From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Now it's crucial for any church when they look for a pastor to review what God says about a pastor and what a pastor is to be. It has to be a calling. You can't do it unless God calls you to do it. But it's a great calling. God wants to do great things in all of us. And everything rises and falls with leadership.

Larry Noble: The apostle Paul traveled from region to region beginning churches and appointing elders in those new fellowships. In one instance, he assigned Titus the task of carrying that out and reminded Titus to be sure he chose a pastor with character.

Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today as he outlines four major requirements that are taught in the book of Titus that the Lord says you’ll need to look for when your church is searching for a pastor. That’s also the title of today’s message from the eight-lesson series, Setting the House in Order, a study of the book of Titus. Open your Bible to the book of Titus that is found right after Second Timothy as we learn what to look for when searching for a pastor.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Titus chapter 1, verse 5, "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you." Notice that an elder, there are three words that are used interchangeably in the Bible: elder, pastor, and overseer. An elder is an episkopos. We get our word Episcopalian from that. An overseer is a bishop, and then you have a pastor who is a shepherd. So he says, "appoint elders in every city," pastors, bishops, shepherds, overseers.

And then he says in verse 6, "namely if any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion. For the overseer," now he switches and he uses that other interchangeable term, "for the overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict."

God’s requirements for a pastor. Now he lists 17 things here and I’ve taken the 17 things and put them together to come up with four major requirements that the Lord says you need to look for when you’re looking for a pastor. Requirement number one: a pastor must be above reproach.

He says this twice. He says it in verse 6 and then he says it again in verse 7, "above reproach." It’s used in First Timothy chapter 3: look for a man who’s above reproach. Now what exactly does that mean to be above reproach? Well, that word "above reproach" in the Greek means that you are unaccused. There is nothing to take hold upon when it comes to your life, nothing on one’s conduct that someone could ground a charge against. It’s the idea of being blameless.

Notice, when you talk about somebody being above reproach, that person is not sinless. He’s blameless. You can’t put blame to his charge. So that’s the very first requirement the Lord says: he must be above reproach. Requirement number two: a pastor must be a family man.

Look at verse 6. He says, "namely if any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion." Not accused of wild living and rebellious living. He goes right into the pastor’s home. He talks about his marriage and he talks about his family. Those two things are critical.

If you ever serve on a pastor search committee, that’s one of the first things you need to look at is what’s this guy like at home? What’s his home life like? What’s his marriage like? What’s his family life like? Because the Bible makes it clear in First Timothy chapter 3, if a man cannot manage his own household, how’s he going to manage the church of God?

Your own home is a little church. In every home, the husband, the dad, he’s the pastor of that home. He is to lead his family and he is to love his wife and he is to lead his children to faith in Jesus Christ. So you look at the guy that you’re going to potentially bring in as the leader of the church and the pastor of the church. Look how he does at home.

Notice this. It says that this family man is to be a one-woman man. "The husband of one wife," literally a one-woman man. Now that just makes it very clear as to the gender of the pastor. If he is to be a husband of one wife, he’s a man. That’s really clear. He didn’t say he or she is to be the spouse of one spouse. He’s the husband of one wife.

Here’s what I think the scripture teaches very clearly. When it comes to ministry, can women do ministry? Yes. And in many cases, they can do it better than a man. Women can do ministry. Women can’t be the minister that God has set that up for a man. So he’s a husband of one wife, he’s obviously a man.

So what does that mean to be the husband of one wife? Some are real strict on what that means. Some say, "Well, how does divorce figure in there? Can the pastor be divorced and remarried? Is he still the husband of one wife if he is divorced and remarried?" I think that God puts a high standard. I know he does on a pastor. Your home for a pastor is critical. Your marriage is critical.

If you lose your marriage, you lose your ministry in a great way because you have this thing that’s there that makes it hard to be used to the maximum because of that situation and how that sticks in people’s minds. He’s to be a one-woman, literally what that says husband of one wife, a one-woman man and he is to be leading his wife and kids in the fear of God.

It says, "having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion." Look at his kids. Are you having influence in your kids’ lives? Because if not, then that’s a big red flag that says wait, hold on, he’s got three kids, his three kids are little hellions and we’re going to put him over the house of God? I think not. You look at his family and that is what the Lord says a pastor must be a family man.

It’s a word for all of us, especially us guys. It doesn't matter what you do out in the business world or even in the church, if your home is falling apart, God looks at that and God says fix that first. So a man is to be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion.

Larry Noble: Pastor Jeff Schreve will return on From His Heart in just a moment to explain what the pastor is not supposed to be and also is supposed to be. You know, we live in a world filled with noise and confusion and there’s one unique platform where God’s truth continues to break through and that is radio. Every day people are driving to work, sitting at home, or scrolling through stations when they hear a message they didn’t expect and God meets them right there.

That’s the beauty of radio. It reaches people who may not be looking for him but desperately need to find him. And even today it remains one of the most effective, cost-efficient ways to share the life-changing message of Jesus. Your support to From His Heart helps us proclaim real truth, real love, and real hope from the loving heart of God through this medium.

