Godly Leadership: Faithful Stewards and Shepherds

A Call To Integrity For All

So the title of this talk, as you have it in your booklet, is Gospel Integrity and Leadership.
And so there’s a sense in which whatever I’m going to say is going to be very specifically aimed at the ear of those that are leaders, or intend to be leaders, of local churches. But at the same time, it’s also going to be aimed at those who are not leaders in their churches, because of the standard that we are going to see in the passage we are going to read.

One of my best-loved illustrations for demonstrating the qualifications in 1st Timothy chapter 3—which is where you actually find the qualifications for an elder, or an overseer—is that they are actually distributed throughout the rest of Scripture for other Christians, including an ability to teach, that christians are expected to be able to teach one another.

So what makes this person who’s an elder stand out is that they excel in those qualities that are there.
If you went to a school like the one I went to, the teacher would select a prefect in a class. But normally that prefect, of course, would be a fellow student, isn’t it? So if there are expectations upon students, there are expectations upon the prefect as well. It just happens that the teacher picks a student who maybe excels in punctuality and says, “I want you to be the one who represents this class to the teachers.”

But every student is expected to show the same punctuality, isn’t it? This one student just happened to excel in that quality, and so for that reason is identified as a leader in that class.

And so, if the text—or if that teacher—is talking to the class about punctuality, is he addressing the prefect only? No, he’s addressing the whole class, isn’t it? And so whatever will be said about leaders is intended to be an instruction to all Christians, even though it is particularly for leaders being in that position.

So with that fairly long introduction, let me ask us to please turn to chapter 3 of 1st Timothy.

I’m going to read verses 14 and 15:

“I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.”

I’ll go on and read verse 16:

“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He 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.” (1 Timothy 3:14-16)

Let’s pray.

Lord, we ask—as we have already asked through prayer—that you would make Christ known, that you would make your will known to us, and that you would, by your grace, O God, effect that very will in us for the glory and honour of your name in our lives and in your church. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

Instructions For God’s Household

So sometimes, in the books of the Bible, the author will stop and tell you why he is writing. Maybe the most famous example of this is in the Gospel of John, where at the end John says that, “Jesus did many, many other miracles which are not recorded, but the ones that are written are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have eternal life.” (John 20:30-31)
He tells you the purpose of his writing: that you may believe.

Now, in the book of 1 Timothy, we have a similar thing, where Paul pauses in the middle of his writing and reminds Timothy why he wrote. He says, “I hope to come to teach you these things, but I’m writing to you now so that, in the meantime, you may know how somebody ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.” (1 Timothy 3:14-15)

He has given Timothy many instructions about his work, about his life as a minister of the gospel. But then he pauses and gives a summary to Timothy—the reason why he’s writing to him. Timothy, this is what you are doing: you are learning how to conduct yourself, or to behave, in the household of God.

He’s saying to Timothy, as a pastor, he’s saying, “The church where you are a pastor is a household. It is the family of God. God has his design for it. God has his own ideas for it—how he wants to run his family, how he wants to raise his children. And God has put you in a very awkward position, where you are leading the family of another person. And so I’m telling you how to behave when you are put in the position of leading someone else’s family, when that someone else is God—how to conduct yourself.”

So friends, I’d like us to consider this image, this picture, of the church as a household—the household of God. And there’s only one thing that I want you to see here. There’s only one point, one instruction. But then there are three reasons behind that one instruction.

The one instruction that I want you to end with is this is that you should lead carefully with your godliness. Lead carefully with your godliness.
Why? Number one, because the church is the holy God’s household. I’ll repeat that: lead carefully with your godliness because the church is the holy God’s household.

Number two, lead carefully with your godliness because you are only a steward, a servant set over the master’s house. Lead carefully with your godliness because you are only a steward.

Number three, lead carefully with your godliness because you are training God’s children in godliness.
Lead carefully with your godliness.

