Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - The Function And Motivation of Elders

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

In this episode, after looking at the call and qualifications of pastors/elders in his previous episode, Jonny Ardavanis now examines and expounds on the function and motivation of elders within the body of Christ. The health of the Christian is tied to the health of the church and there are no healthy churches apart from godly and qualified elders. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey folks, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In our previous episode, we looked at the calling, the qualifications, and the attitudes of an elder within the church. An elder is synonymous with the terms pastor, shepherd, and overseer in scripture. They describe the same role and the same function. In our previous episode, in short, elders are those who are appointed by the Holy Spirit and then are affirmed by the church. And they are those who possess the necessary qualifications of being a godly man who has the ability to teach and preach the word of God.

And they do so not under obligation, but with great eagerness. In this episode, I want to extrapolate more fully on their function and then look finally at the motivation that the elder possesses for serving as a shepherd in the body of Christ. This is important for every single believer who understands that if they are a member of a church, which they should be, they are called by God to submit to and pray for their leaders. Therefore, understanding what they do as an elder is crucially important. Let's dial in. I want to look first with you at the function of an elder. First Peter five, and we looked at this in our previous episode, Peter says, therefore, I exhort the elders among you as your fellow elder and the witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed,

shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but voluntarily according to the will of God and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. The function of an elder is to shepherd the flock of God. This is the main verb in this passage, and it's in the imperative sense, meaning that this is an urgent call and an important plea for elders to do the work of shepherding. Now we need to ask the question, what does a shepherd do? Well, they feed, they lead, and they protect the flock. And they primarily do this, elders do, through preaching and teaching the word of God. This is what an elder does.

They preach and teach the Bible. They protect the flock from false doctrine. They train in sound doctrine, and they equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Today, the term preaching has become a pejorative. Contemporary church culture says things like, don't preach at me, talk with me. Don't call it a sermon, Call it a talk or a conversation. Don't stand behind a pulpit. Sit at a bar top table. Don't tell me what to do. Inform us and we what we should do. Don't preach for 40 minutes. Share for 20 minutes. More stories, less substance. More laughs, less conviction.

Nowadays, style has become more important than substance. No longer is preaching central. It has now become peripheral in the responsibilities of the pastor. Some pastors would say that preaching is only one of their responsibilities. And this much is true. Weeks back, I did a wedding. Yesterday, I spent some time on the phone with someone who is struggling. So preaching is not the only thing I do as a pastor. But understand this, preaching and teaching is not the only thing a pastor does, but it is the central and primary work of a pastor elder. I want to persuade you of this reality. Our Lord performed many miracles, but the gospel of John

refers to them in his writing as signs because they were done to signify the authenticity of what Jesus said. Jesus did not come primarily to heal the sick or the lame or the blind, but he did so as the authentication of what he preached. When he would perform a great miracle and the crowds would press in on him, Jesus would say, as he does in Luke 4, 43, I must preach the good news. When people were looking for him in Mark 1 38, Jesus said, let us go somewhere else so I can preach there also for that is why I have come. In Luke 12 verse 14, Jesus sent out his disciples to preach and all throughout the gospels in the book of Acts, there is the primacy and centrality of preaching. In Acts chapter 1, prior to Jesus' ascension, he tells them that they are

to be his witnesses. How? Through the preaching of the word of God. And when the spirit comes upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, they immediately start to what? To preach. In Acts 2, Peter preaches his famous sermon and many are saved. In Acts 3, you find the same thing. Peter and John heal a man at the gate and there's this explosion of excitement and the people want more miracles. But Peter again preaches and corrects them and draws their attention from the miracle to the person of Christ through his preaching.

In Acts 4, the church is sent out to preach and teach and it says they do so with boldness. And it was the preaching in the name of Jesus Christ that bothered the Jewish leaders. But Peter and John responded in Acts 4.20, saying, whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge.

For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. And after they had been released from prison, they prayed and went on preaching with more boldness. In Acts chapter 6, this is important for you to understand, there's a great crisis. And it draws our attention to the primary task of elders. The essential problem in Acts 6 is conveyed in the opening verse. It says this in Acts 6, now at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the

daily serving of food. Widows were being overlooked in the early church. This is a problem. There are widows, and not only are there widows, they are hungry. This is a real problem, and there's a real sense of urgency here. Now, the question is, what are the elders going to do to meet this crying need of hungry widows?

