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Treating God’s Appointed Shepherds
1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 - 10th June 2007
Andrew Lim
Let me say / this is one of the hardest message for me to preach
because this message will sound so very self-serving
It would so easily be perceived the wrong way
In a sense /it is better / for someone from the outside
to come in and preach this message
Over the last thirty years / I’ve shied away
from preaching those parts of the Scripture
that talks about the calling of the pastor / the task of the pastor
and the support of the pastor
I’ve always thought: “What would the congregation think
Is he feathering his own nest? / Why is he talking about himself?
So you can imagine how very hard it will be for me to preach this Word
Through a recent tragic scenario in my own life / the Lord has taught me
that it is vital to teach this subject of pastor-congregation relationship
and that both pastor and congregation would be all the poorer
if I avoid addressing it openly / with God’s Word as our guide
Let me begin by asserting a fact / a fact that is common to all shepherds
[BTW throughout this sermon I shall be using with words
shepherds and pastors interchangeably – because in this context they are]
And that is this / that in many churches / pastors are quitting
and they have become broken / disillusioned / and many embittered
And many who have left are still wounded
by the treachery / abuse / and torment
The prophet Jeremiah showed no exception
when he tried to evade the ministry
Few pastors are pastors because they wanted to be one
In my own situation / I fought off God’s calling for about eight years
before I relented / and allowed God to have me
Why / Because most pastors know that his task is an impossible one
- he’s got to be a father to so many people
indeed / in many church tradition he’s considered as a father
- Catholics call their pastor “Father”
- High Anglicans call their pastor “Padre”
- he expected to be so many things to so many people
- he’s expected to be in several places at the same time
- he’s expected to have all the answers
and he lives in a fish bowl / transparent / for all to watch
And this high and false expectation have disappointed far too many people
often with the result / that pastors have suffered greatly
they have been fractured by the lack of love
they have been devastated by the betrayal
and hurt / by the bitter hostility / even hatred shown to them
they have been made to suffer undue indignities
- blamed for what they didn’t do / blamed for what they do
they have been hurled false accusations
Ray Steadman says that in many churches
the pastor is treated nothing more than a hired servant
- they are expected to respond to the whims of the Church Board
or the vote of the congregation
they are treated with little or no respect
and at times are severely mistreated
And Steadman says / this is such a shame
John McArthur said these words “Rarely does a week go by in my life
when I am not involved personally with some pastor
who is feeling the agonies of an unappreciative / unloving
even cruel and abusive congregation”
A humble pastor who received some of the most unkind treatment
was Charles Simeon
When he was appointed 'curate-in-charge' at Trinity Church in Cambridge
the people in church did not approve of him
and for fifty-four years / the people gave him hell
- they refused to let him play his role as the Sunday afternoon teacher
and when he tried to hold a later Sunday evening service
the churchwardens locked the doors
while the people stood waiting in the street
Even on Sunday mornings / the pew-holders would lock the pew doors
and not the people have their seats
But so zealous was Simeon for God / that at his own personal expenses
he set up seats in the aisles / nooks and corners
But the wardens of the church came / took those seat out
and threw them in the church-yard
And when he tried to visit people in their homes
most doors would not be opened to him
And even after he had been there thirty years
many people continued to opposed him and gave him a hard time
Not many pastors / at the age of 53 / after 30 year’s of repeated opposition
would stay on / and not see that as a sure sign to move on!