Number one, because the church is God’s household.
Number two, because you are only a steward.
And number three, because you are training God’s children in godliness.

Lead Carefully With Godliness Because The Church Is God’s Holy Household

Well, let’s look at the first reason why Timothy is to lead carefully with his godliness: because the church is the holy God’s household.
He says to Timothy, “Behave correctly, because you are in the household of God.” The word household is a very striking word. It is used generally in the Bible to describe individual family units. Household has the idea of a home, a house where people, where a family lives.
In fact, the apostle Paul has been using this word household so far. And so what he says in verse 15 is not a surprise, because of what he’s been saying before. Go up with me to verse 4 of chapter 3.

He uses the word household in verse 4. He says, “He…” referring to whoever desires to be an overseer, or an elder, or a pastor, that such a person, “(he) must manage his own household well.” Which means his own family well, his own house, where his people live, well.
And then he specifically says that he should do that with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. And so, in this verse, it seems that the household is particularly seen as the place where the children are. And so, this man manages his household well, which is evident in his being able to keep his children submissive—the same word as household back down in verse 15.

Now, it’s interesting that he focuses on the children here. There’s a similarity between the qualifications here and the qualifications in Titus 1.
So, earlier on, he has spoken about the wife in the house, and he says that this elder must be faithful to his wife. He must be a one-woman man. Okay. So you can be married to one wife but not be a one-woman man if you have eyes that are like a Kenyan athlete—yes—that run around. And so he must be a faithful husband.

But then, when he talks about the household, he doesn’t speak specifically about the wife, but about the children—that he should keep his children submissive. That’s the way he speaks in Titus 1 as well.

Titus 1:6: “If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers, or faithful, and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.”

Friends, the home—the pastor’s home, where his children are, where he exercises authority over his children—becomes a model that teaches us about his ability to lead the church of Christ. The pastor, or the would-be pastor, has a household, and his household is his private domain of leadership. He has the responsibility to determine how these children behave, and he has the authority to do it.

And so the church is to look at the outcome of this man’s leadership at home over his children and then translate that into his capacity to lead God’s own young children.

Now, the moment you say that—especially as a parent—you begin to think about all the qualifications you want to bring in. It’s hard to raise young kids. Young kids have their personalities; they are very different. It’s difficult even to make judgments over a person because of the behaviour of their children, especially if the children are young, which seems to be the context here. The word typically refers to young children.
And maybe the Holy Spirit anticipates that hesitation that I, or we, might have. And the apostle Paul goes on in verse 5 to make an argument why he just spoke about the household, and specifically the children.

Verse 5, he says: “If someone does not know how to manage his own household”—same phrase as in verse 4, and so we assume he’s still referring to the overseer’s own children—“if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:5)

Friends, I don’t want you to miss what’s happening here. The apostle Paul is making a one-to-one correlation between your household as a church leader—a pastor or a would-be pastor—and God’s household. Your home is your private domain of authority over your young children. And then God is saying, “I too, as God, have my own private domain of authority over my own children.”

And God is saying that I’m going to instruct you to read back from the pastor’s use of authority in his private domain to the pastor’s use of authority in God’s own private domain, which is his household.

Maybe God is factoring in our capacity for duplicity, or hypocrisy, or the fear of man, which sometimes can make us pastors excel outside in the church but then perform really, really badly at home. Amen. That’s true, right?

Friends, if you consider what the Lord is saying here, he’s saying that, at the end of the day, your behaviour with your young children directs your real behaviour with God’s children.

If you overlook them, if you have favouritism amongst them, if you have no time to cultivate them, if you’re harsh with them, if you only give attention to the child who is excelling, if you abscond your authority and you’re not firm, or you’re not gentle, or if you’re just in your dealing with them, or if you’re proactive, you’re a natural, or you’re attentive with the ones put under your care, then you are going to inevitably treat God’s young children that are put under your care in the same way.

