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Collierville First Baptist Church
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So Brother Tommy, I'm gonna pray and you come and you teach what the Lord's laid on your heart. Heavenly Father, I'm so thankful
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for your infinite grace and mercy.
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I'm so thankful for Brother Tommy.
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I'm so thankful that he's a man of integrity and he and Rose have been faithful to you for years and years. And I just pray that you would fill him with the Holy Spirit.
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I pray, Lord, that you would anoint him and use him in a powerful way for your glory tonight. Go into our hearts, Lord. Help us to grow spiritually, help us to be the men and women that you called us to be. In Jesus' name, amen.
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Well, thank you, pastor. It's always an honor to get to teach God's word. And I thank you for the confidence that you place in me to teach in your place. I didn't know he was gonna be here tonight. I'm a portrait of a pastor. I could have just put his picture up here and we could have prayed and gone home, but yeah, I appreciate my pastor. And that's why I told you the last time I taught here, I taught on God's new thing because I'm doing interims now. For those of you who don't know me, I'm in my 13th interim and I view my role as that interim pastor during that time while they're searching for a pastor is to prepare that church for their next pastor. And so it's what a blessing to be able to do a little of that in my own home church. So I'm gonna do that again tonight. So I invite you to open your Bible to the book of 1 Peter chapter five. And we're actually going to only be looking at the first four verses of 1 Peter chapter five.
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There's been an age old argument.
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Does a great church make a great pastor?
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Or does a great pastor make a great church?
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And the answer to that question is yes. (Congregation Laughing)
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A great church can help make a great preacher and teacher of the word of God.
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And a great teacher and preacher of the word of God
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be an instrument in the hands of a sovereign God to raise around him a great church.
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And so tonight I wanna do the impossible.
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I wanna paint a portrait of God's ideal pastor.
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And hopefully in saying that,
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paint a portrait of our next pastor.
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Because knowing the pastor search committee that this church has placed in that awesome responsibility, I think they will look for God's ideal man for this church.
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Now I'm not an artist nor the son of an artist.
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And I certainly cannot draw his face.
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But I believe that Peter has drawn for us a portrait
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of our next pastor's heart. And so we wanna look at these four verses from the standpoint of the portrait of a pastor.
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Through the years as a pastor, pastoring for almost half a century and now doing all these interims,
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I've had many, many pictures drawn of me. Pastor, I know you have too. Coming from the children's department.
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And they're mostly stick men with a Bible in their hand. And I just wish I'd have kept all those pictures over all those years.
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Trying to draw a portrait of their pastor and probably my approximation will be as
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faultly as theirs were of me. But I wanna try to do that. I pastored Leewood Baptist Church from 1992 to the year 2000.
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After I came here on staff in 2008, seven,
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a group of our senior adults went to Leewood Baptist Church for a senior adult meeting.
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And when they came back from that meeting, they had walked down what we called at Leewood, the Hall of Fame or the Hall of Shame. It was a portrait of all the pastors who had ever been at Leewood Baptist Church. And Rose and I have our portrait at Leewood Baptist. And the senior adults came back and said, "Brother Tommy, we saw your portrait today."
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And it reminded me of that day we had that picture made.
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We knew it was gonna be viewed for the next half a century probably.
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We combed our hair, washed our face, tried to smell good, tried to look good. We did everything we could and the photographer did everything he could to take all the blemishes away.
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And I said, after viewing the,
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whatever you call them, yeah. I said, "Man, this just doesn't do me justice." (Congregation Laughing) He said, "Tommy, you don't need justice. "You need mercy, my friend."
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You've heard that old joke.
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Well, I won't do justice to this, but let's read the word picture of the ideal pastor.
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First Peter chapter five, verse one.
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"The elders who are among you I exhort.
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"I who am a fellow elder and a witness "of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker "of the glory that will be revealed."
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Now I want you to circle if you write in your Bible, in that first verse circle the word elders, if you will. We're gonna come back to that, that's important.
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Next verse, "Shepherd the flock of God, "which is among you serving as overseers." Now there are two words I'd like for you to circle in that verse, that's the word shepherd.
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That's the same word in the language of the New Testament that's translated as pastor.
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It is also translated with the word feed, feed.
