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Titus chapter number one, the part that I wanted to focus on is beginning in verse five there where the Bible reads, 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. And the title of my sermon tonight is, Starting Churches and Ordaining Elders, Starting Churches and Ordaining Elders. Now as we get into this subject tonight, I want to start out by just going to Matthew chapter sixteen, and sort of just following the word church in the New Testament from the first time it's mentioned, and then seeing the church develop throughout the book of Acts, and seeing this concept of the church throughout the book of Acts. In fact, I want to just look at every mention of the word church, and obviously we're not going to go through the entire New Testament, because every mention of the word church would take far too long for tonight's sermon, but I just want to go through the early mentions, just so you can see this doctrine sort of roll out in the Bible, and what God's teaching. Now of course we should all know going into this what the word church means, don't get a complicated view of this word, the word church simply means congregation, that's what it means. That's why you'll never find the word church in the Old Testament, but you will in the Old Testament find the word congregation over and over again. And then when God quotes those Old Testament scriptures that use the word congregation in the New Testament, he substitutes the word church, so church is the New Testament word, congregation is the Old Testament word, but they're both the same thing. What does it mean to congregate, to assemble, to come together? The church is the assembly of believers, the congregation of Christians. In fact, in the book of Acts, when Stephen is preaching about Moses in the Old Testament, he says Moses was with the church in the wilderness. Why? Because Moses had what was called the tabernacle of the congregation, and that's what the Bible calls the church in the wilderness. That's why it says in Psalm 22, 22, in the midst of the congregation I will sing praise unto you. That's quoted in Hebrews 2, 12 as, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto you. That's what church means, just so that everybody knows that a church is not a building, and a church is not an organization, or denomination, or some kind of a great network of people. Like, for example, the Roman Catholic Church, they'll call it, and it's a religion that encompasses people all over the world. Well, that's not a church because they're not congregated with one another. So calling the Roman Catholic Church a church, it would make more sense to call it churches. That would be more biblical to say Roman Catholic churches. But when you talk to Catholics, they misuse the word church and say, well, there's only one true church. Well, that's not true because the Bible talks about churches as we're about to see. Now look down at your Bible at the first time we see the word church in the New Testament. Matthew 16 verse 18, and I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So notice what Jesus is saying here. I will build my church. Now if this were the only verse in the New Testament, you could see how somebody might understand and think that there's only one church. But this is not the only verse in the New Testament. And we're going to see later on that Jesus Christ builds the church as an institution. But there's not only one church. There are churches. Let's keep going. Look at Matthew chapter 18. In Matthew chapter 18, the Bible talks about strife with another person and how that should be resolved by the church. If you're not able to resolve it one on one, if you bring in a few other people and you're not able to resolve strife, then you tell it unto the church. Look at Matthew 18, 17. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Now that right there should show you that we're not talking about one universal church. Because how could you have a problem with somebody? And then what are you going to tell it to all the believers in the whole world? I mean that doesn't make any sense, does it? But that's what these universal church people believe when they say there's only one church that it's made up of all believers. Well, how are you going to tell it to the church if you have a problem? So I guess if a Roman Catholic has strife with another Roman Catholic and can't resolve it, they've got to tell it to the church, every Roman Catholic in the world. They're going to have to get a billion people in on their problem. That doesn't make any sense. Obviously, the church must be local if you can physically go and tell it to the church right there. Another thing that's interesting about this passage is that people will often say, well, wherever two or three are gathered together, that's the church. Well, that's not the case. That doesn't constitute a church. Because two or three Christians together does not constitute a New Testament church. And in fact, you could actually prove it from this passage. Because people will say, oh, well, wherever two or three are gathered together, there's Jesus Christ right in the midst. Now, of course, I believe that that's true, that Jesus Christ is in the midst. But guess what? Jesus Christ being in the midst doesn't make it church. I mean, guess what? When I'm at home with my family, there's more than two or three there. When we have dinner at night, I mean, I guess we're in church three times a day. We don't go to church three times a week. You know, well, because we're gathered together in Christ's name. We bless the breakfast. Well, I guess that's church. No, that's not church. That's garbage. Okay, but look at Matthew 18 here, where he says in verse 20, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, it's a church. Is that what it says? No, he just said that he's there. There am I in the midst of them. But what's funny about this is, look at verse 16. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. Well, wait a minute. He just had two or three people. That already was the church, according to these people. So how? No, two or three people is not the church. They do it with two or three people. And if he won't hear them, then they tell it to the church, which is actually a much larger group of people, a much larger body of people. So that proves right there that, you know, two or three people is not the church. Go to Acts chapter two, the next mention. And I'm going to get into the preaching in a moment. But first, I just want to lay this foundation of just showing you what the Bible says. And I'm just going to quickly turn to every time the word church is mentioned, just so you can sort of see how this subject develops as we read through the New Testament. Look at Acts chapter two, verse 47, the next mention. Day of Pentecost, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. So in Acts chapter two, we see people being added to the church. It also says that there were added unto them that day about 3,000 souls. So the church did not start on the day of Pentecost. Jesus already talked about the church in chapter 18 of Matthew. And in the day of Pentecost, chapter two of Acts, they're adding to the church. It's not the founding of the church. Jesus and his disciples was a church, and he's the pastor. He founded the church. And the Bible says here in Acts chapter two that people are being added to the church, OK? Go to Acts chapter five, verse 11. Acts chapter five, verse 11 says, And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things. OK, then Acts chapter seven. We'll go ahead and skip it because we already talked about it. Go to Acts chapter eight. See, in Acts chapter seven is just where Stephen is referring back to