The Blueprint of a Godly Leader

[Music] Good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. Am I on? Can you hear good hear me? Good. All right. Awesome. Well, I am not Pastor DJ. If you can't tell yet, but uh my name is Matt Tate, and if any of you don't know me, my family have been uh coming here to Cross Church for more than a year and a half. And we as a family absolutely love this congregation. We love you guys and we consider an honor to serve with you in making Jesus known to the community around us. And I want to thank Pastor DJ for giving me the opportunity to preach the word of God this morning. I consider it a huge privilege and an honor to do so. And my hope and prayer this morning is that all of us, including myself, almost more, including myself, would walk away encouraged, challenged, and maybe even convicted in some way because of what God's word says to us this morning. Now, we've been going through a series called Rooted in Holiness for more than a couple months now. And we've been walking through the book of Second Corinthians. And I hope that this series has had a huge impact in your life like it has had for me. This morning though, we are going to be taking a one Sunday morning detour away from second Corinthians to focus on the topic of godly leadership and its importance in the local church and in our families as well as the community around us. This morning's sermon I have titled the blueprint of a godly leader. Now, how many of us in this room who are followers of Jesus have had the privilege ever had the privilege of being encouraged, challenged, or even corrected by a fellow believer that we trusted and looked up to? Maybe it was your pastor. Maybe it was a Bible study or a small group leader. Maybe it was your youth pastor. Or maybe it was just a friend that was a mature believer that was able to give you godly counsel to help you in a difficult time of life. If you've ever had that experience, don't those moments stick with you? Most of us can probably think back to those moments, regardless of how long ago they were, and remember the lessons that we learned from them. I know I can. When I was a freshman in high school, I had a youth group leader that had a profound impact on my own life. And this was about 28, no actually, yeah, 28 years ago. So, if you want to know how old I am, there's your math equation. You can figure it out on your own. But anyways, this youth leader was starting off a Bible study one Wednesday night at youth group. And he said something that was so simple yet so profound that I not only remember exactly what what he said, I can remember the room I was sitting in. And even more than that, I can also remember the exact spot I was sitting at in the circle of the guys that were in my small group. So our our small group leader started to pray to kick off that night's meeting. And then after that, he instantly stood up in the middle of the circle. Now, some of us in the group were thinking, "What's going on? Why is he standing up?" And some of us were thinking, "Is he leaving us tonight? Like, is he giving up on this group this quick?" Right? But after a moment, he held up his Bible and he said, and I quote, "Reading this book will keep you from living a lifestyle of sin, but living a lifestyle of sin will keep you from reading this book." He then went on to teach us about how to follow Jesus and live out our faith daily, not just when we're at church or at a Bible study. Now, that moment, even though it wasn't more than 15 to 20 seconds of my life, that will still live with me for the rest of my life. That moment was an example to me of what a godly leader was. And maybe you could tell similar stories of how your life was impacted by a leader in your life as well. And I would encourage you to take every opportunity to share those stories with those around you. But sadly, not all experiences with leaders that are trusted and looked up to, especially in the church, are positive ones. Now, it's pretty obvious that we are living in a pretty unique time in human history where due to the advances in technology, not much, if any, of our lives is truly hidden. and private to the rest of the world. And because of that, it seems like every week we hear the news of the downfall of a Christian leader, pastor, or prominent Christian figure. And I know most of us could instantly recall a name or a person that has gone through this. Someone who used to have the respect, admir admiration and trust of so many people in the church has become the next big scandal. Sexual immorality, infidelity, fraud, abuse of power, dishonesty, you name it. And what what I find most tragic about this this trend is that these scandals happen so often these days that if you're like me, you almost get desensitized to this trend. You almost get to the point where you wonder who's it going to be next. And sadly, what gets talked about the loudest is not the examples of godly leadership done right. It's normally about the downfall of leaders and pastors and those that we look up to who are not faithful to their calling. And that's why godly leadership is so important in the local church, in the family, as well as the community around us. Our text this morning in the word of God will be in the book of Titus, chapter 1, verses 1-9. So, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Titus 1 verse one, and we'll be hanging out there this morning. Now, if you don't have a