So we're in Acts chapter 11,
and we're closing out chapter 11. And we started with points
number 1 and 2. The first point we dealt with
was to the Jew first. That's verses 19 and 20. Let's
revisit these briefly as I called your attention to verses 19 and
20, 19 through 21, where we saw over in verse 19. Now, they which were scattered
abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen Traveled
as far as Phineas Cyprus Antioch preaching the word to none, but
the Jews only That text will teach us that the disciples had
a priority given to them by Jesus Christ And that is to preach
the gospel to whom first the Jew first right now. It wasn't
because the Jews were Better or different or more special
than any other human being It was simply that to them, the
oracles of the gospel were given first. And because it was given
to them first, they were to be privileged with hearing the words
of Messiah. And we saw last week how that
Jesus, as he went about ministry, as he said in Matthew's gospel,
chapter 15, you know, I am come to no one but the lost sheep
of Israel. His primary purpose at that time was to announce
his Messiah ship, his role in office as Messiah to his own
people who had done 2,000 years of 1,500 years of history. No, 2,000 since Abraham of history. Here comes the Messiah incarnate
in the flesh. And they had the blessed, blessed
privilege of him speaking to them, God in the flesh. That's
what we mean by our first point, the blessing of to the Jew first. As Paul had stated in Acts chapter
Romans rather chapter 3 what is the advantage of the Jews
they had the oracles given to them and we talked about the
implications of having the Word of God given to us in a sense
you and I are like that if you are a Christian and you have
some knowledge of the Word of God you and I are like the Jews
in other words it's a blessing to have the word but it's also
as point number two is stating that's back at point number one
we're at point number one we want to stay there Back at point
number one, we are dealing with to the Jew first. The blessing
of the gospel coming to us, that means we get to hear it. That
is a blessing, is it not? But it's also what? A responsibility. So to whom much is given, much
is what? Right. That becomes a tension in the
life of the people of God, because we often emphasize the blessing.
But wherever God calls you and me into a relationship with himself,
he not only calls us to the blessing of the relationship, but the
responsibility of it. I remember many, many years ago,
and I think people know this intuitively. I remember many,
many years ago, I might have shared this with you when God
first saved me. I was a young teenager and I
was going about telling everybody about Christ. I possibly could.
And I had a really, really close friend and we ran the streets
together and we messed up together. And I felt obligated to share
the gospel with them first. Why wouldn't you? When the Bible
says, preach the gospel first in Jerusalem, well, that's where
we want to do it, to our own people, to the people with whom
we are most acquainted, most familiar. I had a good friend
of whom I struggled to share the gospel with him because he
was doing well in his own physical, carnal life. He was doing wrong,
but he was doing well. And the gospel is not easily
received by people who are prospering materially. prospering physically,
prospering in life. And he was making lots of money
doing the wrong thing. But because God had saved me,
I was obligated to share the gospel with him. And as I attempted
several times to share the gospel with him, he would say this,
Jesse, if you share the word of God with me, if you tell me
what God has done for you, is that going to make me more accountable
to God? And I said, yes. And he said,
then don't tell me. And when I didn't tell him, God
in his providence allowed us to be separated by virtue of
me being called to grow in the word and to to affiliate with
people that were hungry for the word, as we're going to see in
the closing passages of Acts chapter 11. And shortly after
that conversation, he ended up dead, being killed because he
was in into the drug game. And consequently, he died without
Christ. And so when we say more accountable
Well, which one do you want? Do you want to be blessed by
hearing the gospel are? damned by rejecting the gospel
You see because as Jesus said in the Gospels himself your hour
is always at hand. We can leave here tonight and
Find ourself facing eternity right and so yes, there is a
accountability responsibility to those to whom the gospel is
given and then we saw in our last point the consequences of
rejecting the gospel this is the strain that's going to run
through the book of Acts the Jewish people to whom the gospel
had come first he came unto his own in his own what received
him not the world was made by him and the world knew him not
this is going to be the strain and tenor running through the
book of Acts the consequence of rejecting the gospel. And
so our Lord Jesus said that the kingdom would be taken from them
and given to others. And I already had given you guys
a preview of Acts chapter 13, where in Acts chapter 13, there
was a major turmoil, a major battle between the Jews and the
Gentiles hearing the gospel. And we saw in Acts chapter 13,
how the apostle Paul made a definite and final statement. Look over
in Acts 13, Verse 46 through 48, he made a definite statement
about their having rejected the gospel. Verse 46, then Paul and
Barnabas waxed bold and said, it was necessary that the word
of God should first have been spoken to you. But seeing you
put it far from you, that means they rejected the gospel. And
judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to whom? For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee to be a light to the Gentiles, that
you should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when
the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word
of the Lord. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed in the word of the Lord was published
throughout that region. And so this is the mark at which
they will turn going back then to chapter 12 as we move forward. We are thankful that God had
given the mandate to go to the Jews because there's an election
according to grace that came out of the Jewish people. Paul
made it clear in Romans 11, and we will be dealing with that
text in our Roman series, probably in about three months. But as
we are looking at it in our women's theology class, Paul made it
clear that in Romans 11, while God cast the nation away, he
didn't cast his elect away. And he affirmed that by saying,
I am a Jew and God saved me. There were many Jews in that
first century where they were saved. And as we go through the
book of Acts, chapters 12 subsequent to our text and following, we
will see little sprinkles of Jewish people believing the gospel
because God is never without a witness. The second thing I
called your attention to is point number two, the role of leadership
confirming the word. We stated that when God is beginning
a work somewhere in a new city, in a new place, that the foundational
church, which was at Jerusalem, we will call her at the moment,
the mother church, is responsible to make sure that the work that's
taking place in that new region is founded upon solid biblical
truth. And consequently, what we read
over in verse 22 through 24 is, as it says in verse 22, then
tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church,
which was in Jerusalem, they sent forth Barnabas that he should
go as far as Antioch who when he came and had seen the grace
of God mark what happened when he came he had seen the grace
of God and was glad and exhorted them all that with purpose of
heart that they would what cleave to the Lord for he was a good
man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith and many people
were added to the Lord So under our second point, the role of
leadership confirming the word, there were three things I called
your attention to. One is bearing witness of the
work. It's critical for us to be able
to know what God is doing and then to affirm that work that
God is doing and to affirm it with qualified men capable of
teaching the word, sound men who can actually go in and affirm
authentic Christianity and help root and ground Christians. You'll
notice that what, Barnabas had said over in verse 23 was that
they were to with purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord Cleave
unto the Lord that was that was the sum total of his exhortation
to them and the reason is this one of the most difficult things
for a new Christian to understand is that when you first come to
a knowledge of God through the gospel and You are unaware that
you are being called into a warfare. You're being called into a battle.
You're unaware of that because you're in a honeymoon phase with
the whole idea and concept of grace coming to you. And the
propositions of the gospel are so wonderful to your hearing.
You are in a state of being open and vulnerable to learning. And
the learning part is great. What you don't realize when you're
a brand new Christian is That accountability factor is going
to require that you respond to the gospel appropriately or trials
are going to come which are going to challenge whether or not you're
actually receiving the word of God. That's where the Lord Jesus
gave us the parable of the sower and the seed in the gospel of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Remember he said, and the sower
went forth to sow. That's the preacher of the word.
This is an evangelical model of a parable. Some fell on the
wayside remember that and some fell on Shallow ground and some
fell on the thorny ground and some fell on good ground for
soils all representing what the heart and What that parable taught
was the sore souls Indiscriminately the gospel if he's preaching
the gospel and that gospel will in some cases Not even penetrate
the heart of a man or a woman they will go through the external
motions of religion and it really have no psychological impact. They just come and go. Others
will hear the word and it will have an initial impact in their
life whereby they sense that they are dealing with something
of a grave nature. True, they're dealing with theology,
they're dealing with eternal imperatives. And for them, it
moves them emotionally. But over time, once they settle
down in their gladness and in their joy, the cares of the life
begin to distract them again and draw them away from that
zeal and passion and focus on the word of God. And by and by,
they start to back away from a consistent pursuit of God.
