Serving the Church as a Christian, Part 2

I wanted to read a letter that came yesterday from Jim Franks, who is the Director of Ministerial Services, the Managing Department Head, whatever we... I forgot what we do call these Department Heads that we have, Operations Manager for Ministerial Services. He sends out a newsletter and journal once a month to the Ministry, and I just wanted to... The cover letter that he always puts on was interesting this time, and I thought I'd use it. It does help to get into the topic that we want to talk about as well, but gives you a little bit of update and a few... a little background. But he addresses it to the Ministers, and he says, in reading the world news, along with the update from Jeff Cottle...

Jeff Cottle is our resident elder in New Zealand, and he had a report in this issue here about the situation in Tonga, political unrest in Tonga. He said, I realize just how connected we all are. In the past two days, there have been articles in the local Cincinnati paper about flooding in East Africa, where a hundred people lost their lives, the ongoing situation in Tonga, the attempt by the French to bring Rwandans to trial for their part in the genocide of the mid-1990s, the ongoing wars in Chad and Somalia, as well as the tragic situation that continues to unfold in Darfur. In many of these places, we have members who either are being affected or will be affected by these tragic events, both natural and man-made. Having visited in a number of African and Asian countries, I now read the newspaper with renewed interest. Now, when reading articles about these tragedies, I ask myself, were any members affected? It is amazing what a difference it makes when you have a face to relate to a story. When reading these articles, I see the faces of the members we have met in the various countries. Prayer becomes much more personal with this in mind. And he goes on to talk a little bit about some other things here. He said, in the midst of all the bad news, the work of the church has been progressing on all fronts. It is hard to make comparisons since all such comparisons are a bit flawed. He said, we are no longer living in the 1950s or 1960s, but the size of the church today is similar to what it was during those years. And there are similar needs for manpower. The methodology for preaching the gospel has certainly changed, but the message is the same good news of the coming Kingdom of God. In Ministerial Services, we're doing everything possible to support our pastors and elders as they serve the brethren. We are also looking to identify those who are being called to the Ministry for Future Service to handle growth in the church membership and replace those who are no longer capable of service because of health or ill age. We are living in an age of materialism. It is a challenge to find men and women who desire to be servants. The most recent regional workshops for pastors are organized in such a way as to help educate the pastors on what to look for within the congregations.

In Proverbs 29, 18, we read that where there is no vision, the people perish. Much has been said about vision, but it cannot be overstated. Our goal in these workshops is to assist pastors in knowing what to look for and thereby knowing when they have found it. In Ministerial Services, we're working diligently to prepare the people of God for the future through a dedicated and trained ministry.

I had mentioned when I came back from our regional conference in St. Louis last month that the United Church of God is committed to a full-time ministry and a visible ministry in the congregations, not a tape ministry. That's our tape congregations. We are committed to that, which we have been for 11 years and on into the future. That's where we are headed, God willing, as He provides us the ability to continue to fine train, ordain, and hire men to be part of the church.

And to replace those who are aging and through health reasons will have to be retiring in coming years. We are committed to that model of a ministry and the church. Jim Franks makes an interesting comment here. Debbie and I were talking about it coming up. He said, we are no longer living in the 1950s or 60s, but the size of the church today is similar to what it was during those years, and there are similar needs for manpower. And I kind of pondered on that when I read it yesterday, and we were talking about it this morning. I've heard that comparison made before, and I just really didn't really stop and think about it, think it through, because I don't think I truly either understood it or necessarily believed it. But in one sense, there may be more truth there than I thought. I'm not saying Mr. Franks is telling us untruths, but some statements are made at times that you wonder, well, what about that? But looking back to the church in the mid-1960s earlier, I was 1962-63, was when my mother began attending services, and today we have about 20,000, roughly, attendants at the Feast of Tabernacles. Just use that as a rough term, and that's worldwide. That does go back to probably numbers that we had back in those days. If you look at churches in the United States in the early to mid-1960s, we didn't have as many churches as we do today. In, let's say, 1965 in Indiana, there was probably one church, and that was in South Bend, Indiana, probably at that time, in 1965. I don't think Fort Wayne here began until 1966. And Indianapolis, at that point, 64-65, wasn't a congregation there, and yet you had members kind of scattered out all over. And members drove either South Bend, Chicago, from this area, or down in that area. They drove down to Cincinnati and maybe Evansville, Indiana, although that was about 65. The point is, people were scattered. There were not as many churches. People drove longer distances in those years. And what you had when you got there may have been, seemed like a large church, but it represented a half a state, or larger in some cases, or parts of two or three states, depending on the location. And in terms of numbers, it just wasn't there.

As compared to what it became in the later 60s and to the 1970s, when the church growth curve just took off. But in those years, we didn't have as many churches and ministers were covering broad areas. And the minister that I grew up with, I was commenting about his area. He lived in Evansville, but he went way down into southern Missouri and northwest Northeast Arkansas.