the Old Testament and talks about Moses with the church in the wilderness. Now, so far, we've seen the church mentioned in Matthew twice. And we've seen the church mentioned in the book of Acts three times. And up to this point, there's a great focus on one particular church, the church at Jerusalem. Why? Because this is just the very beginning of Christianity. Jesus Christ has just died and been buried and risen again. So there's pretty much just that one main church in Jerusalem. That's the church right there. That's why there's only one that we're focusing on up to this point. The one at Jerusalem, right? But now look at verse one of Acts chapter eight. Let's see this progress. And Saul was consenting unto his death, and at that time there was a great persecution. Watch this. Against the church which was at Jerusalem. So now in Acts chapter eight, we're associating a geography with that church. It's not just the church. Now it's called the church at Jerusalem. Why? Because now there are starting to be other churches. So we need to differentiate, hey, we're talking about the church at Jerusalem. And it says that there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. The apostles are staying there. Other Christians are being scattered abroad because of persecution. Look at verse three. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church. Which church? The church at Jerusalem, verse one. Entering into every house and hailing men and women and committing them to prison. Okay, go to Acts chapter nine, verse 31, the next mention of the word church. Acts chapter nine, verse 31 says this, then had the churches, do you notice the plurality there? Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied. Okay, flip over to chapter 11. So now we see that Christians are being scattered abroad. They then went everywhere, were scattered abroad, went everywhere preaching the Gospel. We see in the chapters in between, men like Philip and Stephen, okay, who were deacons of the church going in and evangelizing new areas and preaching the Gospel. The apostles are traveling to different areas and preaching the Gospel, even though they're traveling to different areas and preaching the Gospel. Even though they're based at Jerusalem, men like Peter and others are traveling to other areas and preaching the Gospel, but it's closer to their immediate region. It's mainly Galilee, Samaria, Judea, places in the near vicinity because they're still based out of Judea in Jerusalem. So they're just going sort of little trips here and there and bringing the Gospel to different places. And now there are Church Es, plural throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. Look at Acts 11, verse 22. And again, I'm showing you every single mention of the word church. We're not going to go through the whole New Testament, but we're looking at the early mentions as God lays out this doctrine in the Bible. Look at Acts 11, 22, then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem and they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch. Look at verse 26. And when he had found them, he brought them into Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. So this is a church in Antioch as opposed to the church in Jerusalem. Look at Acts 12, verse 1. And really we should look at the last verse of Acts chapter 11 where it says, well, we'll go back a few verses where it says in verse number 27 of chapter 11, in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood one of them named Agabus and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth, which means famine, throughout all the world which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea, which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul, chapter 12, verse 1. Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the church and he killed James the brother of John with sword. So which church are we talking about? Well if James the brother of John is on the receiving end, we're talking about the church at Jerusalem. And we just finished talking about a famine that especially affected the church at Jerusalem and they had just sent help to the saints in Jerusalem in the previous verse. Verse 5 says, Peter therefore was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. Go to Acts 13. Now I want to talk about Acts 13. This is really the passage that I want to preach from. But before turning to Acts 13, we looked at every mention of the church leading up to that. And the more you know your Bible, the more you read your Bible, the more you understand the context of the passages I just showed you. Otherwise if you don't know the Bible real well, you might not know the immediate context of every passage we just looked at. But one thing that you can clearly ascertain is that there are multiple churches in different places. That it started out being one church in Jerusalem, but then other churches were founded in other places and that those churches existed throughout Judea, throughout Galilee. There was a church in Antioch and there's a church in Jerusalem and there are churches in different places. All right, everybody got that? Now let's go to Acts 13 verse 1. The Bible reads, Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the teatruck, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So we have five guys in the church that God specifically brings up as these guys are prophets and teachers in that church. These are the guys that are doing the preaching in that church. And God steps in. The Holy Spirit tells them that out of these five preachers that they have, let's send two of them out to do something else. Let's send them somewhere else. I want you to separate Barnabas and Saul for the work that I've called them to do. I have another job for them to do. Three of the preachers and teachers are staying in that church. Two of them are going to be sent out. So they pray, they fast, they lay hands on them, and the Bible says that they sent them away. Do you see that at the end of verse 3? They sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had also John to their minister. And as we read the story in the book of Acts, as it unfolds, we see that Paul and Barnabas, because Saul's name is going to be shortly after change to Paul, Paul and Barnabas or Saul and Barnabas, they go throughout the world. They go throughout Europe, and they go throughout Asia Minor, and they are preaching the Gospel in brand new places that have never heard the Gospel. They're evangelizing new areas. They are starting churches, confirming souls in the churches, and ordaining elders in the churches. They're bringing the Gospel further. So it started in Jerusalem, and then they're starting churches nearby because we see a whole bunch of churches in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. That's the area right near Jerusalem. Now we see God is pushing them to broaden their scope, to send people out further, because He wants the Gospel to get the whole world, and He wants all nations to be taught the Gospel, not just that immediate region. And a lot of the apostles, they had trouble grasping this, even though Jesus had clearly told them, go ye therefore and teach all nations. They didn't get it. They still were just kind of hung up on reaching Jews or preaching the Gospel in what was, you know, Israel in the past at that time was known as Judea, Galilee, Samaria, Decapolis, all the different Roman provinces that made up what used to be the Old Testament nation of Israel. They couldn't see past that. They didn't have a big enough vision. So God's having to prompt them and prod them, saying, look, send out two of these guys to go and preach the Gospel somewhere else. We need churches to be established somewhere else. And if we go through