(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

All right, we started there in Titus chapter 1, and the subject matter I want to preach on tonight is ordination. Being ordained, ordination, and I was thinking about this. I don't know exactly why this subject was on my heart, but I just felt like it would be a good subject to teach. I know it's something that you may not really think about a whole lot, but it's really good to get a good understanding of this because it actually is a pretty important doctrine. And especially when you want to minister, you want to serve, you want to do something for God in a big capacity, in a way where you can actually consider yourself as part of the ministry. Now, obviously, to some degree, everyone's part of the ministry when you minister unto others, you preach the gospel, you do things like that. But what I'm talking about, obviously, is talking about doing more, like becoming just full-time, whether it be an evangelist or a missionary or a pastor, the different roles and positions you could fill within a church. And I firmly believe that every single one of those positions you ought to be ordained for. And now, ordain, ordination, being ordained, it's not really, I don't want you to think too much into this word, it really just means someone's being chosen or selected and kind of having a job committed unto them. So it's not something mystical about ordination, but what it is is that you have a church or you've got some leadership that's looking and evaluating people to send them on a job that's going to be a little bit harder, maybe, than the normal day-to-day jobs that everybody has in the Christian life, or something where you're going to be doing more or that you ought to be prepared for more and trained and taught in order to do this job. So the right person or the right type of people need to be selected in order to do these jobs. Where you're not just going to let anybody go off and do this. Now, I've been teaching a lot just on the importance of the local church and on the authority structure and just kind of how much importance God puts on it, and I'm not going to re-preach all of that, but people being ordained and selected and sent to do these different jobs all comes from within local churches. It's a local church that should be sending the people out to do these great jobs, to have missionaries off doing missionary work and evangelists out just full-time evangelizing and being able to send off other people being taught and trained to be pastors and start pastoring churches. This is all part of what the local church should be doing, and at the heart of getting to one of those positions is ordination, is being chosen, being selected to do that job. And I was just talking before service about this, my goal and my vision for this church, we're still a very young church. Our church needs to grow. We're in the infancy. There's still so much more to do, and sometimes it may not feel like it's in its infancy from other churches you might have gone to that are just kind of dying or dead that aren't doing anything, and I get it, but we are just starting. We are literally just getting things going, and thank God for all the work and all the workers and all the members that God has put into this church. I'm thankful for that, but we're thinking long-term, and anyone who wants to get involved in ministry needs to think long-term, big picture, what does my life look like, what is the big goal, and in order to achieve big things, you need to have a good, solid plan and foundation from the very beginning. Now, we see in Titus chapter 1, as a result of the apostle Paul and others going around and evangelizing and getting people saved, they were traveling, preaching the gospel, getting churches planted and started, and starting to teach and train before moving on to other areas and just kind of repeating. Well, as a result of all of that work and being sent and going forward, now, first of all, the apostle Paul and Barnabas and these other guys that were being sent out, they weren't just novices and beginners, they had a lot of wisdom, they had a lot of knowledge, they had a lot of experience before even going and doing these missions trips. You don't always see, and you don't even always know how much time passes between events that you read in the Bible, because we're reading it in a matter of minutes, but oftentimes what you read in minutes covers years, if not decades of time, so you need to keep that in mind, too. I mean, we could be flying off here and driving here and doing this and be like, oh, yes, that's not the way it was. When Paul's traveling to these places and doing his missionary work, he wasn't just like, well, I just showed up, I'm leaving this morning, I'll be there by evening, and I'm going to get to work the next day. No, I mean, these were significant journeys and spent a significant amount of time talking to the people. Now, maybe some of the areas that he had weren't as massive and populous, obviously we know that they weren't as like these great metropolitan areas that we have around here, just with how many people were there, but nonetheless, it was still a significant amount of time spent in each place to teach and train and get churches established before moving on. And when we read in Titus here, now he's giving instruction unto Titus, who is another elder, someone else who's ordained of another church, right, another leader, and receiving instruction from the apostle Paul to ordain elders in every city. So Titus had a specific job here of being committed to making sure that these churches that didn't have pastors, that didn't have elders, that he was going to ordain these people. And Timothy, likewise, had a similar command. But let's start reading here in Titus chapter 1, look at verse number 4, the Bible says, to Titus, mine own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Now, the apostle Paul is talking to Titus as his son after the faith, which means he got him saved. He's the one who preached the gospel unto Titus, and at this point, this letter that he's writing, this epistle to Titus, Titus already passed the ring of church, so Titus had to be trained, he had to grow, he had to learn before even getting to this point. But let's keep reading here, I don't want to get too far off of what I've got planned here. Look at verse number 5, for this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, wanting means lacking. So there's some things lacking. You say, I left you there in Crete, because there's some things that need to be taken care of, he says, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. He says, these cities that have these churches need elders, they need someone running the church, they need someone there full time established to actually run the church. And we see a similar type of thing happening even today, there's