When you think of the word labor,
what comes to mind? I know for the ladies in the
room, they're thinking, God help us, help our souls, our bodies,
our minds, because they probably think, those who are mothers,
about childbirth. Men in the room think about the
backstabbing, overwhelming pain of working hard, or the horror
of the labor that they saw their wife go through. or a little
bit both. There's celebration when a man
thinks about childbirth. Well, we get to have a kid and
thank God it's not me. But there's also sadness in that
because we see that one which we love so dearly, our flesh
of our flesh, the bone of our bones, suffer greatly. We think
about labor with our hands and work. We often look at work in
a way that is unbiblical. We look at work as a curse. We look at work as, wow, we have
to do this, but it's not what we should be doing. Friends,
I want you to change your mindset on work. In the creation that we see in Genesis, the Bible
teaches that God gave work to man and woman before the fall.
so that then work is actually not just something that we have
to do, it's part of God's miraculous, glorious, absolute, gracious
giftedness to us. Because of the fall, however,
work is vain. We build, it falls down. We fix,
it breaks. We rake, they die. We cut, it
grows. We plant, we have to continually
harvest, toil and de-weed. We save, tire blows out, arm
gets broken, layoffs, this, that and the other. So the idea of
work should be that of a gift. For no one created in the image
of God is created to not work. Not one. Not male nor female. Neither of them are required
not to work. Work is part of who we are in
the image of God. God works. We should work. No, this isn't a sermon for you
teenagers. Parents are looking going, you
better listen to this, get a job. That's not the point of this.
The point is I want us to have in our minds how we feel about
work. Yes, work is difficult, but work should be fulfilling
in the sense that we recognize it as a gift from God. It is
how God is. A working God. God does not slumber. God does not sleep. God holds
up the universe by the word of His power. Therefore, He does
not rest. The seventh day and the Sabbath,
as we call it. We don't call it the seventh
day because it would be Saturday. We still call it a Sabbath, spiritually
speaking. The day when God rested. He rested
from what? From creation. Not work. He didn't rest from being active
as God. He didn't rest from stopping
and doing nothing and just stopped His eminence. He didn't stop
His omnipotence. He didn't cease to be all-knowing. God didn't just park it and turn
on the tube, kick His feet up, make Him a lemonade and say,
I'm done. To heck with it all. No. God rested from creation. God finished the work that He
did and He rested from that day of creation. Now, this isn't
a day to talk about God's rest. That's a very deep subject. And
I don't want to implicate error here by just being ambiguous. But let's take for granted, let's
take as fact, actually, that God does rest from creation and
He does so in an attempt to show us there's an opportunity for
us to rest. And if we do it in perspective,
God says we work six days, but on the seventh day you shall
not labor, and that's grace. Because work is a gift of grace,
but because of the fall of humanity, work is very, very difficult.
It takes away from us a lot more than it should. When it's 105
degrees in a heat index and you're outside holding a sign, you're
not going to make it. Much less digging a ditch, laying
a brick or climbing on a roof. It's just going to naturally
suck the life out of you. When you're in labor for 15 hours
to deliver a child into the world, it doesn't matter if you're conscience
or if you've been passed out from pain. When you get through,
your body is going to go, I'm done, I need to rest, I need
to heal. So a day of rest is a day of
grace. is a day where God, before the
fall, predestined an opportunity for us to have a break from that
labor. But it's not a break from work,
it's a break from the work of this world. But the work of our
soul, the work against the flesh, the work to worship, all those
things, it gives us an opportunity then to take away all the necessities
of life in labor and to labor then in the work of worship,
which is what we want to do. It's why we long to be here.
It's why we would not miss fellowshipping together at any cost, because
we want that time to worship God. You realize a day off is
never been intended since the day of creation to be for us. Work is for the Lord. Work is
as if unto the Lord. All that we do in labor is unto
the Lord. Even in the consequence of sin, we labor with joy that
sometimes is inexpressible. But we still work as unto the
Lord, as a gift from God, we work. And when we have no time
for work because it is the day of rest, we then have all the
opportunity to answer the excuse that we've had Monday through
Saturday to say, well, I don't have time to worship. I don't
have time to study. I don't have time to read. I
don't have time to share the Word. I don't have time to really
relax and focus on the Lord. I've been so busy. I've been
so stressed out, which I could argue that none of us are really
that busy and that stressed out. I can argue that and prove it,
but we won't go there. And then that day that we have
opportunity for rest, then we're like, yes, now I get to do what
I want to do. Are we wanting to do that which
is gloriously opportunistic to worship the Father? Or would we rather do something
else? See, there is no such thing as
time off. And to steal away from some of my friends here recently
in this community, it's not a day off, it's a day on. The Sabbath,
the time that we have away from the work of the world and the
necessity of eating and clothing and shelter, which is what we
work for, not everything else. Everything else is just idolatry,
materialism, sin. All that stuff is just sin, sin,
sin. And we can call it what it is, but it is what it is,
and that's okay. And God will bring conviction
in our hearts on some things and some things He wants. It's
not wrong to have, it's wrong to covet, it's wrong to worship,
it's wrong to love the things of the world, hold it loosely
with our hands. We have all that we have by the will of God the
Father anyway. None of us have ever earned a
wage. God has granted that wage through the labor of our bodies,
of our minds, of our hands. We're not owed anything, maybe
by the law of the federal government, but we're not owed anything.
God does not owe us anything. And that man that owns cattle
all over the world can in one day lose all things. The richest
people in the world can one day be paupers in the gutter. And
the one who is in the gutter can one day be the richest in
the world by the will of God. We're not entitled to anything,
beloved. As the church, we recognize that. We understand that grace
abounds in the life of the church and even the life of the reprobate.
Not salvifically, but providentially. God allows the reprobate to eat
and to live. And sometimes even the church
starves while the world lives with the right abundance. But
when you think of work, I want you to think of it as a gift.