And part of Tennessee, western Kentucky, and a good chunk of Indiana and southern Illinois. And taking care, perhaps, of as many people as what I might have right now, just in the two congregations. So in some way, the comparisons probably do fit. What I do hope and pray is, God wills, according to His purpose, that we will begin to see a growth take place. We do see a growth in some areas.

The media and the preaching of the Gospel has got to go hand in hand with that. But in one sense, we are in terms of certain numbers where we were. We do have a larger infrastructure in terms of the ministry and churches. And because today, let's be real blunt, how many of us would drive to South Bend or Chicago from this area to go to church? And you ask yourself that question, you answer yourself.

It's different times and different situations, and maybe we would, maybe we wouldn't. But things were done at that time. St. Louis was where we first had to go, and that was 120 miles, and that was the other side of the world in some ways for us. And so we hope and pray for that growth, but that's the model we are committed to, and that's where we are within the church, and so we're going to work with that as we progress ahead.

Which does lead us into what we've been covering here, and let's go back into 1 Timothy 3.

I began this, a few sabbaths, back with the approach that this, obviously, in 1 Timothy 3, when you turn and look at it, opens up with direct instruction to the ministry, or to a minister, about how to find other ministers in the congregation to train them and to ordain them.

And here are the qualifications that you look for. And in our recent conference, we have spent a good bit of time just going through these few verses and breaking them down, and the paper that we've used then, and I've been kind of working off of here in my approach, runs to eight pages in this landscape-type format, broken down into what the Greek words mean and how it is applied, and then comments that we put into it ourselves to talk about the attitudes and behaviors that really are manifested out of what these words tell us. I began this with an approach that, let's look at this from a perspective of a Christian, and not just an overseer or a bishop, because they are qualities, obviously, that we should all exhibit.

And of course, where are you going to find the ministers to begin with, but from your membership? So you're looking for members who demonstrate these qualities. And so they do apply to every one of us, and they should apply to every one of us. They should obviously apply and stand out when it comes to the ministry of the church, and in that there are not glaring multiple infractions of these principles. Not even every minister is going to be perfect in all of these. Would that we were, and would that so many of you probably have wished over the years that we were, but, you know, ministers are human as well, but obviously, you can't be having a number of these that are shortcomings for any individual that's going to be in the ministry. But they are qualities that apply to all of us. So let's go back into it. Let's look at it from a perspective of a member, and I will probably throw in some comments as we go along here that will bring this up to the level of the minister as well for us to even think about, and not certainly to completely avoid that, but I do want to finish what we had started. We had gone through here in verse 3, and we talked about one who was not given to wine, and not violent, and I think that's where I ended here in that part of verse 3 last time we were here. So let's pick it up by looking here at verse 3, and the next quality, which it mentions here, that we are to not be greedy for money, not greedy for money, or greedy of gain, setting our heart on acquiring physical things. It's not a total exclusion of acquiring physical goods and fine living in that sense of a style of life, but greed is an obviously over-wrought approach toward the acquisition and the use and the value of physical things. But it's saying that these people, the people of God, from which the ministry are going to evolve and all of the people cannot operate on an approach where they are greedy for money and greedy for a disgraceful approach toward gain or physical things, and overly fond of an approach to obtaining money that obviously is talking about here, and the word behind the word greed is talking about a dishonest approach to gaining money. We know from, you know, you look at our world, and there are honest ways to get money, and there are dishonest ways, all the way from stealing it to unethical practices in terms of business, or businesses, whether small or great, one can be unethical in one's approach to dealing with business and handling money to where you can, you know, cross the line. And our society, in terms of business ethics, has laid out a great number of guidelines and laws and regulations in the stock market and the securities business to define what are the lawful ways by which businesses should operate, how one buys and sells stocks on the markets, avoiding insider trading and avoiding other types of deals that give one person or a group of people undue advantage over the public or another group of people in terms of stock and approach toward business and things like that. We've gone through in our own history in America the trust-busting phase of American history where the men like the Carnegies and the Rockefellers of the late 1800s, late 19th century, built up these huge amassed wealth and these huge monopolies. And then we went through a period of time where those were busted up. A very famous example probably is John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil of New Jersey that got broken up in so many different ways, trust-busting and all of that. In some ways, shapes or forms still exist, but with different names as it was broken up.

Even more recent times in the 1970s, we busted up the AT&T, or it was the Bell Telephone System. And that got broken down into all the various baby bells, and now they've all come back together. It's been interesting to watch that over the last 30-plus years, how that system got broken up, and now it's all come back together in all an illegal way. Laws can be changed and judgments can be made in that way.