Bible, feel free to grab the Bible in the seat back in front of you. And if you don't have a Bible of your own, feel free to keep that one and make it your own. Just make sure you come back with your Bible next week to be a part of the church. But before we get started, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pause. I know some of us, whether we're here in person or online, we we come this morning, maybe from a a bad week or a week where things did not go the way that we would want, things that we're struggling with. Or maybe some of us have come this morning just praising you for the goodness that you're doing. But regardless of any of that, God, thank you for your faithfulness. You are never far from us. And I pray that your word would be an encouragement and a challenge to each one of us this morning. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would move freely among the hearts of everyone here. That we would walk away changed in a way that honors you. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Now, before we get into the text this morning, I want us I want to give us just a brief overview of the book of Titus. Now, the book of Titus was a personal letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a man named Titus, if you can't tell. Um, if you don't know who Titus is, though, he was a young man who had come to faith as a result of Paul's ministry. And after that, he became a fellow minister with Paul on some of his missionary journeys. After Paul was released from his first imprisonment in Rome, Titus accompanied him on a trip to the island of Cree. And this island is the setting for what this letter is addressing. And even though our focus this morning is the first nine verses, I think it's helpful for all of us to know that the overall theme of this letter is twofold. Number one, the importance of godly leadership in the local church. And two, the importance of living in holiness and righteousness for every believer. With all of that covered, let's read together the first four verses. Starting in verse one, Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness in the hope of eternal life that God who cannot lie promised before time began. In his own time, he has revealed his word in the preaching with which I was entrusted by the command of God our savior to Titus, my true son in our common faith. Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. So the Apostle Paul starts this personal letter to Titus with a typical greeting that you would find in Paul's other letters and epistles to the churches. He introduces himself as an apostle of Jesus and defends his position by appealing to the calling that God has placed on him. He of course addresses the recipient of this letter who is Titus. And then at the end of these four verses, he ends the initial greeting with one of his most common phrases. And I just love this about Paul. He's consistent. If you read through the epistles and his letters, he ends his greeting with grace and peace, which I think especially after the week that we've gone through with everything going on, I think we could all use a little bit of that. Now, in these first four verses, we could camp out for multiple sermons because there's so much here, but for the sake of time, I want to highlight just one piece of Paul's greeting to Titus, and that is found in the very first verse. In that verse, we read that Paul uses the phrase, "For the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness." In these 16 words, check my math, I could be wrong, but in these 16 words, you will find the whole main theme of the entire letter to Titus, Paul is saying that godliness and living a holy life to the honor of God is the result of our genuine faith in Jesus Christ and our knowledge of the truth. our faith in Christ and our knowledge of the truth of who God is and of the truth of the word of God. That is what leads to godliness. You see, a lot of us get this whole equation wrong or at the very least mixed up. We may think that it's our own self-effort or wisdom or willpower or good intentions that lead to us living a life that pleases God. And then we're confused and frustrated when we aren't seeing any fruit from those efforts. And and some of us might be, you know, thinking or maybe some of us think that we only need the first half of the equation. As long as I have faith and I know the truth, I'm good. It doesn't matter how I live my life. And that would also be dead wrong in the eyes of Paul and in the eyes of God. Paul is saying that genuine faith in Jesus Christ and a knowledge of the truth should make a difference in the way we live our lives. Let's continue reading in Titus 1 verse5. The reason I left you, he's talking to Titus in cree was to set right what was left undone and as I directed you to appoint elders in every town. So right there in verse 5, we learn that Paul and Titus had been ministering together on the island of Cree, but Paul has now left, leaving Titus there. But the reason Paul has left Titus in Cree is not random. He's not just going with the flow. The apostle Paul has charged Titus with a very specific task and that is to appoint elders or leaders in every town for the church. These elders or leaders would be men who would lead and shepherd the local churches. And if you know anything about the history of the island of Cree at the time of the Apostle Paul, as well as the challenges the churches were facing