Privilege of ordaining and installing some new ruling elders this morning, so I would ask those seven men to please come forward, a number of you must know that as a Presbyterian church we have a particular order we follow as we bring officers before you for both our elders and deacons these men will be serving as ruling elders on our session. And as ruling elders they represent our congregation they're here to shepherd you to pray for you to come alongside you in time of need. We've printed the names of all of our elders and deacons in your bulletin so that you'll know I need help you'll know that you can call someone and someone who can come alongside you and walk with you. These men have been qualified by our session and in their tests and in their training and they have met qualifications that are biblical qualifications which I'll go through in our sermon here briefly. I want you to recognize that these aren't simply standards for first Presbyterian church they're not simply standards for churches in Tennessee or in the United States or even around the world they are standards for men who are to serve in the Church of Jesus Christ. This is a privileged and high calling which does indeed require qualification and so these men have been tested and approved and have been elected by you and now this morning we're going to ordain and install them to their office. If you have these questions for you and would ask you to please reply in the affirmative do you believe the scriptures of the old and new testaments as originally given to be the inherent word of God the only infallible rule of faith and practice do you. I sincerely receive and adopt the confession of faith and the catechisms of this church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the holy scriptures and do you further promise that if you at any time find yourself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine you will on your own initiative make known to your session the change which is taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination vow do you. Do you approve the form of government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in America in conformity with the general principles of biblical polity do you. Do you accept the office of ruling elder in this church and promise faithfully to perform all the duties thereof and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the gospel in your life and to set a worthy example before the church of which. God has made you an officer do you. Do you promise subject in subjection to your brethren in the Lord. Do you do you promise to strive for the purity piece unity and edification of the church do you. And now as a member of our church I would ask you to respond to this question in the affirmative do you the members of this church acknowledge and receive these brothers as ruling elders and do you promise to yield them all that honor encouragement and obedience in the Lord to which their office according to the word of God in the constitution of this church entitles them do you. Now I'm going to ask that all of the officers of this church elders and deacons please come forward and ask these men to turn and face the congregation I've asked one of our ruling elders Pete Austin the fourth to have a prayer of installation over these brothers. Now let's pray dear God you are always true to your word you are slow to anger full of love and mercy. Thank you for calling Wayne Thomas Eric Parker Jim lion Ron Jones Lauren Hartley chip fellers and Dean draper is ruling elders of first Presbyterian church guard them and guide them. They guard and guide us guard their souls fortify their hearts and minds keep your eyes on them and watch over them shield their tongues from evil protect their time. Guide them to take refuge in you make them wise to listen to your counsel lead them continually with your counsel into peace and into truth. Show them how to guard what you have entrusted to them let them have favor with all the people make them servants to all happily to win them to Christ give them power to do all things without grumbling or questioning do nothing from rivalry or conceit and put no confidence in the flesh. Make their joy complete because your joy is their strength help them to recognize your purpose when you remove your joy from them when you make them miserable give them joy every minute of every day that they hunger for you. Give them joy every minute of every day when they have a passion for saving the lost and making disciples give them joy every minute of every day when they desire your call in Christ Jesus and crave the peace that passes understanding. Give them joy every minute of every day that they remember what they should remember and forget what they should forget give them joy every minute of every day that they long for the eternal and not for that which passes away when they meditate on your word when they seek your face when they ache for the things above. And God make our joy complete every minute of every day that we follow their good example heaven is our home and from it we await a savior the Lord Jesus Christ and all this we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord who with you in the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one God forever and ever. On the right hand of fellowship to one another could we welcome our new elders. You know in some ways I think our church has more officers than many churches has members what a blessing. Ron Jones I'm going to ask you to come up and read the scripture for us and if you would please stand for the reading of God's Word. Our reading this morning comes from 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 7. Here is a trustworthy saying if anyone sets his heart on being an overseer he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach the husband of but one wife temperate self-controlled respectable hospitable able to teach not given to drunkenness not violent but gentle not quarrelsome not lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect if anyone does not know how to manage his own family how can he take care of God's church. He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceded and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. This is the word of our Lord. You may be seated. Thank you Ron. You know the mark of a society is often measured by how you treat the people in your midst who are struggling who are helpless a few years ago. Micah, Lara and I were in China and we visited a home of a manhood recently retired he had a wonderful career and had