We have a system of laws, especially in America, in terms of the lawful acquisition of money. And what Paul is addressing here is avoiding the attitude that was expressed in the 1980s in a popular movie, where greed is good. He's saying greed is not good. And the unlawful or the disgraceful approach toward it that causes one to break either man's laws or break the principles that are even in the Bible in regard to the acquisition or the use of it is something that one should avoid.

You cannot serve God and Mammon, said in another case. Really, what this is talking about is all of us should, whatever we have, large or small, fine or Walmart quality or Target quality or Saks Fifth Avenue quality, depends on where we shop along the spectrum of what is considered quality in our time, whatever we have, we want to use it in a responsible way and be good stewards of what we have. And focusing more on using it the right way than solely upon acquiring more or defining ourselves or expressing really our values by what we have and the physical goods and values and acquisitions that we have.

If that's how we value ourselves, if that's how we define who we are as an individual and as a people, then we are missing the point when it comes to what is being said here in terms of money and that approach. We should appreciate quality for what it is, but not in such a way that it just defines our whole life and it dominates our whole approach and thinking. I've known people that are indeed greedy as well as you. And that type of an individual is focused more on money than it is on people and on the values that define peace within and among the people of God.

And it just is something that cannot be. And certainly for a minister, he's got to not be, you know, experience that. You know, that is a situation where a man who is pursuing the qualities of the ministry in terms of serving, helping, direct people, helping to prepare them for the kingdom of God, there's a whole different approach that focuses more on the spiritual than it does upon the physical.

Obviously, a man who's in that position, as all of us should be, has got to have their financial house in order. You can't be declaring bankruptcy every few years or just continually living in a way that does not allow you to be a servant and to focus on those things. In other words, our life has got to be in order in that way, but it cannot be out of control, not greedy for money. When we focus on those spiritual values, the congregation is going to be happier.

And quite frankly, brethren, we will be happier as a congregation when that is a predominating thought. And what we do have is used for the benefit of people. It's always been good to see that where people who have been blessed or through particular skills have things that others can enjoy in the congregation, and they share that with them over the years.

I've noticed that people who have that and do that have an internal happiness, and the congregation is benefited by one or six or eight or ten people in a congregation that can share what they do have in a right way, not to be taken advantage of and not to be using that even in a way to gain certain agendas or control or influence within the congregation, but genuinely wants to share what they have with the congregation, with people individually and as a whole, then the congregation is at peace.

And when you see that, and when we are able to do that, you will see more peace than you will see strife. Alright, let's go on to the next point here, and that's talking about gentle, being gentle. That speaks for itself. Again, we don't have to go into all the Greek meanings of these words as we move through these, but it's talking about a mildness, being a reasonable person, not being one who is creating strife.

It's talking about being equitable, being moderate, not always insisting on the letter of the law. That's an interesting phrase. This comes out from one of the meanings of this word, gentle, is not always insisting on the letter of the law.

You know, you can be a legalist in your approach to life, the Bible, people, and you can insist that everyone toe the line, that there's no room for error, there's no room for human nature, there's no room just for being a human being. And it insists on the letter of the law in terms of people's compliance, people's approach, and not extending a certain amount of judgment and mercy and faith, as Christ said on another occasion.

You can insist on your rights, you can insist on where you are, and that can, in one sense, be your right, but you might find that you are, in a sense, being ostracized as well. You know, one of the phenomenons we see in our society today is in those areas where we have people who are handicapped or challenged physically in certain ways, we have seen society evolve, and that we are, and we should be, and are much more attuned to people's challenges. You know, laws were passed years ago that any new buildings, public buildings especially, had to be handicapped accessible. And I've come to appreciate that being, working with my father-in-law, who has gone to the point where he now has to have one of these electric scooters to get around in, and a wheelchair at the feast. And you notice those things, and maybe in a few years, I may need it myself, and I'll notice it even more than I have over the last 30 or 40 years of my life. But when you either are dealing with somebody like that, then you notice if there's not a ramp there, and you recognize that. So we have, as a society, my point is, we've gotten more, we've gotten better about that, and that's right and good, and there's been a great deal of lobbying for those things, individual right groups, and to make sure those things are taken care of, and we should. The extreme of that is when you see someone who is challenged, and they are militantly challenged, and they are insisting upon their right here or there, and they get really bent out of shape when someone, let's say you or I, park in their handicapped spot. Okay, thinking, I'll just be there for a minute, and you come back and you find yourself being confronted by somebody who is handicapped and should be there, or even taking you to the point where I'm going to sue you for that, or I'm going to make sure you are charged and pay the fine for that. Those things pop up every once in a while, and we see cases of, in a sense, a person who is kind of militant in that. Now, I'm not saying you should park in those spots. I don't. But sometimes you hear stories where they do, or you see situations where people challenge that, and you can insist on your rights. Yeah. Do they have a right? Yes. How far do you push that in terms of just good human behavior and human relationships? There's an approach to being gentle and saying, hey, it may be my right, but on this case or at this time, maybe I will yield for the sake of peace. Or understanding that, hey, they're human, I'm human, we all make mistakes. Or this is a situation that maybe this is for me to back off. In other words, the application of this for all of us is that we are fair, we show mercy, and that there may be times where we are willing to suffer loss in a situation.