And you might think to yourself, well, my job is stressful. It's
all jobs are stressful. Anyone that just says they have
no burdens is not working. And the same is true for ministry.
And that's where Paul goes today in chapter five, verse 12 and
13, he begins to start exhorting and admonishing these Christians
of this of this city. to understand something about
those who labor among them. And Paul is careful with his
word there, and when he uses the word labor, it's supposed
to give the connotation of incredibly difficult work. Now, I will tell
you this. Throughout my pastoral seasons,
the first half of those, I saw all the angst and anguish and
frustration and bothersomeness and just, I don't know how many
adjectives I could come up with off the top of my head, but just
plain dark and dirty, hands-on, in-the-gutter work. And thought,
when is God going to get these people saved so that we can enjoy
the work of the ministry? Because I have been taught through
example and explicitly by many men, well meaning, oh ministry
is a calling of God and it's going to be glorious and you're
going to enjoy it. Anything that gets in the way
of that enjoyment is not what God wants. I've even had pastors tell me
they have no burdens at all in their life. They love what they
do so much, they're not worried, they have no anxiety, they don't
have anything to think about, their prayer life is so easy,
their home life is so easy, and I'm thinking, what devil are
you worshipping? Because that's not even indicative of the basic
Christian sitting at their kitchen table, much less the man of God
called to stand and shepherd the flock of Christ. But I believed
in that for so long, just like many of us believed that work
was just a penalty. Work is a gift. The work of the
ministry is not going to be any different than the work on the
farm. It's going to be hard. You're going to sweat. You're
going to hurt yourself. You're going to be hurt. Your animal is going to
bite you. Your sheep are going to run off a cliff. You're going
to step in a plop every now and then. You're going to scrape
it off. Shovel it up. It's going to get in the carpet.
Stink up the house. It's going to be a mess. God in His wisdom used us as
the imagery of sheep. He created sheep in the world
and shepherded them just so we could look at it like a mirror
and say, that's exactly how we are. We're just bad people just
walking around, following each other. We went to lunch with
my father-in-law yesterday and it was just a real quick moment
of like, wow, look how easy it is to follow the crowd. We parked
at the front door of the restaurant. And as we're all piling out,
you know, it's like a clown car, we just keep coming. And Mike
laughed at that one. We just keep coming, we're coming
out of the restaurant, you know, the poor sucker that holds the
door for us just stands there for a while. And Abigail wants
to lead the pack, so she comes out the door and tears down the
sidewalk, passes the van and keeps on going. Robin walks out,
just walking behind Abigail. Her dad walks out, walking behind
Robin. And I walk out, walking behind him, and I'm like, We
park out there, you know, what are we doing? And we just had
a really good laugh about it. And that's how we are as sheep.
We just fall off the cliff. It's proven that sheep, if one
lamb or one sheep falls off a cliff, others will just keep flopping
right off behind them. They'll just flop one after another.
The whole herd falls off a cliff. They'll just walk off the cliff
together. And so when you think about God's creation of sheep,
and the fact that He calls us that we're like sheep without
a shepherd. That's what we are. So what do
we expect the work of the ministry to be? Fun? What's fun? How would we define that anyway?
I would define fun, without trying to get Merriam-Webster in it,
I would define fun as things that give us gratification. things that are enjoyable, things
that are fulfilling, sometimes things that make us laugh, but
sometimes, you know what? It's fun to cry. It's fun to watch a movie that's
touching. It's fun. You might think, well, that sort
of got me, but I enjoyed that. Is that not fun? Why does fun
have to be hooting and hollering, a party on a dance floor? Why
does fun have to be everything that doesn't allow us to deal
with the things in front of us? Why does fun have to be So misconstrued. Friends, if we want to use the
word fun, which I probably think we should drop it. But if we
want to use it, I think that the work of the ministry should
probably be the funnest stuff that we ever do. The problem
is we've misunderstood ministry. We think that ministry is what
so many so-called congregations and churches have developed through
the years to plug people into and assimilate them into an ownership
of a program, and the program and the principles behind that
program become the driving force and the power behind the throne.
And then we get to exalt about the amount... I mean, it's like
coming and saying, look at all the things that we're doing,
and they're full of people. When we should be as ministers
of the gospel, as Christians who are also ministers of the
gospel, we should be looking at the individual lives that
are being impacted by the work that we do every day. Not the
masses, not the multitudes. God Himself, Jesus Christ the
Son, the Creator of all the universe, did not burden Himself with the
masses. So if we want a ministry like
Jesus, we're going to pick twelve, we're going to really spend time
with three, and we're going to go into the midst of millions
and we're going to pick out one. We're going to go into the multitudes
of all the communities and we're going to find one or two. And
we're going to find one that has a need that the same person
next to him has a need, and we're going to ignore that need, we're
going to attend to his need, draw him into the gospel, and
save him. That's what Jesus did. When Jesus
went to the pool of Bethesda, He did not go and say to all
those tens of thousands of invalids, I'm going to heal you all. He
went to one. And He healed him by commanding him to take up
his mat and walk when the man had no faith to even believe
that Christ could heal him. And then it says, then Jesus
vanished. But there were many sick. I thought
the ministry was about that. That would be so fun to go touch
heads and heal everybody. But why in the world would we
heal the bodies of the multitudes when their souls would go to
hell? Why would we feed the multitude
of hungry when just a few hours later they would digest that
food and be hungry again and they would never have bread that
was eternal life? Work of the ministry is hard.
It's not fun in the day's standard of what fun is. It is fulfilling,
it is glorious, it is beautiful, and it is something that is going
to be laborious. So now Paul to these Christians
in verse 12 and 13, look at this. He says, We ask you, brothers,
to respect those who labor among you, and are over you in the
Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love
because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.
Now there's a lot there. Some of the greatest problems
that we've ever seen in our world today is bloggers. You know what
a blogger is? A self-proclaimed journalist.
