Your Pastors, I'm Not So Sure About
Nathan Adams · Tidal Church Moncton · March 12, 2023 · Dear Church, I Like You, But... series
Nathan Adams looks at Matthew 23, Luke 22 and 1 Thessalonians 5 to show that pastors are called to humble servanthood, yet their work deserves high respect. Every believer is a priest with direct access to God, and Jesus alone is lifted up.
More from Nathan Adams · The Dear Church, I Like You, But... series
Topics: Holy Spirit, Relationships, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Well, good morning, church. It's so good to see you. It's an honor to share God's Word with you today. Today, we begin a new message series called Dear Church, I Like You, But... The series will face some of the failures of church overall that has caused many people to have a like for Jesus, but a disinterest in being involved with organized churches. We're going to dig deep into God's Word to try to find the resources to rise above these things. These message topics that we're going to cover over the next four weeks were actually planned out by your pastoral staff as we met prayerfully in December, and you saw how beautifully the timing worked out last week, didn't you?
[0:49] Reverend Jim Clements was the speaker, and his job description didn't involve very much speaking, but on the very Sunday that he would be presented as your candidate there, he was speaking. And now on the very Sunday after he was called as candidate, get a load of the sermon title that was planned in advance. Dear Church, I Like You, But Your Pastors, I'm Not So Sure About. Yeah, I was laughing a little bit too, you know, until I realized it put me in an extremely awkward position, like some sort of commentary or something on the candidate. Gracious, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, it's not going to be that, and in fact, Pastor Jim and I have been talking about this all along and even this week, and our hearts are together on it. And what I'm going to share with you comes both from an insider and an outsider perspective on pastoring, because my adult life has been split between being in that role and being outside that role.
[1:47] And I have a sense too that God's gonna say some things to people that have very little to do with what I'm saying. And when that happens, I get excited. So, Dear Church, I Like You, But Your Pastors, I'm Not So Sure About. Guess what? God has set an extremely low standard for pastors. If you read in Matthew 23:1, Jesus starts talking to His disciples about the religious leaders of their time. And He's kind of critical. He says in verse 5, and just listen to this part that won't be up on the screen. Everything they do, these religious leaders, are done for people to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long. These are things that would have identified them as highly religious people at the time.
[2:40] They love the place of honor at banquets and most important seats in the synagogues, their religious gatherings. They love to be greeted with respect in the marketplace and to be called rabbi by others. But check out what Jesus says to His disciples. You are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. And do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one Father, and He is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. Jesus: the greatest among you will be your servant.
[3:26] For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. It is because of this very passage that our church and others like it do not call pastors father, as do Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox churches. We reserve that honor for God only. And it is from this passage that the custom addressing normally as a pastor comes. Rather, in a way that identifies one as a religious leader, as did the rabbis with their long tassels and distinctive clothing, or now as priests with robes and collars. I have often said much that is extremely positive of our brothers and sisters in Christ from those groups.
[4:11] And we share a common faith, but there is a divergence in how we do church that cannot be glossed over. We emphasize conformity to the Scriptures rather than to traditions of the church that have accumulated over the centuries. So in this Scripture, do you see what I mean by saying God sets an extremely low standard for pastors? They are to be nothing but servants. And while this text Jesus is speaking specifically about religious leadership, in the one that we're going to look at, that's very similar, He applies it to all the leadership that we do as Christians. And so everything that is said in this sermon, you can contextualize that into the places of influence that God has put you, whether it be social, business, or educational influence.
[5:03] How are you stewarding it? And so we have to ask, what exactly did Jesus mean by the word servant? And so in the next passage from Luke 22, it says, A dispute arose among the disciples as to which one of them was considered to be the greatest. And Jesus said to them, the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors. Big Cheese would be a good translation. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you shall be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But, Jesus says, I'm among you as one who serves.
[5:55] He just served them the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper, and when Jesus says servant, He means like a server at a restaurant, or a busboy, or kitchen helper, a cleaner, a laundry person, an assistant to do the basic tasks that those who can afford to get someone else to do them for them will do. That is the heart. And when Jesus, in another instance, washed the disciples' feet, He showed us the lowness, the lowest of the role that He calls His disciples to take in their leadership. There are titles used for pastors by Jesus and the New Testament church. One is servant, that we just looked at, diakonos.
[6:42] Some churches call some of their leaders deacons. That's where that comes from. It means table waiter. Minister. That's all minister means, by the way. Busboy. Slave of Christ. It means what it sounds like. Shepherd or pastor. Often a pastor or a shepherd, like, that's all a pastor is, a shepherd. That's what the word means. That was the worst job you could have in the agricultural society, wandering around on the hillside, chasing your sheep and trying to protect them. These are the titles that no one wanted, and that were given to the leaders of the church.