Rather than stand on what we feel is our right of speech, expression, whatever it may be, we will yield to the good of the community, whatever that community may be. Church, school, city, state, or whatever, in order to produce peace.

And that begins with us inside. We may have a right to expression, a right to speech, or a right to a spot, but there may be a time to yield to that. And when it comes to us, we need to have an attitude of mind where we're willing to do that. I had a situation come up this year in preparation for the Feast of Tabernacles. Every year, all the ministers and elders who are assigned sermonettes and sermons at the Feast have a teleconference in advance to go over the topics to make sure that everyone knows what everyone else is speaking on, we're not duplicating topics, so that when you come to the Feast, you're not hearing three sermons on one topic, in that sense. And we go over it, and it's proved to be helpful because we can iron, can sharpen iron, we can tweak each other's comments or spur on ideas here and there.

Well, this year at the Feast in northern Kentucky, I missed the teleconference because it was while I made my trip to Germany. They scheduled it, and I was the only one of the speakers that was not on the teleconference. And when I got the notes later sent to me, I saw that two of them had topics that were very similar to the topics that I had chosen. And I had sent my topics in, at least to be considered in the discussion, and I saw that two other ministers had similar topics.

Ideas. And I thought, uh-oh, I better call them. And I needed to. So I called the two men, we talked about it, and it became very obvious in a few minutes that in both cases, one of us was going to have to change our topic. And so you got two guys, and I'd been working on my topics for several weeks. I had them in mind. One of them I had in mind for several months.

And I thought to myself, boy, I really wanted to give this message, and I wanted to give it, and it's my right. I'm an elder, I've been around as long as anybody else, blah, blah, blah. You've got all these things thinking, and you start thinking, well, maybe they should give. And I thought to myself, even before I got into the conversation, I thought, you know, don't strive over this one. Don't even go there. And then again, after a few minutes of conversation, it became evident that we had similar topics, and somebody was going to have to give. And so I said to them, look, you go ahead and give what you were planning to give, I'll work up a different topic. We wound up doing that in both cases, and I'm sure it made their day because they didn't have to redo their sermons. I did, and I figured, well, I was the one that missed the teleconference, and so I should probably be the one. And in that case, I did remember certain principles, and I finally realized, you know, there's no need to make an issue over this. And I feel God blessed all the decisions, and I felt sermons in northern Kentucky were pretty good, even those that I didn't give. And so the point is, we have to yield to produce peace. I could have said, no, I want to give this topic. And I could have assisted to so-and-so. You do something else. This year I'm going to do this. And he might have done it, but you know what? He would have probably—his estimation and view of me would have been severely impacted by that. And I thought, you know, that was another reason. I said, this is not worth the relationship being frayed in one sense, or this is not an issue.

You have to choose your issues wisely, as we all know, and there's a time to make a stand. And there's a time to say, hey, you go ahead and do what you're going to do, and I'll do something else. And you produce peace in that. You don't always think in terms of your right, but you think in terms of responsibility and duty. And that's what is behind this word, gentle.

And that impacts all of us in how we get along and go along within our community of the Church. The next—you know, it leads into the next statement here, which is not being quarrelsome. Not quarrelsome. Again, it's talking about not fighting, not being contentious. It's describing a person who doesn't go around with a chip on his shoulder, wanting to, again, stand up for their rights, or to push an issue, to go to court, to go to arbitration, to go to the HR department, or whatever it may be, to stand on those things. In other words, you back off from strife. You're not quarrelsome in that way. And all of its related passions, that's producing peace. You abstain from fighting. You're not known as a quarrelsome person.

