I was adding up the years and it was half a lifetime ago, my lifetime, not yours, my lifetime, that I was called as an elder at a church here on the mountain. I joined an elder board with a group of good men that I respected and I respect still today. But the elder board secretary, and some of you will know who I'm speaking of, who was a good and godly man, adamantly refused to be considered for the eldership. And it was not that he was lazy. That would be my reason. Do you know how many meetings there were sometimes, especially when you didn't really have a called pastor? It would be two, three a week. But he wasn't lazy. And it's not that he didn't want to be bothered, not at all. He was at every elder meeting for years, taking the minutes. Every year, I would nominate him for elder. And every year, he would turn it down. We're talking 12, 13 years here. I mean, this was not just a one and done thing. This was, no, you should really be an elder. And his reason was always the same. It was from the list of qualifications that Paul laid down both in 1 Timothy and in Titus. 1, 5 through 9. Writing to his protege, Titus, Paul says, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination, For an overseer's God steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it. Now, this man was, as Paul required, above reproach. Trust me on this. He was not given to debauchery. He was not insubordinate. In fact, he placed himself under the elders, even though a number of us considered him to be an elder himself, though he denied the appointment. Nor was he arrogant or quick-tempered. I don't believe I ever saw him angry in his life. Neither was he a drunkard, or violent, or greedy. He held firmly to God's word. He was upright. He was holy. He was disciplined, self-controlled, a lover of good, and hospitable. But there was one qualification he did not have, as he saw it. And he found that lacked disqualifying. He was not the husband of one wife. Now, I, like most people, and probably like most of you here, see that requirement as saying that there's a fourfold test, they say, in the Christian church. An elder cannot be, there's qualifications to being divorced also, but you can't be a polygamist. You can't have more than one wife. The Greek word is actually very interesting. The actual Greek formulation that is translated, husband of one wife, says a one woman man. You are to be a one woman man. When you marry somebody, that is your woman and you are sticking to it. Now, it does not mean, according to most scholars, that if your wife dies and you take another wife, that that is a disqualification. Nor do most scholars say that if you divorce because of a disqualification on the part of your wife, you are free to remarry. And it does not count against you as being a husband of more than one wife. And I did do a lot of study. I couldn't find but one scholar who mentioned what this fellow's view was. But the funny thing is, the more and because I would talk to him at length about this. Every year when I nominated him, I would talk to him about this. And finally, he said something that came through to me. He said, Mike, he said, I really feel that to be an effective minister of God among the flock, that I should understand what it is to be married and what it is to raise a family. And he said, I do not know that. He says, I do not think that I can adequately minister in a church setting without that background. Now, I'm not convinced by his reasoning, OK? And I could not find any scholar agreeing with that position, though they did mention it. Usually to say, of course it doesn't mean this, OK? But that said, as this position personally affected him, I was pretty certain that he looked at all the theological arguments at least as closely as I have. I came to respect his perspective and conviction in this matter, even if I ultimately do not agree with him. And isn't that not the essence of the Christian life? Because this is a little ambiguous. The funny thing, we look at this English translation and say, that's a little bit ambiguous. What does this mean? Trust me, it's as ambiguous in the Greek as it is According to Greek scholars, because I do not read Greek, it is just as ambiguous in the Greek as it is in the English. Therefore, it is a closed translation. In today's passage, Acts 20, 31 through 38, Paul takes leave of the Ephesian elders that he has called together one last time as he leaves his missionary field of Asia Minor and Greece. And he's going to give them a charge that is not in, I guess it's touched on in his list in Titus, but he touches on it a little bit more And in a way, I think we don't look at often enough. He touches on aspects of the qualification of a minister of God. in the matter of paying a pastor and the need for integrity and the part of those who serve God and serve congregations. Now, I have promised you I would never give a sermon about paying a pastor, just as I will not give a sermon on your responsibility to tithe, because I think it's an Old Testament term. I think that the New Testament giving is very clearly summed up in the widow's might of a woman who gave more than a tithe while giving practically nothing. So that's not the point of this sermon, OK? Just to let you know. Acts 20, 31 through 38 sees Paul advising these elders in the churches he has recently planted, but been gone from for now about six months. He says, last week we talked about wolves coming among the flock, gnostic teachers, false teachers, even among the elders that were raised up that would lead the people astray. Continuing from there, verse 31, therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not seize night or day to admonish everyone with tears. Now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things, I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. So in verse 31, Paul starts where we finished last week, warning about the false teachers in the church as destructive wolves among sheep. Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not seize a night or day to admonish everyone with tears. Paul commands the elders to do what a shepherd always does, is to be alert to the threats to sheep. It's not just wolves that bother sheep. Ravens, which are scavengers, kill lambs by blinding them, picking their eyes. So they blind the lambs who die on, gosh, and a raven's a scavenger. So after they blind the sheep, when it dies, they go in to scavenge the body. So not just wolves come in, but people who want to blind you, who want to leave you defenseless, which is what happened, is what we're talking about here. Paul commands the elders to be alert. to not let threats develop in the body. It was probably easier for Paul to start a church among pagans, where he knows what the threats are. We've seen he comes into a town, the Jews are angry, the pagans are angry, and he finds a little group. He knew who the enemies were when he started a church. But now, as he's taking leave of the church, he's talking to the men in those churches who have people that they've known for years, like the fine men on the elder board that I served at the other church. They knew these men. They trusted these men. When they divert from the truth, when they go their own path, it is hard to bring them back into line. It's easier for a man like Paul to say, well, these guys are pagans, don't listen to them. Or, these guys are Jews who hate Jesus, don't listen to them. But to have your friends on a board deviate is a harder thing to be alert to. The church planter expects opposition, not just from the pagan residents, but from Satan as well, pushing back against God's inroads on what the devil considers his own. But a continuing assembly of people necessarily includes all stages of believers. Brand new believers wonder why that there is sin within a church. Well, it's because we're bringing in sinners all the time. And of course, we are all sinners anyway. But we're basically bringing pagans and sitting them in the pews if we are an effective church. And we hope that that happens. Pagans are going to be sitting among us. So you have babes in the faith to more mature Christians. There will be cultural Christians. Gosh, we can hope to see Richard Dawkins, who has now called himself a cultural Christian. Maybe he'll show up and sit down in a pew and we can preach to him and change him into a cultural Christian. But you'll have cultural Christians. You know, the Easter and Christmas people who come and sit down. you'll have post-Christians, people who have moved past Christianity but haven't moved past the pew. Those, as Paul points out, who have deviated from sound teaching. The minister would have to be especially alert to notice this fall from doctrine among those he was familiar and comfortable with. And he had to be able to call them out besides. Paul reminds them that he had spent three years among them, keeping them on the faithful path to the point of tears and struggle, and calling them all out. What does he say? He says, remembering that for three years, I did not seize night or day to admonish, admonish everyone with tears. Now, he says, that was their job as shepherds of the flock to take from his hands. Verse 32 says, now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Paul commends the elders to God and also to his word. Now, what word would Paul be talking about here in 59 AD? Of course, they had the Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures, but already one-third of what we know of the New Testament has been written as early as AD 59. The Gospels of Mark and Luke had been written by now. The Book of James, the letters to the Galatians, which they think is the first Bible, New Testament book. First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Corinthians, all these they had. And we know that they were being circulated within the churches, that they would pass them from one to another. And despite what critics say, the New Testament canon was put together by, And despite what Christians say, that the New Testament canon was put together by the church. They picked some books. They didn't pick other books. And it was, you know, church limiting, things like the Gospel of Thomas and things like that. The fact of the matter is that scripture was recognized by the church as it was being written. They didn't have to decide in a council. In 2 Peter 3, 15-16, the apostle Peter, who had been chastised to his face in front of the other apostles by Paul, says this about Paul. He says, and count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. Peter is here saying that as Paul writes these letters, and I love the fact that Peter says some of these things are hard to understand because Paul was a theologian. Peter was not a theologian. He had some advantages of having walked with Jesus every day, but he says some of these concepts are hard to understand and people twist them in their ignorance Peter notes that what Paul writes in his letters are scripture. A number of these books, like I said, were circulated among the churches. In addition, Clement of Alexandria. I explained to you about Clement a little while ago. He was a disciple of John. He is considered by the Catholic Church to be the third pope. He was the third bishop of Rome. Clement of Alexandria identifies eight books of scripture as early as 97 AD, singled these out as scripture. Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John as well, identified 15 books as scripture in 108 AD. There had been no church councils yet. This has never happened. Verse 33, Paul now touches on the integrity of a pastor when he says, I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. And by that, he's saying he did not covet people's riches or their status, because clothes went to their status. In a time when most people owned no more than a change of clothing, they only owned one cloak, the cloak was also the blanket for their bed at night, the rich in the places that Paul was ministering, such as Corinth, the richest city in Greece, people had lavish clothes. They dressed well. You knew their status by how they dressed. You'll remember Lydia, a seller of purple cloth. I'm not accusing her of anything. I'm saying purple cloth was a luxury if you wore purple cloth. You were not only of high status, but you were stylish as well. Paul says that he did not covet anyone's riches or status. Paul cared nothing for the wealth of the people that he ministered to, expressed here as gold and silver, or for their status of clothing. Paul cared nothing for any of those. Verse 34 says, you yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. And this was interesting. Though Paul sometimes received support from churches and he was happy when he got it, Most often, he did not get funding from the churches that he was starting. And Ephesus was one where he worked to support his ministry there. And not only did his hands support himself, but basically his hands supported his entire ministry team through his own sweat. Verse 35. In all these things, I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Paul worked to support himself so he could bring the gospel to everyone, rich and poor alike. The gospel was not for sale with Paul, and I'm not saying that pastors today are selling the gospel, but it was not for sale. It was freely given and not withheld from anyone. The gospel can't be purchased. It was spread by men who considered it priceless. You couldn't pay them enough for the salvation it provided. But he would give it away for free. And he would do whatever he had to do to give it away for free, including working basically every day of the week. to deliver the word. Paul here quotes Jesus, and I love this. The only time that Jesus is quoted from his life on earth as a man, outside of the Gospels, this is the only time nobody else does. It's interesting, the Bible, the first four books, the Gospels, are a history of Jesus' time on earth. Acts is a history of the early church. Revelation is the future history of the church, and the rest, the largest section, is application of the letters of the apostles on how to apply the Christian life to yourself going on in your Christian walk. And in none of those letters Do they quote Jesus? I don't think they had to quote Jesus. They had the Holy Spirit. But he's not quoted. They don't give the words of Jesus in those letters. They give the application to a Christian life. So, Paul here quotes Jesus. The only time he is quoted outside of the Gospels, while he lived on earth. It is more blessed to give than receive. And, interestingly, those words only show up here in Scripture. Though this sentiment is often expressed by Jesus in the Gospels, these words do not appear anywhere but here. After Jesus died in A.D. 33, the church existed for 15 years after that, before the first New Testament Scripture, Galatians, was written. And for those 15 years, the church worshiped through the teachings of the apostles, including their recollections of the words and sayings of Jesus. And undoubtedly, this was something that Paul had heard in church before the Bible was written. It is Undoubted that these sayings of Christ were gathered and passed around, shared among the Christians of the new church, memorized, cherished, that is where we will surmise that these words that Paul says, Jesus' own words, it is better, more blessed to give than to receive, came from. Now, if you think that Paul was quoting from a non-biblical source, I would have to say, yeah, he probably was, because there wasn't any New Testament Bible then. But it's as trusted a source as any could possibly be, coming as it does from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the book of John, which John, the disciple that Jesus loved, as he said, At the very end of the book of John is this statement after John relates everything that he cared to share about Jesus. And what I mean by that is, well, I'll finish that quote. It says, at the end of John, John has finished speaking now. And I don't know that I always realize that he's finished speaking. And then there's this tag. by an unknown editor that reads, this is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. OK, so John has written these things. And this editor says, we know his testimony is true. And verse 25, now, there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. This quote of Paul, as he quotes Jesus then, would be one of those other things that Jesus said. So with that, Paul bids the elders farewell. in verses 36 through 38. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. There's a teaching in the, Midrash. The Midrash is the teachings on the Mishnah. In the Midrash it says, all kissing is unseemly, except upon reunion and upon leaving. I didn't write it down, this is just from memory. There is one other occasion. The Jews were not big into kissing, believe it or not, except when you see somebody and are reunited with them and when they are leaving. Embrace Paul, kiss him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken that they would not see his face again. So, as I come to the closing of this sermon, I bring you back to my friend who refused to be an elder because he believed that he did not meet the scriptural qualifications of Titus and 1 Timothy. Rightly or wrongly, he was demonstrating the integrity that Paul was asking of the Ephesian elders to hold to the word, to to challenge himself to live up to the charge that was put to him. Here at the end of Acts 20, Paul also is urging the Ephesian elders to always act with Christian integrity. When Paul points out that he coveted no man's gold, silver, or clothes, He is telling them that the Christian message was to be spread freely and joyfully. I think also that when he says, in all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than receive. Paul is also saying that working struggling with his own hands to bless others with the gospel message adds a value all its own. Okay? Am I saying that pastors should not be paid? I am not saying that, okay? That would go against scripture in 1 Corinthians 9, 4 through 6. And it's interesting that Paul writes about being paid here, okay? Because we know that in most instances, and I want you to think about this, that though pastors can be paid in the most memorable, the most powerful parts of showing a pastor being paid is by somebody who is not being paid. We have this little dichotomy going on here. He says to the Corinthians, and remember the Corinthian church is really sort of corrupt, and they're making a stink about other things about Paul. And Paul says, do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas, Peter? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? And the point wasn't that he wanted them to pay him, I think, but the fact that they thought They had other super apostles. They had other people. Paul was eventually, everybody in Asia Minor turned against his teaching. They turned his back on him. That's what the Revelation passage is about. It names seven churches in Asia Minor that have fallen away from Christ. And remember, this is Jesus revealing this to John, the one whom he loved, and he's revealing it largely about the churches that Paul had started, and them turning their back on it. To Timothy in 1 Timothy 5, 17 through 18, he says, give double honor to spiritual leaders who handle their duties well. This is especially true if they work hard at teaching God's word. After all, scripture says, never muzzle an ox, when it is threshing grain, and the worker deserves his pay. And both of those are Jesus quoting the Old Testament. So scripture clearly teaches that those in God's work deserve some support. With that as the case, why does the clearest examples in scripture of a pastor with his flock go out of the way to show him, Paul, foregoing this right. Might it be that the most effective ministry is one where the cost is high to the minister? You've all probably heard me rail before against the idea that pastoring is a job. Pastoring is not a job. There is not a job description for a minister. A minister has a ministry. Paul did not spread the gospel and plant churches for money. He said, I covet no man's gold or silver or clothes, but instead he said, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. It had nothing to do with money. He could not put down the gospel, probably even if he had to pay to preach it. He would rather give away his efforts than have the motivation of being paid for his work to get in the way. This afternoon, our church along with 11 other churches are meeting together for the quarterly down at Edwards Mansion. The SCARB, Southern California Area Reformed Baptist Churches, is probably the most respected and influential group of Reformed Baptists in the country, if not the world. When I met Neal's pastor back in Virginia, Neal's introduced him and mentioned that I was a Reformed Baptist pastor in Southern California. And the man said, oh, would you Church be affiliated with anybody? I said, we're one of the SCARB churches. And he said, I love SCARB. He says, I go to all their pastors' conferences. In fact, he preached at the last one, was one of the featured speakers. Anywhere you go across this country and you mention a SCARB church, they know who you're talking about. Now, I mention this. because not all of our twelve churches can afford a full-time pastor. In fact, barely half can. Half the churches, five out of twelve, have what we call bivocational pastors. This church, my good friend Antonio and his brother Isaiah Rubneo out of Bakersfield. They own a floor care business. Nate Perkins of the church in Santa Clarita. He works for Cal Fire. Todd Odenath in Irvine. I do not know what he does, but he's a part-time pastor. We're going down to Ken Kline's church today. He's a teacher. OK? Now, I'm sure that many megachurch pastors would look at us as a failed ministry. Andy Stanley, who I mentioned last week, said, churches like ours are selfish. We should get out of the way of the megachurches. We're taking resources that they could be using. Look at the resources we're taking, folks. OK? But we're taking resources away from them. They may look at us as a failed ministry, just as the Corinthian church, with their super apostles, came to view Paul as a failed minister. And yet, I want to point something out. 1,200 years later, we're reading Paul, okay? I don't even know the names of the super apostles, those highly gifted people the Corinthians went after. They're lost to history. And Paul, the reviled Paul is still being talked about. Why do these men, and the other full-time pastors of Scarp, why do they give their time and resources to spread the gospel? Now, they may not be as articulate as the Apostle Paul, but the answer is the same for all of them. And their answer would be, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. They give their time to their churches Because woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. Let's close in prayer.