A self-proclaimed expert. A self-proclaimed pundit. And
everybody's got something to say. Now, albeit, I'd rather
them say it on their personal website than on my Facebook page.
But, you know how it is. We all have opinions. We all
have thoughts. And some people, and I'm thinking
of some people right now, that I read almost every day. I read
for probably 30 minutes a day, read 10 to 15 articles for about
a 30 minute period, then I'm done. I don't read anything else.
And so as I read some of that, I'm like, this is good, this
is good. But every now and then, these good guys that write some
good stuff, some good theological things, they'll bring something
to my desk that'll cause me to stop and stumble. They'll bring
something to my desk that will cause me to question that which
I'm doing in the labor of the Lord. There's nothing wrong with
questioning. I think as if we think about,
just like I said, what do you think about work? I hope that
it questioned your belief system when it comes to work. Maybe now that you think about
work like that, what is retirement? An opportunity to work without
compensation. That's what retirement is. To actually, actually be
a Titus 2 woman and a man in the church who teaches the younger
and spends time with them. But when we think about some
of the things that we hear in this particular article, it specifically
dealt with preaching and how preaching that a good sermon
has five different key elements. And I'm like, I hate stuff like
this. Let me look at it. So I looked
at it and I thought, I don't use that. I don't do that. I
don't do that. So I made a 40 on the test. And I labored over that for a
few hours in my mind that day. And I thought, hmm. Well, let me try to put in those
three things as I prepare for this morning. And you know what? It doesn't work. It doesn't work. There's no pigeonhole. If God's
word is a letter written to these people, then an exposition, this
letter written to them should work in the same way as if it
were written to us. So for me, to be a successful preacher according
to this particular guy, then I must sit down and labor over
the creativity of how to infuse this text today into each of
your personal lives in such a degree that the application hits home
right here. It's not that I don't disagree. You hear me say all the time,
you listen to sermons that were preached years ago or preached
to another congregation. They're not for you. They're
good for us, but they're not for you. When I pray every day,
I'm thinking of your faces, and your names, and your homes, and
your situations, and your circumstances. So then the Lord, in His sovereignty,
will make this sermon work. But if I were to take this same
sermon and preach it exactly the same way for another church
down the road who I don't know, is it really theirs? Now, can
it be used? Absolutely. Would it be good?
Yes. But I disagree wholeheartedly that the man of God needs to
be creative. I disagree wholeheartedly that the man of God ought to
labor more on application than he does exposition. I disagree
wholeheartedly that a good sermon is something you can put into
practice. And this sermon today is basically
helping us understand the labor of the pastor for your good and
for your joy. That's the point. So what's the application? You
understand. You understand the point of being
the body of Christ. You understand the relationship
of the elders with the church and the church with the elders
or the congregation. You understand by whose authority
the pastor teaches. You understand by what way and
by what tools the pastor is going to do. You understand sort of
the role. And it makes our relationship better. It doesn't have to be
twisted to such a way where it starts to point to every little
application opportunity that comes along. It doesn't have
to be molded to be creative so that people can put it on the
back of a postcard and say, oh, there's that point. There's a
pastor in Atlanta whom I do not respect at all. I use the term
pastor very lightly, but that's the office in which he holds,
so I will not judge the man. But I do judge what the man says,
because I'm supposed to. So are you. When someone speaks
for God and says that this is what the Lord has said, and God's
Word disagrees, they are a liar. And to continue to allow that
stuff to come into our hearts and lives, I won't mention his
name, but he's probably one of the largest churches in Atlanta. Baptist church. And he wrote a book about communication. And in that book, he talks about
exposition, and he says, he's got a whole chapter on this,
and it starts out by making the premise that exposition, which
is what we do, and it's what we'll always do, long after I'm
dead, Grace Truth Church will have always an expositor in the
pulpit, or she will not exist. Exposition, first statement he
makes, is lazy. Lazy. Let me tell you something
about lazy. When I was preaching to thousands
of people on Sundays and Saturdays, I could come Sunday morning,
right before service, look at the one verse I'm going to preach
or the topic, get me four points, boom, I'm ready. Oh, I should
have done a PowerPoint. People are weeping in the aisles.
Oh, that was a great word of God. It was not. It was a flatulence
of my brain. That's what it was. That's lazy. You know what it takes to preach?
It's to cry before the Lord. God, you better show me something
in this text. What in the world are you trying
to... This doesn't even make sense to me. How am I going to
tell them something about it? What's the application here,
Father? How about just shut up and listen? I wish God would say that to
me sometimes, just out in the blue, just shut up. I mean, you
know, it'd be good. It'd make my mind a little bit
at ease. But then when He didn't say it,
then what would I think? So we just look, we labor. Friends,
shepherding of the church is labor. And Paul is saying, there
are those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord.
and those who admonish you, respect them and hold them in high esteem
and love." Now, this seems like a self-serving sermon, but it's
not because it's one of these things where, as I see this,
and I know what Paul taught Titus, and I know what Paul taught Timothy,
and I'm like, wow, I'm forever must be in the reflective...
place of reflection, of looking and qualifying and disqualifying
my life in certain areas and knowing that there is a great,
great reward for being faithful to the Word of God and there's
a great, great penalty when I'm not. You know what the penalty
is? You suffer. You come to be fed and I shove
garbage in your mouth and you're hungry. Or you're grieving over
things in your life and there's no power there. And so you seek
counsel somewhere else because the Word of God isn't being given
to you. That is a serious consequence. Which is why James says in James
3.1, not many of you ought to be teachers, brothers. For those
who teach will be held to a stricter judgment. So what is it that Paul wants
us to see here? Well, let's look at a couple of these things.
Let's just break it down very simply. And let's look at the first thing
we see. It says, We ask you, brothers, to respect those who
labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish
you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their
work. Be at peace among yourselves.
