Okay, 1 Timothy 3, 1 to 7. This is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous. One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence, for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil, And moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and a snare of the devil." And there we end that reading. As I've stated probably every week that we've looked at this, at the very beginning I think is a summary where it says the elder ought to be blameless. I probably should highlight, I'm not sure I have highlighted this part, it doesn't say sinless. It says he should be blameless. And what blameless looks like is someone whose life characteristically looks like these things that we've said here, right? So that if and as sin manifests itself in his life, he repents quickly and he doesn't stray very noticeably and difficultly, noticeably from these characteristics here. Now the ones we're going to focus on tonight are, first of all, that he's not a novice. That is, he's not new to the faith. So I often think of the implications of that in my own family. I was converted when I was 25. And so by the time my kids are 25, they probably had more life being a Christian than I did. It was, well, maybe not quite, but you get the idea. By the time they were 25, they understood so much of the Christian faith that you might be able to say of them, they're not a novice, right? Whereas for me, I certainly was a novice at that age. It says there that the reason you ought not to put someone new to the faith in that is because lest they be puffed up with pride and he fall into condemnation as the devil. Now, if you look at verse 7, the next one, it says there that also the next thing we're going to look at is a good testimony. And that as a good testimony, he needs to have that, lest he fall into reproach. So I just want to look at the verb fall into, because that shows up in both parts there. And a couple of places you find this in the Bible, or this verb and this preposition, you find these together. So for instance, where you talk about the blind leading the blind. Right? And what happens if a blind man leads a blind man? He's going to fall into, or both of them are going to fall into a ditch. And so you kind of get an idea there of what this fall into is. It puts you into a certain situation. Or also if a man has a sheep, right? And if he has a sheep on the Sabbath and the sheep falls into a pit, So he's in this situation. Now the sheep's in this situation. So here in 1 Timothy 3 verse 6, he doesn't want to be a novice because if he's a novice then that can set him up to be puffed up with pride. And if you set him up to be puffed up with pride, he'll fall into the same condemnation as the devil. That is, the devil was proud. Many of you, maybe a few, if you were, I was, again, as I said, I was converted as an adult, and I can remember critiquing pastors at a very early Christian age, right, and thinking, in hindsight, it does probably be really dumb, right, because I was a novice, and it was probably tending to exhibit pride in my own life. So, maybe some things that you wouldn't expect a novice to understand. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10. My brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. If you're proud, what are you going to be strong in? Your own strength. What are you going to be wise in? In your own wisdom. You're going to probably lean a little heavily upon yourself. Why should you do that? You should do that, I'm going to jump down to verse 12. Because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. And therefore, what we should do to manifest this humility rather than pride is to take up the whole armor of God that we might be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. And if you're a novice, maybe you don't know what that armor is, right? You don't understand what it is to put on the word of God and to put on faith and to put on the gospel and to put on all these things and especially to do it in light of some things you can't see, right? That there are things that oppose us, and if you go on living like that, God may point out to you how very proud you are in the sin that you fall into, and we wouldn't have anybody do that, especially anybody leading in the church to fall into that, right? I could probably multiply examples, but you get the idea there, right? So the next part that we're going to look at, the next example here, is that he should have a good testimony among those who are outside. right, among those who are outside. Now, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church just finished their General Assembly, and part of that General Assembly, we just had a paper, a committee submit a paper, and the paper that was submitted is on what if you have someone you think is an officer candidate, but they have a criminal history, and in that criminal history, they've significantly hurt women or children. right? Should you put a man in leadership in a church in that situation, right? Okay, so that's part of the question here, where especially when you're looking at the community outside, right? They say, oh, your elders are the kinds of people that would, I'll just take a concrete example, hit a woman, right? And what would the outside world think of that? So we were studying that, we were looking at that. So you can see this is a question that comes up, actually, and is still coming up in the church at any particular time, right? Okay, so the first thing that the report wants to make everybody understand is the power of the gospel, right? The power of the gospel. And that there has been church leadership that the world might from the outside look and say, those guys were unfit. So King David, you could say, you could make a case, right? At least if all you knew was what he was notorious for, he's not qualified. Samson, you could make a case, very easy case, I think, that Samson's not qualified. You can make a case that Moses, right? Moses is a murderer. Should he have led God's people out, right? So we certainly want to, okay, or I'll do one last one, at least one last one, right? We sang Amazing