That's what that parable is teaching. The other parable is the parable
of the stony ground here, where individuals resolve that while
they are interested in the word of God, They are not going to
let go of their material things. They are not going to let go
of their carnal worldly things. They are going to, with one hand,
embrace Jesus and with the other hand, embrace the world and try
to bring them together, conflate them, create a confluence of
living large in the world and living large for Jesus. This
is what we call basically your apostate church, your present
secular carnal apostate church, where they don't understand full
commitment to Jesus, meaning cleaving to Christ alone, which
often means you got to let a lot of things go that you originally
embraced as part of your identity, part of your creature comforts,
part of your emotional stability. You got to let a lot of things
go in order to determine or discover whether or not Christ is enough.
That's a hard journey I have discovered for most brand new
Christians. That's anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 years of a walk
with God. Anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 years
of a walk with God, I have observed Christians now for almost 35
years. Anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 years
is what I consider sort of a probation period, where it will be discovered
whether or not your Christianity is authentic, whether or not
it's truly genuine. or whether or not you're just
going through an emotional sort of fervor around the gospel,
which what Jesus had taught was many people will do that. They'll
come to church because there's some great promises in the word
of God. But because that commitment is not there, as the parable
says in Matthew 13, they didn't have any root in the root, didn't
go down deep enough for them to have an authentic walk with
God. The best they could do was church. So what happens is when
you are under Biblical teaching that demands that you cleave
to the Lord as Barnabas had just stated If you do not have that
That that genuine hunger and thirst for God what you're gonna
do is get away from that kind of exhortation You're gonna find
a church that is able to accommodate your half-heartedness and your
desire for carnality as well as basically holding on to Jesus
that's kind of a safe calling card for heaven. Are you a Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? That's fundamentally what's going
on. So what Barnabas is doing in our text is he's really encouraging
the brand new believers in this region of which he's been called
to, Cyprus and Cyrene and these other areas around Caesarea and
Antioch. He's calling them to make their
calling in election what? Right. And if you don't know
that text, that's 2 Peter 1, verse 10. That's one of the texts
that for me, I learned early on in my Christian life, I had
to actually own. I had to own that text because
just like everyone else, I went through trials. And like everyone
else, I was tempted to vacillate, tempted to depart from the faith,
tempted to compromise a legitimate earnest pursuit of Jesus for
basically a watered down gospel. But because I was truly born
again, that contemplation, Scared me to death the notion that I
would be half-hearted with Jesus and presumed that I would make
it to heaven scared me to death and so By God's grace I was I
was granted the ability to persevere and go deeper with Christ and
I realized something that I I guess I'm sharing with you now There
is no satisfaction to be had in your relationship with Christ
If you are not committed fully to him There's no satisfaction
to be had in your alleged walk with Christ if you're not fully
committed to him. Your life will be filled with conflict, dissatisfaction,
ambivalence, duplicity, all of the consequences of a very fledgling
relationship. And I think the thing, too, that
I want to press on as we get ready to continue working through
our outline is I think what people don't really accept, and I think
this is critical, they don't accept the paradigm or the model
are the construct that what salvation is, is a relationship with the
true and the living God through Jesus Christ. And because that's
not something that they comprehend, they don't feel compelled to
deal with God as a person and in earnest. Because they don't
grasp the idea that genuine salvation is a personal relationship then
they don't deal with him personally. They deal with him propositionally.
They deal with him from the long arm of religion. They deal with
him based upon a few Bible verses that they come to know. They
deal with him in terms of religion. And they never ever come to know
whether or not they know the true and the living God. And
this is what makes Matthew chapter 7 verses 22 through 24 so ominous,
that on that last day when we all stand before him, Jesus will
say to many of you, I never what? I never knew you so notice again
in that statement His rejection of them will not be a rejection
of them predicated upon how much they know about Jesus But whether
or not they knew him So I think when we talk about making our
call in an election sure we're talking about being honest with
God as a person That's what we're talking about being honest with
God as a person in order to have the benefits of of what the scriptures
call making your calling an election short. So under the role of leadership
confirming the word, bearing witness to the work, you'll notice
that what Barnabas did over in verse 25, after his qualifications
were given in verse 24, for he was a good man and full of the
Holy Ghost and of faith, and many people were added to the
Lord. I think I'll touch on that when we get to able ministers
of the word. But look at verse 25. Then departed Barnabas to
where? Tarsus, for to seek who? Now
this is a beautiful, beautiful insight given because while Barnabas
is knowledgeable, while Barnabas is a theologian and Barnabas
is an elder, and Barnabas actually saw fruit to the place that he
went to. Remember, many people were added to the Lord. Barnabas
also knew that doing ministry by yourself is very dangerous.
And God always sets up models for ministry for the purpose
of accomplishing that ministry without being distracted, thwarted,
or hindered by the devil. He always sent them out at least
in what? Twos. He always sent them out
two by two. And so that model is given to
us too, two by two. In Luke's gospel chapter 10,
you know that where he sent out the what? The 70. And he sent
them out two by two. And when he sent out the disciples,
he sent them out two by two. As we have learned before, two
is better than what? Right, because when one falls,
there is none there to pick him up. Now, if that one should presume
or assert that all they need is Jesus, well, what they're
doing at that point is what we call in Matthew chapter four,
tempting the Lord. You know how you meet the Christian
who says, all I need is Jesus. Well, if Jesus tells you that
you need him plus some brothers and sisters in Christ, do not
tempt the Lord. See, so you and I can twist the
scriptures and talk about being super Christians all we want
to, but the reality is we need more than one brother. We need
10 brothers, 10 sisters. If we're going to be honest about
our own health and growth. When you and I are left to ourselves,
do you know how easily the devil can trick you, slip you up, cause
you to compromise, cause you to stagnate, send you down the
wrong lane, cause you to have to make a detour, and that detour
can last for weeks and months and years before you get back
on track? How many times has the enemy caused that dumb sheep
to stray away from the fold and get them caught up in all of
the curiosities of the flesh under the presumption that it's
all right, I can do it myself. So many times. Furthermore, and
then within the context of ministry, which is what our final point
will deal with, I mean, our third point will deal with able ministers
of the spirit. When it comes to teaching ministry, It's very
important that in the context of a body of believers, particularly
if there's a good number of people, that leadership should be multiplied,
at least duplicated, for the purpose of being able to have
a balanced ministry. There are many models that the
church has experimented with in terms of what we call ecclesiology,
church government structures, like congregational churches,
Episcopal churches, Anglican churches, Baptist churches, Presbyterian
churches, Methodist churches, all sorts of ecclesiastical forms
of government the church has been tampering with. Some better
than others, some better than others. But the one that I think
is unbiblical and dangerous is the monarchical model, the monarchical
model of the single person dominating the church like a king without
having an eldership to serve and a deaconship to serve with
him and them doing the work of the ministry. Now we have what
are called senior pastors. That's critical to any healthy
church. Like you can't have four or five
equal heads. The reason why you can't have
four or five equal heads is because of the sinfulness of the people.