churches that exist, they don't have an on-hand full-time pastor within that church. Now they do have someone overseeing the church remotely from afar, and the apostle Paul was doing this very thing with his church plants that got started. He was checking up on them and making sure things were going good, and staying in contact and staying in communication, and still working to get somebody in there to fill that position, but they didn't have anyone at the moment, so that means there's something lacking. A church ought to have someone to fill that role, and if there's not someone filling that role, then there's something lacking from that church that needs to be filled. And this was a job that the apostle Paul had given unto Titus, and he says, this is why you're in Crete, this is why you're here, you need to make sure that all these churches now in this area get pastors, they get elders that are there able to run the church, and he says that you ordain elders. So Titus is the one who is ordaining the elders, and I want to point this out too, it's not the churches that are ordaining the elders, it's Titus that's ordaining the elders. He's the one who's using his knowledge and his understanding of who it is that's qualified to become a pastor. You need to have an external source to be able to look at someone and analyze someone and be like, okay, you fit the bill. You can't look that on yourself, right? You can't just say, well, I fit the bill and just, I'm this and I'm that and I'm real humble and I'm, you know, talk about how great you are and why. Now in your heart, you may feel like you can meet some of the qualifications, but you can't bring that honor on yourself. No man can bring that honor, you need to have someone bestow that on you. Someone else needs to be able to deem and someone qualified to be able to even make that discernment, that judgment call needs to be able to say, yes, you know what? This person has been faithful. They fit the bill, they meet the criteria and he gives them the criteria here that he needs to be looking for. Starting in verse number six, he says, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly for a Bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given a wine, no striker, not given a filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate. I mean, look at all these things and then holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. A lot of people can look at this list and be like, yeah, I love good men, I'm sober, I love hospitality, I'm just, I'm holy, right? But it doesn't mean as much from that person saying that about themselves. You're going to get a lot more respect and people are going to look at you a lot different when, oh, this person says, you know, someone else who's already established, another elder, an apostle, right? Someone who has already been qualified is saying, yeah, this person now, he fits the bill. This is someone that we need to have in this position. And that's the person then that becomes ordained. The ordination comes from someone, you know, again, someone at that same level, right? That authority comes from now. This is specifically talking about elders within the church and most of what we're going to read is going to be like geared for that. But elders aren't the only people that get ordained or chosen. The disciples were chosen by Jesus Christ, if you remember, he says, you know, you haven't chosen me, but I've chosen you. Jesus chose, he said, I have not, I chosen you and one of you is a devil. Jesus chose the disciples specifically. He knew who it was that he wanted to have become his disciples. They weren't elders. They weren't pastoring any church. Jesus was the leader, but he chose them, what, to be disciples, to follow him, to do the work that Jesus had for them to do. He sent them to do specific tasks. He would send them off into other cities and he would send them to heal and he would send them to preach the gospel and send them to do different things. And he had ordained them by choosing them to be part of his ministry. We're going to see other people that are ordained or chosen to do other similar things. You remember when in the book of Acts, the Greeks were complaining because their widows weren't being taken care of in the daily ministration, the daily test. The church of Jerusalem had grown really large. And especially when the Gentiles started coming to church, the Greeks come to church and they're saying, Hey, you know what? We have widows that ought to be being cared for by the church and they're not being cared for. But the apostles are like, Hey, we've got some really important work that we're doing. We can't leave the word of God to go and serve tables because that's what you'd be doing is, you know, obviously the job needs to be done, but that what you want the apostles doing is more important and more specialized. Whereas other people can fulfill this other job of literally physically taking care of people within the church. The people are important. The job's important. The job needs to be done. And in fact, they needed to choose out faithful men and, and, and good spiritual godly people to do that job, which would be, we'd look at it as a job of like a deacon. Okay. So it wasn't like setting light by it. It was still important, but those people needed to be ordained as well. Those people need to be chosen and the Bible lists off, you know, Steven and others that, that were chosen to do that job. And they were, they were men that were mighty in the spirit and, and mighty in the word of God. And they were chosen to do that job because they were found worthy to do that job. And that was that, again, that wasn't the job of an elder either. That was another position, another job. But they were ordained to be in those positions. We're going to find ordination in any offices very similarly. Now turn, if you would, to Acts chapter 13, unfortunately, there are some people that set light of ordination, or they'll tell you that, well, I was ordained by the Holy Ghost. Right? These people that want to self-start and start their own church and just do everything on their own, not be sent from a local church, not be ordained or commissioned from a local church, but just up and say, you know what, there's nothing good in my heart. I'm just going to start my own church from scratch. I'm just going to do it myself. And of course, well, the Holy Ghost ordained me. Well, how do you know that? And I've heard people say that. I've, I've, I've seen people say these things. It's like, well, how do you know that? Did you hear a voice? I mean, how would you really know that the Holy Ghost is ordained you? Now, what they'll do is they'll turn to passages like Acts chapter 13, but what we're going to see is that there's always, you know, does the Holy Ghost ordain people to do things? Absolutely. Yes. God ordains for people