Elders

Chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, if you don't have a Bible, you can find the text on the back of your order of worship, by the way. So I say, do you hear the word of God? The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of Overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an Overseer must be above reproach the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be come puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace into the snare of the devil. Let us pray.

Father, I pray this morning as we consider the office of elder, that you would give us wisdom and insight. More than anything, I pray that you would show us how Jesus enables this office. I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Jesus name, we pray these things. Amen. Amen. Well, several people have asked this morning. They said, I thought you were preaching through Colossians. I thought you were going to finish that up, and my reply has been pretty standard. I said, well, if you remember, last week I preached on patience, and I just wanted to see if you were able to, if you got it. In all seriousness, I did, we are taking a little hitch for the next two weeks. And the reason is because we're doing officer nominations a little bit differently than maybe they've been done in the past. And I wanted to make sure that everyone understood exactly what is going on when we ask you to nominate officers. Because the job, your job is the congregation, among other things, is to nominate the officers who will serve you, both elders and deacons. And we have another position. It's not an officer position, but it is an important one nonetheless, and that is the office of trustee. And you'll notice today in your order of worship, I'll talk about it a little bit later, you have a nomination form. So what we're going to look at today is the office, what is the office of elder, and what does it mean for you to nominate someone to the office of elder? How do you do these things? And at the end of the day, really what, you know, to summarize things, the office of elder, if you think about the body of Christ, is a leadership role, and the office of elder is sort of the head, if you will, and the deacons are the hands and the feet. The trustees, on the other hand, the trustees are the ones who enable, who enable the context for both ministries of elders and deacons to take place. If it weren't for the trustees, we wouldn't have a place to do these things. And basically have everything maintained. And so even though trustees, I'm sorry, I don't have a sermon for you, because it's just not a biblical office that is mandated on one hand, on the other hand, it's extremely important, and many of the characteristics that I talk about is certainly the character characteristics, you need to keep in mind when you're thinking about nominating people to the position of trustee. So this morning, we're going to talk about elders, and basically we're going to look at three things. We're going to look at first what the elder does. What's an elder's job? The second thing we're going to look at is who an elder is, and those first two points are for you, the congregation. The third point is for those who are either currently elders or for those who may be nominated to the office of elder, and the third point is simply how to survive being an elder, or what does it mean to survive elder nomination or just being an elder. So the first thing, what is an elder's job? Maybe a better question, if you ask an elder, they might answer you and say a better question, maybe what is an elder's job not? In other words, it's a pretty comprehensive job description, and you're going to have to forgive me this morning. I'm going to be a little bit more technical than I normally am during my sermons, but that's because of the subject matter and the importance of it. According to our book of government, if you're a Presbyterian and in the EPC, we have a book of government. Basically it's the way they read the Bible and how we apply things so that it's standard, and it says that the elder's job primarily is to look out for the spiritual welfare of the sheep, and to represent the mind of Christ in the courts of the church. In the courts of the church are the church's session, the meeting of elders, the Presbyterian meetings, which are regional meetings, and then you have General Assembly, which is the national meeting. So the first thing I want to make clear about elders is this is that if you're in a Presbyterian church, sometimes you're going to hear two different kinds of elders spoken about. One kind of elder is ruling elder, and the other kind of elder is teaching elder, and at least in the EPC, they're equal. In other words, one of the common myths in church is that somehow the elders are the pastor's boss. That's absolutely not true, at least according to the EPC's book of order. The pastor is what is called a teaching elder because he primarily teaches, and the ruling elder is a ruling elder because he primarily rules, but they are both equal and they exercise joint authority together. So the session is not the boss of the pastor. Now if the session can't just out and fire the pastor on one hand. On the other hand, if a session comes to you and wants to fire you, it's probably a good time for you to start looking someplace else, right? So that's just to give you a distinction that pastors and ruling elders and teaching elders have the same power and authority, although they exercise them in different places at different times. And so with that said, my job is primarily teaching, but it encompasses some other things. What is the job of the ruling elder? The people that you will nominate. And the reason I'm going to tell you these things is because you need to ask yourself, do I know anyone who's actually doing these things now? Because if they're doing the things now and they're not an elder, maybe they need to be nominated to be an elder. And the easiest way for me to do that is to read to you from our book of government. In the wise providence of God, I happen to