Look for Love

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Last week I brought up that we're going to take a brief break from our series in Joshua as we think about electing elders in the upcoming next month. Be on guard for, or be aware that there's going to be, not on guard, but be aware that there's going to be an edict read for that. But this morning we are going to go to Matthew chapter 22. I'll be spending the next few weeks looking at the things you should be thinking about as you think about electing an elder. So in Matthew chapter 22, we're going to be looking at verses 34 through 40 this morning. Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 40. Brothers and sisters, let's pay careful attention now to God's perfect word. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

Prayer for Illumination

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him, saying, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law? Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you for your spirit. God, we pray now that Your Spirit would be working in us, that we might know You better, that we might follow after You in Your paths. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Sermon

I've had a few pastors since becoming a Christian, but one of the things I've loved about becoming a Christian and being immediately immersed in the Reformed Church are ruling elders. I think of men like Dave Miracle out in Hampton Roads, Virginia. I can still hear his voice, his tenor voice singing behind me and the pew behind me. It still rings in my ear this day hearing a man joyfully praise God. I remember him standing up at the pulpit and praying for the congregation.

I remember when I left that church in Hampton Roads, Virginia and I went to college in California and I joined the OPC church there. I remember the ministry of Dr. Mulder, a cardiac surgeon who cared deeply for me, who carved out time out of his life to sit down with Olivia and I and do premarital counseling, who talked with me about my studies during college. And then when we moved from California, or when I moved from California, I moved to Pennsylvania, we joined Eastvale, the ministry of John Schaefer. MIT and Carnegie Mellon trained physicist and astronomer.

This was an incredible man who, when I was studying anything from philosophy to history, I would give him a book and I would say, I read this. This is an amazing book. I'd give it to him on Sunday morning and at Sunday evening worship he'd say, oh yeah, that was a great book. And he'd read it all in one afternoon. How do you do this? It took me a week to read that book. And he read it in a few hours. This brilliant man.

And yet I remember one of the first times I got up before the congregation to preach. Sat there always in his left-hand pew with his wife Lois in there, tears streaming from his eyes as he heard the gospel. Ruling elders who made an impact on our lives, who gave sacrificially of their time and of their finances to our family, who asked me hard questions and kept me in check, who told me, Brian, even the smartest people can be heretics. Be careful not to be tempted with your brain.

The role of a ruling elder is absolutely essential in the church. And we're going to be focusing specifically on ruling elders, but I'm an elder as well. I'm just a teaching elder. It's one office, different functions. So please don't act like when we come to this, this doesn't apply to pastors either. No, but because we're doing ruling elder elections soon, I want to lean in on that with you.

So what should you be looking for? as you think about who you would like to lead you as an elder. While we could go, it's really tempting to jump straight to lists of qualifications like 1 Timothy chapter 3 or the book of Titus. But I think it's important that we start here.

Look for love. Brothers and sisters, the first thing you need to look for when you're looking for an elder is love. A love for God and a love for neighbor. So first, look for their love for God. This is what Jesus says when this lawyer, when this leader in the congregation, when this expert in the law comes to Jesus, he comes to Jesus to try to trick him.

See, he had his mind filled. He knew the book of Deuteronomy. He knew the book of Exodus. He could rattle off Exodus chapter 20 to you. But what Jesus brings him to is what he had heard from his very youngest childhood when he said, what is the greatest commandment? Jesus doesn't go to any of the Ten Commandments to start with. He goes to the summary of it in Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. This is what Jesus leans into first, when he's looking at this elder in the church there, eye to eye.

In the Greek, it's singular. In the Greek, he picks up on it as he's looking at the man in the eyes and he's saying, you want to know what the greatest commandment is? Love the Lord your God. So what do we look for in a man? As we think about electing an elder, Is he a man who loves the Lord? See, we know ultimately that it is only Jesus who could absolutely love the Father with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength. Let's just get this clear out there. If you're looking for an elder in the church that at every waking moment of his life, he loves the Lord with every ounce of his strength, and every ounce of his mind, and every ounce of his soul, well, you're only going to have one elder, and his name's going to be Jesus in Heaven. And He is our Chief Elder.

But we're looking at men who categorize, who look like Christ. Who the Spirit has been molding their hearts and shaping their lives that they look more like Jesus. And so what we first look at is the content of their faith. What is the content of someone's faith? See, we think of faith, we think of loving God with all of our heart, and we think of, well, mushy emotionalism. But when Jesus talks about loving, yes, it is this heart-wrenching love, and we're going to get to that in a second, but it's also substantive. There is content of that faith. It's not just what they feel at the moment, but what they hold to as the truths of God down in their very heart and soul. This is one of the reasons why even in our polity, in our church government, as you elect an elder, the session here will then meet with that man one-on-one and ask him certain questions to see, do you love the Lord with all your mind?

