How does home life affect the church? In this audio message, Scott Brown preaches from 1 Timothy 3:1-7. God designed the home and the church. When home life becomes poisonous, the church gets poisoned leaders. Accordingly, fathers must lead their families well.

Joshua 24:15 (NKJV) - "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

I want to try to be as helpful as I can on a particular subject that I hope will strike us in the heart. And It's the subject of the value and the beauty of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been talking about the design for the Church. We've been talking about the great designer who has arranged everything perfectly. And he has designed the Church to be something because he designed the home to do something.

And I want to talk about that tonight. God has designed the home to be a fountain of the Church. It's out of the home that come church leaders. It's out of the home come boys who become men and girls who become women, and they fill the world. The church is a fountainhead.

The Puritans used to say that what we must do is cleanse the spring, and then the society will be beautiful. And so we're on this subject of what can home life do? And we'll see that home life does wonderful, wonderful things. And we see it in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 to 21. And I'd like you to turn in your Bibles there.

Actually, I just gave you the wrong reference. First Timothy 3, 1 through 7. Sorry. While Paul is instructing Timothy regarding qualifications for elders in the church, he begins to say something that is striking. He says that a qualified elder must be able to manage his own household well.

And then he drops a hammer that I'm sure was stunning to him when he heard the apostle say it. If a man does not know how to manage his own house, How will he be able to manage the Church of God? And so the question on the table was, how will a man be able to manage the Church of God? And this forces us to consider the implications of home life and the godly management of that home and the implications in the culture. And here's the deal.

When godly fatherhood collapses, the church collapses. When home life becomes poisonous, the church gets poisonous leaders. That's the tragic reality of the whole affair. And when fathers do not manage their households well, starvation of leaders is the result in the Church. What a tragedy it is to have the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ starved of her leaders because this thing called the home was malfunctioning and that's exactly what's implied here in this passage of Scripture.

So if you could stand I would like for us to read 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7, just to stand in honor of Holy Scripture. This is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he be able to take care of the Church of God?

Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil." Now, please be seated And I want you to look at verse 5. This has got to be one of the scariest questions in the Bible. Some questions in scripture are unusually arresting because their implications are so far reaching. This is one of those scary questions.

What will happen? What will happen if a man does not manage his household well? Who will be able to manage the Church of God? This is a problem of know-how. How will a man actually know how to manage the Church of God if he doesn't know how to manage his own house?

There are things that we should be doing in our houses. Many how-tos. We don't throw out the how-tos of Scripture in the home by saying that something passed away. Absolutely not. God has given us many how-tos in order to govern our homes, and that's what this is all about.

The Church is the pillar in support of the truth. The Church is the bride of Christ. The Church is God's precious possession, and she must have marvelous leaders. And where will those leaders come from? They come out of households.

And this church, which was purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, this church, the representative of Jesus Christ in the world today, requires a certain kind of leader. That leader is made in a home. That's what this passage says. And here, obviously, this passage says that elders must be qualified and their ability to shepherd their families has implications on their ability to shepherd the Church of God. You know, more is written on the qualifications of elders than any other aspect of eldership, and this is one of those qualifications.

Now, in this passage of Scripture, we see that church and home are united. They are integrated inextricably. You cannot separate home life from church life. What happens in a man's home life has implications in the church, and they cannot be separated. God does not let men live double lives.

Well, they might live double lives. They might not, might desire it, but God doesn't like it. And he wants them to have singular lives. No phoniness, no hypocrisy, but true blue, the same in his home as he is outside the home. So 1 Timothy 3 makes it clear that the home is a factory for church leaders.

It's the place where they are born. Now, it's the basic training for church leaders. It's the cradle for church leaders. And this passage answers a number of questions. I'll give you three critical questions it answers.

First, it answers the question who's qualified to lead the church? And the answer is those who manage their households well. Number two, it answers the question, how do you prepare yourself to be a leader in the church? And It is by managing your household well. You want to be a church leader?

