I'm very, very honored to be
here. I was thinking as Brother Mike
was speaking about that first time that I preached here and
you know it was about two or three years later that I came
out and preached and one of you men told me that was the first
time that you guys had met together and I didn't know that the night
I preached for you, you know. And now to be here preaching
these ordination messages with Brother Kevin, I just see the
Lord's hand in that. And it just never ceases to amaze
me what the Lord does. So I'm honored. I'm honored to
be here to bring these messages. The Lord promised He promised,
He promised His people, I will give you pastors according to
my heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Melinda and I and the church at New Jersey are thankful, very
thankful to the Lord that He has fulfilled that promise for
you and given you brother Kevin. and his dear wife Kimberly. They have been very faithful
members of our congregation. Very, very faithful members. They're there every time the
door is open. They have their family there.
And anything that needs to be done, Brother Kevin is there. to help. Kimberly's there to
help. They've just been faithful members of our congregation.
Fit so well with our congregation. And we love them. And the congregation
loves them. I love them. So it's going to
be hard to see them go. But I wouldn't change it though. I'm thankful the Lord has sent
them here. Sent them for you. And I'm very
thankful for that. And we pray for you. And I look
forward to years and years down the road of a long fellowship
between our congregation and this congregation. I hope I can
come out to see you more often and you can come see us more
often too. I would like that. So I'm very
thankful for you. I'm very, very thankful for you. And Brother Don asked me to tell
you that he so wanted to be here. He sent you an email, I know,
and he would love to be here. And he's so very excited for
you at the prospect of what God will do here in a populated area
like this. And I'm excited for you too.
I really am. Tonight I'll be preaching to
your pastor, but it's for you too. And I want you to hear the
weighty responsibility that God gives to His pastor, because
then it'll help you so when tomorrow night we're reminded of the weighty
responsibility God gives us as His church to the pastor, And
that will help. So I want you to hear tonight
this weighty, weighty responsibility God gives to His pastor. I'm
going to read tonight, and I want to begin in John 1. And I want to read verses 6-8. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. The same came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light, that all through him might believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. My subject is a charge
to a pastor. Paul said to young Timothy, he
said, I charge thee, I charge thee therefore before God and
the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead
in His appearing and His kingdom. I charge thee before God and
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this is, is a charge
before God and the Lord Jesus to you. As the pastor of San
Diego Grace Fellowship, it's imperative for you to remember
these things that we're going to talk about tonight. And I'll
give you the notes to this message. I'll send them to all of you.
And I'll do the same for the message tomorrow night. And I
would encourage you to read the notes and listen to this message
at least once a year. I go back and listen to the ordination
message Brother Don preached for me. I read it and listen
to it multiple times in a year. And I encourage you to do that.
First of all, always remember who sent you to be a pastor.
Don't ever forget who sent you to be a pastor. We read here
in verse 6, there was a man sent from God. There was a man sent
from God. Everything in the salvation of
God's people is of God. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. God the Father chose who He would
have mercy on. He chose who He would save by
His free and sovereign grace before this world was made. God
the Son came forth and He successfully accomplished the redemption of
His people. He accomplished the redemption
of His people. And each one that God chose,
each one that the Redeemer has bought with His blood, God the
Holy Spirit shall regenerate them and give them faith to believe
on Christ. And they'll be kept, and not
one will be lost. And because everything in salvation
is of God, God has been pleased to save the way He will save. And the way God has chosen to
save is through the foolishness of preaching. Just using a man,
just another sinner saved by grace, but using him to preach
the Word of God. And that's how God saves. Not
just in the first hour He gives you faith, but until the end. God saves His people through
the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. That's what God chose
to do. Some people will say, well, that
limits God. That doesn't limit God. If God tells you how He's
going to save you, and then He works everything in providence
to save that one way, that's magnifying the sovereignty of
God. And this is how God saves. So, God sends His true pastors. It's God who makes the pastor
and sends His true pastors. A sinner that's saved is saved
by the grace of God. God saves him. God does everything
from beginning to end. And likewise, a preacher that
God uses, a pastor that God makes, it's God who sends that pastor. It's God who makes him, gifts
him, and sends him. God does that. It's God who does
it. God chose His Son, and He chose
a people in His Son, and when the time came, God sent. He sent forth His Son. And likewise,
before He sent His Son, God sent a man. named John, to preach
the gospel, to prepare the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'll tell you something, you've heard of the old days, the criers
that would go through a town and they would cry when the king's
coming, the king's coming, to let the town folk know the king's
coming through town. Before the king of kings comes
into the heart of a sinner, He goes to send His preacher preparing
the way, preaching the Word, and the kings come into town.