to be in positions. God ordained that the apostle Paul from his womb, from his mother's womb, would do the job that God ordained for him to do. God chose him to do a specific job, but there's always, always, always men involved in that ordination as well. So yes, the Holy Ghost does send people out. I'm trying to mock the Holy Ghost's work in ordaining somebody, but to just have, just for a man, again, to say that, this is someone who just kind of takes the honor on himself. Well, I'm fit for this bill. I can do this. I meet the qualifications. I'm going to send myself and ordain myself, but the Holy Ghost is the one who's really ordaining me. It's not the way things work. Okay, you can't just take that on yourself. And you know, I'll go even further and say this, you know, just because someone is ordained to do a job one time when they're done with that job, I don't think that ordination just is indefinite. I believe that there ought to be a re-ordaining to do the next job. But let's look at Acts chapter 13. I'm getting ahead of myself again. Bible reason verse number one, now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and Simeon, that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away, so they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. So, they say, see, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, the Holy Ghost ordained them, the Holy Ghost chose them. Yes, the Holy Ghost did do those things, but what happens in the next verse, in verse number three, it says, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So there are men involved here, there are leaders in the church that are putting hands on these people to send them off and commission them to do this work. Was the Holy Ghost calling them to do that job? Yes, he was. But were the people involved in sending them off and commissioning them and ordaining them? Yes, they were. Absolutely, they were involved in that. Now, I said something real quickly, and it just came to mind. I want to make this point also. So the purpose of me preaching on ordination is so that people can do things the right way. It's not to ridicule people who have made mistakes or done things wrong in the past. There may be good people out there that have started churches on their own, but they're doing a work for God, they're doing what's right, and maybe they do fit the bill of being qualified to be a pastor. So if something like that's happened, I'm not just saying you can't just go to their church. I mean, if they're already pastoring, they're already doing a great work for God, they're already serving the Lord, the right way to do it would have been to do it the way the Bible says to do it. Sometimes people go outside of the way the Bible says to do it, and sometimes they don't learn until later, and they shouldn't have done that, but now they are where they are. And I'm not just saying, well, no, you just need to completely stop all the work that you're doing now and shut it down until you can go and be, you know, that's not always the right thing to do either, right? Two wrongs wouldn't make a right. If you did something wrong before, it's like people who get divorced and remarried, yeah, you shouldn't have got remarried, you shouldn't have got divorced, then you shouldn't have got remarried, but the right thing to do isn't then just get divorced now because you shouldn't have got remarried. You see what I'm saying? Like, you don't want to just go back like that. So just to be clear, I've made mistakes, I'm sure other people have made mistakes before, you can't just stop everything. But I do think that the ordination is for specific jobs and specific tasks. And as we see here with the Holy Ghost calling Barnabas and Saul for this work, people laid their hands on them and they sent them away. And people will say, well, what about the Apostle Paul, right? Because Apostle Paul, you know, you could look at the verses where he says, why I conferred not with them that were apostles before me and I just went to this work. Well, let's actually look at the story of the Apostle Paul and turn if you would to chapter nine, just go backwards a little bit where, you know, Jesus Christ appears to the Apostle Paul, which first and foremost, you have to admit this is a pretty unique scenario. Has anyone here had Jesus Christ like appear in His glory to you and blind you and tell you that He's got work for you to do? Does anyone had the experience here? Okay, I didn't think so. This is a very unique situation. First of all, with the Apostle Paul, however, it's only unique. It's still limited uniqueness because we're still going to see people involved in the ordination of the Apostle Paul and sending them off to do work. Just as much as in Acts 13, we saw the Holy Ghost ordaining people, yet there's still people laying their hands on them and sending them off and praying over them and committing them to this work. In 1 Timothy 2.7, the Apostle Paul says this in his epistle to Timothy, whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not a teacher of the Gentiles and faith of verity. So the Apostle Paul is even saying he was ordained, he was ordained a preacher and apostle, but the argument would be, well, yeah, but he didn't have any men ordain him. It was just God or just Jesus, just the Holy Ghost. Well, let's see what the story, how the story reads in Acts chapter nine. Look at verse number three, the Bible says, and as he journeyed, he came near Damascus and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, arise and go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the reason why I'm going to pause here is, you know, we need to read this story and not just go based off of what you might've heard before or what your impression of this story was. Let's read what the Bible's actually saying, because so many people say, well, apostle Paul got saved on the road to Damascus. Like when Jesus appeared to him, that's when he got saved. No, that's actually not the case. Did Jesus appear to Saul on the way to Damascus? Absolutely. But when Saul asked him, hey, what do you want for me to do? He said, well, go into the city and it's going to be told you there what I want you to do. Told by who? Not Jesus again, but by another man that God uses to preach to him and for him to then call on the name of the Lord, get baptized and get commissioned to do a job. All of those things happen not in the road, but once he gets to the city, to his destination, that's when it happens. Let's read verse number seven, because right now, and if nothing else, you still have even the symbolism that goes along with salvation. He's blind. Is he saved? I mean, what do you see all the time in relation with salvation? People being able to see light, being healed, having their vision come to them. That's not what happened here. It's actually the opposite. He's blinded. Verse number