Have you gone to his word? And have you bowed your heart and your mind to his word? When he says hard things, do you listen to him? Do you know His Word is buried deep down in your soul? Do you believe that God's Word is perfect? Do you believe that God is the one who is the author and finisher of our salvation? We might ask questions like, who is Christ? Who is He theologically? Who is He to you? But we also must not just test to see whether a man is orthodox, and the content of his faith, but what is the substance of his faith? Does he have vital religion?

It will be to our detriment. It will be to the wrongdoing of Jesus' church if we elect a man who is not a praying man. If we elect a man who does not know how to go before God's throne of grace and to plead with mercy for his children. Is that one of the qualifications you're looking for?

For a man who is so dependent on the Lord that he would take and say, God, I'm not in charge of this situation. I need you. I love you, Lord. You are the only one who is my high priest, and I know that you are the one who could hear this prayer. We must look for a man who is praying with others and for others. Is he a man who loves the Lord and his shows and his knowledge of the Scriptures.

Now, there's a knowledge that puffs up. There's a knowledge that you know this man who has all his theological daggers and he's ready to go to war with anybody and everybody. But it's like the Scriptures haven't actually penetrated his own heart. When it talks in lamentations about our sin turning over our stomachs, it's like you look at that man and you go, I'm not sure you've ever chewed over those words before.

You go to a man that you know that God's Word is what is leading his path, that it seems like his life is being preserved from the way of wickedness and from the seed of scoffers because his delight is in the law of the Lord. And it seems like he meditates on His Word.

Now, we don't want to... I need to be careful. Okay, again, we're not talking about the perfect man. There's only one of them. His name is Jesus Christ. But when we elect a man to be an elder, we're looking for someone who not necessarily knows every chapter and verse of every reference of the Bible.

But someone who can rightly divide the Word of God. Someone when they meet with someone and is able to say, well, hold on. You know, God's Word says this. They might not even be able to remember exactly where it is, but they could say the words off the tip of their tongue, because it's buried in their hearts. No, that's not right. There's something wrong with that.

I know that the Lord says this, and they're able to say the Scriptures, because it's buried in their hearts and in their minds. Does he nourish his own soul with God's Word? This is an important question. Let me ask you, as members of the congregation, do you want your soul to be nourished?

Do you want to be brought to the green pastures? Do you want to be led to the still waters? A man cannot bring someone to something he does not know the path to. Does he know where the green pastures are? Does he know where the still waters are? Will he lead you there?

Do you see it in his life? And not somebody who's necessarily a top-notch Bible scholar, but someone whose heart is devoted to the Lord. Do you see that vital religion in him? Have you seen this person? Maybe some of you have an image of your mind right now with someone that you're thinking of. I don't know who that person might be. Have you seen that person go through suffering and trial, tribulation and hardship, and yet still clung to Christ? It's easy to be a leader when times are going well. But will that person bring you to the one who will satisfy your soul when things are going poorly. Is this person rejoicing in the Lord? Can they come and say with the psalmist, come and sing with me?

Will they bring you joy in the Lord or will they just beat you down with their doctrinal bludgeons? Will they build you up in your faith? Will they show you? Will they bid you come and taste and see that the Lord is good? There are men like this in this church. Do they provoke you to holiness?

Are we looking for men who will lead us to Christ because they love God? We must look for men who are shepherding us to the green pastures because Christ has been their good shepherd. So we must look both at the content and the substance of a man's faith. A valid question might come from that though, you know. How do you know that type of stuff from a guy? Well, you've got to know them. You've got to talk to them. You've got to spend time with them. You've got to ask them questions.

I just want to point out here that some of you might even be sensing in your heart the desire from the Holy Spirit that you think, maybe I should be an elder. That's a good thing. 1 Timothy chapter 3 says, if a man desires to be an elder, he desires a good work. It's good. One of the biggest blessings of my entire life, besides becoming a Christian and having a wife and children, is being your elder. It really is a huge blessing.

And so, man, if it is the Holy Spirit prompting you, you might feel like you are not worthy of that calling, and that's a sign that you are. Actually, I'd be more concerned. Just put it out there. If you meet someone that you're like, yep, I should be an elder. It's probably a good sign that that person's Maybe not the type of guy you want to have as an elder.