And He sends that preacher, God sends that preacher at His ordained
time, and just like He sent Christ to a particular people to save
a particular people, God sends His preacher to His particular
church, to His assembly that He's assembled and He puts those
hearts together. God does that. He does that. It was ordained from before the
world. It was ordained by God before
the world was made who His pastor will be. Jeremiah said, "...the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Behold, before I formed
thee in the belly, I knew thee." Before thou camest forth out
of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet
unto the nations." That's what, if you're God's man, this is
what God is saying to you. Before I formed you in the belly,
I knew you. and I sanctified you, I set you
apart and I ordained you to be my preacher in San Diego, California
before you ever came forward. Paul said, I was made a minister
according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the
effectual working of His power. Now why am I saying all this
to you, Kevin? So, when you get the feeling
too big for your britches, you can remember you didn't have
anything to do with becoming a pastor. Don't forget that. Don't forget that. God made you
a pastor. God gifted you. God did. God gets the glory for making,
sending, sustaining, and preaching His pastor. God gets the glory.
He gets the glory. God's pastor, first and foremost,
is the servant of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. That
means your allegiance, first and foremost, has to be to God
your Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That means you do all
things as unto God our Savior who sent you. Everything. When you have a decision to make,
before you make the decision, think about who sent you. Before
you have to say anything to anybody, think about who sent you. Remember
who you are and who sent you and that you're His servant.
Remember that. And remember, you will give an
account to God. You will give an account to God.
Go to Ezekiel chapter 3. I read this passage right here
often. I read it often. Ezekiel 3. I'm not going to read the whole
passage. I'm just going to read part of
it to you, but you get the gist. You can read the rest later.
Ezekiel 3 and look at verse 17. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto
the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word at my
mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the
wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and Thou givest him not warning,
nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his
life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity. but his
blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked,
and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall
die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thyself." Remember
when Paul said to Ephesus, I'm free from your blood? That's
what he's talking about right there. He preached the Gospel
to them. He preached the Gospel to them
and he was free from them because he told them he got the Word
from God and he delivered it to them. Remember who sent you. Now, secondly, not only remember
who sent you, but remember also what God sent you to do. Remember
what He sent you to do. In John 1 verse 7, the same came
for a witness. to bear witness of the light
that all through Him might believe. God told Ezekiel, hear the word
at My mouth and give it to them from Me. That's what God said. That's what He said to them.
It's God's Word we are to preach. Paul told Timothy, preach the
Word. Be instant in season and out
of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all longsuffering and doctrine. Now, that means when you feel
like you have a live coal from off the altar and you're all
ablaze and you're coming to preach, And that means when you feel
like you're cold as ice and you're wading through molasses, you
still get up and preach. Preach the Word. Preach the Word. And I'll tell you something about
this reproving and rebuking and exhorting. First of all, it's
with all long-suffering. It's with all long-suffering.