The pastor’s house compared to God’s house is not comparing an orange with a banana, that are two different things. The way the thoughts are aligned here is comparing a small orange to a big orange. It is comparing one household to another household.

And so, if you’re good with oranges, and you’re peeling the small one well, then the Lord is saying you should be allowed to peel the bigger one well, which needs to be peeled even more carefully.

If someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?

Brothers and sisters, the home is ground zero for our leadership. It is where leadership begins.

A couple of years back—now we’ve forgotten; none of us is wearing a mask—we had COVID, and there were claims (I’ll call them claims, just so that I’m not quoted) that it began in a market in Wuhan. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that would be ground zero, where it all began.
And your leadership as well—where it all begins, its market, where it begins—is at home.

You cannot be too busy to excel at home, to work hard at home, to put effort at home, because of the correlation that God makes between your household and his household.

If you are too busy, especially for children, and things are not going well there, God is saying you can’t do it here in his household.
So this applies to those of us who are leaders in other places but are not pastors. The home, again, is still ground zero for authority. The home is where people learn how to live under authority—under parents. The home is where people learn how to be in authority.

When you give one of the children authority and ask them to make sure that they do this with their siblings, they are learning how to take charge and how to use your charge for the good of those under them.

Or when you have children and now you learn how to care for someone, how to live and to spend and to be emptied for the good of someone else, you are learning how to use authority. And the home is the first place where that happens.

Friends, we have to prioritise the health of our households. That is how we are trained for leadership. That’s God’s vision.
I read a quote recently, that the only people who will remember, 20 years from now, that you worked overtime in your current job are your children.

But I don’t want us to miss, even as we meditate on this idea of the church as the household of God, that it is owned by God in the way a person has charge over his household, and it is mine—that it belongs to God. I don’t want us to miss the gospel implication about our relationship with God as those who are in his household.

Notice the great gospel truth sitting in this comparison. We are God’s children in the way we are our own fathers’ children. There’s a parallel reality being made there. That’s how Scripture puts it.

Friends, remember the Lord Jesus Christ, who through his divine nature is God’s Son, and through his human nature is Mary’s son, has in his one person taken our nature and combined it with the divine nature—without mixing them, but they are together as his two natures in one person.

When he dies on the cross, he doesn’t only make it possible for the Father to be a Father of human beings like us, but he makes it a promise that those who trust in him, who are attached to Jesus Christ by faith, enter into a relationship with the Father—that makes us his children, as we are the children of our own fathers. Because it is possible, because God has taken our nature upon himself in the person of Christ Jesus.
Please pause to consider it, friends. We are God’s household as local churches—God’s family of children—a miracle of the gospel.
The apostle Paul is making this same point in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, where he begins by referring to the relationship between the Father and the Son as God and the Word. He says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

And then later on, in verse 14, he explains the Word and God to be the Son and the Father. “The Word dwelt amongst us.” The Word was the only begotten Son of the Father.

And so there’s this Father–Son relationship within the Godhead that is being revealed to us in the gospel. This Father–Son relationship, which mirrors a human father–son relationship, though is not exactly like it, because in a human father–son relationship the father is greater, the father is stronger, the father is older than the son whom he produces.

If you apply that to God, you have two gods. You have a father who is better, greater, wiser, and then you have a son who is not as great, not as wise, not as authoritative—not at all. There is only one God.

The Father eternally exists as Father because he eternally exists as the Father of the Son. And the Son eternally exists as Son because he exists as Son to the Father. And so that Father–Son relationship is an eternal relationship.

And so we say, all praise be to God the Father, the unbegotten one. All honour be to Jesus, his only begotten Son, eternally begotten. He exists as Father because he eternally exists as Father to the Son.

What John reveals to us here is that there is a Father–Son relationship between God and the Word: two distinct whos, even though only one what. And then these two whos—Father and Son—are described in language that we would associate with a parent and a child, and that communicates something to us. It’s a language of giving oneself to another. It’s a language of unconditional love, a language of devotion to another, a language of the reciprocal action of loving the one who loves you back, sharing the nature of the other, and so on. It’s a tender relationship of love and commitment that we are to imagine is there between the Son and the Father.