The first thing we see there is we ask you. Now, you know
how our children are, parents. We say, hey, would you take out
the trash? Or would you wash the dishes?
Or would you mind making up this bed? Or would you watch the baby
for a little while? Or would you go rake the yard?
Or would you clean out the car? And it's so funny because children,
no matter what, sometime in their life, they'll actually, every
now and then, think you're actually asking them a question. And sometimes
I'm like, no, I don't really want to do that. I'm like, wait
a minute, let's back up and let's put this in perspective. When
I say, would you go wash the dishes, that's a polite way of
saying, go wash the dishes. And sometimes you have to say,
I command you to go do these things. Oh, that's
what Paul's doing here. We exhort, we admonish, we command.
So command. Beseech is a command. It's not
a suggestion. You don't see suggestions in
the Word of God. God commands and we follow because we know
the voice of our Shepherd. When God's Word says, this is
how it is, no matter how hard it rubs against our belief system,
we walk in the way of Christ because it brings us the greatest
joy, because we know the voice of our Shepherd. If we reject
the voice of God through the Word, we reject the gospel of
Jesus. And we say that we are not filled
with the Holy Spirit of God, ergo, we are not of God. Now,
it's one thing to say, I know and I want to, but I'm not. That's
rebellion. Not going to do this. Fine. Be there. Understand the consequences
of that. What does a father do with a
child that doesn't obey? He disciplines that child. Why?
To bring it into line. To bring it into correction.
To restore the joy of that child. Because disobedience always brings
damage and disaster and distress and destruction. There's another
D in there somewhere. See how easy that is? That's how I used
to write sermons. Just that easy. But discipline means that we're
truly children. Somebody else's child is acting
up, I may say something to it, but it tells me, it cusses at
me. Talk to your dad. You know, like if you're out
in the mall and some punk kid says something trashy to you,
you just sort of, you go on. But if your child says something,
it's like, oh, trip's over. We're going home. Can we have
a to-go box? I mean, you know, we haven't brought your food
out, but we're just going to put it in a to-go box. Appreciate
that. What's wrong? Is there something
wrong with the food? Just put it in a to-go box. We're trying
to avoid a crime scene here. Put it in a to-go box. So we discipline, we fall
back into line. We are saying to you, brothers,
Paul says, brothers and sisters, that's a pluralistic word there. It's like humanity or mankind. All you Christians in the church
of Thessalonica, we are telling you to respect those who labor
among you. Now, in our vernacular, that
idea gives the connotation that pastors are something else. Better respect pastors. I've
got friends, or let's put that this way. I want to stop using
that word so freely too. I have associates, people that
I know and have worked with in certain places all over the country,
who have people that pick them. They're just like me and you,
you know. Our shoes go on, we take baths, we clean our backsides,
all the same. They have people that pick them
up on Sunday mornings from their house. And they open the door
for them, they get in the back of this car and they drive up
to the church. They go to the office and they
get a shave from somebody else. All this other sickening garbage.
You get their manicure. You know what? Manicure like
this. I mean, you know how that works. I do not bite my nails,
but anyway. I'm not above it. I just think
it's weird to put your hands in your mouth. And they come out, not just like
Deer Park, but I mean like water that you can't pronounce and
crystal glasses, you know. And I've seen one of these guys
one time that come out, and I'm going to be speaking at this
particular church that I'm thinking of right now, and the water wasn't
exactly the right brand, and he made a big deal out of it. Sorry, Pastor. Sorry, Pastor.
Sorry, Pastor. Young brother gets in the car,
goes like 20 miles away to get that right water, bring it over
there for that man. I'm like, let me get that. I found that
empty bottle from last week, went inside that urinal, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. Some anointing. Or just take that
deer, park and pour it in there. He'd never know the difference,
okay? I'm being funny. But if I get
like that, you just feel free to get the water right out of
there. Respect does not mean that. We're
not worthy of that kind of... Respect is not like that at all.
Respect in this particular verse, means to recognize those who
labor among you as laborers. That's what it means. Look for
those people who are what? Laboring among you and recognize
them as those who labor among you. That's totally different
than what the world thinks. In other words, we see men of
God working in the church and we go, hey, that's a man of God
working for the church. He's working for the church.
Let's recognize that he's working for the church, much like Jesse's
testimony. Never going to be an elder. Never
called the pastor. Never called to that. I'm just
going to evangelize. That's about it. And all of a sudden he's
doing the work of an elder. And the church goes, are you
an elder? Oh, no, you're not. Why are you
doing the work of an elder? That's the point. You recognize
the worker, not put somebody in a role and say, now get to
work. You never put somebody in a role and say, get to work.
That's what's wrong with so many organizations and businesses
today. We look at somebody on paper who've never worked and
we say, well, you can do this. Well, anybody can do anything.
But can you do this? Will you do this? Are you successful
in this? A man is not called of God until he's actually doing
the call of God. There's no such thing as a man
called to the ministry who's not preaching. There's no such
thing as a man called to the ministry who's not praying. There's
no such thing as a man called to the ministry who's not learning
the Word of God, who's not about to get fired because he won't
get up off his butt from the Bible and get to work on time.
But he does because he wants to honor God with his job. There is no such thing as someone
who is appointed to a role, then starts to work the role. The
role is recognized by the work among them. And in our short
tenure here as Grace Truth Church, I've seen three brothers that
come in here, and after about a month or so, they're like,
I'm called to preach. Well, you better be preaching. Well, when
are you going to give me the pulpit? Two years from now. That's what I tell them every
time. Two years from now. What? Two years. I said, yeah,
see them books, read them books. See that Bible? Next time I see
you at lunch without a Bible, we start over. Man called to God and ain't never
got a Bible. What's on the phone? No, it ain't. That's Angry Birds,
don't lie to me. No, it's Pokemon Go. I know what
it is. Nobody's called of God if they're
not working with God and for God and for the sake of the gospel
ministry. That's baloney. Nobody's just been itching to
teach. What they're itching for is title.
