Take your Bible. You may be seated. Take your Bible. 1 Timothy 3. If there's any children still here, you guys go ahead and be dismissed. I forgot to say that earlier. Children are dismissed. 1 Timothy 3. I am in a three-part series. This is part number two. Part number one was last week. If you missed last week, please look that up online. Last week I talked about the question, why? Why are we talking about an unfamiliar term to us? Why are we talking about elders? I talked last week, the Bible has 160 or so references to a group called elders. That God took this principle from the Old Testament that his people were used to, he then applies that to the New Testament church. And it becomes a formal process and what we're gonna see today, an office. There's formal structure to it. And so we talked about why are we talking about this last week. It is biblical. Now I understand that you're hearing this, some of you are hearing this this way for the very first time. And I have thoroughly enjoyed like all of the discussions about this. I think when there's questions and discussion, that's a wonderful thing. And I think we've had some wonderful discussions and I hope that continues because what that indicates to me is you're processing it. and you're trying to grapple with what the Bible says with our current practice. I also want to make this clear that by saying what we're saying, I am not saying anything previous to this is wrong. Next week, I'm gonna talk about how. How would this change be made? Because we, you, the congregation, are involved in changes like this that have to do with our church leadership, which affects our church constitution, okay? And I just wanna be very clear that I'm not saying anything previous to this is wrong. Let's just recognize the New Testament doesn't say beyond a shadow of a doubt this is the one way to do church leadership. The New Testament doesn't give us explicit instructions on that. I think it's fairly clear what the New Testament is indicating to us and so we want to be shaped by that. And I want to talk more about that next week in the how. This morning I want to talk about who. who is qualified to be an elder? Who are the elders? I want to state again that what I'm talking about here is I'm recommending, and I'm saying I, I want to say we, there's been a number of folks that have been involved in this over the last 10 years. We've been talking about this. So this is not just my rock to push up the hill. but we slash I am recommending that our church go from what it currently is. This is the leadership structure of our church according to our church constitution. You have a senior pastor and a deacon board, those are the leaders of the church. To an elder-led congregationalism. Okay? So, that's the change that I'm recommending. I understand right now you might be thinking, I don't see the difference or I don't know what he's making a big deal about. That's why we're going to the Bible and we're seeking to be shaped by the Bible. So, this week I was praying about how to introduce this topic because One of the reasons you don't hear many messages about church governance is because, I mentioned this last week, it can become technical and it can be quite frankly boring, right? And so people are just kind of like, you know, I just want something practical for my week. I'm trying in these messages to give you that practical, but I'm also saying we need to talk about this because this is going to affect how you are shaped spiritually. It's a very important topic. So I was praying about how to introduce this topic this week and Monday's the day where I do the bulk of my studying for the upcoming Sunday. And as I was praying about it in the morning, having my coffee, I go up to my office at home and my desk and there was an email that came. I have a number of emails that come from ministry sources and I don't always read everything but there was a title that jumped out at me of an article that I sensed at the time was an answer to that prayer about how to introduce this message. The title of the article is called, Why a Pastor Did Not Survive a Difficult Church, An Interview. Now, since seeing that on Monday, I've seen that on two other sites. The article has gotten a lot of traction around ministry websites because it's so relatable. And so I want to quote from that article some of this interview. And the interviewee, the pastor, is anonymous. They stated that at the beginning. It's an actual interview with an actual pastor. But the reason it's gotten so much traction is so many people can relate to what this guy says. So let me quote from this article that I've amended because it was a long article. The interviewer says, as much as you feel comfortable, will you share with us the story of your church? the pastor. For starters, every church is a difficult church on some level. After all, they are filled with fallen sinners and led by fallen sinners. Now I just want to comment on that. This is Rob speaking, not the article. When we talk about church governance, we're not talking about doing something that does away with problems. Because whatever you do, you have human beings. Those human beings are flawed. So what kind of comes up in some of this is you get somebody maybe, again I'm not speaking to specifically somebody on this, but you get in a small group and you have a discussion and somebody says, well I was in a church with elders and it was bad. Well somebody else could say, well I was in a church with deacons and it was bad. I mean you could say that about just any church governance structure because you have human beings, okay. So he's recognizing that. going on quoting from the pastor. He says, like many churches, my situation was comprised of factionalism, resistance to change, too much debt, a history of conflict, divisiveness, and short pastoral tenure. Each of those issues presents a challenge to pastoral ministry and leadership. When they are coupled with other problems, they can be overwhelming. In