An Overseer, Then, Must Be...#3

So this morning we're going to be carrying on our study of the qualifications of elders. What does a man need to be like who leads the elders board? And one of the things I want to mention to you is, and I have in the past but a little differently today, is that this is not only a requirement for elders. This is a requirement for all men. And one of the ways you're going to see that in just a few weeks is the overlap, the significant overlap between elders and deacons and what's required of them. There are a few things that are different. But largely, they're required to demonstrate the same sort of godly character. And I don't want to preach about deacons today, other than to say that the office that they hold in the church is one of authority, it's one of responsibility, it's one of leadership. And as men, as we look at these qualifications, they ought to be things that we aspire to, regardless of what God's called us to.

Because the men who are called to rule in the church, either as elders or as deacons, are called to that work. It's not because they're somehow of a different fabric than other men. It's that they've been tested, they've been examined, and the church has said, yes, they possess these qualities. But it is a calling that's placed on them. And you don't want to wait in your life as men until there's a calling to say, oh, I need to start preparing. You would understand this with retirement, right? You don't wait until it's time to retire to go, where's the money going to come from? You'd be building that stuff up ahead of time. You'd see to it. And the same is true with these qualities. You don't want to wait until they're required of you to give yourself to cultivating them, to pursuing them.

I want to read to you the same text we've been reading the last couple of weeks, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. We're going to be focusing this week on verse 3. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. It is a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable. hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil?

And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, I want us to just go through these. And as we do these things, they're almost as little sermonettes or topical discussion points. Some of them are bound together and they have connection to other things. And some of them are just in a list. This is something the man needs to be like. This is something he needs to possess. And so what I want to do is take a little bit of time to open those things up. And so this morning what we're going to be doing is looking at what it means to not be addicted to wine first. Now, there are a couple of different ways to interpret this and different opinions regarding this because we're talking about alcohol, right? And one of the easy ways to...

to get around this, is to just say, well, Christians just shouldn't drink. That's just a no. Am I the only one who can hear that low-end feedback? You can't hear it? You can't hear it? Is there anything we can do about it? The electrician said it's not the light bulb. Well, I'm sorry. Listen past it. You can't hear it. You shot too many guns. Back to alcohol. There are some that would say the way to meet this requirement is to just say, well, you just shouldn't drink. Now, am I opposed to not drinking? No, I'm not. If some of you think that it's best for you not to drink, I'm all for it. I'm not going to tell you you've sinned by deciding not to drink. But I don't think that's necessarily the answer here to meeting this qualification. Say, well, as long as he doesn't drink, that's not a problem. Because we're talking somewhat here about addiction.

And alcohol is not as clear in Scripture as some might think it is, that alcohol is just a bad thing that should never be partaken of. And I recognize that some of us have come from places or have concerns that make us very wary around alcohol. And what I want to say to you is, good. Alcohol is the sort of thing you ought to be wary around because it's dangerous. And avoiding danger doesn't make you stronger. And so understanding danger, preparing for danger, But engaging with it, having been equipped to bear it, is helpful. Just burying your head in the sand is not. And so I don't think that this requirement here says, well, just don't drink alcohol and we'll be done with it. I would not be faithful because my expectation is that the vast majority of you aren't of the opinion that you should never drink alcohol. So what does Scripture say about alcohol first in general? One of the things it says is that it's something that God's given to us to make us glad, to give us joy. In Psalm 104,

verses 14 and 15, speaking of the Lord and his provision for man, food and shelter and all these sorts of things, alcohol is mentioned. It says this, it says, He, the Lord, causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine which makes his heart glad so that he may make his face glisten with oil and food which sustains man's heart. So scripture here, so God here is described as Making grass grow so the cattle have something to eat. Making food grow so that we have something to eat in addition to those animals. And making wine to make us glad. And what I want to say to you from the very beginning is glad is not the same thing as drunk. These are not the same things. And as we go on, I'm going to talk a little bit more about the difference between gladness and drunkenness.