But are they a humble person? Do you observe how their family responds to his leadership? But there's dangers. We'll get to those dangers in a second, but secondly, we need to look at their faith lived out. See, we can talk about the vertical, how they're responding to God. Do they love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength? Do they show that they are Christ-like in that way, in a certain measure? But the second commandment is like it.

When we are looking for a man to elect as an elder, is he a man who actually loves people? I'll never forget. sitting in Dr. Gamble's systematic theology class, this is a level one systematic theology class, and the class is full, you know, boiling over with all these people who think that they might want to be pastors, and Dr. Gamble looks at us square in the eye, he stops in the middle of his lecture and says, men, if you want to be an elder in the church, but you have no love for people, you need to walk out of the room right now. Get a full refund, just leave. Because what the church does not need is a bunch of Big ol' heads and hard hearts.

Do you love people? Loving neighbor. Add yourself. This must be the second thing that we look for in love. Do we... We must look for the man who is gentle and caring. Are you looking for a man who would go and practice true religion? caring for the orphan and for the widow, mourning with those who mourn, weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice. As you think about a man to elect as an elder and you look for the marks of love, look for the man who actually puts his pocketbook where his mouth is. Do they actually give? of their money, and if they don't have money, by the way, you don't have to be wealthy to be an elder. One of the best elders I've ever met was one of the poorest men I've ever met. Just God's providence in his life. But he sacrificially gave. He gave to our family.

Do they bind up the hurt? Do they care for the afflicted? Do they weep and mourn with you? Are they one of the people who will say, okay, yeah, I know you're hungry, go and be happy, and I'll pray for you, and they send you away? Or are they someone who's actually caring for others?

It's kind of hard to know these things, isn't it? This is one of the difficulties of electing a man to step into the office. Because, let's face it, you don't know their heart. All you know is from the outward things that you can see. And if this person is a good Christian, they're probably following Jesus' commandment, aren't they? Not letting their right hand know what their left hand is doing. So, have you heard hints of it? Do you have suspicions that that need went met because somebody that you know just did it? And they're not going to toot their own horn, but they quietly took care of a need.

And this is where I want to get to some dangers to look at. The first is dangers of wrong love. Four or three different wrong loves that we must avoid, and this list could go on and on and on, because the heart is a factory of idols. But the first is You must not, or you must be very careful to try your hardest not to elect a man who loves money rather than God. Church history is filled, filled with leaders in the church who would rather fleece their own pockets at the expense of the flock, who would rather build up their own wealth and their own kingdom rather than living sacrificially for God's people.

We don't have to look any further than Judas Iscariot. He was one of the twelve. He had gone out and he was one of... Jesus sent him out two by two. I don't know who was Judas' preaching partner, but could you imagine later being like, I heard that guy preach. And he just sold out Jesus for 30 silver coins? Yeah. He did. At the end of the day, the rub came in that he loved his money more than he loved Christ.

I was just watching a documentary the other day on St. Peter's Basilica, and this amazing basilica, and this amazing church, glit with gold and fine paintings, statues made out of marble. Did you know that it was all paid for by starving German peasants? We don't need to look at any specific denomination. Let's go look at how many pastors, I'm going to put that in quotes, pastors live in $7.1 million mansions in Dallas. And it's clear what's going on here.

Danger number two. of a wrong love is a man, we must be careful not to elect a man who loves power and influence. When a man who is elected, who loves power and influence more than Christ, he's more about building up his own kingdom, his own control. And what happens, especially in the session, is there's factions and power grabs rather than teamwork and sacrifice. A man who loves power and influence will go with his own fame and his own control rather than what's best for the congregation. Be careful of a man who loves power and influence rather than Christ. Thirdly, be careful of electing a man who loves people's praise over God and people. A man who is just a yes-man, a man who just wants to win the popularity contest, a man who's elected to the office of an elder, will not be the type of man who will actually walk in church discipline.

Because church discipline isn't popular. A man who loves people's praise, rather than the smile of God upon them and the care for God's people, is one who will neglect toxic leadership. Within their own session, this will be a person who just wants to keep peace rather than calling sin, sin and calling people out for it. Because they don't want to rock the boat. But sometimes in the church, guess what?

Even elders need to be said, that's wrong. I love, I love it when John Smith corrects me. Absolutely love it. We need men who have courage to tell another elder, no. No, that's not wise. We shouldn't do that. We need men who are not so much about getting praise from other people that they neglect discipleship.