You do agree with that, right? In other words, the body politic,
if you talk about the congregation, I won't call them laity because
that's a that's a diatrophies paradigm where you have the leadership
being called, you know, the scholars and the teachers and the congregation
called the laity. I won't do that. That's your
that's your that's the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. OK, Nikos
means to rule. Laity means the people ruling
over the people. In the gospel sense, the leadership
does have the rule over you, but it only has a rule over you
as brethren who have been endowed with our granted authority by
Christ. So Christ is the true shepherd
and the elders are the under shepherds. You guys follow that
logic? So that the congregational members do not owe their eternity
to the pastor or the elders. This is where many of your newer
denominational churches, particularly your Pentecostal models, where
the pastors made the bishop, archbishop, this is your neo-Catholic
system. He is given way too much privilege,
way too much authority, and the lives of the people hang in the
balance with his health, our unhealthy teaching, our influence
in their life. This is a neo-Catholic construct. Fundamentally, the people in
the Catholic Church go to the priests for the forgiveness of
sins, for absolutions and for cleansing and for restoration. When true believers are called
to go to Christ, though they have the benefit of elders and
leaders in the church for their spiritual strength, they are
obligated to see them as only instruments and not fundamental
are what we call essential causes of your edification and salvation.
This is why in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus said to the disciples,
now when it's your turn to do ministry, don't you ever let
these folks call you master. When we switched the paradigm
from the Jewish system to the Christian church, which is where
we are, Christ told the disciples, don't you let them call you master.
Because the master is a gradual, subtle, exalting of the person
to a status of being responsible for your eternal destiny, without
him simply being an agency between Christ and you. He also said,
don't you let them call you father. And both of those concepts have
been neglected in the church over the last 2000 years, where
scholarship, which is where masters come in, and patros, which is
fathers, spiritual fathers over the congregation has created
what I call the diatrophies effect in second or third John where
John is dealing with one of the leaders in the church who is
even rejecting the apostles when the apostles come because somehow
he feels like he's so exalted that he can tell who can come
and who can go. That kind of mentality is unhealthy
in any church where the leadership doesn't have a real common bond
with the membership on an equal level, though they are responsible
from a spiritual standpoint being endowed in the office of elder
or pastor. Do you guys understand the difference?
So like when you are talking with your Catholic friends or
those who are pro-Catholic, or you're talking with Pentecostalists
who love to talk about the bishop, you know, and they're so exalted
that there's a major chasm between the bishop and the congregation,
let them know that's an unhealthy view of leadership in the church.
Very unhealthy view. What can thwart that and keep
that from occurring is really good camaraderie among the leaders. If you look into a congregation
and you see a healthy body politic of the leaders, where the leaders
are common men down to earth, they put their shoes on just
like you do. They have the same kind of struggles that you do.
They may be a little better in their walk with Jesus as they
ought to be, because that's what it means to be mature. You don't
want to have leadership that are novice individuals whose
character is not proven, who don't know what it means to walk
with the Lord and are not seasoned in terms of ministry. These are
all biblical qualifications essential to your guidance and your comfort.
You want leaders in the church that you can respect and trust
and submit to. You don't want leaders you cannot
respect, trust and submit to. Because all three of those are
what are demanded of the members of the congregation. The Lord
demands you to respect me. He demands that you to trust
me. He demands you to be able to be comfortable with my guidance. But that's only because of a
collaborative relationship between us where you get to know your
leaders and know the genuineness of their life, know their strengths,
know their limitations. which is what 1 Thessalonians
chapter 5 calls for. Know them that have the rule
among you. Know them. And that way you can
be in earnest part of the ministry process with a good conscience.
To be part of a church where you don't really know the leadership
is unhealthy and it denies the shepherd-sheep paradigm. Because the shepherd-sheep paradigm
is the paradigm of an under-shepherd being intimately aware of and
engaged with the flock. Does that follow? Right, intimately
aware of and engaged with the flock. And the sheep in that
context are grateful for the under-shepherds because the under-shepherds
are able to execute their offices of keeping the sheep safe, keeping
them fed and keeping them clean. Three words. safe, fed, and clean,
which is hard work for the under shepherds. I'll leave it like that. And so what Barnabas does is
he immediately senses that there's a lot of work to be done here
in this new startup that he has confirmed has the presence of
the grace of God. He has already exhorted seeing
the fruit of God increasing in his own ministry. And now he
seeks the apostle. The Apostle Paul so under our
third point, let's quickly run through that so we can make some
headway able ministers of the Spirit Do you guys see that under
our third point you guys able ministers of the Spirit? That's
the term that the Apostle used in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3
able ministers of the Spirit as he was juxtaposing or contrasting
what it meant to be under the law versus being under the gospel. Able ministers of the spirit,
that's what it should be. And it would be the spirit of
Christ, but it's the spirit. And we want to talk about that
just briefly. What does that mean to have able
ministers of the spirit? Well, in part, I've actually
addressed that. But under our first point, it
means to have faithful ministers. Point number one you see send
faithful men. Do you guys see that? Well, that's
what the Apostles did when they heard about when the tidings
came to them from in Jerusalem from Cyprus and Cyrene when we
read over in verse 24 For he that is Barnabas was a good man
full of the Holy Ghost and of what right? You know what that
means. That means his character has
already been tested that he's already demonstrated among the
people of God, a love for the people of God, a knowledge of
God's word and the capacity to teach and preach to the people
of God to their edification. In other words, he was not like
in a political context, just chosen by the leadership and
then foisted upon the people. And the people don't know who
he is, don't know his life, don't know his works. He has no track
record to speak of. and they have to give themselves
to them. I guess this is fascinating because what I'm doing now as
I'm sharing with you this text of scripture is I'm drawing on
a lot of experience that I've had over the years being a pastor
and being an elder in other churches and being part of the development
of other churches. And one of the things that I
have learned over the years is people are truly like sheep.
And what I mean by that is And from this position of being a
member in the local church, unless the leadership is intentional
about letting you know what's going on, you are bereft of and
ignorant of what they are doing. And if that kind of sort of in
the dark model continues to govern the church, the members are left
at a disadvantage. because they can never know the
leaders truly until some scandal comes out. Right? Well, one of
the things that I did for years when I helped start churches
and help build churches was I demanded, and I still do as a rule, I demanded
that leadership be raised up from among the congregation.
We would demand leadership to be raised up from among the congregation.
So let's say a church starts off with 35 people, 40 people. Some churches try to start smaller
than that. To me, I would not actually call it an official
congregation with less than 30, 40, 50 people for lots of reasons. You can have a fellowship of
brothers and sisters. They can be hanging out. and
they can call in ministers to come preach to them on Sunday
while they are working together, building relationship, and discovering
whether or not there are faithful men among them who may be qualified
in a year, two, three, or four to be deacons and elders. So
in a local church plant, what I would often do is I would look
at that group. I would determine the basic makeup
of that fellowship. It's sociological, demographic,
um, uh, structure, see who in the, in the, in the fellowship,
um, is able to teach and then build, um, around those gifts
are lack thereof a structure for them to proceed with. And
over time, see if the Lord will bless that work where there will
be a clear evidence of a man or two or three who are willing
to take on a servant's role to help nurture and cultivate that
fellowship. And one of the evidences that
you can tell when a small fellowship is being established by the Lord
is that that small group will be committed to several things.
