From the Pastor's Study
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Some sermons are harder to make than others. Some texts you read and think, “Well, that’s a sordid tale. Not much to uplift the soul here. Let’s move on.” There are others where you encounter a story like this, and those brave souls who attempt to spend some time in there can see multiple ways of looking at the story. Unfortunately, this is a story that isn’t unfamiliar to our culture. Versions of this happen every day. Something like this may have even happened to you in this room. Because this topic is so familiar, it can blind us on how best to see it, because our various cultures and upbringings crowd around us as we read. A mistake that we can make in looking at this text (and really many others) is to try to find the main villain. We try to make it simple and reduce the story to pure good guys versus pure bad guys. And that’s just not what we see here. As one commentator put it, there is “ostensibly nothing…commendable” in this chapter (Matthews). He’s right. Yes, there are some actions in this chapter that are worse than others, but there is something that everyone in this room can identify with. This is a hard story, but there are two points for us to draw from it that Tim Keller, I believe, famously said: You are worse than you think but You are loved more than you know. You Are Worse than You Think One of the drawbacks of a great theological education is pride. One of my professors warned me about this in that we can look at things and go, “Well, technically this isn’t wrong.” There is the temptation to look at this scene and feel like the brothers are justified. After all, this is one of the more horrific crimes that we can imagine. Even the text itself is saying that this is an outrage. Couldn’t we frame this as an outworking of justice in a lawless place? Aren’t the descendants of this very family going to come through in a few hundred years and do the same thing anyway? They’re just getting an early start. It can sure feel justified in the wake of such a crime, but the fact of the matter is, there is no command from God or even mention of Him here (Matthews). The response to this crime is massively out of proportion, especially the methods that they used. Let’s explore this piece by piece. The troubles begin even before verse one. As scholars point out, Jacob and company were supposed to be heading Bethel to fulfill his vow before God (Waltke, 459; Ross, 572). Way back when Jacob was fleeing Esau, he had that vision of God and promised to return to Bethel to offer worship. This point is short of that vow, and it wasn’t just a one night stay, but rather, at least according to once scholar, this was a ten year layover (Waltke, 459). This setup reminds us of Lot, setting up his tent within sight of Sodom and Gomorrah. Having been in the wrong place for a long time, Dinah decides that she would like to meet with some of the other women in the city. Ancient standards would have recognized this as a very dangerous thing for her to do, because she doesn’t have anyone going with her. She is probably in her teen years, best as we can tell, so this is a very vulnerable person heading into a lawless place (Waltke, 459). This doesn’t make it her fault that this crime happened, but she should have been more careful in how she approaches this city. We have a responsibility to care for ourselves. We don’t get to simply chalk everything up to the sovereign plan of God as an excuse not to be wise in our approach to life. The command to not murder includes a command to preserve life, even our own. After she enters the city, she is found and abused. The author, Moses, goes out of his way to condemn Shechem. This is a horrible crime with no excuse for committing it. She is being used as an object, yet incredibly, Shechem has convinced himself that he actually loves her and desires her to be his wife. Obviously, this is meant to teach us about what the Canaanites were like. Like their ancestor Ham, sexual immorality is a part of their character, and it has only gotten worse. It is easy for most of us to distance ourselves from this sort of crime, but the internet has made this remarkably common. The producers of such content are often taking the same advantage that Shechem does here, and to choose to watch such things is to condone and even celebrate and motivate such crimes. Even consensual activity outside the marriage covenant is a similar abuse of such a person. It isn’t love as God calls it. But the main body of the text isn’t looking at this issue too deeply. The way the author writes about it makes it obvious enough the sinfulness of such an act. The main part of this chapter is focused on the area we would probably be quicker to try to justify, the response of the family. Hamor, the father of Shechem, comes out to negotiate a marriage. While this strikes our modern ears like an exchange of property, this is how things were done back then. While certainly women weren’t viewed as equal like they are today (more or less), losing a daughter to a marriage then did carry more economic loss than it does today. Jacob is the first point of contact, but strangely, he doesn’t react to the crime. He waits for his sons to come back and they seem to take the lead in working this out. While some commentators of Israel’s tradition and even Reformation commentators like Calvin and Luther try to rescue Jacob’s move here as wisdom and emotional control. It’s rare for me to disagree with them, but I think Matthews is correct that it is hard