addition to inheriting a church with a host of issues, I also inherited a church with tremendous administrative demands, which was a major area of weakness for me. I found it challenging to stay on top of issues, keep everyone informed of changes, cast vision, motivate ministry teams to pull in the same direction in ministry in a church that size. In addition to my church's history and my own shortcomings, there was one key event that produced more significant conflict within the church early in my tenure that seemed to solidify a couple of key groups in their opposition to my ministry. It was a church discipline issue that presented itself six weeks after I arrived at the church." And then he goes on to explain some of what happened with that issue. So the interviewer asks this question, what was the final issue that caused you to resign? Pastor responds, it was not a single issue. The cumulative effect of many issues took its toll on my wife and me. It got to the point where I received opposition to anything I led or suggested. More and more church members began criticizing my sermons to the point where I was paranoid about saying almost anything. Now, again, I've shortened that down and just taken some sections, but I think we can feel the heaviness of that, right? Churches are not immune from problems. Most of the churches in the New Testament had major issues, right? Occasionally I'll hear somebody say, we just need to go back to the first century. What a tough thing. I mean the only church that explicitly there isn't a major issue is the church at Philippi and that's the church where he names two women in the church who need to get along with each other and calls the church to help them. So even that church had an issue. Churches are not immune from facing problems. This pastor, when asked what he learned from it all, he said one of the issues was when he had to deal with these things. there weren't sufficient people alongside him to deal with those issues. He needed key allies to go into this. Now, we can kind of quarterback that, and we can kind of say, well, he should have done this, this, and this, but when you're in the moment, you need people to quickly pull alongside and to do that, and oftentimes, that doesn't happen because in an organization, people are trying to figure out what's going on. The expectation and the reason I'm bringing this forward is that in his situation and in many situations, it really is on the key senior leader to plow ahead and to deal with these things with very minimal support. Tim Whitmer, a pastor in his book, The Shepherd Leader, says, we look at the plethora of reports coming out year after year about pastoral burnout and an alarming number of clergy leaving their churches or leaving the ministry altogether. Might not one of the contributing factors be that they are not receiving the help they need shepherding the flock prescribed in the Scriptures? Now I'm avoiding kind of going off into questions that have come up or that I can anticipate coming up with this in that some of you would say, well, you know, Rob, and by the way, none of this is like poor Rob or poor me. This is not the issue. Hopefully I've expressed that enough. Some of you would kind of go back and you would say, but you have deacons. That's what deacons are there for. To which I would respond to that What we're going to see in the scriptures is that when you face that level of difficulty in the church, that group is not tasked with helping the leaders through those problems. The people tasked with doing that are this group called the elders. Our deacons here, and through the whole time I've been here, wonderful men. they are tasked with both the practical needs of the church and the eldering needs of the church. Both of those things. So what we want to do is we want to look at the scriptures to say, is there a path forward so that deacons can do deacon work Elders can do eldering work, both vocational elders, people like myself, paid to do the job, and lay elders, people who are not paid to do the job but who are nonetheless qualified to be elders, which is what this message is on today. My assertion in this from the scripture is that having multiple elders Qualified men, both vocational, paid elders, and lay elders, non-paid elders, can help church navigate very tricky waters, which all churches will face. But more positively, getting out of the negative side of things, more positively, these people are tasked with caring for people and helping people to grow. Multiple elders, or sometimes the word plurality is used, can help shepherd our lives and lead us as sheep beside still waters, which is what Psalm 23 says. So who then are the elders? 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1. You have open there with your Bible. The saying is trustworthy. And by the way, let me just comment on that. When I preached a summer ago, a year ago, through 1st, 2nd Timothy, we talked about some of these things. When Paul says the saying is trustworthy, he is saying you can take this to the bank. That's our modern terminology. Like this is something to give due consideration to. If anyone, I do want to hone in on the word anyone. Because I think in some people's minds, elders only are paid staff members. That is a piece of it. It is not the totality of it. Because the text says if anyone aspires to the office of overseer Remember we said last week, overseer, which is the, in the King James wording is the word bishop, elder, pastor, are the same terminology, it's three different terms for the same office. All three of those things. So this is a passage addressed to elders, to pastors, to overseers. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, a one-woman man, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach or apt to teach, I think the King James says, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. This requires a great deal of humility. By the way, I just saw last night an interview with Pastor Alistair Begg, who is in Ohio. Some of you have heard his sermons. Some of us have for many years admired a pastor who says such wonderful things, but with that English accent, that Scottish accent. It seems like people listen more carefully when you have that accent. And I just can't pull that off. But I just heard him last night, he was 72 years old, he's retiring I think this year, and he was talking about over his 40 plus years of ministry, watching men who had wonderful ministries and yet fell into the condemnation of the devil and disgraced themselves even at the latter part of their ministry because of a lack of humility. So this must not be a recent convert. It's not just, well, I've been a Christian for a long time. I'm immune from this. I don't have this problem. It is possible to be fulfilling this office and to be overtaken with the rules don't apply to me anymore. And then verse seven, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, that's those outside of the Christian community, right? So that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. So the first thing I want to address, which isn't explicitly mentioned in this text, but I think needs to be mentioned with this, is that we believe and we would teach that the office of an elder must be held by a man, okay? Why is that? God gives men the responsibility in Scripture to lead in their marriage and in their parenting. We see that in Ephesians chapter five and six. Men, because of that, are to lead in the church. In 1 Timothy chapter two and 1 Corinthians chapter 11, Both of those passages refer to men and women and their roles in church. And what it says about men is that because of creation, how God created Adam and Eve, God gave specific roles in creation, and the role to a man is headship, and the role to a woman is companionship or followership. Because of that, follow this, and because the role of an elder contains the expressing or the teaching of God's word, this is the authority in church, not this, right? I'm just a human being. I'm just a person. Like, you know, if you're out and you see me, I don't walk above people. I'm a human being. The authority I have is from God to communicate His Word. As a result of that, that creation principle in a local church, elders are able to teach resides with men. That's why that's there. This does not mean men are smarter. This does not mean men have better ideas. or that women are only relegated to non-leadership roles. There are women who are incredible leaders, even gifted in leading. It does mean when it comes to shepherding, leading and teaching as elders in that office that men are tasked with this. This is not an authoritarian way of conducting business in the church. It is not through insulting people or overpowering people. 1 Peter chapter 5 deals with this as well as the passage we just read. but it is striving to lead with compassion and the courage of Jesus. Okay, so I wanted to address that in brief. The first point that I want to make about who an elder is, is number one, an elder is a man who aspires to the office of shepherding God's people in the church. It does say in the text, aspires. It also says he desires. aspiring, desiring. There is a desire for this. There is an internal drive for this. There is something that God puts in there to do this. Pastor Phil Newton says Paul's word for aspiring points to the idea of someone stretching out their hand to the office with a genuine desire to serve the people of God. Now we're gonna see in a moment what the desire is for, right? It's not just to occupy an office, it's for something. We're gonna see what that is for in just a moment. But the second thing I wanna point out is not only does the text say aspires, there's an internal drive there, but it is an office. It says aspires to an office. What does that mean? It means that this is a definite position within the church that requires a commitment of time and sacrifice. So if you just take shepherding, leading, and teaching, there's an aspect where all Christians should be doing it. We should care for one another. We should speak the truth to one another. We should be willing to take on a ministry in the church and kind of lead in that if we're asked to do that. All Christians are supposed to do that. But this requires a definite commitment of time and sacrifice, which is more than the average church member. Someone may elder may be elder qualified, by the way, but due to the stage of life or their time commitment, they cannot serve at this time. So you could literally fulfill these qualifications. There's a desire there. And these qualifications are met, but due to stage of life or taking on a new job, you can't take on the time commitment to be able to do this. Now, I wanna ask this question. How will we know if a man has this aspiration? How will we know that? So when we get into kind of the nuts and bolts, when we put out a prospective constitution and how we nominate and all that kind of stuff, how are you gonna know as a congregant if a man has an aspiration? Well, if a guy's walking around telling you those things, he's not, you don't want that guy. You don't want a guy walking around saying, hey man, I don't wanna be an elder around here, I really want that. Pastor needs somebody to keep him in check. I mean, you never know. So you're not expressing that to other people, you're not telling that to other people. The answer is, you may not know. And yet that is the first thing that's pointed out about this. This will take conversations with people. There are men that I've talked with in the past that, as I've come to understand this, that I believe were elder qualified, but they didn't know it. They just simply had a burden for something, and they needed someone to shepherd them through that. And this is where 2 Timothy 2 in verse two comes in, where elders are to shepherd and raise up elders. One of the jobs of elders is to be able to disciple men to be future elders. That's what it is. And to be able to have conversations about