How To Love Your Pastor

Well, it's good to be with you, brothers and sisters. Greetings from South Shore Baptist Church. Yes, there are Christians in Massachusetts. Not anymore, thank you. It was a good one. It's really fun being a guest preacher. I think being a guest preacher is like being a grandparent. You get to show up, you take the kids, you give them sugar, you rile them up. You spoil them, you break all the rules, and then you leave, and the parents have to clean up the mess. So, I'm excited for Keith to come back and clean up whatever I do here today. I will take advantage this morning of being a guest preacher, and I want to preach a sermon that your pastor cannot preach. Well, he could preach it, but it would certainly be awkward. The title of my sermon this morning is how to love your pastor. And it's a sermon that churches, I think, are helped to hear. It's a topic that we need to think about, but one that most pastors aren't going to preach. They're not going to tell their church what biblically they need as a pastor or what a church sort of should do to honor and love and support a pastor. So, I thought with him gone, I would preach this needed sermon in his absence. He did not put me up to this. Keith did not give me the manuscript. This is from my own heart as a pastor to another congregation. So, how does one love their pastor? What do pastors need? I'd like to look this morning at 1 Timothy chapter 5. Paul's epistle to Timothy. So much of it focused on the local church. how the local church should be governed, what the needs of the local church are, the leaders of the local church, the emphases of the local church. And here in chapter 5, if you want to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 5, verses 17 to 22, Paul is, through Timothy, exhorting the church on how they should relate to the elders and pastors in the church. And so, let me read verses 17 to 22, and then we'll take a look at it in detail. It says in 1 Timothy 5, 17, Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. Do not admit a charge against an elder, except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. And of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudicing, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. So how does one love a pastor? How does one honor and care for a pastor? We're told here in the beginning that elders who rule well should be considered of double honor. What does that look like? in the life of a congregation that's seeking to honor God's Word. I'd like to suggest three ways from this text this morning, three aspects of honoring and loving and supporting one's pastor. And the first one is this. It's rather simple, but it's sort of the foundation of the others. Most importantly, you need to understand your pastor. So that's the first one. And by understand your pastor, I don't mean understand him in a personal or psychological way. I'm not talking about understanding what makes Keith tick or what his strengths and weaknesses are, even though that's important. What I mean is you need to understand what a pastor's job is biblically. We all need to go in understanding what is it that God has given as a pastor's job description so that as you think of your pastor, whatever his personality may be, you need to say, what is the job of pastor? How does it work? How do we know when a pastor is being a pastor or when he isn't? What is the job? So understanding someone is always the first step in loving them, to listen, to understand. And in this case, we need to listen to what God has to say. So what is a pastor's job? We'll look at verse 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. Now, maybe you had a little light go off in your head when I read that and you said, wait a minute, this is talking about elders, not pastors. So, which is it? Is it how to honor your pastor and how to love your pastor? Is it how to love your elders? And I would say the answer is yes, it is. Because in the New Testament, these words are used interchangeably. In fact, you could even go further and say in the New Testament, there's three sort of Greek words that are used interchangeably for the same office. One of them is a Greek word poimen, which means sometimes it's translated pastor, sometimes translated shepherd. The second word is presbuteros, which can be translated presbyter or elder. The third word is episkopos, which can be translated overseer or bishop. Episkopos means to episkopos, to look over. Episkopos, biskop, bishop, it's sort of anglicized into bishop. That's where we get that word. It's from sort of an anglicization of the Greek word episkopos, but all of them are titles for the same job. In fact, there's places in the New Testament where these words are used completely interchangeably. If you look at Acts chapter 20, when Paul is addressing the Ephesian elders, he'll effortlessly transition between the language of shepherding to the language of eldering, to the language of oversight, or the passage that John quoted earlier. If you want to look at 1 Peter chapter 5, just very quickly for one example, 1 Peter chapter 5. Where Peter says, so I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder. There's the elder, the presbyteros language and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock. There's the shepherding language. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you exercising. Oversight, there's the overseeing language there. And so these words are used interchangeably. So an elder is a pastor, which is an overseer. It's the same office under different titles. Going back to First Timothy in chapter three, he speaks of overseers. In chapter five, he speaks of elders, but it's the same person doing the same job. So, a pastor is an elder, is an overseer. There's multiple titles to use. So, what is the job then? If we're to understand a pastor, if we're to understand an elder, what is the task? And look there again at verse 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. So, at the center of a pastor's job is ruling or leading or governing. They're trying to give direction to a group of people. Every group of people needs a leader. And that's what a pastor's job is, is to lead. Think about those three words again. Leadership is entailed in each of those words, each of those images. Think about a shepherd. What does a shepherd do all day? He leads sheep around. Think about a presbyter or an elder. Think of that language. Think of the Old Testament. And in every city there would be a city gate, which was kind of like the town hall of the city and who would sit at the city gate and help render decisions and give wisdom and guidance. It was the elders and they were blessed with wisdom and insight. Or think about the term overseer that implies administration and leadership. So to love your pastor, you need to understand his job is to give a spiritual leading and direction to a church, but with a specific focus, not just kind of leadership in general, not just perhaps leadership the way the world leads, but with this particular point to that leadership right there in the second half of verse 17, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. So that a pastor's role is to lead and guide specifically by teaching and proclaiming and explaining and relying upon God's Word to guide the flock. God's people are guided by God's Word. So this is a specific part of an elder's job is preaching and teaching. It's the sort of center of it. And we shouldn't be surprised because throughout the Bible, God's leaders are always Men of the Word. You know, think in the Old Testament. You had prophets, priests, and kings. Prophets brought the Word of God. Priests were charged not only with offering sacrifices and cooking them up on the altar, but they were also charged with explaining the law to the people. Or think about the king. In Deuteronomy 17, he had to have a scroll that he wrote himself of the law. And one of his main jobs as king was to be an expert in what the Torah said. And so all God's leaders have to be men who handle the word well, you know, or go back to first Timothy chapter three. For an example, first Timothy three. Here are the characteristics of an overseer. Verse two. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. The husband of one wife, sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. Interestingly, you look at the qualifications for deacons which follow. And they're very similar in a lot of ways to elders, except there isn't a commandment to be able to teach. So, God's leaders always need to be feeders. They need to feed the sheep the thing that sheep need, which is the Word of God, our spiritual food. So, pastors need to focus on leading a flock, but with a particular emphasis on preaching the Word. I don't know if some of you have ever thrown darts. or if some of you are hunters and you practice archery or you shoot rifles and you go to sight your rifle in or you go to the range and you put a target up and so there's a target and it typically has concentric circles. And you're always aiming for, of course, the center of the bullseye. And as a pastor thinks about where to focus his energies and time, there's so many things a pastor does need to be doing. In some ways, a pastor is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. He has to be able to encourage and counsel. He needs to be able to administrate to some degree. It helps to be able to carry a tune, but I guess that's not necessary. But, you know, what's the center of everything a pastor does? And it's to be a man of the word, whether it's in the pulpits, whether it's in a Sunday school class, whether it's in a Bible study, whether it's talking to someone at Starbucks over a cup of coffee, whether it's standing by the bedside of a sick and dying person who needs encouragement. Pastors need to minister the Word of God to others. So, I think of the pastor drawing the bow of his energies, and he has to keep that target focused on the center, which is the proclamation of God's Word. So, you need to understand that. And you can love your pastor by supporting and encouraging and being excited about the biblical calling of pastoral ministry, which includes a lot of things But the sort of gravitational center that makes them all work and that gives life to all of them is when that elder or that pastor