retired with a large sum of money. And it was going to move back to Australia and live a comfortable easy life. And instead he ended up building a hospital on the edge of Beijing China in order to minister to children who were being neglected by the government of China. And so we had the privilege of visiting this home and we heard a story as we held a couple little children in our arms. In fact one of the little children was named as a same of one of our kids and so we had a real special attachment to them and they were telling us a story on how they came about developing this hospital. They heard that in China if you were born with any sort of a defect that they would put you in a dying room as an infant and a dying room means they would place you inside a room with no medical care whatsoever and close the door and they would come back day after day after day until you were dead. It was overwhelming for us. It was too much to bear and for this man and his wife it was too much for them to bear also. And so they took all their money, all their savings and they built a little hospital for children who would end up in the dying room with ailments like a cleft palate or a club foot or a wandering eye. These little ones would be left to perish. You see your leadership is measured by the way they handle the helpless. The way they handle the needy and I want you to know that the leadership of this church has been called by God, has been qualified by the work of the Holy Spirit to be here for you to be your shepherds. It's our major calling, our elders and deacons are shepherding officers. We're here to care for those who are hurting. Now being in a church in America is an interesting place to serve because you not only deal with little lost lambs who are struggling, who've been beaten up by the world, who've gone through horrible situations with their families. But you also deal with arrogant fools. So as an officer of the church of Jesus Christ, you have this amazing disparity in the people with whom you deal. And it's from moment to moment. One of you might grip my hand on the way out the door after our worship service and speak so tenderly with tears on how your life is a mess. And how desperately you need the Lord. You just don't know what to do. There was a woman here last week who came up to me afterwards and said, Pastor, I can't go home. I can't go home to my children. I have nothing for them and they're starving to death. And I was able to simply turn to one of our officers and they took care of her so she could go home. This little lost lamb needed some food to feed her family and some help. And our officers acting on behalf of Christ, fulfilled that for that little family. Whether they were a member of our church or not, they weren't. Not yet. And then the very next moment you move from this tearful heartfelt tender little wounded lamb to dealing with someone who, as my mother used to say, need someone to jerk a knot in their rope. You look in the eye and you wonder where we just worshiping the Lord together. What happened to you? What is it with you? What is it that has moved you to be such a stridently judgmental harsh person? And as a shepherd, you stand and you listen. And you listen behind the words and you say to yourself, as you pray to the Holy Spirit while they're spitting on your suit, dear Lord, what has happened to this poor lamb? They look so strong and they seem so proud. But Lord, really underneath all this, there's such an insecure little hurting person. How could you allow me to respect them as your creation and simultaneously jerk a knot in their rope for the Lord? For their sake, it makes me think, oh my goodness, they're married. Someone lives with this, right? So I want you to, I want to say that. Paul wrote this to Timothy, as he left Timothy at Ephesus, and he knew Timothy was going to deal with everything from the most meek little you lambs to carnivorous sheep to quote one of our pastors. And so men must be qualified before they serve in the office of elder or deacon. You must be tested because you will be tested. And so I wanted to walk us through some of these qualifications. I want you to get a sense of why the Holy Spirit said these things. They feel return your eye to the text. I want you to notice in verse two that they need to be an overseer who's above reproach. Now above reproach is not someone who's perfect. It's not someone who's completely blameless. He's not sinless, but he's not involved in scandalous endeavors. The sense that there's no obvious consistent flaw in their life. They've kind of had their rough edges rubbed off a little bit. Secondly, a husband of one wife. There's multiple understandings of what this means. Some would say that because they have to be a husband of one wife, you can't have a single elder or a deacon. They must be married. So that doesn't make sense, especially given the fact that our chief shepherd Jesus Christ was single and Paul himself was single. Another interpretation of this husband of one wife is that they're forbidden to remarry even if they're a widow or even if their first wife dies. And of course, we know Paul speaks directly against that in the sense of he's saying, nothing wrong with remarry. There are some advantages to being single. Some people would say, it's better to want what you don't have than have what you don't want. But there's this thought that if you've been widowed, you may remarry. Paul speaks to that very clearly. There's also the thought that they could not be a divorced person. This idea that a divorce is the unforgivable sin. A divorce doesn't disqualify a person from leadership. A divorce is very difficult on everyone involved and something that we certainly do not take lightly here at this church, but being a divorced person doesn't disqualify you from leadership. There are, first of all, biblical divorces as difficult as that is, and something that the Lord Jesus Christ has accommodated for us saying that there were a group of people in this first century among the Jews who were serial husbands. They married and divorced repeatedly because their wife didn't make their food properly or they didn't like the way she handled herself in her domestic responsibilities. And then there's the idea that you're not to be a polygamist. In other words, married to more than one person at a time. I do believe that that is exactly what this text is speaking of because in that day it was very common for people to be married to multiple women simultaneously. Herod had multiple wives. We know that the fathers, the patriarchs