to look at Jacob’s reaction at the end of the chapter and still think that he isn’t just trying to avoid trouble here. It can get lost in the middle of sexual sin and mass murder, but Jacob’s passivity here opens up the possibility of Levi and Simeon acting as they do. This sort of principle applies to pastors, elders, and workplace leaders as well as fathers (Ross, 576).. Authority given is a privilege as well as a responsibility. This isn’t to say, obviously, that every abdication of leadership will result in this or that Jacob bears all the blame for the choices of his adult sons. But like Dinah, Jacob does bear some culpability here as a passive leader in this moment, and even if nothing happened, he still bears responsibility for that breach of duty at least. The Canaanites offer all the things that an ancient person could want. Yet God is the one who is going to give it to them, not the citizens of Shechem (Ross, 574). This passage reminds me of Satan tempting Jesus with a cross-free inheritance of the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus recognizes that it would be given to Him without Satan. The sons counter the offer with a condition, they would have to be made as they are. In one sense, they are correct. There couldn’t be intermarriage with a people outside the covenant of God. That covenant sign at that time would be circumcision. As we will see, they actually have no plans to mix with the people (God wouldn’t have allowed that anyway), but faithfulness to God isn’t their aim. Their aim is to use the painful recovery from the procedure to their advantage. This is obviously not the way this sign is to be used (Ross, 574). It would be like us trying to kill someone by drowning them in their baptism. It is an absolutely grisly approach to God’s signs, but we do the same by using Church attendance to sell a particular image to other people. It is a misappropriation of the sign. This is why we explain the Lord’s Supper procedure every week. We never want to use the Lord’s Supper to hide our sin. We can think, “If I don’t take this Supper, other people might ask me what’s going on in my life. I’m hiding sin, so if I don’t take, I might be found out.” Don’t do what these guys are doing here. As the story winds up, their plan works. With the men all out of commission, it is quick work killing all of them, taking all the plunder, and stealing all the people rest of the people. That is the wrong response. There is evidence to suggest that they were keeping Dinah hostage, so doing what it took to rescue Dinah would have been fully appropriate. That is what Abraham did to rescue Lot. When Abraham returned, he made a point of taking nothing that wasn’t appropriate for him to take. This moment here is not in keeping with what Abraham does. While I don’t think any of us have committed mass murder for a crime committed against us, I think it is no exaggeration for us all to respond beyond what has been done to us. We often want to return evil for evil. It’s only fair. But that’s not how it works for Christians. We are to do good to those who hate us. Its an incredibly high standard. Right here at the end, Jacob shows a bit more of his character. After all that has been done, the abuse of his daughter, the mass murder carried out by his sons, his response is what this is going to mean from a personal security standpoint! It’s a mess, and while we might not have committed these exact same crimes, we can find an uncomfortable realization that we have dealt in these categories of sin. Are there degrees of sin? Absolutely. Jacob’s abdication of leadership is not the same level of heinousness as the mass murder of a village. However, there is no such sin that is too small to avoid punishment in hell. You are loved more than you know. This is where Jesus must come in. We rightly talk about how much Jesus loves us, but when we fail to grasp the level of our sin, we cease appreciating it. Even if you have committed every one of the sins written in this chapter you can find forgiveness. This is where most people struggle with Christianity. People will say, “Oh, so you can just murder people all day, and then right before you die, just pray a prayer and boom, heaven?” The theological answer to that is yes, because that is exactly what the thief on the cross did. But it wasn’t because he prayed a prayer, but it was because Jesus, God Himself, never sinned in any capacity, never came close to sinning, but took on all the murders, all the rapes, all the lies, all the sinful abdications of leaders, and took those sins on His record so you could go free. It isn’t the prayer you pray, it is the the One who sacrificed that makes the difference. Now, lest someone say, “Well then it sounds like I can have the best of both worlds if I just wait until the last minute.” To that, let me remind you that there were two thieves. Both had access to the same information. Both of them knew that they were at the end of their lives. One was given the grace to repent, the other not. The Bible stresses that today if you hear his voice, repent. In Hebrews 3:7, 15 it is warned twice to not harden your heart to God’s calling on you. If you feel that tug to repent, give into that tug. Isaiah 55:6 tells us to seek the Lord, while He may be found. That implies that there may come a time where He can’t be found by you anymore. Has that time passed? Let’s find out. Turn from your sins, trust in Christ today, and what you will find is that God will take you as you are, but He won’t leave you there. He will take you and shape you, but you must turn to Him today.