there, you would understand and know just how important and crucial this task was. The local churches in Cree were facing opposition from the surrounding culture as well as opposition from within. As far as the culture goes, Paul even quotes one of Cree's own prophets later on in Titus chapter 1 when he says, and I quote, "Cretins are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy glutton." And then Paul says says this, and I love this. He's like, "This testimony is true." He's not disagreeing with it, right? So if Cit's own prophets and thought leaders of the culture are saying this, you know, the island has a certain reputation that follows it and precedes it. So obviously the local churches on the island of Cree were surrounded by a culture that was very opposed to the gospel. And that's something that every local church at any time in history can relate to regardless of location. And that's something that we here at Cross Church Phoenix here at 19th Avenue and Grovers can definitely relate to as well, can't we? Every bibleelbelieving, Jesusloving, gospel preaching church that is full of Christians pursuing a life of godliness will not might face opposition from the culture that surrounds it every time. That's just the way it is. But the im even bigger challenge that the churches in Cree were facing actually came from within the church at this time. There was a movement from a group of people that Paul calls the circumcision party and they were infiltrating the church. These were people among the churches, among the local churches, mainly Christians that were Jewish that were insisting and teaching that people not only had to place their faith in Jesus Christ, but they also had to follow the Mosaic law to be saved. And this obviously went against the gospel that Paul and the other apostles were teaching. It was a different gospel. And the apostle Paul obviously takes the gospel of Jesus Christ seriously. In Galatians chapter 1 verse uh 8, Paul says to the church in Galatia, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him." Strong words. So Paul obviously cares immensely about the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we had these people from the circumcision party spreading false teachings in the churches at cre. But false deceptive teaching was making its way into the church from other sources as well. And this is why Paul saw why it was so important for Titus to appoint godly leaders and elders in every town to build up the churches there. And he didn't want just anyone to fill that role. Let's continue reading together verses 6-9 to find out what Titus was to look for. Starting in verse six, an elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife with faithful children who are not accused of wildness or rebellion. As an overseer of God's household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hottempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled, holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it. So what we just read there are the qualifications that Titus was to use and look for when he appointed leaders of the local churches on the island of Cree. It's quite the long list, isn't it? If my counting skills are correct, I counted about 18 qualifications or qualities of a godly leader on that list. And I don't know about you, but as we read that list, there were more than one of those qualities that stung a little bit when we read through them. And even if you're sitting here this morning or you're online and you're tempted to tune this sermon out because you're not a leader in the church or in ministry and you don't even feel called to be. I think every one of us could look at that previous list and instantly know where we fall short, where our weaknesses are in our own lives, which of those qualities we may struggle with. And that brings us to our first point that we're going to fill in this morning on your outline if you have it. And that is this. A godly leader is defined by their character, not their accomplishments. A godly leader is defined by their character, not their accomplishments. Now, as I was studying this passage in preparing for this morning's sermon, I was struck by how different this list is from what the world looks for in a leader. Whether that be in politics, business, education, or other kinds of organizations, the blueprints and resumes of world leaders are drastically different than this list. And Paul left off a lot, if not all, of the qualities that the world looks for when they appoint a leader. Qualities like powerful, strong, successful, good-looking, rich, charismatic personality, dynamic speaker, popular, maybe ruthless. Yet, not one of these qualities make the list that Paul gave us. I find that really, really telling. And someone might be thinking, "Come on, Paul. Why did you have to make this list so long and set the bar so high? Wouldn't it be easier to find leaders if you just lowered the bar just a little bit? How about I've got an idea. How about we just find leaders and people that are willing and available? We only need two qualifications. Willing and available. Are you? Yes. Yes. Good. You're in charge. Right. Ultimately, I believe the reason why this list is so exhaustive and the bar is set so high is because Paul knows that God loves the church. If you have children in this room and you're looking for a babysitter, if if if you're a good parent, and sometimes I've failed in this, but