is focused on the ministry of the Word. Because you know, there's so many things. Again, think of the archery analogy. The key is just holding steady and getting right on target. There's so many things that can knock the archer's point off target and focus him on other things. The pastor himself tends to do that. Every pastor has different interests and proclivities. Some pastors are techies. They like computers. They like equipment. They like technology. And pastors can get distracted by that in the church. Some pastors, they love to crunch numbers and they can get very much into budgets and finances. Some pastors have other interests in administration or maybe they like organization and they can get caught up in that. And they need to, to some degree. But when you see a pastor overly focusing on these areas, it's so important for you as a congregation to say, Pastor, we'll take care of that. We need you to proclaim the Word of God. You know, I love it, pastor. You know what? You may know more about computers than anyone else in the church, but we'll take care of that and we need you to focus on the Word for us. So, you need to help the pastor do that because pastors tend to pull in a certain direction or another. Churches tend to pull pastors in a certain direction or another. All of us come to church with certain templates of what church is supposed to be. Often it's what we grew up with. Some of us who didn't grow up in a church background, it's what we read or saw on TV. Maybe your understanding of what a church or what a Christian should be has been informed by a great upbringing. Some people, it's been informed by watching Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders, his Christian next door neighbor. And that's as close as they understand to what Christianity is. But whatever it is, we all come with some paradigm, some matrix that we inherited without even realizing it. And the same is true of pastoral ministry. We come to our pastor and we think a pastor is supposed to do X. And maybe that's based upon what your pastor did growing up. But was what your pastor did when you were growing up, was that biblical or was it just kind of your pastor and you liked it and your family liked it? My pastor always did this and you never do that. If you were a good pastor, you'd do that, too. Well, what does God's Word say? I remember when I first got into ministry, one of my mom's friends was trying to understand what I was doing. She said, you're a minister. She says, it's kind of like a therapist, right? You're essentially a therapist who helps people. And you go, well, I mean, I do counsel, but it's not the same. Sometimes I talk to men, businessmen, and they said, well, the church is kind of a business, right? So you're sort of a CEO, kind of the CEO of your business. You own the business. That's basically what you do, right? And you say, well, sure, there's administrative aspects to it, but it's not exactly the same. And so we all come to church with preconceived notions of what a church is, of what a pastor is. Some of which may be biblical and on target. Other things that may be just the random accumulation of experiences we've had growing up that shape us. And so all of us need to keep coming back to God's Word and saying, what does God want a pastor to do? And he needs to lead. He needs to do a lot of different things. There is a dimension of being a jack-of-all-trades as a pastor. And yet, at the center is preaching and teaching. And so, help him stay on target because he has proclivities. You have proclivities. Help him stay on target because preaching and teaching is really hard work. Look again at verse 17. Especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. You know, I just heard about this new kid you have in your church. Man, writing a sermon feels like giving birth sometimes. I should know. I was there and my wife gave birth to her four children, and I have to say it was very tiring for me to be a part of that. So, I really do understand how hard it must be. No, but it really is. It's labor. It's labor. It's exhausting. So many times when you're studying the text or writing a sermon, you know, you just rather go look at emails because at least you can answer an email and it's done and it's easy. But to understand God's Word and then to really apply it to your own life and then to think about how to articulate it to others, it is hard labor. And it's easy for a pastor to find shortcuts there and not spend the hard time mining in God's Word, wrestling with the angel till you get the blessing. It's hard work. And so you're going to need to keep encouraging your pastor to do that and not veer away from other things that might be easy. You know, a last reason we need to keep pastors focused on the word ministry is because brothers and sisters, it's the spiritual life of the church. God's word gives life to his church. God's word is the spigot through which when that spigot is turned on, The water of the Holy Spirit flows into the church and irrigates the body so that spiritual fruit can grow. And it's a high calling. Somebody has to man that spigot. you know, to perhaps push the analogy beyond its