of the Old Testament had multiple wives. We know that the Lord does not smile on this, that you're to be the wife or the husband of only one wife. I would say in order to simplify this a little bit based on what I believe it means in the context of this original scripture is that you're to be the husband of one wife at a time. I want you to recognize that the qualifications go on. I want you to get this sense here in this third qualification. He says, you're to be sober-minded. In other words, you're not to be an extremist. You're to be a temperate. You're to be clear-headed. You're to be able to be engaged in the middle of a very difficult situation and yet have a bit of objectivity to your thinking. You're able to recognize there's always two sides to every story. And even though the husband or the wife came in with a major problem with the other, you need to recognize, well there's probably another side to this fence. You need to listen carefully and trust the Lord with that. That's the sense that you're not an extremist. You're a sober-minded person. You've been around the block a little bit. Also you're to be self-controlled. I want you to recognize that tied in with this is the sense that you're a vigilant person. You're not apathetic. You're not a person who sits around and just watches people in the dying room in China. He says, oh, that's too bad in it. People dying in the dying room. Little kids. Oh, really. I'm sorry to hear that. Horrible government. There's something about a self-controlled person who's intentionally pursuing the righteousness of God. That's one of the marks of an elder. A biblical elder. I want you to recognize the next word is the word respectable. It's a well-behaved person. It's a dignified person. It's a person. The longer you're with them, they gather your respect. More and more of your respect. You get a sense of, oh, I really respect that person. You know, they're real. They're honest. They get it. They live a spiritual life in a temporal world. I respect that. They're not out here just trying to please everybody. They're willing to look somebody in the eye and tell them to their face with love what everybody else is saying behind their back. That's a respectable person. There to be hospitable. A person who welcomes newcomers. You're sitting here in the pew and you're an elder or deacon in our church or one of their family members and you meet a new person and you don't just walk away saying they don't dress like us. You lean in and you say, that is a person who's going to live forever. How can I touch their soul today since God somehow caused our paths to cross? You can't just be a reclusive Christian. Right? As a pastor, I have kind of a weird double personality, if you will. I'm a bit of an egghead. I love to study. And I also really love to be around people. And it's hard to do both simultaneously, right? So I've found the early morning hours are a great time for me to read and pray and meditate. And then, you know, by the time mid-morning comes along, I can't wait to see people. I can't wait. Who called? What's going on? Well, my lunch appointment, right? You have to have that. You can't be a reclusive person as an officer of the church. And you have to be able to teach as an elder. You don't have to be able to stand up in front of a lot of people and do it. Many times as an elder, you teach in a different setting, maybe in a class, maybe in a K-group, you're the facilitator, or maybe one-on-one. People come to you and say, I'm struggling. Could we have a cup of coffee? Do you have a little time for me, maybe? In the next couple of weeks, we could have lunch and our elders and deacons come along to people and they come alongside and they teach. You know, teaching is a tricky deal. There's a lot of people who know a lot of information, but they can't communicate it in a way that makes you want to listen, right? And then there's other people who are these wonderful teachers, but they don't have anything to say. And so a teacher is somebody who's got something to say and knows how to say it. It's a gift from God. And we ask that our elders are capable of taking their knowledge of God and communicate it to people with just one person or if the opportunity arises with even more people. I want you to recognize also that they're not given to the addiction of wine. It says they're not a drunkard. Now the idea here is not that you can't drink. It's okay for a Christian to drink in moderation, to be a very thoughtful, careful person in the way they would handle something like alcohol. And this is saying that you can't be a drunkard. The idea is that if you're filled with that spirit, how can you be controlled by the Holy Spirit? How can you pray in a discerning, clear way for the needs of yourself and your family and your church when you're inebriated? We can't have elders and deacons like that. It says they're not violent, but they're gentle. And these are people who have this aversion to be a violent person. They will not strike someone. They're calm. They have a demeanor that isn't given to flying off the handle. They're not quarrelsome. This idea means that they don't fight with their tongue as a weapon. They don't create dissension. If there's a person who's quarrelsome, they're disqualified from being an officer of the church. They're not qualified to be an officer of the church. If you're quarrelsome, you're always trying to nitpick and cause problems. You're just not qualified to be an officer of the church. Next, this idea of finances. It can't be a lover of money. It means it's okay to make money. In fact, I hope you make a lot of money and you tie that to the church. But it doesn't control you. You're not governed by your money. You recognize that money's something that you use in the economy in which we live. But it's a temporal something. Don't control by it. Then there's this idea that you manage your family well. And what does that mean? It means you raise your children in a Christian environment. If you have a rebellious child, it doesn't mean that you're disqualified from being an officer of the church. If you've managed your household well. And if you're managing that rebellious child well. And your child can do whatever your child wants to do. I'm interested in the Bible's interested in how are you handling it? How are you dealing with it? And then not a recent convert. This idea that you don't want to be lifted up with pride and actually compares this to the devil where the devil was lifted up with pride says a new convert can be lifted up with pride. Because