At the university / unthinking young students
having been prejudiced against the pastor by the hostile congregation
slandered him with all kinds of rumors
- they said he was a bad man with a front of piety
- they repeatedly disrupted his services and caused a trouble in the streets
In 1807 / after 25 years of unimaginable hardship / his health failed
His voice gave way / he could only speak in a whisper
After preaching / he would feel more dead than alive
In this great affliction / he preached for 13 years / till he was 60 old
But he remained most faithful to God and the ministry
In 1819 / on his last visit to Scotland
- he felt the divine hand of God upon him / in the most unusual way
- he felt the Lord saying to Him
“I have doubled / trebled / quadrupled / your strength”
And at sixty years old / Simeon renewed his commitment to God
and preached vigorously for 17 more years
until two months before his death
There are many other such stories / Spurgeon for example suffered greatly
in the hands of people in his church as well
It doesn’t seem to matter how gifted / how faithful / how diligent
a pastor may be / It is simply an unbelievable fact
that some people in church will treat him most cruelly
In a survey of 3,000 churches / congregation members were asked
for the main reasons / why they dropped out of the church
the most common reply: / “I don't like the pastor”
Now / in the majority of these cases
we're not talking about pastors who are unfaithful
we're not talking about pastors who preach wrong doctrines
or who’re there for whatever personal gain they can get
out of the ministry’
we're not talking about wolves in sheep's clothing
We’re actually talking about honest / faithful / hardworking men
One of the main reasons / is due to the culture we live in
2 Tim 3:2 “In the last days / there will be difficult times
People will be lovers of self
and utterly self-centered / lovers of money
aroused by an inordinate greedy desire for wealth
proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters
They will be abusive / blasphemous / scoffing
disobedient to parents / ungrateful / unholy and profane”
We live in a sin-soaked culture and the church is not spared
even within the four walls of the church
there can be so much pride / selfishness / self-serving intentions
And the pastor can be so easily misunderstood
If he has a new car …………
There is no question / Satan has had a field-day
breaking up the church / mutilating friendships / and ditching the pastors
- he orchestrates that kind of thing
- he sows seeds of doubt in people’s minds / spreads rumors
- he instigates / insinuates / fans the flame of discontent
stirs and provokes
What did our Lord say / “The thief comes to steal and to kill”
How tragic that undiscerning Christians have been played into his hands
Of course there have been shepherds who are more like con-men in collars
of course there have been wolves in sheep’s clothing
but these men are few / and far in between
Most pastors have been honest men / who have heard God’s call
and they just want to answer that call
to be a part of building God’s kingdom
They are men who have seen what God is doing in the world
and they want the joy of having a slice of that
- to play a part to see the church grow
And whenever a pastor has the people’s support
the ministry can be a thing of unspeakable joy
And I don’t take my call for granted / I am deeply grateful to God
not only for calling me / and giving me the grace to answer that call
What a blessing / to be given the “unearthly” privilege
to speak to people as if God Himself were speaking
- it is both terrifying and most riveting
To be able to stand here each Sunday morning
and having heard from God
to then be His mouthpiece and deliver His message
No emperor / no king / no sultan / no President / no statesman / no general
no doctor / no lawyer / no judge / no military commander on earth
has such a grave responsibility
as the one called to shepherd the flock of God
And what a privilege to be given the job of praying for the people
Just imagine / my work is to pray for you
Just imagine this
I am actually paid / to wait on God for a Word from Him
I am actually paid / to listen to what God is saying
to feel for His pulse / and trace His soft whisper
Far out! / what an utterly staggering honorable and sublime task
It boggles the mind when you stop to think about it
And further / just imagine this / My work is to study
I am paid so that I may open my Bible and books in the morning
For a person who loves books / that’s absolutely astounding
I am actually paid to study the Word of God
I have always joked:
“I am paid to be good / You guys are good for nothing”
But seriously / along with that comes the hard yards
I’ve got to put in / / I’ve got to log in the hours / there is no short cut
In fact / the Word of God sets an incredibly high standard for the preacher
2 Tim 2:15 / Amplified Bible / “Study and be eager and do your utmost
to present yourself to God approved / tested
a workman who has no cause to be ashamed
correctly analyzing and accurately dividing
rightly handling and skillfully teaching / the Word of Truth”
That verse sets the benchmark for all preachers / worthy of their calling
It’s a call to study / it’s a call for me to do my utmost
It’s a call to me to present myself to God / approved
It’s a call to me to be a workman who has no reason to be ashamed
and for me never to be put to shame / means
“correctly analyzing / accurately dividing
rightly handling and skillfully teaching / the Word of Truth”
And that / can take a lot / out of any preacher
Now / in concrete terms / this is how it is translated in my week to week life
I was brought up in a school of preaching that demands
that I should put in an hour of spade-work behind ever minute I speak
In short / a 30 minute sermon
demands anything from 25 to 30 hours of sheer hard work
- quite often you back aches and your shoulders freezes
But for me / it is both a very solemn grave responsibility
as well as a thing of great joy and honor
30 hours / tucked away / hiding myself in my study
sometimes in my cabin which I have turned into holy sanctuary
30 hours / uninterrupted / in the presence of God
30 hours / immersed in the Word of God
examining the root-meaning of a word / checking its tense
What did Jesus say to Peter?
Three times / “Feed my sheep / feed my sheep / feed my sheep”
I have here in my hand one card I received
when I left my first church in Malaysia
Hebrews 13:17 / is a warning to all shepherds
“We have to give an account to God for the flock”
Then there is the input into people’s lives
Times have changed / and the pastor’s role has also changed somewhat
used to be that the pastor would be informed
- when there is a crisis in the home / a joy / a grief
- I used to be there / in the hospital / when a child is born
- these days things have changed
and the pastor is no longer expected to be present necessarily
But I want to be there / in the hilarious times and the sad times
I want to be there when a family member received news
that the tumor was in fact malignant
I want to be there when a member is trying to pull through in the ICU
- there / by the death-bed of a loved one
praying and comforting the family
- there / taking the funeral
I am there at the birth of a child / I take the weddings / I take the funerals
hatch / match / and dispatch / as they say
As a shepherd I am call to share with all in the ebb and flow of life
Thirdly there is the work of building for the future
I desire to build a leadership team from among you
- men and women / humble in spirit / willing in heart /gifted by God
- men and women who have the pulse and passion
for the growth of God’s kingdom
- men and women whom the Lord send in our midst
God is pulling a team together
Now / little did I realize that in expounding through 1 Thessalonians
that God is getting us as a young church / to take a careful look
at what His Word teaches us about our responsibility to our pastors
The health of a church / any church / is dependent
upon the understanding of the place of the shepherd in her midst
So /let us turn to out text / for this morning / 1 Thess 5, 12,13
“Now we ask you / brothers / to respect those who work hard among you
who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you
Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work
Live in peace with each other”
Just two verses / 12 and 13 / and yet the failure or success of a church
hinges vulnerably and precariously
This morning / you are urged to pick up three responsibilities
First v.12 / “Now we ask you / brothers / to respect those who work hard
among you / who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you”
NIV “respect” / Message “honor”
Amplified “recognize” them / “acknowledge” / “appreciate” them
In the Greek / it says “oida” / usually is translated “know” (Darby)
You could say / our first responsibility to our pastors
is get to “know” them
Although I have given you the impression / that all those long hours
taken in waiting before God / is an awesome privilege
I should not give you the impression
that it is always easy / and always enjoyable
Few understand the very grave difficulty / and sometimes the sheer terror
of having to come up with a 30 minute-long essay / every five days
for virtually every single week of your life
relentlessly / unsparingly / inescapably / unflaggingly
- its not going to go away / there’s no letting up / no end in sight
Few / if any / really understand the travail / the rigors of the ministry
- you’re struggling to hear what God is saying
- you’re trying come up with some relevant contemporary applications
in your sermon / that will help the people understand the text
- you’re having to take care of souls under your care
- you’re having to pray / mentor / walk with people
It’s a vow he has taken / He has answered the call of God
and he has to live with it / for the rest of his life
But you can make his life a little more pleasant
by appreciating him / by supporting him / by encouraging him
Now God is speaking to you all this morning
“He’s saying / “Get to know your pastor / try to get into his shoes
make an attempt to imaginatively walk the road he walks
and let him know you sense of the worthiness of his calling
That’s perhaps the best way to understand verse 12
Don’t criticize from a distance / without knowing his heart
It is so easy to be unkind / to a pastor you don’t know
But when you come to know his passion / see his faithfulness tested
- see his temper put on trial / see his patience put to the mill
when you share his food / and share his tears
you’ll feel his pulse / you’ll know what he’s really made of
And knowing him / you will appreciate him
In one church I was called to / the very first week I arrived
visiting one of the important family of the church
with my wife and two very young girls
making our first house-call / the very first question the wife asked me
“Are you sure you are called by God?”
What a downer!! / How very discouraging!! / how very unnecessary
That question / should have long been settled / before I received the call
God’s Word says / v.12 / you should start by appreciating your shepherd
And Paul gives us two reasons for why we should respect them
one / they work hard among you
they're putting in the hard yards / making the sacrifice
they labor diligently
In the Greek / “capiallo” / they work to the point of exhaustion
two / they have charge over you in the Lord
NIV says “they are over you in the Lord” / v.12
The Greek verb there is “pro histemi” / “to stand before”
“they stand are in front of you” / “they preside over you”
“they are your leaders”
On account that God has called him / your shepherd is here to lead the flock
He is an overseer over the flock
Notice the little phrase / “in the Lord”
If the pastor is over you / he is over you “in the Lord” / v.12
Pastors are not self-appointed / their appointment is not man-made
As a church / you didn't give me the authority to lead the flock
you couldn’t
My appointment / does not come from human people
My appointment comes from God
I am called / equipped / and appointed by God
But I should never rule over the church
out of a desire for personal power / personal prestige / personal gain
personal advancement
I am to rule over the church / “in the Lord”
On those three little words / my authority rests
In other words / the Lord has given me an authority over you
Now trouble starts / when you will not accept this
And this / is perhaps the hardest thing for our culture to accept
Its an egalitarian culture we live in / especially New Zealand
where the “tall poppy syndrome” is so pervasive
- We refuse to let anyone be over us / we insist we’re all equal
The sad fact is that even the church has embraced this egalitarian culture
- we have allowed it to shape the way we relate to our leaders
- and we will not easily accept someone as having authority over us
And many Christians cannot come to terms with the fact
that God / has given pastors
the divine mandate and authority to lead
This is partly why pastors / even though they have
the divine authority to lead / often do not survive
And this is partly the reason / why churches
sometimes treat their pastors with disdain if not contempt
But this spirit / runs counter / to the teaching of the Word of God
The Word of God places men over us to have authority over us
And bottom line / it does not matter whether we like it or not
It is right here / in the Word of God
The pastor / as an elder / has spiritual authority over the flock
Now / what / precisely / you ask / is this authority I have over you
It is the authority I have / under God
to inspire you with a vision / to give you spiritual direction
to guide you in the right path / to forge unity and harmony
to repair broken relationships
to set the spiritual tone for the church
to teach you / guide you / counsel and mentor you
to impart the truth of God / to search the scriptures
to dig for nuggets / to share with you / in order to build you up
And further / it is the pastor’s role “admonish” you / v.12
“admonish” / the Greek word is “noutheteo”
“to warn” / “to right a wrong”
An admonishment is not a reprimand / it is not a dressing down
it is not a personal verbal disapproval / on my part
It is the pastor’s role to admonish a person
when a wrong attitude or a scriptural error is practiced
The reason is clear / so that people will live godly lives
Now that doesn’t mean that the pastor is here to dominate or oppress you
He is here to care for the flock in the most gentle way he can
It is sad that not a few shepherds
have substituted biblical authority / with a harsh authoritarian rule
There are pastors who assert themselves in a domineering fashion
sometimes in order to cover their own personal weaknesses
- but what havoc they bring to the house of God
Authority is not the same thing as authoritarianism
Authority comes from God
Authoritarianism comes from broken people
A pastor with authority / is gentle but firm / and he leads a flock
A pastor with authoritarianism / tyrannizes and enslaves people
and he keeps his flock under his control
But this / is not what God’s shepherd is to do
1 Peter 5:2,3 / “Be shepherds of God's flock / that is under your care
serving as overseers / not because you must
but because you are willing / as God wants you to be
not greedy for money / but eager to serve
not lording it over those entrusted to you
but being examples to the flock”
Let me move on / You have a second responsibility to your shepherd
Verse 13 “Hold them in the highest regard in love / because of their work
It means “esteem” / “consider”
Its saying esteem them highly / give them great consideration
It is one thing to appreciate your pastor / it is another thing to esteem them
to “appreciate” them means to respect them
for the work they do and to remunerate them for the work they do
but to “esteem them in love” / goes beyond that
It no longer only something of the mind
We’re talking about something that’s in the heart
Its saying / “Hold them in high regard / with love”
The Word is asking you / nothing short / than love your pastor
And here in this new church
Gloria and I want to express our appreciation
of the love you have all shown to us / we are deeply grateful
There is lastly / a third responsibility
Last part of verse 23 / “Live in peace with each other”
Its hard enough not to be appreciated
Its hard enough not to be esteemed / not to be respected
or be shown consideration
Its hard enough not to be loved
But perhaps the hardest of all / is for a pastor to serve a church
that’s full of contention and conflict
full of fights / bickering / quibbles / and squabbles
accusations and strife
And many pastors have to live through year after year
serving in churches where there’s brawl and feud within its four walls
God knows how very hard this will be for the heart of any pastor to take
So He includes in His Word / verse 13 “Live in peace with one another”
Hebrews 13:17
“Obey your leaders and submit to their authority
They keep watch over you as men who must give an account
Obey them / so that their work will be a joy / not a burden
for that would be of no advantage to you”
In short / a grieving shepherd is of no benefit to you
The one thing that is sure to break a pastor’s heart
is discord / disunity / infighting / power-play / jealousy
And here Paul says “Back off / Don’t do it
Instead / do everything possible / to provide your pastor
with an environment of peace / for him to work in”
So those then / according to the Word of God
are your three responsibilities / over your pastor
one / appreciate him
two / esteem or love him / three / live in peace with one another
How may I tie all this up?
A hockey goalie was once asked / “How do you like your job?”
The goalie responded without hesitation
“How would you like a job where every time you made a mistake
a red light flashed / and a loud buzzer went off
and thousands of people screamed and yelled at you?”
Pastors sometimes feel like this
If you preach a lousy mediocre sermon
and the three “grand slams” you preached before it
would have been forgotten
One rough patch / one botch up / in one area of ministry
and a dark shadow is cast
over the many brilliant things you’ve accomplished
One misspoken word / one misunderstood comment
and suddenly / that becomes a glaring example
of your leadership incompetence
It is a sad commentary / but so true to life
Let us all be more encouraging
This sermon is about me / but it is more than just me
Some of you will soon be leaving Palmy
and moving on to other cities / other countries
Where ever you are / remember God Word for us today
Pray much for your pastor / encouragement and support him
Sometimes those flashing red lights and shouts from the crowd
can become / one light too glaring / one shout too loud
and they quit / throw in the towel
This morning / it has not been my intention
to chide the church for criticizing pastors
But as someone once said
“If you pray for your pastor one time
for every 10 times they are criticized
we would have a revival on our hands
McArthur says that the driveways of many church parking lots
are blackened with skid-marks caused by the hasty exit
of pastors who’ve been abused and bashed by heartless people
Then he adds these words / “But for me / were that to happen to me
I’d land somewhere else / doing the same thing”
And that / by God’s grace is what Gloria and I found ourselves doing
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