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"Shepherd the flock of God, which is among you serving "as overseers." Circle that word, overseers, elders, shepherds, and overseers. Now that tells us who they are. And then he begins to tell us what they're to be like.
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He says, "They're to assume that responsibility, "not by compulsion, but willingly,
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"not for dishonest gain, but eagerly." See that, see how he does that? "Not, but, not, but." And he has one more in verse three. "Not or nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, "but being examples to the flock.
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"And when Christ, or rather, "and when the chief shepherd appears, "you will receive the crown of glory "that does not fade away."
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Now there's a verse that James, our Lord's half brother, included in his epistle, James chapter three, verse one, that has always caused me to have pause. And I think anybody that assumes the role of spiritual leader, and especially the role of a pastor in church, needs to take heed to this verse. It's James chapter three, verse one, where James, our Lord's half brother, said, "Be not many teachers, "for they receive a greater condemnation."
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Now I don't know how that affects other pastors, but when I reflect on the thousands of sermons that I've preached over the last 60 years,
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how accountable I'm going to be before my Father in heaven,
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how I will give an account for that. So as we begin to think about these responsibilities of the elder, the pastor, the bishop, the overseer, we need to keep that verse back in the back of our mind, that the Lord has told us that we who assume and accept that calling need to also be ready to know that we'll be accountable and held accountable for that. Now, I think Peter has that in mind when he opens up with verse one, saying, "The elders who are among you,
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"I exhort who am also a fellow elder." Now, why would Peter begin his discussion with these pastors by associating himself with them?
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Well, the whole letter of 1 Peter is dealing with the subject of suffering. The book of 1 Peter per capita uses the word suffering more than any other letter in the New Testament. Peter is writing to a suffering persecuted church. He begins right off the bat in chapter one, verses six and seven. He says in verse five, "We are kept by the power of God "through faith unto salvation." And then he goes right into the talk about suffering. He says, "I keep you, but I don't keep you from suffering." And then in chapter four, verse 12, he says, "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, "which is to try you." Now, that fiery trial is a metaphor for the way the Roman president or governor was persecuting Christians at that day, Nero. He was burning Christians at the stake. He was lighting his garden with Christians that he had tarred and set on fire. And so Peter is reminding these elders and he's reminding himself that when we assume that role of pastor, we can expect that we're gonna suffer for it. He said, "Don't think it's strange concerning the fire trial as though some strange thing happened to you." He said, "That's gonna be normal for the believer." You and I have been so blessed in our culture, but I think we've been cursed with blessings as Dr. Rogers used to say, "We're blessed with cursings in the days ahead." I may not live to see it, but I think about if Jesus doesn't come, what are my grandkids and great-grandkids are gonna do? So Peter is facing that and so he's letting these brothers that he's talking to know that he's not just talking out of theory, he's been there. And notice what he says, "The elders who are among you, "I exhort, I'm a fellow elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ."
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When I began my ministry, I read a sermon by John R. Rice called "Watching Jesus Die."
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And I memorized that sermon, wrote Chuck. I memorized it, man, I could preach it too.
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But that sermon had a section in it that troubled me. I always tried to research the sermons and find it for myself, what it was saying. And as I researched that point, I couldn't find anywhere where Peter was at the cross. I wanted to say that Peter was at the cross and that he was a backslider and he may have been on the fringe areas, but he was there. But I couldn't prove it from the gospels. And then I came across this.
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He said, "I was a witness to the sufferings of Christ." Now as a backslider, he may have been on the fringe areas just looking in. He had denied his Lord three times, you know that. But he witnessed the sufferings. Now that's something that these elders he's writing to did not. They're in Cappadocia and Turkey and scattered out all over the place. But Peter said, "I saw him die." But then notice what he says, "I'm a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed."
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Peter said, "Yes, there's suffering involved. And as elders, pastors and overseers, we're gonna probably enter into that more than others because we're on the front line at the point of the spear." But he says, "That's not the only thing there is. There's a plus at the end of this equation." He says, "There's a crown that you can receive by faithfully serving me as a pastor." Now here's the question. He said, "I was a witness to the sufferings but also a partaker of the glory." When did Peter partake of the glory? Well, I think he's speaking futuristic tense in terms of when Jesus comes again and that glory. But I also think he's speaking experientially because he got a glimpse of glory. You remember where that was? In the transfiguration. When Jesus was transfigured in front of him and his garments became spotless white. And he saw just momentarily, he saw the glory of Christ. And can you imagine how that impacted him in terms of what he's anticipating in the future?