seven, and the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man and Saul rose from the earth. And when his eyes were opened, he saw no man, but they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight and neither did eat nor drink. And there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias, and he said, behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, arise and go into the street, which is called strait and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus for behold, he prayeth. And at seen in a vision, a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. So now we see God telling Ananias to go and minister to Saul and saying, and I mean, this is, this is an incredible story. Anyways, God's saying, you know what? He's here. He's at this house. He's praying. This is what he sees is going to happen. And I'm telling you now to go and fulfill this vision that he has from his prayer that, you know, and he goes to do this, that he might receive his sight verse 13, then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he had done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, go thy way for he is a chosen vessel unto me. God says, look, I've chosen him. He's a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house, look at this, and putting his hands on him said, brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest hath sent me. And you know what, everybody that receives the gospel and gets saved is it happens by God sending a human to preach the gospel, to plant the seed, to preach the word unto that person so that they can receive sight spiritually and see, so that they can get saved. That's the way God works. Even here with Jesus Christ appearing to him after his resurrection, he didn't give him the gospel and get him saved on the road. He sent a human being to get him saved, to teach him what he needed to know. He says, go into the city and there'll be told you there what you need to know. Well, this is Ananias showing up now being that faithful minister, being softened and ready to hear and ready to be used of God and prepared so that when God's got a job for him, he's ready to show up and he shows up and says, brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest had sent me that thou mightest received thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes that had been scales and he received sight forth with and arose and was baptized. And of course, you know, he calls on the name of the Lord, he gets saved, and this is where we have Ananias involved in all that. Jump down to verse number 24, because he just got saved and now he's with the brethren in Damascus and, you know, working with them there. But when the Jews found out about this and found out about the conversion of Saul, that obviously didn't make them happy, and now he starts to face persecution and people actually want to kill Saul. So they make this plan to lay in wait for him and to kill him, but the brethren that were there at that time, you know, they catch wind of it and they decide to rescue Saul and to save him. Verse 24, if you jump down, it says, but their laying weight was known of Saul and they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night and led him down by the wall in a basket. So he's already been communing with the disciples, and we don't know the exact amount of time he was there, but he's learning from them, communing with them, and obviously, too, one of the things that's unique to the apostle Paul is he had a knowledge of the law of Moses. He had a knowledge of Scripture, right? He was completely wrong and he didn't understand it right because he was unsaved, and he thought that salvation was by works and by the law and this other stuff, but when you get saved, he still had a large knowledge base to draw from to be able to understand a lot more. So people who have had a lot of reading and understanding and more exposure to the Bible will be able to grow a little bit faster because you already have a good knowledge base to start from after you get saved. Now all of a sudden these things will start to make a lot more sense to you. Oh, okay, yeah, now this makes sense, this makes sense, and you're still growth and you're learning, but having that knowledge base to work off of, it's not like you're starting from scratch and everything's just totally brand new and all the stories are new and the people are new. There's a big difference there in where you're able to start from. So I just wanted to throw that out there, too, because we don't know exactly how much time is spent, but I want to focus more on his interaction in dealing with these disciples and with them sending him off, too. Because it's never just the apostle Paul or Saul of Tarsus deciding just to go and do whatever he wants to do. We don't see that anywhere. Verse number 25, it says, Then the disciples took him by night and led him down by the wall in a basket, and when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples. But they were all afraid of him and believed not that he was a disciple, but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. And he was with them, coming in and going out of Jerusalem. And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Grecians. But they went about to slay him, which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him forth to Tarsus. So now again, we see the brethren are sending him. They're sending him out. They're the ones saying, OK, you go to Tarsus now. Under their direction. Now, this isn't like, you know, being sent to be do a missionary work there, but we still see him being involved with the brethren and them and them helping him out. You know, I'm not saying he was you know, this is where he was ordained to preach. But I just want to make point of this, where he's not just this one man show. The apostle Paul was never just this one man show. We read a lot about him. He may be a focal point in many aspects, in many areas, but there's a lot of people you could think of people today that might be a focal point or a focal point in churches or a focal point in movements, but they're not the only person doing it. And there's a lot more support. There's a lot more people involved and even a lot more counsel and other things going on than just being a one man show and be like, I don't like a pastor on church is just a one man show. Is this church a one man show? Now, do we have one person that that's that's the the authority that's that's kind of administering things here? Yes. But is this just a was this the pastor Burson show? Absolutely not. Anyone who knows what this church is all about and what this church is doing knows there's a lot of things going on. It's not just a one man show. I'm the one getting up and and and preaching for the most part. But we have other gentlemen that come up and preach sometimes that'll teach that'll that'll