limits. The spigot is not just a spigot. It's a spring loaded spigot that if you take your hand on, it goes back to closed. And so someone has to stand there constantly holding that spigot open of God's word, opening God's word faithfully so that the life giving waters of the spirit can flow into the church and the church can be irrigated and can bear fruit for the kingdom of God. So it's an important job. God's Word gives life. God creates through His Word. He created the world through His Word. He created Israel through His Word. And He creates Christians through His Word as the Gospel is proclaimed. The Word gives life. That's how the church was born. Because Peter preached a sermon. And God in His wisdom uses His Word to create life. Spiritual life. So we need to keep that open. Brothers and sisters, if you don't believe me, come to New England. And I will take you on tours in village after village, town after town, and show you hundreds of quaint New England church buildings. So quaint, you just want to eat them up. Beautiful, white, historic, 19th century, 18th century, colonial meeting houses. that are so picturesque and quaint and totally dead. Because somewhere in their history, they left the Word of God. And now there's a few people rattling around in a building that's kept open because it's a historic landmark supplied by an endowment. And there's no gospel there. And the founders probably are turning over in their graves. And if they could weep in heaven, they would. So we need to keep the Word of God central. We need to encourage pastors to stay focused on that. So love your pastor by understanding his role. Yes, pastors have to do more than just preach. It's not just preaching and that's it. But it's at the center in the ministry of the Word. And encourage your pastor to stay focused on the Word of God. A second thing you can do to love your pastor, number one, is to understand him, understand his God-given task is to provide spiritual leadership to a church, particularly through preaching. Number two is to provide for your pastor. Give him the things that he needs so he can be about that work. Look at verse 18. For the Scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. So Paul here is saying we should honor pastors, honor elders, and one of the primary ways he's speaking of here is through financial support. That's what these two quotations in verse 18 refer to. One is, don't muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain. When they got the grain harvest in and they needed to separate the hole from the grain, they would put it on the flat surface and they would often have an ox pull a big thresher. It'd be a big piece of wood with weights and maybe rocks on the bottom of it and maybe guys would stand on that piece of wood and as they'd pull that forward, it would crush the grain and so separate it and so it'd be ready to be winnowed so that the chaff could blow away from the grain. And so now you imagine this ox pulling this heavy piece of wood, this piece of harm equipment all day, and they wouldn't muzzle the ox. He would get to eat from that grain even as he pulled the sledge. And so that's the image here of a worker who's gaining his livelihood through the work that he's doing. And Paul takes that quotation from Deuteronomy 25 and he uses it here. He uses it in 1 Corinthians 9. And his basic application is that those who are active in the work of the gospel have a right to gaining their living from the work of the gospel. And so, you can honor your pastor by providing for him financially. And then he goes on to quote in verse 18, Jesus in Luke chapter 10. Isn't it interesting, by the way? He quotes Scripture and he quotes the Old Testament and Jesus. So already, the words of Jesus are seen as Scripture. Already in the first century, not three centuries after Jesus by some council somewhere. Already the church was seeing that these were the words of Scripture. And so even in the words of Jesus, a laborer deserves his wages. And so provide for your pastor. We give money to the things that we honor, the things that we treasure, you know, the things we value. We know we value because we give money to them. You know, you value your house when you pour money into it. You value your lawn when you pour money into fertilizer. We value children. And so we pour money into children. We pour money into their education, into their lessons and sports and clothes and orthodontists and all these things because we value and treasure our children. And if we're a people who treasure the preaching of the gospel and treasure God's Word, we need to give our money to it as well. And so I would just encourage you to give. You know, the thing about gospel preaching is there's not really a worldly market for it. There's a reason Steve Jobs sold iPads. and not sermons, because there's not a worldly market for it. It's not something you can trade in. And so if we're a people who value the proclamation of God's word, we're going to have to subsidize that in the subsidized people to proclaim God's word. So I just encourage you to give. I don't know if you give. If I could tell an embarrassing story about John Bowman. I