have my own copy of the EPC's book of government. It's one of my favorite things to read when I can't sleep. But let me read to you the job description of a ruling elder, how it actually works. Number one, a ruling elder should study and learn the word and become equipped to teach that word, even to supplying a regular ministry of the word where none is available. The ruling elder should become a debt leading worship and it leading in prayer, okay? So that's the first thing. When it just gives you what's the basic general job description. And the first thing says that the ruling elder ought to be able in a pinch to actually preach. Now, if you asked some of our ruling elders, a ruling elder from any church that I know, that would make them a little bit nervous. It doesn't say they have to. It says they ought to be able to in a pinch. And that's the reason you have a plurality of elders. One of the things that made me the most proud since I've been here is if you remember when I was on vacation for a month, three Sunday nights in a row, your ruling elders preached. That's their job. Not to preach all the time, not to have that be a worry of theirs, but if need be, they're able to step up. That's one. It says number two, as an underchepper, the person should visit the sick, the bereaved, the lonely, the aged, the shut in, and all those who have pastoral need in cases where their special need, the ruling elder shall be careful to inform the pastor. If people understand that paragraph in churches, I think fewer pastors would get burned out. Did you hear what it said to do? If I read you that description, and I said, just who's job is this right now? And I said, okay, tell me who's job is it to visit the sick, the bereaved, the lonely, the aged, the shut in, all who have pastoral need? What would you say? You said the pastor, that's why we pay him good money. It's the job of the elder, primarily. And I love the line just because it affects me. It says, in special cases, the pastor ought to be informed. God, let him know what you're doing. But either way, it's the elder's job. And I tell you that for a couple of reasons, for one, is when people expect the teaching elder to do all of those things, it's nearly impossible. And ultimately, he will burn out and fail. Fortunately, for me, that hasn't been the case here because your elder, so ones that are currently on board, do those kinds of things. I've said that over and over again, I wouldn't still be able to be here without an assistant and during the interim, if it were not for the fact that the ruling elders are doing the job that they should do. So keep that in mind. So they're supposed to shepherd folks. And the other thing I tell you is because when I first got here, I noticed among some people, I was actually good. I remember when the first interim bagged out and they couldn't come, and I was just an assistant, and they said, Tommy, can you preach until we get another interim? And I said, you know, I think it'll be better for the church. And people said, why? And I said, because I think people expect an ordained pastor to be at their bedside. In other words, if you are in the hospital and an ordained pastor doesn't show up, you sort of feel slided. Well, I'm here to tell you that if you're, you ought to be honored if a pastor doesn't show up, but in fact, one of your elders shows up because he's doing his job and living out his calling. That doesn't mean I'm not supposed to do those things. Just as an elder doesn't primarily teach it, doesn't mean I don't do these things as well, but it's one of the jobs of the ruling elder. The third thing is especially incumbent upon the ruling elder to seated the development of children in the congregation, inquire after active members to encourage new members and spiritual development, and otherwise, she'll care for whom they serve. What does that mean? Basically, the ruling elder is supposed to be discipling people and making sure that the discipline and discipleship are taking place in the church. Now, that can be done by having children's ministries, any of those things, and the last one, I'm going to point out to you, says a ruling elder should be diligent to watch for moral failures and to seek and to warn, to obmonish, and otherwise reclaim those who stray. That's the hardest job of a ruling elder, in my opinion, to obmonish and to warn and to seek those who stray, but that one actually helps me get my head around this big definition of what it means to be an elder. And at the end of the day, what it means to be an elder, I could read you the book of order all day long, and it's helpful, but if you want just sort of something to hang, what it means to be an elder on, it comes down to this and elder is a shepherd. That's one of the reasons I opened, call the worship with the 23rd Psalm this morning. An elder is actually an under shepherd to the great shepherd, Jesus. Did you notice in the 23rd Psalm, what does the shepherd do? He leads, he cares, he feeds his sheep, and I love my favorite part because it's one of those things that's cool and everyone skips over. It says, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Did you ever ask yourself why the shepherd carries two things? I mean, all the pictures, he just has one stick, and yet the 23rd Psalm says thy rod and thy staff comfort me. And there's a good reason for that is because a shepherd's job is to get the sheep from point A to point B, and from point A to point B, two things are constantly happening. Predators are trying to come in and attack the sheep for which you need a rod. On the other hand, sheep are constantly trying to get off of the path that the shepherd is leading them for which you need a staff. You see because the rod is for swatting predators, and the staff is for gently tapping sheep back into the path. But a ruling elder's job is to do those among other things. So they shepherd, they teach, they have monished, and the hardest thing, and I say this for those of you who might be nominated, and I say this when I meet with people, the hardest thing that a ruling elder