help learn. There are ministries going on that other people are part of. There's a lot going on here. It's never just a one man show. And you know what? The apostle Paul wasn't just a one man show either. But if everyone wants to look at the apostle Paul and say, well, see, look, he just did all this stuff. Yeah, he did a lot of stuff. But then don't forget also, he's an apostle. There aren't no more apostles. They're done. The apostles like they saw Jesus physically. They knew Jesus. They were specifically for that time. The apostles are no more. You could be a disciple of Jesus as a follower. But the apostles the apostleship is is over with. Turn if you would to go to First Timothy, Chapter four. One of the things that you'll see with ordination is the laying on of hands, right? Very common in ordinations that you're going to see the laying on of hands. And this is also not to just be ignored or just just swept under the rug or just just not cared about. I'm going to read for you from Deuteronomy, Chapter thirty four, verse number nine. Yes, this is Old Testament, but let's see what happens here with Joshua and Moses. Deuteronomy thirty four, verse number nine, the Bible reads, and Joshua, the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom. And that tells us why Joshua, son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him and the children of Israel hearkened unto him and did as the Lord commanded Moses. Now there is something special to the laying on of hands. And you can see this in multiple places in scripture, where I believe that God through the Holy Ghost will equip the person who's being commissioned to do a job with the spiritual gifts and knowledge and wisdom that they need to do that job. And there's something about doing things God's way and just having faith in it, even if you don't completely understand it, to just do it and know that it's true. I'll tell you this much. When I was ordained to start Word of Truth Baptist Church, there was a dramatic shift in my preaching level and ability from before I was ordained to after I was ordained. When hands were laid on me to go out and be sent and start that job and do that church, there was a change and I couldn't explain it. I have no way of articulating it very well other than God gave me the strength and the support and what I needed to do that job because that job was way more difficult than anything I'd ever done prior to that. Even with all the training and preaching and everything else I had done, it's not the same just all of a sudden, hey man, you're doing three sermons every week, no matter what, and you've got to have things good, going, running everything, doing it all. And I'll tell you what, the laying on of the hands is really important with the ordination and being sent to do a task because God will give you what you need to do it. I didn't have everything I needed. I was determined to be qualified, but I needed God's work and the Holy Spirit to work with me to help me out because the flesh can't do the job that God has for people to do when they're being ordained to do that job. To turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4, look at verse number 13, the Bible reads, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Look at verse 14, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. If you recall Ephesians chapter 4, I don't want to turn it, we've been preaching, I've been preaching on this a lot as far as the importance of the church, how God has given gifts to some, he talks about apostles and pastors and teachers and evangelists and God has given gifts to them. The gifts come through the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. If you don't know what the word presbytery means, it comes from the word presbyter, it's just elders. So it would be multiple elders or pastors that are laying their hands on and this is Timothy that received a gift. Why? Because he was ordained to pastor a church. He was chosen, he was selected, he was ordained and he was tasked and commissioned with doing this job and at that time, with the laying on of the hands, he was given a gift. And he says, don't neglect that gift. Don't let that gift go. God gave you a gift, now you need to use it. That's what he's teaching. That's what's being taught here. This is good doctrine. This is, you know, and this isn't, you know, again, I don't want to sound like too mystical but at the same point, you know, it's not mysticism, it's the Holy Ghost and the power of God is what it is. And when you follow things God's way, you know, God blesses that and God will listen, you know, not listen to his own words but will do what he says. I mean, think about this. Think about in the book of James where it says, if any sick, let them call for the elders of the church, that they could pray over them and anoint them with oil. You say, well, why does oil have to be involved? You don't have to understand why and there doesn't have to be any physical reason or property as to why the oil is involved and people get anointed with oil. But if God says that that's going to help and that's going to work and that's going to, you know, answer prayer that way, then that's what you do. And if God says when you would ordain somebody, you lay hands on them and you pray for them and you send them out and they receive a gift, then that's what happens. It's as simple as that. But the ordination, none of that would happen without the ordination and the laying on of the hands. It's an important aspect of doing a task and being tasked to do a job. And as I mentioned previously, you know, I don't have all the examples here, but when you read, especially through the book of Acts, people are being commissioned to do different jobs. It's not just pastoring. This isn't just about that. It's about missionary work. It's about evangelism. It's about all of these things. Turn if you would to chapter 5. You're in 1 Timothy chapter 4, just flip over to chapter 5. I want to cover this just real briefly because if you do a word study and you kind of look up the laying on of the hands and you're just like, what does that even mean? There's multiple meanings to laying on of hands. It's not all just about ordaining, okay? When someone lays hands on someone, it could be, in one case here, it's laying on of hands of ordaining someone and just kind of resting your hands on them and praying for them and sending them out. But in 1 Timothy chapter 5, this is a different usage of the laying on of hands, where you're physically taking a hold of somebody, because that is another usage of the laying on of hands. You're trying to grab somebody and toss them out or do something to them. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, look at verse 19, the Bible says, against an elder received not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Then that sin rebuked before all that others also may fear. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself pure. I don't think this is talking about lay hands to send someone out and ordain them suddenly, even though obviously that would be a wise thing that you don't just rush into ordaining somebody. But this is talking about physically, you don't just lay hands on someone. Why? Because in verse 19, it's talking about receiving an accusation. And when someone's being accused of something, it's saying, don't just be quick to just like, hey, you're coming with me now, and we're going to deal with you, and laying hands on them suddenly, or being a partaker of other men's sins, because other people are bringing forth these accusations. Basically what he's saying here is do things decently and in order, and don't just be real quick to just start executing judgment by laying hands on people. Let it play out. That's all that's saying. Another passage, one that I really like, you could turn to Numbers chapter 11 in the book of Nehemiah. I like Nehemiah's character. Now, I don't know that everything that he did was always right, but Nehemiah used some force as a governor to make sure things weren't happening, that he didn't want to have happened, things that were sinful and that shouldn't have been happening. In one of the instances, if you remember, right near the end, Nehemiah chapter 13, he commanded that no one's going to do any work on the Sabbath day, and he made the proclamation saying, we're not going to do any work, we're going to honor the Sabbath day. And then what happened is that the merchants were still showing up, so like people from outside of the city were coming in, foreigners were coming in, they were setting up shop, and he's like, what part of, we're not working on the Sabbath day, don't you understand? So he locks the gates, and he just closes up the city, and he's like, no, you're not coming in here, we're not working on the Sabbath day. And they still show up at the gates, and he was kind of like hanging out outside. So Nehemiah talks to them, it says in verse 20, I'll just read these two verses for you, it says, so the merchants and sellers of all kind of were lodged without Jerusalem once or twice, so they show up now the first couple weeks. Then I testified against them and said unto them, why lodge you about the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. Now I'll tell you what, he wasn't saying, if you do so again, I'm going to ordain you and send you out with the power of God to go and preach somewhere. That's not what he's threatening them with. He's saying, I'm going to lay hands on you. From that time forth, came they no more on the Sabbath. All right, points taken. That's one of the things, you can read some of the other things that he did too, he was no joke. Nehemiah didn't mess around. He was saying, look, this ain't happening, I'm going to lay hands on you if you come back again. So just be aware of that when you see the laying on of hands, you just got to gain it from the context. It's not a hard context to figure out, obviously, but just be aware of that when you read it. And then you're in Numbers chapter 11. I've actually had someone try to use a passage like this as justification again for just being self-ordained, and they'll say, well, you're just jealous that I'm doing this work and you shouldn't be saying that I'm doing it wrong or whatever. And if you're in Numbers 11, look at verse number 28. Don't let someone try to use this story in this context, because you've got to get the whole context. And once you see it, you're like, wow, that's exactly, completely opposite of what they're using it for, which is usually the case when people have bad doctrine. Look at verse number 28, the Bible says, and Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men answered and said, my Lord Moses forbid them. So this is when there is people prophesying within the camp, and they didn't show up to the tabernacle. So Joshua sees this and he says, Moses forbid them, forbid them from prophesying. And Moses said unto him, envious thou for my sake, would God that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. Great answer, true answer, but let's look at the context of what is going on here and what he's talking about, because he's not talking about men deciding to ordain themselves to start churches and do some other work somewhere else. That's not what happened here at all. So to try to say, oh, well, good God that all the Lord, you know, yeah, would God they were all prophets, but they're not. It would be great if people can prophesy and preach, and I'm not forbidding people from preaching. I'm just saying if you want to pastor a church or if you want to be a missionary, do it the right way. Do it the way God's prescribed and get ordained to do that job. That's what I'm teaching. Moses was ordained and chosen of God. And in this passage, these men will see this. These men that are preaching and prophesying, they were ordained of Moses already. Let's look at it in context. You'll see what I'm talking about. Look at verse number 16. The Bible says, and the Lord said unto Moses, gather unto me 70 men of the elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there. And I will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee that thou bear it not thyself alone. So the purpose of these 70 men is to help Moses in the job that he's doing because there's so many people there and the work is so great. They're trying to unload the burden, but these people couldn't just be anybody. God tells Moses to choose, choose them out, choose out elders, choose out these people that are going to help you with this job. And then God is going to help those people out by giving some of the spirit that God had given to Moses on them. God is going to give them that gift that's given to them through the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, right? It lines up perfectly with the New Testament. It's that they're going to receive of the spirit that gift whom is ordained. Remember, ordained means chosen and God's telling Moses to choose out these 70 people. So let's see what happens. Look at verse number 24. Just jump down a little bit. The Bible says, And Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord and gathered the 70 men of the elders of the people and set them round about the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto him and took of the spirit that was upon him and gave it unto the 70 elders. And it came to pass that when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not see. So God's pouring out a spirit on these men that were supposed to be helpers of Moses, which we could think of as being deacons in local church, right? Moses was the head guy and then all these other guys were going to help him out. So God pours out his spirit upon them. Moses chose them. Moses ordained