They'll be committed to the teaching and preaching of God's word,
committed to it. Then they'll also, you can tell
what else is going on when they're committed to the teaching and
preaching of God's word, which means they're committed to not
just hearing it, but doing it. Cause there are those people
who are kind of like groupies. All they want to do is kind of
like hear the word. And then they go, they wear it, they disband
and the word has no application in their life. You're not going
to build a congregation out of people who are just a word groupies. You got them too. They like the
groupies that go to concerts, you know, the big bands and the
singers, they always have their groupies. Listen, you're a groupie. If all you do is listen to the
word and the word doesn't impact your life. Right. And so, um,
What we want to be are believers who are planted in a body politic
where the word of God is transformational, that it has the kind of impact
in my life that's going to change me. Then I'm going to get my
instructions from that fellowship. Technically, you know that you
are in the right congregation if you are committed to God's
word and the ministry of God's word in that congregation actually
speaks to you. I tell people all the time, If
you're coming to grace and you're not hearing from God through
my teaching, leave, leave. If you're coming to grace and
you are distracted by, you know, how many people we have, you
know, how diverse our ethnicity is or by the music or by this
or by that, and you're not actually hearing from God, you need to
leave yesterday because your soul is in danger. So long as
you are going through motions of religion and not coming to
hear from God Now, you know the how many of
you are members here grace raise your hand, okay good portion
So it God speaks to you here doesn't he right in a very clear
crystal clear and In a fashion where you know it's not Pastor
Jesse eavesdropping in on your conversation, living at your
house, bugging your house, or having messengers kicking it
with you, surveying you. It's the Lord dealing with you
through the word here in this church. That's called the ministry
of the spirit. That's the ministry of the spirit.
Because when once you are gone from here, whether by death or
by providence, When you stand before God on the last day, it's
the Spirit of God who will bear record having spoken to you in
this ministry, and you won't be able to blame Brother Jesse.
And I'm only saying that to say this, I understand what it means
for people to be ministered to by the Word of God in this church.
I understand what that means, because I know what it means
to be under the influence of the Spirit, to be led by the
Spirit. I know precisely what it means
to be a mouthpiece, an oracle for God speaking to you. And
it has nothing to do with me. No preparation, no structure.
God's just talking to you. Now I've learned over the years
when God's talking to you because I didn't intend to say what I'm
saying. And I know it's God talking. I know it's God talking. And
for those who are part of that body, they are highly favored
of the Lord because the Lord is dealing with them. If you're
not in a congregation where it is that specific and that concretely
clear, you need to hurry up and find another church because you're
wasting your time. No Christian ought to be in a
place where they're not hearing from God. No Christian. I wouldn't
waste I wouldn't waste no time here if I wasn't hearing from
the preacher. I wouldn't waste it. I wouldn't
waste the time because your eternal destiny is too precious for that
able ministers of the spirit. This is what verse 25 and 26
is asserting then Paul and Barnabas Then then departed Barnabas to
Tarsus for to seek Paul Saul and when he had found him He
brought him unto Antioch and it came to pass that a whole
year 365 days they assembled themselves with the church. Do
you see the way the language is structured? They became part
of those congregations and they taught many people and the disciples
were called Christians first in Antioch Wasn't Antioch blessed? To have Paul and to have Barnabas
in the middle of their fellowship going in and out among them Ministering
to them the Word of God for a whole year to where the formation resulted
in them being called Christians First in Antioch, you know what
that means? That means those those people
who heard Paul and Barnabas took what Paul and Barnabas said seriously
and it became part of their lifestyle see real Christians disciples
real Christians are disciples so a disciple is a follower of
Jesus he's a learner of Jesus and he seeks to conform to the
rule and authority of Christ that's what a real disciple is
that's why I say most Christians are not disciples most Christians
today who bear the name Christian are not disciples Christ is not
master in that sense see when he's master There's a disposition
in us to do his will. See, you have basically given
your allegiance to Jesus. That's what the disciples did.
When Jesus came up on Matthew, on John and James and Peter and
Andrew, he said, follow me. I'll make you fishers of men.
They abandoned everything and follow Jesus. That's what it
means to be a disciple. So now the whole of your life is under
the authority and rule of Christ. The whole of your life. I mean
the whole of your life. That's what it means to be a
Christian. You're not a Christian. Otherwise Okay, you're a Christian when
that that whole raggedy mess of your life is brought under
his authority so that the Spirit of God can work by and by Restructuring
your life and bringing you into conformity to the will of God.
That's right. It's a process It's a process
isn't it yet? But but but one knows whether
or not he's committed to the process or not because your priorities
will demonstrate that The priority of your life will demonstrate
whether or not you are committed to Jesus Christ If you're free
to run your life, you're not a disciple of Christ It's just true if you just sit
up and do whatever you want to do and And the authority of Christ
doesn't bear upon your decision making. You are not a Christian,
not in a biblical sense. You may go to church, but you're
not a Christian. And so it's very important to
know. And able ministers of the spirit, their ministry is to
drive home that point. Like your profiteers, not your
prophets, your profiteers, P-R-O-F-I-T. Your profiteers, all they want
you to do is make sure you show up Sunday to put the money in
the offer. That's why tithing is so huge in most of your apostate
churches, because they want to make sure they get the money
in the coffer. You've done your Christian duty. If you show up
on Sunday and pay that time, but, but that is not an able
minister of the spirit. His job is not to communicate
truth to you in a way that brings you closer to Christ. He communicates
the word in a fashion that simply is designed to loosen your pocketbooks,
loosen your grip on your money, even get you to celebrate giving
him the money. Celebrate, celebrate. Boy, wasn't that message good?
It wasn't about Jesus, but what did a good message? Made me feel
good. Boy, I'm going to give today.
Lord, here you go. That's false Christianity. That's false Christianity. And,
and, and the, And the Western church is filled with it, filled
with it. Able ministers of the spirit.
Let's look at three things under that particular proposition. The first one again is sending
faithful men, turning your Bible to second Timothy chapter two,
second Timothy chapter two. And by the way, I'm going to
be teaching in our women's theology class starting next week, two
to three weeks of biblical hermeneutics. So if you guys do not have a
handle on how to interpret scripture, understand scripture get the
CDs the CDs will help you understand what it means to properly interpret
and properly handle the scriptures we're going to be going through
three weeks of that because we're dealing with some things in our
women's theology class that are critical for me to affirm we've
got a lot of new ladies there and a lot of people have not
been taught how to actually study the Word of God and understand
the Word of God all right so we're going to be getting back
to the basics And so you're free to get those CDs, listen carefully
to them, and ask God to teach you how to rightly divide the
word. But in 2 Timothy 2, here's where
we have our premise and our model for making sure that we send
faithful men. This is what we call it, 1 Timothy,
2 Timothy, the book of Titus, are what we call pastoral epistles
when we're dealing with bibliology, pastoral epistles. They're written
by Paul to pastors. as to how they are to conduct
themselves in the ministry. And here's what one pastor says
to another pastor about ministry in 2 Timothy 2, verse 1 and 2. Are we there? You therefore,
my son, and that is in the faith, be strong in the grace that is
in Christ Jesus. Paul had an intimate, deep, personal
relationship with Timothy And he had to constantly encourage
Timothy to be strong in the grace that was in Christ Jesus. Why?
Because when you are in a role of leadership and pastorship,
you got a big bullseye on your back and you're constantly being
assaulted by the enemy. To be in leadership authentically
and have the depository of biblical truth in your life simply makes
you the biggest target in the room. And if your physical and
emotional and psychological disposition is weak, then you have a real
hard time executing your office. And Timothy was timid. Even his
name, Timotheus, means that. He was timid. He had a hard time
dealing with Christians. And the reason why is even though
they're sheep, many Christians act like goats. Yes. Right. And because of that, unless you
are a strong leader and can take lickings. And one of my pastor
friends was talking about what it means to tend sheep. Not only
do you have to constantly corral them because they are so prone
to go their own way. You're constantly trying to corral
them. Not only you're constantly trying
to corral them, but you have to keep them in green pastures
so they can eat. You have to constantly feed them.