ultimately does oftentimes is have to do church discipline. A lot of churches don't. This church historically has done church discipline, and the purpose of church discipline is to restore people not to hurt them. That's why the psalmist says thy rod and thy staff, the thing that you're knocking me back on the path, they comfort me. And so the fact that God has given you elders ought to make you rejoice because God has assigned specific people to make sure you make it from point A to point B. Now the question is, is what kind of person is this? You know, that's what an elder does, but who should an elder be? And that's where we get the text today. Notice what Paul says. I'm going to go through not all of these characteristics, but I'm going to hit some highlights. He says therefore and overseer must be above reproach the husband of one wife, so reminded, self-controlled, respectable, etc. The first thing I want to point out to you is that there are about 14 or 15 characteristics here that define what an elder is or the character qualities of an elder, but the first quality and the last quality are functionally the same, and they have to do with an elder's reputation. That the first thing Paul says in the last thing Paul says is that an elder or an overseer ought to be above reproach, above reproach with those on the inside of the church and above reproach with those outside of the church. And then he goes on, the first thing Paul says, it's interesting because we sort of think in our sex crazed culture, you know, we have to emphasize it, but Rome and Ephesus and those places were just as bad. The first thing Paul says, it's not surprising is that an elder ought to be the husband of one wife. Simple as that. Now the big question that comes from that is, can an elder be divorced? And you need to think this through because you're the ones who nominate. Can you nominate someone who is divorced to the office of elder? Now the answer to that is easy. You can nominate whoever you want. That doesn't mean they're going to get through. The question is, you know, can someone who has been divorced also become an elder? And the answer is, it depends. Do you like the clarity on that? The black and white, the way I just cut straight through that? It just depends because on one hand, someone may have gotten a divorce before they ever became a Christian and then they've become a Christian and they get remarried and their life is completely different because of what Jesus has done. Someone may be getting divorced shortly after they become a Christian. Every situation is different on one hand. Typically, that one camp would say, you just got to, and I tend toward this side, is that you've got to take things on a case by case basis. On the other hand, some would say, it's just flat out a disqualifier, whether it was before your Christian or after your Christian. And the answer they would say is big, if you push them on it, they would say something like, well, it takes two to tango. In other words, even if a man's wife leaves him and he's exonerated for that, they would say there's still something about him that made her leave him. Whether you agree with that or not, I mean, that's sort of that position, but the answer at the end of the day is it's got to be case by case. Where else does Paul go when he talks about that? Look, qualities. He says he has to be the husband of one wife, sober mind, it's self-control, respectable. Those should be obvious, I hope. The next one is hospitable. When you're considering your elders, ask yourself, is the person you're thinking about nominating? Are they hospitable? In other words, do they show hospitality? Do they have people over to their homes? Or do they not? You see on one hand, you know, the deacons here, which we'll talk about next week, give lots of money and lots of support to people in need, but the deacons aren't the only ones. Is the person you might think of nominating as an elder? Are they also hospitable in that way? Are they charitable? Are they take someone into their home? That's one of the qualities. As we move on, it says he had to be able to teach and not a drunkard and certainly don't teach while drunk. But one of the things, the common criticisms I hear about elders, if you've been around for a while, I'm very defensive about people with whom I serve. I feel like part of my job is to guard the elders. And one of the criticisms that I often hear about elders is why aren't they teaching more? Any answer for one is that they're doing a lot of other stuff too. But the other thing is, you notice Paul's criteria here, doesn't say they should be teaching all the time. It says they ought to be able to teach. Are they able to teach when someone comes up and asks them a question? Why does the apostles create, say, hell? Can they teach in the moment? Some of our elders on the other hand actually do teach all the time. We have elders who teach in kindergarten, sixth grade, C groups. So the question is, should they be teaching all the time? Maybe or maybe not. It's sort of up to them where God has called them. When he talks, says not a drunkard, basically saying he shouldn't be addicted to alcohol or any other substance. Think about that when you're considering your nominations. And then he goes on, he says not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. The word there where he says not violent, but gentle. The language in the Greek there for violent means someone who strikes with their fist, either or they strike with their fist or they strike with words as if they were a fist. Is the person like that? Is he pugnacious? I love that word. Is he pugnacious? He says he shouldn't be that way, but instead he should be gentle. And gentle there, it simply means magnanimous. Is he willing to listen to other people? Is he willing to hear what someone has to say because an elder, among other things, represents you. So if an elder, if you go to ask an elder a question and immediately shuts you down and tells you to be quiet and smacks you around, he's probably not the kind of guy that needs to be nominated.