who the 70 were going to be. They were picked by him. And then it says in verse 26, But there remained two of the men in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad. And the spirit rested upon them and they were of them that were written, but went not out under the tabernacle and they prophesied in the camp. So these other two guys, it's not that they were just some random guys. These were people who were already ordained. The problem is they just didn't go to the tabernacle. They were supposed to go to the tabernacle. They were supposed to get the word. They just didn't go. But Moses had already chosen them. And because they had their names written, they were already chosen to do this job. God still poured out the spirit upon them too, to be able to do the work, to be able to help them out, even though they didn't show up when they were supposed to. These are who those guys are. Does that make a little bit more sense now? So then, when Moses hears about this in verse 27, Then there ran a young man and told Moses, said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp, because it's like, hey, they were supposed to be here with you, but what are they doing prophesying now? Moses already chose them. God poured his spirit out on them. They're not just going off and starting new congregations out in the wilderness, right? They're preaching. They're preaching the word of God. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's where Joshua, son of Nun, the son of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My Lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Envious thou for my sake would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. This is not talking about people just self-ordaining and going out and doing their own thing. This is people who were ordained, getting the Holy Spirit and being able to do extra work for God and being able to prophesy and preach. That's what we're seeing here. So when you read in context, don't just let people, you know, again, and that's not the scope of the sermon, but just always in general, when people are coming at you with doctrine, get everything in context. Even here, if I don't, if we don't really get a full content, even there, I jumped through and skipped a passage. Go back and read the passage. Make sure I didn't miss something that's going to impact the meaning of the story. So you get the whole thing. Check it out for yourself. Try it. Because when these people have bad doctrine, it's never going to stand up to scrutiny. Test everything. Turn, if you will, just to Numbers 27. It's the last place we're going to look at this evening. Numbers 27. We're going to close with this. This is what I call the ordination of Joshua. And I think this is a perfect example of, you know, the purpose of ordaining people, even in the New Testament. Yes, it's an Old Testament example, but we're going to see Joshua is being selected. He's being selected to be a leader of the people. He's leading the children of God. He's doing this great work. He's got hands laid on him. He's got honor upon him, and he goes off and he's chosen to do the job. He didn't take the job on himself. He served under Moses for years and years and years and years and years. He was a humble servant, and all the best leaders that you see, the people who are chosen to do these works, all start out as being great servants. And if you want to be ordained to do a great work, to do a great job for the Lord, whether you want to be an evangelist or missionary or pastor or whatever work you want to do, you need to be a great servant. And it starts with that, and it's not one year of serving. It's not two years of being a servant. It's a significant amount of time of being a servant first and learning and being in that role. And when the time's right, then you're going to be commissioned to go off and do that work. But see, you won't always know when that time is going to be. Someone else needs to make that determination for you. That is God's way of doing things. Someone who already has the wisdom to be able to see that, okay, now this person's ready. And it's not always cut and dry. I'm working on getting people, if you want to do a work, I'm going to give you some type of guidelines if you have a desire to do something like that so that you can kind of look to as a guideline. But I'll tell you right now, it's not just going to be like, okay, I did this, this and this. Now I'm ready to go. That's not the way it's going to work. I'll give you guidelines on things that I would expect for a number of times you should have at least have read through your Bible and just basic things like that. But determining when someone's ready to be commissioned with a job, it's a full package deal and you can't quantify every little thing. And I'm not going to do that, but anyhow, let's look at what happens here with Joshua. Look at Numbers 27, verse number 16. The Bible says, let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation. So just as we saw with the Holy Ghost ordaining people, here we see this plea, let the Lord set a man over the congregation. You always want God ultimately choosing the people and having the direction come from Him, but men are always going to be involved. There's a man being chosen to be over the congregation. And what's a church? It's a congregation. Okay, so we're going to see these applications of this Old Testament story to New Testament church. Verse 17, which may go out before them and which may go in before them and which may lead them out, which may bring them in that the congregation of Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. And a bishop is supposed to be a shepherd over the flock and is supposed to be a leader and supposed to show people, hey, here's what we're doing and here's how you do it. It's not just a dictator saying, you do this, you do that. It's hey, we're going to do this and I'm going out with you and I'm coming in and we're going to go. You know, this is the job that, you know, specifically with a pastor, but let's keep reading verse number 18. And the Lord said unto Moses, take the Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit and lay thine hand upon him. So we have the hands being laid on Joshua consistent with what we see in the New Testament as well and set him before Eliezer the priest and before all the congregation and give him a charge in their sight. So it was a public laying out of hands and charging Joshua in the sight of everyone saying, here's what you're going to do, Joshua. You're going to lead this people. They're going to follow you. You're going to lead them into the promised land. This is what you have to do. Okay. And he gives them the charge, right? Okay. It's oversimplification, but that's what's being done. And with all ordinations, when someone is being chosen or ordained, there's a laying out of hands and