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Jacob has had quite a life thus far. There have been a multitude of twists and turns, deceptions and deals, and they have been leading up to this point, this last (?) conflict. The eventual confrontation with Esau has been a long time coming. It has been twenty years since he’s seen him last, and at that time, Esau was just waiting to kill Jacob. We happen to know how this story is going to shape out, so I must put on my imagination to try to feel what Jacob had to be thinking about here. How many pleasant moments were interrupted by the sudden remembrance that Esau is still out there? How did it feel to successfully tell off Laban only to remember that there was someone else way more upset out there? Now lets imagine just the last 48 hours. Jacob found out that Esau is on his way, with 400 men! He’s been bustling about getting camps ready, sending advance servants with gifts, reordering his family to protect his favorites, and then capping it all off with an all-night wrestling match with God! By the time we get to our passage, it can be tough to imagine how Jacob is even seeing straight. Maybe you’ve been here. Hopefully you’ve not had conflict where you fear for your life, but perhaps you’ve encountered such conflict, you can’t imagine it ever going away. Maybe you are even the reason that the conflict is there. No matter which position you find yourself in, I think this passage holds out hope for you today. As we will see today, and I’m leaning heavily on my old seminary prof, Alan Ross for this main point, Reconciliation is a gift from God. Reconciliation is a gift from God. Let’s remind ourselves of where we are in this narrative. Genesis started with the creation of the world, the fall of humanity, and the very beginnings of God putting the world back together. He decided to do that with the Descendant of one family, the family of Abraham. This Descendant’s line has been threatened ever since chapter 12. Sometimes by the family’s own sinful decisions, sometimes by outsiders. But the blessing and promise has been graciously passed down now three times. It started with Abraham, moved to Isaac, and now to Jacob. Jacob has seemed the least likely to inherit this blessing. While Abraham and Isaac certainly had their foibles, they weren’t named “cheater.” Jacob earns his reputation through deceitfully obtaining the blessing from Isaac (though as we saw, this was always God’s plan). He stole a birthright and blessing from Esau, and now the Descendants are under threat again as Esau is ready to kill Jacob. The moment has come. Jacob lifts up his eyes and sees Esau with his army. He prepares the family, placing Joseph in the back. One commentator points out that Joseph is the only child actually named here, perhaps to prepare us for the final third of the book to tell his story (Matthews). For all the legitimate change that has taken place in Jacob’s life, he still hasn’t shaken that favoritism. This will be revisited later. Has there been change to Jacob’s character? It is difficult to assign a motive for Jacob’s actions here, as there are a number of ways to look at this. Whether this is Jacob’s old tricks of deception with a little groveling thrown in, or the real change of heart for such a man I think is beside the point. While Jacob behaves like a servant approaching a master, Esau has clearly already been changed. He throws his arms around his brother, weeps and kisses him. The old conflict has been forgiven, and all Esau is ready to do is revel in seeing his brother again. Was it the gifts? the bowing? The distance of time that heals all wounds? No, ultimately, it was the grace of God. Grace from God is how Jacob has survived his whole life, including the time He was wrestling with God Himself. Look at how we can see God’s grace listed in Jacob’s life. Esau lifts up his eyes to see all that God has done for him. There is a whole congregation of little ones. This is in addition to the servants with all their livestock Esau encountered earlier. God has been very busy with Jacob. Have you taken time to reflect on God’s blessings to you? I recognize there are days where this is easier to do than others. It is hard to be grateful during a stomach bug or chronic pain other than saying, “At least it isn’t worse!” But try to set aside time to regularly reflect on the ways in which God has been gracious to you. We tend to only think in categories that we value at the moment, but take some time to consider how God has blessed you beyond your preferred currency. IF you are the type of person who values money, think about how God has blessed you with relationships or time or physical health, or mental health (from the book The Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom—I haven’t read it yet, but a friend has made me aware of it recently). I know it feels like a Christian cliche to count your blessings, but there is even some brain research going on that has found gratitude to be an important factor in your health! Now, let’s take a look at this beautiful moment in verses 8-11. Esau asks what all these people mean, and Jacob responds that it is meant to find favor in Esau’s eyes. Perhaps if there is any hard feelings left over, these gifts might help smooth them. Look at how Esau responds, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have.” Some commentators sees this as Esau’s moment of surrender of his birthright (Matthews). However this is framed, look at the transformation of character on Esau’s