God's Standard for Pastors

We are back in a series that we began some weeks ago in 1 Timothy. Remember that? 1 Timothy, chapter 3, if you would please 1 Timothy 3 in your Bible. Some weeks ago I began a series on these pastoral epistles, first and second Timothy, knowing that we were in a very crucial stage of our church's history and knowing that we would soon be voting on a new pastor. I felt with the remaining months that God is giving me here, I wanted to take us on a journey through 1 Timothy because these are epistles written to a young pastor by a seasoned veteran Paul writing to his young disciple Timothy, giving him instruction on how to conduct himself and the ministry of the church and giving the church instruction on how it should conduct its business as the church of God. Paul tells Timothy in chapter 3, verse 14, his reason for writing this epistle. He says, although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. I want to Timothy as the leader in the church of Ephesus, a very significant, maybe the most significant church in Asia Minor in this day. And God entrusted the leadership and Paul, the apostle, entrusted the leadership of this church to Timothy. And now he writes to him to give him instructions as to how he should conduct his ministry, how to lead the church of God, and how the church should conduct its ministry. It is God's church, the church of the living God, he says. It is God's church, and so God gives the instructions. I have entitled this series of message, the church's owner's manual, recognizing that God is the owner of the church, Christ is the head of the church. He is the bridegroom, we are his bride, recognizing his position of glory and honor. We come to him for instructions. He is the owner. We come to his owner's manual to see. How were to do this thing of church? How we are to conduct ourselves? How we are to operate as a ministry? In chapter 1, we found that Paul was giving Timothy instructions about doctrine. And he began by warning him of the false doctrine that was coming his way and was already seeping into the church at Ephesus. And then he followed that with his own personal testimony of how God had delivered him from the false doctrines and legalism and hypocrisy of Judaism through his own salvation. And then he closes that magnificent chapter by warning Timothy and charging him and challenging him to defend the faith, to teach and preach the Word of God and the doctrines found therein. Then we come to chapter 2. In chapter 2, Paul moves to instructions about worship and we saw that he only mentions a couple of things, although he could have mentioned many things in regard to worshiping only mentions two things. Maybe these were special needs at Ephesus. We are not sure, but they have certainly come to be special needs in churches today as well. The first issue of worship he dealt with was prayer. But remember how he tied prayer to the mission of the church because throughout those first few verses of chapter 2, he talks about the fact that God wants all men to be saved and God wants people to hear the gospel and so the prayer effort of the church is to be martyred around that great mission of the church to spread the gospel to all the world. And the second issue he dealt with as we saw back on December 11th was the role of women in the church. Probably good after looking at that that we took a little break from 1st Timothy for a while. And now we come back to chapter 3 where we find him giving instructions about leadership in the church. Church leaders and he mentions two groups of leaders, two offices if you will in the church and that is pastors and deacons. I want you to know that what he gives here is not really a job description. In fact there is very little said only one thing he says about a pastor's job. What he does is he gives the qualifications for a pastor, what qualifications or requirements he must meet in the first seven verses and then in verses 8 through 13 he does that for the deacons. We are going to look at the pastors this morning. What are the requirements for a pastor? If you interview for a job you probably will be given a job description maybe as a part of that job description or as a part of other interviewing that you will do. You will find maybe a list of qualifications. Sometimes it is a cover page on a job description as it is with our job descriptions here which lists the qualifications necessary to do that particular job. Certain age, experience level, here are things required in this job. You have the capability to do that. Those kinds of things. And that is what God is doing here. It is not really a job description in the sense that a pastor must do XXXYYZ. These things. It is what are your qualifications? Are you qualified? Do you have the character qualities that are necessary to be a pastor? And that is what he deals with here. Biblical qualifications for pastors. Briscoe who was the pastor for many years at Elmbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin said there are three requirements to be a pastor. You must have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the hide of a rhinoceros. Well there is some wisdom to that, but that is not really God's list. God gives a much more comprehensive list. I will warn you that this is a list kind of message this morning. My favorite kind of preaching