that, and then the congregation votes on that. So the congregation has a part in recognizing what God is calling people to do and making that evident, but the leaders have to do the groundwork of raising those people up. So that's number one, an elder is a man who aspires to the office of shepherding God's people in the church. Number two, an elder is a person with the kind of character suitable for the office. Now I'm not gonna spend a huge amount of time on these qualifications because we have spent time on them before, but let me talk just in brief here. Verses two through seven are sort of ticking off some areas of character, right? This is not the sum total. I mean, I've pointed this out before. It says nothing in there about reading your Bible. I mean, should an elder read his Bible? Yeah, but it doesn't say that. Should an elder pray? Absolutely, I mean, an elder should pray. It doesn't say anything about that in there. But these are some areas of character which we should watch out for. This person is not a superhero Christian. So we're not looking for superhero Christians. What we are looking for, these characteristics are characteristics which should exemplify all members of the body of Christ. All people should be striving for the majority of these things. If a man is married, he should be seeking to love his wife, not giving way to the pull of immoral passions. If a man has children, he should seek to lovingly shepherd their lives. He should have a good testimony by the people he does business with. If a man steps into eldership and those outside the church hear that this guy has a position of leadership in the church, they shouldn't be like, really? I just did business with that guy. I can't believe he's involved in a church like that. These are qualifications that all Christians should work at. Elders should be examples of this. So an elder is a man who aspires to the office of shepherding God's people in the church. Number two, an elder is a person with the kind of character suitable for the office. And number three, and here's where we'll spend a few moments of time, an elder is a man who is charged to serve the church in three areas. These three areas are very important. Number one is shepherding, shepherding. Let me read a couple passages. 1 Peter chapter 5, I exhort the elders among you. By the way, I know one of the things that can happen if you're looking at this and seeing it a little bit differently, you can begin to think to yourself, well first of all, why didn't I see this before? But it's hard to take passages like that and try to pick them apart to say that's not, like what I'm recommending the church do, it's hard to say that's not what they were doing in the first century. Because here is an explicit passage where Peter is writing to a group and saying the elders who are among you. Verse two, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. We're looking at things that elders do, shepherding. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you. Verse four, and when the chief shepherd, man, this is one of those verses where it's like, here's the example. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive an unfading crown of glory. Do you remember when the apostle Paul, before he was an apostle, was persecuting the church? Just thrashing the church. shredding families, killing people at his initiative. Then he sees this bright white light or bright light on this famous road to Damascus. And the voice that comes out of the light says to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting, you finish the sentence, why are you persecuting me? He doesn't say the church. Jesus says, why are you persecuting me? For a person who knows Jesus Christ, you are linked together with him such that he takes it personally what happens to you. And so the people who are tasked with shepherding are caring for people very near and dear to the heart of God. This is a very serious thing. The analogy that Peter gives here was and still is a good one. It's a shepherd with sheep. We can understand that. There are two primary tasks that are being noted by this. Number one is compassionate caring and number two is courageous protecting. Those two tasks. Psalm 23.5 speaks to the caring side. I mean this is the shepherding passage of the entire Bible, Psalm 23. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. What does that mean? It means sheep get caught in things, they get things on their faces, they get cuts that can be infected and could ultimately threaten the life of the sheep. So the shepherd takes that sheep and he applies that salve to the sheep's face and gently helps the sheep to be nursed back to health. Those are the analogies that are given of what eldering and pastoring should be. It's helping herding sheep so that they can thrive and grow and produce wool. The shepherd is chiefly responsible and tasked with this in caring. It's a life marked by growth and an overflowing life is what sheep should be and shepherds should make that a primary responsibility. It's also protecting. Listen to Acts 20. I find this passage, as someone who stands in the office of a pastor, an elder, an overseer, to be such a serious charge. Verse 28, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which He, Jesus, obtained with His own blood." You see how personally Jesus takes care of the church of God? Paul says, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease, night or day, to admonish every one of you. Think about that phrase, not sparing the flock. Take that phrase with the illustration I gave at the beginning with that pastor. Folks, that's exactly what was going on. That's exactly what's going on. And so when there's trouble in the church, you can better bet the wolves are on the outside seeking to come in, and it is the responsibility, not of the pastor and the deacons, but of the elders, plural, to protect that flock. This is one of the reasons, folks, why, and by my kind of being kind of preachy about it, I don't