As many of you know, we just had our church’s 5th anniversary a couple of months ago. Because of that, we have been taking a few weeks to walk through our foundations as a church and how those work out in our ministry. We started 3 weeks ago with our calling to be faithful in three things: faithful in our devotion to God, faithful to Biblical doctrine, and faithful to the great commission. We considered the church in Antioch as an example of a church that was faithful in those ways. Then 2 weeks ago, we talked through the primary means through which God changes us. The Holy Spirit works through God’s Word, Prayer, and the Sacraments. We call those the means of grace. Our worship, our discipleship, and our mission revolve around those means of grace. Then last week, Coleman preached on the central unifying theme of the Bible - God’s Covenant promise to his people which he fulfilled in Jesus. God’s Covenant with us is what ties together the Old and New Testaments including God’s covenant people of old and the church today. That covenant theme affects our teaching and prayer and ministry and really, our lives. That brings us to our focus for today. The question is, why do we call ourselves a Presbyterian church? What does that mean and why is it important for us? We have two sermon texts this morning. The first is from Acts chapter 15. Please turn there. You can find Acts 15 on page 1098 in the pew Bibles. We’ll look at verses 4-21. This passage is about the Jerusalem council. Remember from three weeks ago, the church in Antioch had sent the apostle Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem. They were to work with other elders and apostles concerning an important matter in the church. Our verses this morning are about the council itself. Reading of Acts 15:4-21 Our second reading is from 1 Peter 5:1-5. Please turn there. That is on page 1206. The apostle Peter is writing to the church scattered across Asia minor. In the prior chapters, he has been encouraging them in their persecution, and then Peter turns to address the elders and their role. Reading of 1 Peter 5:1-5 Prayer Every single organization in the entire world shares one thing in common. I’m talking about corporations, non-profits, governmental agencies, countries, states, counties… social clubs, and sports team … Each and every one of those organizations shares one thing in common. They all have leaders. Some leaders are effective, some struggle. Some are inspiring, some lead by example, some you want to follow, others you don’t have a choice. From the world’s perspective, good leaders are often identified as strong and decisive. They are the take-charge kind of people who are willing to take risks and make hard decisions and sometimes whatever it takes to be successful. Well, that leadership model is a far cry from God’s call for leaders in his church. No, rather, the church is called to raise up shepherds of God’s flock. Elders. These men are not to be like army drill sergeants or naval commanders. They are not to be heavy-handed CEOs or brash politicians, or whip-you-into-shape coaches. No, elders in the church are called to care for your soul and to pray for you. They have been entrusted to lead in matters of eternal consequence. They are therefore to be humble like our chief shepherd, Jesus, who humbled himself and laid down his life for us, his sheep. Elders are to serve. They are to pour themselves out for us, as God’s sheep. Now, you may be asking, what does all of that have to do with being a Presbyterian church? Well, actually, it has everything to do with being Presbyterian. The word presbuteros is the Greek word for elder. The plural is the word Presbuteroi, elders. We are a Presbyterian church because we believe that God’s design for leaders in his church centers around elders. Given that, what I want to do this morning is argue for two things related to elders: Number 1, that God has prescribed elders to lead his church. And number 2, the model for elder leadership goes beyond the local congregationals. That is where we are headed. And by the way, this is not the first sermon we have had on elders. We have had a couple of them. It’s usually when we have opened nominations for elders and deacons. In those sermons, we’ve mainly focused on the Godly character qualities of the officers, as both Titus chapter 1 and 1 Timothy chapter 3 reveal. Today, we will not be focusing on the qualifications of elders. But I don’t want you to get the impression that those are not important. No, those qualifications are absolutely critical. Rather, my goal today is to make a Biblical case for the role of elders in God’s church. 1. Elders as God’s Prescribed Leadership Number 1: elders (presbuteroi) are God’s prescribed leaders for his church. And the first thing I want to say is that if we take the New Testament as a whole, we are given two offices for the church – elders and deacons. I’ve already mentioned Titus...
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34 min
Aug 3 202529 min