Sermon: What A Bishop Must Be - Part 2 (Titus 1:5-9)

What A Bishop Must Be – Pt. 2 Sunday, August 10th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Titus 1:5-9

Prayer

Father, we thank you for your Son Christ Jesus, our Chief Shepherd and the Supreme Bishop of our souls. Thank you for the example of Christ, through which we are taught how to pattern our own lives, so that we may arrive safely into the harbor of your heavenly kingdom. Help us now by your Holy Spirit, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

Last week we began our study of what a man must be if he desires the work of a bishop. Recall that the word bishop (ἐπίσκοπος) means literally to oversee, or to look out from above, andit is the duty of the presbyters/elders of the church to keep watch over God’s house, not as owners or lords of God’s heritage, but as stewards who set a good example for the flock (1 Pet 5:3).

• Paul describes what this spiritual authority ought to look like in 2 Corinthians 1:24, Not that we have dominion over your faith, but we are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand.
• He says likewise in Hebrews 13:7, 17, Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end [outcome] of their conversation…for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.
  • Notice that the relationship between the elders and the congregation, between shepherds and sheep, ought to be marked by joy. Our ministry to you should be a kind of cooperative effort to help you find your joy in God.
  • Now ask yourself, what gets in the way of you finding your supreme joy in God? There are many temptations in this world, many counterfeit joys and attractions. There are also many trials and difficulties that assault us. And what all these diverse attacks upon your joy reduce to are two basic obstacles. There are: 1) your sins that kill your joy, and there are 2) your sufferings that obscure it. Shame and Pain. Guilt and Infirmity, these are the most common hindrances to us finding our joy in God.
  • Therefore, our words to you should be most frequently calling you to repent of your individual particular sins, and then also comforting you with the blessed hope of God’s promises, the hope of eternal life.
    • If your soul is never afflicted with conviction for your sins, either you, or us, or both of us, are doing something wrong. Our job is to speak the truth of God’s word to you from love, and your job is to receive that word of truth with faith and obey it. It is not much more complicated than that.
    • Paul says, we are workers (co-laborers) with you for your joy, and it is only by faith in Christ that you stand.
• So what is our ambition and aspiration as elders, as bishops? It is to be able to say to you with a clean conscience, what Paul says to the Corinthians, Follow me, as I follow Christ. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ (1 Cor 11:1). And furthermore, woe to us, if we become as the scribes and Pharisees, of whom Jesus says in Matthew 23:3, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.
• So unlike the scribes and Pharisees who were hypocrites, we want our living to be in harmony with our speaking. Preaching is hard, but preaching is actually really easy compared to living up to what we preach. And therefore, we want to have high standards for ourselves, high standards for you, but that high standard must God’s standard, and we find that standard here in our sermon text.

Context

• Now this morning as we focus our attention on verse 7, remember the context of this letter.
  • Paul has left Titus in Crete to, “set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city.” And he has set down 16 distinct qualifications by which every Christian ought to judge and examine himself or herself, and which Titus is to use a rubric/ questionnaire as he searches for qualified presbyters.
  • The basic principle of church government is that if a man cannot govern his own passions and desires, and if a man cannot rule his own household well, then he is not qualified to rule and g