John goes a step further and says that we too, as believers—you yourself, as one who has put your faith in Jesus Christ—you enter into a relationship which uses a very fascinating word in John chapter 1. Just turn there briefly.

We are still exploring how it is we are the household of God—the gospel assumption in that picture. So after we know that the Word and the Father, the Word and God, are the Son and the Father—we know that from verse 14, “glory as of the only Son from the Father.”

But in the middle, John introduces another Father–child relationship. He says in verse 12, “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become—what?—children of God.” (John 1:12)

But then what he says next, especially if you keep the eternal begottenness of the Son in mind, he says, “Children”—verse 13—“who were born, or begotten, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man…” (John 1:13)

In other words, there’s a Father–child relationship, but the difference is that it is not a natural father–son relationship as it is with our earthly fathers. Even though it is a true Father–child relationship, it is not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.

And so God begets sons. When we come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, when we receive him and believe in his name, we become begotten as children of God. We become a part of the household of God by believing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ—by believing the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ, by receiving him as the manifestation, the enfleshment of the invisible Word of God. We are made children of God.

And so, because there are believers, God has a family. God has a household of people that he has born, that belong to him, that he organises into a household.

Scripture is replete—full—with a celebration of this idea: that we become children, true children of God, and God becomes our Father in a parallel way to our earthly fathers.

1 John 3:1: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
Romans 8:16: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

In other words, the same Spirit that is in Christ the Messiah is the same Spirit that is in us. We have the same Holy Spirit that is in Christ, which makes Christ the Messiah our brother and makes his Father our Father. When he rises from the grave and meets with Mary, he tells her, “I am going to my Father and your Father.”

Now, in his humanity, the relationship he shares with the Father is as our own, so that we and he both have the same Father. In fact, Paul goes on in this text in Romans 8 and he says that if we are sons—if we are children of God—then we are heirs. We inherit what God has. We are heirs of God, and we are fellow heirs with the Messiah. Heirs together with the Messiah, we inherit together with the Messiah himself, because we truly have been made sons of God.

The Son of God became a son of man so that sons of men could become sons of God. Athanasius, John Calvin, C. S. Lewis—I could not find who the phrase is attributed to—but it is true. It is true.

As believers have confessed throughout history, we have been made children of God. Friend, that is what you are.
The church really is a collection, an assembly, of the children of God. And so, as a pastor, as a leader in a church, you are being called to administrate or to govern this holy, mysterious, divinely begotten community of Spirit-bought people that are the Father’s own possession. The kind of ownership you have over your daughter or your son is the kind of ownership God the Father has over each member on your membership roll.

How does a human being lead that?

Lead Carefully With Your Godliness Because You Are Only A Steward

Here’s the answer—our second point: lead carefully with your godliness, because you are only a steward, or a servant set over the master’s house. You are only a steward.

So because the church is a household, and the household belongs only to the Father, when Timothy is leading it, Timothy has been assigned as a steward. He’s been set over someone else’s house. That’s who a steward is—a person who’s been set in charge of the house of his master. Actually, the word translates to household manager.

Now, it’s hard to find a local illustration for this idea of a steward, because normally we don’t put other people in charge of our homes. But the closest example, perhaps, is the idea of a caretaker. For those of you who live in plots where you share the building compound with other people, you might have somebody who takes care of the compound.

When I think about that, I remember a man who was a caretaker in a church where I was a member before. And he was just such a good man. He had the keys to all the rooms in the church compound—the building, the bathrooms, the offices, everything. He would open them, clean them, close them. He would manage the fence, he’d cut and trim the hedges, clean the place, he’d pick up trash. He just cared for the compound really, really well.

