[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected] it's beautiful to hear Al and Jane share. It's Beautiful to celebrate 40 years, to look forward to all that God's got for you to appoint to new elders. You know, last time I appointed elders in this church, it was 12 years ago. And I think you're about three times the size. Look at what God has done.
[00:00:36] And you're now so much more diverse ethnically. You're now in two sites and you just go on, just look around, celebrate what God is doing amongst you. It's wonderful.
[00:00:52] And appointing elders in a church is a landmark day. It's a really big deal.
[00:00:59] If I look back on my family history, I can remember the birth of my three children like it was yesterday. I think I can remember it better than my wife, actually. She had other things on her mind.
[00:01:13] But honestly, I could tell you the exact time of day. I can tell you what I did immediately afterwards. It's just a landmark day that is etched on my memory and it's such a joy to celebrate. As we've laid hands on Gary and Abed and trusting huge blessing will flow from this. Increasing leadership capacity in a church will enable any church and will enable you and as River Church to go further and stronger as a local church. What might God do in the next 10 years? Where will you be in God by His grace? As you celebrate 50 years as a church, it's time to dream. I love the name River Church.
[00:02:09] Our logo is a church. The church that I lead is called King's Community Church, but our logo is of three rivers and I think that it's three rivers A because that represents the landscape geographically. So actually, Southampton's parliamentary constituencies are named after three rivers. There's the Test and the Ichin. And then the one closest to us is. Is the river Hamble. And so we've got three parliamentary constituencies called Test, Itchen and Hamble Valley. But actually it's more than that. It's a prophetic picture. In Ezekiel 47, the river of God flows from the temple and it's for the healing of the nations. And God is going to cause a river to flow from this place that will bring people blessing, as we saw with the Gift Day, to bless the community locally and bless the nations. And for us, we carry prophetic promises about There'll be a river of salvation flowing from our place. There'll be a river of healing and there will be a river of provision. And I pray those three rivers over you. As a local church. We're in Acts 20 this morning, and this is a moment where Paul is not appointing elders, but he is commending elders to be diligent in their responsibilities before God. And I want to look particularly at how New Testament leaders are described as. And to try and unpack some of the language around New Testament leadership. And also I want to talk about what local church leaders do according to what this passage says. Specifically, what are the responsibilities before God that Abed and Gary have taken on this morning and the rest of the team are already involved in. Just. Just before I do. This is a shameless book plug.
[00:04:33] We've talked about 40 years of history. This church was birthed out of a move of God in the 70s and in the 80s that Alan, Jane and others all over the nation were a part of. And I had the privilege over the last year or two to write this book, Building God's House with which is the story of new frontiers, which is the movement of churches that this church became a part of from its very outset, really. It's the story of a remarkable man called Terry Virgo who lives just up the road from where we live. He's 86 and he's like Caleb, he's like Al. He's still going strong, hard after. God is in his 80s.
[00:05:21] It's a great book. You can get it on Amazon.
[00:05:25] I was going to bring copies, but honestly, it sold so well, I've got very few left, so best to get it on Amazon. So we're in Acts, chapter 20, verse 16. Paul had decided to sail on past Ephesus. He didn't want to spend any more time in the province of Asia. He was hurrying to get to Jerusalem, if possible, in time for the festival of Pentecost. But when we landed at Miletus, he sent. That's when we. That's Luke and Paul and the team.
[00:06:00] He sent a message to the elders of the church Ephesus. So this is a church that Paul planted a number of years earlier. And he asked them to come and meet him. And when he arrived, he declared, you know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia, that's modern day Turkey, where Ephesus is until now. I've done the Lord's work humbly and with many tears. I've endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews and never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear either publicly or in your homes. I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike. That necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God. And of having faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don't know what awaits me except the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for free. Finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus. The work of telling others the good news about the wonderful grace of God.
[00:07:19] And now I know that none of you to whom I preach the kingdom will ever see me again. I declare today that I've been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it's not my fault. I didn't shrink from declaring all that. God wants you to know.
[00:07:37] So guard your hearts and God's people.
[00:07:42] Feed and shepherd God's flock. His church purchased with his own blood. Over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as elders. I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves will come in among you after I leave. Not sparing the flock. Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following. Watch out. Remember the three years I was with you. My constant watch and care over you night and day. And my many tears for you. And now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace that's able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he set apart for himself. I've never coveted anyone's silver or gold or fine clothes. You know that these hands of mine have worked to supply my own needs and even the needs of those who are with me. And I've been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus. It's more blessed to give than to receive.