just to be honest, but if you're looking for a babysitter or someone to lead and guide your kids, even if for only an evening, don't we kind of vet these people? Or do we just go out be like, "Hey, anybody that can get to my house for three hours on a Friday night could watch my kids." We would be unwise parents if we did that, right? But the same goes true with the church. God loves the church. He loves the church and cares about how they are being led and how they live. And we all know that when someone is appointed as a leader, the expectation and desire is that the people who fall behind will hopefully go in the direction of who's leading them. I don't know who said it, but there's a saying that goes something like this. You can't lead someone where you're not going. Let me say that again. You can't lead someone where you're not going. I think there's a lot of truth in that. I also love what the Apostle Paul, who is obviously an amazing example of a godly leader, he says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, he says, "Imitate me." And he doesn't just leave it at that. He says, "Imitate me as I also imitate Christ." So, he's going somewhere and he wants people to follow. Now, let's look a little closer at this blueprint that the Apostle Paul gives Titus. So if we go back to starting in verse six, the first quality on this list is blameless. Interestingly enough, this first quality is also the only one that Paul lists and repeats more than once, which highlights this importance. At first glance, blameless can be an intimidating word. When you first read it, it almost seems like the Apostle Paul is saying that an elder or a church leader needs to be perfect and without sin. But that's not what he's saying exactly. The idea here is that a leader should live in such a way that they don't bring shame or disgrace to the church and to the gospel. They live a lifestyle that doesn't give anyone inside the church or in the community the opportunity to bring up an accusation of a scandal. They have a godly reputation among the people they live amongst, even though they're not perfect. Now the next quality that Titus is to look for in appointing elders for the churches in Cree are men who are the husband of one wife. Now there's some debate about whether Paul is saying that elders and leaders have to be married or not. I have my own views on this and you may have yours or maybe you don't have a view. But regardless of where someone may stand on this debate, what is very clear here in the eyes of Paul is that if a man is appointed as an elder of the local church and he is married, the expectation is that he is faithful and fully committed to his wife and her only. Sadly, the common scandal that we hear about with Christian leaders in the church that have a moral downfall has something to do with their marriage. Unfaithfulness, adultery, dishonesty, mistrust, you name it, you fill in the blank. And the reason why this is so tragic is because God from the very beginning of time has had such a high view of marriage between a man and a woman that the church is often referred to in scripture as the bride of Christ. So that's why I believe personally the enemy is working overtime to destroy marriages. especially those of church leaders and pastors. In Ephesians 5 25, Paul says this, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her." We as husbands, if you are a husband and married to your wife, are to imitate the love of Christ in the way that we treat our wives day in and day out. And that goes for all of us husbands, not just for those of us that would be in a position of leadership. Now, let's look at the next qualification of a godly leader that follow this. The next one we see, this next quality is an elder should have faithful children who are not accused of wildness and rebellion. Ouch. This one stings a little bit for me personally. Similar to what we just went over with the husband aspect, there is a debate as to whether or not an elder needs to be a father and have children. But Paul makes it very clear that if an elder does have children, the conduct of their children matters. And this one hits very close to home for me because if any of us are parents in this room, we know that our children are ultimately a reflection of us and the way we live. Whether we like it or not, we can't deny this reality. My wife Kelsey and I, we rout routinely have this conversation. Sometimes jokingly, sometimes out of like just sheer frustration about the frustration we have that, you know, like why do our kids, we have two kids, uh we have a 10-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. Like why do our kids only pick up our bad habits and bad qualities but not our good ones? Like if any of you know me at all, you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I have so many good qualities to offer my children. Like ask my wife. She thinks the world of me. But unfortunately, I see so many of my bad qualities lived out in the lives of my children. And it's frustrating because I'm disappointed in how they're acting sometimes. And if I'm completely honest with myself and I'm transparent, I know they're only just imitating their father, which stings. And I often I often feel convicted in how much more I need to guide my children into living in a way that honors God. But that's why this qualification is so huge. When Paul writes to Timothy, another young man that has partnered