But the thing about him as well is that he also loved the people. My wife worked in this church, and especially in months like this one—July into August—if you’re a Nairobian, you know what the weather is like at those times. He would, around 10 a.m., just walk in with a surprise cup of tea and say, “I know it’s really cold. Here’s a cup of tea.” And he’d bless us like that all the time.

He took such care of the place and the people. He simply excelled in it. Now, what’s interesting is that he wasn’t a believer, even though he later did come to become a believer. But here’s a picture of a man who is employed to do work that he does so well that he’s a blessing to those that he serves, even though it’s clear to everybody that he doesn’t own that place. He doesn’t own those houses. He doesn’t own those people. But he cares for them as if he did.

That’s a steward. That’s a caretaker.

In fact, for a caretaker, the moment that man were to begin to take that place as his place—to feel ownership, to grumble before he opens the door to someone—he would immediately stop being a good caretaker or a good steward, because he’s not supposed to have ownership. But he’s meant to serve as if he did.

A church leader’s position is as one who knows, “This thing is not mine. I’ve just been called to serve.”

Friends, this idea—that the flock of God does not belong to you, you’re just there to humbly serve—is there every time God speaks to elders or church leaders. He says it.

Turn with me to Titus chapter 1, verse 7. These are instructions on how to appoint elders. He says, “For an overseer”—this is the same person in verse 5 he called elders; he said, “Appoint elders in every town as I directed you”—and then in verse 7 he calls that elder an overseer. So elders, overseer—same people, same person, same office. You might need to enroll into NRT to understand why that is the case.

“For an overseer, as God’s steward – an overseer is God’s servant – must be above reproach.” We’re going to speak about that shortly. But the point is this: the overseer doesn’t own the household. He is simply a steward over God’s household.

Let’s flip over to 1 Peter 5:2. 1st Peter 5:2

Verse 1: he exhorts the elders. (I’ll wait for us all to get there). In verse 1 he exhorts the elders. And then in verse 2—what does he tell the elders to do? “Shepherd the flock.” Shepherd is the same word as to pastor. So pastor, elder—same person. Maybe you won’t need to enroll into NRT now.

But who is the elder supposed to shepherd? Whose flock? The flock of God. So you’re shepherding, but it’s not your flock; it is God’s flock.
God has his sheep that he’s bought with his blood, and then he’s left them there. He loves each of them, and then he’s given you a staff and says, “I’m coming back shortly. Shepherd my flock.”

You are a steward.

Acts 20:28—same idea—where Paul tells the elders in Ephesus. Verse 17: “From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.” Then when he gets to verse 28, he says to the elders, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock,” which again means they are shepherds, pastors. “All the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you”—what?—”overseers.” Elders, pastors, overseers—same people. The Holy Spirit has made you overseers. And what do overseers do? To care for the church of—who?—God.
That “of God” aspect, friends, is so important. It’s so important. It must arrest you that there had to be an incarnation, there had to be an atonement, there had to be a gospel for God to have a household. That household belongs to God. You are simply a steward, with trembling hands, being called to shepherd, to care for that flock.

We could multiply examples for this, friends.

Paul, in 1 Timothy, consistently says to Timothy that his role is a stewardship. He’s been entrusted with this responsibility.
Friends, with what we are seeing, this is why it is a terrible thing when people who have been put in charge of the church of Christ see it as an opportunity for them to gain—an opportunity for them to get rich, an opportunity for them to benefit themselves. It is a terrible thing when we slander the church of Christ. It is a great sin against God.

When Ananias and Sapphira lie to the church, Peter says, “You’ve lied to God.” These are God’s blood-bought children. These are God-dwelt people you’re lying to.

Jesus asks in Luke 12:42, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, or steward?”—same word: steward, manager. Who is the faithful and wise steward, pastor, elder, overseer, church leader, whom his master will set over his household? And what is this steward meant to do? To give them their portion of food at the proper time.