You know, when you see people like that, at least when I do, those are the ones I don't want to sit next to at the table, or you don't want to be in the coffee break room with. You don't want to invite them to the party, or get together, or whatever. And if you find yourself not being invited, or shunned as you might see it, you know, ask yourself, am I contentious? Have I seen even, or perceived as someone who's quarrelsome? Maybe that's why. I don't have as many friends. Maybe that's why I don't get as many phone calls, or cards, or there seems to be a coolness. You know, we have to begin where we are, and who we are, to answer some of those things that come up within our life. But when there's quarreling, fighting, and all of its related passions, you're not going to have peace, you're not going to have unity, you will have division. And we all know how much division we have witnessed over the years within our church community. We have seen... have we seen our share? Have we seen more than our share? Well, some might say we've had more than our share. If you look at it from another perspective, some of it is prophesied, some of it is inherent within the nature of the church of God, and the spiritual forces that bear within and without the church of God. So in one sense, yes, it's inevitable. Does that mean you give in to it? You excuse it? No. But we know that there have been many, many opportunities to divide. And individuals and groups have taken those opportunities over the years to divide over issues that, quite frankly, are not to be divided over. It should not be divided over. And what's even more so is within the last ten years, since 1995, to have seen even more division. I feel we took a principled approach and a principled stand in the United Church of God when we did what we had to do in 1995. I'm clear in my conscience before God on that. I think that there have been other divisions since then that are less so. And I'll just be blunt about it. Quite frankly, all of them, and the ones that have impacted us and we've been a part of, when you look at them as a package, as a whole, even before 1995, in one sense, it's quite embarrassing. It's quite embarrassing. Within the Church of God community, as a whole, at one level, it is embarrassing to see the landscape. I'll just be blunt about it. And where I have been a part of that, where you have been a part of that, we should be duly embarrassed before God. And ministers and members alike share in various levels of responsibility. But there's been so much of it. And you look at the landscape, and it's not just the Church of God. Certainly other denominations have had their divisions as well and embarrassments. But, as Paul said, certain things should never be named among us. He was talking in terms of morality specifically on that point, but division could be said to be something named among the people of God as well. And it is embarrassing. To an outsider looking at it, at times, I don't have an explanation. I would not have an explanation that would be perhaps explainable to them. But there have been opportunities to divide. And again, it comes down to not necessarily standing on right, sometimes even being able to suffer for righteousness' sake.

I've counseled that with fellow ministers who have decided to – who did decide ultimately to divide off. And that counsel was ignored, but it's happened. But it all comes down, again, back to us as individuals. And being quarrelsome, being contentious, is not something that we need to be involved with. It should work to avoid.

Covetousness is mentioned again to end of verse 3. And it's a different word from being greedy for money, but it's talking here about being free from the love of money. And not miserly. And not loving money and not being a money lover is really the meaning here.

One of the best ways probably to understand this is – in its practical application – is to be quietly generous. Quietly generous. Not, again, seeking to get the best of every deal. Not overly concerned with benefiting the self. And that means, I guess, even rejoicing if somebody outbid you on eBay.

You missed that deal, there'll be another one tomorrow or the next week. And you can have joy that somebody else got a deal that maybe they needed more than you did. For those of you that are eBay aficionados, I haven't – that's one area of the Internet I just avoided.

I have not done eBay. I've been on it once or twice just to look for something, but I've never really purchased anything. But some people buy cars, homes, and everything else in between on eBay and do quite well at it. And it's quite a phenomenon. It's one area of the Internet world that I have just not done. I guess I just as soon go to Target or wherever I find the best deal and – or a good old garage sale sometime and see what I'm getting and make sure of that.

But it is an interesting place. But being quietly generous, not covetous, is, again, a proper approach toward this matter of money and wealth, physical goods. We don't want to profit at somebody else's expense. We don't seek to take advantage of someone else. But we seek to give good compensation for goods and services and what we provide for people and make sure that we give good benefit for that.

And in a right way. One of the first bosses I had working at Ambassador College was we worked on the – I worked in the custodial department and I worked on the floor crew. We stripped and waxed floors like this when we were on here and shampooed carpets. And my supervisor had kind of a little night job and he'd pick up jobs and he would use some of the students to go and be a helper and we'd get the chance to pick up a few extra dollars.

We'd go into some places and he was bidding the job and he'd go in and see a stain on a carpet or whatever. And his approach was, just kind of shake his head, I don't know if we can do that and what we can do. And he knew good and well in the back of his head that with the chemicals we had, he could bring the spot right out. And he would say, well, I don't know, we'll do the best we can. And they would agree on a price and then he'd bring it all out and it looked like brand new and they'd be happy and he'd be happy.

And I will say he didn't overcharge for it, but he was always wanting them to understand that they were getting more for the money than what they may have thought. He wanted to under promise rather than over promise on a situation, but we never did take advantage of people.

But you want people to feel that they have gotten fair value and you've gotten fair value because in the long run, in terms of business, a servant's approach in that way is going to gain more than trying to get the most and to squeeze the most out of every deal or situation that comes along.

The best tip probably I've ever gleaned in just looking at a lot of the advice over the years about sales is to adopt a servant's approach and serve the customer's need and when you do that, the sales will follow. Those of you that have been in that field, you well know that from experience. But that seems to be based on a biblical principle of giving and serving and avoiding a covetous approach, but being quietly generous. And that even gets to the point of not even everybody understanding or knowing the generosity that may be there within an individual's life. Gears are shifted a little bit here in the next verse 4 because it talks about one who rules his own house well.