For your gift this month to support From His Heart, we’d like to say thanks by sending you Pastor Jeff’s five-lesson series, Soul on Fire: God’s Plan for Revival. You can get it on CDs, DVDs, a USB flash drive, or an immediate MP3 download when you make that gift today. Call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go to fromhisheart.org.

Your gift of any amount will provide you with this resource that’ll impact your life for now and forever. Thank you for making it possible to reach people across this nation and around the world with the real truth of God’s love. We’re so very grateful to you. Now let’s get back to the conclusion of this lesson, When Searching for a Pastor.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: And then he says in verse 7, "For the overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward." Requirement number three: a pastor must be a good manager of God’s business. It says he’s God’s steward. That means he’s God’s manager. He’s the one that is going to come in just like a manager of a business. He doesn’t own it.

At a restaurant, the owner is not there in certain instances. On a franchise, he’s not there at all very often, but the manager is there and the manager represents the owner. The manager communicates with the owner and the manager does what the owner wants him to do. A pastor is a steward. He doesn’t own the church. The church belongs to God.

He’s a manager of God’s things and he’s a manager of God’s business and it’s the most important thing that a person can be called to do because it’s God’s stuff. The Lord said, "Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." So it’s serious business to be God’s steward of God’s business.

He says that again you’re to be above reproach as God’s steward. As God’s steward, the pastor is supposed to be a good example and he’s supposed to live before the people in a way where nobody’s perfect. If you have to be perfect, then nobody can do it. So even in his frailness, even in his weakness, even in his inconsistency, he desires to walk with God and be the example God wants him to be. The Lord says that’s the guy you need to look for.

Now God lists in verse 7 and then in verse 8, he lists some things that the pastor is not supposed to be and then some things that he is supposed to be. He’s not self-willed. The pastor has to be a guy who is the example of not my will but thine be done. It can’t be about self. It has to be about what does the owner want? What does the master want?

Some guys in ministry stay too long. You don’t ever want to be the guy that stays too long. But if you are self-willed, then it becomes about me and it’s not about what is the good of this church because I don’t own it. I’m just the steward. This is God’s place and this is what God wants and so I have to say not my will but thine be done. That is critical.

Not self-willed, not quick-tempered. He’s not just a hair-trigger temper and going off on people every five seconds. Not addicted to wine, very self-explanatory there. Not pugnacious. That means a violent person, a striker. You know you have a pugilist, that’s a fighter, and he’s not to be always in fights with people, always arguing with people. Not somebody that is like that.

Not fond of sordid gain. That means he’s not greedy. He’s not in it for the money. One of the big contrasts in the Bible between the true shepherds and the hirelings, the hirelings are just in it for the money. The false prophets just look at ministry with dollar signs in their eyes. It’s a way to make money off of people. There are folks on TV and on the radio and they’re all the time harping on money because that’s what they’re in it for.

I always tell people with our television ministry, always tell them how much I make on this? Zero. Every dime you give goes to furthering the broadcast. I don’t begrudge people for whom that’s how they get paid and that’s their only ministry, but for us, God has called me to be the pastor of this church and that’s what I do and you guys graciously pay me to do that.

The television ministry is something totally separate and so every dime that is given for that just goes to reach more people for the gospel and for the Lord Jesus Christ. It helps to keep it so you’re not thinking about money because the pastor is not supposed to be somebody that is greedy for gain. Then he changes gears in verse 8 and he says but this is what he’s supposed to be like.

He’s supposed to be hospitable. Two Greek words. First word is philo, which means love, brotherly love. Philadelphia has got that Greek word in it, the city of brotherly love. And then xenos, which means stranger. So to be hospitable means you love the strangers, that you have that kind of a heart and that kind of an attitude where people don't feel like they’re strangers because we love them.

And they feel like, man, this place, they love me and they loved me from the start. So look for somebody who’s hospitable, who loves what is good, who is sensible. That means he’s not a nitwit, loose translation. Just, which means he’s righteous. Devout, which means he is set apart and is holy. And is self-controlled, which means he’s a disciplined person.

Discipline is critical for any Christian, especially critical for a pastor to be disciplined especially in the things of God. So a good manager of God’s business. All those work together for character, for example, for him to be a good steward and a good manager. Requirement number four: a pastor must be skilled and faithful with the word of God.

It says in verse 9, "holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict." It’s the faithful word. It’s the sure word. It’s the trustworthy word. That’s what God’s word is. And the pastor is to hold fast to the word of God. He’s not supposed to preach pop psychology or just what’s going on in the world. He’s to preach the word of God.

Now we live in a world today where lots of guys are getting away from the word of God. One of the things that you see now in church, you’ll never see me do this, but you see guys coming up to the pulpit and they have their iPad. You have the Bible on the iPad, you can have the Bible on your phone, but I just think it’s kind of weird if I came up here and just had my phone. I like to bring my Bible up.

