It’s easy to laugh when no one gets hurt. But it’s no laughing matter when you get hurt, is it? It always hurts when a person or people whom we thought we could count on proved to be unreliable. At some point, we’ve all done that to others, and others have done that to us. We all know from our own experiences what it’s like to be hurt and to hurt others because of broken trust. That’s a fact of life.
Sometimes those hurts are fairly easy to bounce back from. And sometimes those hurts are so big and go so deep that we don’t know if we can ever recover. What do you do when your trust has been broken in a big way? What do you do when your trust has been broken by a church leader or pastor?
The passage that we are going to study today leads us right into the heart of that question. This might be the first time in my life that I’m hoping that what I preach is totally irrelevant to you. But I know it isn’t. I’ve been hurt and my trust has been broken by church leaders. I know some of you can relate.
We’re going to dive headfirst into 1 Timothy 5:17-25. While you grab a Bible or use your phone to locate that passage, I want to highlight again the theme verse of our series.
1 TIMOTHY 4:16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
It’s not enough to just get beliefs right, is it? Isn’t it true that you expect me to do more than teach doctrine and the Bible with accuracy and clarity? That’s important. But what good is it if I watch my doctrine closely but don’t watch my life closely? What if my character lags behind my competency as a teacher?
This word save should also be understood as healing. This is true about me for sure, but it’s also true about you. When our beliefs and our lives are in alignment with the truth, it produces good things. It brings healing. But when it’s just our beliefs that align with the truth, but our way of living doesn’t, that wreaks havoc and contributes chaos to the world. That’s what’s behind our series thesis.
SERIES THESIS: We teach WHAT we know but reproduce WHO we are.
We want to be people whose beliefs and ways of living are aligned with the truth because we want to contribute goodness and healing. We don’t want to contribute to chaos. That’s why we’re not content to simply learn the gospel. We also want to live it. We want to be able to expect that of ourselves and from each other. Hear me. We must be able to expect that from church leaders. So, what do we do when a church leader goes rogue?
1 TIMOTHY 5:17-25 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning. I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever.
I think passages like this should drive us to trust the Bible and Jesus more—certainly not less. While these things may feel awkward to talk about, we don’t have to tip-toe around them in hushed tones. We can shine a big ol’ spotlight on it and openly address sensitive topics.
- Money and paying pastors.
- Bringing accusations and holding pastors and leaders accountable.
- Dangers of favoritism and partiality.
- Being careful and patient about who is placed in a position of leadership.
If we can’t talk about these things, trust goes down and suspicion goes up. But because we can, because Jesus has carefully engineered the church to operate with transparency and accountability—even if we’ve been bruised in the past, there is a way for our suspicions to go down and our trust to go up. Who wouldn’t want that?
If it’s all right with you, I want to teach through this passage backward and a bit out of order. I think it will make sense by the time we get to the end.
1 TIMOTHY 5:21-22 I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.
No favoritism. No partiality. No nepo-baby pastors. I bet we all sort of intuitively understand why favoritism is no good. But it’s to our benefit to be able to explain why. Here’s just one reason that favoritism is destructive and contributes to chaos.
The foolishness of favoritism is that it lowers the STANDARDS for leaders without lowering the REQUIREMENTS of leadership.
There is a phenomenon in leadership that I don’t think I’m smart enough to explain. I can only tell you what I’ve observed. There seems to be a universal vulnerability in humans to hire and empower people whom we like, even if they don’t have the character or competency to do the job. It happens in government. It happens in business. It happens in church.
Years ago, I learned about a framework that’s needed for those we place in leadership. Here it is.
CHARACTER
COMPETENCY
CHEMISTRY
Ironically, the pastor I learned this from is out of the ministry because of multiple moral failures. Even though he can’t be trusted, this can. We might need more than these three. But we certainly can’t survive with less. Again, I’m not smart enough to explain why this is. I can only tell you what I’ve observed. People are suckers for empowering people with whom they have chemistry, even if their competency and character are lacking. And humans tend to be even bigger suckers for empowering people with competency, even when their character lags behind.