[7:29] Now, titles that people would want would be rabbi, master, benefactor. Again, that's like a rich person that has all this good stuff to give out and expects everyone to be wonderful to them in return. Father. These are titles of respect that we might have wanted. And they're specifically ruled out by Jesus, and then there's a few titles that are given to pastors, but they're to be used very carefully. Teacher. Jesus is careful about that, like, "Call yourself teacher." But there's other passages that speak of pastors as teachers, and we'll look at one of them. And here's the difference: The teachers all speak only as one sharing another's words, not their own.
[8:18] Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:5, "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves only as servants for Jesus' sake." We should never get the herald confused with the King who gave the message, should we? Another word that we see often is "overseer." If you were to read through 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, they're called the Pastoral Epistles, or the Pastoral letters, because they talk a lot about pastors and church leadership. Along with the title of overseer, it uses the word "elder" a lot. Now, when we look at overseer, I mean, it's a good translation, but we do something.
[9:06] Overseer. Oh yeah, like upper management. Right? Well, another translation that would work really well for it is "guardian." And I took a look at how the Old Testament translation, the in Greek, that the early church often used, called the Septuagint. I looked at it to see how they used the word episkopos, and it's in Ezekiel 34:11 in that translation. The Lord says, "Look, I shall seek out My sheep and watch over them." Episkopos. You see, a shepherd's no CEO. He's a guardian. Indeed, shepherd is the word in the New Testament that most closely captures the lowliness of the pastoral role and shows the care that the pastor is supposed to give for their flock.
[10:02] It is Jesus' preferred image of Himself as the Good Shepherd. It's the last thing He said to Peter: "Shepherd, feed My sheep." So here is a strange question for you today. Are you helping your pastor be low when you continually tell him or her how wonderful they are? Now, if I had to choose between two worlds, one in which people said wonderful things about pastors and one in which they said terrible things about pastors, you know which one I'd take, right? Inside or out, I'd prefer the wonderful, but when does build up become puff up? When does praise for a leader take your focus off the real Leader, Jesus Christ?
[10:52] I tell you, the worst thing that can happen to a pastor is that he actually believes half the wonderful things you people say. He might think he's special. She might think she's fantastic. And the focus might not be on Jesus. But it's not as simple as that, because the Bible also commands us to hold pastors in high esteem. And this is the other passage that we will juxtapose against the first one, where Jesus said, "Call no one father." It's from 1 Thessalonians 5:12. Paul wrote, "We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and who admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work."
[11:40] Now, that word "very highly" smacked me in the face when I was reading it, because for two reasons. One is, I had a preconceived idea coming into this message that went very well with the first part of it. But then I ran into the Word of God, and it said, "Not so fast, smarty pants. You got something to learn." This word that we see underlined as "very highly" appears in a verse that Christians love to use, Ephesians 3:20: "I pray that God will do exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or imagine." Whoo! Exceedingly abundantly, same word, by the way.
[12:26] "Very highly." It's actually under-translated in this one. And that messed me up a little bit, because where I come from, I'm kind of comfortable with the humble thing for pastors. But there's this other spot. So let's put the two ideas up on the screen. God sets an extremely low standard for pastors. God sets an extremely high standard for pastors. How could this go together? God sets an extremely low standard for pastors' self-importance, but God sets an extremely high standard of regard for pastors' work. The person that gets to declare God's Word is literally holding out the words that can transfer a person from eternal death to eternal life.
[13:21] The person that leads a church is shepherding every one of the gifts that God put into your life and trying to lead it harmoniously into something that will advance the kingdom of God. The person that does these things and cares for you is doing something extremely important. And it's not because they are fantastic or wonderful. It's because it's a high office and task. You know, even when Jesus was taken before the high priest and unjustly accused, He corrected Himself and said, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have responded to you that way. Had I known you were the high priest." Strange, but He's showing respect for the office.
[14:09] And we know that God has placed people over each one of us in the Lord. They're there to watch over us, and they deserve respect because of the importance of the work, even if they themselves as people are less than perfect in many ways. For indeed, aren't we all less than perfect in many ways? And how many times have you come to Sunday worship and afterwards had lunch, as you talked about the shortcomings of the preaching and the music? I know you have, because I know I have. I've had the pastor for lunch way too many times to hold my head high before you right now.
[14:55] And maybe a few of you haven't, but most of you have. And who was listening to us critique and complain about the pastor's message or the worship music? Even if we threw in a few nice comments and tried to balance our evaluation, who was listening? Why, it was our family, it was our friends. And how is their faith journey today? Is it possible that we subtracted from their faith by our lack of respect for the office of pastor? Certainly, we have subtracted from their love for the church.