One who rules his own house well. And anytime we get into the Bible and we mention the word ruling, lording it over, or authority or whatever, we venture into an interesting category and discussion. Obviously, the word rule means somebody's in charge. It means somebody has responsibility. It means somebody presides over, superintends. Someone's the boss. Someone's the supervisor. Someone's the principal. Someone's the manager. Someone's the department head. Someone's the minister.

Someone's the husband. Someone's the breadwinner. And it may be the man or the woman. But someone is ruling in a situation or there will ultimately be a vacuum and either chaos will ensue or someone with a strong hand will come in and put order there and rule a situation. It's kind of one of those principles and laws that are inevitable. It's important, however, that it's done in the right way and it's done from a godly perspective. But speaking of being a guardian or a protector, and it's here spoken of in the context of the family structure because it's talking about ruling over your own house. And of course, then here we get into the concept of the family and the traditional family as we have known it, believe it, and want to see it work.

But speaking of the family working in a responsible way where there's good leadership being shown and whoever is in charge, certainly preferably the husband leading and guiding, is doing it in a responsible way. Whether you look at this from a sense of the community or the church looking at the family or someone who is going to be a teacher and an elder, the approach toward the family is not modern. It's rather traditional. And it believes in the importance of the family structure. And that certainly represents the teaching of the Bible and the approach of God's church in teaching the sanctity of marriage, the value of the family.

I call it a traditional value, whatever we want. But it holds to the principles that we find in the Scriptures of a committed relationship between a husband and wife, a man and a woman within the marriage state where they are committed to each other in a monogamous relationship within marriage and the commitment there before God and the covenant that marriage is explained throughout the Scriptures to be as a type of the representation between Christ and the church.

And all of its ramifications from the physical relationship of sex to the children that come and the way children are raised and taught and the way the husband and wife interact together that all bound up in one package is something that we revere, we respect.

As a church, as an individual being considered for the role of an elder and as individuals, as Christians within the church, we see the importance of the family structure and we are committed to that. I was reading off the Internet yesterday and there was some one story that illustrates, I think, where we are as a society and I think we all understand the attacks that marriage is having, but Elton John, the British rock star, Sir Elton John, is on a tour in Australia and he made some derogatory comment toward the Australian Prime Minister, Mr.

John Howard. When he was down there, I think the way the article reads, he was provoked to give this response. Elton John is exactly what he is, up for grabs sometimes, but let's just say, according to the caption under the picture, he formalized his relationship with another man in 2005, so he formalized his relationship. Whatever else he is, that's between him and the tabloids and him and God. But in Australia, they're fighting the battle of holding to certain traditional values down there and there was a controversy over a situation in the Australian capital territory around the area of Canberra, the capital, where it became the first part of Australia to legally recognize gay relationships when it voted on the issue last year.

But members of John Howard's Conservative government opposed the change and the law was invalidated. And so Elton John was asked to comment upon this and he made a statement that I'm not going to repeat here this morning.

But it goes on here. It says, the attorney general in that area said that the law clearly defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. John Howard, the Prime Minister, denied the move where his government validated. He said he denied the move was homophobic, adding that it was a question of preserving marriage as an institution with special character. For John Howard as a national leader to make even a statement like that is quite remarkable today.

I have no problem with that statement. He basically took the decision to invalidate this law legalizing gay marriage because, he says, marriage is an institution with special character.

And I can identify with that. I think most of us could as well. We might word it differently. But that's quite a strong statement in today's world. He went on to say, if you look at the legislation, what it effectively says, a civil union is not a marriage, but it will be treated for all purposes as being equivalent to a marriage. And so that's how they walked the tightrope down there to at least recognize it as a civil union, but they won't go as far as recognizing it as a marriage.

And I think we're a little bit further down the road in America than maybe they are in Australia. But at least I'll give Prime Minister Howard in Australia good marks for his public stand, and he's quite an interesting individual in other ways as well. But in his comment where he says that marriage is an institution with special character.

That's what is in a sense behind the thought here in 1 Timothy 3 about the approach toward the family for all of us to have, and certainly one who is being looked at as an elder in the church, that we want to protect and guard not just our families, but the institution. And through our example and through our approach, we seek to do that, and we recognize the need for that within the church. And it goes on here in verse Timothy 3. It says, he rules his own house well. And again, you see a picture of orderliness, a pleasing picture of the family that tends to graciousness, and it's a unit that we seek to build that is something that we like to look upon and we are pleased with.

And others can feel comfortable with as well. He rules his own house well. And what is created in the fruits that are there are good, by and large, and overall. Not chaos, not confusion, not contention, not arguing, squabbling strife, not broken, not lives that are broken down. That's what is being held up here as the ideal for every one of us to work toward, and certainly for an individual that is being looked at as an elder and as a minister in order to be able to teach that.