remember when he was first coming to faith. I don't know if he was saved yet or not, but he was just trying to get his head around the whole thing. And so he just pulled me aside one day. He's like, I'm really bothered by this tithing thing. What's this with tithing? You know, why do you guys tithe? Why would you just give your money to the church? And he was so frustrated by that. So I tried to explain it and how we're giving to the Lord and we're giving to the work of the gospel ministry. And he's like, why 10%? I said, well, that was the number they use in the Old Testament. But I'm like, John, you know, you got a good job. You should be giving at least 20%. And John was like, you know, we need to give to the work of the ministry. And I would encourage all the members of this church to set aside at least 10 percent of your income to the work of the church. It's part of membership. If we could talk all we want about the Bible and the gospel, but we need to give to it as well. We need to provide in other ways, though. Can I just suggest perhaps a few other ways we need to provide for pastors? Pastors need help. Think about this. If the pastor is trying to keep his focus on that center of his bullseye, the proclamation of God's Word, that means that there are other things that he won't be doing to the same degree and intensity. Things that are very important. Somebody has to keep the lights on in the building. People have to be skilled at finance to help an organization and a church family work together. There are lots of people who are ill. New visitors come who need to be followed up on. There's infrastructure work in a church. There's ministry, life to life work to be done in a church. And a pastor simply can't do it all. And so that takes the whole body. It takes you stepping up and saying, hey, we will do that. This is congregationalism. Congregationalism is not just voting at a business meeting or what do you call it here? Not a business meeting. Conference. It's not just voting at a conference. That's not all congregationalism is. It's every member saying, I'm a part of this body, I'm accountable to others, and I have a gift to use. It's every member ministry in the church. I think one of the pitfalls of being reformed, there are many pitfalls, and as a reformed pastor myself, I think one of the pitfalls is in focusing on church polity. We can so much focus on the structural elements of church polity, like elders and deacons, as well we should, that we forget about just the nature of congregationalism, that it is every member ministry. There's an every member ministry to the church in addition to what the pastors do, and those are recognized because they're offices. But there isn't really an office of just every member ministry besides membership, and yet it needs to be just as important. So whatever your gifts are, whatever your abilities are, use them. We were just blessed this last week at our church. by some members stepping forward into every member ministry. We just finished a new facility at our church, and this thing is technologically wired. The guys who built it put in more technology than we even understand yet. As we would say in Massachusetts, the building is wicked smart. It has so many capabilities that we haven't used yet. It's really exciting. And we're a little bit overwhelmed. So we had these three techie guys in our church who've really been giving us a lot of time over the last couple of weeks to help us get our sound systems organized and all these kind of things. And they just came to our office administrator and said, can we be the tech committee that you call any time of day to solve these problems? And she came to me. She says, what do you think? Are we OK with this ministry? I was like, yeah. What do they need? Do I need to sprinkle water on them or something? Make them a committee. In fact, don't make them a committee because then they'll have to, you know, get in the bureaucracy. Just let them do their thing and let's call upon them. And what's great is every member of ministry, people seeing the need, stepping in, and we have our own sort of geek squad of men who are serving, who are serving and using their gifts in a way that allows the rest of us to be freed up. It's just like in Acts chapter 6 when the apostles said, Look, the church is growing. There's many needs here. Important needs. Critical needs. The widows need to be taken care of. Loving each other in practical ways is a part of the church. It's not just this on Sunday morning. It's us going out and loving each other as a body. Otherwise, it's just all words and no actions. And so, we need people to lead in that. And they set aside the seven to take care of the widows. And so, I would encourage you as a congregation to be active Provide for your pastor by giving financially. Provide for your pastor by giving help. Here's another one I'll just throw out. But provide for your pastor by giving fellow elders. I know that's something your church has been talking about, at least John told me you have. Can I just encourage you to keep your foot on the gas toward elders? Look at verse 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of