Because they actually aren't the same thing. Those who would use this verse to say, oh, well, alcohol, see, the Bible is supposed to make us glad. The more alcohol I have, the gladder I get. And I say, that's not what's going on here. In fact, that's an abuse of the Scripture. You're lying about what God did. He didn't make alcohol for you to get drunk. So don't twist Scripture that way. And yet he did make it to make you glad. And now you go, well, what's that mean? And I say, well, we'll get to it. I think what I would say about it to this point is, if a drink, helps make you happy, then have a drink. If one drink or two drinks or something short of drunk, drunkenness, doesn't make you happy, meaning if you can't be happy until you've had half a dozen beers, then just don't even have one. Because you're missing the point of what's being said here. The goal is not to get drunk. You know, there are other things in our...

that we interact with that are good things, that are appropriate things, that we can abuse and make trouble out of them. Work is one of them. Is it good for us to work? Yep. Good for us to do a lot of work? Yep. Good for us to do hard work? Yep. Is it good for us to only work? All of a sudden, nope. That's an abuse of a good thing. If all a man ever does is work and work and work, and he can never do anything else but work and work and work, he's abusing. Something good. You could say the same thing about sex. You could say the same thing about recreation. You could say the same thing about money. None of those things are bad. None of those things are sinful. All of them are kindnesses that God's given to us, tools that he's given to us to provide for us, to give us enjoyment to use in this world. We don't have to be ashamed of any of them. But we can misuse all of them. The same is true with alcohol.

In 1 Corinthians 6.12, Paul says, All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by any. And so the question of addiction is a question of lordship. It's a question of who the master is, who the boss is, what's calling the shots. And the elder is said to not be addicted to wine, meaning his life is not supposed to be revolved around him getting a drink, him having a drink. He can't be addicted to it. Now, do you think that you could be addicted to alcohol without being a drunkard? Is it possible to drink every single day and not be heading toward drunkenness? You guys are saying yes. You're saying yes. I think you're a step or two down a slippery slope for my part. I say that as someone who doesn't drink very much at all, don't have any problem with it, happy to have it. I've still got wine from, I think it was your guy's wedding, at home.

We took a couple bottles of wine home. I like it. It's good stuff. But I don't understand drinking every single day. Maybe the doctor tells you to. I'm not prepared to stand here and argue against you having a glass of wine every day. But I am prepared to tell you that if alcohol is a very regular part of your life, you better have very close control on it because addiction doesn't announce itself to you and say, you're headed toward addiction. Come on in. In fact, most people who are addicts don't recognize they're addicts. They don't realize they have a problem. You're familiar that there are alcoholics who are incapable of holding down a job, maintaining relationships, and all the rest. And then there's another class of alcoholics, and what do we call them? We call them functional alcoholics. And what do they do? What is the ordering principle of their life? It's getting drunk. But they do it in such a way as to be able to still work. And yet they're still...

an addiction. There's still drunkenness. There's still a real problem. So alcohol is like many other things in life. It's given to us by God for our benefit, for our joy, and we better be careful with it. You better be very careful with it. I go further and say you better be especially careful with it if you have a history of alcoholism in your family. Another way of saying that is if you have a history in your family of people not being able to be careful with it, you better be careful with it. It's not a necessity of life. And yet it is given to us by God for our enjoyment, so you be careful with it. When it comes to the leaders of the church, they may not be addicted to wine. Now, have you ever had it in your life that you find out later that someone was an alcoholic and you never knew? This is common. You find out later, oh, Uncle Billy was a drunk. You find out a co-worker gets drunk every weekend. You find out they've got a problem.

Take heed to yourself that you not be mastered by it. If you want to have a drink and enjoy it with other people, by all means, go ahead. But don't be mastered by it. An officer in Christ's church cannot be mastered by, ruled by, addicted to alcohol. Now, I want to talk a little more about it. I want to talk about the effect of alcohol because you could just look at this and say, oh, it's just this thing. He's not supposed to be addicted to alcohol. Check. He's not addicted to alcohol. And they say, why? Why is that important? Is it just some arbitrary rule? They shouldn't be addicted to alcohol. And that's the end of it. Or is there a deeper reason? And I'm convinced there's a deeper reason why they're not to be addicted to alcohol, and it's because of the effect of alcohol. Proverbs 20, verse 1 says, Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise. So why is the man who's intoxicated not wise?