How many churches have gotten in trouble for sticking with a pastor because he’s a good communicator and good at attracting people, but his character is in the toilette? We can’t play fast and loose with the requirements of leadership.
The foolishness of favoritism is that it lowers the STANDARDS for leaders without lowering the REQUIREMENTS of leadership.
Think about building a home. You can lower your standards for concrete. You can go as cheap as you want. You can compromise all you want. But what you don’t have the ability to do is change what’s required for a strong foundation. You can lower your standards for concrete. But you can’t lower the requirements for a foundation.
That’s what favoritism attempts to do. That’s what partially tries to get away with. We can lower the standards for a leader. But we can’t lower the requirements of leadership. And a church will always pay the price when they do this foolish thing, even when it’s done with the best of intentions. Can you see the genius of God’s Word popping off the page? Apply the standards of leadership equally to everyone. Don’t let anything lull you into lowering the standards.
Entrusting people with authority and putting people in positions that also come with power is serious business and should only be done with great care. Every single one of us are morally flawed. I haven’t yet lived up to the person my dog thinks I am. No one is perfect, but some are ineligible for leadership.
1 TIMOTHY 5:24-24 The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever.
Will you write this down?
Anything can be hidden for a WHILE. Nothing can be hidden FOREVER.
This is a bit of a reality check. This is the good stuff and bad stuff. Sometimes what makes someone ineligible for the role of leadership is obvious. And sometimes you can’t see it, you won’t know it until after they are in the position. And it works in the other direction too. Sometimes you just can’t see how well someone is going to do until they are in the role.
This is why Brock Purdy, the last pick in the NFL draft, can lead his team to the Super Bowl. There are some things that we just can’t see, we just can’t know until after the person is in the position.
Anything can be hidden for a WHILE. Nothing can be hidden FOREVER.
This is why people with questionable character can make it through even the most robust hiring process.
Trust requires a system that can EVALUATE those who want to lead and ensure ACCOUNTABILITY for those who do lead.
This is never going to be perfect. The process of evaluation can be good, but it’s never going to be perfect. Because bad character can be hidden for a while, people with low character are going sneak through the process from time to time. Believe it or not, that’s not the greatest threat to trust.
Please hear me. I wish this wasn’t true. But there will be pastors and church leaders who violate your trust. Untrustworthy people are attracted to trusting people. That’s why predators and abusers gravitate toward schools, little leagues, and churches. Untrustworthy people are attracted to and try to take advantage of trusting people.
While it is a problem when they sneak their way through the system of evaluation. That is not at all the bigger problem. The bigger problem, and it’s a bigger problem by a mile, the bigger problem is when the system of accountability is ignored. That, more than anything else, will shatter trust. And this is where we have to acknowledge an ugly truth. Trust with pastors and with churches in America is in the toilette.
Where are the nurses in the room? You all are doing great! America loves you and trusts you. I think that’s awesome. My daughter is in nursing school. This is good news for her. Not so good news for me. According to Gallup and reported by Christianity Today, only 32% of Americans think pastors are trustworthy.
If you’re wondering if this is a result of shifting cultural attitudes toward religious belief—the answer is a resounding NO.
Through the early 2000s, as America was becoming less religious, trust in pastors was steadily climbing until it took a nosedive. What happened here? This is when the country became aware of sex abuse scandals in the Catholic church. There was some recovery, and then, in the early part of the last decade, trust took a nosedive again. What happened? The country learned that protestant churches and evangelical churches also had big problems and they weren’t holding themselves accountable.
Today, there is a steady stream of scandals coming to light. While that is a big problem, it’s not the bigger problem. The bigger problem is that people don’t believe churches will hold their leaders accountable. Russell Moore is a theologian and ethicist whom I believe embodies brilliance, courage, and gentleness. He diagnoses the problem this way.
We see now young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches. –Russell Moore
This is what happens when accountability systems are ignored. People start to believe that we don’t believe what we teach. Remember our series thesis.