[15:41] What if we just stopped talking about the music and we started talking about the worship? You see the difference? The presence of God and how He spoke to us in worship. What if we stopped talking about the preacher and started talking about God's Word that was spoken to our heart that day? Now that is a faith conversation around the dinner table that will build up everyone who hears it. Is it not? This does not mean that we accept everything that a pastor says or that a church does. Far from it.
[16:30] In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, that we've been reading right now, just a few verses down. After saying, esteem pastors very highly in love because of their work, it says in verse 19, "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast to what is good." Test everything. Hold fast to the good. Do not automatically believe everything a pastor says. They do not speak directly for God. They are just preaching about God's Word. And to accurately preach that Word, the pastor must be devoted to God and Spirit-led. They must preach the whole Bible, not just the parts they like, not just the parts they think you will like. And even then, after all that, I guarantee you the pastor, this pastor, any pastor will get it wrong sometimes.
[17:25] In fact, maybe they can't get through one single sermon without getting something wrong. You must become a student of the Word so that you can test what is given, in 1 Corinthians 14:29. It says to weigh what is said. In 1 John 4:1 it says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God." You see, there is a big difference between a healthy respect for the work of a pastor and allowing an unhealthy elevation of him or her as a person. This can bring an unhealthy amount of power. And what does power lead to?
[18:10] Abuse. Truly sickening forms of abuse that we have all struggled with comprehending. It leads to celebrity pastors with huge followings who are more fashionable than holy sometimes. It leads to guru pastors who act like they have some special direct line from God, and if you could only just get near them, it'll rub off on you. All forms of abuse flow from such unhealthy elevation of power. Our church tries to ameliorate this by distributing power on different levels, by giving power to you as the congregation, ultimately to call your next pastor, to being responsible to you as a congregation at votes, by distributing power between pastors who do different functions, by having a board that works with your staff and speaks for you, and even by having people over us, like our district superintendent, who has been here to shepherd the process.
[19:16] We spread that power out to avoid unhealthy elevation of pastoral power. Did you know that the early church made that very mistake though? I was reading along in some of my studies for my research, and I was reading about a man named Ignatius. He was a pastor, and he was a prisoner being transported to Rome to die for Jesus, much like Paul had done 70 years before him. So he's one or two generations after the first Christians. And he's going to Rome to die. So many of the early church leaders were the first targets in the persecutions that happened to Christians. They were the first to lose their property. They were the first to be tortured. They were the first to die, and it was quite heroic in many ways.
[20:12] And so as Ignatius traveled, he penned letters to churches that he traveled by, again much like Paul had done 70 years earlier. He sent one to the Ephesians, not Scripture by any means. I'm going to put it up on the screen, and I want you to see if you see what's happened in the one or two generations since Paul had made the same journey. Ignatius says, "We must regard the bishop," and that's what they called the lead pastor for a city, "We must regard the bishop as the Lord Himself." With this mindset, before long people started praying to these heroic martyrs and Ignatius himself. They started calling him Saint Ignatius.
[21:02] Before long, the lowly title of pastor was replaced by priest. And priests were seen as a bridge between ordinary people and God, super spiritual people who could connect you, people so other- worldly that they better not get involved in anything. Maybe they shouldn't even have wives so they wouldn't engage in carnal intercourse. Before long, people began to think that the church needed a priest over the priests, almost like a king for the church, and they had a pope, taking over Caesar's very title of Pontifex Maximus, high priest. And before long, Mary as saint of saints was seen as the bridge between her Son Jesus and us. And you can see it happening in the second century, third, fourth, fifth, accelerating on a path that ultimately I believe is unhealthy.
[22:00] You see, all those jobs that I listed were already filled. It is Christ alone who is the only mediator between God and us, not saints. 1 Timothy says, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people." There is only one head for the church, and it is not any person other than Jesus Christ. Colossians says Christ is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, He is the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything. And the whole book of Hebrews tells us that Christ alone is our great high priest, and it says in Hebrews 7, "Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." The gospel is that God has come to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that He approaches us directly.
[23:07] He holds out forgiveness to us directly, personally, and we can respond directly to Him. You could do that today. We pray directly to Him as the Holy Spirit fills our hearts, and we can open up and worship God directly through Jesus Christ as He lifts us up to the Father in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And to this amazing, uninhibited personal access to God is also added the access we get together with Christ. We as individuals are connected together by the Holy Spirit as He knits our hearts together. How often have you come across someone who was a stranger and within 30 seconds you knew that you were talking to your brother or sister?