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So Peter here is just telling these guys, "I am a fellow elder." It's interesting to me. He doesn't pull the apostle card out.
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He doesn't appeal to them, "I Peter the first pope."
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Why wouldn't he say that? Well, might be because he wasn't.
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You see, Peter makes no appeal in this particular case. And I'm not saying he didn't have a right to because on occasion, Paul, Peter and the other apostles would appeal to their apostolic authority. But in this case, he's encouraging these elders, pastors, teachers by saying, "I'm one of you."
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I'm one of you.
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And so he's telling us there who he is. So what I want you to see is all three of these terms, elder, pastor, bishop, all three terms refer to the same person.
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Now we're gonna talk about that in just a little bit. But if you'd like to feel free after the service, come up and refer to me as Elder Vincent. (Congregation Laughing) Or if you like it better, just say Bishop Tommy.
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But let me tell you, people ask me, what's your favorite term? You wanna be called Reverend? I say, "Please don't, please don't. Don't call me Reverend." You wanna call your doctor? I say, "No, the Lord's not sick, he doesn't need a doctor."
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What do you want us to call you? I say, "Call me Pastor."
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There's no greater term on the face of this earth
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than the term pastor, shepherd.
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And one of the things that, especially these last 20 years,
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there's been a pet peeve of mine,
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has been the loss of the shepherd paradigm in ministry.
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We've moved from shepherding to rancher. And when I first thought that term, I heard that term, I thought, "Yeah, that's so cute."
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But when you think about it, a rancher is concerned about the institution and about the business of raising cows and horses. The shepherd is concerned about the sheep.
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And we can get so involved in the organization and the church that we forget.
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We're sheep. And by the way, Jesus didn't brag on us when he called us sheep.
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And I say that because,
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Brother Chuck, all of us pastors know we're sheep too.
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And we have the same problems. We face the same temptations that all sheep do. And that's one of the things we have to remember as pastors is that we're sheep too.
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Now, let's look at the responsibility of the spiritual leader here.
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In these first three verses, we see those terms, elder, shepherd, and overseer. Now, let's talk about elder just a little bit. He says in verse one, "The elders who are among you." First of all, notice it's plural. And that's common in the New Testament. Churches always seem to have, when Paul is talking about churches, he's talking about a plurality of elders. And so he's writing to the plural. He's writing to elders. Now, the word elder is a word that comes out of the Old Testament and is brought in to the New Testament form of government. You'll remember when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and going through the wilderness, going to the Promised Land, he was about to kill himself, trying to handle all the affairs, all the counseling and people were bombarding him. And finally, his father-in-law, when Jethro, I believe was his name, not Beverly Hillbilly's Jethro, but his father-in-law gave him a great word of counsel. He said, "You need to get some men around you who can take this responsibility off of you and free you up to do what God has called you to do." And so they established, please, I may have the number wrong. I think it was 70 elders, but whatever the number was, a group of men that he chose. And Moses was able to do his job because he had these leaders surrounding him and they were called elders. And we see that all throughout the Old Testament. I'm preaching through the book of Ruth now, little church I'm doing. And we're talking about chapter four next week where Boaz met with the other kinsmen, Redeemer at the gate, and he called all the elders together to help him negotiate this contract or proposal to Ruth. So elders were known as, it can mean one of two things. It can just mean an older man. It can mean that. But in this context, he's talking about the maturity of leadership. So when you think about, why would God give us three separate terms to describe one office? Because it's kaleidoscopic. Each one of these terms represents a strain or focus of pastoral ministry. And this particular one, elder, I call him, if you're a note taker, an elder represents a man of maturity.
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A man of maturity. It refers to accumulated wisdom. It implies maturity. And it really is more concerned with maturity than it is chronological age.
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I mean, I know some incredibly wise 80 and 90 year old men.
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And then I know some 80 and 90 year old fools.
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Just because you're old don't mean you're wise. And I have pastored 25 and 30 year old men that had the wisdom of a 60 or 70 year old man. So it's not so much chronal, well, I got my nose fixed now, my mouth won't work.