[00:08:54] When he had finished speaking, he knelt and prayed with them. They all cried as they embraced and kissed him goodbye. They were sad most of all because he had said that he would never see him again. And then they escorted him down to the ship.
[00:09:12] Want you to notice two ways that New Testament leaders are described in this passage. Verse 7:17.
[00:09:23] They are described as elders. The Greek word there is presbuteros. And this year is the 500th anniversary of the Bible in the English language. We've actually had a conference at home in a couple of weeks on that. And when Tyndale first translated it, he doesn't use the word elders, he. He uses the word seniors as if to Say the elders are like senior citizens. They're men of mature years. Now I look at Gary and I look at Abed, they are not senior citizens. They are a long way from collecting their old age pension, unlike me.
[00:10:13] But interestingly, later on Tyndale, when he revises his translation, he uses the word elders. Because this word presbudros, it's not really about age, it's about spiritual maturity. These are men that are mature in God's family.
[00:10:36] These are guys who are fathers in the house. There is a crisis of fatherhood in our nation right now.
[00:10:46] Why is Britain so broken? There are so many absent fathers. Families need fathers.
[00:10:56] Churches need spiritual fathers. These guys are spiritual fathers in the house.
[00:11:03] Second word, verse 28. They are described as overseers. I think the version that I read, the NLT just uses the word elders. That is not a good translation.
[00:11:19] It's a different word. The Greek word is episcopos, which is sometimes translated bishops. It means these are people who manage the affairs of the church. So in 1 Timothy 5, for example, Paul says to Timothy, those who direct or oversee or manage the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor. And I want us to ask ourselves a question. What can we learn about these two words? First of all, I want us to understand eldership is always in team.
[00:12:06] So this morning the whole eldership team came forward.
[00:12:11] When Paul appointed leaders in churches that he has planted. He never appointed a single pastor. Often in our culture we see a one man ministry model. That is not the Bible way that leadership works in in the local church. Everywhere Paul went, he created teams of elders who governed the affairs of the local church. That was always his model without exception. So what we've done today, we've acknowledged that there is now a team of six elders who govern the affairs of this church and have responsibility before God to shepherd this flock.
[00:12:57] Ian and Q and Al and Attilio and Abed and Gary. And it's so important that they function in team together.
[00:13:07] Pray for them as a team. You get the elders you pray for.
[00:13:13] So pray hard, you'll get good ones.
[00:13:18] Second, I want us to understand eldership is about three function. It's not a badge or a title or a status.
[00:13:29] And I want to say something about culture at this point.
[00:13:33] I love the diversity in this church. Family. Kcc, the church that I lead at home is similarly diverse. So pre Covid, we were about 95% white, Brits white when? Now sort of 60, 40, maybe 50, 50 even. We have probably over 250 Africans mainly Nigerians and Ghanaians. Who's from Ghana, who's from Nigeria, who makes the best jollof.
[00:14:14] That's always how to start a riot, isn't it?
[00:14:23] But I really wanted to say something about leadership in a cross cultural setting. You know, every culture has its own strengths and weaknesses and we need to learn from one another unconscious. In an African cultural context, honor and respect for leadership and is strong.
[00:14:44] And that is good.
[00:14:46] So we hosted actually an African majority church in our church building this week for a conference. They have massive honor for their leaders, especially the senior pastor. They were very surprised that I did not have my own private toilet in the building.
[00:15:07] Seriously, literally, when the city of pastor went to the loo, the auditorium had to leave the whole congregation so he could trot across the loo in the corner. And that's a cultural thing. That is weird if you're white, British. But in African culture, honor and respect for leadership is strong and that's good.
[00:15:31] The downside of that approach is that sometimes the people can obsess with titles. So if I go to Tanzania, which I do a lot, I am introduced as Dr. Bishop Apostle Andy Johnson.
[00:15:47] It's never just Andy.
[00:15:53] And in such a context, leaders can be put on a pedestal and the model can be centered around a one man ministry rather than a team.
[00:16:03] Now flip it over. In an English cultural context, what I like is the emphasis on friendship, the fact we're brothers and sisters. What I don't like about English cultural context is English people are naturally mistrustful of and suspicious of and even undermining of authority.
[00:16:29] And that includes sometimes spiritual authority. And that is not good. In the book of Judges, it says there's no king in Israel, Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's a recipe for anarchy. You don't want that.