end. He lost the blessings and was so upset about it, he was ready to murder. Now, with Jacob in a subservient position, bowing before him, all the family lined up, with Esau and an army, he could make all kinds of demands here. Yet, Esau is reluctant to take even what is freely offered. Then look at Jacob! Note that he is wanting to share his “blessing” in verse 11. That is the same word for blessing that we saw on that fateful day of theft. Jacob is no longer clamoring for more. And that my friends is God’s ability to work on a heart. Jacob recognizes the grace in this moment. That may be what is behind the expression “face of God.” Jacob isn’t describing some sort of divinity for Esau, but the same life-preserving moment that Jacob experienced earlier wrestling with God is relived here (Matthews). Esau could just as easily tried to destroy Jacob just as God could have utterly destroyed Jacob in that wrestling match. But it has instead been grace upon grace. Don’t give up on praying for those hard hearts in your life, including your own. It may take decades, you might not even see the finished work of it, but don’t stop praying. If God can pull these brothers back together, then He can work on your situation, too. It might not come together exactly like this, but whatever happens, we know that God is behind it. Now you may say, “Well, this is all nice, but what about this second half of the story? It seems like Jacob is up to his old tricks again! You’ve got too rosey of a picture here.” Perhaps I do. Other commentators do indeed think that Jacob is up to his old shenanigans when he and Esau part ways. They could be right, but I want to make the case, thanks to another commentator, that this is a clean and happy ending here. I was originally in the “that rascal Jacob” camp, but Matthews I think has convinced me otherwise. As we round out verse 12, Esau proposes that Jacob come to Edom and live near him. Jacob tells him that the flocks and kids can’t keep up but to go on ahead. It seems as though Jacob gives Esau the slip and heads to another place. The two cities mentioned here are about 100 miles apart, so this is quite a distance. Matthews proposes that there is a “gap” in the story here that is perhaps filled in in chapter 36:7. In that chapter, it is said that they each had too many possessions to dwell together, so Esau dwelled in the land of Edom. That tells us that they at least considered the possibility, but rather than bog us down with those details here, we just mention that the brothers went their separate, yet peaceful ways. The focus finally turns to Jacob settling in the land. Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, has been given the name Israel and has traveled the route of his grandfather. He didn’t take anything from Esau or Laban but in fact enriched them both, similar to Abraham and the kings of the valley. He has arrived at Shechem, buys some property, and then sets up an altar. The name means “God, the God of Israel.” This fulfills Jacob’s promise at Bethel when he said that God would be his God. Here, this altar finally establishes that indeed Jacob, now Israel, has trusted God to bring him to this point. In His faithfulness, God has. So what do we take from here? We could react to this story and say, “Well, that’s a great ending for Jacob, but real life keeps going.” Indeed, it will for Jacob as well. The next chapter is going to invite a unique pain in Jacob’s life, and the whole rest of the book is going to describe Jacob’s grief of losing his Rachel, his Joseph, and the latter by the deception of his own sons! Life will only get harder for Jacob, but this is a good moment. Be quick to notice and settle in on those moments when they arrive, and then give God the proper praise for it. That altar was only possible because of the grace of God. We could also respond as modern people and say, “You know, this looks like the villain getting away with it.” Esau could be seen as this poor dope whom God for no reason at all decides to cast out of the land. Jacob, on the other hand, has undermined and deceived and he still gets what he wants. At the end of the day, no one here in this story is innocent. Esau was a sinner with his marriages and Jacob was a sinner with his lying. Yet both at the end of this story walk away more rich than can be imagined. It turns out that God only shows mercy to bad people, because those are the only people God has to work with. The ones he shows mercy to don’t deserve that mercy any more than the next person. God should have destroyed us all. And here’s the thing, both Esau and you have the same option before you. If you want the mercy of God, simply ask for it. It doesn’t really matter what happened or didn’t happen in this life. Eternity is where it really counts. You will only be here for a limited time, so don’t think about who gets what here. Know that you can have the mercy from God that admits you into heaven forever. 