One of my favorite moments in my entire life is sitting in the front queue with Micah, my pastor, my teaching elder, sitting on the top step of the podium, or of the stage, platform, whatever, him looking me in the eyes and saying, why are you being such an idiot? Go home and love your wife. Now, I'm the type of personality that I need a guy to shoot it straight with me, okay? I'm probably not going to look at most of you and call you an idiot to your face, but I need that from time to time.

And if Micah was just about caring about, oh, we gotta keep people in the church, we gotta... No, he was about discipling me. He wasn't about just me being his best buddy. and trying to get praise. But He actually loved me. Are you looking for men who love God rather than people's praise?

Lastly, there are two dangers, two dangers to bring out regarding love, and a difficulty in the congregation will close with these. The first And I've already said this before, is you are looking to elect a Christ-like man. Not Christ.

Your Good Shepherd is already there. He's always with you. Jesus Christ has been with you in the darkest and the deepest of the valleys of the shadow of death. He's always been at your right. He's always bringing you beside the still waters. He's always bringing you to the green pastures. He's always loving you and watching out for you. He's always bidding you, come. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest. Because He perfectly loves His Father. And He perfectly loves everyone else.

But if you've set that standard as the absolute standard, and there's no wiggle room for it, The church will be without elders. Since no one is perfect, no not one, even all of us sin, don't expect the leaders in the church not to be people who still struggle themselves.

I just want to point out four or five different examples of this from the New Testament from the apostles themselves. Paul, certainly not perfect. He cries out, O wretched man that I am, the things that I do not want to do, yet I do, and the things that I want to do, I don't do. Paul knows what it's like to struggle with his sin. Peter, one of the apostles, denied Jesus Christ three times to his face. And then he had to be confronted by Paul face to face, how he was treating Gentiles in the church. Paul and Barnabas have such a sharp disagreement that they have to split ways. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, struggle with pride when they go to Jesus right before his death and they say, when you enter into your kingdom, let us sit at your right hand and at your left hand.

So, I just need to be clear, the danger that you have here is that you could be looking for an absolutely perfect man because what you're really looking for is Christ. But, brothers and sisters, we must not be looking for Christ. He is our shepherd. We're looking for Christ's likeness. Does this man look like he's imitating Christ? As much as he's able to, fighting against sin, walking in holiness. Not a perfect man, but a Christ-like man.

And the other danger of looking for the wrong things is looking for a popularity contest. It's easy as we're going to be getting into the qualifications of elders. that you might have in your mind a politician or an extrovert or just a very gregarious person who loves to shake hands and meet with people and just really is buddy-buddy, chummy-chummy with everyone. It's not a popularity contest. We're not looking necessarily for the most well-spoken man. We're looking for the man who loves God. and loves us. How does he love his family? How does he love his wife? How does he care for his children and grandchildren?

There's all sorts of ruling elders. Each one of those four men that I mentioned, ruling elders, had very, very different personalities. I think I actually mentioned maybe five of them, one of them not by name. All of them very different personalities. Some of them introverted, some of them extroverted. One of them with a radio show, and one of them who would write letters. One of them who really struggled to show his love for people in ways that they understood that he loved them, but in the session meeting, when he prayed for them, he cried for them.

So don't just be looking for what the world might look at as what is a good leader. Look for the man who loves. Look for the man who loves Christ, who will lead you to Christ, who will shepherd your children and grandchildren to Christ. Look for the man who struggles in his own faith, wrestling with God, until Christ will bless him. Look for a man who is merciful like Christ. I'm thankful that you all have good picks in this congregation. And I'm excited to see what the Lord does by His Spirit in moving your hearts.

And I pray that as we get through the different qualifications of an elder, that you might not just be looking at You know, who's the guy we should elect? But the elders are meant to be those who are imperfect examples of Christ. Men in the congregation, I speak to you specifically, these are the attributes that aren't just, you know, the goal for the elders. They are the goal for every godly man in the congregation. The elders are just set the lead in that. But we're to strive for these.

Closing Prayer

And it starts with love. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you might teach us to love you more. Lord, we thank you. that You have given us Your Spirit, that You have watched over us. Father, we pray that You would fill our congregation with Christ-like men. We pray that You would fill the pews of this church with men who love You and who love their neighbors. Lord, we thank You for the faithfulness that You have shown this congregation for over a century of ruling and teaching elders who have loved you and have loved others. God, we pray. We pray that you would let us look to our chief shepherd, Jesus Christ, and know that you perfectly watch over our souls and you neither slumber nor sleep. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa 52640. May God richly bless you this week.