[00:16:45] So authority, especially spiritual authority, rightly used, brings huge blessings.
[00:16:54] So I want to commend to you as a church, celebrate your diversity and take the best of both cultures.
[00:17:03] Celebrate team, celebrate relationship and friendship and have a healthy respect for biblically based authority.
[00:17:14] And on the flip side, reject over deference, reject a lack of accountability and reject a mistrustful attitude to authority. And if you take the best of the cultures and reject the worst of the cultures, that will give you a really healthy biblical culture in this local church.
[00:17:38] So what does eldership involve? Well, eldership obviously involves leadership. Apart from this passage, Paul wrote many other passages of scripture about leadership. I just want to reference one in particular, that's Ephesians 4, where Paul says that the ascended Christ, who after the resurrection ascended to heaven, he sat down and then he poured out the Holy Spirit. And part of that outpouring of the Spirit was an outpouring of, of leadership gifts into the church. So the ascended Christ appoints apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor teachers.
[00:18:25] And local church leaders may carry apostolic gifting, they may carry prophetic or evangelistic giftings. But not all local church elders would necessarily carry any of those giftings. But, but every local church leader is called, and we see it here, outworked in Acts 20 to be a pastor teacher.
[00:18:51] They're really two sides of the same coin.
[00:18:56] And these guys are called first of all to pastor themselves and their families. Well, Paul says in verse 28 when watch your own life, the art of self leadership is hugely important. We've had lots and lots of tragic stories of leadership failure in the church over decades, particularly in the last few years actually.
[00:19:25] And it's a failure of self leadership. If you can't lead your own life well, what makes you think anybody else is going to follow you?
[00:19:37] So in 1 Timothy 3, Paul lays out very specific character qualifications about how pastor teachers or elders ought to shepherd and care first for their own families, for their wife and for their children.
[00:19:59] Second, elders are called to love and protect the church. Verse 28.
[00:20:07] This church is a blood bought people.
[00:20:12] And knowing that the church is bought with the precious blood of Christ shed on the cross really increases the sense of urgency and importance to that we give to the task of eldering.
[00:20:29] Eldering is both seen and unseen.
[00:20:35] Verse 20 Paul talks about how in Ephesus he had a ministry that was private. He went house to house and he was public in his ministry, taught daily.
[00:20:52] Some people, sometimes people will see very clearly a public outworking of the role of an elder. On other occasions it's very unseen. A hospital visit that nobody else knows about, dropping by to pray for someone or give them counsel and nobody ever knows. There's a private and there is a public outworking of eldership responsibility. But in the last few minutes I really want to focus on eldership proclamation of the gospel and I want to pick out five phrases that Paul uses and we'll deal with them very quickly. As a pastor teacher, God calls you from this day forward to proclaim the truth of the gospel. You are a minister of the gospel.
[00:21:51] I know that some elders work for the church and other elders have a proper job, but whichever it is, you are a preacher of the good news of Jesus.
[00:22:06] I've done both. By the way, and both are challenging. But I want us to see first of all how Paul describes the preaching the gospel. First verse 19.
[00:22:18] It is the Lord's work.
[00:22:22] Fundamentally what we do as a church leader, as an elder is we're doing the work of God, not our work. That brings a real sense of perspective. I am a shepherd, but I'm an under shepherd. Jesus is the chief shepherd of the flock. It's his people, it's his church. Jesus says, I'll build my church. Not your church, my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail. So when we preach, we preach his word, we proclaim his gospel, his good news.
[00:23:00] Second verse 21.
[00:23:02] Paul describes the the preaching of the gospel as repentance from sin and turning to God.
[00:23:11] What is this gospel? What is this good news?
[00:23:15] Jesus first words in public ministry. Mark chapter one, verse 15. The kingdom of God is near. Repent.
[00:23:25] Believe the good news. Believe the gospel.
[00:23:30] Jesus is the king.
[00:23:32] And his coming into our broken world brings heaven, God's rule, God's authority and reign to our broken world. And that demands a response.
[00:23:46] It demands a response of repentance. Repentance is a turning around. It's a change of mind, a change of heart, a change and a change of life.
[00:23:57] There may be people in the room this morning who are not yet followers of Jesus. Maybe you came with a friend this morning.
[00:24:06] God's encouragement, in fact his command to you this morning. Repent.
[00:24:13] Start to view life differently.