Verse 43: Jesus says, “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, the master will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, “My master is delayed in coming,” and he begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and the master will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.” (Luke 12:43-46)

Friends, to abuse, to exploit the church of God is a great sin with great consequences.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:17, “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person, because God’s temple is sacred, and you—the church together—are that temple.”

Friends, as pastors, as leaders, as those who desire to become pastors, to plant churches, let’s consider that this is the household of God. Let us fear building God’s church in our own image, according to our own personal tastes and desires.

If we do that, we would be becoming the church’s father, rather than God being the church’s Father—where the church is being formed in his image. That’s why we speak about a plurality of elders. You’ve looked at those examples. In all three cases, it was elders in the plural.

And part of the blessing of having elders in a church is that each of those elders is going to exert an influence on the congregation. Which means the congregation has a chance of being formed by the collective influence of godly men, and not so much by the one-angled, one-dimensional character of only one person. And that helps in forming people in a more wholesome way—God’s character.

Those of you who are not in churches, God has made you a child if you have put your trust in him. If you have received Christ and believed in him, you have been given the right to be a child of God. But you have been added into a household. You must belong to a local church. You’ve been born into a household, as it is with your natural birth—you must belong to a local church.

Some of you are discipling people, but you’re not discipling them in local churches, or they are not part of a local church. You, on your own, cannot be a household for that individual. They need to be part of a local church—a household where there is the collective influence of other children of God, and elders, and overseers, and pastors over them. That is God’s design for the maturity of his children. It’s not your child; it’s God’s child. And they’re going to grow God’s way, which is through the local church.

Lead Carefully With Your Godliness Because You Are Training God’s Children In Godliness

Lastly, friends, lead carefully with your godliness, because you are training God’s children in godliness. Lead carefully with your godliness, because you, as a church leader, are training God’s children in godliness. We’ve said that it is God’s household, God’s children. Our role is to be stewards. Our work is to train God’s children in godliness.

The caretaker is there to do the landlord’s desire. God’s will for his children is for his children to increasingly become like him. In other words, God’s will is for his children to be conformed into the image of Christ, so that Christ can be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8.

This is the reason you find—I don’t know if you’ve noticed this—in the Pastoral Epistles an unusual focus on the word godliness, on the church’s godliness. It is assuming that these believers in churches—God’s children—are growing in godliness, in character, in being like Christ.
Let’s look at a few examples. In the passage we read when we began, 1 Timothy 3, Paul tells Timothy what the church is. And I know we’ve only focused on the idea of a household, and that’s what we will focus on, but in verse 16 he goes on and just delights, and bursts into praise. And then he says the gospel. He says Christ was incarnate—manifested in the flesh. Christ was proven to be the Son of God, declared to be the Son of God by the Spirit. Christ ascended, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, and so on.

But how does he introduce that song? It is the mystery of what? Of godliness. That’s strange—it should be the mystery of salvation. But for the apostle, to be saved and to continue to grow in godliness is just one and the same thing.
Saved people are children of God, and children of God are growing to be like their Father. And so this mystery is the mystery of what’s happening in your local church—godliness. Godliness is what you’re doing. You’re promoting godliness.

When you’re preaching on Sunday morning, you’re promoting godliness. That’s what’s happening underneath it. You know, at times you do one thing, but you’re effecting another thing.

So in 2020—during 2021—after we realised that we were staying at home for a long time and we didn’t know how long we’d stay home, as most of us might have done, we picked up hobbies. And an easy hobby—or more of a skill—that I tried to learn, that wouldn’t force me to travel a lot, was learning to bake. I wanted to bake a cake. I’d just become a father of two, and so I thought it was a good skill to learn: to bake a cake.
So I go online, I get instructions: this is how you bake a cake. And I followed them to the tee. And because of my ability to follow those instructions to the tee, the cake would come out good, and people would enjoy it.