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Chronal, well, I can't say it, I'm gonna quit trying. Charles Spurgeon was 19 years old
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when he went to pastor one of the largest churches in London. Bartholomew Orr down here at Brown. My oldest son went to high school with Bartholomew. And he used to come home and say, "Dad, there's a young black man in my class. "He's pastoring a church down here at South Haven.
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"He's been there now going on 40 years, "growing it to one of the largest churches, "fastest growing churches in the Mid-South."
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So elder doesn't just refer to age, but it refers to maturity. Now let's look at shepherd.
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Shepherd, elder there is a noun, it's referring about a person. Shepherding is a verb here. He says, notice what he says here, shepherd the flock of God. Some of your translations may have feed. I believe the King James have feed. I'm reading from the new King James. Or maybe, but anyway, it can be translated feed or shepherd. Or pastor, all three of these refer to the same office. Now, if the elder is a man of maturity, the shepherd is what I'm calling a man of ministry.
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This has to do with his ministry heart. It means to pastor or to feed the flock of God.
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It also has deep roots in the Old Testament. If you look at the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, what was their vocation? They were shepherds. Look at David, how did he start out? He was a shepherd. Unlike Egypt that hated shepherds, in Israel shepherds were heroes.
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Some of the prophets like Amos, they were shepherds. And so the shepherd role in the history of Israel has been a very positive thing. You know, David, a lot of his Psalms are written from his time as being a shepherd. Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want." Now to shepherd the flock involves three things, at least, probably more than that. Number one, to shepherd the flock means to lead the flock. Listen to what Psalm 23, 1 and 2 says. Let me read it for you again. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. Notice he makes me, have any of you ever had, God had to make you lie down?
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But he's able to do that. He makes me to lie, and then notice what it says. He leads me beside the still waters. Or what John 10, verse 11 says, "I am," Jesus talking, "I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep." Now notice, he doesn't drive the sheep.
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He leads the sheep.
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You drive cattle.
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You lead sheep.
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How do you lead them? Well, he's saying you lead them, first of all, by example.
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If I'm one step in front of the people I'm leading,
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I'm a leader.
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If I'm two steps in front of the people I'm leading,
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I'm a pioneer.
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If I'm three steps ahead of the people I'm leading,
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I'm a martyr.
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Think about that.
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There's a balance in how far ahead we can get when we lead.
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If we try to lead too fast and too far, it's counterproductive.
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We lead, they gotta keep us in sight. And what happens sometimes is that we can get out of sight. So the responsibility of the shepherd is to lead wisely.
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And we're to lead not out of compulsion, he says. Do you notice that?
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The difference in Islam and Christianity is Islam is spread by compulsion. It's do or die, convert or die.
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But Jesus leads by love.
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So our new pastor will need to be given time and encouragement to seek God and Godly counsel from the staff and others to discern God's vision for First Baptist Church, Collierville. Remember I said two weeks ago, leadership begins when a vision emerges.
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People follow vision.
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People are drawn to vision. Resources are drawn to vision. People of leadership ability and who are hungering to see God do something, they're drawn to that. And that's a big prayer as you pray for your new pastor. Pray that God will give him a vision. Young pastors used to ask me, "When do you know it's time to leave?" And I'd always tell them, "When my vision doesn't extend beyond "what I'm gonna preach next Sunday."
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If that's the only vision I've got, I need to go somewhere else or step down and let somebody who has vision follow. Okay, so it's leading, it's leading. And secondly, it's feeding, feeding.
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Listen to what Jeremiah chapter three verse one. And Jeremiah has so much to say about shepherds. A lot of it's not good. But this is one of the good things he says. Jeremiah three one, he says, "Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart "who will feed you on knowledge and understanding."
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You know, one thing I love and appreciate about our pastor,
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and most of you don't realize how many hours he spends in the study preparing a spiritual dinner for us. I remember my mother used to get up for everybody. She worked at a shirt factory, but she'd get up every morning and she'd have breakfast cooked. We'd come to the table and it's ready. I took that so much for granted. You know, we don't ever need to take for granted that when Brother Chuck comes here on Wednesday night and he gives you that manuscript, that didn't just pop out of the air.