[23:57] We are connected spiritually as the body of Christ, and we are connected as we work together practically in ministries, and as we live together relationally, sharing meals together and time together. And in this wonderful body of Christ, all these gifts have been given by God. He has given each one of you one or more spiritual gifts. It may be a natural ability that, when put in the service of God, God does wonderful, miraculous things through it. Or it may be a supernatural, miraculous ability, and God, through your ministry to others, may heal. He may bring words of knowledge. He may touch people through your life in phenomenal ways.
[24:45] But there was one gift that each one of us actually has. It is the gift to be a bridge between God and other people, of being priests, because the New Testament does indeed use the word priest. And listen to the context in 1 Peter 2: "But you all are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." You are the priest. You have the Holy Spirit just as much as him or her or me. You are priests, and you can be used by God to bring people to Him. And then it is as a priesthood of all believers that pastors can give their gift, their spiritual gift, to you. In Ephesians 4:11, it says, "And Christ gave the apostles, prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ." The saints. Saint Ignatius, Saint Mary, no. Saint you.
[26:06] Saint you. Because although you are flawed person like me, like everyone else that's on this platform, you've been filled by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ has forgiven you, and His blood covers over your sins. And with that direct access to God, you are a saint. You might be a sinner in yourself, but in Christ you're saint. And so that wonderful access to God that we feel is reserved for the few is available to all. And He wants to use pastors simply to equip your ministry. And a good pastor leads from the front and ministry. But the pastor is a minister leading ministers.
[26:56] How is God speaking to you this morning? Despite what any pastor says, God always will speak to your heart when the Word of God is lifted up. And what's more exciting to me than the direct hit from what I thought God was gonna say is when God speaks above the message, beside the message, below the message, and shows you things that He wants you to understand and respond to today. If God was speaking you or is beginning to speak to you about becoming a pastor, I want you right now to turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 20. Just for the few of you that might be feeling that, I want you to turn to that. I'm not going to read it, but I want you to meditate on it. In fact, you can forget almost everything else I say in the next few minutes.
[27:55] But what about the rest of us? Is God speaking to you about increasing your level of respect for the office and work of pastoring? Was how God spoke to me. Because, frankly, my birth culture sets me up to think too little of the respect for the office. But perhaps God is calling you to lower your focus on the person of the pastor and to realize that the pastor is not a spiritual guru who has some super spirituality that you may not have. I guarantee to you that there are many people in this church with more spirituality than any person on our pastoral staff. Those from other birth cultures might struggle with this background if pastors were unduly elevated.
[28:43] Those who came from churches around here, perhaps, that were built around the personality of the pastor, might hear God talking to you about that need, because God says, "I will not yield my glory to another." The focus must always be on God. Is God calling you to engage in your work as a minister, the work that is for every believer, and to surrender your life so fully that the Holy Spirit can fill you, activating the gifts that God has given to you, fanning into a flame that holy love of God? Will you respond this morning if He is? Is God speaking to you about your leadership that you may have in the world?
[29:32] To model your leadership more on the servant leadership of Jesus that builds up everyone around you. How would He have you changed this coming week? And is God speaking to you and saying, "All these things I have for you. You must become intimate with Me and take advantage of this direct access so that I can flow through you." Would you respond to Jesus this morning? It started last month, actually, guys. February the 8th in the tiny town of Wilmore, Kentucky. For two weeks the students of Asbury University found themselves in their chapel.
[30:21] They had an ordinary chapel service with an ordinary message. The guy that gave it, after the message, sent a text to his wife and said, "Blew another one, honey." But God was speaking. And a few kids, you know, these 19, 20 year olds that don't care about God, we're told, they stayed in that chapel confessing sin and began to confess to one another and saying, "I was hard on you. I judged you." And they wouldn't leave. And then more kids came, and before you know it, the whole student body was in that chapel praying and worshiping God. And the presence of God was so thick and so beautiful and so unspectacular, though, in another way.
[31:08] Just an amazing love and presence of God. And 24 hours later, the kids were still there worshiping God and praying, and a revival broke out. And all over the place, people began to see, "Something amazing is happening," and everyone that wanted to say, "This isn't real," or "This is personality driven," or "It's maybe they're just getting psyched up to make America great again," or something, came to that spot and said, "No, no. Among us here in this spot is the Holy Spirit." And these people, these kids, they took a posture of radical humility. Because over the next two weeks, tens of thousands of people came to Wilmore, Kentucky. There's 6,000 people in that town.
[31:56] Maybe 50,000 people showed up, and they had one model though. They said, "There are no celebrities here." And so if some pastor came in that was well known, he would not even say his name as he led them in prayer. No celebrities here, only Jesus moving through each one of us, no matter what our age, no matter what our background. And it is when that happens, when Jesus is lifted up, then the Holy Spirit comes, then the church arises. And I invite you to rise right now out of your seats to worship God, to give Jesus the glory, and to put your life at His disposal that He may shine through you. Let's worship God.