Why on earth would they go on preaching when there are people suffering, you may ask? But I want you to watch what the apostles say under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the commission that they had received from the Lord. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, they knew they would be failing in their commission if they neglected their primary duty. So it says in Acts chapter six, verse two. So the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven good men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves

to prayer, and watch this, to the ministry of the Word. The statement found approval with the whole congregation, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith, and the Holy Spirit. And Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. And they brought them before the apostles, and after praying, they laid their hands on them. This is the first initiation of deacons. And then the question is, then what happened? What happens when the elders can effectively minister the word of God because there are other people meeting the needs around them? Well, it says in Acts chapter six, verse seven, then the word of God kept on spreading. And the number of disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests

were becoming obedient to the faith. This is amazing. As a pastor right now of Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, Tennessee, my main responsibility is to rightly divide the word of God. Does this mean I don't respond to dire needs? Of course not. Elders in James chapter five support and pray over the sick. They love on the body. But it is to say this, that the primary responsibility that I have as a pastor

is to wield the word of God. In 1 Timothy 3.15, Paul tells Timothy that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. This is not a cultural society saying, this is not a country club when you come to church. And in order for the church to be what it is, Paul urges Timothy to do one predominant thing. It's in 2 Timothy 4.2, and that says, preach the word. He is to be absorbed in his preaching in 1 Timothy 4.15. Paul is just reminding his son of the faith over and over and over again, preach the word. And then he says, be absorbed in preaching.

And what I think he is getting at is this, and I'll make a confession to you. I want to be the best preacher I can possibly be by the grace of God. I hope in a year from now, I am a more clear, biblical, passionate, and necessarily tender herald of the word of God. And this is what Paul is telling Timothy, be absorbed in your gifting and your privilege that you have been entrusted with of preaching the word of God. And yet we say all this, and I read all this in scripture, and we live in a world that wants to depreciate preaching. Times have changed. We now have cyber trucks and artificial intelligence, but the chief function of a shepherd within the body of Christ has not changed.

Maybe you're wondering about the pastor's role in facilitating community. Community is a wonderful and good thing, but the depth of community we share is always going to be a derivative of the depth of our study as a church and the word of God. And if a church has the pulpit right, the community will always be right. You may listen to preaching or podcasting like you are right now throughout the week, but I want you to understand something that is even special about the preaching you listen to preaching or podcasting like you are right now throughout the week. But I want you to understand something that is even special about the preaching you listen to when you gather at your own local congregation. And it's explained in the words of Paul. He calls it the mystery of

the church. And that is when the people of God come together and listen collectively and corporately to the word of God being preached, God is at work there in a special, Paul says, mysterious way. Furthermore, when you listen to the preaching of the word of God at your local church, it may be the one time of the week where you as the listener are not in charge. Right now you're listening to me on a podcast and I might be at 1.5 speed, but when you go to your church and you're listening to the preaching of the word of God, you're not in charge. You cannot speed him up.

You cannot slow him down and you cannot turn him off. You may read good books and read printed sermons, but God wants his people to gather in the assembly, to listen together to the preaching of the word of God and just absorb and then apply the truth that comes from God's word. A couple of questions for you before we move on. What then is biblical preaching? Well, can I give you a brief definition of biblical preaching? Biblical preaching is when the meaning of the message lines up with the meaning of the passage. Second Timothy 2.15, Paul tells Timothy

to rightly divide the word of truth, which is to say that there are some people, if not many, who wrongly preach even while using the Bible. That is that they use the Bible to say what they want to say, even though it's not what the passage even means. So therefore, as a pastor, I preach expositionally, not impositionally, meaning that I extract the meaning of the message from the meaning of the passage and don't impose my desired meaning on the passage that I'm preaching. In this regard, the meaning of a passage never changes over time. It may have different applications, but its meaning does not change. There is no need to improvise, innovate, or adapt the word of God. Now, I have attempted to carefully detail that preaching is the chief and primary function