want you to, again, get this idea that what we've done in the past is wrong. No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, this is why when you have a group of deacons tasked with that responsibility, they are tasked with something that is beyond what the scripture is telling them they are tasked with. This group over here is tasked with this, and I want you to see again, there are wolves that will not spare the flock. These people over here have to be up for the task of protecting you, the sheep, the people that Jesus cares for very much. There needs to be an office with time spent looking at what those issues are, helping to protect the flock. That can be done by vocational elders and lay elders together. That's shepherding, caring and protection. This is the heart of a shepherd elder. Number two, responsibility is leading. Overseeing carries the idea of leading, right? Now we have to be careful here. Because I think this is where we can borrow some ideas from the business world, and I think some of those ideas are very helpful. This is one that can be unhelpful. You can look at a man who's really good at organizing things that is business and say, I want that guy to be an elder in the church. But I want you to note these few phrases, Acts 20 and 28. It says, the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. It is a kind of oversight that is not merely managerial. It is watching for the souls of people, and it's why the Holy Spirit tasks people with this. In 1 Peter 5, it says that elders are charged with the oversight of the spiritual welfare of the congregation. And it says in that text, in 1 Peter 5, that the congregation should be subject to them. We're gonna talk a little bit more next week about congregationalism. There has to be a synergy between the elders, both vocational and lay elders over here and the congregation who gives approval of these people. But here in this text it says that the congregations should be subject to them and in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 17 it explicitly says to obey and submit to them. Now keep in mind, I know that sounds dangerous in our era when you say submit to a leader, but remember that the elders are given this responsibility that your example is Jesus Christ, and he will hold us to that. There is no New Testament passage that says to be subject to deacons, none. There is no New Testament passage that says obey the deacons. Again, here's where I think we need to clarify what the Bible is teaching us with our current church constitution because our current church constitution indeed is telling you as a congregation to follow the senior pastor and the deacons, to stand under that leadership. So I think we need some clarification there. John chapter 10 and verse 11, this is one of those other pastoring, shepherding texts of Scripture, which gives us as elders, pastors, an example to follow. John 10 and verse 11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I remember years ago, I was talking to my pastor on the phone, we were going through a rough time at the church, and I was just like questioning everything. And I remember he said to me, Pastor Musgrave said to me, he said, Rob, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And I just remember thinking, junk. That sounds like a hard thing, and it is. But this is our example. The very nature of leadership is sacrificial. That's the point we're making. That's the point the text is making. It is not organizational competence. We have to be very careful we do not take those ideas and just import them from the business world and then just expect that to happen. The very nature of leadership is sacrificial. We have shepherding, we have leading, and the third responsibility elders are tasked with is teaching. Now, I understand that we're into the sermon and this is like the third point here and it's final, but I really want you to lock in and hear this one. 1 Timothy 3.2 says that an elder should be able to teach. What does that mean? What does that mean? Because what I'm going to say is challenging the way you're probably thinking about it. The way I used to think about this is, can he teach a Sunday school class? Or can he fill in if I'm not here at some point? And yet what I was seeing was that there were men who actually had the heart of a shepherd and had the heart of a sacrificial leader and who actually did indeed study God's word and communicate it to other people, but who never would want to be up here on a Sunday morning. So what does it mean when the scripture says he should be able to teach? Let me say what the text does not say. The text does not say he should be able to preach. Totally different word. Totally different word. And Paul could have easily used that Greek word there. Preaching carries the idea of what I'm doing here, right? That's what preaching is. It does not say he should be gifted to teach. See, this is where we need to think about spiritual gifting and being able to do something. Two totally different ideas. Look, there are some people who are just gifted teachers, right? You probably heard those people. You can see them on the internet. And you know, you got a David Jeremiah and this guy and that guy. And so we're looking at those people. We read a text and it's just kind of like, well, I can't do that. That's not what the text is asking you to do. It's not being gifted to teach. 