is to preach the glories of Christ and of his gospel. And I wish every passage in the scriptures just dealt specifically with that. This passage does not. It is a list passage. It is one of Paul's lists. And for those of you who are not like me and you don't like lists, this may be one of the most boring messages you have ever heard. Sorry about that. It is still a part of the Bible. It is a part of God's instruction for us and we need to hear it. I will also caution both pastor and flock, pastors and flock of this reality. We as pastors will be humbled by this passage. We will all be called up short. We will all be called to recognize our failings. And we will once again be called to fall upon the grace of God, for it is only by his grace that we can continue to serve. But I also want to say this about this passage. Specifically, these are qualifications for pastors. But by way of general application, these are standards that God sets for every man. As Paul was to be looking in the congregation in Ephesus for men to fill these positions. These pastoral roles and so he was to look among the men of the church for these kinds of qualifications. And so this is really for all of us here today, specifically us men, but all of us can learn from the kinds of qualifications that God expects of his children, those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ. Notice if you will how Paul prefaces this list of qualifications in verse 1. I love the way he starts this. So we need to take a little bit of time here. Here is a trustworthy saying. Stop right there. Paul only says that five times in all of his letter writing, all five of them are in the pastoral epistles. And every time it means if you're getting a little bored right now, I want to get your attention. Stop. Because this is critical. You need to hear this. This is a faithful saying. This is a trustworthy saying. This is a saying that we need to stop and listen to. This is foundational, critical, absolutely essential to the functioning of a church. So what does he say? He says, whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task, I want to pull out those two words, aspire and desire because they really, I believe, give an internal perspective on how God calls people in the ministry. The first word as spire is a very interesting word. I'm reading it out of the new international version. Some of you may have a different word there. But the word literally is a word which means to earnestly stretch toward. The Greek word actually has the idea of a race or a runner who is stretching toward the finish line, wanting to be the first one over the finish line. So it is that reaching for that aspiring to that desire, if you will, but the indication of pursuing this, this is someone who really wants to be a pastor. It's not specific as to what kind of pastor or whether it's on the mission field or in a local church setting in the United States or somewhere else. It's not specific to that. It's just you desire to be in pastoral ministry and you're moving toward that. You're pursuing that. But the reason you're pursuing that is the second word because of the word desire. The one who aspires who's reaching himself forward, pushing toward the finish line to be an overseer desires. And this is what God has done in your heart and in my heart, I remember so well. The word desire here is a word which means a passionate, driving conviction that you cannot escape. And everyone who has been, quote unquote, called to ministry knows what that is. It is something you cannot escape. You cannot run from. Run from it. You may try that you cannot escape. The arm of God planting in your heart. It's burning passion and desire and overwhelming, driving compulsion, if you will, to preach his word, to serve him as a pastor. Paul says, if you have that aspiration that flows out of that passionate desire, then you desire a noble task. He mentions that it is the task of an overseer. It's an interesting word. Some of you will have, like the King James word, bishop. So that word has become so nuanced and has changed meaning so much in our culture in the Western world that it no longer means what Paul meant. So that's the reason why most modern translations will use words like overseer rather than bishop. Because Paul's not thinking of a man who is over a certain area or group of churches, he's talking about a local church pastor. And the overseer or bishop, that word means he is to take oversight. He is to lead. He is to manage the work of God. There are two other terms that are interchangeable with this in the pastoral epistles and in the book of Acts. One is the word elder, which emphasizes the spiritual maturity of a pastor. The second and the third is the word pastor or shepherd, which indicates the actual functioning and work of caring for the flock and feeding the flock. First Peter chapter 5, and Acts chapter 20, use all three of those words very clearly of the same office. The office of the overseer or bishop is the same as the office of an elder and the office of a pastor. Those three are used interchangeably in the New Testament. So that's the way he sets it up. If you're reaching forward, stretching forward for this ministry that God has put into your heart with a passionate earnest compulsion and desire, it's a noble thing. If you want to lead God's flock, feed God's