What next? Paul continues on. He says not a drunkard, not violent, gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. I want to hit that one very quickly too because on one hand it seems obvious. On the other hand, I think it's a particular temptation for those who take the office of elder to be a lover of money. And why do I say that? It's because the person who becomes an elder ultimately is a sort of multi-competent person. They have to be able to manage and they have to be able to lead and they have to be able to do all those things. And anyone who is able to be a good elder, generally speaking, probably has the ability to make a good living. And the reason I point that I was on one hand, it's a temptation. On the other hand, anyone who is currently an elder at our church or has been or who is nominated, you need to keep in mind that, technically speaking, the person who takes this role on is giving up something to do it. They could use the time to make more money. They could use the time to spend with their family or to do anything that pleases them, but instead they actually choose to serve you. That's pretty big. Paul tells us to lab in which you can see if all these things are working out next. Notice what he says in verse 4, he says he must manage his own household wealth with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? Let me say one thing, the question that immediately comes up is does someone have to be married in order to become an elder? And the answer is absolutely not because if you had to be married in order to become an elder, that would disqualify Paul who wrote the letter, Timothy who was receiving the letter and Jesus who was the reason for the whole Bible. So you can't just say out of hand that an elder has to be married. The question is if he is married, what should a criteria be? And Paul basically says the easiest thing to do, and then I'm telling you this so you can be looking for it, does he manage his own household well? Because if he can't manage his own household, how can he manage the household of God? If you can't manage a flock of two or three, how is he going to help manage a flock of two or three hundred, or in our case, five or six hundred? The household is a lab. And how do you, you know, the other question is how do you diagnose that? How do you know? And the answer is I'm not sure on one hand, on the other hand, I was thinking this more, you know, the best advice I think Judy and I ever got about parenting might apply here. You see, if you're a parent here and you're honest, you have to admit sometimes you think, man, I've totally ruined these kids, right? And they're only two. I've totally lost everything I'm doing wrong. I'm a horrible parent, you know, if I did things right or I should cataclyze more, we need to read the Bible, more family, everything, you know, I've done everything wrong. God help me. And someone tells Judy and I want, you know, the question just asks yourself, is are your children enjoyed other people? If your children are enjoyed to other people, they might be nightmares at home, but if they're enjoyed other people, genuinely speaking, you're doing something, right? And so when you think about, gosh, who should I nominate to elders? Their people, their people in this church whose children are joy to me, which means maybe they, they're obviously doing something right at home, maybe they ought to be nominated to the office of elder. Now, by the way, I don't nominate people, you do. So the household is like a lab in which you see these things take place. And then I think Paul says two more things. Paul says that he must not be a recent convert or he may be come puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation of the devil. On one hand, then you would think that is obvious. The guy you can't be, he can't just become a Christian and then all of a sudden he's becomes an elder. Paul says if that happens, he could become conceited and fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Now, it's Paul saying that the guy can actually become a Christian and then lose his salvation. And the answer is absolutely not. I think what he's saying here is he'll fall the same way the devil did. In other words, how did the devil fall? The devil had this high and lofty office and became prideful. And then he fell down into a state of condemnation. The devil forever. I'm not sure exactly what to say about that other than it's probably the same the same thing that happened to the devil but not being condemned forever. But here's the bigger point I want to make. It's just because someone says that they have been a Christian for 20 or 30 years does not necessarily mean they are not a recent convert. Some people become Christians and then they do not study or grow for the rest of their life sadly enough. And so when you're thinking about who should I nominate as an elder? On one hand, you might think okay, I know a guy, let's call him Joe Tent Pegg who's been a Christian for 30 years. Also ask yourself does he seem like he's been a Christian for 30 years? Has he grown in grace? Is he more and more like Jesus? Otherwise, functionally speaking, he's almost still a new convert. And the last thing Paul says is surprising to most people in church when you pointed out he says more over he must be well thought up by outsiders so that he may not fall into this grace into the snare of the devil. Paul says here the last thing he says is that one of the qualifications and one of the things you ought to be looking for in your elder candidates and those who are your elders is not only that they have a good reputation in the church but people outside the church people who do not believe the gospel have a good high opinion of them as well. Now that says a couple of things one is saying that the person actually knows someone outside the