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Mother’s Day is a mixed blessing for many. On the one hand, it is a wonderful occasion for families to show their appreciation for God’ precious gift to them. It’s a hard job, and setting aside time to honor and acknowledge such effort is a good and necessary thing to do. Mom’s deserve their honor, and today is a day of great blessing. However, this can be a hard day for many. Today is a reminder to many not of what they had but what they lost, or maybe never got to experience. Even for those who did get to experience both sides of motherhood, today can be tinged with guilt for past or maybe even current failures. The text that is before us today speaks to both of these categories and to the rest of us. Fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, regretful or rejoicing, we can all find comfort and encouragement from our text today. Isaiah is a prophet in Judah about 700 years before Christ was born. He was confronting sin and warning of coming judgment to the nation of Judah, the southern part of Israel. Israel (the northern kingdom) had experienced an exile about halfway through Isaiah’s time. Judah wouldn’t experience their final exile for another almost 150 years. Isaiah alternates throughout the book between statements of coming judgment and future restoration after that judgment. That future restoration happened in part through God’s working through secular politics. They at one point got to return to their land, but the major fulfillment of the nation’s hope was in the coming of Christ which Isaiah also predicts. This coming of Christ isn’t just said in the famous passages that we read at Christmas and Easter time. Christ also figures in with this chapter as well. We are going to look at two points this morning, God will never forget you and Jesus is the reminder. God will never forget you This may seem like something of an obvious thing to say but it only feels like that because God has said so often that He will be with His people. We see this most famously in Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” But we see it in many other places as well such as in Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Or also famously in Joshua 1:5 “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.” You may respond saying, “Well that was just for Joshua.” Not so because it is quoted for us in Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”” And most famously, these were the last recorded words of Jesus Himself in Matthew in Matthew 28:20 “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” God has told us over and over again that He will be with us because life screams at us to the contrary. We are made to feel that we are abandoned, that we are doing this all by ourselves. It is particularly easy to feel that way as a mother feeling like you are the only one balancing everything, and it can be isolating. It can feel like you are doing this all by yourself, and that often makes us feel like God is far away. This is an emotion that Scripture is familiar with. The Psalms sometimes wonder where God is (Psalm 13:1 “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” ; Psalm 42:9 “I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”” ; Psalm 44:24 “Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?” ), so this shows that even some of the writers of Scripture have had a hard enough time with life to express this to the Lord. Thankfully, the Lord doesn’t react to this with anger but compassionately reminding us of what is true. And it is here in this chapter that we see a really unique way of God saying He won’t leave you or forget you. God always presents Himself in male terms. He is the Father, He is a He. However, there are a few rare places in Scripture where He compares Himself to a mother. And this is one of them. He responds to the City of Zion (another name for Jerusalem) saying that God has forgotten them. They have faced and will face hostile powers, so this statement from Zion would have been said any number of times in the city. God describes Himself as caring even more than a nursing mother. It would be difficult to come up with a better analogy for loving care than a nursing mom. If there is anyone who won’t forget a child it is a new mom. Even though she has never cared for a baby before, she is instantly and inescapably aware of that child’s needs. And heaven help you if you come between her and her child. We’ve even come up with a name for this phenomenon: MamaBear. You don’t mess with MamaBear because she has a compassion for her child that will go straight through you if need be. Yet God describes his love and care beyond even a nursing mother. He goes over the tragic reality that some mothers, indeed, don’t care about their children, but God isn’t like that. He simply will not forget you. He goes even further in the following verse and describes that you have been graven on His hands. This would be surprising, because usually it is the servant who has his master’s name on his hands (ESV commentary). God flips that around, so great is His compassion. This word of compassion, as one scholar points out, gives us two great concepts of God’s approach to us. For one, it is often used of parents to children and so solidifies the concept of God’s fatherhood towards us. It also speaks to the how unconditional God’s choice is of us. He has compassion on whom He has compassion. It isn’t because we deserve it, but because He gives it to us (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). Jesus is the reminder Now, maybe you’re here today and still in verse 14. You know theologically that the Lord hasn’t forgotten you, but boy does it sure feel like it. You’ve been dealing with a pain, or you’ve been watching someone you love in pain. Maybe you’re in the middle of the early years of parenting and things just aren’t changing for the better. You feel alone in the same trenches year after year. What do we do in those sorts of situations? Sometimes those emotions can’t be helped. Psalm 88 is unique in its lamenting in that it doesn’t have a “happy ending.” The writer is sad at the start, and despite his prayer, is