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When he preached on Sunday morning, that doesn't just pop. It's a result of spending time in the Word and studying and reflecting so that he can feed us the Word of God.
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Somebody said, "You can be a teacher "without being a pastor, "but you can't be a pastor without being a teacher."
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If you look in Ephesians where he outlines the offices, apostles, prophets, et cetera, you notice that there's a pastor-teacher office. Do you notice that's not two offices? That is a hyphen, pastor-teacher. In other words, they are to be the same.
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And sheep need feeding, don't we?
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You know, a sheep can't even smell water.
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And they'll eat grass until they eat it all up and they'll just sit right there and starve,
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unless the shepherd leads them to more water and more grass. Somebody said that a sheep is one of the best proofs
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for there not being a evolution. (Congregation Laughing) A sheep can't exist without a shepherd.
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You gotta have a shepherd.
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John 21, in that post resurrection appearance,
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Jesus said to Peter, "Peter, do you love me?"
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Yes, Lord, feed my sheep.
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Peter, do you love me?
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Lord, you know I love you. Tend my lambs. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Feed, tend, feed. Feed, what we're talking about here. Tend is what I was just talking about. Tend means to lead and to protect.
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To protect.
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And really, the shepherd didn't technically feed the sheep. What'd he do? He led them to the grass where they could be fed. And that's what our pastor does. He can't spoon feed us.
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If all the word you get is what you get on Sunday morning, you're never gonna grow.
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What he tries to do is equip us to feed ourselves.
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And the shepherd leads the sheep to the grass, but they have to eat it.
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He said, "Study to show yourself approved." I heard about an old Indian sheep. They finally talked him into going to the local church and hearing their preacher preach. The old Indian chief had never heard a preacher preach. So when he got through, they asked the old chief,
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"How'd you like it?"
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And obviously that Sunday, the preacher had not been prepared.
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And he tried to make up in volume what he lacked in content. You ever heard a sermon like that?
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The mortar's thin, so you sling it harder. You know what I'm talking about.
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I've had a few sermons like this, point weak, speak louder, that kind of thing.
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They asked the old Indian, "What'd you think?"
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He said, "High wind, big thunder, no rain." (Congregation Laughing)
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We want our pastor.
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It's all right for him to have high wind and big thunder. But we want it to rain.
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We want it to rain.
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He said, "The elders which are among you." It means the shepherd's focus is on the local church.
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He said, "I'm part of you."
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We think of the word bishop is used today wrongly.
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People talk about a bishop today. They mean a person who's in charge of a bunch of churches or a denomination.
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Our Methodist friends have bishops over certain areas. My older brother who's in heaven now was a charismatic pastor. I loved him to death. I used to tell him, "Horse you're going to heaven if you don't overshoot." (Congregation Laughing) But he pastored two churches, and so I finally called him Bishop Harse because he was over two churches. But that's not what the word bishop means.
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The word bishop translated overseer.
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It's a combination of two words that made up the New Testament, epi and scopus. What does the word scopus sound like? You scope something out. You see it. Epi means over it. So epi scopus means to see over or to oversee. And so the third word here that's used interchangeably with pastor and elder is the word bishop. It's all the same person, but that is what I call a man of administration or I guess a man of management is the word I was trying to think of. You got a man of maturity, that's the elder. A man of ministry, that's the pastor. And then you got a man of management, that's the overseer. And you know, it's amazing how God puts staffs together and I love it here.
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Whenever you see Sam again, tell him Sam, the Greek word for overseer is epi scopus. We get our English word epi scopus.
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So the next time you see Sam say, Sam, Brother Tommy said you were an epi scopus.
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(Congregation Laughing) Epi scopus is a person who has the gifts of management, and Sam, and I thank God for Sam, he oversees so many things financially for our church and he does such a good job with it. And as you look at the staff, their gifts dictate which one of these three elements that they fill out the most. And obviously our pastor is feeding us and leading us and protecting us and that's a huge part of shepherding, is protecting the sheep. In fact, Luke 15, Jesus told us about a shepherd who left the 90 and nine and went out looking for that one lost sheep because the shepherd protects the sheep. I remember when God first called me to preach, I was a member of a church in Columbus, Mississippi, and I was about as naive as anybody ever was. And I heard this guy on the radio one day,
[01:36:29;43 - 01:36:36;05]
and Brother Bob, you'll probably remember him, Chuck, you too. Man, he had a radio voice and he came up and said, the world tomorrow!