with him in preaching the gospel and establishing churches, he gives them a similar list to guide him in establishing church leaders. And in 1 Timothy 3:es 4 and 5, he says this to Timothy, speaking of a church leader. He must manage his own household competently with all dignity. If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's church? And I find it very enlightening that Paul starts his blueprint of godly leadership in the book of Titus starting with these three qualifications that specifically deal with how we live in the context of our families and our households. He doesn't start with the church. He starts with the house. Because if we are all to be brutally honest with ourselves, we'd agree that we spend more time and effort than we should in putting on a good face for people we don't live with day in and day out. Whether that be how we present ourselves at church on a Sunday morning or in public or at gettogethers with family and friends. All the while forgetting and not realizing that besides God, the people we live with in the home day in day out know us more than we than those who often we try to impress. It's true. My wife knows my flaws way more than any of you do. You can ask her right after the service. Just form a line. She'll tell you that. On second thought, let's not do that. I'd appreciate if you don't. But if you're like me, you tend to think of yourself and the way you live higher than you ought to. We fool ourselves into thinking that we live better than we actually do. But I want to I want to take a moment and say something to all of us in this room and anyone watching online this morning. And not just to those of us in some kind of leadership or ministry role. I want to talk to all of us men, women, young, old, single, married, parents or non-parents. My hope and prayer is that this statement makes you feel at least a little uncomfortable as you leave this building after service. I hope it makes you do just a little bit of self-reflection. You want to know the statement? Here it is. How you live on a Thursday evening in your home around your family, your roommates, or those you live with is a more accurate reflection of your character and godliness than how you presented yourself when you walked in the building this morning. Let me say this again. How you live on a Thursday evening in your home around your family, roommates, or those you live with is a more accurate reflection of your character and godliness than how you presented yourself this morning. I'm guilty of it. And if you don't remember anything else from this morning's sermon, I hope it's that statement. I hope it's that statement. And I hope it and pray that it challenges you to do some self-reflection on how you live day in and day out. Let's go on to verses seven and eight. Read those again before we continue. Starting in verse seven. As an overseer of God's household, he must be blameless, not arrogant, not hot-tempered, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, not greedy for money, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-control. So Paul continues on with this blueprint of a godly leader by focusing on how a leader should conduct themselves in the local church. He repeats this idea and concept of being blameless which we talked about earlier in the passage. He then goes on to list the qualities of what a godly leader is not not arrogant not hot-tempered not an excessive drinker not a bully and not greedy for money. How many of us have had the experience of being led in some capacity by someone who was brilliant, smart, driven, charismatic, and yet they eventually ruined their reputation because of one of these character flaws. Maybe they checked all the boxes that you would want for a leader, but then they started talking down to you or someone else they were leading out of their own arrogance. They were maybe they were so hot-tempered that everyone had to always walk on eggshells to make sure they don't say or do anything that would set them off in a rage. Or maybe you've been to turn this back on ourselves. Maybe you've been in some kind of leadership role and you failed in one of these areas. One thing's for sure, though. It's tough to regain people's respect when a leader exhibits these behaviors. And that's why Titus is instructed to be diligent in appointing leaders in elders in the local church that aren't characterized by these traits. Paul goes on to point out positive character traits like hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, and self-controlled. These are all fitting for a godly leader to effectively guide and shepherd the church in the way it should go. And collectively, all of these qualities are a reflection of our character. Let's continue and reread verse 9. Here it is. Holding to the faithful message as taught so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it. Verse N leads us to our next point about godly leadership and it is this. A godly leader takes God's word seriously. Our first point if you remember is that a godly leader is defined by their character and not their accomplishments. And verse 9 highlights the fact that the godly leader takes God's word seriously. Paul wants elders in the local church and their leaders to hold to the faithful message as they were taught. This was incredibly important to the churches in Cree because there were so many false teachers infiltrating the church and teaching doctrines