Sheep are only healthy as they are continually eating and feeding
on the Word of God properly. But the other thing you have
to deal with is sheep biting you. Do you know that sheep bite
the shepherd? That's right. You didn't know
that. Yes, they bite him. He comes along, carries them,
moves them. Guess what they do? They nip at him. They're nipping
at him all the time. I guess that's their way of saying,
I love you, but they're nipping at him all the time. Now, if
you step back for just a second and if you've done church any
time, you know, that's true. You talk about the pastor bad
a lot. Church members talk bad about
the leadership a lot. They nip at the pastors. nip at the leaders, because we
don't naturally like to be told what to do. So we're always finding
fault. And then sometimes, like my pastor
friend said, you know, the sheep, if you give them an opportunity,
they'll tell you what's on their mind. That'll reach in just a
second. That's why I don't give you an
opportunity. I don't want to know what's on
your mind. I want you to know what's on my mind. I'm kidding about that part,
but it's true. The shepherding task requires
a level of commitment and love and tenacity to actually be effective
because the sheep don't realize how oppositional they are to
God, to Christ and to the leadership. Sheep are rebellious. Right. That's why they get in so much
trouble. You got to dig them out of pitch all the time. because
they're in constant states of rebellion. And so leadership
is not for everyone. And Timothy had a hard time.
Think about Timothy. Let's do a contextual reflection
for a moment. This is part of a hermeneutical
spiral. I'll talk about it with our ladies, how to develop a
hermeneutical approach to scripture, how to interpret. Let's think
about it historically. Let's think about where he is
in the culture. He's in a culture in the Middle
East, Semitic culture, Aramaic culture, Greek and Roman culture,
where people were very aggressive as they are today. Very aggressive. Aren't they aggressive in the
Middle East? Very aggressive, very opinionated. And here's
little Timothy in his timidity. He has to lead a flock of believers
in emphasis of all places where they used to witchcraft and Ouija
boards and demonology. That boy had a tough assignment. And so Paul had to constantly
encourage him to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Timothy reminded me of Joshua. Remember the Lord told Joshua
when he took Moses out, Joshua, you better listen to me. I need
you to be strong. Have not I sent you? I'll be
with you. I know you have to lead this
2 million people who have demonstrated nothing but rebellion against
Moses all these years into the promised land. You can do it.
Be strong, therefore. That's what God had to say to
Joshua over and over and over again, because he couldn't see
himself actually influencing the people. But that's where
our next term comes in at. That is so essential to accomplishing
the task of ministry. Able ministers of the spirit. That's critical. Without the
spirit of God, you can't accomplish ministry. Not successfully. Here's what he says. Thou therefore
my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the
things that you have heard of me See the mentor paradigm here
the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses The
same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to what
teach others? Also, do you see the baton you
see the race being run Paul starts off the leg. He passes it to
Timothy He tells Timothy to pass it on to other men who are able
to pass it on to other men Do you see how the baton is being
passed? That's the structure Now, why is verse one and two
so important? Because you still have all these
rogue Christians who run around talking about, I don't need anyone
to teach me. I have the anointing. And because
I have the anointing, I don't need anyone to teach me. First
John chapter two, right? I have the anointing and I need
not that any man teach me for the same anointing that teaches
us all I have. And so you have these people
who don't feel like they need to sit up under qualified leaders. But of course, when we get into
hermeneutics and we deal with that, I'll explain that there's
an abuse of that text there too. The Spirit of God always works
through leadership to strengthen and to guide and to teach his
people. He never just speaks to us in
osmosis. You're not hearing the Holy Ghost
in the wind. You're not just hearing the Holy
Ghost in the That win was just win. That wasn't the Holy Ghost
The Holy Ghost works through his word He works through the
teaching and the impressions that we get in our own personal
walk with God that may be the Spirit of God But the normative
means by which you get authoritative guidance is through the Word
of God. You guys follow what I'm saying very critical for
you to know that. The man or the woman that you
see running around in a very autonomous, independent way,
talking about the Lord told me this, the Lord told me that,
the Lord's leading me, that individual is fruitless and unproductive
in the kingdom of God. They are generally a busybody
getting in other people's businesses, thinking that somehow they know
something when they don't. Am I making some sense? Very important
for us to know that. Very important to know that when
you're running with people who basically have no sense of the
structure and the process by which God ministers to people,
they're not rooted and grounded. They're like the wind that blows,
hither and yon. One day they're here, the next
day they're there. They're all over the map, mentally, emotionally,
and practically. You know what the proverb says?
Have nothing to do with those kind of people. People that are
given to change because they, are not anchored in the word
and not sound in the word, don't have anything to do with people
that are given to change because they will distract you from God's
call to root and ground you and make you productive in the kingdom.
See, here's the thing that you have to understand. The purpose
for which the church is left in the world is to root and ground
Christians so that they can grow, mature and bear fruit to the
glory of God. The purpose for the church is
that Christians are rooted and grounded and bearing fruit unto
God. Here's another reason for which
you should leave grace as well. If grace is not ministering to
you in a way wherein you are not becoming rooted and grounded
and bearing fruit, you need to leave. You need to find a church
where you can get rooted and grounded and bear fruit because
God doesn't have trees that don't bear fruit. He doesn't have trees
that don't bear fruit. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? I tell people all the time, are you bearing any fruit
here? If you're not, you need to, you need to roll real quick
because for some reason the water source is cut off from your roots.
If you have any, you need to be bearing fruit. You need to
be understanding your priority in the kingdom of God. You need
to be able to respond to Jesus in loving obedience and service.
You do not need to be meandering around and the world loss, having
no aim or purpose in the kingdom of God. Otherwise, I or my elders
and my teachers are doing a horrible job teaching you and maturing
you in Christ. And so this is what we mean.
Notice what it says in verse two, and then we'll move on and
look at a couple other things. And these things, and the things
which you have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit
thou to what kind of men? Faithful men who shall be able
to teach others also. This here is a constant teaching
process. That's what the ministry of the
church is largely. A teaching ministry is what Jesus
says in Matthew chapter 28, 19, 20. Go into all the world and
preach the gospel, teaching men to observe whatsoever things
I have told you. Teaching men to observe. Teaching them to observe. It's
a teaching ministry where our hearts and our mind are educated. on theological truths. The second
thing about able ministers of the Spirit, not only are they
faithful men, but they are gifted men, and that is they are men
who give. I want you to see this. We've
talked about this before, but this principle is important.
Go with me in your Bible, Romans chapter 1, verse 5, first. Romans
1, 5. Now, remember what Paul said
as he was just giddy about the prospects of actually going to
Rome. which I am so glad we are doing
the study in Rome, aren't you? The study in Rome is phenomenal.
I am learning so much in the study in the Romans. It is so
rich. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's
hard to actually contain myself when it comes to what I want
to share with you out of the book of Romans. Remember, I told you
a Martin Lloyd-Jones, the late Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, he did
in Romans 1, I think he did about 39 or 40, 40 sermons in Romans 1. In Romans
chapter 5, where we are, he did about 50, 60 sermons. The whole
book of Romans, you know how many sermons he did? 336 sermons
in the book of Romans. See, because it forces you to
go deep. If you're gonna learn the treaties of the gospel in
the book of Romans, there are so many things that Paul is saying
there that's critical to our knowledge. It demands that you
go deep. But see, if you don't have, if you and I don't have
that hunger for that depth, You will not be interested in going
deep. I'm interested in going deep, but I don't want to go
so deep that I lose you. But one of the evidence is that
we are a growing and vital and real and authentic church is
that we are going deep with Jesus. Nothing is more evident of a
superficial congregation than a shallow church where the people
are so shallow that they want 20 minutes of teaching that doesn't
get into your business. and free you up to do whatever
you want to do. See, that's devastating. On a spiritual level, that's
devastating because transformation only comes when you and I make
ourselves utterly available to what the Spirit of God is teaching
in His Word so that it impacts us in such a way that it grips
us with the demand that our life changes. Do you know how hard
it is for us to change? Don't you? You know how hard
it is for us to change. We're trying to go through the
metamorphosis, but the carnal side keep bringing us back. We're
trying to change. This is really difficult. But
under this concept of able ministers of the spirit, one of the things
that we discover is that they are gifted men, and therefore
they have the capacity to impart. You see the term impart in your
outline? I talked to our ladies about that. One of the reasons
why I teach targeted theology to men and women is because I
want to be able to gift our people with the capacity to be able
to impart. You and I want to learn the word of God in such
a sufficient way that we can actually communicate biblical
truth to others effectively. That's the way it should be.