flock, care for God's flock, then that's a noble thing. It is a high calling that none of us are worthy of on our own. So Paul says, if that's where you are, if that's the burden of your heart, okay, now let's see if you're qualified. Let's see if you meet the qualifications. And then he gives this list. Ready for the list? The list breaks down into four areas. In fact, God's standard for pastors includes four areas of a man's life. The first area that God deals with in a man's life for these qualifications is his character. His character. Verse 2, now the overseer is to be above reproach. Oh wow, he sets the bar high to start with above reproach. I want to say very clearly, first of all, this does not mean sinlessly perfect. It does not mean that we are to be perfect without any sin. However it also is not a low bar. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be a criminal. It's higher than that. It's lower than sinless perfection, but it's a pretty high standard. Something word here translated in our English versions above reproach. It basically means literally cannot take hold of. And here's the idea. There is nothing that a person can be accused of that will entangle him. Lay hold of him, will be true about him and will entangle him and cause him to trip and fall and make a mess of things. There may be criticisms and some legitimately so, but there's no accusation about his character that would cause him to fall, that would take hold of him. That's the reason why the testimony of a pastor is critical. He must conduct himself and everything about his life in a way that is a good testimony to the body of Christ. That's the point here above reproach. Notice the second one, if you will, about his character. The NIV says faithful to his wife. Many of you will have translations, the King James and the ESD that say husband of one wife. And that particular rendering has given rise to many different interpretations as to what this means. Husband of one wife. There are at least six different interpretations. Believe it or not, as to what that means. One of them is that a pastor cannot be single. Some believe this means a pastor cannot be single. He must be married. Others believe that he cannot remarry if his wife dies. I know a well-known Bible teacher and scholar that took that view. Cannot remarry even if your wife dies. A third view is that you should have no more than one wife. Well, I would highly commend that, but it's probably not the case that Paul's dealing with polygamy in Ephesus. There's no evidence that there was polygamy in Ephesus. There are some who even take this to mean that a pastor should be married to the church. This is where, by the way, the Roman Catholic church gets its view of priestly celibacy that a pastor should never marry because of the church is his wife. The bride of Christ is the wife of the priest. Well, there's no indication that any of those views find any credence in this text. That's not what Paul's saying. I don't believe you're saying any of those four. So there are two other views that have commended the cells and gained traction in churches like ours. One of them is that a pastor cannot be divorced. Husband of one wife means a pastor should not be divorced. However, there are some significant challenges to that view here. One is that these are character qualities. But that's what this means. It's the only one in the list that refers to something that may have happened one time in a pastor's past. The others all have to do with the state of his character as a redeemed Christ follower. Someone who isn't saved and is loving the Lord and following him, all the rest of them mean that. And so I take this to be in the same vein that it has to do with the person's character. And that is further supported by the literal meaning of what Paul says. What Paul literally says, the actual Greek, if you interpret it word for word, is a one woman man. One woman man. That's why the N.I.V. has chosen to, I believe, faithfully render it. He is faithful to his wife. So what is Paul saying here? Can a person who maybe even before he was saved or even afterwards have gone through a divorce, got his life right with God is in a faithful, God-honoring marriage. Could he serve as a pastor? I believe so. I do not believe that divorce necessarily disqualifies someone. However, the standard actually is even higher than that. The standard is that a pastor must be faithfully devoted to his wife. In other words, quite literally, he needs to honor his marriage vows. He needs to make sure that he is not sexually involved with any other woman. There are many men who have never been divorced who would be disqualified by that standard. That I believe is the standard and it really is a very high one. So husband of one wife really means one woman man faithful to his wife, faithful to the marriage covenant he made with her. We need to move on. The third character quality and we'll take the rest of these, I think, or most of them, fairly quickly. The word temperate, the word temperate literally means a man of sound judgment. Someone who has wise caution, a clear perspective on life, doesn't try to escape reality, but a clear, solid, faithful perspective on life. Sound judgment, that's the word temperate. The next one is self-controlled. Some of you will have the word sober in your translation. That