we receive not only a lot of criticism as a leader in the church, but we receive a lot of praise also. And it's important that we're able to say, okay, I have the gift of preaching and teaching. It's a God-given gift. The glory belongs to him. It'd be like walking up to a person who's seven feet tall and said, you're really tall. They go, yeah, no, I'm pretty good at being tall. No, they're tall because God made them tall. I preach and teach because God made me to preach and teach. It's his glory, not me. Many times I come here on Sunday mornings, I can't wait to hear what he's going to say. So a recent convert, they need to be balanced. And then this idea of your well thought of by outsiders, you have a general good reputation. You know, I want you to recognize as an officer of the church, we have a very high calling to take care of the people of God. When you're sad and when you're discouraged, when you're hurting. When you think you need some help, when you think things should be done differently or more biblically, we are here. One of the major functions that our elders and deacons provide as a shepherd in this church is we pray for you. Every one of you, every member of this church is prayed for on a regular basis by our elders and deacons and our pastoral staff. You may not know that, but you do now. We pray for you by name, regularly. We know you. We watch for you. We want to get to know you better. We want to be closer to you. We want to know when you're struggling and why. We want to walk with you. We don't want to hide from you and we don't want you to hide from us. You know, if you really think about these qualifications, other than being able to teach and not being a new convert, in my opinion, this simply describes the normal Christian. It describes you. You might say, oh, pastor Tim, he's a pastor. He can't go get drunk, but I guess I can. Or a pastor, he not supposed to love money, but woohoo. I'm rolling around in it. No. These qualifications are remarkable in that they're unremarkable. They're basic Christianity. This is how we live as a church. And so this qualifies us as elders because we live this sort of consistent Christian life. And I believe it should be representative of your life, too. Other than teaching and a new convert, I think this describes basic normal Christianity. And I believe this is what our church should look like on a regular basis consistently. Now specifically for our men and their families as they lead and as they love. I want to close with the story. When we were back in Texas, we, you know, Texas has the best everything and the biggest everything. And we went to the Texas State Fair. And part of the Texas State Fair is they had sheep dog and sheep. And it's a big competition. They turn out 50 sheep and turn a couple sheep dogs loose on them. And man, they start wrangling these sheep and moving them around. They finally get them all herded together. It made me think of church. And as they got them all herded together, I noticed they started to move them in a direction once again. I started thinking about church. And as they moved them along in one direction, one or two of the sheep peeled off and had their own ideas once again it reminded me of church. You know, elders and deacons of this church are here to shepherd you along your way in Christ to Christ. We're not the answer. Please don't fixate on your pastors or elders or deacons as the answer. We're not the answer, but we're called to point you to the answer. We're called when we see you strain to come alongside you and to stand next to you. Maybe in your grief just to stand with you. We're not to explain anything. We don't have to defend anything. We're just going to stand with you because we love you. Or maybe you're a rebellious sheep right now. You know seated there clothed and in your right mind, but in your heart you are rebellious. And you need to be rebuked. If we knew it, we would do it. But we just come alongside you and maybe try to nudge you back to the place of reconciliation, the place of fellowship, this place, this hospital for sinners. You know, as a young pastor, I was not only ignorant, I was arrogant. It's a horrible combination. I've lived it for years, and then I learned something. I'm not the answer. It's not about me doing more and trying harder and trying to be everything to everyone. It's about me pointing people to Christ because He is the answer. So shepherds, I want you to hear verse that I hope marks you the way it marked me. I say of 40 verse 11, he will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with you. The great shepherd. We're shepherding elders and deacons, but we're shepherding you to the great shepherd. So see him. Find him. Let us influence you toward the great shepherd because he is the answer. He does have what you need little lost lamb. He can heal you. He can forgive you. He can restore you to the Lord, to your family, and to your friends, and even to this place, for we are here because we've come to worship the great shepherd. So under shepherds may God help us as we stand in his wisdom with the love of Christ and point people to the great shepherd who will carry them in his arms until he delivers them to that great, great, great day, the final day, the great return of our great shepherd. Let's pray together. So Lord, in the meantime, here we are, men and women who are serving you, husbands and wives, single, old and young, we're your expression of the body of Christ here in Chattanooga. And Lord, I pray that each member of this church and each service of this church would always point people to the great shepherd, our Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit, if you've gathered a little lamb here this morning, who's lost and lonely, who's angry, who's at their wit's end, I pray that you have sabbed their wound in their heart today. And they've come to recognize that they need their shepherd, Jesus Christ, the lover of their soul. And Lord, those of us who are members here, we belong here, we worship here. May we continue to walk along with grace and gratitude, recognizing who you are and what you've done. Oh God, draw us near to yourself and give glory to yourself as we serve you and worship you. We make our prayer in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen. Would you please stand to receive the benediction? Turn your face toward home and hear these good words. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord cause us face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace both now and in the life everlasting. Amen.