We should not always simply be in right now. We're using the
metaphor of the agricultural feasts of barley harvest in our
root study, right? And we are talking about what
it means to glean versus what it means to reap versus what
it means to sow, right? And so we are now contemplating
what it means to be a gleaner versus a reaper versus a sower.
A gleaner is a person who comes into the kingdom of God without
any contributions and is brand new to the faith and they have
the benefit of just picking up the corn, the wheat and partaking
of it without having contributed whatsoever. A reaper is a person
who has been in the kingdom of God long enough to now have entered
into the process of the ministry so that they are sowing and laboring
in the kingdom of God and benefit from that sowing process by what
is reaped during the harvest time. So there's that reciprocal
relationship that occurs when a Christian grows into the kingdom
of God, becomes rooted and grounded, and now knows how to labor for
the cause of Christ. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? But to be in gleaning mode where all you're doing is
picking up the sheets after the harvest has been brought in means
that you haven't actually entered into that process of development
and growth and maturity where now you are participating in
the sharing of the word of God. By the time you get to the point
where you can share and communicate biblical truth to others, you
are in reaping mode. because to reap means now you
have those, those tools that you have been taught by the able
ministers of the spirit to now communicate the seed to other
people. It's critical, critical, critical,
critical, critical. So able ministers of the spirit
are faithful men who are sent and then they are gifted men
who are able to impart. Listen to what Paul said. I want
to come to Rome. Um, and verse five, he says, uh, verse four,
he says, uh, Let me see here. Let me just jump to verse 9 and
10. I'll leave verse 5 alone for
a moment. Look at verse 8. Start at verse 8. First, I thank my
God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken
of throughout all the known world. For God is my witness, whom I
serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing
I make mention of you always in my prayers. Hint, another
key of faithful ministers is that the people of God are always
on their mind and they are always praying for them. Another sign
of faithful ministers is that the people of God are always
on their mind and they're always praying for them Mind you Paul
has never saw the Roman Church He has never seen the Roman Church
and yet he's telling the truth. I Always pray for you Don't you
want somebody always praying for you? And especially somebody
that actually has contact with God, right? You got a lot of
folk talking about, I'm praying for you. And you look at them
and say, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't worry about it.
Don't you worry about it. Not you. Not you. Cause you,
your prayers meeting got me in trouble. Not you. People that actually have contact
with the true and the living God through Jesus. I want them
praying for me. Verse 10. Here's what he says,
making request. If by any means now at length,
I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come to
you. Verse 11, for I long to see you that I may what in part
unto you somewhat spiritual gift. There it is. There it is. And
see, and see, so faithful minister of the spirit, they come with
gifts. They come with gifts. When you
go away from the ministry of the word by faithful ministers
of the word, you receive something. There's an addition to you. There
is a surplus. There is not a deficit. Preachers
of the word are not for you liabilities. They are assets. That's one of
the questions you guys are dealing with in the class, right? What's
the difference between a liability and an asset? And that's a good
question for us all to ask. Am I a liability in the kingdom
of God or am I an asset? Because when I'm an asset, that
means I actually am contributing to the advancement of the kingdom
in the relationship. If I'm an asset, I'm a blessing
to you. I add to you. I expand. I enhance your life. I don't
take away from you. You don't go away from me, deplete
it. That's the Ruth Naomi paradigm
that we're getting to huge. And what Paul was confident in
was this if he gets a chance to do ministry to the church
at Rome They are going to be the better for it imparting spiritual
gifts that's huge imparting spiritual gifts now go with me to first
Thessalonians chapter 2 and Let's look at verses 1 through 4 in
that regard So you can ask yourself the question depending on what
ministries you are exposed to and committed to and listen to
and engage yourself in do they? Give to you do they? actually
substantively benefit your life or do they take away from you?
Is there a switching bait to their ministry where you know
you got to pay to get what they got? It's really important to
know. Because if you have a relationship,
if it's a paradigmatic process by which you know in order to
get what they got, you got to pay for it. At that point, it's
not a grace relationship and it's not authentic. If you feel
like you know you got to come out, because they're going to
be asking for it. It's not grace and it's not a
gift. You actually pay for that. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? And the church is conditioned
on that today. To pay for what the minister
ostensibly is giving. Here's what Paul said in second
Thessalonians chapter first Thessalonians chapter two verses one through
four. This is a beautiful model of faithful ministers as well.
And I'm glad we have the time tonight to just go over some
of these basic principles because you need to know to be able to
discern whether or not you are under solid and biblical and
grace-oriented ministry. I'm in verse 1 of chapter 2.
I'm going to read through verses 1 through 5. And actually, I'm
going to read through 6. Verses 1 through 6 gives the
basic premise and motive of faithful ministers of the gospel. And
then verses 7 and following gives what we call the method and approach
of the ministry. This is the premise and motive.
For you yourselves, brother, know our entrance in unto you,
how we impacted your life, that it was not in what? Right. See,
so that phrase there, not in vain means that it was not empty,
that when we came to you, we didn't leave you. The word is
empty, empty. That's another one of our Hebrew
terms in our study in the book of rule. Empty, empty. When we came to you and we engaged
you in ministry, when you left, you didn't leave empty. You didn't
leave empty. You didn't leave in vain. You
didn't go away saying, I didn't get anything out of what he said.
It never happens if the spirit of God is in it. It never happens
if the spirit of God is in it. It's not possible for the spirit
of God to be in any ministry where you don't get anything
out of it. unless you personally are in sin. And if you are like,
like when you're trapped in a particular sin and you know, it is not that
the minister didn't impart. It was just that you were so
bound up in your sin that you couldn't receive it. Am I making
some sense there? So you had to go away without
the gift, but the gift was given, right? It's very important to
know that here's what Paul is going to lay down concerning
the motive in the attitude of ministers. He says, but even
after that we had suffered before and were shamefully entreated,
as you know, at Philippi, we were bold to our God to speak
unto you the gospel of God with much contention. Interesting.
We dealt with the book of Thessalonians years ago. And what I stated
was the church at Thessalonica was established in the midst
of a lot of persecution. We'll get there in five chapters.
Yes, five. And it was in the context of
the apostles being beaten and persecuted that the church at
Thessalonica was established. Now, what Paul is saying here
is even in the face of persecution, we boldly and constantly and
confidently preach the word of God to you. We didn't shrink
back because we were taking hits for the gospel. We counted your
souls so important that even while we were being stoned even
while we were being maligned even while we were being Ridiculed
even while we were going to prison we preached the word of god to
you boldly as if nothing was actually taking place And that
also demonstrated their readiness to share the gospel with those
people It showed the priority of the gospel. That's what the
title of our outline is tonight. The priority of the gospel in
the life of the minister, in the life of the ministers. They
are more concerned about the people than they are themselves.
That's really true. That's really true. You meet
the true ministers of the gospel. There's not all about them. It's
just not. Boy, I can go down that line
right now. You know, Pastor's appreciation, this. Pastor's
appreciation, that. A whole month of giving to the
pastor, celebrating, partying. It's a mess. Oh, love him. Give him a card. Hand him something. But don't have a whole month
celebrating the man. That's wrong. That's wrong. There's no model of that in the
scriptures. Do you understand what's going on there? Because
at that point, he gonna be looking for it. And there's some people
go a whole month. Man, I'll tell you. Well, let me just go ahead. Because
I see it happening. I go, that's crazy. That's crazy. If his people do not love him
enough to make sure that he's all right, something's wrong. Anyhow, verse two. But even after
we have suffered and were before and were shamefully entreated,
as you know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak
unto you the gospel of God with much contention for our exhortation. Our exhortation was not of what? Deceit. Nor of what? Nor of what? See those three characteristics?