Focus on your wife, loving her, nourishing her, cherishing her, raising up your children in the training and the admonition of the Lord, being careful not to exasperate them, but tenderly like a father would by caring for them. As a father carries his young in his bosom and expresses all the tender qualities of fatherhood, We have a Father in heaven who is so tender, yet explicit and clear in His instructions toward us. He carries us along. His patience toward us is absolutely stunning. This is the fatherhood of God that is the example for all church fathers or church leaders.

So it also answers the question why is there such a dearth of leaders in the church today. The reason there's a dearth of leaders in the church today is because the family has been destroyed, because we have a whole generation of men who don't know what it means to be a father. We have an entire populace that have never been mentored by a father. And it's scary to stand in meetings of men and ask them how many of their fathers read the Bible to them or how many of their fathers mentored them. You can have a group of a thousand men and you'll only get a few very few hands that go up.

It's staggering what's happened to the family, the destruction of it. Hey, we believe it's a big deal. We believe that biblical family life must be restored so that the church would be beautiful and full of the kind of love that God desires to have it possessed by. Now, we also live in a time where elders or pastors, they don't spend much of their energy training family shepherds. They're so busy trying to do their jobs for them.

They're too busy trying to hire people to do their jobs and create programs and build buildings to house all of it. And so because pastors aren't training family shepherds, the church has a dearth of leaders. So the church does not have a very deep bench, if you want to call it that. The church does not have an excess of leaders And the reason it doesn't have an excess of leaders is the family has been destroyed in the culture. We're here, you know, we are here partly to recover that.

I'm so grateful for that. You know, if you, If one family turns around, the implications are massive. It can affect millions and millions of people on down the generations. And so it's worth it. It's worth it.

It's worth it to rescue one family, to restore biblical family life, because the implications are just so huge. Well Paul is perfectly clear here that the home serves a very important function in terms of leadership in the Church. I wish that I'd understood this as a young pastor. I always felt frustrated because of the shallow leadership pool in the church. And I didn't understand that this was one of the solutions that God had given.

And I just wasn't aware of it. There's a generation of pastors who are becoming more aware of it today. That's a blessing. By the way, there are thousands of pastors who are more aware of it today than they were a decade ago. I expect to see this to change all over America.

It's already beginning to change. And there is a new generation rising up. There is a new generation of young people coming out of these homes that are more prepared for leader church leadership than any generation, I think in a hundred years at least, and it's so encouraging. So if you want to find leaders for the Church, you look into the home, and that is where leaders are crafted, and that's where they are confirmed. Now, I want to give you three observations of this passage of Scripture.

First of all, this qualification identifies a skill. You know, most of the qualifications for elders had to do with character. You know, I was with a friend of mine who's a pastor of a church in North Carolina just last week and he's telling me he got a call from a gigantic church that their search committee contacted him. This guy's a great preacher. He would never go to a church like this.

But they wanted someone who could give memorable illustrations, a CEO kind of a leader. They really described the CEO of American Airlines, honestly. That's who they were describing. And he wouldn't have anything to do with it. But this qualification has to do with character.

Or Most of the qualifications have to do with character, not the ability to give wonderful illustrations or to be a team builder or anything like that, the things that the modern church is looking for. God is looking for men of character overwhelmingly. But here, this is a skill. The other qualifications have to do with what he's like in his heart. This one has to do with what he can do in his home.

He produces a certain kind of home. And it's visible. It's a skill. He knows how. He knows how to do it.

You've met people who know how to do certain things really well. And they have a particular gift. It's a skill set. And you can't do it, but they can. And you're so grateful that they can, because you can't.

And this is a skill here. And it has to do with the skill of shepherding that little flock that God gave him. This man goes out and he creates a certain kind of home life. He creates a certain culture there in his home. He knows how to do it.

And it's because of wisdom. It's because of spiritual understanding that God gives him. Proverbs 24 says, By wisdom a house is built, by understanding its rooms are filled with pleasant and precious riches. It's the wisdom of God that allows a man to build the kind of home life that would be fit to make him a leader of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's a skill.

It's something he does. So, let's just take a parenthesis on this for a second. Brothers, skills can be sharpened. They can. And I would just urge you, every man in this room, to sharpen the skills of fatherhood.

Sharpen the skills of managing your household well. I appeal to you, brothers, spend time on it. Think of the ways that you failed. Think of the mismanagement that has operated in your home. Make a list.