And then one time, there was a neighbour of ours who was actually a professional baker who came to visit. She found me baking, and of course you’re conscious if you’re baking, you’re a learner, and a professional is right there. And while I’m adding the eggs, she makes a comment and says, “You know, eggs actually help to hold the ingredients together. The oil, the sugar, and the flour are held together by the eggs.”
And I was like, “Oh, that really just interested me.” Because all along I was simply adding eggs because that’s what the instructions said. But from then onwards, whenever I was adding eggs, I was giving structure to the cake. I was not just following instructions anymore. I knew what my instructions were accomplishing.

And friends, that’s the same thing with us as pastors. We are promoting godliness, helping the children of God be more like God. As we preach, what we are effecting is the growth of the children of God. As we administer the Lord’s Table, as we organise prayer meetings, as we appoint elders biblically, as we enrol widows—1 Timothy 5—all we are doing is advancing that church in being like their Father, training them in God’s family.

In 1 Timothy 4, he says to Timothy, “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.” Timothy, don’t waste time with many things, because pastors tend to be unhelpfully curious people. Rather, train yourself for godliness.

In 1 Timothy 6:3, the apostle Paul calls the gospel—very interestingly— he says, “the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness.” In 1 Timothy 6:5, Paul equates Christianity with godliness. He speaks of false teachers, “imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” And so he equates faith with godliness.

The same in 2 Timothy 3:12: he describes believers as those who live a godly life in Christ Jesus, who will be persecuted. In Titus 1, Paul calls the gospel “the truth which accords with godliness,” because godliness is the character of those who have been born of God and are growing to become more like Christ. They are being more like God.

What this means is that now you see why Paul keeps stressing to Timothy, stressing it to him that he must be godly—because you teach through your conduct. You teach people, you teach the children of God, to be godly by being an example of godliness. He says, “Set an example to the brethren.” (1 Tim 4:12)

Your character is your means to teach God’s people to be godly.
Your character is a greater qualification for your work than even your teaching, because your job description among God’s children is to promote their godliness. It is no surprise, friends, that the qualifications given for church leaders are mainly about character, as we said when we began, and then an ability to teach—because godliness is what’s happening in that room, in that household.

We do more with our godliness than with our teaching. That’s a big phrase, and so I’m going to let people who are more experienced than me speak on it.

Let’s listen to Stuart Olyott, who is an established, sound Baptist preacher. Stuart Olyott says, “Example is greater than eloquence. Preaching is not the most important thing. Being an example is much more important.” He’s drawing from 1 Timothy 4:11, and he explains that the sort of life you live must precede your words.

Listen to Spurgeon. Spurgeon says, “You all know the injurious effects that are frequently produced upon water when water flows through a pipe that has lead. Even so, the gospel itself, when it flows through men who are spiritually unhealthy, becomes debased until it grows injurious to their hearers. It is to be feared that good doctrine becomes evil teaching when it is set forth by men of ungodly lives.”

Spurgeon again: “As actions speak louder than words” Is that true? Actions speak louder than words.” So an ill life, a poor life, a badly behaved life, will effectually drown the voice of the most eloquent ministry. Our truest building must be performed with our hands. Our character must be more persuasive than our speech.”

Brothers and sisters, godliness is our tool for training God’s children in godliness. They are watching us. There’s a person who once said that light travels faster than sound, because people see before they hear.

And so our use of time, how we conduct ourselves on social media, our jokes, our speech, how we spend money, the things we buy—people are observing that, and they ought to. We are, in a sense, public citizens, as much as we also have private lives. The Lord has set us up to be seen, and conclusions are drawn about the pattern of godliness from how we live as pastors, as leaders.
Richard Baxter says that many a great sermon has been slit on the throat by a careless word from the preacher.

Number two: pastors preach faithfully. Definitely, our example—as Stuart Olyott says—precedes our eloquence, but then our eloquence needs to follow. We preach God’s word. We are stewards who feed the children of God as God intends them to be fed, at the right time.