of a pastor or an elder, but it is not the only one. In fact, there is something else that is crucial and paramount. Pastors aren't just preachers and teachers. They are also trainers. If all that a pastor did was preach, then there would never be disciple multiplication. Then you would have this false and wildly unbiblical view of church that it is done by the paid professionals who put on this show for you. After all, you pay someone to wash your car, to iron your clothes, to walk your dog. So why not pay the professional to put on church for a 75-minute service while you just attend that service three Sundays a month? Along this line of thinking, church is graded based on what I get out of it. But this

model of church where you show up and then you just listen to the paid professional creates consumers rather than disciples. Therefore, the elder's role is not to enable consumerism, but to equip disciples to do the work of ministry. If I, as a pastor, am doing my job effectively, there will be a radical dissolution of this staff-consumer distinction. There are not two classes present in the church, that being the minister and the ministered to, but rather the pastor and the pastors and the people working in partnership for the glory of God. Clear, sound, and strong preaching

is the bedrock of a church. It is a rallying cry. It is where people come to feed, but God doesn't expect for me as the pastor of my church to be the only one wielding the word of God. He expects every disciple to be a disciple maker. Now, how is this going to be possible in a church? Well, we see the answer in Ephesians 4, verse 11 through 13. Paul says, and he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists, and then watch this, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

Elders disciple the disciples so that the disciples may themselves become disciple makers who also make other disciples. It sounds so simple. It sounds so fundamental. And yet it is so neglected. The pastors do not do all of the ministry. They train the body in Ephesians 4 to do the work of ministry. I want to even give you an example of Paul's life. Paul was a laborer. His life was poured out like a drink offering, but he identifies in his writing all of his co-workers and co-laborers and partners with him in the gospel. There are 100 names associated with Paul in the New Testament, and there are 36 men and women whom he refers to as his close partners and fellow laborers. Paul was not trying to do it all. He was trying to equip everyone so that we all could do the work of the

body together for the glory of God. So pastors are preachers and teachers, but not only that, they are also trainers. And there are even more things, and I want to touch on these things briefly. They are also lovers of people. This is a qualification of an elder. They have to be a lover of the body of Christ. They pray for the sick in James chapter four of an elder. They have to be a lover of the body of Christ. They pray for the sick in James chapter four, verse 14. They are to watch out for the flock in Hebrews 13. They defend sound doctrine and they do one other thing. This is important. In second Timothy four, verse five, Paul tells Timothy to do the work of an evangelist. It's easy for pastors to get caught up in training and teaching and

preaching and equipping inside the church and in doing so become so internally focused that they have this false idea that their job is to train the people in the church and the people in the church are to go and get everyone else out there. So elders though, in a biblical sense, are not just internal equipers. They are external evangelists to the lost world around them. They have a passion to train, but a burden for the lost. And fifth here, I've really looked at five realities over the last couple episodes. We looked at the calling of an elder. We looked at the qualifications of an elder. We looked at the attitude of an elder, that they're humble. We just looked at the function of an elder in this episode. And then fifth and finally, in this little two-episode series on elders

and our overall series on the church, I want to look at the motivation of an elder with you. Shepherds don't do so for sordid gain. In 1 Timothy 5, verse 3, it says that we are not to do so, that's shepherding, lording it over those who are allotted to our charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, 1 Peter 5 verse 4 says, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. I love that.

When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Hebrews 13, 17 tells the members of the church to obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as one who will give an account. Here's the reality. The chief shepherd is coming back. We're going to stand before him. Every pastor, every elder is going to stand before Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 40 verse 11, we see that God is our shepherd. In John 10, he's the good shepherd. In Hebrews 13, he is called the great shepherd. And in first Peter five, he is the chief shepherd. In Hebrews 13, he is called the great shepherd. And in 1 Peter 5,

he is the chief shepherd. And it says there that one day when godly elders stand before the chief shepherd, they will receive the unfading crown of glory from the king of kings. All temporal crowns rust and fade and die. But this crown that is given to godly elders from Jesus Christ is that which is eternal. This is a crown which marks victorious achievement through the power of Jesus Christ. He reminds us right here, Peter does, that the journey up the hill for those who are elders and are laboring in the trenches, that the vista ahead is worth the work. There is future glory. There is future reward. And this is the motivating power and the motivating force behind all those who labor for Jesus

Christ. After looking at the role of an elder in these previous two episodes, in our next episode, I want to look at the role of each individual member in the body of Christ. If you're a Christian, you have a part to play and we're going to look at that in our next episode.

Stay dialed in.