Is it because he's drunk and he's actually literally not wise in that moment as a result of drinking the alcohol? Yes, that's true. If you've ever been around a drunk person, wise is not the word you would use to describe them. You might use the word stupid, foolish, an idiot, incapable of doing something helpful, not able to drive, not able to have a good conversation. They're not wise. But there's more to him not being wise. It's that he didn't know what was going on. He didn't see what was coming. He was a fool to get into a situation where he was drunk. That was a part of his lack of wisdom. And you don't want men ruling in the church who lack wisdom, do you? By the time a man thinks, you know what, I think I should not have another beer. He's had too many beers already. And anyone who was around him could have told him that. He lacked wisdom. He lacked propriety. He wanted something.

You know, most of what we do in our life is in pursuit of a desire. We say, I want something, I'm going to go get it. So you have to ask for a minute, what are people pursuing when they drink? If it's pure, then they're just pursuing gladness, happiness, joy with other people. But that's not what's being prohibited here. What's being prohibited here is an addiction to alcohol. What are those who are addicted to alcohol pursuing? That's a good question, isn't it? There's very different answers to it. Before we work to answer it, I want to ask you, does anyone ever consciously decide, I'm going to become an alcoholic? It's almost laughable, because anyone except a fellow alcoholic would say, that is a terrible idea. They don't have to be Christians. They don't have to be old. Anyone who's old enough to know the consequences of alcohol, when it runs amok in someone's life, is able to say, that's bad. Don't do that.

And I bring that up to say to you, you realize no one decides to develop an addiction to alcohol or anything else. So how do they become addicted? What are they pursuing? What kind of character does a man who's addicted to alcohol possess? Do you want that kind of man leading the church? These are the questions that we need to get into when we're talking about addiction to alcohol, addiction to wine. What I would maintain to you is that alcohol and drinking quite a bit of it is a form of self-medication. You have a headache, sometimes you take an aspirin. And you realize that if you want to take an aspirin or an Excedrin or whatever it is, a leave, whatever it is you take for headaches or sore muscles or whatever it is you take, you realize that's probably okay.

But if someone decided that they were going to keep upping the dose and upping the dose and getting stronger and stronger medicine for their pain, you'd realize at some point you'd cross a threshold. And it's somewhere in the gray part of life that says, I think you might have a problem. There's developing an addiction here. Something bad's happening. And what they're doing is they're medicating themselves. They've got some sort of thing that they're trying to numb. They're trying to deaden. They're trying to make themselves unaware of. And we use alcohol the same way. And I would argue that Scripture even tells you that there is a time when you should use alcohol in exactly this way. No, it does say that. Paul tells Timothy to take a little bit of wine for his stomach, yes. But I'm talking about numbing drunk. When you're in intense seasons of grief. Now, I hesitate to say seasons. But when you have something terrible happen, I can't remember the reference. I know it's in Proverbs. I don't remember where it is.

What's it say, John? It does say that at the very beginning of Proverbs 1. The part about the woman, yeah. I don't remember if it's there or if it's somewhere else, but it talks about letting him forget his trouble for a while. Now, is that scandalous to you? Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, meaning provide some comfort and some help to the pain that they're in as they're dying, and don't kill them with it, but give them some relief, and also to the one who's grieving. Now, is that dangerous counsel? Why is it dangerous? That's right. How many prescription drug addictions came as a result of some sort of injury where they were given really strong meds for a time? And then it got out of control. You have the same sort of danger happening. In that scenario, ideally, you have a doctor who's watching that and who's saying, okay, here it is. You've got the pain. Here's the medicine. And the medicine takes the pain away for a time.

And it makes them incapable of working and driving and whatever else it does for a time. And the doctor says, here you go for a time. You can do this. This is how you're going to take it. This is how long you're going to have it. And then we're going to stop. And it's the same sort of thing going on here with the scriptures teaching on alcoholism, on alcohol and saying there's a time when someone ought to drink to forget their trouble. But it's a short time. And you have to be careful not to allow it to come into addiction. Now, how does it come into addiction?

Well, largely because in that scenario, you've got some sort of grief, some sort of pain, something you don't want to deal with, remember, or have to process, not just in the moment, but going forward. And then an addiction arises. People want to drink when they're discouraged, when they're depressed. Something bad happens. They lose a job, find out they've got some sort of trouble. They want to drink. Have you noticed that this whole time I've always talked about drinking with other people? It's because drinking alone is dangerous. It's a bad idea. So alcohol is a form of medication. We can use it to numb ourselves to deadened pain, to help us forget something, or to alleviate stress. Some of you are wound up really tight. There are times after I come home from a really hard day and I'm all tied up in a knot. You know what I want? I want a strong beer. Just one. That's all. But I want it to relieve stress because I'm just all bollocked up in a knot. So I'll come home and have it with dinner with my family.