And secondly, it's with doctrine. It's with this book. It's with
this Word. It's not with our own Word. It's
with this Word. With this Word. You know, if
any of you have ever chopped wood before, if the axe is really,
really sharp, it doesn't take nearly as much effort to chop
the wood. If you preach the Word, It doesn't
take all this extra effort of going around and trying to rebuke
personally and reprove personally and all that that you see the
world doing. Preach the Word. Preach the Gospel
of Christ to be crucified and God will reprove. He'll rebuke
in the heart. And while I'm thinking of this,
I'll say this to the church. One, remember this man's got
to give account. Remember, he's got to give account
to the Lord. And two, remember this, if you're
sitting there listening to a message and you feel rebuked, you feel
like he's got a camera in your house and he's been listening
to what you've been saying, he's just preaching the gospel. That's
why I like going through a book. That way nobody can accuse you
of jumping around and just preaching at them. I'm just preaching the
next passage in the book. When you ever feel that way,
remember, this might be God speaking to me. It might be God speaking
to me. If it is, it is. Remember that. Remember that. My neighbor called
me over to her house one day and she meant well. She's an
elderly lady. And she was getting prepared
herself to move. And so she's getting rid of a
lot of the things that she had. And she called me over and she
had this big pile of books. And she said, Clay, I want you
to take these books. I want you to read these. She
said, I think these will help you have some fresh material
for preaching. You know if Kevin, if you gave
a letter or if I gave a letter to say I gave a letter to Mike
and I want him to go and take this letter and I want him to
go over to Mark's house with it and I want him to read the
letter and I want him to help Mark understand what I'm writing,
I don't want Mike to go over there and just make up his own
words. I want him to go over there and
read my letter and and use whatever words he needs to use to help
Mark understand what my letter says. That's what I want him
to do. This book right here is what we're to preach. I can remember
how many years I spent going to this book and trying to figure
out what to preach and just wasting all this time and all this energy
and all this pressure trying to figure out what am I going
to say about this. And one day God said, just say
what it says. Just say what it says. That's
the message that blessed my heart when I hear a man preach and
he just tells me what the passage said. And it's like the heavens
open up and God speaks into your heart and you look at it and
you say, there it is, it says that. He's not telling you anything
new. He's just telling you what it
says. But God's speaking it to you and you see what it says.
That's all there is to it. You preach what God says preach.
Don't preach something new. Preach what God says preach.
In Nehemiah, he said of God's ministers, they read in the book,
in the law of God distinctly, and they gave the sense, and
they caused them to understand the reading. Don't we complicate
everything? We make everything harder than
it has to be. Now, I'm not suggesting that preaching is easy. But we
may get harder than it has to be. God sends His pastor to preach
the Word of God. He doesn't send His pastor to
be original. He sends him to preach the Word of God. That
means you have to give yourself to study this book. You have to give yourself to
study this book. Paul said, study to show thyself
approved unto God. Did you catch that? He didn't say study to show yourself
approved unto men. He said study to show thyself
approved unto God. We're not trying to impress men.
You should be way more concerned about what God thinks about your
preaching than about what men think about it. If you do, you'll
preach the Word. What you hear going on in the
world where men are standing up and, well, I just don't want
to offend anybody. I don't want to offend God. God's
preachers don't want to offend God. I'd a whole lot rather offend
you than I would offend God. You just go ahead and mark it
down. You preach the Word of God, you tell sinners they're
totally depraved. You tell sinners they can't keep
the Law. You tell sinners they can't keep
it before conversion, they can't keep it after conversion. You
tell them that sin's mixed with all they do. You tell them that
they're worms. You tell them that they're nothing
but dust. You're going to offend somebody.
You preach this Word, you're going to offend somebody. Brother
Ralph Barnard used to say, every time he preached, somebody gets
mad, glad, sad. And that's what's going to happen.
People are going to get mad, glad, sad when you preach. And
you've been a soldier now of this country. Now you're a soldier
for God. And Paul said, no man that warreth
entangled himself with the affairs of this life. that he may please
him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. You can't be out running around
from house to house to house. I'm not saying don't visit with
your folks. You should visit with the brethren.