SERIES THESIS: We teach WHAT we know but reproduce WHO we are.
Accountability at Autumn Ridge Church
Here’s the question I think you should be asking of me and of your church leadership.
QUESTION: How is accountability supposed to work at Autumn Ridge?
- The members of the Elder Board are supposed to hold each other accountable.
- The Lead Pastor is held accountable by the Elder Board.
- Pastors and staff are held accountable by the Lead Pastor.
- The congregation is held accountable by pastors and staff.
- The Elder Board is held accountable by the congregation.
The more you zoom in on this the more details you’ll find. This is a helpful overview. If you think one of our pastors or staff have done something wrong, or you think something is suspicious, please let me know. You can send that concern to me or you can send it to the Elder Board. If you think I’ve done wrong or you think there is something suspicious, please let the Elder Board know. If you think the Elders are in the wrong, or there is something suspicious, this gets a little more complicated. But, members of the church can call a church meeting reverse a decision the Elder Board has made and even remove elders. That’s how accountability is supposed to work at our church.
Is this system perfect? If by perfect you mean that it’s impossible for anything to go wrong or anyone to go rogue—NO. This system is not perfect. It works to the extent that we participate in it.
Our systems only WORK if we WORK our systems.
It’s really important that I say this too. If you believe that something criminal has happened, especially if there is abuse that happened to a child or a vulnerable person—don’t call me first. I’m your third call, at best.
Call law enforcement first. Call someone to provide care next. There might be others you call next. After that, call me or someone else in leadership. Accountability systems in the church never take the place of the legal system.
But what about things that don’t rise to a criminal level? They’re at the level of character? If you missed last week’s sermon, please go back and watch it. That’s foundational for what we’re talking about today. Built into this system of accountability is confrontation. We have to be honest with each other. We have to be honest about reality. I wish it was easy. Sometimes it’s not. I wish it didn’t require courage. It almost always does. This is where we have to lean in together.
1 TIMOTHY 5:19-20 Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.
This seems to be influenced by Mosaic law. In Deuteronomy, someone could not be sentenced to death unless there were 2 or 3 witnesses. I don’t know if Paul had this in mind when he wrote this letter, but he certainly would have taken seriously how vulnerable leadership could be to false accusations.
If this is read from a modern context, it’s understandable that some will recoil, seeing this as excessively protective of those in power. This is where we benefit to remember the facts of history. Pastors had far less clout and social standing than what we think of today. When a church got together then, it wasn’t anything like this. It was far more like a small group meeting in a home. It was intimate. It would be much harder to hide impropriety. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be harder.
And we need to add in the reality that false teachers were trying to make their way into the church and take advantage of people. Whatever the system of accountability was, it needed to be something that had safety measures against those who would hijack it for a malicious purpose. If an accusation was made, there needed to be at least two people.
Notice also that this text doesn’t say that accusations have to be brought at the same time. And it doesn’t say that concerns should only be taken seriously when there are two or more witnesses. Concerns or suspicions can be investigated and evaluated at any time. But the accusation against a church leader becomes something you hold them accountable for when there are multiple witnesses. Another way to understand this is that accusations become actionable when you have more than the word of one person. One accusation plus evidence requires a serious response.
Let’s recap with this.
Trust requires a system that can EVALUATE those who want to lead and ensure ACCOUNTABILITY for those who do lead.
Let’s be a church, from top to bottom, that takes this seriously.
1 TIMOTHY 5:17-19 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”
I have to tell you that I do feel more than a little awkward standing up here preaching about why pastors should be paid. But they should.
We don’t pay people so they WILL do ministry. We pay them so they CAN.
I’m not asking for any more money for me. You guys care for me and the other pastors well. When I read this verse, I think it’s bigger than pay. This is primarily about funding ministry. It was the same back then as it is today. Ministry costs money. This week I heard about how another pastor described this reality. He said we are about reaching people for Jesus. And we have to generate revenue. Why? Because doing ministry costs money. That doesn’t seem too controversial or surprising.