the rest of the Book of Acts, we will see churches being established, churches being confirmed, and elders being ordained in these various churches as we study the Book of Acts. Now let me just, before we get into chapter 14 of Acts, let me just point out something about this passage. The Bible is real clear here that these guys who are going forth to do a work for God where they go and evangelize a fresh area and start brand new churches, these guys were sent out by the local church. They didn't just ordain themselves. They weren't just sitting at home and just decide, you know what, we're going to go out and be preachers, man. We're going to pastor them. We're going to start our own church, man. No they're not. These guys were already active in a local church. Then they're going to go out and be used greatly by God to start other ministries in other places. But notice that they started out in a church, active in a church in the beginning. Now today there are people out there who think that anybody can just start a church, just any bozo can just say, hey, I'm just going to start my own church because I can't find a good church in my area. So somebody gets saved and then six months later they're like, I'm going to start my own church because I can't find a church. Well, here's the thing. If you've been saved for six months, you're a babe in Christ. You're not ready to lead people. You're not ready to pastor a church. You're not ready to establish and found your own church if you are newly saved, if you're a babe in Christ. Or other people are saying, oh, well, I've been saved for years. Yeah, but if you've been sitting on your rear end at home instead of being in church, you're backslidden. Now I don't understand why people struggle to grasp this doctrine because it's not a complicated doctrine. Let me just break it down really simply. Here's the fact of the matter. If you're not in church, you're not right with God because the Bible commands us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is and so much the more as you see the day approaching and that we need to be exhorting one another. But let me tell you something. That doesn't just mean getting together with Christian friends. The church is God's institution that he established. He has elders in the church. He has a bishop or deacons or different people that are there in leadership. It's an assembly of God's people. It's not just you and a Christian buddy wherever two or three are gathered together. It's an institution. It's not just freestyle. It's not a free-for-all. The Bible says I've written these things unto you in 1 Timothy 3 that you might know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God. How do we behave ourselves in the house of God? That chapter ordains qualifications for a bishop, qualifications for a deacon. He says this is how things are to operate in the house of God. This is how church is supposed to operate. So we don't just bypass the qualifications for the bishop. Just bypass the need for a bishop in general. Bishop means overseer. Just bypass the need for an overseer. Bypass the need for a qualified pastor. Bypass the need for elders and just have a free-for-all. Oh, we're both saved. We're both Christians. Let's just get together and call it church. That's not biblical. The church began with the apostles. These men were ordained by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He made the decision that these guys are qualified. And these guys were tested and tried and proven over the course of three and a half years with our Lord Jesus Christ. And one of them failed the test obviously. And so there are 11 that then are sent out into all the world. They turned the world upside down. And then those apostles ordained other men and ordained them as pastors. Men like Timothy, Titus, etc. And then Paul the apostle tells Titus the pastor and tells Timothy the pastor the things that you've learned of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou unto faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Paul told Timothy to commit. What does it mean to commit? To entrust. He said the things that you've learned from me, you need to entrust those things to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Did he say entrust them to people that you met yesterday? Entrust them to anybody. No he said you need to commit those things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Well how do we know whether somebody's faithful or not? How do we know whether someone's qualified or not? How do we know whether someone should be ordained or not? Because they work in the local church and that's the proving ground. That's the test. The apostles were tested and tried by being a part of Jesus' church. Jesus was the pastor and they worked with him and he observed them and trained them and spent time with them and then he sent them out to go to the whole world to preach the gospel. Then those guys established churches and in those churches there are people who preach and teach and serve the Lord and go soul winning and then out of those faithful men, men are chosen to lead. Men are chosen to be a bishop. Men are chosen to be a deacon. Men are chosen to be sent out as missionaries from within the local church and so therefore every pastor, every missionary, everyone who is going out to start a church or pastor a church should come out of the local church, not just be some bozo who doesn't even go to church anywhere. I mean you don't go straight from not going to church to being the pastor of a church. I mean that's just insane and how anybody can defend this stupid doctrine is beyond me to sit there and say that somebody who's not going to church at all is qualified to now lead a church. What a hypocrite to say hey come to my church when you haven't even been going to church yourself and look you can make all the excuses you want for not attending church but God commands us to be a part of the church. Be a member of a church. The Bible says we're supposed to be members of the church, members like a body part. Christ is the head and we all make up a body here and we all have different roles and functions and talents and gifts that we use in this local assembly. Now what does it mean to be ordained as a pastor, ordained as a bishop, ordained as an elder and by the way these words bishop, pastor, and elder are used interchangeably in the New Testament and that can easily be proven. In Titus where we read the scripture he said 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. A couple of verses later he says for a bishop must be blameless so if we're ordaining elders and the elder has to be the husband of one wife having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly because a bishop must be blameless obviously the elder and the bishop are the same person. That's pretty obvious from Titus chapter one. Now a lot of people will look at that word elder and they'll think it just means oh just old anybody who's old, old person. When the Bible says elder we're talking about spiritually elder, talking about elder in the Lord. You see if you're 65 years old and you just got saved a week ago spiritually speaking you're not an elder spiritually you're a babe in Christ or you might be in your twenties but you've been saved for 20 years you've been serving God faithfully for many years you've read the Bible cover to cover many times then you're an elder to the 40 year old who just got saved two years ago or whatever. So when the Bible talks about the elder it's referring to the fact that the bishop or overseer should not be new in the Lord. That's why the Bible says you should not be a novice the word novice simply means beginner or new. So you don't take somebody who's newly saved who's a beginner