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Remember that? Herbert W. Armstrong.
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I thought, man, what a voice. And he started teaching and he was teaching on evolution and man, he was doing a great job. And I went to my pastor and I said, pastor, I heard the greatest preacher today, Herbert W. Armstrong. His eyes got about this big. He said, Tommy, you leave that man alone.
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He's a heretic.
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And he was.
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He was.
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But you see, my shepherd protected me.
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You know, sometimes people get upset
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when the pastor calls things out
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and calls people who are heretics out.
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But if you love your kids,
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are you gonna let them play with rattlesnakes and not tell them that they can kill you?
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And when a pastor loves his sheep, I thank God he loves us enough to tell us about the false prophets and about the false teachers.
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Bishop.
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Bishop. Some churches use active committee structure. They rely strongly on the respective staff leadership to set the vision.
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I'm not talking about style here.
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Churches have different ways of functioning, but here's what I would say to us. If we call God's man and we are, and God sends him here and he will, and God gives him a vision,
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then we must give him the freedom to lead us
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along with the staff, just as you have done with Brother Chuck.
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Well, let me go real quickly. Y'all are listening way too slow. But these next two points won't take long. Let's go from the responsibility of the spiritual leader to the accountability of the spiritual leader. And I've already touched on that just a little bit. That's included in verses two and three.
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I love what John, we're talking about accountability.
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Pastors are accountable. Number one, we're accountable to our chief shepherd.
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Our chief shepherd. He holds us accountable. I love what John, this is a quote from John Stott. He said, "Some pastors are invisible Monday through Saturday and they're incomprehensible on Sunday."
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That's kind of a sad commentary. We are accountable for assuming the role of pastor in these following ways. Number one, we must assume the role for the right reason, the right reason. In other words, he says we're to accept that role willingly and not under compulsion. Or another way to put it is gladly and not grudgingly. God is looking for a willing spirit in his service. And God helped the preacher who complains and does what he does because he has to do it.
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I've run into some...
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I love preachers. I do, I love them. I've ran into a few duds. Not many, but I've ran into a few duds.
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I ask him, "Do you like to preach?" No, man, I like to preach.
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Do you enjoy pastoral ministry, visiting the hospital? No, man, I hate to go to them hospitals.
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Do you do a lot of administration? No more than I have to.
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I'm thinking, "Man, you need to get a job selling shoes somewhere."
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I mean, what's with this?
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If we do what we do because we have to do it, hey, I wouldn't wanna trade places with the highest paid CEO in this country for what I do. And I mean that from all my heart.
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God has blessed me and given me much more than I ever deserved.
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And the churches that I've pastored have been so generous to me and I'm grateful for that.
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But I was preaching the gospel on the streets of Okinawa before I ever got a dime for it.
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I'm grateful, but God helped the man who goes into it
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because mama called him or daddy called him or somebody told him he was a good speaker
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or because to try to get some money out of it.
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When God called me to preach, it was a sad state of affairs.
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If you'd told me when I was 19 years old that I'd be doing what I'm doing tonight, I would have said, "You've got room to rent upstairs "unfurnished."
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I thought something was wrong with me though.
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When as a 19 year old boy sitting there watching Billy Graham on a black and white flipping TV,
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I don't mean flipping in an ugly way, I mean it was flipping, it really was.
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And they gave invitation and people, and I just started weeping and I got on my knees and I gave all that I had to all that he is.
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He had already saved me just a little bit before,
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but I said, "Lord, I don't know what you want me to do,
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"but I want to do what you want me to do." Did you hear that? I want to do what you want me to do. I'd heard so many horror stories of preacher of the saint. I ran for the ministry for five years, ran from it
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to know God's calling, you want to run toward it.
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I know of no higher calling.
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I know of no higher calling.
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I'm gonna blame this on Dr. Rogers because I'm quoting him so you can take it up with him.
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But I heard Dr. Rogers say this. I hope I've got the quote halfway right. This is all from memory.
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He said, "Some say I lost respect for that pastor. "He just moved from money."