Preach faithfully. Communicate the Father’s word to his children. Give God’s household their portion at the proper time. Preach through books of the Bible, because it is the Father’s words to his children. Say, like Paul, “I did not hold back from you anything that was profitable for you.”
And finally, some application for you who are not pastors. What does God expect of you as you live among elders, overseers, and pastors who are called to be stewards? It is quite easy to share with each other news of pastors who have fallen. But God also gives us responsibilities toward the pastors who pastor us, who have not fallen, and are labouring to honour God. Let me give you only four things you could do to encourage them.

How To Encourage Your Leaders

Number one: obey their teaching. The pastor, if he is being a faithful steward, is telling you what God has told him to tell you through the Scriptures. And it will warm his heart and encourage him if you are implementing the teaching in the sermon.
In the church where the caretaker I spoke about was a member, we had a faithful pastor. One time my wife and I were travelling home after church, feeling very encouraged by how this brother had exhorted us so faithfully from Scripture—honestly, holding nothing back, sincerely and fully.

And we thought, “We would like to encourage this pastor, just as a couple.” We considered ideas—maybe something we could buy him, a gift we could give him—to show our gratefulness for his diligence. But as I spoke with my wife, it hit us that what we knew for sure would please this brother was if we actually obeyed whatever he was calling us to obey in his sermon. We knew that would genuinely make him happy, because we saw the genuineness of his exhortation.

Obeying that exhortation would be a delight to any pastor who is preaching with conviction. So obey their teaching.

Number two: giving. Elders, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching, they are labouring like oxen. And the Bible says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it treads.” A muzzle is something placed over the mouth of an animal and it locks the mouth. You may have seen it with dogs. They are muzzled so they don’t bite. It feels as if there is a muzzle on his mouth, then you can relax.

And sometimes you put it on an ox to stop it from eating what it ought not to eat. But the Bible says that when an ox is treading, remove the muzzle from its mouth, so that it can eat where it treads, as it goes round treading on the wheat, on the produce. And the Bible compares that to the pastor.

Your giving is a way for you to encourage your pastors. It is a way for you to participate with them in their labour in the gospel, by making it possible for them to continue to tread the grain, to continue to preach the word, to continue to pastor and to visit.

Number three: give them due respect. Paul says this in Thessalonians: “Esteem them highly in the Lord.” When they call you to a church meeting and say, “The meeting begins at 4 p.m.,” don’t arrive at 4:40. Esteem the brothers highly in the Lord. When they ask you to get in touch with a suffering member and say, “Contact this member—they’re in hospital,” do it, partly as a way of respecting their instruction to you as stewards in God’s household.

Number four, lastly: pray for them. Paul asks the churches, “Pray for us.” Pray for your pastors. Pray for church leaders. Pray for them to be faithful. Pray for them not to shipwreck their faith, as some have done. Pray for them to speak boldly and clearly when they preach. Commit not to enjoy a sermon you have not prayed for from your pastor. Pray for pastors to be delivered from people who hate them. Pray for them to persevere in ministry. Pray for them to be faithful in their marriages and in their parenting. Have a partnership of prayer with your pastors—the stewards set over your Father’s household to care for you.

Keep Close To the Gospel

Those of you who are pastors, I implore you, I implore you, friends—to keep close to the gospel. Keep your stewardship. Be faithful in preaching it. But more than that, let there be no blemish on it because of your bad example, because of your sin, because of any failure on your part. May the Lord preserve us. May the Lord preserve you. And please pray for us.

Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you for setting up your household in local churches around this country, around this continent, around this world, all through history. And Lord, we pray for your stewards, for the pastors in this room especially. We ask, O God, that your hand would be upon them. Grant them to approach their work fearfully, as those who have been set over the Father’s own household. And we ask, O Lord, that your churches would flourish through the faithful stewardship of many men under this roof this evening. Would you accomplish it, O God, for your own glory, in Jesus’ name. Amen.