at serving God and then put that person in the position of pastor. It's supposed to be somebody who's an elder, somebody who's been saved for a while, somebody who's mature in the faith. Now different people mature and grow at different rates so it's not really just a number of well you've been saved this many years congratulations you're now mature. It's different for everybody because there could be people that have been saved for decades and still be a babe in Christ. You know it reminds me of a story that a pastor once told that he was working in a grocery store and he was carrying out groceries he was the bagger at the grocery store he was carrying out groceries and he walked up to the car where he was going to put the groceries in and this is the way he described it he saw basically what looked like a one year old baby I mean that small with an adult head and he said it scared him so much that he dropped the bag of groceries and it just went everywhere and they told him they said that's okay he just never grew he never grew you know and this guy was literally like a foot and a half tall right but here's the thing spiritually speaking it could be the same thing where somebody just never grows they just don't grow they just stay the same and look there are people in church literally that have been saved for thirty years and you know they but here's the thing they got a big head they think I've been saved for thirty years I've been in church for thirty years but guess what they never grew and so guess what that doesn't make them mature enough to pass through now I've laid down some criteria for someone to be sent out of our church as a pastor for someone to be ordained as a pastor at Faithful Word Baptist Church I've laid out some minimum criteria but the problem when you lay out minimum criteria is that sometimes people can misunderstand it and think oh as long as I do those things I'm ready but that's not really true is it you have to meet all the qualifications that are laid out in the Bible also okay but I'm saying that as the leader of this church I have interpreted the Bible that when the Bible says not enough novice not a beginner you know my interpretation of that is to say that a person should be saved for about seven years before being sent out to pastor a church now that's just a number that I came up with we you know if somebody else said hey ten years or somebody else said five years that's their prerogative okay but I believe that in seven years time a person could mature and reach the level where they are spiritually mature enough to start a church or pastor a church but listen that doesn't mean everybody who's been saved for seven years is ready to pastor a church that would be someone who for seven years is aggressively working hard at growing and soul winning and preaching and studying their Bible that that would be like a minimum not a maximum because if somebody's only been saved for two or three years I don't care how much they've studied the Bible or how hard they're working still you have to look at that as they're a beginner because you know in the scheme of things in life to start a church to pastor church it's a pretty big responsibility and so that's my you know I mean look somebody's got to make these kind of decisions and I believe that seven years is appropriate it makes sense and other pastors that I've talked to agreed with me that that sounded about right to them you know that somebody should be saved for seven years now when I started this church I've been saved for 18 years because thank God I grew up in a Christian home okay another thing that I've laid down as just a basic minimal requirement is that a person be married for at least four years before starting a church or pastoring a church and and the reason why I say that is because of the fact that you know when you get married the first two years yeah anybody can do it for the first two years after two years is when it can start you start running into challenges and so forth and and by the way marriage goes through ups and downs and cycles okay and especially when women are giving birth and then nursing the baby and then postpartum you know and they're having another baby so there's a cycle that your marriage goes through that goes around child rearing also so if a person's been married for four years and has a couple of kids they've gone through that cycle a couple of times they've made it up the roller coaster you know they've gone through that a few times to the point where now you can see okay this person's marriage is working out because most divorces happen in the first two years so you can see okay this person it knows how to do this and this person has stability in their marriage and I'm not saying hey you've been married for four years saved for seven you're ready to go I'm saying a minimum I'm saying I wouldn't send somebody out and say hey you're going to be the overseer of this church you're going to be the pastor of this church you're going to be an elder in this church and you've only been married for a year or two years I wouldn't do it because why if a man know not how to rule his own house how should he take care of the church of God he needs a few years and go through it a few times to demonstrate he can rule his house that he has stability in his home this is a minimum now another minimum criteria that I have laid down aside from the biblical qualifications which are of course listed we don't have time to go through them tonight I've done many other sermons where I did but I would say also that he should have read his Bible ten times cover to cover ten times and look I think that's critical we don't need another pastor overseeing the house of God who doesn't know the Bible and how can that be too stringent of a qualification I mean think about if you read the Bible for fifteen minutes a day you'll read it once a year well if you've been saved for seven years you should have read it seven times even on that minimal requirement but wait a minute you want to be a pastor you want to be a bishop you want to be an elder I mean can we double that I mean you want to be counted worthy of double honor someday right let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor well can you double the Bible reading well then you should read it fourteen times in those seven years so having a minimum of ten times cover to cover because maybe in the early days you were just getting off the ground hey you better show some growth and be picking up speed toward the end you crank out those ten times through the Bible or you're not being sent out of this church to start a church it's that simple lots of excuses could be made but honestly that's not too strict of a criteria plot but but just because you've read the Bible ten times been saved for seven years and been married for four you also need to meet all the qualifications in 1st Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and here's the key you're approved of the brethren you know you're look the people that we send out of here to pastor are people where when we send them out the church is enthusiastic about sending them out and most people or all people are 100% behind it okay it's why because that person was a blessing to the church they were an asset to the church they are great church member and we can enthusiastically say you know what this guy's faithful this guy's qualified let's send this guy out to do a great work for God everybody understand the concept here and there's nothing unbiblical or you know oh it's a vain tradition no no this is God's word that qualifies past and devious because people say man there's just a vain tradition the institutional church the corporate church man it's about us over at my house sitting around the