But that's not your primary responsibility. Your primary responsibility is
to be standing here with a word from God for their heart that
glorifies Him. And if men did more time in their
study, studying this Word, and less time out running around
trying to corral people, they wouldn't have to be out running
around corralling people. You preach the Gospel, you exalt
Christ before His people, and He will work obedience in the
heart of His people. What was it that saved us in
the first hour? We heard the message of how the
Lord Jesus Christ came and took flesh and laid down His life
for His people and accomplished our redemption. We heard the
message that exalted Christ Jesus the Lord. And here we are, rebels
against God, dead sinners who hate God. And what did He do? He made you bow and believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would we preach anything
else? Why would we try any other method? Peter stood up on the
day of Pentecost. He wasn't worried about offending
anybody. He said, that same Jesus whom you crucified, God has made
Him both Lord and Christ, and He's the one shedding forth this
which you now see and hear. And what happened? The Lord pricked
them in their hearts, saved 3,000 people that day. Why would we
preach anybody else but Christ? That means being in this Word,
studying this Word, and not out doing other things. I told my
wife one day, before we got a building, I didn't have an office to go
to. And that's a very trying thing on a man. A man needs to
go someplace to work. You need to get up, leave the
house, go somewhere to work. I'm glad to see you got a place
you can come to, because you need that. She's going to need
that. And you need it. But I sat for 10 years in the
same chair every day studying the scriptures. And I told Linda,
my wife, I said, I've spent 10 years in that chair right there.
I mean it, 10 years in that chair every single day in that same
chair. You're going to need to be in
that chair every single day in there studying. If you're going
to earn their heart and their respect, and you want to be in
a place where these folks right here would do anything in the
world for you, to help you, you be in that study, study, and
come here with a full table spread to preach for, and you will. You will. God bless it to their
heart. And now that means something
else too. Not only do you have to give yourself to study, you
have to be always in prayer to God. I was glad to see that article
that Mike put in the bulletin. You should get that and read
that article on prayer. So, don't forget this. You're
going to have to ask God, you come in here, to preach to His
people. And you're going to have to ask
God, what would you have me preach this week? You're going to have
to ask Him. And you're going to have to,
when you've got the text that you believe you should preach,
before you go to Gil, before you go to Spurgeon, go to the
One who wrote it. Go to Him. And ask Him what it
means. Ask Him to give you the message
out of it. And then when you have the message, you're going
to have to ask Him to give you the ability to preach it and
the people ability to hear it. I can't stress to you enough
how important it is, not just to study, but to ask God, to
be in prayer to God to give you the message. I recall one time,
I had been studying and studying and studying and I could not
get a message all week. I mean I had been studying and
studying and I couldn't get a message all week. And I don't recall
if I ever asked God for a message. I don't recall asking God that
week to give me a message. I don't recall praying to God
at all. And it got down to the 11th hour. I mean it got down
to the point it was Saturday night and I didn't have a message. And when I say physically, I
got on my face on the floor and was begging God to give me a
message. I couldn't write fast enough.