again is a word which meant one thing back when the King James of Translated meets something entirely different today. Paul's not talking about intoxicating beverages here. He's talking about the way a person thinks. It literally is to be sober-minded. It means to be serious about your work. That not everything is frivolous, not everything is a joke. There are some things that are extremely serious and important, especially about the work of God. When you're handling an eternal book, the eternal word of God dealing with the eternal souls of people, that's serious stuff. And you know how to take that seriously. It is to be sober-minded. That doesn't mean a pastor can't have a sense of humor. That is a lubricant of life that really is a blessing for any person to have, but it does mean he knows what is serious business and is able to get serious about that. That's the word sober-minded or self-controlled. Then the word respectable is the next word there in verse 2. It literally means orderly or well-mannered, well organized or arranged, I should say. Orderly or well-arranged. It has to do again with his thinking and approach to life. He is able to organize himself and his ministry and work in a way to accomplish what needs to be accomplished, disciplined and responsible in that way in his approach to what God has called him to do. That really is the word respectable. And then there's this word hospitable. Literally means the home is open. It means that you open your home, that you're willing to give of what you have to bless others. Now in New Testament times that was absolutely essential because for the first 300 years of the church, the church met in homes and oftentimes it was the largest home in the congregation, but oftentimes it started in the pastor's home. And there were also many traveling preachers and so forth. That third John, for instance, gives an example of this, that in the days of persecution needed a safe place to stay. And so pastors in the church or even others in the church were to open their homes to welcome folks into their homes. A pastor must be one who makes others feel at home who is willing to share openly whatever he has. And I want to pause for just a moment here and give some words, give a shout out to my wife, Jeannie. We've been doing this for 43 and a half years. And the first 17 or 18 years of our ministry in other churches and other states were in places where, and this was in the day before you kept speakers in motels, before churches had prophets, chambers, little guest apartments. And so we were the typical Baptist church, we had one missionary a month on Sunday night. And so at least 12 and then revival meetings and other special meetings, we had speakers, we had folks in our home dozens of times a year. And my wife never, ever complained about that. She willingly opened her home and I will tell you, she suffered some mistreatment at times. I will never forget a missionary that we had when we were in North Carolina, an opt-a-wonder thinking of, it's someone else. A missionary that we had who would not eat the meal she had so carefully prepared, because it combined beef with cheese, some kind of meatloaf type thing. And he quoted them, skewered verse out of Leviticus, you shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk. And I just about lost my appetite at that meal when he said that, but my wife never flinched and never has through the years. And as I did in the first service, I also want to give a shout out to Audrey Jones, who for many more years than what we did before there was such a thing as keeping speakers in Models and so forth, entertained countless numbers of speakers and missionaries and preachers in her home. And other pastors' wives here do the same thing. It's not just the pastor, this is incumbent on the pastor's wife to be willing to open her home and our wives deserve some credit for what they have done in that regard. Move on to the next one quickly, able to teach. Interestingly enough, this is the only one that mentions an actual duty of a pastor. Isn't that interesting? Maybe you don't find it to be so. It's really interesting to me. Fascinating. All the rest had to do with character qualities. There's only one duty mentioned. And it's like Paul says, if I'm going to pick out one duty that has to be the qualification of every pastor, he has to be able to teach the Bible. A lot of people make a big distinction over preaching and teaching and there is a distinction. There's a distinction actually in the words that are used in the New Testament. Preaching has to do with proclaiming, publicly heralding the truth, like we do here on Sunday mornings. More of a preaching time and teaching is just the faithful teaching for understanding of the Bible. But I see that too as being wedded together and Paul will do that later in this book. All good preaching, exhortation, challenge from the Word should be based on good Bible teaching and include good Bible teaching and all good Bible teaching should also offer a call to change your life because of what you're hearing. So the two really combine, the two go together. But if there's one thing a pastor has to be qualified to do, which means he must give time to study the Word, to prepare himself, to be able to teach others it is to be able to teach. When Paul gives this same list to Titus in the book