church. Right? Part of an elder's job is to reach out to other people and so do they even know anyone outside the church? That's a good place to start and then if you ask if they do, how do people outside the church think of them? If the person maybe say they own a business ask yourself do the employees think that the person is a fair person to work for? Is he have integrity or if the person is an employee is would their boss say that he is a good employee or not? But either way what's important is it's not only not only matters what people inside the church think of a person but what people outside the church think. You know, read one commentator that said if a person doesn't even meet the low moral standards of those outside the church, how can you expect them to meet the moral standards of those inside the church? So that's it. Those are the qualifications for for the office of elder. And before I go on, I just want to tell you a couple things about the nomination sheet and I've got one more point. You should have one nomination sheet in your order of worship. You can fill out as many nominations as you want and you'll find those at the Welcome Center out when you take a left when you leave. And the only thing I want to point out everything is pretty much self-explanatory except and when you get to the bottom it says based upon these qualifications. I recommend let's use my hypothetical Joe for the office of elder. I believe he meets the qualification and criteria for this office at first EPC because blank. If you have someone you want to nominate you need to fill that out. You can't you shouldn't just circle someone's name who's already on there or if you just write someone's name on there and throw the thing in there. That means absolutely nothing. If you're nominating someone for the office of elder, the nominating committee needs to know why you think they need to be an elder because they're trusting you to make that call. So if you're going to nominate someone and if you nominate them I would encourage you to. And the other thing that I would encourage you have to do as well as you notice on the bottom of this, it says submitted by blank and then it leaves a phone number. And the reason I point that out is for two reasons. One is positive and one's negative. Maybe they're both negative. I'm not sure. If you if you nominate someone and you might have this glowing, flowery nomination and this glowing description of the person and you do not sign your nomination form, we cannot accept it because we don't have the ability to follow up with you and see to verify you're sure this guy is like Jesus. You're cool with that. Yeah, good. We can talk to you. On the flip side and you don't have to say this about once a year, if you write something negative about someone and don't sign it, that will not be received either. In other words, this week we received three very similar anonymous letters that were sent to the nominating committee that basically were making the case about someone who should not be an elder. And they were anonymous. Let me tell you a couple things. One, whoever wrote those letters, they're either here in the first service, you wasted postage. That's one thing. Number two, if you want to know how to the best way to discourage pastor and discourage elders, write an anonymous note with a complaint on it that says I've been talking to a lot of other people about this as well. That's wrong. Earlier in the book, Timothy says, for him to tell people who do that kind of thing to stop it. And I tried to think of a nice non blunt way to say that, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. But the point is if you have something to say, we welcome your criticism, whether it's about elders or anything else, we beg for it because we can't get better, but you've got to sign it because if you don't sign it, we can't follow up with you and help you understand where we're coming from. So that is the nomination process. Are you going to nominate? Now, the last point, remember I said, was going to be for those who actually would be nominated and those who are currently elders now had a surviving an elder or why would you even bother? Because you know, when I look at this list, I mean, one of the reasons I hardly ever preach about this is because I hate reading that list. Because every time I read the list, it's, you know, there are about 14 areas. And if I had to, you know, wear my 14 for 14 on feeling pretty much a failure, I'd be 14 or 14, maybe 13 out of 14. I could teach, but who knows how good that is in the big picture. So how do you, why would you do it? It's interesting because if you look at the opening line, I think the key, Paul says, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of Overseer, he desires a noble task. Now, a lot of secular commentators say that what Paul was doing here is in the ancient Near East, it was really difficult to get men to actually volunteer to do anything. And, you know, it's like, well, welcome to the 21st century as well. And what Paul is doing is he setting it up as a good thing. He says, if anyone who aspires to this is a noble thing. So Paul's sort of greasing the skids. Maybe he's doing that. But when you look at the language, I'm not quite sure because what Paul says here is that whoever desires this or whoever aspires to it, it is a noble task. The language there means something like a task that is both excellent, but it is also difficult. It's not as easy as just saying it's noble. It really is a twofold meaning. You know, in our household, I've told you sometimes my wife will tell the kids, our deus, no malice asks when they complain. Hard is not bad. That's what Paul is saying here. He says whoever aspires to this job needs to realize it's a difficult job, but it is also a good job or a desirable job. And the question is, well, then how do