coffee table talking about the Bible man and we're all elders there's five there's five church members and four of us are elders and look this at this bogus house church movement that doesn't have qualified bishops elders so forth it can be summed up in one statement too many chiefs and too few Indians that's how I would sum up this house church movement and what they do is they stroke people's egos and flatter them like hey you got saved six months ago you can preach too you can be an elder too really cool you know and it's just a bunch of bozos we're all elders you know we're going to convene an assembly of the elders there's 15 people in the church six of them are elders and people literally criticize our church this is a criticism that they point at our church because we have one pastor that's not biblical we need to have multiple elders where they when our church is running five thousand we'll have multiple elders when our church has 300 people in it we have one pastor one deacon and one evangelist those are the three times those are our three staff members that we have right now we have three employees of the church a pastor a deacon and an evangelist now if you want us to add more pastors and more deacons everything okay just let me show you who to write the check out to it's faithful word baptist church okay why don't you write us a check for a quarter million dollars and we'll start adding all kinds of staff hello is anybody home this church has to pay these people but again that'll go right over these house church idiots heads because it says in the bible that the laborer is worthy of his hire that the elders that rule well don't muzzle the ox that treads out the corn they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel just like electricians get paid to be an electrician just like plumbers get paid to be a plumber guess what pastors get paid to be a pastor and that's biblical deacons are supposed to be paid to be a deacon that's biblical even though nobody does that anymore except us you're the only paid deacon in america i'm just kidding i'm sure there are others but it's biblical he's look according to the bible the deacon is supposed to be doing the business of the church administrating the church day in and day out it's the whole point of even having a deacon it's to do work ah i can't believe it you know that the reporter you know the reporters from the bbc that were going around this morning with the cameras and stuff you know she asked me you know do you ever feel weird about living off donations and i'm thinking to myself i said i told her i said first of all you make it sound like i'm just living off donations like i'm just when people donate money to our church like i'm just putting it in my pocket or something like oh sweet big donation just came in cha-ching i'm like i'm not living off donations i said i'm paid a salary by the church the donations that come in don't go into my pocket they go in the church bank and it's spent on the work of the lord it's spent for all the employees it's spent for the work of the ministry food for events like we did today or uh dvds cds usbs you know soul winning marathons invitations paying the rent i mean whatever and i got so much to talk about in the sermon and i'm it's getting too late i gotta hurry up man alive good night but it's like hello i said what's wrong with me getting paid to do my job i said does my wife not have the right to eat breakfast lunch and dinner do my children not have the right to eat do we not have a right to live in a house and drive a car like everybody else is doing if an electrician gets paid to be an electrician but the reason why these house churches don't understand that is because they're not doing any serious work for god so that's why they're saying well why would the pastor get paid well see around here the pastor and the deacon and the evangelists are down here working our tails off every day making things happen and that's why we're doing big things for god it's a full-time job around here you know brother baker when i talked to him about becoming a deacon he said hey is it all right if i still work my other job part-time you know is that and i told him i said no i said you must work for us full-time because there's enough work for you to do has there been enough work i mean i i'm just like loading him with work and just going fulfill your work your daily task you know why because look we don't run out of work to do he works hard every day all day that's why he gets paid i don't want him working another job do you want me working another job because if so we're gonna have to slow things down around here big time if i have to go back to work you know it doesn't make any sense folks you say well you know scripture will have multiple elders here's what they want to have a bunch of old moss backs trying to hold me back that's what they want they don't want multiple elders you know because the church is big enough where they need more leadership look we're gonna get to a point eventually god willing if we keep growing where we're gonna need more leaders more pastors more you know we're gonna have if we're running five thousand we're gonna have lots of pastors and lots of deacons at that point but the point is though what they want is this board of so-called elders that are not full-time workers that are not preachers that are not in the ministry just a bunch of old men to try to tone me down the young whippersnapper up here too wild too reckless and they want to like reign me in nobody's gonna reign me in it's never gonna happen and we don't believe in a deacon-run church and that's what they're you know the so-called deacon-run church and not like our deacon no offense deacon i'm not talking about our deacon who's a scriptural deacon i'm talking about these deacon-run churches where they ordain a bunch of guys that aren't even preachers as deacons that aren't even spirit-filled that aren't even full-time christian servants they just ordained a bunch of businessmen in the church as deacons and then they're just like this advisory board to slow things down look committee running it by committee really is that what you want i mean it's stupid it doesn't make any sense but anyway i'm getting way off topic i could go on about that and and that's a whole nother sermon of itself so what i want to talk about tonight though now we can start the sermon no i'm just kidding just kidding is uh starting churches and ordaining elders okay and we've laid out we've shown in the bible that the guys who go out and evangelize new areas and start churches they come out of the local church look at acts chapter 14 verse 21 and by the way while you're turning there in the acts 13 passage some people will say well you know preachers are ordained by the holy spirit preachers they're not sent out by churches they're sent out by the holy ghost himself i guess they think that in acts 13 the holy ghost descended in bodily form and laid hands on these people is that what happened no the bible says they laid their hands on them and they sent them away meaning the church laid their hands on them the church sent them and then in the next verse it says they being sent of the holy ghost so how did the holy ghost send them through the church right how the holy ghost sent them through the leaders of the church laying their hands on them and sending them out okay look if you would at acts chapter 14 verse 21 and when they had preached the gospel to that city and had taught many they were turned again to lystra and to iconium and aniok confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of god and when they had ordained them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting they commended them to the lord on whom they