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I understand, but what about you?
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Do you take the highest bidder? Do you remove when the salary is better, even though it means taking your family out of a church where you are fed spiritually and where you serve the Lord? What is good for the goose is good for the gander. You remember that, Bob?
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Preachers shouldn't move from money, but neither should you.
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If God's got you where he wants you to in a church that preaches the word of God where your family can grow, it needs to be more than just a financial decision.
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Well, Dr. Rogers, you made a lot of folks mad just then. (Audience Laughing) You need to assume for the right reason. Number two, for the right manner. Notice what he says, humbly. I'm sorry, for the right motive. Let me go back up, I missed one. Not dishonest game, but eagerly. And I've already touched on that. Here's the third one. You need to assume it with the right manner. What does he say? Humbly, neither as lords, but as examples. I love occasionally to read Eugene Peterson's The Message, and he puts it this way. He says, not bossily telling others what to do, but tenderly showing them the way. Some have taken the role of pastor and turned it into a spiritual dictatorship.
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They have.
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A couple of pastors just in recent years have been fired because of the abuse of power.
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That's why Paul said to Timothy, the servant of the Lord must not strive,
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but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach and patient.
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You see, lording and leading are two terms that should never be confused.
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Someone said, authorities like soap, the more you use, the less you have. And if you have to tell people you're in charge, you're probably not.
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Pastors are to be examples, examples of servanthood.
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How can you tell if you have a servant spirit?
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Gary Hamrick informed me of this, I love it. You know how you can tell if you have a servant's heart? It's how you react when someone treats you like a servant.
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That lets you know if you have a servant heart.
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Well, let's come to the last one and I'm gonna land this plane. And that's the possibility of a spiritual leader. Notice what he says in verse four, "When the chief shepherd appears, "you will receive the crown of glory that fades not away."
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Wow, he is the chief shepherd.
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We are simply under shepherds.
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But we serve an audience of one.
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Our chief shepherd, the term chief shepherd, is only found here.
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And it reminds all pastors, all spiritual leaders, that they are fundamentally servants.
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They are not to advance their own will,
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but they're to advance the will of God.
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Like any pastor, I love to hear when people give you an encouraging word, how maybe a sermon helped them.
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But you know, there's really only one voice. That's the final thing that matters.
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And that's to hear our Lord say, well done.
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Good and faithful servant.
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You see, the head of the church is not in Rome.
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It's not in Nashville.
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It's in heaven.
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I have loved deacons of the churches I've pastored. They are some of my greatest friends.
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But I ultimately don't have to give an account to the deacons.
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But I have to give an account to my chief shepherd. I love the Southern Baptist Convention and it's served on many of the committees down through the years.
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But I ultimately don't give an account to the Southern Baptist Convention,
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but to my chief shepherd.
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And there's no greater reward than to hear him say,
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well done, good and faithful servant.
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Out of Starbeg had it right when he said, "The whole purpose of this crown is that we can cast it down at our Savior's feet who wore a crown of thorns that he might give us a crown of glory."
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My basketball letter from Northeast College has long since been eaten by moths.
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My little gold basketball that I got at the North State Tournament in Tupelo, Mississippi has long since corroded over.
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But one day my Lord promises a crown
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that will never fade away.
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Hallelujah.
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Lord, thank you.
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Lord, thank you for the privilege you've given to me
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to be a pastor.
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And I thank you Lord for our pastor, Pastor Chuck, and the other pastors, veterans that are in this room, accumulated, Lord, who knows how many years of ministry are represented in this room.
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And I thank you for every one of them, and for their inspiration and their blessing that they are to me.
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And Lord, I pray for our pastor search team. And we tried to paint a word picture tonight on not we, but Peter did. One of your best friends, Lord Jesus. Gave us a word picture of a godly pastor. And I pray for our pastor search team, that they can find that man. We don't know what he looks like, how tall he is, what color his hair he is. Lord, that's not the important thing. We just want him to have these heart qualities, that he'll be a pastor who feeds us and protects us, loves us, and he'll be a shepherd who cares for us.
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He's an elder who has wisdom and maturity. And he's a wise overseer who can give direction administratively to this body of believers. Thank you for that, Father. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. God bless you.
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