What they're itching for is responsibility that they don't want. They want
to just be recognized for it. Everybody wants a Ph.D. hanging
on the wall. Well, just go get your children
to draw you one. Look at there. Ph.D. of fatherhood. That's perfect. And it's funny. And it's true, you know? And
a PhD can prepare you for fatherhood. Church, respect these who labor
among you. Recognize those who look like
they're laboring. So now we're like, well, what
does it look like to labor? There are three ways. What does Paul say? Those
who labor among you, they're working, they're over you in
the Lord, and they admonish you. They admonish you. So let's look
at those three things in context. The first one, labor for the
church. They're laboring for the church. You know what that
looks like? Laboring for the church. Hard working men working
for the sake of the church. You know what that doesn't mean?
Cleaning, weed eating, painting. But I've never met a pastor who
didn't do those things, unless they were crippled or something,
you know? Any man that can do anything,
they'll do much anything. That's not the role, that's not
the point. You don't see a guy who's really good in his business
and say, well, he'd be a good pastor, he'd be a good elder.
This man would be a good deacon because he can manage people.
Managing people is not what makes a servant. Serving people is
what makes a servant. We see people serving while they're
a deacon. That's what the word means. Why
do we use the word deacon? Because it's a transliterated
word from the Greek word diakonos. You can't say to the high elites
of the Anglican Church of the day of the English translation,
you can't say the word slave to these people. Because it messes
with their social class. You can't say the word submerge
to these people if they're sprinkling. You can't say the word servant. They're a leader, they're not
a servant. You see? So sometimes we have words, we
just have to dig a little bit deeper into the meaning. So what does it mean to labor
for the church? These people who are working. Not the people who
are wanting to work, not the people who are wanting a title,
not the people who feel the call, but people who are answering
that call, despite what people recognize, people who are working
for the church. And they're working among the
body. See, I know a lot of pastors, and I've been guilty of this
too, who have their own personal ministry that they spend 30 hours
a week on, doing all their own things, flying all over the country,
doing all this kind of stuff, and then they pop in from time
to time to preach to the church. That's a hired hand. I don't
know what that is. That's not somebody that's laboring for
the church. That's not somebody who's always gone and doing this
and doing that and building their own federation of a ministry
and saying, oh, I'm called. No, people are working for the
sake of the body. That's why it's so deplorable
that several years ago, a local church here, they discerned that
the man was not only using somebody else's sermons, but buying them. To which I replied to that particular
person who told me that, well, he could have asked me, I'd have
given him mine for free. He'd have never been able to preach
them. But those who labor are working,
not wanting to work. They work for the sake of the
body, among the body. They're not working down the
street. They're not working in another state. But you know what?
That person should be our pastor. That's sinful, y'all. We don't
search for pastors the way we search for presidents of a company. We don't search for people to
come in and shepherd the flock by putting out an all-call with
a salary requirement and a benefits package and all that kind of
stuff. Who wouldn't answer that? I'll tell you who does answer
that. Every charlatan on demand. Well, now that's a little harsh.
I'm not saying every person answers as a charlatan, but the charlatans
will. You see what I mean? That's not allowing a six-year-old
on Facebook and thinking the pedophiles aren't going to bother
them. Yeah, right. They're going to find them. Those who are laboring
among you. That's why the plurality of eldership
in the local church is not just good, it's commanded. To place elders in every church,
in every city, there needs to be a consistent plurality of
men in the church who not only will oversee the body, but oversee
each other. And when one kicks the bucket
or gets kicked out on his butt, that there is not a lurch in
the church. And if a pastor isn't preparing
other men to take his place when he dies, what good is he? See,
the problem is we've got a messed up way of thinking about the
church in the world. That's another sermon. Those
who labor, labor for the sake of the body, who are among the
body, who are working already, and they do so sacrificially,
and they do so in a qualified way. Where do we find that? In
Timothy and Titus. We see what the qualifications
are for the elder and the qualifications are for a deacon. So these are
not men who are high in high society. These are not men who
are businessmen. These are not men who have a
good social status. These are not men who do good
social work. These are not men who are volunteers in their community.
These are not men who come from good pedigree. These are not
men who have superb references and great ministry performance
and impressive schooling. These are not men who are good
with people, who people will love. Oh, that guy's got a great
personality. He'll be good for our pastor. I know clowns who have great
personalities. What is it the Spurgeon said? There will come
a time when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, it will be
clowns entertaining the goats. Men called of God to shepherd
and labor for the church are not lovers of sports. They don't
cancel church services and put people in church services to
preach for them because of their sports requirements. They don't
become coaches. They don't put other things before
the body of Christ. They're not out for their own
money and their own fame and their own business and their
own prestige and their own voice and their own publishing. They're
not idolatrous of their time. They're not idolatrous of their
calling. They're not idolatrous of their
plans. Uh-oh, they're not idolatrous of their families. So those who are working hard
in that way, we should see that. We should also look at the fact
that the work is difficult because it's called labor. It's not called
administration, it's called work. The work is difficult. The work
is manifold. It's difficult because it is
always at the will of the Father, not the plans of men. Everything
we plan to do is going to be thwarted because the will of
the Father is going to be put forth. The work is difficult
because the labor of the gospel means that one cannot live the
American dream. Living in the gospel means you
cannot live the American dream, church. You cannot serve one
God and another. The work is manifold because
it is driven to many corners. It is driven into the lives of
many difficult people through trials and through fire. And
it is driven and guided through the preaching of the Word, from
the preaching of the Word, from the study of the Word and the
labor of the Word. It's manifold as we pray and
teach and learn. It's manifold because the work
is staggered. It's often complementary of the
work of God through others. Let me give you some examples
of this type of labor, this difficult and manifold labor. Labor is
a family effort. Labor is a team effort. Paul
says in 1 Corinthians 3, he who plants and he who waters are
one. And each will receive his wage according to his labor.