Grace. Who wrote Amazing Grace? John Newton. What did John Newton do for a living before he became a pastor? He was a slave trader. That's about as debauched a way to make a living as is possible, I guess, to make. Of all the ways that you're susceptible to break the 5th commandment, the 6th commandment, the 7th commandment as a slave trader, John Newton had a horrible reputation, at least, to have to overcome. He was ordained in the Anglican Church, right? So we certainly want to say it is possible, right? That the Lord would raise up leadership in the church that has had a very difficult background, right? Okay, secondly, what the report said... Oh, wait a minute. All right, before I go to the second part here under this, we wanna make sure that when we're talking about testimony outside the church, that we're talking about legitimate testimony, right? Certainly those who are not Christians are very willing to lie, they're very willing to slander, they're very willing to do things that are hateful in and of themselves, right? In Acts chapter 24, verse five, A leader in the church, Paul, faced this. I like it in the King James, the old King James, where it says, we found this man a pestilent fellow. So what happened is, So the scribes come in, they hire a lawyer, what we would probably call a lawyer or a public affairs person, right, who's going to talk publicly about this. And so this Tertullus, this man here, begins to impugn Paul's reputation so that he might be convicted by the rulers. So we found this man, a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, because you may ascertain that it is no more than twelve days..." Oh, sorry. Jimmy even tried to profane the temple. Now Paul, in response to that, says, now wait a minute, I've only been in town 12 days. Okay, first of all, right? So it's probably not much of an insurrection I could have raised up. People don't even hardly know me in Jerusalem from all that, right? Okay, they neither found me in the temple uh... disputing with anyone nor inciting the crowd either in the synagogues or in the city nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me right so so you can be accused by the out well outside world uh... as an officer in the church and you do have a right to stand up and say that's just hogwash that really isn't my background or that isn't my present life right so certainly we can do that uh... okay so then Alright, so now I'm just going to summarize this first point under, or first sub-point under, he should not, or excuse me, he should have a good testimony among those who are outside, right? And it says this from that report, in light of the transformative and renewing power of the gospel, and in consideration of biblical examples of Moses, Samson, David, the Apostle Paul, we affirm that those with crimes in their past can serve faithfully in ordained office in Christ's church. Right? Okay. Now, but secondly, what they say is, okay, yes, but some will assert that there are some crimes and some contexts which ordination should not be pursued due to the scandalous nature of some sins and the necessity for ordained officers to be exemplary in character above reproach and well thought of even by unbelievers." That's where we are in the text, right? Now imagine Harvey Weinstein gets converted. Harvey Weinstein actually experiences 1 Corinthians 6. Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom? Do not be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, none of them will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, right? Certainly that can happen. Certainly we would hope that that would happen in a very deep and profound way in any sinner's life, right? However, to think, okay, we think we see gifts in that person with that kind of background would probably be very difficult for a lot of people. on the outside even, as notorious as he is, and let alone the inside, which this verse doesn't even talk about, right? Inside the church. Okay, we could multiply examples, right? Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, people, think about coaches or teachers or supervisors who've harmed those who are entrusted to them. Very difficult situations, right? Now, I think this falls under the category of 1 Corinthians 5 talks about a horrendous sin going on in the Corinthian church, and it says, even the Gentiles know better than this. That's one of Paul's descriptions. Even the Gentiles know you shouldn't live like that. That's at least part of what's being spoken about here. If somebody has that in their past, that's the question, can they serve in ordained service? Now that's gonna be, partly it's gonna be a very personal question, right? Partly it's gonna be a very personal question. So some of you are gonna say, because of my background, there is no way I would ever vote for that person. I think you should listen to other people from another side. They might say, maybe in this particular case you can, but they're just gonna say, I could not do it, right? And that's important for us in a Presbyterian government, right? Because in an Anglican government, John Newton, somebody somewhere, some bishop, only one guy can say, you can go be ordained. And their ordination process is deacon and then pastor, right? And that might happen. But for us, a whole presbytery, if it's a minister, has to say, yeah, we think that that would fall under this category here of the outside community is not going to find a problem with that or ought not to find a problem with that for whatever reason. Or, if it's a local elder or deacon, the elders are going to have to evaluate this, right? And then after they've evaluated, they're going to put it to the congregation. So you all are going to have to make, well hopefully, We won't get a difficult situation, right? Maybe I'll just say, make my life easy as a pastor. But if you do, you have to adjudicate this in accordance with 1 Timothy chapter 3. And you may be in that situation, and we're going to call upon you to do that, right? And so here, this is up to you to do that. All right, so for instance, one of the things that was referenced in the report is there are men