still sad at the end. Sometimes God purposes to bring us through things where we can’t rely on emotions to get us through it. We don’t “feel” secure; we don’t “feel” remembered, yet sometimes God is teaching us to cling to what we know. Even when we feel verse 14 of our passage, verse 15 is still true. Though hear me when I say that we don’t try to help our emotions. So if you are in verse 14 still, let’s take a look at the first few verses of our passage. We are called to rejoice always, it isn’t meant to be obeyed by pretending. God gives us truth to cling to, to make our hearts sing once again. Here in verse 1, we are hearing the Servant speaking. Spoiler alert, this is Jesus. In verse 3 He is called “Israel” but that is meant to be a reference to the True Israel Jesus Himself. The reason to think that is that the Israel of verse 3 is supposed to bring back the “Jacob” (another word for Israel, as we saw in Genesis) of verse 5. God isn’t calling Israel to save itself. He is sending a servant (ESV Commentary) to save. The comfort for us comes in verse 6. The Servant isn’t out to just save one ethnic people group, namely the Jews. In the second half of verse 6, The Servant is going to be a light for the nations all the way to the end of the earth. That means you and me! God isn’t just paying attention to you because you happen to be a member of creation but because the Lord Jesus has pursued after you. That means if you are listening to me right now, God’s light is shining on you. He is illuminating the way to salvation. And that is quite literally the solve for all of your problems. I’m not saying that means God will make your life easy here, that would be such a small promise. Why would we complain about the next 80 years being hard, when He is going to make all the rest of eternity bliss? What problem will you have there? There will be no pain, no sorrow, no aging, no threats. And look with me, if your heart can take it, at verse 18. Isaiah tells Zion to look up and see a “they” gathering. Who are these people? The previous verse was talking about destroyers, but they have been sent away by the end of the verse. Then he goes on to talk about how how they will be ornaments somehow, and then we get this odd interruption in verse 19 where he starts to go one way, and then cuts himself off to revisit the good news of who these people are. By the time we get to verse 20, we find the answer is children. The nation, though grieving the loss of citizens through invasions gets the chance to see future generations return. This reminds us of the comfort of those who have lost children will receive them again in heaven, but this verse in particular is referring to the spiritual children of the future. Even if you weren’t able to have any children yourself, if you have been going out and discipling others, bringing them to Christ, this one is for you. Look at verses 22-23: “Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”” The future worshipers of Christ whom through your personal efforts, your mission’s dollars, and most importantly your prayers will one day assemble in heaven riding the shoulders of kings. There are no bereaved mothers in heaven. They will all have children. This is the promise of the nations, and is the promise for you. And the only way we get there is through the mercy of Christ. In heaven, all of your hardships, your heartaches, even your broken relationships will be healed in heaven. How that will play out exactly, I don’t know, but I do know that Christ bought that healing with his stripes. Those sins that you look on with shame, Christ covers. That abortion you had is covered by the blood of Christ. Those words you can’t take back will be erased from memory. God has already sent our sin as far away as the East is from the West, and poetically remembers it no more. God hasn’t forgotten you. How could He? He has compassion on you that goes beyond a nursing mother, and bought you with the blood of His Son. 
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If there is anything a human being distrusts it is authority. And there is actually good, Biblical reason for that. One of the very first things we learn about ourselves since toddlerhood is that we break rules. As we get older, we realize that people continue to break rules, and this is a reality that God Himself confirms. So can we reason that since we humans are all sinners, does that mean we should get rid of all human leaders, or at the very least make the Church a pure democracy? The Bible tells us, no. God, Our Ultimate Authority, decided to work through human leaders to help His people, and believe it or not, that is actually a better way to do it. Why? Because that is the way He does it. He could have decided to just speak straight from heaven, live streaming Jesus directly into our sanctuaries and church officer meetings. God decided to do something better. If He lead the Church with Zoom call Jesus, anytime He would tell us to do something, we would respond, “Well, He’s Jesus. He’s perfect! We’ll never be able to reach that.” Instead, He decides to transform sinful men by the Power of the Holy Spirit through their use of the Word and prayer to be examples (however imperfect) of what every Christian should look like. The response of, “I could never be like that” is taken away. The human elder is faithful to his wife, so you, a fellow human, can be, too. The human deacon isn’t captivated by a love of money, so you can, too. Likewise, the elder and the deacon aren’t sinlessly perfect, so they confess and repent