But an addict wants to escape his life. He wants to escape reality. And alcohol becomes the getaway card. It's how they get out of reality. It's how they numb the pain. It's how they dull their senses. It's how they forget. And this doesn't simply apply to alcohol. This could be applied generally to other forms of addiction. That there's a desire to escape, to get away from the burden or the weight or the pain of your life, whether that's present or whether that's something in the past. You don't want that kind of a man. to be leading in the church for a number of reasons we'll come to. Before we do, I want to ask, what's someone who's drunk like? What do they like to be around? What I find is that they generally like to talk. Even very quiet people, who normally would be very quiet, controlled, reserved, the more they drink, the more they talk. And you have happy drunks. These are not biblical categories.

But we understand them. You have people that when they drink, they tend to get happier and more fun. And everyone likes them because you're more fun now. You used to be a grump and now you're happy and you smile and you laugh. Or you have angry drunks. Whichever one, they talk more. Maybe they're weepy. Maybe they get aggressive. But the common thread through both of those things, however they respond to too much drink, is that they lack self-control and propriety. They end up saying things that they shouldn't say and that they wouldn't say if they hadn't been drinking. So if you're talking to someone who's a weepy drunk or a happy drunk, and they say something that they shouldn't say, and you tell them, you shouldn't have said that, that wasn't right to say, then what happens? Well, they'll either start...

apologizing profusely and crying and woe is me, or they'll get aggressive. What happens if you go to someone who's generally an angry drunk and you say, um, I think you're done. Well, they get more aggressive. They've got more things to say. They start threatening. This is the effect of alcohol that it has on us. It's something we have to manage. It's something we have to watch. It's something we have to be careful of. And it's especially true of men who lead the church. You don't want a man who's given to drink leading the church. Because what you have is a man who wants out of something. He wants away from something. He's trying to get away. You don't want that. Paul puts together, with drunkenness, pugnaciousness. You don't, you know, he shall not be addicted to wine or pugnacious. And what I'm convinced of is that this section is, it goes together. That pug, how's the word, pugnacity?

Do you even know what pugnacious means? It just means, like, ready to fight. Looking for a fight. The kind of person who wants to, you know, you want to argue, okay, fine. You want to fight, here I am. Someone who's looking for conflict, even stirring it up. That's what it means to be pugnacious. A striker or a brawler. And you remember that Proverbs described wine that way. And strong drink. Wine is a mocker. Well, how do you mock somebody? You run your mouth. Strong drinks a brawler. How do you get into a fight? Drink too much whiskey. You'll get in a fight. An addiction to alcohol leads to conflict. It leads a man to be the kind of man who creates conflict. And that is antithetical to what an elder or an overseer is supposed to do. Their job is to mediate, to reconcile, to bring peace, not to stir up strife.

And so you don't want someone who's addicted to alcohol because you know that it will necessarily make them a fighter. You can't reason with them. Have you ever tried to reason with a drunk person? Did it work? It never works. What are you supposed to do with a drunk person? Put them to bed. Just put them to bed. That's all the police do. You're familiar with the drunk tank? They go out and they pick up all the drunks and what do they do? They just take the alcohol away and they just... Sleep it off. Because you can't do anything with them until they're sober. And if you try to, you're just going to end up with a fight. So you don't want a man who's addicted to wine or pugnacious. And an addiction to wine leads to being pugnacious. It leads to conflict. It causes trouble. And as I said, the exact opposite of what an elder is supposed to do. They're supposed to mediate and reconcile conflict with other people, not create it. So Paul goes on and he says, instead, an overseer is to be gentle and peaceable. Now, are those things that you would generally...

a tribute to someone who's a drinker. They're not gentle. They're not gentle. If any of you've had interactions with an alcoholic, family member, sibling of some sort, you know that gentle is not what they are. And you want men who are gentle leading you in the church. You want men who can bear with and care for you in your weakness. And when you're nasty to them, you want them not to strike you back. This is what Jesus taught of the... The disciples, right? When someone strikes you, do what? Turn the other cheek. Be gentle. Have a conciliatory demeanor and affect and attitude and goal as a disciple of mine. All the more so, you want this from your elders. You want them to be gentle. Now, should you think, well, if I don't drink, I'll be gentle, I'll be peaceable, I won't be pugnacious. No, you can do all of those things without alcohol, too. Some of us are quite capable of it. Drinking a bunch?