[00:24:17] And the flip side of repentance is believe. We turn away from ourselves to and we put our trust in Jesus.
[00:24:26] It's what the Bible calls faith.
[00:24:29] I first came to know Jesus when I was a skinny Little Scouser Age 11 on a summer camp.
[00:24:38] And I bet the house on Jesus over 50 years ago. And he has never let me down. That's Alan James test with me this morning.
[00:24:48] Walked with him all these years. He's been faithful all the way.
[00:24:53] Want to encourage you bet the house on Jesus.
[00:24:59] Third, he describes the gospel as the wonderful grace of God.
[00:25:05] The good news of Jesus is not.
[00:25:09] Come on, turn over a new leaf. You could do better.
[00:25:13] The Gospel is not some self improvement program.
[00:25:18] I will never ever measure up to God's perfect standards by my own human efforts.
[00:25:26] But because of the grace of God, when God looks at me, he doesn't see my failings. He doesn't see my shortcomings. He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus. And that is credited to to me because of his grace. I bring nothing to the party except my sin.
[00:25:49] But God in His goodness in his grace, takes my sin, forgives me, and gives me the perfect righteousness of Jesus. I love the greatest story ever told. The parable of the prodigal son. A ring on his finger, shoes on his feet, clean clothes, the best party in town. But most important of all, the embrace of the Father.
[00:26:18] That's the grace of God.
[00:26:21] Verse 25.
[00:26:24] The good news of the Gospel is the kingdom.
[00:26:31] And now I know that none of you to whom I preach the kingdom, the kingdom is this. Jesus is king.
[00:26:42] His full title in the New Testament, he is the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:26:49] And in Roman times, if you called anyone Lord, you were in big trouble with the emperor, because it was the emperor that was Lord. That's why Christians got martyred in the first century, because they saw that there was a greater king than Caesar.
[00:27:09] Followers of Jesus look to a higher authority.
[00:27:14] Jesus is not just the Lord, he's the Christ.
[00:27:17] He is God's anointed king.
[00:27:21] So preaching the kingdom is a proclamation that Jesus has ultimate authority, that he drips with power. Christ means anointed king. He drips with holy Spirit, anointing the highest authority, the name above every name.
[00:27:43] And so these guys that we appointed this morning, they have a responsibility before God to call every member of this church and everyone they meet to submit to the kingship and the rule of Jesus. He's our Lord of our lives personally, and he's head of the body, the church.
[00:28:09] And last but not least, this good news, this gospel Paul says in verse 27, it's all that God wants you to know, or in some translations, the whole counsel of God. When we preach the good news of Jesus, we preach not just John 3:16, the most famous verse in the Bible. Wonderful though that is, God so loved the world he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. But that's just a little part of the gospel. So story, the Gospel story is the whole of the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, Jesus is the hero of every chapter.
[00:29:03] On the day that Jesus rose from the dead, he met with two disciples who were out for a country walk. And we're told in Luke 24, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus, Jesus interpreted in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
[00:29:24] Jesus took these two disciples on a whistle stop tour of Genesis to Malachi.
[00:29:32] I love the fact that your elders are serious about the Bible.
[00:29:40] The book that I commended.
[00:29:42] In that book there's a story of a guy I met a number of years ago and he came to our house and he began to talk, and he got really wistful and sad and melancholic. He was part of a different family of churches. And he said this.
[00:30:02] You guys were led by a theologian, someone who was rooted in biblical truth, who prioritized the Bible and ensured that ultimately your preaching was a proclamation of Jesus and his good news.
[00:30:21] And he said it wasn't like that for us, and we've paid a high price as a result. So I want us to pray in conclusion.
[00:30:33] Can we stand?
[00:30:46] Father, we thank you for this landmark day.
[00:30:50] Lord. We do thank you especially for Abed and Gary. We do pray, Lord, that they will be great shepherds of the flock.
[00:31:02] Lord, I pray that they will be bold proclaimers of gospel truth. But, Lord, we pray as well for the whole church.
[00:31:11] We pray that this church would be a flock which is an absolute joy to lead.
[00:31:19] I pray it will be a flock that is bold in its proclamation of the gospel. Not just here on a Sunday morning, but, Lord, right across the communities of Dartford and of Gravesend. Lord God, we thank you for this incredible good news that we have all been entrusted with. And, Lord God, we want to see our communities powerfully impacted and changed one life at a time. And all God's people said, amen. Thank you so much.
[00:32:00] It.