believed now there's so much important thing i think so many important things to talk about in this passage first of all i want you to notice that in verse 21 they were returning back to place that they'd already been these are churches that they had already established they had already spent a ton of time there preaching winning souls this is returning through okay after these people had been faithful they went through and ordained elders in every church and commended them to the lord on whom they believe what did it mean to commend them to the lord what they're basically saying is like okay you guys are on your own now instead of us being your overseer instead of us checking in with you and making sure you're doing what you're supposed to do we're going to ordain these elders over you to do that instead they're going to be the rulers now and then they say okay now we're commending you to the lord we're going to go somewhere else we're going to start preaching somewhere else okay so the idea is that an area is evangelized churches are established pastors are ordained and then they're commended unto the lord now we believe in being independent baptists now the reason why we are independent baptists is because of the fact that we do not believe that all churches should be united in any kind of an organization here's why because the devil is not omnipresent god is omnipresent the devil is not the devil the bible talks about goes up and down in the earth and walketh about seeking whom he may devour he told uh god in the book of jobe that he'd come from the earth from going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it there's no evidence in the bible that the devil can be everywhere at once but he has his minions of course but if we are all united as baptists let's say we join some baptist denomination well if the devil wanted to corrupt us all he would have to do is go to the top of that organization and corrupt the guy at the top corrupt the people at the top corrupt the headquarters and then it would all filter down and the whole thing would become corrupt and that's what's happening today in baptist denominations they'll start you know ordaining female preachers and the individual churches are like whoa what are you doing but they're in that denomination and they get dragged along with that corruption and the pastor's pension is tied up in that denomination the buildings owned by the denomination and so they're stuck at that point and so the devil can corrupt thousands of churches just by corrupting the organization southern baptist convention corrupt it and then all the southern baptist churches get messed up you know should we start our own denomination hey the faithful word baptist denomination everybody we send out to start churches we're all going to be a denomination no because then all the devil would have to do is come in corrupt faithful word baptist and then he could corrupt everybody the point is to start a church and once you have an ordained elder once you have an ordained bishop at that point you cut the umbilical cord and you commend them unto the lord you decentralize power why because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and if you have one guy that's the president of the southern baptist convention thousands of churches or so and so the evangelical association or so and so the denomination and that guy is just in charge of hundreds of churches you're putting all that power in one place and it's easy for that guy to be corrupted it's easy it once that guy's gone once that guy retires and then a new guy comes in and he's corrupt the whole thing comes down it's better to decentralize power to where each church is independent each church is autonomous okay think about churches that we love and fellowship with and men that i trained for the ministry pastor david burzins pastor roger jimenez pastor donnie romero guys that i had mentored and trained and taught okay but those churches are independent fundamental baptist churches if i get up and start preaching false doctrine they're not going to they're going to say well that's the pastor anderson i don't know why he's changing we're going to still do the same thing why because they're independent and if one of them starts preaching false doctrine i'm just going to throw up my hands and say well that's them i'm going to keep preaching the same thing i've always been preaching and when there's 10 more and 20 more and 30 more we're all going to be totally independent of one another i mean people will sometimes come to me and say did you know that the pastor that you sent out said this or did this and i'm just like i don't care that's none of my business that's his church he can preach whatever he wants he can do whatever he wants that's none of my business we're independent i'm not some kind of a fundamental pope or something that's gonna you know issue the papal bowl that says hey buddy you know what are you doing you know doing things different did you know that this church does things different than so what and look all of these churches are a little different you know you go to verity baptist church in sacramento it's a little different so what we still think it's a great church and here's the thing even if it got a lot different that's none of my business and if i get a lot different it's none of his business why because we're independent that way if one goes down the whole thing doesn't go down they're all separate they're all that's look why are we even independent baptists that's why it's important we commend them on whom they believe but you can't be an independent baptist church if you don't have a qualified leader you can't be independent but why because there's no qualified ordained leader there somebody has to be the boss so if a church doesn't have a pastor okay it needs a pastor but let's say you're starting a church it doesn't have it then it needs to be under the authority of someone else it needs to be under the authority of a different pastor then somebody has to be the boss and it has to be somebody who's biblically qualified otherwise you have a free-for-all and that's not right let me give you an illustration okay in a family you have somebody who's the boss dad and somebody else who's a boss mom now what if you had a household with no mom and dad what if you had a household where there's just children there okay just imagine let's say we had boaz and stephen and anna and rebecca and miriam living in our house there's no adult there it's just children nine years old seven years old five years okay imagine how that household would operate where the oldest person is say nine or six or ten or whatever you know what if it's just all children no adults does anybody think that's a good idea and look our society wouldn't accept that look if the authorities found out about that they'd come in and say hey this isn't going to work the police would come and i'm sure there'd be plenty of incidents that would warrant the police being called you know if you just left young children to their own devices in that home with no no look that's exactly what these house churches look like you have a bunch of babes in christ you have a bunch of toddlers in christ you have a bunch of little seven eight nine year olds in christ you know as far as their maturity in the lord and as far as their growth in the lord at best and you know what it's a circus and they're not accomplishing anything and it's a joke okay you have to have an adult checking in now ideally you have a mom and a dad in that home right but what if you just had a mom well that's better than nothing or what if you just had a dad that's better than nothing okay well think about this when my wife was a child sometimes her mom had to work nights and