A lot of different things that could be said in regard to how that happens. Certainly, the individual members of a family are going to be valued. They're going to be loved. They're going to be cherished. And there's a pleasant, positive, encouraging atmosphere within the family that is created and maintained so that people, the individual members, can achieve a level of happiness and contentment and success, a reasonable amount of success in life.

And that would certainly be something one would desire to have translated into ultimately being called by God into the church and into the faith and to continue on in the faith. But if and when that doesn't happen, at least you look and you hope and see that they are successful in the lives that they choose for them. And there's a level of happiness there. How that is achieved is done around the dinner table. It's done in the quiet hours of early morning and late at night. All the little things that are done outside of the view of everybody else, whether in the church, in school, or in the family.

That's how contentment and this type of a well-run house is developed. It's done in the little moments. It's done by the things that are said when there are stresses, when they're not stresses, because the things that are said do not create stress. Again, going back to the other qualities, there's not contention. There's not quarreling. And you can pretty well look at families and teenagers and wives.

And you can tell over a period of time what's going on behind closed doors, to quote the old country song. You can tell. You can't hide those things. I've learned over the years, you can tell somebody that's smoking. They smoked for years. Smoking takes its toll on a person. In 34 years, two packs a day, smoking, they look it. You begin to see the lines and the drawn face, and it just takes a physical toll upon the body. And stress does that.

A unhappy marriage being yelled at, being quarreled with, that produces its own telltale signs within a family as well over the years. So you can run, but you can't hide when it comes down to those things. They will eventually come out. The qualities for those things are principles on how they are achieved, or well stated in the scriptures. It goes on here in the next phrase, having his children in submission. And again, it's children within a... The children that are in a stage of submission, they are obedient, they are under control. Obviously, that's not talking about a 30-year-old son or daughter. It's talking about a 3-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old.

And the families within those ages. Children are raised, in a sense, to become independent. Probably the best package of understanding child-rearing that I've seen put together explained it this way, that children are very dependent upon us from the very time they are born. We have to feed them, change them, clothe them, teach them. They're dependent upon us as parents. And what they become is dependent upon what we give them, what we do with them. But at some point through the years, they cross over from being dependent to being independent.

And a child is going to be raised to the point where they will become independent. It's a matter of when and in what manner. I think we raised our two sons to become independent. We did not want our sons in the house when they were 30. We wanted them to be out of the house in their own home at age 30. We didn't want them underfoot. We didn't want them there at age 25. We wanted them to begin to move on in a normal progression, normal for our society and our culture.

But we didn't want them there. We wanted them to always come back. We wanted them to feel that it was open and loving, but we didn't want them dependent on us in those years, in their adult years. We wanted them to be independent. Now, how we succeeded at that can be judged and that can be evaluated, but that was our approach.

We knew that we were not going to control them. You will not control a teenage boy or girl at a certain point. It will be to any parent who misses that point when they become at a point where they want to begin to sprout their own wings. The parent that is not wise enough to see what is taking place and know how to finesse it and handle it to where there's not a big confrontation.

If you miss it and you think, oh, I'm going to spank this six-foot-two boy, it's not going to happen. That time has passed. All kinds of situations could be talked about in that way, but you submission when they are to be submissive and learning, and then perhaps respectable and showing honor when they come to the point where they are adults, and then they look back on you as a parent. I mentioned this before, but our two sons gave us the biggest compliment I think any parent could ever have, and they told us one time that when they had their children, that they were going to bring them back to us to raise.

Now, that isn't going to happen, but they did genuinely sit in our couch one time as adults and told us that that's what they were going to do. They had no problems with the way they were raised and the way we handled them, so we felt pretty good about that. Now, maybe they've modified their feelings about that over the years, but certainly we don't want to take them in and have to have them there to raise.

We want grandchildren, and we feel that that's coming on very quickly now, but we want grandchildren that we can spoil and then get back when the diaper is dirty. That's how we envision grandparenthood in that way and do it in that way.

Well, the next statement here is with all reference. All of this is to be done in terms of the work within the house is done with all reference. And that's a certain—the word in the Greek is really talking about a certain deportment, majesty, or splendor in some of the ways that it comes out.

Children's obedience is won by the authority that commands respect because the authority or the rule is done in a godly way. And they then want to respect that, and they honor that, and there's a certain seriousness and respectfulness and gravity and sanctity that comes back from that. And it's all done with a proper amount of reverence. Now, these are qualities that we are talking about here that are traditional. They're biblical, but they are not always understood and appreciated, and they've flown out the window in so many different ways today. My wife and I went last week to see a movie that's not out in general release yet. It's called The Queen.