1 Timothy chapter 5 and verse 17 says that if such an individual is within the congregation and he is gifted to teach or he's gifted to preach or he is spending more time and the congregation wants him to do that, that individual certainly can be paid to do that. but he doesn't have to be paid to do that. There are those who have this responsibility who are not gifted to do this. So an elder can be able to teach and not be paid by the church. What is able to teach? Like what does that actually mean? Here's what that means. This is a man who is willing to study God's Word, explain it to people in an understandable way and there is fruit. And there is fruit. There is fruit from that. Now I've known a few men in my time and they love to tell you what the Bible says but nobody wants to listen to them. You ever known such an individual? What we're talking here is about a man who is loves God's Word, is willing to dig into God's Word, to study God's Word, to give an answer to another person, the other person listens in an understandable way because he's hearing it and there's actually fruit from that. This is why the scripture gives the responsibility of elders to raise up elders because they're observing this, they're watching this. They're seeing this thing happen in real time. Some elders, like myself, who explain God's Word in public settings. But I will tell you, more often than not, what I've seen in the past is there are a lot of good men who explain God's Word in smaller settings and are just as effective in those settings as hopefully I am in this setting. Because they are able to teach. Now, all Christians should speak the truth to one another. All Christians should do that. Romans 15, 14 says that. Ephesians 4 and verse 15 say that. There are men who are especially set aside, aspiring to this office, who are growing in their understanding of the Bible, burdened to give good biblical answers to people, to help them to grow, and they have a burden to do that. And this is protecting the congregation. It's fulfilling that responsibility. So, I have some questions that I would ask prospective elders. Do you desire to shepherd and care for people? Do you study God's Word? Are you willing to work at sharpening your understanding of biblical doctrines to study together? Can you discern bad teaching? When was the last time you had a conversation with someone where you were thinking about how to help them to grow and what to say to affect that? Are you burdened for people and willing to care for them? Are you willing to oversee some aspect of the ministry at church? Do you attend church when the doors are open and love being at church and being with God's people? These are just a sampling of questions that I would ask prospective elders. Let me just give a few takeaways to everyone. Because I know when I say this, some of you are just kind of like, I don't know if this applies to me. Well, let me give you a few takeaways. As you look at that list of qualifications in 1 Timothy chapter 3, are you striving to be that? Is that your goal as a church member of Bethel Baptist Church? Are you striving to have that kind of Christ-like character? Are you men a one-woman man? Are you? How is your thought life? Is there anyone you can share struggles with? Are you self-controlled? Are you gentle? Are you gentle with your wife? Are you gentle with your children? Team guy? Are you gentle with your mom? Why should elders be this way? Because it's setting an example for everyone within the church, including teenagers and children. Are you a lover of money? By the way, it doesn't say, are you a needer of money? We are all in need of money, right? We gotta have it. But are you a lover of money? Do you give diligent attention to leading your home? If you have failed, in any of these areas. And I'm not asking these to make people feel guilty, but I ask them, and you may sit there and you think, no I'm not gentle or I'm not this or my thought life. If you have failed in some area, and we all fail, if you have failed in some area, particularly with your family, why not sit with your family and just confess that to them? Why not just sit with your family and just say, you know, I've been hearing preaching at church and I just really feel like there are some responsibilities that I've neglected in leading our home. And I just want to say, I'm sorry. And I want to not only do better, but I want to be shaped by God's word. How do you think that would go over? I want to say in conclusion, Bethel Baptist Church has had a history of good shepherds. Flawed shepherds. All of us. I am one. Maybe the chiefest of them. These were people who loved and cared for the flock. I believe in the development of this church, the time has come for us to recommend that we expand those shepherding responsibilities. to have both vocational elders and lay elders. And I want to end with this verse in Acts 20, 28. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. By the way, that was given to the elders, plural, of the church at Ephesus over which Timothy was the lead teaching pastor. So this is given to them, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. So this is the who, these are who the shepherds are. Let me say as a final word, there's been, like some of you have pulled me aside and say I wanna ask a question. Praise God for that, let's just keep doing that, I love that. And there's no question that's a dumb question or any of that kind of stuff. I want you to process it. I want you to think about it. There are other people that can answer those questions too. Eric can answer, Pete can answer, Scott can answer, Rick Cipher, our deacon chairman, he and I have talked a lot about this. He can answer some of those questions. And so please, let's keep asking questions. Let's keep praying. Let's keep pushing forward. for the health of the body here at Bethel Baptist Church. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for its instruction. Thank you for, there's times where it's made us uncomfortable. And I, God, I feel like there has been discomfort in my own life over the last number of years of having to recognize that I just didn't see this before. And in some ways, I just feel like I was at a deficit. And I just thank you for allowing us the time, the space to press into your word, help us to be shaped by it. And I pray that you protect the unity of this church. I can tell there's such a sweet unity among us. Help that to continue because we know you purchased this by your blood. And so we therefore wanna care for it well. We ask all this in Jesus' precious name, amen.