The Scripture jumped out at me and there it was. And I don't
think I'd prayed all week for a message. The message we're
to preach from this book is God's Son. Paul said, he said, I was
separated unto the Gospel of God, and he tells what that is,
which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures
concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's Romans 1, verse
2. That's what the Gospel is, Jesus
Christ His Son. When I'm preaching on the first
creation, I'm going to preach all things were created by Christ
and for Christ and He's before all things and by Him all things
consist. Why is it so important to preach
Christ as the creator of the first creation? So I can preach
and show you the reason He's the Creator of the first creation
is because God put it all into His hands before this world was
made and He's the Creator of the new creation. He's the one
who creates His people anew in righteousness and true holiness
through His blood and His righteousness. Just like He created that first
creation, He's the one who creates the new creation. New Jerusalem
made up of everybody that He saved by His blood. If I'm preaching
out of the old covenant law, I'm going to go and I'm going
to use the Ten Commandments lawfully. I'm going to use them to declare
sinners guilty. The law was given that the offense
might abound. That's why it was given. And
I'm going to preach the law and shut sinners up in their sin
using the law. And I'm going to preach Christ
Jesus who is the righteousness of that law. That One who kept
it perfectly, the fulfillment of the Law is love. He fulfilled
it by laying down His life for His Father and His people in
perfect love by being made sin for His people and redeeming
us from the curse of the Law. That was the perfect love that
it took to fulfill that love. And I'm going to preach the ceremonies,
and I'm going to preach the Lord Jesus Christ as depicted in all
the ceremonies. He's the High Priest. He's the
Lamb. He's the Mercy Seeker. He's everything
in the Old Covenant. I'm going to preach Christ, Christ,
Christ. People who, you know, people
who want to reform folks and what have you, they're going
to always side with Moses and the Law against Christ. They
always do that. They always do that. But they
don't believe Moses and the Law. They don't want to glorify the
Law. You know how I know that? Because
Christ stood one day toe-to-toe with some Pharisees who did the
very same thing. They said, we have Moses and
the Law. They're rejecting God Himself in human flesh for the
Law, for their works. And Christ said, if you had believed
Moses, You don't believe Moses. You don't believe anything Moses
wrote. If you had, what'd he tell them? You'd have believed
me, because he wrote of me. They didn't believe Moses. These
folks who claim they want to honor the law and they're so
concerned about the law. Oh, are you saying a man can
just break the law? I know I've said a man can't
keep it. I'm saying there's only one that
ever did. And I'm honoring the law. I'm telling you it's got
to be kept. And it's got to be kept perfectly.
And the only one that ever did it is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the only way a sinner does it is through faith in Christ. That's the only way. If you read
Romans 3, the last verse of Romans 3, do we make void the law through
faith? God forbid. Through faith, we
established the Law. Don't stop reading there. Go
into the next chapter. Even as Abraham did. And he lived
430 years before the Law was given at Mount Sinai. You mean
a man could fulfill the Ten Commandments 430 years before he ever even
heard of those Ten Commandments? How could a man do that? Same
way we do it today, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the only way. And then if I'm going to preach
from the New Testament precepts, there's a lot of precepts in
the New Testament. I'm going to declare that those
that Christ has taken up mastery in their heart, we're no longer
the servants of sin. We're the servants of righteousness
now. But here's what I'm going to do. It's what you've got to
do. You've got to first say and make
sure sinners understand, we cannot ever be saved. We can't be made righteous. We
can't contribute to our sanctification by keeping these precepts. We
can't. Because sin is mixed with everything
we do. We've broken every one of those
New Testament precepts. We've not kept any one of them
perfectly. And we can't come to God and seek acceptance by
our obedience to those precepts. You've got to tell sinners that.
If you don't, you're going to leave them thinking that that's
going to contribute to their salvation. Second thing you've
got to do, you've got to show them how Christ fulfilled all
those precepts. And He's the righteousness of
every one of them. And then, give them the precept. and exhort them to do what it
says, because then they'll be constrained by the love of Christ
in their heart. Then the believer is going to
be looking to Christ to give him the strength to do that.
The believer is going to have a motive that's a right motive
that he just wants to do. He wants to do that, not because
he has to do it, but because Christ has redeemed him and he
wants to do it for his Redeemer. You've got to preach them. That's
the thing. That's the problem with what you hear men preaching
is they preach those precepts. I don't have a problem with preaching
those precepts. I have a problem with the way they preach because
they leave the sinner thinking, oh, that's how I'm going to be
saved, keeping these precepts. No, sir. No, sir. You know what
the purpose of them are? You know what the purpose of
those precepts are for? So that you don't do anything. in a way
that draws attention to yourself so as to magnify you, or a way
that draws attention to yourself so as to bring reproach on the
gospel. You don't want to draw attention
to yourself at all. That's what the purpose of all
those precepts are, because your job is to hold forth Christ and
Him crucified in this perverse generation. and you want them
to see Christ. I didn't say you want them to
see Christ in you. You want them to just see Christ
in the Gospel. You don't want them to see you
at all. Somebody asked a preacher one time, well, what's the secret
to preaching the Gospel? Make yourself invisible, number
one. Number two, make yourself invisible. And number three,
make yourself invisible. Don't you begin to focus. And
that's my third point here. That's my third point here. Remember
what you are and what you are not. Remember what you are and
what you are not. Verse 8, He was not that light,
but was sent to bear witness of that light. John wasn't the
focus. He wasn't sent to be the focus.