a double honor. It's plural. Every time you see elders mentioned in the New Testament, it's plural. Every time. Titus. Paul says, appoint elders in every town. Acts chapter 20. The elders, plural, came to see Paul. It's always elders. First Peter, you know, I write to the elders among you. God's plan for the local church is to have elders leading a local congregation. It's the biblical model. You know, it's very Baptist. If you look at Baptist history in the 19th century, 18th century, all the way back to Baptist beginnings in the 17th century, you'll find a pattern of multiple elders leading a congregation. Somehow we got our eye off the ball in the last century. But there's a movement now among Baptist churches to come back to the Bible and come back to our roots, and to have plural eldership in a church again. Can I just encourage you in that? That that is such a helpful thing. As I look back over my 15 years of church ministry, and if you were to ask me, what are some of the highlights of it? You want to tell you one of the highlights of my church ministry? I never thought I would say this. One of my highlights is working with elders. It has been one of the most satisfying, encouraging, sustaining, joyful aspects. I don't know. Let's have a moment of truth here. Has anyone ever kind of groaned at the thought of going to a church committee meeting? I know you never have, but I've heard some people feel that way. I find myself so energized by meeting with elders. And so it sustained me as a pastor. And I marvel at God's wisdom in the local church to have a multiplicity of leaders in a communal decision-making and shepherding body whose gifts and personalities can balance each other and supplement each other. God is amazing. And you'll be so much more effectively shepherded and led as a congregation by having multiple men who are biblically qualified as lay elders. It's such a joy. So provide for your pastor. Give him the money he needs. Give him your help. Give him elders. Give him time. I'm so glad your pastor is taking vacation. Pastors need time away. If one of the qualifications for an elder is that he must manage his household well, that takes time. And church work is so tricky for a couple reasons. One, it's never finished. You can always do another email. You can always make another phone call. You could always spend another hour in the sermon. And unlike a lot of jobs where the job begins and ends and everyone goes home, it's always ongoing. You could take it home with you. You could always be doing ministry. And pastors tend to get addicted to that because it's important. We're shepherding the church of God. This is really important. And it's easy for pastors to become workaholics and to not be able to shut off. And nothing is sadder than when a pastor's family is sacrificed on the altar of church ministry. And so you need to remember and remind your pastor, look, family. You need to take care of your family and then take care of your church family. But don't neglect your home family for your church family. And so everyone needs to encourage your pastor in that. Does everyone here know Keith's day off? I don't know what it is. What is it? Thursday? Okay, it's Thursday, I've just told. So, unless you are dying on Thursday in the hospital, unless your toes are in the Jordan, okay, or someone you love's toes are in the Jordan, don't call him on Thursday. Don't text him, don't send him emails, not because He's like some super guy who can't be bothered because he's going to croak in ministry if you don't force him to take a day off and just unplug. You know, it's for his benefit. I'm glad he takes vacation time. Make sure you hound him, pester him. Pastor, did you use every last vacation time this year? Pastors sometimes make it a badge of bragging. Oh, yeah, this is a tough year. I didn't even use all my vacation time. You know, as if that's somehow something to boast about, as if they were so busy or so important. It's like, man, the church is going to be just fine without you, Pastor. So so you just take that time and go on vacation and we don't want to hear from you on vacation. Don't contact us. And let him rest because they need to unplug. Make sure you have a sabbatical policy in your church and send your pastor away. I had my first sabbatical. Actually, I'm coming up my second sabbatical now. I had my first one. Didn't think I needed it until I got on sabbatical. And I was like, wow, I really did need this. Because pastoral ministry is not just hard work, as Brother Spurgeon says, it is also heart work. And finally, pray for your pastor. Provide him with money. Provide him with your work. Provide him with elders. Provide him with time. Provide them with your prayers. As Paul says, pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so I may fearlessly proclaim the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray for your pastor's ministry. I got to say, one of the coolest things my church ever did for me was they started a prayer ministry spontaneously. No elder directed it. I didn't ask them to do it. They just decided to do this. And what they do is they've organized themselves and they have