and things that went against the gospel of Jesus Christ and the teaching of God's word. If we were to continue reading in verses 10 and 11 in Titus chapter 1, Paul continues on where he talks about teachers that were quote unquote full of empty talk and deception and were also ruining entire households by teaching what they shouldn't. I strongly believe that the quickest way to destroy a church and its gospel witness in the community around it is to depart in any way from this. And the enemy knows this. If the enemy can attack a church's faithfulness to the word of God, he can ultimately destroy it. It's only a matter of time. And that's why a godly leader is held to the standard of being able to hold faithful to the message as taught. In writing to Timothy, who we talked about a little bit earlier in first Timothy uh 3:16, Paul says that all scripture is inspired by God. In some versions, some translations, it is translated God breathed or breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting and for training in righteousness. One of my favorite verses in the entire word of God is in Psalms 119 verse 105 where it says, "Your word," talking about the word of God, "your word is a lamp for my feet and a light to my path." Now, if I was leading a group of people on a hike, let's just say it wouldn't be smart for anyone to have me as a leader hiking. But if I was leading a group of people on a hike at night through a dense forest and the lamp that I'm using to guide us stops working and that light goes out, I am officially useless as a leader. Useless or or even worse, if I try to lead without a lamp thinking that I don't need it. We're all everyone in this group. We're all just wandering around in the dark, having no clue where we're at, where we've come from, or where we're going. The same goes with the church leader or pastor that doesn't hold faithfully to the word of God. Even, and here's the thing, even the parts that might be a little offensive or hard to accept. It's not us to judge what God wants to say to the church. It's God and his word. That's why all of us in this room who are believers in Christ, whether we're a leader or not, need to hold the word of God so high in our lives that we filter everything we do, say, believe, and think through this. I once listened to someone give a presentation about counterfeit money. And this speaker went through how a person or an agency can tell if a dollar bill is counterfeit or genuine. They went on to list a bunch of things to look out for when possibly dealing with a fake dollar bill. But they said that ultimately the best thing to do to determine if a bill was genuine or a counterfeit was to get more acquainted with the real thing. Once you get acquainted with the real thing, you'll be pretty adept at spotting the fake and the counterfeit and then discarding. And that leads us to our third point of godly leadership, and that is this. Fill us in if you got your outline. A godly leader is able to encourage as well as correct the church. In Titus 1:9, Paul finishes off this blueprint of a godly leader by saying that an elder or a leader will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those that contradict it. In the eyes of Paul, it's not enough for a godly leader to just be faithful in what is being taught. But he takes it a step further and says, you need to also be able to refute and correct false teaching that finds its way into the church. In the days of Paul and Titus, being able to refute false teachers and their false te uh false teachers and their teachings was a huge part of shephering and caring for the local church. And I don't think much if anything has changed as we look at the state of the church today. False teachers have always targeted the church with things that aren't true with false teachings trying to steer it away from sound doctrine and it's striving to live in holiness while sharing the gospel of Jesus. And sometimes false teachings are really easy to spot and refute. Now, I just want you to imagine this. Maybe this has happened. I don't know. I haven't been at this church. But let's let's just imagine on a on a Sunday morning, a random guy or random woman comes in this building and starts screaming at the top of their lungs, Jesus never existed. But if you make blue your favorite color, you're going to be sick. We'd all kind of look amongst each other like, "Uh, okay, crazy guy. You could leave. Right? That'd be pretty easy to refute, right? But all too often, false teaching is a lot more subtle. A lot of times, false teaching has an element of truth in it, but the false teacher will end up twisting that truth in some way to make it contradict the word of God in the end. And how are false teachers and their teachings best reputed? by knowing the word God. That's it. Now, if you wanted to do some study on your own, a great example of this refuting false teaching with the word of God, you could go to Matthew chapter 4 verse verses 1- 11. And that's the account of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness. And what's interesting about the way that Satan tries to tempt Jesus is he starts with scripture. He starts quoting Bible verses to Jesus. Be like, you know what? Doesn't the Bible say this? So why don't you just throw yourself off of this this temple because God's gonna speak, right? Or I will give you all of the kingdoms of the world if you just bow down and worship me. And you'll read