Deceit, uncleanness, and guile. Deceit. We didn't manipulate
the word of God. There was no manipulation. I
love this. See, most of us are sinners,
right? And therefore we have grown up
in households where at least one of our siblings knew how
to manipulate, right? And you know, when you go to
churches that are manipulating, yeah, you do. Unless you close
your brain off, check your brain at the door and you go in and
you just allow that whole machinery to take advantage of you. Because
it's a complete system in many churches. full manipulation from
the beginning to the end. And you know, it's manipulation.
Some churches, old school churches will go through the protocol
of a traditional worship service to the last 10 minutes of the
service. And at the last 10 minutes of service, they go to reeling
you on in, reeling you on in. And either it's the pastor or
the elder beating you over the head, making you guilty in your
conscience, right? It's manipulation. Manipulation
and so that's what Paul meant when he says we didn't come with
with deceit Then he also said we didn't come with covetousness
Our uncleanness. Do you see that in other words
and and we've talked about this to uncleanness here in this context
is immorality Remember I told you uncleanness and immorality
are two sides of the same coin both in the Old Testament and
New Testament Whenever in the Old Testament God viewed Israel
as being unclean, it was their unfaithfulness to Jehovah engaging
in sexuality or idolatry, cultural uncleanness because of covetousness. When a man or ministry or people
are covetous, they are unclean in the sight of God. Unclean,
meaning that God's holiness has not endorsed that ministry. They
are operating out of the flesh. They're given over to covetousness,
which cannot be a hallmark of the minister of the gospel. It's
unclean. And virtually wherever this covetousness
is, immorality is there. Adultery, fornication, and other
forms of sexual perversions. And churches know this stuff
is going on. They know it. Because when the
atmosphere is allowed to operate out of a fleshly carnal level,
you got to start greasing palms and doing backdoor deals because
that's the nature of the flesh. An unclean environment gives
itself to that because that's the only way you can be fulfilled. I'm telling you the truth. Whether
you want to accept it or not, these are the facts and you'll
have Naive are what I would call willingly ignorant Christians
who know these things are going on but will not admit it Because
their evidence is everywhere when you run across carnal ministries.
The evidences are clear The behaviors are bad. And so what Jesus said
in Matthew 7 was this a good tree? cannot bear bad fruit Neither
can a bad tree bear good fruit It's impossible It's impossible,
ladies and gentlemen, for a tree that is planted by the Lord to
bring forth the bad fruit of immorality and covetousness and
sinfulness because of its DNA. Its DNA will not allow that tree
to bear fruit contrary to its nature. And so our master said
in the Gospel of Luke, either let the tree bear good fruit
or bad fruit. In other words, don't be hypocritical. Don't deceive people. Don't cause
them to be confused. Well, you know, he just human,
right? Right. Well, no, Jesus is saying
it's very clear. My ministers are ministers of
righteousness and uncleanness is not the hallmark of their
life. It's not even something that they tolerate. You cannot
serve the Lord Jesus Christ and be given over to uncleanness
and covetousness. Woe unto that man who does such. Let him take a millstone and
wrap it around his neck and sink himself in the deepest sea for
causing one of God's little ones to stumble and think that it's
all right to live like hell in the church. That's right. See, this is what separates godly
churches from ungodly churches. I can tell five minutes after
I go into a church and I don't have great discernment. I just
know that the same crooks that come in Sunday morning having
been doing the nightclub the night before all the way to the
morning coming in the church every Sunday can't be the people
of God. You heard the little the story
of the little bird, right? Y'all remember this? How many
of y'all remember the story of the little bird? You remember the story?
Did I teach you that story? Or did you hear it alone? I said
it 10 years ago. Yeah. I'm going to say it again,
because most of these people don't know. Well, there were two little
birds that hung out over at the clubhouse late at night. And
they used to get upset because of all the noise and partying
going on till 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. The birds trying
to sleep, and they said, These people that's just drive me crazy.
All this, you know, three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock
in the morning. Why don't they go to bed at 12 o'clock? So the birds,
they would fly off and they said, you know what we're going to
do? We're going to fly over to the church down the street there cause we
know it's quiet over there. Flew over there and closed their
eyes and all of a sudden their eyes popped back open again cause
they started hearing noise all over. We just came from the noise
and they looked through the steeple window and say, my goodness,
these same people that's coming into the church now is the folks
that was over at the nightclub. And the point is that's not how Christians conduct
themselves. I'm going to help you right now.
If you think you can go out clubbing on Saturday night and hear a
word from the Lord on Sunday morning, you are wrong. And if you have a church full
of those kinds of people, They are lost. Are you hearing me? You're lost. You're dead in trespasses
and sins. You're playing church and you're
causing Christians to stumble. Just like that. So what Paul
is saying to the church at Thessalonica is the model for leadership in
the church. Here it is, verse four. But as
we were allowed of God, because we didn't come with guile, deceit
and uncleanness. And again, guile and deceit.
Let me just say one more word about that, because we're almost
done with this point for the night and then we'll pick up
next week. Don't you hate? If you don't, you ought to. Don't
you hate when the ministry is not clear and simple? When you
got to struggle to try to figure out what he's saying, Don't you,
don't you, you should hate when you go in and you go, you know
what? I'm not quite sure if I heard him right. See, that's called
manipulation. That's guile. A man without guile,
are you ready? Speaks clear, straightforward,
so that you understand precisely what he means, whether you like
it or not. A man without guile is not trying
to craft his words to make you laugh, to make you cry, to make
you feel good and stuff down your soul something he knows
you will reject if you tell it to him, if he tells it to you
straightforward. So when you're sitting there
really trying to labor to figure out what did he mean by that?
What did they mean by that? There being people filled with
guile, wanting to manipulate you and actually begin to train
you to think contrary to what the word of God is calling us
to be. Sober men and women who are sound in the truth and we
know when we're being manipulated. If it's too hard to understand
because he's intensely being coy or surreptitious are using
a methodology of what we what we call equivocating terms that
can go either way. Well, I think that's what he
means. He's not a preacher of the gospel. I'd rather people
not like me, which they don't, because I'm bold and straightforward.
Then for me to try to win everybody in the world with soft, flowery
sophistry. and send masses of souls to hell.
Am I making some sense? And see, that's how Paul was.
He was bold in Christ, clear in Christ, confident in Christ.
But now watch this. So was my master. The Lord Jesus was bold,
clear, crystal clear. And you know why he was confident
that his ministry would survive? Because he said it. My sheep
hear my voice. And that's all he's concerned
about is his sheep. The sooner the goats get to going, the better
off. See, because you can dress a
goat up to look like a sheep. Yes, you can. But they don't
sound like one and they don't act like one. And it's important. To know what I'm saying. It's
important to know that when you darken the doors of a church,
that you don't have to really struggle with what that man said.
You should know what you are listening for and you should
know if you are not hearing it. is very important, very important.