of their sins when they arise. So you should, too. These men are meant to be examples that are actually possible to imitate and learn from (1 Cor. 11:1). So as we go through this list of qualifications, this sermon isn’t limited to the three guys on our ballot this afternoon. All of you must pay attention. These are the marks of a qualified church leader, and it is your responsibility to identify such men and vote for their ascension to this work. It is also your responsibility to expect nothing less than these qualifications, knowing that no one fills them perfectly. It is also your responsibility to live up to these character qualities as well, because that is what these leaders are leading you towards. We don’t vote because a candidate is a friend or would have their feelings hurt. We vote for them because we are saying, “This man is worthy, according to God, of my imitation and trust to lead Christ’s church.” That is a heavy responsibility for all parties involved. So let us listen carefully to what the text has to say to us today. Thankfully, God has not left us to formulate the ideal candidate on our own. God has graciously given to us the profile of a church leader that transcends time, culture, and our individual ideals. You will notice that the list God leaves us with here looks quite different than what we might see on a job requirements list today, even among church job postings. There is no mention of a dynamic personality or success in business, or even previous leadership experience except the candidate’s own household. This list emphasizes character above ability. Christ wants character in His elders and His deacons. Christ wants character in His elders.First, Paul writes to a young pastor named Timothy what the church leadership is supposed to look like, and given the enormous responsibility it entails, it makes sense for Paul to say that this is a noble task for a man to pursue eldership in the church. We want to soberly encourage qualified men to this position by reminding them that this is indeed a noble task to pursue. Because this is such a noble task, it requires noble characteristics. Paul begins with the qualities to be found in an elder, or overseer, of the church. But we should stop and ask why are they called that? Well, their title gives insight to their job. The elder or overseer is to “oversee,” lead, notice and act on what is happening in the church. Paul uses the term “overseer” here and the word translated “elder” in Titus 2:2. Same office, different words to describe them. Both of them refer to the job of ruling. The list that follows gives us a list of things that they should be and should not be. The first is “above reproach.” In other words, His character is to be without scandal. While everyone sins in their lives, the elder is not going to have done or been something that would bring shame to the church. Things done before conversion will be treated very differently than after conversion as we do recognize the power of the gospel to transform people, but there still needs to be much wisdom applied in evaluating each case. At a bare minimum, he needs to be committed to his closest relationship, his wife. The phrasing here is strange to us, as the language literally says “a one woman man.” Is Paul only trying to keep out polygamists? This is unlikely. Polygamy wasn’t allowed in Christian culture, so it would seem to go without saying that the leaders of the church observe the basic Biblical definition of marriage as one man and one woman. As Kent Hughes sums it up, Paul is not making a quantitative requirement but a qualitative requirement. Paul is calling for faithfulness to that one woman. There is no other woman in this candidate’s life, either online or otherwise, but his wife. The next few qualities are rather self-explanatory. One doesn’t want a leader who doesn’t know how to be serious, or a leader who is impulsive and lets his feelings and passions guide him. The Bible requires that leader to be hospitable, willing to open his home to others for service. He can’t be an abrasive man who is given to violence and rushes to make conflict, again, online or otherwise. He is going to be pushed and challenged in this position, and may have people argue with him over decisions that he makes, so he must be able to handle that with grace and gentleness. He can’t be a man who is trying to escape problems with a bottle, or someone so in love with money that he could be bought. But how can we know that he is all these things? Look at his household. That is the resume, the previous experience we are looking for. Does he manage it well spiritually, physically, and financially? Because if he can’t do that in his home, Paul asks, why would we think he could do that for the church? Further, are his children who live with him obedient and following after God? Critically, this only applies to children still under his roof. We know that salvation is of the Lord, and if adult children decide to spurn the teachings of their parents after they leave the house, there is nothing a parent can do but pray for them. A wayward adult child does not disqualify a man from this position. Next, we mustn’t be in a hurry to nominate an upstart. He must not be a recent convert. A man exalted high and fast can and very often does lead to pride, just like the devil. Finally, he must be thought well of by outsiders, meaning that he has a good reputation in the community outside the church. A true christian is going to serve and be a witness such that even his enemies will know that they can count on a glass of cold water or food from him. Outsiders can spot hypocrisy from a mile away, so if they see it, we shouldn’t ignore it. While the responsibility to rule differentiates the elder from the deacon, there is only one ability that the elder is called to do that differentiates him from the deacon, and that is to teach. The elder candidate must be able to have a firm grasp of biblical truth that he can communicate when called on. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to have taught a Sunday school series, but it does mean that if asked to fill in, can he do so competently and accurately? Christ wants character in His deacons.Now, I’ve spent a lot of time with the elder requirements because a lot of them are the same for the deacon. Again, the common theme persists of God desiring character above all else. They, likewise, similarly, must be dignified and sincere. They are not saying one thing with one person and the opposite with another. They too cannot be in love with money or wine, yet must be in love and faithfully devoted to his wife and the rest of his household. And this is exactly what is required of him in this role. Indeed, just like the word “episkopos” gave us insight into the role of the deacon, so does the word “deacon” which means “service” tell us what this role is to be. We see the first deacons selected in Acts 6, and their charge was to look over the practical matters and needs of those in their ministry. This is not a lesser office but a different office. One doesn’t need to be a deacon first before being an elder. While the elder holds the ultimate responsibility and rulership for the direction and health of the church, they need the deacons to understand and meet the physical needs of the church. These offices give mutual support to each other. While they are not called to teach, they are still called to know, hold fast, and be transformed by the mystery of the faith, the gospel and its teachings, as we see in verse 16. They must be able to do this with a clear conscience. For those that serve well in these duties, there is the reward of a good standing before men and God which will lead to greater confidence for themselves in Christ. Now, why is this office restricted to men? Paul gives the reason in 1 Timothy 2:12–14 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For…” now, I’m going to interrupt Paul here. What do we think he is going to say? At that time, women were not considered reliable witnesses in court and they didn’t have good education. If Paul were to cite something like that, he would be either a sexist, pragmatist, or both. Paul (and critically, the Holy Spirit inspiring him), isn’t either of those things. In fact, Paul doesn’t mention anything inherent in women generally or culturally. Instead, he grounds his reasons back in Genesis: “Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” In other words, this is God’s timeless decision. The focus of sermons on texts like that are what women can’t do, but women have a lot of roles to fill in the church. Women can make podcasts, write books, go to seminary, or teach other women and children, and we need them to do all of those things, just like we need men who aren’t qualified for these two offices to serve the church in similar ways physical and spiritual. There are going to be a lot of quiet handymen and dedicated nursery workers receiving far more rewards in heaven than we expect. I believe that there will be some who will have more rewards than even some elders and deacons. Just like back in the Garden of Eden, all the blessings of God and roles in the church are open to women, but in just this one place, God has restricted. Remember, the focus in this is the Kingdom of God. Our concern is not cultural relevance or the personal satisfaction of the office holder. The purpose of these elections —no— the purpose of every aspect of our lives is to build the kingdom of God, expand His rule on earth by fulfilling the Great Commission, telling people that Christ was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. We need to tell the world that Jesus died for their sins and rose again to defeat death. We need to call the world to repentance and faith, and one way in which we do so is selecting wise and godly leaders to teach and serve. No one man can do it all except Jesus, so we need a plurality of elders to lead and teach, and a plurality of deacons to serve and assist. Both offices are needed in order that the saints that make up the church would be built up to serve their REAL Master and Head, Jesus Christ our Lord. So what do we do from here? One, we need to fast and pray that God would make it apparent who we are to select based on these qualities. All of us, whether eligible for office or not, are to conform our lives to these qualities. No one is going to be perfect, not even the ones we nominate for office, but they need to moving in their sanctification in these areas. Two, we need to pray for our leaders after the election and keep them accountable. They don’t stop needing the gospel and sanctification when they are church leaders. If anything, attacks in their lives are going to step up because Satan loves to see the church dishonored. Please keep them in your prayers. Finally, we keep in constant remembrance that this is to be done for the sake of Christ and His bride, the Church. This isn’t politics or making someone feel good. This is a matter of eternity that when done well brings great honor to Christ our Savior. |
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