she was left alone in the house just three little tiny children no adult in the home and her mom basically told the neighbor hey their home alone you need to check in with them and so the neighbor would check in look that's not ideal is it but you know what it's better than having no adult it's better than just leaving them to do whatever for days weeks months on end that's what this you know non-pastor movement is so all that to say this let me just now that we've seen the biblical principles we've explained the philosophy let me just explain to you how this plays out in real life and how this plays out with our church and the church we've started now first of all i started this church i was sent out of an independent baptist church i thrived in that church i served god in that church i brought visitors to that church i had converts baptized in that church i won souls with that church i put my tithes and offerings in the plate in that church i preached in that church i preached in the bus ministry i preached in the nursing home i was friends with the people in the church i got along with people in the church i was a blessing to the church not a pain in the rear end okay that church sent me here to start this church in phoenix arizona okay but i came out of a church i was already a church member in fact i was a church member my entire life until i started this church there was never a period where i didn't go to church i always went to church every single week my entire life from the time i was born until now except for when i was sick that's all or missed for whatever the reason but i've been in church my entire life i came out of a local church and started this local church okay our church has sent out other men to start churches now the way that we've done that in the past was we take a guy who's faithful who's proven himself who's mature in the lord he's been saved a long time he's been married for a while he's demonstrated the qualities of first timothy three and titus chapter one and we ordained that guy we laid hands on him and we sent him out to a distant place to go start a church in a distant place whether that's presket a couple hours away or whether that's further like fort worth texas or something like that you know we sent him to a distant place to go start a church now that is scriptural that is a way to scripturally start a church because the guy's ordained he's prepared he's qualified he goes out and starts the church and here's the thing when we did that we immediately cut the umbilical cord immediately why because the guy's qualified to to to pilot the ship jesus of course is the chief shepherd but he's qualified to be that under shepherd he's qualified to be the bishop he doesn't need us holding his hand checking up on him telling him what to do why because we already determined before he left these doors we already decided this guy meets the qualifications to pastor and we sent him out and the first sunday he was known as pastor burzins pastor romero i mean from day one why because he was already qualified ordained he runs that church and that church was immediately an independent baptist church and those churches are not connected to faithful word baptist church those are independent baptist churches we don't tell them what to do they don't tell us what to do they're not relying on money that we send them we're not paying their bills for them they're not paying our bills for us except if it's just a love offering of just hey we want to be a blessing to another church we might buy something for them or give them something and then that could go both ways does everybody understand independent baptist churches okay now another way to start a church which is similar to what we see in the book of acts where there's a church and then they ordain a pastor of an existing church that church is still founded by church guys not people who sit out of church okay guys like paul and barnabas that ordained and qualified they started these churches they taught the people they established them they oversaw them and a lot of times people get the wrong idea because they're reading the book of acts they think it's all happening like that fast like how long does it take you to read the book of acts like two hours or something so they think that like i guess they think the whole thing took two hours like they don't realize that when they're reading the book of acts we're talking about decades and decades going by so they think paul's just like in he's an Antioch for one day and then he's in lystra for a couple days and then he's in alleria you know they it's like look folks even though it's talking about these travels they'll be in this place for a year this place for a year and a half this place for six months five years go by 20 years go by look the book of acts takes place over many decades at the end of the book of acts paul is an old man okay so you have to understand that these guys are spending years in each place years are going by and a lot of times we miss that we lose sight of that so what we have to understand is that these guys establish churches and then they ordain a pastor and then they cut the umbilical cord at that point now look that's basically what we're going to be doing in north phoenix with the church that we're planning in north phoenix now this is not some new avant-garde crazy idea that i came up with because i grew up with this as a model of church planting okay you see when you're starting a church in a distant city it's not really practical to oversee that church from phoenix arizona if it's in some distant city how are you going to oversee it when you're geographically in phoenix you can't it's too far away whereas if you're starting a church close by you can oversee it you can supervise you can make sure that things are going the right way until such a time as a qualified pastor is ordained so basically what we're doing in north phoenix we're starting a church that's 30 40 minutes away 25 miles away so it's far enough away to where it warrants having a church on that side of town because we can't really effectively and fully reach that area from here you know as we radiate out in soul winning it starts getting impractical to drive that far to go soul winning and we get further and further and then we're inviting people to a church that just got saved their babe in christ they don't necessarily want to drive 45 minutes to church when they just got saved they're not spiritually mature enough for that so if we're really going to effectively reach this whole area we need to have another church on that side of town you know we're not going to effectively reach other parts of arizona from here eventually we'll need to start churches in other parts of arizona see even on the small island of crete the bible said there should be a church in every city not just one church in central crete and everybody has to make this major pilgrimage every week to get there so ideally we start other churches so basically what we're doing is we're going to start a church and we're starting it next sunday is when this thing is starting up we're starting a church up on the north side of phoenix uh we're going to be having a building to meet at that is on uh 35th avenue and cactus so it's all the way up on cactus road way north okay so it's on cactus road it's uh it's it's a mile west of the 17 freeway so it's just right off 17 and cactus most of you probably know that where that is it's on 35th avenue and cactus the address is in the bulletin but the idea is to reach people in that area to knock doors win souls all in that area and to try to get the people that are in surprise el mirage peoria glendale people like that who who are not willing to make the drive all the way down to tempe