What are the things that you've mismanaged in your home? Write them down. Look at them. Confess them to God and say, God, help me. Help me manage my household better.

Is anyone managing his household just perfectly? Absolutely not. I'm not. We all... When Kevin comes up here, I'm going to make my own list.

But let me tell you, we brothers, This is a skill that we hone, we work on, and we need to keep... It's like any skill. When you first begin, it doesn't look very good. And as time goes on, you get a little bit better. But you don't want to give up because you failed 50 or 60 times.

You want to keep on getting up and improving it just a little bit incrementally each day, each year. Brothers, I just want to exhort you to give your heart to the development of this skill. Manage your households well. Okay, now it's a startling qualification because of the kind of culture that we live in. We live in a culture in which we're watching the total breakdown of the family.

And all over the world, divorce rates are soaring. The breakdown of the family is not an American problem. That's one thing we all know, that this is happening everywhere. The devil is at work pretty much the same way everywhere. And he's destroying the family in all the cultures of the world.

And if the family fails, where will the spiritual leaders come from? If one is required to manage his household well to be an elder. And if families are in ruins, what will happen to the church? That is such a chilling question. Hey, what will happen to your church if you don't manage your household well?

What will happen to my church if I don't manage my household well? Again, this is the bride of Christ we're dealing with here. We should not take this lightly. We should give ourselves to this skill with all of our hearts. We might not be elders, but we might be delivering to the church her elders and her Titus II women who will rise up and counsel an entire generation of young women to be strong in the midst of all their pressures in this life.

This is also a very unusual practice in the modern church. How many pastors do you know who were chosen because of their family performance. How many pastors ever really inspect family life? You know how pastors are chosen in our churches? The guy gets a resume, looks good, fly him in, trial sermon, he leaves, they vote, and the family is never considered.

They've never been around his children who dishonor him and are rebellious. They didn't see it. Well, they'll see it someday, but it'll all come out. But often pastors are hired wrongfully and they've never learned how to manage their household's role. Oh, sure, they're good orators.

They can do a good exposition of scripture. They can come up with memorable illustrations. They can be team builders. You know, they can develop a strategic vision, You know, all this kind of stuff. But if they don't know how to manage their households well, they're just not qualified to manage the Church of God.

I don't know very many pastors who focus strategically on building family Shepherds. This is wrong. Shepherds should be paying attention to the building of these shepherds, these pastors, in these homes. Every father is appointed by God to be the prophet in his home, the priest in his home, and the king. What will church leaders do to help men play those functions in their homes?

It's so critical that they do it. Most pastors spend their time training small group leaders, or developing the Sunday school staff, or allocating resources for the youth programs, or dealing with board members, or Bible study leaders. That's what most pastors spend their time doing. I would just like to submit to you that much of it is wasted time if the other stuff is not happening. Because if you do not have family shepherds, you are spewing into the Church poison when you could have fountains of living water being poured into the Church, pure, cool, beautiful water coming out of these precious households of love, the gates of heaven, the beautiful things being taught, and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ existing in that home, the discipline of the Lord, the beautiful words of Scripture.

This is what God desires for the family. But it's such an unusual practice in the Church today. So why is it so important that fathers manage their households well or that elders manage their households well. Why is this even a list on the qualifications? Well, first of all, mainly the church is like a household.

God has made the church to be a household. The church is a family where there are brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers and they're all different ages in the church as well. Isn't it interesting that the shepherds of families are working in an age-integrated context? Why? So that when they get into big church, it's an age-integrated context.

And you have all the problems of age integration. You know, you have little children who are squirmy and they have all these issues and they have dirty diapers and things like that. You have older people and they get frustrated and their time crunches and there's tiredness and it's 24 hours and mom is weary and the children are running around like wild animals. And what are you going to do? How is the man going to manage a situation like that?

Well, he better learn because that's going to happen in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are going to be people in the church with poopy diapers. There are going to be people who are weary. There are going to be people who are sinful. And how does a man learn how to bring everybody together to love one another so that the relationships aren't just constantly worsening over time.