He was sent to be a servant. A servant that they might hear
the gospel of Christ the light. Remember that. About 12 years
ago, I had some members that were coming and they just were
not faithful. They were missing services. And
I found myself, it hurts so badly when you prepare messages and
you labor, you labor, you labor, you're praying for the different
members and you come to the pulpit and they're not there. And that
hurts. It really does. Sometimes people
are going to miss. You've got different things.
But I'm talking about when it's ongoing, and it's ongoing, and
they're not there. That hurts. That hurts, you pastor. And I found myself, 12 years
ago, I was right where you're at. And I was a new pastor. And I found myself, when folks
would come, I found myself wanting to scold them from the pulpit.
for not being there. Don't do it. Don't do it. Remember who you are. You're
not the light. You can't force obedience in anybody. And if
you force obedience in somebody and they're just doing it for
you, they're not doing it for God. He's the only one that can
give them obedience in the heart. When you come to the pulpit,
if the unfaithful ones are being unfaithful, preach to the faithful
ones, the ones that are there. And if the unfaithful ones show
up, preach Christ to the unfaithful ones. But just preach Christ
and wait on Christ to do the work in the heart. And don't
try to, you know, if there's an issue that comes up, Don't
preach on it right away. Don't preach on it while it's
fresh, because the man can't hear that. If you preach on something
that's fresh, we can't sit there and hear that. You're going to
know the preacher's preaching right at you, and that just ruins
it. You can't hear the message then.
Give it some time. Maybe write down what the Lord's
given you at that time, but give it some time. And down the road,
preach on it when it's not fresh anymore. Then they'll hear it.
Then they'll hear it. If you try to preach on it fresh,
there's too much flesh in that. There's too much flesh in that.
You're going to have your flesh in it too much, and the Lord's
not going to bless it. He's not going to bless it. Give
it time. You're just the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
just like John was. just like John was. You know,
the Scripture says a pastor, he cannot be a novice, that means
new to the faith, he can't be a novice lest being lifted up
with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. But
be sure to understand this, it's not only a novice that the devil
is going to try to puff up in pride. We all, by nature, in
our flesh, every believer is nothing but pride. And you give
a man a new office, you give a man a new title, and the devil's
going to appeal to that pride. He's going to. He did to me. He's going to to you. I guarantee
you. But always remember that you
are a servant. Just remember that. You're a
servant. You're a servant. When you feel puffed up in pride,
Go to a restaurant. I don't mean a fancy restaurant.
I mean, go over to the Waffle House and sit down at a table. And when that server comes up
and serves you, sit there and eat. And watch that server serve
you. And remember, I'm a servant. I'm a servant. a servant of God the Father,
a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a servant of these brethren.
We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves,
your servants, for Jesus' sake. We call pastors ministers, and
I think we forget the meaning of what a minister is. Whosoever
will be chief among you, Christ said, let him be your servant. even as the Son of Man came not
to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life
a ransom for many." In the world, greatness is to be served. In
God's Kingdom, to be chief is to serve your brethren. Our Lord Jesus Christ came and
made Himself the least. There's nobody ever that has
been the least to the degree that Christ made Himself the
least. When you're hanging on a cross, you envisage more than any man
in history ever. And you're hanging between heaven
and earth. and God's forsaken you, and your
apostles have turned their back on you, and God's taken the restraints
off of wicked men and let them unleash hell on you, and you're
doing that to honor the justice of God? And you're doing that
to justify those that you love from eternity? That's one who
made himself the least. to a degree nobody ever did.