So we got some that plant and some that water. Friends, success
in ministry is not seeing a thousand baptisms. Success in ministry
is being faithful to the call of God and never giving up the
call and never quitting the work, no matter how hard it gets or
how difficult the job is. Success is resting in the faithfulness
of God and the call of God. And other people will plant before
you, and other people will water after you. Friends, it should
not hurt our feelings. It doesn't hurt my feelings when
I preach. for 53 weeks on a particular book, and somebody in here just
goes, I just don't get it, I just don't know how the Lord... And
then somebody on the sidewalk reminds them of something, they
go, oh, I get it, and you come and tell me. Oh my Lord, the
Lord showed me through a stranger today. I've just been liberated. I don't go, well, why didn't
you listen to me? I'm like, praise God for the one who waters. Praise God. Labor is effective as the Lord
wills. It never changes the course. In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58,
it says, Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable,
always abandoning the work of the Lord, knowing that in the
Lord your labor is not vain. No matter how it looks, the labor
is not vain. The Word of God is going to do
the work it's supposed to do in the will and the timing of
God. So what do we do? You know what I used to do? Pull
my hair out, fret. just be broken, there's nothing
I can do, what can I say? Get out my notebook and play
with words and sentences to see if I can come up with a more
creative way of infusing the programming that I was trying
to get you to see. If I get the right words, it'll program your
brain. It's not about your brain, it's about God transforming your
heart. So I teach, you hear, God gives you ears to hear, eyes
to see. You see them through your ears,
that's fine too. Labor is costly. In 2 Corinthians 6, 5, Paul says
that we had beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights,
hunger, and on and on and on. And some pastors lived too comfortably.
Some churches are set up where people that get problematic,
well, maybe this just isn't the place for you to be. You know what they're really
saying? We don't love you. And we're not willing to suffer
to work with you. And we're not willing to allow
your level of maturity to bring us to a place of halt. Because
we've got things to do. Evil. Labor. It's costly. Labor and
the work of the ministry is empowered by the power of God, not the
power of man. For this I toil, Paul says in Colossians 1.29,
struggling with all, what? His energy that He powerfully
works within me. It's the work of God. Friends,
there are many times I don't feel like physically even opening
my Bible. What am I going to do? How am
I going to prepare? What am I going to say? What
in the world? I feel like dying. I'm tired. Don't envision me sitting with
my feet up all day, just watching the angels fly around my house.
Hearing people sing Kumbaya until 6.30 and then we eat a nice little
meal and chew our food completely and swallow it. Man, it's like
chaos in our lives some days. And when we're older and all
of our children, it'll be less chaos. But when we have a family,
when you have a family, it's chaos. It's controlled chaos. And you work within those things. Someone told me a long time ago,
when I only had one child, you know, you've got to make sure
that you can handle multiple children because your children
are going to have to really walk a firm chalk line when it comes
to the pastoral ministry. Well, I've seen my children draw
chalk lines. I know what they look like on the concrete. They're
all over it. So just stay on this pad and you're fine. That's
how we walk in my house. Where are you going? Over here,
please. Is that not the same way we govern
ourselves? Labor is empowered by the power
of God. It's not what we do even in raising our own children.
How in the world is it going to be any different in our churches? In
our own lives? How many of you have the power
to really live for Christ right now? None of us. None of us. Labor is concerning. It causes
great burden. 1 Thessalonians 3, 5, we've already
said this. For this reason, Paul was really frustrated and concerned
and burdened for the well-being of the church in Thessalonica.
He said, for this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I
sent to learn about your faith for fear that somehow the tempter
had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. It's concerning. Pastors are concerned with the
people in the church. If you're not here, it burdens
me. Unless I know. I'm not being
nosy. I'm not being controlling. I want to know. If one of my
children don't come home, if my wife isn't home one day when
I get there, I'm going to look for her. Why? Because that's
where she's supposed to be. Friends, we're supposed to be
together on the Lord's Day. And that's what we want. is concerning, labor is holding
fast to Christ. That's really what the work is
engaged in continually. Philippians 2, 16, holding fast
to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud
that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Not only doing
that as a pastor, but also encouraging each of you to hold fast to Christ.
Labor is prayerful. Labor is for our good. And so
from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking
that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all
spiritual wisdom and understanding." And the list goes on and on and
on. We see it. So that's what we look for. We
look for men in the church and pastors who are pastors, better
be qualified by how the Lord shows us in the Word and that
the work is being done. Is the work of the church being
done? Is the labor for your sake being
done. The pastor doesn't always just
labor those who lead the church. They lead the church, not just
work for the church. They also lead. Leading, by definition,
means that someone is what? Following. A mentor of mine told me years
ago, in a real fun but serious way, is if I'm I'm a leader and
I'm just out there and I'm going my way and I look behind me and
nobody's following me. I'm just a man taking a walk.
I'm not a leader unless others are following me. A dictator
is not a leader. A dictator stands up above everybody
with other people who are scared of him in the back pushing the
rest of them forward. A leader is someone who goes
the way he should go as the example, as we see all throughout Scripture, An example of righteousness and
holiness, repentance and forgiveness and forbearance. All these things.
Not an example of perfection. If you think I'm perfect, just
hang out with me. Come over there to the new building
and we'll tear out a toilet together. No, I won't cuss and scream. I'm not going to do that. But
it doesn't mean I don't want to. Or that it won't cross my
mind when it falls on your foot. Folks, quit lying to yourselves
to think that you're perfect. We are not perfect. But we are
perfectly sanctified in Jesus Christ. We are justified in Christ.