there's a charge being committed under that person saying, okay, brother so and so is being sent out. We're commissioning him to go off and be a missionary to this group of people in this area and he's going to reach them with the gospel and he's going to do this work and we're going to support him and we're going to be, whatever the case may be, if you're ordaining someone to go out and start a church and pastor a church or you're ordaining someone even just to be an evangelist. Here's what we're doing. We're commissioning him. He's going to go off and he's going to work and we're charging you with this and you need to be working this much and you're going to be going out and talking to people and preaching the gospel this many hours a day and whatever and just commissioning people to do this work. Giving the charge in the sight of everybody, laying out of hands, verse 20, and thou shalt put some of thine honor upon him that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. And that's the honor that you can't take on yourself. No man taketh this honor upon himself. The Bible says in Hebrews that even Jesus didn't take the honor on himself, but the Father bestowed the honor on Jesus to become that high priest. He didn't just take that on himself. It was given to him. He performed a task, a task that he had to perform through humility and through the obedience and through suffering and suffering death, even the death of the cross, he has a name that's lifted up high above all names. That is the way. And if you want to be working in a ministry position, in a ministry role like that, you need to be ordained and have the honor bestowed upon you. And when people have been ordained, that's also why you entreat the elders with honor, with respect that you, that you treat them as a father and talk to them because they've already had honor bestowed upon them. And it's only right. And it's not just the elder or the bishop within your own local church. It's other pastors, too. Just show the respect the honor has been given unto them. And they shouldn't have taken that on themselves. It's been bestowed upon them. And this is what was happening here because the children of Israel were changing leadership here, from Moses to Joshua. And part of what was happening here is just, hey, people need to see this, everybody. Moses is choosing God. There is no question about this. Joshua is our new leader and the honor that Moses had. And this wasn't some big surprise. Joshua had been working with Moses for a really long time and it made sense. And that's another thing, too, someone that's, it ought to be no surprise when people are ordained to do a job within the church because when you have someone who's faithful and involved in everything and doing all this work and coming early and staying late and doing all this stuff, the church should be like, well, yeah, of course, we know that person's ready to go and that's the way things ought to be when you're ordaining people. It shouldn't just be someone just showing up, they're here for a short time, and then they're getting ordained and sent out. It's like, we don't even know this guy. That'll never happen here. Joshua was not one of those people. He got the honor bestowed upon him, verse 21, and he shall stand before Eliezer the priest who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the Lord. At his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation. Moses did as the Lord commanded him, and he took Joshua and sent him before Eliezer the priest and before all the congregation, and he laid his hands upon him and gave him a charge as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses. That is Joshua's ordination. It's all the same elements that happen in ordaining someone to do a job in the New Testament, whether it be evangelism, missionary work, whatever. Bottom line is, I know it's real simple, but if you are interested in doing one of these jobs or some role being involved in the ministry, seek to be ordained and do it the right way. Get planted and become faithful and do as much as you can to be someone that is well rounded to be able to just be relied on and depended on and trusted to do a great work. Because when we send someone out and we decide we're going to support someone, because usually when you're ordaining someone, you're going to try to support them, we're going to do everything we can financially and otherwise to help get that work done. I mean, we're really getting behind someone and saying, okay, we're all still working and we're going to send you to do this work. We want fruit that's going to abound on our account, and you've been taught and trained and everything else, but we're going to ordain you and send you out so that we are all going to keep working and doing some things here, and you're going to be full time doing that job. And that's what we want to have happen. And I want to see this church bring forth many people who are ordained to do various jobs like evangelism, like ministry work, and reach as many people as we can. Yes, we're reaching all the people in our local area around here, but we want to go out and do even more and reach, you know, in all Judea and Samaria and under the uttermost parts of the world, we want to be able to preach the gospel and be a lighthouse and a beacon that is just growing and thriving and sending people out and supporting people as much as we can. That's my vision. That's my goal. But you know what? These things don't happen overnight. And if you have a desire and interest to do something like that, just remember, have patience, stay with it. You want to be solid and firm, and you want to be able to start a task and not quit and not go back and not fail, but see everything through to the end. So it needs to be done the right way. And if we ever send someone out to start a church plant, we don't want to see that church plant fail. Now, obviously, some things happen, but we're going to do our best under God's wisdom through the Word of God to do things the right way, from ordination to everything else. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. We thank you so much for all the guidance and wisdom we've received from your Word. God, I pray that you would please help us to increase in our knowledge and our understanding more and more every day, dear Lord. Help us to do things biblically here, and I pray that you would please build our church. I pray that you would please help us as we strive to do more for you. I pray that you would please help everyone here to just grow more and help me, dear Lord, to be able to provide the teaching and training that is going to be necessary to equip everyone here and whoever you already have selected to do a work for you, dear God. I pray that you would please help us all to be able to have your will be done. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.