that every single one of those temptations, Jesus answers with the word of God and he quotes it right back to him. So if you want some homework on your own, read Matthew uh 4:11. So in this blueprint of a godly leader that Paul is telling Titus to look for in church leaders um they need to not only teach the word of God, but they also have to have the boldness and the conviction to correct and refute false teaching when they infiltrate the church. So before we get to our key thought this morning, let's quickly review our three points that we've talked about this morning on your outline. Remember number one, a godly leader is defined by their character, not their accomplishments. Number two, a godly leader takes God's word seriously. And number three, a godly leader is able to encourage as well as correct the church. So you may might be sitting here thinking, this is all well and good. I totally agree the importance of a godly leader. How does any of this apply to me in my life? You might be a follower of Jesus, but you're not a church leader or a ministry leader or even a pastor. And maybe you don't even feel called to to go in that direction. And that's okay. Not everyone is called to be a church leader in some capacity. But I would strongly encourage all of us, whether you're a leader or not, to read the entire letter of Titus. It's actually a pretty quick read. It's three chapters. You could probably get through it in about 5 to 10 minutes. And if you were to read the entire letter to Titus, I know we only focus on the first nine verses, but you would read in that letter that Paul is eventually encourages everyone in the church to live a life of godliness and holiness. And what's interesting and even more important is that Paul even repeats a lot of the same qualifications that he puts on the blueprint of a godly leader. He calls young women and old women to do the same. A lot of those qualities. Same thing with men regardless of their position. That brings us to our key thought this morning that I want us to take with us as before we leave. Here it is. As believers in Jesus, we are all called to a life of godliness guided by the council of leaders of the local church. The reason God holds leaders in the church to such a high standard is because he holds all of the church to such a high standard. If you are a believer in Jesus here this morning, you are called to live in a way that honors God. Not just on Sundays, not just in Bible study. That doesn't mean we won't mess up and stumble from time to time or struggle with sin. We all do. But don't get me wrong. If you have already placed your faith in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you don't strive for holiness and godliness in order to somehow earn your salvation. There is nothing, and I repeat, nothing that any of us in this room or online or in any capacity ever could earn that. There is nothing we could do to earn that salvation. that has already been accomplished by Jesus on the cross. It's been accomplished. But the way we live and how we strive to live a godly life in fact is in response to what Jesus has already done for us through his death on the cross and his resurrection. A lot of times we forget that Jesus gave up everything for us. Our debt from our sin has been fully paid. The least we could do, the absolute least we could do is to live for him as a response in great gratitude and thankfulness for doing for us, for doing for me what I couldn't do on my own, what you could do on your own. So, um, you, some of you in this room, have never actually placed your faith in Jesus Christ and you just happened to show up to church this morning to be a part of and sit in on this family discussion so to speak for the church. But I strongly believe that you're not here by accident. You're not here by coincidence. I think God led you. And God may be doing a work in your heart and revealing to you your own sin and all of the ways that you have disobeyed him and not measured up. And God may be showing you your need for a savior. I've got great news for you. You can find forgiveness of your sins. And you could find salvation by placing your faith in Jesus this morning. You don't have to wait. And if that is you, I would love to talk with you and pray with you after the service back in the I said yes corner. I'm going to at this moment invite the worship team to come back up to finish this service in a time of singing and worship. And as they come up, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity you have given us to be here this morning. Thank you for allowing us to wake up, to breathe, and just to live another day. It's only by your grace that we do. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the encouragement it gives us to live in a way that honors you. I pray for Pastor DJ this morning as well. who is shephering and guiding this congregation. I ask that you would continue to give him strength, wisdom, and grace as he leads and guides this community at Cross Church Phoenix. I want to pray for all of us here as we leave this morning that you would give us the strength we need to walk in holiness in everything we do in response to your love and your grace that you have given us. I pray that you would bring people in our path that we could share the hope of Jesus with that you have given us. We love you and we pray this in the powerful and the gracious name of Jesus. Amen. Let's stand in worship as we