I like to turn the pages. I like to look and to see. I don't know what I’d do if I were preaching from an iPad and lost power. That’d be really bad. I just think there’s something about I like people to see that we’re preaching from the word of God. You can’t really tell if somebody’s got a telephone or an iPad up there what they got, but you can tell when somebody stands with this book because you know what it is.

So we’re to hold fast to the faithful word and preach the word. A pastor has two main jobs that are written here. Number one, his job is to encourage with sound teaching. It says that he may be able both to exhort, which means to encourage strongly, in sound doctrine. And so he takes the word of God and he is able to teach it and speak it into people’s lives to encourage them.

To exhort them to keep on keeping on. Life is hard. I think about people all the time when they come to church, whether it’s Wednesday night or Sunday morning or Sunday night if we have a special gathering. I think about the person that’s ready to cash in his chips. That’s ready to say I can’t do this anymore. I’m just overwhelmed with guilt or I’m overwhelmed with regret or I’m overwhelmed with life and I would rather die.

I think about that person a lot. You want to come alongside of them and encourage them. The devil will come in and say, "Yeah, it’s not going to get any better. You’re never going to feel better. This situation is never going to rectify itself. There is no hope for you. You ought to just buy the farm." Now that’s a lie because God is the God of hope.

Here’s the thing about negative emotions and the devil’s lies. They match up. When the devil lies to you, your emotions tend to say, "Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. It’s never going to get better. That’s why I’m so depressed." The devil’s a master at telling lies and lies that fit in with your feelings.

God’s truth doesn’t ever match up with how you’re feeling at the moment, especially when you’re dealing with negatives. Because God’s truth is up here and your feelings are down here and so there’s no way. The Lord says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice." Well, I don't feel like rejoicing.

That’s where faith kicks in because faith says I’m going to do it anyway. The job of a preacher is to encourage folks to believe God. I love the passage in Psalms that says, "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God! I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God."

That’s a preacher’s job. He has to do it to himself, but he has to do it for the people. Hey look to the Lord! Remember the Lord who is great and awesome, as Nehemiah said, and fight! And quit believing the lies and quit letting your feelings run away with your peace and your joy and your victory. Believe God.

So his job is to encourage with sound teaching and then to refute with sound teaching. He says both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. To rebuke, to reprove. That’s what refute means. Those who contradict, those who deny, those who speak against the truth. That’s a pastor’s job.

Jesus said you’re a shepherd and what does a shepherd do? A shepherd takes care of the sheep and he shoots the wolves. He goes after the wolves with a club. And those who contradict, who are trying to cause problems for the sheep, if a shepherd’s doing his job, he goes after those folks. He goes after false teaching.

I’ve had people gotten mad at me before because, "Well, you say negative things about Mormonism. You say negative things about Jehovah’s Witnesses or this false teaching or that false teaching." Yeah, well, that’s my job. It’s what God’s called me to do. You refute with sound doctrine because all that stuff, those are doctrines of demons that come in and they destroy people’s faith.

So that’s what the Lord says when you’re searching for a pastor: this is what you look for. All of that works its way together into a guy who loves the Lord, who loves people, who wants to see people come to Christ and people grow in Christ. That’s the bottom line. I think being a pastor is one of the greatest callings. And it has to be a calling.

The church and the pastor has to always respect that position. I don't own that position. Paul didn't own the position. He said, "I buffet my body and make it my slave lest after having preached to others I myself should be disqualified." The people must always remember you respect that position. That’s God’s business. God removes people that don't respect the position. God wants to do great things in all of us. Everything rises and falls with leadership.

Larry Noble: What a great message for us today and unfortunately, often an under-preached message in today’s churches. You’re listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve and maybe you know someone on a pastor search committee that’s searching for the proper way to carry out their assignments. They probably would find a copy of today’s message quite useful. You can find it when you go online to fromhisheart.org, click the Listen link.

When Paul wrote to Pastor Titus, he gave him a job to do, to set the house in order on the island of Crete. The churches were in need of godly leadership and the people were in need of good teaching and good works. So it is today in our world. Churches and individuals are called to search their hearts and make sure they’re on track with the Lord growing in grace and in good works. This series that we’re in now, Setting the House in Order, will help you do just that. You can find out more about it when you go to fromhisheart.org, click the Listen link.

Our mission at From His Heart is to speak the truth in love around the world through radio and television. When you invest in kingdom work through From His Heart, you are truly making a difference. This month for your gift of any amount we’ll send you the series Soul on Fire: God’s Plan for Revival, that we aired earlier this month. Just call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go to fromhisheart.org.

Time has gone for today. Thank you so very much for joining us. I’m Larry Noble, inviting you to be right back here on Wednesday for the next lesson in the series Setting the House in Order: a study of the book of Titus. It’ll give us some insight into how to handle the troublemakers in the church. If you are in a church, there are troublemakers there. Join us then for the lesson, Rebels and Rabble-Rousers, right here on From His Heart.