people praying for the service during the service. So while I'm engaged in sort of hand-to-hand combat for souls in the pulpit, There's a couple people always praying, sort of providing close air support in that battle for souls somewhere in the church. They meet somewhere in the church and they just pray during the service. It's been a real blessing. Not that you have to do that or that's the thing you need to do. It's just one expression of that. But be praying for your pastor because Satan's tricks, they're so textbook. Satan just does the same thing over and over. Strike the shepherd, the sheep will scatter. And so, he aims at shepherds. So, pray for your shepherds that God would protect them and shield them. So, how can you love your pastor? Number one, understand him. Understand what his job is and isn't. Understand he's called to shepherd the church through the faithful proclamation of God's Word. Provide for your pastor. Give him everything that he needs to do his job. And then here's the third one, and I'll close with this thought. Protect your pastor. Look back at the text. Look at verse 19. Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. If you honor somebody, you give them the benefit of the doubt. If you honor somebody, you assume the best about them. And so we need to do that with pastors as well. We need to give them the benefit of the doubt. We need to not entertain criticisms and charges against them. Don't gossip about your pastor. Don't sit around in your Bible study groups and grumble about the pastor. If you have a problem with him, set up an appointment and spend an hour laying it out thoughtfully and intelligently and give him a chance to absorb it and think about it. I love it. I don't love it, but I much prefer it. When people take time to thoughtfully explain why they're frustrated with me or something in the church. I so prefer that. What keeps me up at night is when people say, you know, there's people out there who aren't happy. Who? Well, they told me I couldn't say. Great, how many? What's wrong? I don't know what the problem is. I don't know how to respond to something that's just a nebulous threat out there. So don't do that. And you know, that doesn't just apply to pastors, right? That applies to all Christians. That's the same principle. If we have an issue with each other, we're supposed to go directly, one on one, work it out. We're not supposed to deal with it in a circuitous way. We need to encourage each other, but especially with pastors, because pastoral ministry is in some ways more vulnerable to criticism. Leadership always is. Here's a good quote from Calvin. None are more exposed to slanders and insults than godly teachers. They may perform their duties correctly and conscientiously, yet they never avoid a thousand criticisms. One of the problems of being a pastor is you can't really fight back. It's not a fair fight. People can come and lay into you, but you can't lay into them. And you shouldn't. I don't think pastors should. But if someone comes and lays into me, and I fired back at them, they would go around and say, that pastor has an anger problem. If they come and lay into me and I go straight into refuting all of their arguments, they go away and say, that pastor is defensive. You can't even tell him anything. So it's like I can't win. And Paul Paul addresses that, you know, he says, look, God's servants must not quarrel. They must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose them, they must gently instruct in hope that God may grant them repentance, giving them a knowledge of the truth. And so pastors do have to be gentle. They do have to be kind. But it's really hard. It's really hard when someone is coming at you and yelling at you and saying all kinds of global things about you that just seem like exaggerations and things like that. And you have to sit there like a Jedi, you know, no emotion, perfectly centered. So what I hear you saying is you hate my guts and you don't think I should be in the ministry. You know, it's like really hard. So avoid criticism. If you have criticism, go directly and be thoughtful about it and love the person. And don't entertain that in the church. Having said that, are there times when pastors need to be rebuked? Yes. Pastors are not above criticism. They are not above accountability to a congregation. And Paul mentions that there in verse 20, as for those who persist in sin. So, if there actually is a problem, and there actually are witnesses, and you actually have followed a biblical process of addressing it in a godly, constructive way, and they still persist in sin, They need to be rebuked in the presence of all so that the rest may stand in fear, which is one of the great benefits of church discipline. It sobers a church up really quick. And that sounds strong, doesn't it? Publicly rebuked. But that is the flip side of public honor. And it's what a pastor has to know or an elder when they step into this. If there's public honor, there's also public rebuke. You know, not many of you should aspire to be teachers, my brothers, because those who teach are judged more harshly, and it's true. And so, there is a time when