We are enabled and empowered to lead. And when we fail, we
repent. And when we fail to disqualification,
we resign. But we're still part of the body. A great tragedy is when a pastor
fails morally and needs time out of ministry, that his church
kicks him from the fellowship. They ought to put him in rehabilitation
and seek repentance. He ought to sit in the pew as
a member, under discipline, and listen to the preaching of the
Word, that one day God may even restore his mouth to proclaim
the gospel again. That's not what happens. That's
not what happens. Kick him out. Good riddance and then another
ministry pops up and there's no forgiveness, no repentance,
no cleansing, no nothing. Friends, pastors ought to lead
the church by living in front of the church. That's what it
means to be over you in the Lord. Over you is not the role of leadership,
it's the authority of leadership. Someone that is over you. I'm
not over you as your master. The Lord Jesus is over you. And
I point to Him in His way, and I walk in Him in His way, in
His power, that you follow in that way. Do you see that? The pastor is not a king. The
pastor is not a boss. The pastor is the first slave. the first to repent, the first
to forgive, just like I am in my home. What does it mean to
be the head of my home? The word husband means head. Andros means head. I'm not the boss of my family. I'm the first in my family to
live as Christ lived, to die to myself, to forgive, to show
repentance, to show forgiveness, to weep, to pray, to lead, to
challenge, to exhort, to admonish, to walk. I'm the first. When I'm not the first, I'm not
living as the head. Therefore, those who are over
you are like the Lord Jesus in their oversight. How is Jesus
in His oversight? Humble. Authoritative by the
Word of God. Submissive to the will of the
Father. Seeking your good. Dying for
your joy. more concerned about your hope
and faith in Christ than your friendship. Oversight entails copability.
I'm copable for that which I do in my life. I'm copable for the
places I take you. Jesse and Dave and Luke, our
lives are not fishbowls, but they are scrutinized. And what
we see in our lives is a reflection of the work of God, not the perfection
of Christ. Oh, Pastor Tippins, I mean, he
told me last Tuesday, I said this last Tuesday, that he's
a murderer. I am a murderer. My flesh is murderous. It's what
I would be if I were not saved. I can't imagine myself a murderer,
but I know it's there. I know it's there. And if the
Lord would not have saved me, who knows what life would be
like. Oversight entails culpability,
care, protection, feeding of the flock, fending for the flock,
fighting for the flock, defending the flock. Some examples of that
is... As we've already seen in 1 Thessalonians
4, 1, finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord
Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and
to please God just as you're doing, that you do so more and
more. See, that's what it means to
lead the church. I'm going to walk that way myself. I want to press
into Christ. I want to do all that I can do
to be an example and then share with you that example through
the Word of God. 2 Thessalonians 3, we're not there
yet, but verse 12, Persons we command and encourage in the
Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their
own living. So we seek that those who shepherd
the church there are to what? Three things. Labor for the church.
Live and lead for the church. And to light up the way for the
church. Admonish you. To light the way. Go this way. Don't go that way. See, that's
what it means. Exhort, admonish, beseech. Preaching is not just
for you to learn something and go, yeah, I've got some theology
under my belt. Thanks, appreciate that. Preaching is for you to
go, wow, got to change direction. Got to look that way. Got to
look that way. Got to stop looking here. Got to stop worrying there.
Got to stop loving that. I want to be like this. I want
to do like this. I want to walk this way. Wow, the Word of God
was powerful today. It's not me, y'all. I'm just
a mouth. God's Word works when it's taught to the church. That's
why I believe that not preaching through the letter ignores everything
that God was trying to say about the circumstance. Light up the way for the church.
Admonish you. Galatians 1.28, Him we proclaim,
warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that
we may present everyone mature in Christ. That's what we're
looking for. We're looking to see that we as a people grow
up in Christ. How do we grow? When we act like
little children, the Word of God matures us. When we're faithless,
we see that the Word teaches us that God is faithful. Grows
our faith. When we're doubting, we start
to be strengthened by the Word of God. When we can't pray, we
learn that the Holy Spirit prays for us. When we hate our neighbor,
we learn that God should hate us, but He doesn't. In His kindness
and His love toward us, He gave us life through Jesus Christ,
so therefore we can forgive our neighbor. And we continually
mature in all these ways. And that's what the shepherds
of the flock are to do, through the authority of Jesus Christ,
is to continually put the Word of God into my life, into your
life, into the lives of each other. Because it's a two-way
street. It's a two-way street. And we light the way so that
everyone may be mature. You hear me say this a lot, but
one of the litmus tests of maturity in the church is joy. Can you
have joy in trials, through tears, in brokenness, in depression?
Can you have joy? Can you say, I know my heart, I know my mind,
I know my flesh, and it is broken and in disrepair, but the joy
of my soul is in Christ? It's maturity. And we're growing,
each of us are growing. Friends, we've not even gotten
started yet. We're not even gotten started yet. The one beautiful
thing that we've not had to deal with as a body is that we have
not had to deal with decades and decades of disease as an
assembly. But in all of our lives is decades
and decades of disease. of bad church experiences, of
bad theology, of bad practice, of bad this, of bad that. So
though it's not really affected us together, it's affected each
of us individually, and we have had to work through a lot of
that. It will take time for some of us to be okay with intimacy,
because when it comes to intimacy, it requires vulnerability. And that's part of maturing. Correction is pointing the way,
admonishing is seen in correction, through teaching, through personal
correction, transformation. This is living for the purpose
of influencing those who walk in the light of Christ. That's
what the shepherds do. So because of that, what does
Paul then command us all? To recognize, respect, recognize
these who do that. In verse 13, in closing, he says
this, "...and to esteem them very highly in love." Why? Because look at the work that
we're supposed to be about. We're supposed to be about the
work of laboring for your joy, laboring for your souls. Hold
with the highest regard in love these men who labor for you. Let me just steal away a couple
of things. I won't give you the verse and all, I don't remember
them all, but where we see the Scripture teach us this, as those
who give watch over your souls, as those who shepherd, those
who are worth double honor, those who labor for your joy, those
who lead as Christ commands, those who preach and teach and
admonish and exhort and rebuke and correct and train, those
who feed you, Those who defend you. Those who care for you.
Those who love you, as Paul would say, with all the affection of
Christ. Respect them. Recognize them.
And hold them in high honor in love. Because that's really the
ultimate end, isn't it? You know what? You owe me as
your pastor the same thing I owe you as your brother. Because
that's what it's all about. Love. Love. We don't disrespect those
whom we love. We don't dishonor those whom
we love. And when we do, it's short-lived. It's just, oh wow,
I have hurt the one that I love. Friends, we as the church have
been commanded and admonished and equipped to love each other
as the Lord teaches us. So we ought to love. The love
of the Lord. What does Paul say in Ephesians
4, verse 2? With all humility and gentleness and patience,
bearing with one another in love. Love for the Lord produces a
love for the Lord's work through others. We love what the Lord
does, even when it stings. Since the last Sunday of July
2007, the first time I said this to anybody, because I remember
it, I remember the look on this man's face when he came to me
and said, didn't even know my last name, we want you to be
our pastor. And I said, brother, you want
me to preach, but you would not want me to shepherd you. And what's the difference? I
said, you will listen to me, but when I tell you, you've got
to act on it and hold you accountable to it, you're going to have a
problem with me. No, no, no, it's what we need. Dude, he was
the first guy out of the chute wanting to cut my head off. Over
an offering plate. And a podium that I did not like
because I couldn't put this Bible on it. It was too small. You have to love people like
that. Shepherding causes change. A love for the body provides
proof of the unity of the body in Christ. Friends, love is not
clean. It's not. It's not neatly packaged. It's messy and hard and burdensome
and sometimes damaging. Sometimes it hurts your life
irreparably to love somebody. I'll never get over that, but
the love of God has walked me through it. And we who are married,
we know what that looks like, don't we? I've never hurt anybody
as badly as I've hurt my wife. Why? Because that's what happens
when you're with someone all the time. That's why it's so
convenient to come to church and go home and never be the
church. Because it's a wall that we put up. You're supposed to esteem me
and I'm supposed to esteem you in love. It's what we do as the
church. Love is the mark of the true
believer and it creates giving hearts. It creates humble hearts. It creates loyal hearts. It creates
truthful hearts. We speak the truth in love so
that we may grow in the maturity of Christ. Not just for the leaders,
but with each other. Look at that last phrase. Be
at peace. What does he say there? Among
yourselves. Just as you are at peace with
the shepherds of the church, be at peace amongst yourselves.
Be at peace with the body. Salt is good, Jesus says. But
if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?
Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. Jesus
would say that the world will know that you are My disciples
because you have love for one another. Church. Love is truly
tested when we are able to love those that are unlovable. When we are able to suffer for
the sake because somebody else in our lives get in the way of
our lives. Get in the way of our schedule.
Get in the way of our time. Church, every one of us in this
room is immeasurably selfish. And as we get older, every day,
we see more and more of that. We are not condemned for that.
Christ died for that selfishness. But we must recognize it. We
are selfish. Sometimes we show up to church
thinking, I tell you what, if it gets hot in there, I'm not
going to do it. Come back. Those kids, they get so loud.
I don't care if your kids are loud. What's more important?
Your kids being loud or them not being under the Word of God?
Then the devil can't use a crying baby? Let it bother you. I find that this works well.
That air conditioner is loud. It's okay. What's the remedy for that? We
love each other anyway. Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration. Comfort one another. Agree with
one another. Live in peace and the God of
love and peace will be with you. See, living as a people of unity,
living as a people of love, Why would he emphasize this idea
of loving and respecting the men who lead? Because so often,
maybe in the community here, we don't know why, but I know
in our community, in our culture, pastors are seen as those men
who do that job along with all these things. And if we don't
like it, we'll just change it. Like a pair of socks. Pastors
ought to be seen for what they are and for how God's called
them. but also as just as much of the
body of Christ as any of you. And I'm to look at you not as
someone who, Lord's over you, they just get it. And I used
to be like that, not for you, but I mean, years ago, unqualified,
shouldn't have been in the ministry, but well-meaning man said, there
you are, you do it, that's you, go. Nobody's against me. Nobody's
after me. Nobody's looking to hurt me.
See, that's how pastors think. We are a family saved through
Christ Jesus. And part of what this text teaches
us is that there is different roles inside this family, but
it's all for the same purpose. That we admonish one another
unto what? Love and good deeds toward each
other. You know what gets in the way
of that? Everything else. Everything. So we then rest,
strive, pray, hope in the sufficiency of Christ. You find yourself
unforgiving. You find yourself frustrated.
You find yourself angry, selfish. Christ has paid for those sins,
beloved. Christ has suffered on the cross so that you could
have eternal life. Christ has died in your stay. so that you could be the righteousness
of God? Do you believe in Christ as your salvation? Do you believe
on Christ as your hope? Do you believe on Christ and
all of His work and nothing you can do? The longer we sit trying
to get this together on our own power, the longer before we see
maturity. Father, the love that we have
for each other, the esteem and the honor that we have for each
other is not in us. It is not human. It is divine. So, Father, we thank You for
that. We thank You for giving us life
in Jesus Christ. We thank You for giving us the
text like this that we may pause and think about things that we
never think about. We just assume so much and we move on. It's
been a blessing for me. It guards me. It protects me. It warns me of just the great
responsibility I have to love and to lead as Christ has shown
us. Lord, as we admonish each other
to walk in the way of Christ by His power, not our own. Father, many things that were
said this day have quickened our hearts. Many things have
caused us to pause and consider our life Our salvation. Our hope. So, Father, give us
rest. Give us hope. Give us peace. So that we might know that we
are Your children. That we might be able to fulfill
the command of love. Father, let this day be a day
of glorious rest. as we honor You and worship You,
in Jesus' name, Amen.