of Titus, he says it this way, he must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. So must be able to study the Word, understand the Word, put it together to be able to communicate it to others. That is a qualification for a pastor. Then notice the next move you will. Number eight, not given to drunkenness. Not given to drunkenness. Literally the words are, doesn't sit long at wine. That's the literal words in the original language. Doesn't sit long at wine. Now folks, let's be honest about this. You have to understand that in New Testament times wine was the common table beverage of the day. It did not have the associations that we have with wine today, nor did it have the alcohol content that is typical in wine today. It was the table beverage of the day. It was the common beverage of the day. Believers would often mix water with it. In fact, it was used to purify the water, which in that location in that day had a lot of germs in it. So they mixed it with water to dilute it enough where it would not be a danger to anybody. The New Testament, nor the Old Testament, never outlaws wine altogether, although there are clear warnings. Like Proverbs 20 verse 1, wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, whoever is deceived thereby is not wise. It is possible to be deceived. The point here is he should not sit long with wine. He should not be controlled by any outside substance. And by the way, I think the application is broader than just wine. The broader principle is he should not be controlled by anything. Like food, tobacco, money, sports, any personal habit. Now that changes things a little bit. It's very easy for me to preach. Don't get drunk. So they're more convicting for me to preach. Don't eat too much, John. I think all of us would find areas where we need work on this particular discipline. Not given to much wine, not drunk. The next three are tied together. So let's take them quickly, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome. The word violent literally means to strike out at someone. He cannot be someone who loses control, who has a short fuse. Short fuses do not lead to long ministries. It just doesn't work together. So he cannot be a person who strikes out at others because he loses his temper. But, on the other hand, he must be gentle. So if he's a man, the idea means a sweet spirit with a reasonable disposition, gentle. And then he says, not quarrelsome. The word for quarrelsome here is a word which means I have to have my way. And so everybody else's idea is bad because mine's the only one who's going to float. That's the idea here. You cannot do that and serve as an overseer of a flock. And then the last one is this, verse three, very into the verse, not a lover of money. Some translations say not greedy. Financial considerations cannot control the ministry, the priorities, or the Lord's leading for a man who is in pastoral ministry. I just want to say something here because Pastor Dan will never say it. In the whole process of interviews that we did over a period of four months, never one time to Dan bring up money, never one time, never asked about a salary, never, never made any stipulations as to what it would be or anything like that. In fact, when I asked him, and this was a little different situation because we were considering someone who's already on the payroll who's already been paid by the church, when I asked him, is now the time that we now talk to their finance committee chairmen, is now the time we need to consider something. Dan said, that's not even a thought of mine. It's not even a consideration at all. There's never been any indication in my mind that Dan thing has any concern about how much he's going to be paid. Now I challenge you as a church and I believe you will be generous and gracious, but he's never mentioned it. He is not about money. He's not greedy. Those are the personal qualifications of character and they form a high standard. But notice, Vindpal moves on to his home life in verses four and five. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church? This one is difficult for those of us in ministry and there are several reasons why that I want to touch on, but let me just say first. He uses the word manage, both of the home and the church. The word manage means to superintendent to preside over to provide leadership. And so a pastor is supposed to first of all be a leader, a manager in his home because the same qualifications for managing in the home also apply to the church. And Paul gives that reason. You can't really lead, manage, operate a church. If you can't fulfill those obligations in your home. And then he talks about our children must be obedient to us. It's a military term actually to be under authority, but it does not indicate a boot camp. Certainly not the crucible that Chandler just came through with the Marines. Does not indicate that you should starve your children for 48 hours and make them march 45 miles like the Marines do. You don't mean that at all or any semblance of that because the training, the discipline, the expectation of obedience is to be done. Notice verse three in a manner worthy of full respect. It is to be done in a way that is respectful with dignity, not overbearing, not as Paul says, provoking your kids to irritation and anger, not like a concentration camp with loving