It's a story of Queen Elizabeth II, and the period of time when Princess Diana was killed here about nine years ago. She was killed in that Paris auto accident. And they made this movie that purports to tell the story of the royal family during that week after her death and what they were going through.

And it's the lady who plays the Queen, you think you're watching Queen Elizabeth. She has really got her down. And the man who plays Prime Minister Tony Blair, you think you're listening and watching Tony Blair. So in terms of acting, it's very well done. And it's instructive to watch the way they portray it. At the beginning of that week, you may remember that the Queen and her family, including Prince Charles and his two sons, were in Scotland in their summer home.

The 100,000 acres they've got up in Scotland, in the castles and everything, when Diana died in Paris. And in the days afterwards, this massive outpouring came from the people in the streets of London. They put the flowers in front of Buckingham Palace. But there was no public appearance or statement from the royal family because, quote, Diana was no longer a member of the royal family at that point. And so there was this strict protocol. And eventually, public opinion got so large that she did come down to London and she had to make a public appearance and a statement. And it shows, the movie shows this dynamic of change and the Queen's wake-up call to house society, her own society, had changed a great deal. That was one of the things that was interesting to observe. And the modern world looks at the monarchy in a whole completely different way. She was still holding to certain values and her moral authority and all, and felt that it was beneath her to show certain public sympathy or grief or mourning. And she had to learn some lessons there. Anyway, what they learned is another story. You may never know that. The movie is very interesting to show some of these things. But it shows the contrast between a tradition and a modern society. And when you look at these qualities here that Paul is talking about, of reverence, a certain majesty and splendor in terms of the roles within the family, we've all been victims of our own modern world. And we don't necessarily even agree with some of the things that Paul here is saying in the inspired word of the Bible. And we have lost track of some of these things ourselves, of how these are to be expected, treated, taught, and expected in terms of our family relationships between ourselves as parents, our children, between ourselves within the congregation. And it would do us well, all of us, to look at what is being said here in terms of, as Paul is saying, look, if you're going to choose a man to be a spiritual guide of the people of God, you look to this individual who sees these values and he holds those values up, and he has done his best in spite of the prevailing winds of change in his time to tear those values apart. And he has done his best to stand up to them. And if we as a people revere those and honor those, then with all of these qualities, we will see more of the fruits of God's Spirit in our lives, more peace, more contentment, less quarreling, less contention, and less strife. If we understand the onslaught that is coming from our society to stand on our rights, to take people to court, to contend, to quarrel, to show a lack of reverence for a parent, for each other, for the ministry, all of these things, we will see the bad fruits when that is not done. If we can individually look at all of these things and understand that this is something that we are to be honoring and striving to understand, even if it's not perfectly executed in our lives, we're still striving to understand it and to respect it and to pray to God for the guidance and for the help and the inspiration of his Spirit to lead us to understand it and hopefully even experience it in our own lives. That's why when you go on here, he says, whoever does this, whoever you are looking at, they can't be a novice. In other words, a newly converted person. They can't be new to this way of life. They've got to be tested, tried, and proven in it, if they're going to hold that position.

Mature Christians certainly cannot be novices when it comes to all of these, or we will be puffed up with pride because he goes into talk about here in these last few verses, verses 6 and 7, about being puffed up with pride and falling under the condemnation of the devil.

And when that happens, when we miss the boat on the value of these qualities and the manifestation of them in our own lives, then again the congregation can experience pride and the condemnation that is representative of the mind of Satan, where he's quick to excuse himself and not accept responsibility and blaming others and imputing wrong motives.

Careless in accusing others or assuming wrong motives. We can fall into the same condemnation as the devil and be a slanderer, a false accuser, and be one who is prone to slander in that way. So, in the sense of Paul saying, don't just put someone into this position that's not ready for it because he'll fall prey to it.

You have to ask yourself, when you see it within the congregation, when you see these problems, is it because of a lack of mature Christians exercising the fruits of the Spirit and the principles of God's Word, and you see slander, you see accusation, you see pride keeping people from being able to see the way through to a solution.

He's saying, you must also have a good testimony among those who are outside lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. All of these things here kind of sum up, talk in these last couple of verses directly to the principle of an overseer, a minister, spiritual leader of the congregation.

Well, that takes us through everything that we have talked about. And if I can, again, just go back to where we began, and that is, these are qualities for all of us to look at and to examine. And yes, directly they are speaking to an individual that is going to be a minister, verses 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, talk about a deacon and some of the same principles are brought out here, and that's another subject for another time. We don't have that much time to go into the subject of what is a deacon and how they interact in the role of an elder. But again, within these verses are qualities that make for a strong, viable congregation among the people of God. And we do that. We're going to be providing a bed of growth for God to add to His church now and hopefully into the future. So I'll take these to heart. Let's look at what is being said and pray that we might exemplify this in our own life.