pastors have to be rebuked. Pastors can have immoral affairs. Pastors can become addicted to things. Pastors can embezzle. Pastors can become authoritarian and tyrannical. And when these things happen and when a church addresses them in a godly way, not a gossipy way, but a godly way in a constructive way, and the pastor is warned and challenged and he persists, there is that that that specter of public rebuke, because ultimately, we all must answer to Christ and to his word. Nobody is above the word of God, not even a pastor. Even despite all this talk of honor and caring for and providing an understanding. It's a good reminder, isn't it? That at the end of the day, there's only one true shepherd of the church. There's only one good shepherd. It's a good reminder, isn't it? That pastors, even the best pastors are still sinners saved by grace. It is a weird thing being a pastor. Because in many ways, I feel like another sheep who just had a crook shoved in my mouth. And it was told, go shepherd those other sheep. It's like, bah! Bah! I'm a sheep. Am I supposed to shepherd? What? This doesn't make any sense. So, it's a scary calling in some ways. And the best pastors in the world are at best dim reflections of Jesus. The best pastors in the world are at best pointers and signposts to the one true shepherd of the church. And as we look at our own lives and we see this high calling of how we're supposed to treat God's under-shepherds, we look at it and we say, you know, this is a high calling. I don't know if I can attain this. And so even this should just keep pointing us back to the Gospel, pointing us back to the Lord Jesus Christ, and making us aware of our need for Him. Perhaps the best thing you can do to love your pastor is to focus on Christ. to keep your eyes on Jesus and not on men. As wonderful as a man God may give you. I've never met Keith. He sounds like a great guy from everything I hear. But even with that, you need to keep your eyes of the congregation on Jesus. Because it's not ultimately pastors who save anybody. It's not ultimately a church that saves anybody. We're saved through Christ. Jesus saves sinners. He's the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep. Jesus is the one who was crucified for sinners, was buried, who rose again on the third day. And it's only by repenting and believing in Him that one can be reconciled to God. Honoring a pastor, honoring an institution cannot reconcile us to God. There's nothing that we do to work within a church organization or system or polity that reconciles us to God. It's the blood of Christ. He alone is the Good Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd. And so keep your eyes on him. May you love your pastor by loving Christ more. May you treasure and honor your pastor by treasuring and honoring Christ more. I'll tell you, the best kind of church to lead is a church that is being led by Christ. The best kind of church to be a pastor of is a church that is following Christ and has put Christ at the center. It's such an easy church to lead. when people love the Lord and they love the gospel. And so, honor your pastor, but honor Christ more. May the gospel be what unifies and drives this church. And may God grant you godly pastors, and I pray godly lay elders, who would simply keep taking their staves and pointing them to the cross. and saying to the church, that way, that way. And when that happens, look out. God's Kingdom grows. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we praise You. You are the Great Shepherd. You alone are the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. And God, we want our churches and our lives to treasure you and to let our treasuring of you be obvious in the way we relate to each other. God, I pray, grant this congregation humble, godly pastors and elders who are easy to follow, who people would want to follow because they so reflect the character of Christ. And Lord, grant this congregation a love for its pastors. And as they love Christ, may they love their pastors and honor them. Help them to understand the job of pastors and to just keep cheering their pastors on to stay faithful to the Word, even when it's awkward or tough. are difficult. Pray, Lord, move this church to provide for their pastors. Lord, may they anticipate their pastor's needs. So not for the sake of the pastor to treat him like some sort of royalty, but for the sake of the gospel. Lord, may hindrances to the gospel be removed. And God, I pray that they would be eager to protect their pastor, that they would give pastors the benefit of the doubt and stand behind them. And yet, Lord, may the pastors also be humble Be godly men who are worthy of such honor, so that pastors might not fall into disgrace by becoming full of themselves. Lord, protect pastors and elders in this church from pride and from all of those pitfalls that come with responsibility and authority. Lord, I pray the more success and triumph You give Keith in the Gospel, would You give him a double measure of humility to tamp down any threat of him taking the glory from You. And so, God, be glorified in this church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.