That's not so much a temptation of mine, though I have fallen to it before. But being pugnacious, I don't need alcohol to want to argue with you. It would make it worse, but it's not necessary. And I didn't come out of the box gentle. My wife would tell you there's still lots of room for Dave to grow in gentle. And so I don't want you to attach pugnacious, gentle, and peaceable so tightly to alcohol that if you think, If they don't drink alcohol, they're natural to these other things. That's not always the case. But alcohol exacerbates it. Whatever inclination toward gentleness or peacefulness that there was in the man, alcohol is going to make it worse. How do you find out if a man's addicted to alcohol? Well, it's very hard. It's very, very hard. Unless it's cropped up in such a way in his life to cause some sort of public problem, what I can tell you is that most of the time the people closest to him will conspire with him to hide it, meaning his wife and his kids.

It's hard to know. So you've got to spend time with them. You want men that rule over you to have spent time with them. You want to see what they do. And if you go to their house for dinner and they say, hey, do you want some wine? You want white or red? Or we've got beer too. I don't want you going, oh no, he's a drunk. No, he's hospitable. These are things that you have to keep an eye on. You have to keep tabs on. And especially in times of grief and hardship. Somebody's parent dies. Watch him. Love him. care for him. Come alongside of him. Keep an eye to his drinking as you do it. The other thing that I want to talk about today is that the overseer has to be free from the love of money. So what does it look like to love money? That's really the question. We're going to come into this again in chapter 6, but we need to look at it some now. What does it look like when people love money? Well, oftentimes what it looks like is they love what money gets them, what money provides for them.

Money is not a... Some people love money and love to just stockpile money and just have a bunch of it. But even that provides something. What does a big pile of money provide? Security. What else does money provide? Comfort. Ease. Status. Cool stuff. I want you to see how dangerous it is for us to put our hope in money. To think that it's stable and it's solid and it's consistent and we can trust that it will take care of us, it will provide for us. It will not. It will not. Later on in the same book, Paul tells Timothy, instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. And what he's saying is, where are you going to get your things that you enjoy?

You be careful and you warn the people in this world who have money not to put their hope in it. Because it can be gone. It can be gone. And unless you've had money, I don't think we understand this. I can speak for myself knowing that I've never come from a place with money. I don't have a bunch of money. I never have. And so it's very tempting for someone who's never had money to look and say, things would be so much better if, things will be so much better when. Because you've never been in that situation. But I do know people who have money. And I'm close enough to them to know the valley, the hills and valleys of their life. And their money doesn't make it any easier for them. It's another responsibility for them. It's a lot of work. The wealthy people I know don't live extravagant lives. But they...

They see it as an issue of stewardship, of managing, and they often are very generous. And people who love money are not generous. It's a very clear thing. You say, well, how do you know if someone loves money? I say, well, just ask them what they give their money to. You'll find out if they love money or not. If they give to things that can't give back to them, you have a mark on the side of doesn't love money. If they spend all of their money on things that... turn back to them like a boomerang, you might have someone who loves money. You know, this is a hard thing to talk about for us because I don't think there's anyone in this room who doesn't love money, myself included. I think we have varying degrees of wealth in this room, but I don't think there's anyone in this room who doesn't love money, who doesn't struggle to look at it and say, my life will be better if, when I have that.

We're banking on, I have a country friend of mine, very close, and he calls that betting on the come. I'm going to gamble because I think it's going to pay off. It's an old man saying, betting on the come. And that's how I think we all are. We think life will be better when I get this thing, when I have this thing, when I arrive then, and only then, and not until then. So it's something that we all have to be aware of in fighting. And it's especially important that the men that lead us spiritually. are especially attentive to discipline their temptations to love of money. You're not going to find a man to lead in the church who doesn't tempt it to love money. I just don't think you're going to find him. And so what you want to find is a man who disciplines his love of money, who disciplines his standard of living, who disciplines himself to be generous. That's what you want. If you love money, what you have then is an idolatry. You have something that has come in and has displaced God.