No, a family shepherd knows how to bring people together. He has that skill. He sees this heart drifting off into the weeds. He brings it back. He sees that Susie has bitterness against Tommy, and he brings them together, and confession and repentance and weeping happen, and there's reconciliation.

That's what family shepherds do. And they do it because they're going to end up doing it in the church, where everybody's in a different place in life. Everybody has a different personality. Everybody has a different age. Everybody has a different issue.

It's just like home life. And the church is a household. You know, the headship of the male in the family and the structural connection between the family and the church is taught so clearly in scripture. The family is a family. The church is a family.

The household is a household, and so is the church. The home has a head, and so does the church. We could just go on and on about the parallels here. The church and the home are mirrors of one another. They have different functions, for sure.

They're a little bit different. But they have so many of the same qualities. And so God is desiring that men cut their teeth in leadership in their households and they need to learn how to create beautiful family life. You know God uses amazing imagery to describe the Church. We are a body.

The Church is the body of Christ. How do you keep the body of your household functioning well? The same way that you keep the body of Christ functioning well. Through the Word of God and the counsels of love that come from His great kingdom, from looking to the head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, When a father does that in his household and then he does it in the church, you have a fountainhead of blessing in the culture. And it all springs from the fountain of the family.

What kind of leader do you think is necessary to lead an organism that's called a body or a bride or a building or a royal priesthood or a holy nation? What kind of training ground would equip a man to lead an organism like that? It's the family. It's the perfect place for it. The character of the relationships in the church, they require an unusual kind of leader.

They require a leader who knows how to do something. Have you ever known people who just seem to have a gift of bringing people together and to cause a culture to develop? That's what he's talking about here. This is God's love for the Church. He desires His households to be as unto the gates of heaven so that the Church would be filled up with the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it would be receiving a constant flow of blessing from these men who know how to manage their households well. You know, think about all the one anothers in the Bible. What kind of qualities in a leader would be necessary to help the people in the church experience the one anothers. You know, there are over 50 one anothers that are mentioned in the Bible, and they describe Christian relationships. They cast a vision for how the love of Jesus Christ operates in the Church in really vivid and practical ways.

We are to love one another in the church. Well, how does a man learn how to help people love one another in the church? Well, he helps his children love one another. If you've got an elder whose children don't love one another, You're going to have problems in your church, for sure. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, Romans 12-10.

What kind of leader does it take to help people stay being devoted to one another? You know how it works. You meet somebody, you think they're absolutely wonderful. After a year you think they're sort of wonderful. After a couple of years you think they're sort of nice.

Well that's that's what we do and then we Then we go nomadic on them and we leave. We go find somebody else who we think is wonderful again. And then we find out the same thing about them. Well, how do you help people be devoted to one another when they find out that all of their qualities aren't as exemplary as they first thought. It takes a leader who has learned how to keep a family devoted to one another.

Hey, think of the pressures to push your family in every which way. Think of the forces, the gravitational forces that are pulling on each family member so that the family is not devoted to one another at all. Almost every force in this culture works to destroy family unity and it gets mom going off in one direction and the children going off in four or five different directions The wife becomes a chauffeur to take everybody in different directions. They never talk to one another. They never eat together.

Well, that's life. That's family life in America. What kind of leader, though, would help people be devoted to one another? A leader that proved himself in his family. Do not speak against one another, James 4-11.

How do you train a leader to help people not speak against one another? Well, he has to have that in his home. An elder's home should not be a home full of gossip. Some of the worst gossip in the church happens between husband and wife, behind closed doors. And some of it happens around the dinner table with the children.

And an elder needs to learn how to help his family not to speak against one another, nor to complain against one another, James 5-9. What kind of leader... How do you train a leader to help the church confess their sins to one another as we're called to do in James 5 16. Who wants to confess their sins? Well nobody wants to confess their sins but a father is charged by Almighty God to help the family deal with their sins.

And I'll guarantee you this, if a father doesn't confess his sins, nobody's going to be confessing their sins. If Father's right all the time, the children will be right all the time. And that's just the way life works. And you know it's that way in the church too. A lot of times all it takes is one guy to confess his sins, And then the whole church breaks open with a revival.