in jail again, and some of those men in jail have hurt small children. And so somebody asked them, the prison guards, who are OPC members, who serve in that kind of situation, would you ordain those men? And those guys, because of their, said absolutely not. We would never do that. That's how they would vote, right? And probably not much persuading you could persuade them to do that, right? So, okay, now, one biblical thing that will be helpful to us maybe in evaluating this is whenever you look at the person's background, whatever that background might be, whenever you look at their track record, their walk with God over a course of time that might induce you to say, maybe this person is qualified to be an officer, would come out of Acts chapter 20, verse 28. And what it says there of those who oversee the church, pay careful attention to yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for them. Certainly in a big church, you're not going to be, you know, any particular, one particular elder. It's just not going to be possible for him to have a really in-depth care for everybody in, let's just say, a thousand person church, right? If one person in a thousand person church needs the help of an elder, and that elder happens to be the one that is there, but because of that elder's background, that little sheep, I'm not saying young sheep or little sheep, but that precious sheep, that precious sheep says, I can't go to that elder. If we're in a situation like that, we may want to just consider, hey, maybe we just can't ordain that person, right? That's just part of the process that comes into thinking about this. I lost my place there in the text. He has a good testimony among those outside. We said, first of all, it has happened in the past that people with a bad testimony, the Lord has used them over time and restored them to where they would be useful. Secondly, what we said is, there's going to be some, at least for some people, there's going to be people who they just won't be able to consider that. I think for all of us, there's probably going to be some place where there's a borderline. Now, I'm not going to try and draw the borderline for everybody here tonight to be the same thing. We can have discussions about that, but I just don't think it's that bright of a line. But everybody probably has a borderline situation. Now, what do you do in that situation? If it's a borderline, whatever you would consider a borderline, then you want to look at that person. Of course, you want to look at their life. But you also want to look at their faith. Okay, so what it says here in the report under that, this decision must be ultimately left to the wisdom of local sessions, local presbyteries, and local congregations who call pastors and call elders and call deacons, right? And they ought to ask the Lord of the harvest to provide men fitting to rule in the church. Okay, so you see the person's life and let's say he is a classic wife beater, right? in the past. But now, no more. Now, what are you looking for? Obviously, you're looking for at least that minimum. But what the catechisms would probably say is not only is he not engaged in that sin, but is there a positive aspect of his sanctification? Is he a gentle person as opposed to a violent person? Is he a kind person, right? As not only in his actions, but his words are kind, right? So let's just pick up tonight. So let's go in your back of your hymnal if you would look. and we'll go to, let's go to the Heidelberg Catechism tonight. That'll be good, right? And I'm gonna be on page 891, 891. Okay, and it says there, I am not to belittle someone, right? So it's not just that you see that they're not physically violent. So this, the question is, what's God's will for you in the sixth commandment? The sixth commandment is he shouldn't murder, right? Okay. I'm not to belittle someone. I'm not to hate someone. You don't hear somebody saying all the time, I hate him or I hate them or I hate whatever. I'm a, I don't insult them and I don't kill them. And I don't do it by my thoughts, I don't do it by my words, I don't do it by my looks, I don't do it by my gestures, and certainly not by actual deeds. And I'm not to be a party to this with others. Rather, I put away all desire for revenge. That might be one thing that makes somebody angry, right? They want revenge. You all have been angry before, right? What are some other things? You would say, okay, when he doesn't get his way, how does he respond? Does he stomp out of the congregational meeting? Well, then you probably got a pretty good, right? You know, you probably got a good sense of that. But you're, so you're looking as the, as the catechisms tell us to look, it's not just a matter of, or to put it like the larger catechism says, what is required and what is it that you should not do, right? So you're looking at a more positive sense, right? So we could flip over to question and answer 108 on the next page, 892. What is God's will for us in the seventh commandment? He condemns all chastity and we should therefore detest it wholeheartedly and live decent and chaste lives within or without the holiest state of marriage. So that positively. Now notice the next question. There's something else you can kind of, okay, so now the next question is, you want, I'm sorry, first thing, at all levels, words, thoughts, deeds, actions, in public, you know, with people, in personal relationships, outside of those personal relationships, how do you see it, right? So that's some things you're looking for. The next thing, you want to, not only their actions, but you want to know their faith. And in particular, their faith on this particular issue that they had a problem with, right? So the next thing is, in question 109, a person from that kind of, it says there, and this is really good for us, in this commandment does, I forbid, only scandalous sins. Right? And then it says, okay, so then this person that's had this scandalous sin in the past, then you ask them, what is your reasoning? How is it that in your reasoning that you help yourself not to get caught up in this anymore? Right? And so notice here, it says, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. So that's another thing we can access. How does the person understand the gospel? Right? Jesus died for my sins because he died for my sins. Then I am adopted into the family of God because I'm adopted into the family of God. I have the spirit that cries out Abba father in my heart. And because of that, then I know that my body is a temple of the Holy spirit. That would just be one way to get at it. And he says, and the reason, one of the reasons that God has blessed me in this and shown me such great mercy is because I have come to know that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, right? So that's another way you could get at it there. And I could probably go through the catechism a lot more, especially, okay, for men in authority, right? Where else could we go? We could go to the fifth commandment. Right? We could go to the fifth commandment and somebody, why, why should you honor your mother and father? And one of the applications for that is because you should honor all authority. Or if you're in authority, like a mother and a father, how should you treat those underneath you? And we looked at that last week, right? Mothers like cherishing their children and fathers exhorting and encouraging and comforting their children, right? At least some examples of how Paul did that. So, as you go there and you say, okay, now if you were to be an authority, what is it that moves you to love the people, to cherish the people, to comfort the people, to encourage the people? And you want to listen to that answer, right? So then that's helpful in you, in whatever your borderline situation is, you can say, okay, that'll be helpful to me in evaluating whether or not this person ought to serve in this office. Okay. Let's see. Some other things, right? Okay. So again, for Sixth Commandment violations, James chapter 4. Yes. What causes quarrels and fights among you, right? So, you know, if somebody's got a past of, I get into fighting and I'm susceptible to be a brawler, to use one of the biblical words there, what do you think causes that? Does the person understand what causes that sin? You know, various ways that that's characterized, and you talk to them about that. What do you think leads you into that situation, right? Maybe the person's got an idol. right? A particular kind of idol. And can they talk that through? So for instance, maybe their idol is, I'm a control freak. My life is going to be unsatisfying to me. It's going to be dissatisfying to me unless my life plays out in the next week or the next day or the next two months, whatever, exactly like I want it to. And if it doesn't, I am really not going to be happy. And you say, Hmm, Maybe there's something in your life that is functioning as an idol. You put it as the ultimate thing in your life, the ultimate treasure in your life, the ultimate value in your life, the ultimate, if my life doesn't unfold in this way, I am going to be in pain. I'm going to be angry. I'm going to take it out on somebody, right? Okay, so those are some of the kinds of things that you would look for. Other kinds of things. Maybe one last thing the report mentions. Does the man acknowledge he might not be able to see his own sinful propensities clearly? We all have blind spots. And does he understand that he might have? So for instance, who can discern his errors, declare me innocent from my hidden faults? That's Psalm 19. Or the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Jeremiah chapter 17, 9. Or very famously, right? Take the log out of your own eye before you start taking the speck out of other people's eyes, right? So does the person have some sense that you might not be able to see some things that are going to be important for you serving here? So what are you looking at there? Does he have the humility rather than pride, as we looked at in the previous piece here, to serve in the office, right? A novice might be puffed up and be proud in that, I don't have any problems, I don't have any sins, that kind of thing. And then of course that might be a landslide in the church. So I hope those couple of things as we've unfolded them tonight will give you some sense of how to operate in your responsibility to choose elders. And then one last application of course is that One of the reasons we want elders to look like this is because this is a family. And we want the family to look like that, right? And so then you also know for yourself, how do I function? When I have sins, can I bring the gospel to bear upon them? When I have sins, do I understand the misery of that sin and the curse of that sin and the difficulty of the sin and how hard it is on other people? Am I not just trying to take something negative out of my life, but am I trying to put in something positive that loves God with my heart and soul and mind and strength? and loves my neighbor as myself. Let's pray together. Lord, we love you. We thank you for your grace and your blessing to us in Jesus. We thank you for men that you have raised up in the church. And even as we prayed earlier, we do pray that you would continue to give us those brothers. We pray, Lord, that in situations that the church might think are borderline situations, whether it's because the people on the outside might might have a bad opinion of the church if it ordained certain people, or if people on the inside might have a difficult time serving under certain officers. We pray that you would give us all wisdom. We pray, Lord, that you would give us an understanding from your word in your spirit who you are calling and so that in borderline situations you would help us to understand why this is a good situation. We pray Lord that in all situations you would help us to know whether this is a person that you're not calling and that in borderline situations or whatever other situations that we would be confirmed from the word in knowing to indicate our counsel and our vote that that person ought not to be ordained, or at least ought not to be ordained yet. We pray for this for the good of the church, and we pray for these blessings in Jesus' name.