Serving to a degree nobody ever did. And Christ said, He that's
least in the kingdom of God is the greatest. And there He is. Both of them, right there. Made
Himself the least and He's the greatest. If you want to go up
with God, go down. and serve. I'm the minister of
Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God. You're an under-shepherd. Christ
is the shepherd. He's the chief shepherd. You
know what that word shepherd means? It means pastor. He's
the pastor who is God. He's the chief shepherd. You're
an under-shepherd. And remember, Christ sent you to serve those,
and remember this, He sent you to serve those that God chose
from the foundation of the world and loves everlastingly. He sent
you to serve those that Christ poured out His life's blood for. those He purchased. Paul said,
"...feed the flock of God, the church of God." It's not your
church, it's God's church. "...feed the church of God, which
He hath purchased with His own blood." You serve in those that
are the purchased possession of Christ your Redeemer, of your
Master. And remember this, Christ said
what we do to them, we do to Him. They're one with Him. And what
you do to them, you do to Him. How's God's pastor served? Christ
said, if any man serve Me, let him follow Me. How did Christ
do it? He willingly took the form of
a servant. He made Himself of no reputation
and humbled Himself. Now, if we know, if somebody's
confided in us and we know a secret about somebody, one of the surest
ways that we're prone to want to make ourself of reputation
is to tell some secret thing that we know. Tell it to somebody
else. Let me tell you what I know.
Listen, these folks are going to confide in you. Don't betray that trust. There's
things that'll have to be between you and that brother or that
sister and God. And you can't tell nobody. You
can't tell anybody because you'd change how that other brother
or sister looks at them. You can't tell this dear lady
right here because it'll change how she looks at them. You've
heard Don talk about it being a lonely place. But remember,
Christ said, but I'm not alone. The Father's with me. If you
want to talk to somebody about it, go talk to him about it. He made himself of no reputation.
A pastor, faithful pastor. He's not going to try to put
himself on a pedestal. When they came to arrest Christ,
Judas had to kiss him because they couldn't tell him from the
other people. He's not going to try to set
himself apart. He's not going to be arrogant in the pulpit
or out of the pulpit. You're not going to preach down
to God's people. When you're preaching here about what sinners
we are, don't talk about what sinners you are. Talk about what
sinners we are. When I first moved to New Jersey,
I didn't... I came out of a church with a
lot of young people and we was always jawing back and forth,
you know, and one of them would try to cut one, you'd cut him
right back, you know, and we was always choking back and forth.
You know how young folks are. It didn't take me long as pastor
to realize I got to learn to listen more and talk less. You
want to know why? One of the reasons why people
thought so much of Pastor Henry Mann? He always turned the conversation
back and let you do the talking so he could listen and find out
what's going on with you. That's how you're going to minister
to the people. Find out. Listen to them. Listen to them. Listen to them. Christ became
obedient to the Father. That's how you're going to serve.
Be obedient to Christ who sent you. Listen to this now. How
you obey Christ and follow Christ. in the church, in your home,
and in your life. It's going to directly affect
those around you being able to hear the words you preach and
follow your example. It's going to directly affect
you. Be blameless, vigilant, sober, have good behavior, no
striker, patient, not a brawler, given to hospitality. The best way to lead I didn't
make this statement up. I wish I did. It was a general. He said, the best way to leave
is not to say go, is to say come. You don't leave by sitting back
here and telling people, go do that. You leave by, you go do
it, and say come on. That's how you lead. If there's
something that needs to be done, Kevin Thacker ought to be the
first one doing it. If there's something that needs
to make an offering, Kevin Thacker will be the first one making
the offering. And I'm not saying let it interfere with your studying.