to give them a place to be able to go to church in their area where they can get the style of preaching that we get here not the namby pamby watered down other kind of preaching the fundamentalism light so what we're going to do in the beginning we're not we're not just founding a church and ordaining a pastor and just cutting the milk accord and having a totally separate church at this time why because we're not ready to do that because we don't have a guy right now who meets the qualifications who says yes i want to stay in phoenix and pastor that church now we have guys that meet the qualifications but they want to go somewhere else we're sending brother richard miller to start a church in nashville tennessee this october so we're you know that's the other model where he's going to be you know qualified ordained ready to go sent out and start an independent baptist church in nashville it's going to be independent from day one because it has a qualified elder whereas in this situation we're starting a church in north phoenix and it's you say well who's the pastor going to be i am i'm the pastor because this is basically a ministry of our church right now it's a church that we're planting right now so basically i'm the overseer just like i'm overseeing things here i'm also going to oversee there just as brother baker is the deacon here so he serves here and works here and and administrates here he's also going to be serving and administrating and working with that new church up on the north side of phoenix and so we're going to have basically three different preachers preaching up there we're going to have a guy who preaches every sunday morning which is going to be brother tyler baker is going to be up there preaching every sunday morning we're going to have a guy who preaches every sunday night which is going to be brother rick martinez to start out with and then we're going to have brother jonathan shelley to start out with on thursday nights preaching every thursday night so if they come on thursday night that's who's preaching they come on sunday night that's who's always preaching if they come on sunday morning it's going to be brother baker preaching now none of these guys going to be the pastor of the church these guys are just preachers now here's the thing just as saul and barnabas before they were ordained and sent out to do their own work first they were preachers and teachers in the church so this is a great opportunity for guys like brother rick martinez guys like brother jonathan shelley also brother elliott ray is going to be filling the pulpit for a lot of services when people are gone or he's going to be the substitute preacher this is an opportunity for them to get practice and training starting a church preaching getting experience while still having an overseer while still having a supervisor because of the fact that some of these guys you know are younger in the lord now they've demonstrated the ability to preach they've demonstrated spiritual maturity but not enough to be a pastor yet so therefore this is a great place for them to continue to grow and use their gifts to serve the lord and it's a way for us to establish a church that's very needed in an area that needs a good church so that's what we're going to do and then once the church grows and there's a congregation that begins to to metastasize up there and once we have a guy who's qualified and says that he wants to stay in phoenix and take over that church then he will be ordained as the pastor of that church and then at that point we will change the name of it it will no longer be called faithful word baptist church we will cut the umbilical cord and that church will become its own independent baptist church totally independent of our church and i will no longer be the pastor i will no longer have any authority over it it'll just be a totally separate deal now does anybody have any questions about this i just want to ask does anybody not understand what i'm saying or is there any question that you have about this don't be shy not trying to trick you here or mess with you does anybody have any questions about what we're doing well if you have any questions and you're not and you're too shy to ask them in the church if you're a woman ask your husband at home but if you're a man and you you know and if you're if you're too shy to ask you know just come up to me after the service and you could ask me or you can ask brother baker i'm sure he could answer your questions about what we're doing but i'm pretty excited about it i think it's great i think it's going to be on the awesome now one thing we did do is we made it to where the services of the new church that we're starting across town they don't conflict with any of faithful word baptist church's services down here so therefore if people want to visit and check in they can because the services are at sunday morning at 8 a.m does anybody want to get up at that time and then they're going to be on sunday nights at 4 p.m and thursday nights at 7 so that if people from our church want to go visit or check in they can't and so that the three to four preachers that are preaching up there can still attend all three services down here so that they're still you know able to to be a part of this church and they're just going up there to preach okay so anyway i'm excited about a lot of exciting things happening in our church right now you know it's exciting the you know to send out a guy like brother richard miller to go start a church in nashville it's exciting our missionary to batswana that we're sending out brother garrett kirschway i'm excited about starting another church on the other side of phoenix you know the time is short and we need to redeem the time the bible says because the days are evil and let me tell you this as we close the sermon let me say this there are no shortage of opportunities for people to get involved in this church and serve god plenty of opportunities and there are plenty of opportunities for young men who want to become preachers there are opportunities out there to get involved and to grow the harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few we could start churches all over arizona we could start churches all over america you know we could start a church in casa grande only 45 minutes away we could start a church in all different places but we need workers we need people who want to serve god that's all we need the harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few and so i encourage you to get involved and both feet jump all the way in you know whether it's up on the north side if that's where you live or whether it's down here or whether it's wherever god has for you there's always a prepared place for a prepared person let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer father we thank you so much lord for uh the church it's such a blessing that we can get together and have fellowship with like-minded believers it'd be it'd be so terrible to be out there in the world all by ourselves as a bunch of commandos and lone rangers lord thank you for a body of believers where we can assemble and have fellowship lord and organize to do a great work for you lord help us to do great works lord help 2016 to be the year that we do far more works than we've ever done in any other year lord and help 2017 lord to even be more abundant help us not to quit help us to stay in the battle and please lord raise up a whole generation of young men that would start churches lord that would start them all over america all over the world and that even all over arizona lord we would see great churches established and men of god fill the pulpits elders ordained in every city lord let it become a reality and in jesus name we pray amen