Can we think about this together?
Investing in the Kingdom BEGINS with our local church but doesn’t END with our local church.
That statement is based on what I read throughout the New Testament. Every time you read about giving and funding the ministry of a local church, this is what you’re going to find 100% of the time. The expectation is that the people of the church fund the church. Jesus purposely designed churches to be crowd-funded organizations. There is no outside income. There is only inside income that comes from the faithful and generous contributions of those who make up the church.
You’ll also find that churches fund mission efforts and other churches' needs when they face significant challenges. Investing in the Kingdom begins with our local church but doesn’t end with our local church.
How does this relate to trust and accountability? If I’m a part of a church where I don’t trust the leadership, I can’t give to that church. I’m not going to entrust my kids to people I don’t trust. And I’m not going to entrust my money to people I don’t trust. And—stay with me, AND…I’m still going to financially invest in the Kingdom. I’m still going to invest in the Kingdom.
If you are a follower of Jesus and this is your church home, but your trust has been broken, I can understand not giving to our church. But I can’t understand not giving to the Kingdom. If I’m describing you, I want to encourage to keep giving, just give to another church.
I think Christ Community is an awesome church. Their pastor, Darril Holden, is a good man. The GIVE button is at the top of the page. I’d encourage you to give to that church because you don’t want to stop investing in the Kingdom.
Now I want to talk to everyone else who would say you have trust. If you are a guest or you’re trying to figure out what you think about Jesus—we don’t want a dime from you. But if you would say this is your church and these are your people, I’m asking you to give. I’m even asking you to sit down and look over your budget and decide what you will regularly give to this church, to your church.
Investing in the Kingdom BEGINS with our local church but doesn’t END with our local church.
Heather and I have done this. We give to Autumn Ridge as the first priority. It's not all we give to. Investing in the Kingdom through our church is our highest commitment and it’s what literally shows up first on our budget sheet.
Let me tell you why I’m excited and happy to do that and why I invite you to do the same. First, it starts with gratitude to Jesus for what he has so generously given me. Second, I want to be a part of people getting to experience that. That costs money and that’s OK because it’s worth investing in. Jesus designed his church to be crowd-funded and it’s the thrill of a lifetime to be a part of his crowd.
Our attendance keeps growing. We are getting to share the gospel with more and more people. Our Kids Ministry is bursting at the seams. We are blessed to have so many young families who are taking seriously the command to be fruitful and multiply. We’ve got a lot of babies, and more are coming.
Our middle school and high school ministries are growing! What a privilege it is to steward that. Each year a man from our church invites me to speak in his middle school class. I get to represent Christianity as they cover Middle Eastern religions. When I started three years ago, hardly any students knew our church. Each year that I go back, more and more students know our church because of Ridgefest and the Fall Nighter.
Our small groups keep growing. Our Spiritual Formation classes are growing. This next one I find astounding. Local schools and social workers are coming to us and asking us to join them in caring for people. Do you know how rare it is for a church to be invited in by a school!?
God has blessed our church and we have major opportunities to make a Kingdom impact in front of us. Our church’s influence and impact is funded by your generosity. I think this is an incredible thing to be a part of. I want you to experience it to. I want us to run after the mission together.
So, if this is your church and these are your people, will give you financially?
We’ve walked through an interesting mash-up of topics today, haven’t we? I hope that you can see the wisdom of God’s word and how it brings goodness to our church and every church. It’s also my hope that we are captivated, that you are captivated by Jesus.
All the things we’ve talked about are worth leaning into because we have been given a treasure. This treasure is the gospel. It’s good news. It’s the news that even though we are all far more guilty and morally messed up and sinful than we know how to admit, we are more loved, forgiven, and accepted in Jesus Christ than we dare hope. I hope you know that today.
We’ve been entrusted with a treasure and a sacred task. That’s why we will embrace accountability and give away our finances freely. Because we want the world to know Jesus.