So notice what he says, but as we're allowed of God to be put
in trust with the what? That's right. Average Christian
don't even know what the gospel is. Even so, we speak not as
what pleasing men, but God, which does what tries the heart. There
it is. See, and faithful ministers of the word are constantly on
the trying under the trying of the spirit of God to make sure
they tell the truth. They walk in a great deal of
trembling and fear as they stand before eternity bound souls,
knowing that they will either advance the souls of men towards
glory or towards hell. And they've got to answer for
it. This is serious. business this is serious business
so able ministers of the Spirit are three things they are faithful
men they are gifted man capable of imparting and then the final
one is plurality leads to both efficiency and accountability
do you see that one let's go to our last point we're there
now plurality leads to both efficiency and accountability you guys see
that All right, so now when we say efficiency, we're just saying
that two are better than one, right? You got two shovels working,
you can get the job done. Accountability is the principle
that both persons being autonomous
and get given to the task of the ministry will be able to
watch each other. You guys know that on your best
days, it's much more productive. for you to have someone in your
life to whom you actually can answer. I just said on your best
days. Because on your bad days, you
don't want to be accountable to nobody. Tell the truth. On
our bad days, I don't want nobody around me. I don't have to answer
to my wife. I don't want to have to answer
to Tread. Daddy, where you been? Why you asking me that? Where
you been? Piercing me like a sword. Where
you been? When we're in darkness, we don't want to have to give
an account. We just want to walk in darkness. That's where the
sheep, if you're a sheep, you're being led astray by the devil.
He's calling you. He's warning you away from the
body, away from the people that God has placed into your life
to speak into your life, to ask you the question, how you doing?
Why are you asking me that? I'm just asking you how you do. I'm just saying. Okay. Okay. Okay. I know what to do now. Lord have mercy on her. All I
did was ask you So plurality leads both to efficiency
and accountability and The final verses I want us to look like
look at will close here is 1st Corinthians chapter 3 verses
5 through 9 1st Corinthians 3 this is how God honors the ministry
this is how he honors the ministry and I thank him for being able
to teach and with a clear conscience. I really do. I deal with people
all the time and I think about corrupt ministry and I say, how
do you do it? How do you lie to people? How
do you manipulate people? How do you deceive people? How
do you live with yourself? How do you get in the pulpit
and actually try to talk for God and aren't genuine? I can't, I can't, I don't have
a reference point for that. This man right here does not
have a reference. There's nothing about my ministry
over 25 years where I can say I operated in the guile and the
deceit and the covetousness of which Paul talks about. I don't
know nothing like that because I was never under men like that.
I was never under wicked men. I don't know what it means to
be under slick willies and tricky dicks and smart aleck men who
You know what I'm talking about. I hear about it all the time.
I know pastors who struggle with upline pastors who are nothing
but lust bugs. I have no idea how you can do
that except for this. You don't know God. You just don't know God. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? You just don't, you just don't know God. Now, when you
don't know God, you can do all that, I suppose. I don't know. Because I labor to go to bed
at night, jam with a clear conscience. I labor to go to sleep saying,
thank you, Lord, for keeping me today, for watching over my
time, for allowing me to tell men and women the truth. I labor
because I like being at liberty. and there is no liberty being
a hypocritical, lying, manipulating, deceitful, covetous individual. There's no liberty there. There's
just no liberty there. This is an amazing thing. So
now listen to what 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 5 through 9
says. This is what the apostle Paul says, and I love this. He
says in verse 5, who then is Paul and who is Apollos? Well,
they're two, not just one. That's the first thing, right?
They're two. But ministers watch this by whom you believe. Do
you see them believing has an instrumental means and that is
the minister of the word. And you see how the dual ministries
of Paul and Apollos serve to establish the faith in the Corinthian
church. You guys see that? Now watch
what he says. Even as the Lord gave to every
man, do you see that rule? How do men and women come to
believe the gospel by the faithful proclamation of the gospel through
faithful men? God does not save people through
false prophets. He does not save people through
false prophets. It's just it does not happen.
You got to believe that. See, so so we don't learn that
in hermeneutics class. Once again, the rule is very
clear. You guys remember Acts chapter
eight. God sent Philip after the Ethiopian just to make sure
he heard the true gospel before he went home. God can get the
gospel to his elect by faithful shepherds. That's not a problem
for God Why would he use a wicked ungodly man who doesn't know
Christ? to distort the true and Sort
of God compromises that for the salvation of the souls of men
when he could just send a faithful minister Are you guys following
the logic? I want you to think about it
now. I want you to think about it. It makes no sense to me that
God would use the devil's army and use his army at the same
time. We're at war there. It makes no logical sense. I
know how we let us say God can use a donkey. Well, that donkey
was saved. That donkey was saved. Don't
have me to teach that text right now. That donkey was saved. Was
that donkey saved? That donkey was God's elect.
That donkey saw the glory of God in Christ. That donkey saw
the Lord Jesus Christ with his sword drawn. That donkey saw
the right way and with the right way and abandoned that false
prophet that wanted to rule over him. That donkey was one of God's
elect. He was dumb for a while, but
when he saw the glory of God in Christ, he hurried up and
got on the right road, which is what happens to every one
of God's elect. when they finally hear the gospel. Did you get
that? Even this dumb Balaam didn't
see the glory of God, but the donkey did. And that's how donkeys
are delivered out of false prophet ministries, by the way. They
finally see the glory of God in Christ. And they say, oh,
I got a better master now. I got a better master now. Isn't
that story amazing? That's what we call narrative
theology. The donkey said, man, I've been treating you good all
these years. Why do you want to beat me down like this? I'm out of
here. That's what false religion does.
It beats you down, beats you down, unreasonably beats you
down until you see Christ and you realize it's time to go.
That donkey was happy the day he saw Christ. He was happy,
got that burden off his back, and moved on. And he said to
the dumb prophet, don't you know the Lord had his sword drawn
against you, not me? I'm his elect. I'm dumb, but
you're damned. Y'all will get that in a minute.
And that same sword killed Bala a few chapters later, because
he still didn't get it. He still didn't repent. He was
still looking for other dumb asses to leave. Now I'm a dumb
ass, but I'm the Lord's dumb ass. Is that true? I'm almost done here. Humbly. It's humbling. It's humbling. Isn't it humbling? That's why
the Lord got to come get you. Cause see, you know, you can't
find your way without the Lord. You can't find your way. False
prophets and false teachers and false prophetesses and false
teacher rats are smoother than honey, smoother than butter. And until God gives you discernment,
you'll fall prey to it every time. And sometimes you have
to let you go through that mess in order for you to learn the
difference between the difference between an authentic ministry
and a wicked ministry. Here it is. He says in verse
five, verse six, I have planted and Apollos watered, but who
gives the increase? God. Yes, that's right. So then
neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters, but God
that giveth the increase. Now he that plants and he that
waters are one and every man shall receive his own reward
according to his own labor. See what verse eight is doing?
You don't know this, but what Paul is doing is warning the
ministers in the church of Corinth about false ministry. That's
what verse 8 is saying. We're going to all receive. See,
I'm going to be there on the last day, not with you, but with
all the ministers. And I will be exposed on the
last day by the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus will have me stand
before the watching universe, all the angels, all the devils. all the people who were exposed
to my preaching and teaching. And the Lord Jesus will either
commend me or send my raggedy soul to hell for lying to the
masses of the people. And I will go into the lowest
hell where I deserve to go. If I lied to you about the gospel,
if I lied to you about the gospel and I deserve to go there, if
I stand up here and speak for God, manipulate and rip off people,
con you and trick you, into something that's not true and take advantage
of you instead of being the Lord's servant for your soul's sake.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for the flock. Thank you for the word of God.
Thank you for the model that Paul has set down for the New
Testament church. May it not be so of any of us
here that we would be deceived and given over to false religion
and hypocrisy. May it not be so that we would
keep arms distance from you for to do so, Is to keep us in danger. We we can't do this without you.
We can't make it without you We can't get down the road without
you. If you don't hold our hands, we're lost Oh God, we are lost
already. We need you. We need you every
hour Every moment Oh God keep us in the palm of your hand as
we go our way Give us traveling mercies prepare us to worship
you on Sunday. We pray in Jesus name. Amen