But a man needs to know how to do that in his own home. And if he's not humble enough to do it in his own home and doesn't have repentance towards sin in his home, How in the world is he going to do it in the Church of God? How about the command in Romans 14-13? Do not judge one another. A father has to help his family not to be judgmental toward one another wrongfully so that he doesn't end up with a church full of people who judge one another.

It implies that people will speak against one another, complain against one another. They will sin against one another. So how are they going to see themselves through that? Well they can't see themselves through it, they need a shepherd who can help them see their way through it, And that shepherd is forged and trained and verified in his home. The one anothers are so wonderful.

I love to read them. I never tire of reading them because they always remind me of how good God is. If you read those one anothers, you get a sense of the heart of God for the Church, what He desires. It is marvelous. There's nothing like it.

There's not an organization on the planet that is as wonderful as the Church when she is carrying out the one anothers that are in scripture. If we can just do the one anothers, brothers and sisters, it will be blessing. It will be a fountain into the community. And God has called us to that. Give preference to one another in honor.

Be of the same mind toward one another. Pursue the things which Make for the building up of one another. Do not lie to one another. Serve one another. Do not challenge one another.

Do not envy one another. Be subject to one another. Regard one another is more important than yourself. Bear with one another. Comfort one another.

Encourage one another. Be hospitable to one another. We'll get to that in just a minute with Kevin. Have fellowship with one another. What a fantastic, wonderful place the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ can be when it's under the government of God.

When the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ desires to be obedient to God as we spoke about today, It is nothing but love for the Church, and God created His Church to be an expression of His love. So it just shows the desires of God for the family. The Church is a family. The family is important. The family is important in redemptive history.

And so God calls elders to have certain qualities in their marriages, certain qualities in their government of their households, and their children should have a certain kind of life. They should be faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination. Their children should be in submission with all reverence. I don't believe that that means that an elder's children have to be saved. But they have to be reverent.

They have to be submissive. And an elder's management of his children is not going to secure their salvation. Salvation is from God alone. And these words that are spoken of in scripture regarding an elder's children, I believe, mean that they are faithful children who are reverent, who are under good government even though they may not actually be saved. If they are reprobates living an out of control, lascivious life, then the elder is disqualified from being an elder.

So these are faithful children and orderly children that are produced in this home. So Children are a visible evidence of a qualification to lead. Fathers are responsible for the behavior of their children. Okay, I just want to come down to some summary principles that come from this. First of all, isn't it amazing that God wants His church to be like a family?

And therefore, the church needs family leaders. And if a man cannot manage his household well, how will he be able to take care of the Church of God? And God does desire his Church to be well taken care of. That good shepherds are there who have been trained and are doing well and have been able to create beautiful home life. So those who lead the church must first be tested in their families.

And if a man can lead his family, he's able to lead the church. So if you want to build spiritual leaders, then focus on training family shepherds in the church. And we should just encourage shepherds to spend much energy in praying for and encouraging their fathers to manage their households well. Shepherds, help your fathers excel in this area. Challenge them.

Show them whatever needs to be done would be worthy investment for it. And one of the reasons we have dysfunctional churches is that we have so many dysfunctional families. And that really, I suppose, is one of the reasons why we're even having a conference like this, is because for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ to be proclaimed throughout the whole world, putting millions of mouths on this earth to sing the praises of God from one generation to the next for all eternity, gathered at the throne of God singing praises to Him forever and ever. It would be wise for us to heed these principles of Scripture, to reform the family, to turn it around, to cast a vision for it, to urgently plead one another to become a mirror of the things that are written here. And God so does desire His families to be fountainheads into the Church, that out of these families would come forth living water, clear, cold, beautiful water, and that the Church would be refreshed.

As a result, the Church would be delivered, her leaders, her wives, her future mothers-in-laws and fathers-in-laws, so that the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ would go forth from one generation to the next, and would not stop with one generation of saved families. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, I pray that you would work a mighty reformation of family life, that this fountain, this spring would be clear, it would be pure, and it would be overflowing, and it would come and be such a great blessing to the Church. And then unto the unbelieving world, the world that hates you, but would see and taste the living water coming from the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they would so desire the water that they would be saved. In Jesus' name, Amen.