leadership. Now let me pause for a moment. I want to give a few warnings to us pastors and to you as a church. First of all, for those of us who are pastors, let me warn us against hypocrisy. If we are one thing at church and a totally different person with different ethical standards and morals at home, our kids will see through that very quickly. Be careful about hypocrisy. Secondly, for pastors, be careful about misplaced priorities. If we neglect our children, if we are so busy about helping everybody else, that we have no time for our own families, our wives, our wife, yet one. And our children, if we have no time for them, then there is something seriously out of balance there. The third warning I want to give to us as pastors is do everything you can, men, to avoid the pressure of thinking you have to present the perfect home with the perfect children. There is no such thing and there are no such little ones. I can remember that pressure when our kids were growing up. I can remember going out to a restaurant and wondering and praying, Lord, please help my kids to be good. Help them not to turn their food over and dump it in the floor. Please help them not to throw a fit here in the restaurant because I know there will be people looking at me saying, isn't he the pastor over at? Look at that. And so we put this expectation on ourselves that our kids can never do any wrong. Please understand, this is a qualification that says you are to manage your home. Some of your managers in your workplace, right? You are responsible for a certain part of your company or your organization or people that work under you. Does that mean that everything is always perfect and goes exactly like it should? Of course not. But when things do go awry, it means you address it, you give it attention, you manage, you work those things through. So please, please, none of us should ever have the expectation that our kids will be perfect. Kids are kids. I will never forget something I read from James Dobson many years ago that it helped me some. He said, you can expect a two-year-old to sit still in church. So the same degree you can expect that two-year-old to swim the Atlantic Ocean. It is just not in a two-year-old to be still. You can't expect that. And I could remember thinking as a parent of young children in ministry, God forbid that my kids would ever run in church. In the lobby up the middle aisle, even when nobody's there. But I certainly don't want anybody to see them running in the church. You know what? Kids run. That's what they do. Now I know this is, we call it God's house. This is a building dedicated to the glory of God. But if you come down so hard on your kids for never running in a church building, you know what you're communicating to them? This is a place where I can't really be a kid. That's what you communicate. They may not be able to verbalize it, but you're saying to them, you cannot be normal here. And it may turn them against the building, the church, and the whole idea of, I've got to be a certain way when I'm inside this building. So please be careful about that. The fourth warning I want to give in this regard to rearing our families and our children is a warning to you as a congregation. Could I please warn you and you have demonstrated this so well with us when we came here we had a couple of teenagers, one teenager, one pre-teenager, and one not quite two-year-old. And so we went through this, our own feelings and you were very gracious with us. Please do not project a PK image on your younger pastor's children and expect that they will act a certain way or be held to a certain standard because they're a preacher's kid. Look at him, look at her. That's a preacher's kid. There are no requirements of any children in the Bible except those given to God's kids. All of God's kids, all of God's children, all of us as parents, have the same standard for our children. Please do not hold pastors, children to any other standard. They should not be expected to be superior, held to a higher standard, nor should they be given any extra leniency. So just a word of loving and cautious warning. Quickly, we move on. The Bible talks not only about His character and His home life, but Paul moves on to His maturity, His maturity, verse 6. He must not be a recent convert or He may become conceded and fall under the same judgment as the devil. The devil fell because of pride, the Bible teaches. And so it is possible for someone who's newly saved to get kind of an inflated view of, wow, look at me now. I'm a leader of God's people. I get to tell other people how to live their lives. If that begins to be heavy stuff, you're in danger. You're in real trouble. Now the Church of Ephesus had been established for 12 years, so there had been enough time for men to grow up and mature and be godly and mature enough to be entitled with this responsibility of leadership. But it does require some time to mature, to show signs of having walked with God and some seasoning of maturity. You'll say, well, how old do you have to be to be mature? The Bible doesn't tell us that. In fact, Timothy was a very young man. Many think late 20s, early 30s by this point, but he'd been walking with God since his teenage years and had really developed a lot of spiritual maturity. Again, I want to be very personal. You know, I'm on my way out and I