As the provider of everything that you need. Now, why is this so important with an overseer? Well, it's important for an overseer, not only for him. It is important for him. But I argue that it's more important for you. For you, the people. It's really important that you don't have a man ruling over you or men ruling over you who love money. Because it will do you harm. And the reason it will do you harm is because you have, whether you ever want to be an elder or not, this is a temptation you'll face. To love money. And if you have men that rule over you who love money, they aren't going to do you a lick of good. They're going to feed it. They're going to lead you astray. They're going to lie to you. 1 Timothy 6.10, Paul says, The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some, by longing for it, have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Now that could be true of you on an individual basis, but have you ever considered if that's true of you of a leader?

That if a leader loves money and he wanders away from the faith and is pierced with many griefs, what's going to happen to the people who follow him? They're going to likewise be led away from the faith and they're going to likewise suffer all kinds of griefs. You don't want men who love money leading you. You want men who discipline their love of money leading you. Because then you can have hope that they'll discipline your love of money. To say it another way, if a man loves money, if your leaders still love money, they won't do you any good because you have money. This is a part of the thing in church that, you know, plenty of people get angry at the church and money in church is this difficult thing. And I just want to talk for a minute and just acknowledge the reality. This church is supported and funded by the money that you give as a congregation, right? We all know that. We don't have a money tree growing out in the backwoods. We don't have someone who's donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to support our ministry.

The things we do as a congregation are supported by your tithes and your offerings. That's it. So what happens if the leader disciplines you? If one of the elders comes to you and says this thing in your life, what temptations do you face? Well, most of you, if you're normal and will just be honest, you go, who are you to tell me that? Who do you think you are? You have this thought. Who do you think you are to tell me that? You can't tell me that, and then you'll start slinging mud back. Well, you this and you that. Maybe this will all just happen in your head, but this is what goes on. You get frustrated with him. Who does he think he is to tell me that? Doesn't he know he's a sinner? On and on and on. I'm not going to listen to him. I'll go somewhere else. I'll show them. You know what one of the best indicators of someone leaving the church is, preparing to leave the church? You just watch their giving. I don't watch anybody's giving. We don't watch anyone's giving closely.

But we do have the ability to go and look and see if someone's giving is consistent or stable or up or down or whatever. And if it's going down, we know there's a problem. You know there's a problem. And so you have to realize that you as a congregation have that sort of power, if you will. I don't think it's power. I think it's foolish. But you have that choice available to you. And you have to know that pastors and elders are aware of that. And part of the reason we think, as congregants about our money is because of our love of it. Because when we see our giving to the church, we see our giving to the people and to the things and to here and not primarily to the Lord. Because if we saw, I'm giving this directly to the Lord, we wouldn't be so quick to snatch it away and go, well, I'm not going to give. And so we use money and our love of it and where we give it to and how we give it and under what terms we give it to work out our relationship with it.

And the people we give it to. And if you have a leader or leaders who love money, I can assure you they will not touch the money. And if they will not touch the money, it means they will not touch your sin. Because they know that what you'll be inclined to do is stop giving. That's why it's such a big deal to have leaders who don't love money. Because if they love them, they won't tell you no. They might tell you no generally. They might tell you no... With fear and trembling, they might suggest that you pray about changing this thing in your life, but they will not discipline you. That's the result of loving money in leadership, is they won't discipline. Because they aren't going to stop the gravy train. Scripture is full of warnings against showing partiality. And what do all of the warnings...

Which direction do they run? They run in the direction of showing partiality and favoritism toward the rich. Why? Because you want their money. They have something to give me, so I'm going to treat them differently than I'm going to treat the guy who has nothing to give me. This is the difficulty that leaders face. And it's not just leaders in the church. This is just leadership anywhere. Why do politicians talk and have their talking points? So that you'll give your money. That's it. They want your money. They need your money to do the things that they want to do. And then we go through this cycle of being, oh, this guy says this, and he does that, and he's going to, and this other thing, and here's my money. And then he never did what he said he was going to do. And he's like, well, I wanted to, and I tried, but I couldn't because of this and that and the other, and if you'll just give a little more money, I'll be able to get it taken care of. So much of our lives are interactions about money, even if they're not really about money. Money's not the thing that's really being talked about.