You might have to stay up later and burn the midnight oil. But
I'm just saying, don't ever ask these people to do something
that you won't do first. Oh, never. Henry used to say,
as goes the pulpit, so goes the pew. That's true. As goes the pulpit, so goes the
pew. And listen to this, one last thing. Christ became obedient
even to the death of the cross. It's easy to lay down our life
when things are good. But the faithful pastor is going
to lay down his life when things are hard and He's got a cross
to bear. Endure afflictions. Faithful
pastors need a thick skin and a callous tongue so you can bite
on it a lot. A lot. Christ bore our sins. He bore our judgment. He bore
our curse. He bears our ignorance. He knows
right now we're just dust. So bear the burden. The church should support a pastor,
but don't you ever live so as to burden this church. Don't
ever do that. Cut out every expense you've
got to cut out so that you don't burden them. And by these things Christ saved
His people. And He exalted the Father. And
when it was time, the Father exalted Him. The Father exalted
Him. In every situation, humble yourself
that Christ may exalt you in due time. Don't exalt yourself. You exalt Christ. You humble
yourself. You exalt Christ. And wait on
Christ, and He will exalt you in due time. He'll make it affectionate
in the heart. He'll make the brethren love
you. He'll make them respect you.
He'll make them follow you as you follow Christ. Stand between the sheep and the
wolf. Feed them and stand between the sheep and
the wolf. Here's what I'm telling you. Y'all be turning to 1 Peter
5. I'm going to end with this, and here's what I'm telling you,
and everything I'm saying to you, here's what I'm telling
you. When I was headed to New Jersey, and I stopped off and I talked
to Brother Henry Mahan, and Brother Mahan, the last words he said
to me was, he said, Clay, love them to Christ. That's what I'm
saying. and everything I'm saying here,
you know, you love your wife and you don't
have to have a bunch of rules and regulations. You don't have
to be told all this stuff to love her. Why? You love her. You do all these things right
here for her. Why? You love her. If you love them,
It will be good for you to read over these notes. It will be
good for you to listen to the sermon. But you will do everything
I am saying. And it will just be natural for
you to do it. Because you love them. That is what I am saying.
Love them. Now let me read this and we will
end. 1 Peter 5 verse 1. I'm going to read this, I think
this whole thing here would be good for us to read too, down
to verse 10. Listen to this. The elders which
are among you I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of
the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory
that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among
you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly,
not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being
lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, Yea,
all of you be subject one to another, be clothed with humility,
for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that
He may exalt you in due time. casting all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because
your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom
he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith." That means steadfastly
looking to Christ. Knowing, don't forget this now,
the same afflictions are being accomplished in your brethren
that are in the world. Don't ever think, poor pitiful
me, nobody knows how I'm feeling. We like to be proud about our
suffering, don't we? Your brethren are suffering the
same thing. But the God of all grace, who
had called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that
you suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen,
settle you to Him. to Him be glory and dominion
forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray together. Our gracious Father, we thank
You for sending Brother Kevin here and for giving the brethren
here a heart for him and him a heart for them. We pray, Lord,
that You'd make these words now to truly be effectual in his
heart and their hearts Lord, bless this work. We trust that this is You giving for the first
time a faithful pastor. And we trust, Lord, that You'll
bless it. And we ask You to bless it. Be with Brother Kevin as
he makes mistakes Teach Him through those mistakes and teach the
brethren through them. And cause one another's hearts
to be tender toward each other. Cause each of them to have much
longsuffering and kindness and love for each other. And Lord,
cause him to preach Christ high. High and lifted up. And cause
him to preach sinners down. down in the dust. And bless it,
Lord, for Your honor, for Your glory. Make this a work where
Your light shines. Make this a work where You're
exalted. And Lord, if there be some lost
sheep in this area, we pray You'd call them out through Your Gospel.
We pray You'd establish this work and truly add to it daily
such as should be saved. Be with Kimberly. Bless her. Give her a heart with the women
and them a heart with her. Help her to know how to speak
and what to do. And be with the children. Lord, this
is Your work. We trust it into Your hand. We
thank You for what You've done. Thank You for Christ our Redeemer.
Forgive us, Lord, of our sins. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen.