THE FELLOWSHIP OF ENCOURAGEMENT, The Duties of the People

 

Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem....  (Philippians 2:29)

Have you ever received one of those email chain-letters that tell you if you don't forward it, something bad will happen to you?  Read this one:

                  Do you want a perfect pastor?  Here is what it takes:

He pleases everyone.  Preaches exactly twenty minutes and follows it with an invitation in which everyone is convicted but no one is offended. Works from 7 AM to midnight in every aspect of work from counseling to janitorial work.  27 years old with 30 years of experience.  Tall and short.  Thin and heavy set.  Handsome but not overpowering.  One brown eye and one blue.  Hair parted in the middle and straight on one side and wavy on the other, with a balding spot on top revealing his maturity.  Has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all his time with senior citizens.  He smiles constantly with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously at his work.  Invests 25 hours a week in sermon preparation, 20 hours in pastoral counseling, 10 hours in meetings, 5 hours in emergencies, 20 hours in visitation and evangelism, 6 hours in funerals and weddings, 30 hours in prayer, 12 hours in correspondence, and 10 hours in creative thinking.  Is always available in his office.  He always has time for all committees and activities of the church. He never misses the meeting of any church organization and is always busy evangelizing the un-churched.  Has perfect kids.  Spouse plays the keyboard.  The perfect pastor is always the next town over.  He is talented, gifted, scholarly, practical, popular, compassionate, understanding, patient, level-headed, dependable, loving, caring, neat, organized, cheerful, and above all, humble. 

If your pastor does not measure up, simply send this notice to six other churches that are tired of their pastor too. Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of your list. If everyone cooperates, in one week you will receive 1,643 pastors.  One of them should be perfect.  Have faith in this letter.  One church broke the chain and got its old pastor back in less than three months.

Let me tell you what will really transform a pastor—loving encouragement!  It won't make him perfect, but it will help!

Encourage him with YOUR PRAYERS.   Repeatedly, you find Paul pleading for prayers (Phil.1:19).  It is far better to talk to God about your pastor's deficiencies rather than other members!   Recall how Aaron and Hur held up Moses' hands?  Do that as you pray!

Encourage him by YOUR PRESENCE.  Paul wanted to do more than send a letter.  He wanted to send a servant.  Face to face is vital.  The best meal won't nourish you if you aren't at the table.  It also discourages the cook!  On Sunday mornings a spiritual buffet is waiting!

Encourage him with YOUR PRAISE (Phil.2:29). Not to puff up with pride, but to fuel up with encouragement!

Encourage him with YOUR PRACTICE (Phil.2:19-20).  Paul wanted a return on his investment!  The farmer wants to see fruit for his labor! 

Encourage him with YOUR POSSESSIONS (Phil.2:30b). They sent an offering.  We are to support the ministry.

Inside one of our church member’s Bible I read, "How good would this church be, if every member were as good as me?"  Good question.  What is your answer?

 

 

 

THE FELLOWSHIP OF ENCOURAGEMENT, The Duties of the Pastor

But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I also may be encouraged when I know your state.  (Philippians 2:19)

As I listen to some pastors, it is obvious that a lot would really like a different congregation.  I guarantee a lot of church members—including some of mine—would like to have a new pastor.  Let me tell you what will transform both—seeking to have a fellowship of encouragement!  Paul wanted to build up people and not blast them, and he needed the church’s consolation and not criticism.  Let us weigh carefully the lessons learned from the relationships of the preachers, Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus with the believers in Philippi.  In this study, we will consider the duties of the pastor, and in the next we will examine those of the people.  There are three duties of the pastor suggested here. 

There was GENUINE CONCERN (v.19). The heart-felt concern of the Apostle is evident. Even though he was in prison, he wasn't concerned about his physical condition so much as their spiritual one.  We see there was an interest in people.  Our high tech world has led to a low touch world.  We have been reduced to numbers on a computer screen. Call for help and you get an automated voice.  Church members deal with that every day—may it not be so in the church!   There was an involvement with people.  Eugene Petersen described some pastors as invisible 6 days a week and incomprehensible on the 7th.  Not Paul!  He wanted to be with them, but because he couldn't, he sent Timothy.  I can't be everywhere, but everyone needs ministry. You need to receive the staff not as the second string, but as ministers themselves.  There was an investment in people.  Paul sent two important helpers to them—Timothy and Epaphroditus.  He could have used them, but would rather go without than that the congregation should.

There was GODLY CHARACTER (v.19-23)  Timothy stands as an example of godly character.  Look at  his sincerity (v.20). The word "sincerely" is "without wax" from merchants who tried to hide cracked pots with wax that could only be seen when held up to the sun.  Timothy really cared—he was sincere and not a sham!  Note his selflessness (v.21). Paul had a shortage of good people to send.  Demas, in contrast, was such a selfish man, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world." (2 Tim.4:10)  Consider his service (v.22).  He had proven himself in service. Too many pastors want to take up the scepter as a sovereign rather than take up the basin as a servant!  This isn't the spirit of the Good Shepherd (read 1 Pet.5:1-4).

Pastors also need GREAT COMMITMENT (v.25-30).  Now we zero in on the other Associate Pastor—if you will—Epaphroditus.  He was a committed worker (v.25a).  There was not a lazy bone in his body.   He was a committed warrior (v.25b).  This is a war and eternal souls are the spoils of battle. Billy Sunday said, "as long as I can make a fist, I'm going to fight the devil; as long as I can stand I'm going to kick the devil; as long as I've got teeth, I'm going to bite the devil and when I lose my teeth, I'll gum him!"  Epaphroditus was a committed witness (v.25c-30).  He was a light for their darkness.  A light shines by consuming itself.  This man was willing to spend and be spent!

Pastor—be a minister of encouragement!

MAXIMUM MINISTRY

“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”  (John 17:18)

Christ’s prayer recorded in John 17 was for all His people (v.20).  His commission is for every disciple of all the ages.  Yet, I think as there was a direct application to those eleven disciples (plus one counterfeit), there is a practical dimension for God’s preacher today.  Imagine, man of God—the Lord of glory standing with eyes upraised to heaven, mere hours from the agony of the cross and He prays for you!

His heart was to glorify the Father and fulfill His mission.  “I have glorified You on the earth.  I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.”  (John 17:4)  Can we think of a greater goal—that in all our life and work we aim at the glory of God and faithfully finishing our assignment?

Eternal life can only be found in the Son of God (v.3).  Those the Father gives the Son in His sovereign grace will come to Him (v.2), but manifesting that salvation to sinners in view of their becoming saints is our duty (v.6).  Of the many good things I might do in ministry, I must not forget the worth of a soul.  Heaven is real and hell is also—and the proclamation of the life-changing Gospel is imperative and urgent.

God has entrusted us with the sacred message.  “ ‎For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.”  (v.8)  This is the treasure of truth contained in clay pots, and meant to be preserved in its purity—undiluted truth—and proclaimed in its power—unleashed truth.

Not all will be happy to hear the truth (v.14).  They will loathe the mirror of God’s Word in the manner in which the evil queen in the Snow White fairy tale hated to hear what the mirror on the wall honestly spoke.  There is a sanctifying power in the Word (v.17), and many would rather roll in the mud like an old hog—comfortable according to their nature.  To those who respond, however, the truth is transformative (v.19-20).  Should persecution arise, Christ will preserve us until our task is done (v.11-12), for we belong to Him and are loved by Him as the Father loves the Son (v.23-26).  When our mission is accomplished we are summoned to dwell in the eternal glory, face to face with Christ!

While the world hates us and the message is polarizing, let us seek to foster love and preserve unity among the people of God.  It was the earnest petition of Jesus and merits our deliberate effort (v.21-23).  A pugnacious preacher in spirit, always splitting theological hairs, and looking for a reason to cause strife is guilty of a severe sin.  To attack the Bride of Christ is an assault on Christ Himself who is one with her.  When the world sees our schisms, and hears venom more than grace from the pulpit, no wonder they scoff at our sermons!  There may come a time when truth, even spoken in love, angers church members who reject it—and reject us—let us love nonetheless.  If we part company may there be no bitterness on our part, only grief as a spurned lover.  This is maximum ministry—the mandate given by our Master, and His prayer for His men.

MORSELS FOR MINISTERS

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold
In settings of silver.  (Proverbs 25:11) 

Here are a few pithy and yet profound phrases I have written in my Bible that serve as good reminders for me, and I trust will encourage my colleagues as well.

• “You cannot find anyplace in Scripture where a man was ever sent by God to do a work in which he failed.” (D.L. Moody)
•  “To set one’s heart on being popular is fatal to the preacher’s best growth.” (Phillips Brooks)
• “God, make me holy as a saved sinner can be!” (Robert Murray M’Cheyne)
• “My worth to God in public is what I am in private.” (Oswald Chambers)
• “I preached as never to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” (Richard Baxter)
• “Let us rejoice with one another that in a world where there are many good and happy things for me to do, God has given us the best and happiest and made us preachers of His truth.”  (Phillips Brooks)
• “All God’s men are ordinary men made extraordinary by the almighty grace He has given them, and He gives us this grace for one purpose only—that He may be able to say, ‘This is My man!’ ”  (Oswald Chambers)
• “No reserves, no return, no regrets.” (William Borden, heir to the Borden wealth who gave it up and died as a missionary at age 24 in Cairo, Egypt)
• “The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”  (Anonymous, though I have seen it attributed to F.B. Meyer, John Henry Jowett and Jim Elliot—God only knows)
• “The supreme work of the Christian minister is the work of preaching.”  (G. Campbell Morgan)
• “I preach—I dare to say it—because I can do no otherwise.  I cannot refrain myself; a fire burns within my bones which will consume me if I hold my peace.”  (C.H. Spurgeon)

Chew on these morsels, savor them, and digest them—and may God use each of us for His glory this Lord’s Day.  Preach the Word!

 

THE PERIL OF PEOPLE-PLEASING

 

And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?”  (Exodus 32:21)

It is such a subtle thing, and therefore the more sinister.  Doubtless, there are men who enter ministry motivated by a desire to milk the congregation for all they can get from them.  They are pursuing position and possessions and find the church a goldmine of opportunity.  Such charlatans tell people what they want to hear—a quid pro quo arrangement.

That is not likely the case with those who read these words.  Rather you are in ministry to serve God by serving people.  We begin with a conviction that what people need most is not always what they want.  They need to be confronted compassionately with truth.  Yet, if we are not careful—because this brings difficulty and resistance—we compromise and begin to move into a people-pleasing mode.  Our motivations are not necessarily mercenary at the first.  We make excuses—I want to accommodate people so that I can build a bridge to them—to reach them.  The issue with such a bridge, however, is that a bridge goes both ways—and rather than bringing the church out of the world, we take the world into the church!  Compassion that abandons conviction becomes compromise and ceases to be true compassion—for sin is the gravest danger for the church, and we become a willing host when open minds and open arms are spread so wide as to tolerate evil and error.  It is possible to be popular and build a crowd that way—all in the name of God!  You may use Bible terminology and still move away from Biblical truth.

Aaron is the model of such compromise.  When the people demanded a god they could see, and wanted to worship as the rest of the world was doing, then he surrendered to the crowd.  He still used the right vocabulary and tried to dress it up with attaching God’s name and worship to it, but that did not sanctify the compromise, it only compromised the sacred.

Moses’ response is instructive.  There was indignation.  God’s honor was more important to him than pleasing people.  His action was forceful, but not without love—it was just that love for God was foremost, and out of that flowed a love for people.  Like Jesus, he balanced grace and truth—which is the supreme standard for every leader.  Moses not only expressed indignation, but offered intercession.  He was willing to have his name blotted out of God’s Book of Life, if it would be possible to spare the people from the wrath of God in blotting their name out!  Such conviction and compassion! 

The bar is set very high in spiritual leadership.  Still, that is what we should strive by the grace of God to attain.  May God deliver us from the people-pleasing spirit of Aaron, and cause us to delight in pleasing our Master above all as Moses sought to do.  To please God will often cause people to be displeased.  Children selfishly cry when they cannot have their way and do not understand correction.  Loving parents do it anyway.  Conviction and compassion is a tightrope we must walk.  May God give us the sound sense and strong spine for a steady stride forward.  If we fall, we will drag down others.

THE SUCCESSFUL SERMON

 

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;

 It shall not return to Me void,

But it shall accomplish what I please,

And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.  (Isaiah 55:11)

What makes a sermon successful?  Is it that people applaud it?  Do we not recall the hostility the prophets often met in response to their message?  Perhaps it is by the crowds that gather in eagerness to hear us—but what of how the preaching of Jesus would lead people to walk away from Him?  The Apostles’ sermons could cause led a mob to beat them rather than a crowd to bless them!

How often does the man of God slump in exhaustion as the darkness of disappointment envelops him!  The preacher has poured out his soul in delivering that which the Lord has thrust upon him—“the burden of the LORD,” as the Old Testament prophets called it—and the people sat silent and unmoved as a stone.  Not to mention the times when we were met with criticism over the message—sharp barbs, poisoned with anger, plunged into our heart.

No wonder so many resignation letters are written in the pastor’s study on Monday morning.

Maybe we have failed.

That is always possible, of course.  We may have failed to prepare ourselves spiritually and studiously—our hearts empty and our mouths correspondingly.  The preacher may lean on the flesh, trust in homiletics alone, and not depend on the Holy Spirit.  Unrepentant sin may short-circuit our usefulness, damming up the flow of grace to and through us.  The pastor can become so enamored with his own popularity that he seeks his glory and not God’s.  This is the path to failure in the sermon.

Yet, we may shun all of that, ready ourselves as best of may, and still not see the visible results we desire.  It may be that we do not understand what makes a successful sermon.  It is simply this: being faithful to the Word of God in dependence on the Spirit of God—having prepared to use to the full the gifts God has placed in me, and all for His glory.  If I do that, then no matter the evaluation of man, the Word of God has accomplished its mission.  The sermon is successful.  God has promised to always fulfill its purpose.  Can you then fail?  “Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: ‘That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.’ ”  (Rom.3:4)  Only God’s verdict on our message ultimately matters, and He stamps such preaching: SUCCESSFUL!

 

PORTRAIT OF A PREACHER

Many of us have an image that immediately pops into our head when we hear the word, “preacher.”  That image is shaped by our experience—and thus a positive or negative one, as the case may be.  For some, the image of preacher is not so much an accurate portrait as it is a caricature.

Frankly, those of us who are preachers sometimes struggle with our own self-image.  There is a tension between those portraits some in the congregation paint in their expectation of us to be—Superman who can always fly to their rescue—and whom we perceive ourselves to be—Clark Kent, his alter-ego who cannot seem to walk and chew gum at the same time.  The truth usually lies somewhere in between.

How do you see yourself, preacher?  If discouragement has set in and difficulties have overwhelmed, you may see a beaten man looking back at you in a mirror, and think, “Another Sunday—and off I go to church.  For what?  Will this sermon make any more difference than the last one?  I’m tired of it all.”  The reality is that God may see us far differently than we see ourselves.

I love John Bunyan’s portrait of a preacher in “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

CHRISTIAN saw the picture of a very grave person hung up against the wall; and this was the fashion of it: it had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips, the world was behind his back; he stood as if he pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over his head….

And whereas thou seest him with his eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, and the law of truth writ on his lips; it is to show thee that his work is to know and unfold dark things to sinners; even as also thou seest him stand as if he pleaded with men: and whereas thou seest the world as cast behind him, and that a crown hangs over his head; that is to show thee, that, slighting and despising the things that are present, for the love that he hath to his Master's service, he is sure in the world that comes next to have glory for his reward. Now, said the INTERPRETER, I have showed thee this picture first, because the man whose picture this is, is the only man whom the Lord of the place whither thou art going hath authorized to be thy guide in all difficult places thou mayest meet with in the way: wherefore, take good heed to what I have showed thee; and bear well in thy mind what thou hast seen, lest in thy journey thou meet with some that pretend to lead thee aright, but their way goes down to death.

 

That encourages me.  I hope it does you!  Let us pray for the Spirit Who has gifted us to do His work through us.  God has used us; He will use us again.  Heaven may well reveal that some of our best fruit was born in the harshest environment—that more was accomplished for the glory of God by those who labored in obscurity even as others basked in Christian celebrity.  God is the final arbiter of results and rewards.