And what you don't want in a leader is someone who you can manipulate through money. I had a pastor friend one time tell me a story. I thought it was really funny. He thought it was really funny. I hope you think it's funny. He had an elder. They had envelopes they would give. You know, on the back of the chairs, there were the envelopes. And so people would, before you had online giving and all this stuff, there was a little privacy. And so you had an envelope so you could put your cash in it or your check and you could write your name and whatever on it. And it was sealed up.

So this elder didn't like this pastor. Didn't like the way he was preaching. And so what he would do every week is he would get his envelope and he would put a nickel in it. He would write his name on it and he'd put it in the offering. And that's all the money he gave to the church. This was an elder. That's it. What's that? A quarter a month? Right? Not even, no, sorry. I know. Five week months. Yeah. Now, why did that elder do that? Well, when they asked him about it, he says, because I want you to know that I don't give two cents for anything you've got to say. And the pastor laughed at him. He says, well, actually, you give five cents every week for what I say. But what was that man doing? Well, he was communicating with his money, his expectations, and his desires. And the sweet thing was, the pastor who laughed about it didn't care. He thought it was funny. But you know how many pastors would go,

That guy's got more than a nickel to give every month, every week. I bet he gives money somewhere else. How do we get some of that money? Maybe I should change the way I speak, the way I preach, the things I say to him. Maybe he should get kid gloves. And that's an indication of a leader who loves money. We often tell people when they come into the church as members, we encourage you to tithe. 10% of your giving, give it to the church. Right off the top, give it to the church. We don't apologize for it or say, oh, we're terrible people or we're trying to manipulate you. We just sit there and we say, this is what the scripture teaches. This is what we encourage you to do. Are we going to run you out on a rail if you don't? No, I'm going to be sad because where your treasure is there, your heart is also. But we encourage you to give. And if our budget's running, you know, we've done our part.

and are doing our part as leaders to discipline our spending and all that sort of stuff. We try to be very transparent about where the money comes from in the church, where the money goes in the church. We present the budget to you guys. Everybody knows about money, and we do all of that to discipline all of our love of money. Do you understand that? That's why we do it. We tell you how much Dave makes. We tell you how much our mortgage payments are. We tell you how much we spend money on this and that and every other thing that we spend money on. You can ask. We'll tell you.

And time and again what we have is people go, I've never been in a church that does that before. I don't know what the pastor makes. I don't know what they spend their money on. We don't have an annual budget. And I say, we do it to discipline our love of money. You think I don't love money? Do you think your leaders are, we're just, well, sorry to disappoint. We discipline our love of money. And that should give you hope that we'll discipline your love of money. And we'll discipline your drunkenness and everything else that you struggle with because we don't. We don't view you as a giving unit. We're not glad you're here so we can get your money. You want men who will discipline their love of money. The final reason you want men who don't love money is that their responsibility is to lead and not just to lead in word but to lead in deed. Elders lead the church and in most churches the reality is the majority of the income in a church comes from a small group of people and largely that small group of people is the leadership.

And you might think, well, that's not how it should be. And I go, well, it's just how it is. And I don't know that it's a bad thing. But you expect your leadership to give generously and sacrificially, that they would lead an example, lead by example in that regard, because that's what they want to teach you. You want them to be able to sit down and talk with you when there's a building campaign or there's a, you know. there's some missions trip or something that needs money, you want them to be able to sit and talk to you with an absolutely clear conscience saying, we've sacrificed for this. We're asking you to sacrifice for this. Without you being able to say, no, you haven't. And they say, yeah, I have. You can trust that I have. And if you're really that curious, you can go ask the treasurer and he can tell you. You want the men who lead the church to lead by example, giving sacrificially.

Because then they'll help you in that regard. And as I said, we all need help with this. So that's the installment this week for elders. Not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not loving money. Gentle, peaceable, conciliatory, loving the people, caring for them, disciplining them, saying no when it's hard, realizing that alcohol and money work against that. You want men who are... free from those things, freeing themselves from those things to lead you and to care for your soul. Let's pray.