all those decisions.
And I do not want to give somebody the opportunity to get a lot of people saved and they squander it because they're not zealous or soul winning.
It needs to be someone that's willing to lead the charge.
To be the tip of the spear.
Not to be dragging behind.
You know, when I heard when I was taking over this church and I heard that y'all's evangelists in Jacksonville wasn't even really going soul winning or going swimming once a week and was leading no time.
It didn't even matter who it was. That's an instant being fired.
Like that's that's ridiculous. That doesn't even make sense.
It's like, hey, here's our quarterback, but he never throws the football.
It's like, why? Why are you a quarterback?
You know, here's a running back. He's in a wheelchair.
It's like that doesn't that doesn't really make sense. It just doesn't fit.
You know, and as a pastor, you have to do the work of an evangelist, meaning you should be super zealous for someone.
Now, again, I know tons of men that meet some of the things I said, but they probably will never become a pastor.
And that's OK. You know, be a zealous soul winner anyways.
Rule your house well anyways. Be a great preacher anyways.
You know, there's men in my church that are great preachers that will probably never become a pastor.
Fine. You know, and there's other ways to serve God.
But, you know, for those that have the opportunity, you know, set a really high standard for yourself and work really hard towards that goal,
because I would love to ordain elders, but I just don't want to lower the bar.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us clear instructions and giving us a model for how the church should exist.
I pray that you would just work in the heart of the men of our church, of the children of our church,
that you would inspire men to become pastors, to become bishops.
And I pray that they would see it as a really important job that they're willing to make a lot of sacrifices for.
They're willing to make tough decisions for.
And I pray that whatever elders are ordained in the future of our church, that we would have wisdom and discretion from the Bible to make the right decisions,
that you could bless those men and their churches and their endeavors.
I pray that you could use our church to ordain other men and to start many churches,
but that we would hold ourselves to a biblical standard, to a high standard, to give you the honor and the glory for the work.
That we don't glory in man, but rather we glorify the commandments and the instructions given to us in the Bible.
I pray that you would just help us as a church to desire the biblical model.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Our last song, 56. Song 56.
When we all get to heaven.
Song number 56, when we all get to heaven.
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus.
Sing his mercy and his grace in the mansions bright and blessed.
He'll prepare for us a place when we all get to heaven.
What a day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus.
We'll sing and shout the victory while we walk the pilgrim pathway.
Clouds will overspread the sky.
But when traveling days are over, not a shadow, not a sigh.
When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus.
We'll sing and shout the victory.
Let us in be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day.
Just one glimpse of him in glory will the toys of life repay.
When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus.
We'll sing and shout the victory onward to the prize before us.
Soon his beauty will behold.
Soon the pearly gates will open.
We shall tread the stress of gold when we all get to heaven.
What a day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus.
We'll sing and shout the victory.