can say some things that I might have been hesitant to say before. And I love my brother, Dan. And I've had a couple people say, he's so young. And again, this is something Dan will never speak to, never defend himself. But there have been a few folks who say, he's young. Did you know, the only reason you would say that is because you're still looking at me up here every Sunday. That's the only reason you'd ever say that. Did you know that Dan is 38 years old? Sorry, Dan, I'm going to divulge a little personal information here. Dan is 38 years old. The same age I was when I came here to be your pastor. When preacher Jimmy started here, he was 28 years old. By the time Dan becomes the senior pastor, he will be 40, right? It's a crest of that hill. And if you're wondering, does he have sufficient experience? I mean, I think the vote has already answered all that. I came here with 17 years of full-time ministry experience under my belt. By the time Dan becomes the senior pastor, he will have had 16 years of full-time ministry experience in a much more varied and wide scope of ministry than I was able to have. And you can ask any of the young people in this church, some of them sitting right over here, you can ask any of the young people. There has been a very high standard of Bible teaching and preaching in the youth ministry. He's well-qualified, well-seasoned, ready to go. Maturity. Finally, his reputation, verse 7, quickly. He must also have a good reputation without ciders so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. He has an excellent testimony among unsaved people. Now that seems to almost go counter to what Jesus said on occasion. Look at these verses, just in case you're thinking this or would have this question later. Luke 6.26, Jesus said to his followers, woe to you when everyone speaks well of you. For that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. And then he said to his disciples in the upper room just before he died in John 15, he said, if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I've chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. So how do you put that, Jesus said the world's going to hate us with what Paul's saying here, have a good reputation without ciders. And by outsiders, he's talking about people outside the church, the community, the world. How do you put those two together? Well, God's Word is always the best interpreter of itself. Peter does us a service under the inspiration of Holy Spirit by putting these two together for us in a way that we can understand. First Peter 4, if you suffer, in other words, he talked about opposition from people outside the church who don't like you, who hate you as Jesus said they would, if you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a medler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed but praise God that you bear that name. So here's the balance. If we are ridiculed, despised or even hated by the world, it should be because we love Jesus and because we are so passionately committed to Him, it gives them the wrong idea. It rubs them the wrong way. They don't like to see someone who's passionately devoted to Christ and we are ridiculed for our testimony for Christ. It should never be, we should never suffer or be ridiculed or be opposed because we are dishonest or because we don't pair bills or because we're guilty of unethical conduct in our dealings with others. That's, if you do that kind of stuff, you ought to suffer. Yeah. So Peter says that's the balance. We need to have a good reputation so that we don't fall into disgrace and the enemy is able to attack us. Folks, this is a high standard. It really is. Dealing with character, home life, maturity, reputation is a high standard and every time I go over it, I'll tell you, I had so many butterflies in my stomach last night in this morning thinking, I'm going to stand up and preach everybody what I should look like when I know they're thinking, not so good on that one, not so good on that one. This is a high standard and always pastor have covered your prayers to be able to live up to these kinds of standards. But I would remind you again that Paul is looking out, Timothy is looking out of the church to find these kind of men to serve in leadership. So in reality, this is a high standard but I remind you, it is a goal for every Christian man. And could I say backstension, since many of these character qualities have to do with just Godly character, women as well. We can all learn from this. It is the standard for pastors that we are to strive for, to reach by God's grace, but it is the standard for all of us. And may God in His grace enable us to live up to that standard. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for how clear your word is. When we open it, we see it, it's not always easy, it's convicting sometimes, but it is clear. And I pray, Father, that you would help us to recognize the standard that you've given for us as pastors and for Godly men in the church and that we would buy your grace and the strength of your spirit live up to the standard that you've provided for us. And we fail, help us to be quick to recognize the conviction of the spirit, to seek forgiveness first from you and from others we've offended, and to make restitution where it's needed. Help us, Father, to live by your standard in Jesus' name.