I survive? And if I don't feel like I'm qualified at all. And the answer to that is you've got to take it in the context, I think, of the first trustworthy saying in this book. In other words, Paul says here's a trustworthy saying if anyone aspires to be an overseer, if you go back a few verses, the first trustworthy saying he said sets the context for what it means to be an elder. And how to survive? Listen to what he says in verse 15. Paul says the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. But I receive mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life. In other words, if you're an elder now or you become an elder candidate, you know, in oftentimes I meet with all the elder candidates and they say, Tommy, I just don't feel worthy, I don't feel like I meet the criteria. If you say that to me, you are going to lose. Because as soon as someone says that, I say, within you're the exact kind of guy I'm looking for. Because what an elder is is not someone who necessarily has it all together, but an elder is someone who necessarily understands that he doesn't have it all together. And the only place to go to get it together is Jesus himself. You want an elder not who thinks he knows everything and not who thinks he's righteous and not you want an elder who knows how desperately sinful he is and how much he struggles. And he can take you to the very same place that he goes when he needs shepherding as well. And that is to Jesus. And if you're an elder, that is your job. Do you realize that? I mean, I've heard sermons on this passage that made me want to walk out and just go home and tell Judy to hide the sharp items in the house because I think I can't do it. But when you consider the job of an elder in the context of the gospel, it makes all the sense in the world. In other words, the elders are to be an example of these things. When you think about your nominations, you see an example of this and that and the other thing. But the thing that an elder should be an example of more than anything else is the perfect patience of Jesus. In other words, they need to be not just Christians. Every Christian needs to trust Jesus. Every Christian needs the perfect patience of Jesus. But an elder, you wouldn't be able to nominate them unless you saw that somehow playing itself out. Either in their leadership, the risk taking because I know they might fail. And yet if I failed, Jesus is going to still be there for me or maybe in their humility. It could work itself out in any way. But the question is, is the person you're considering to nominate for the office of elder, are they driven and defined by this thing called the gospel, what Jesus has done for them? And at that point, they're probably ready to be an elder. And it is hard to be honest with you. But I was thinking about it this week and I'm closing with this. What does it mean to be an elder? I thought about, for some reason, I was immediately whisked back to 1984 and I was in the Ranger and Dr. Nation program. You know, joined the Army, went right out of high school, 17 years old and I wanted to be a Ranger and you go to basic training and then you go to airborne school and then you go to the Ranger and Dr. Nation program, which is basically six weeks of emotional and physical, mental abuse, to see if you can make it to be the bottom person on the totem pole of the Ranger battalion. And I remember the first day and the way I think I made it through is I couldn't believe that the things that came out of these guys mouths, I thought, this is like I'm starring in the Boys and Company C or something, like some movie, because they would just say the most off the wall things. And the first day of the Ranger and Dr. Nation program, a tall, skinny staff sergeant named Sergeant Adaway, I'll never forget him, stood up in front of about 80 guys and he said, Jalen, I'm here to tell you that those of you who make it will think of this time for the every day for the rest of your lives, those of you who don't make it will not be so fortunate. And I thought, okay, that's pretty bold claim. And yet 20 years later, every day for that 20 years, I think back on my time at a Ranger battalion. And when I think back on my time at the Ranger battalion, I think two things. On one hand, it was the most miserable experience I ever had in my life. And if I had to do it over again, I don't know if I would. On the other hand, it is also the most joyous, most significant, most meaningful experience that I ever had in my life. And if I had to do that again, I would do anything to get that again, which means I can't have the joy without also having the suffering and the hardship as well. That at the end of the day is what it means that this is an excellent job and it is a difficult job because I've never met an elder that has been from a relatively healthy church who at the end of his career, in the sort of twilight of his years, hasn't said, I'm glad I did it. Not one. Because being an elder is extremely difficult on one hand. Because you have to deal with discipline. You have to deal with complaints. You have to deal with hard things. On the other hand, it's extremely joyful. The elders are the ones who get to interview new members. They get to hear when people have become Christians. The elders get to be there, when babies are born, they get to be there when people die, which that in itself isn't happy, but the times that they share with the families will never be forgotten. And so if you are nominated to be an elder, keep that in mind as well. Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that you with them, you would just raise up those who you wish to be nominated to the office of elder, those who you wish to serve. And Father, I pray that you keep us guard us from those who you don't. And I just pray that you do all these things in Christ's name. Amen.