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I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but our society, our country seems a little obsessed with money. Anybody notice that? It's one of the main things we're concerned about. You know, when it comes to the church, a pastor's salary can be a touchy subject.
How much is too much? How much is too little? Let me just give you some statistics here. The median expected salary for a typical teacher in high school, I'm sure Ron could probably tell us this, the median is $53 ,500.
I did a little research online yesterday and I found out that if you have a bachelor's degree, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will start you at $61 ,000. So if you're willing to be a gunslinger in Los Angeles, you can make more money than a teacher.
The typical U .S. postal carrier nets $48 ,940 a year. On the other end of the spectrum, the average NBA salary is $5 .356 million and that's the highest of any North American sports league. The highest paid player in the NBA is Kevin Garnett.
Makes nearly $25 million a year. Did I hear an amen? The average salary for a senior pastor in a megachurch, that is one of those big gigantic things, is $147 ,000 according to a recent survey. Now, the median expected salary for a typical pastor in the United States is $83 ,946 .27.
25 of pastors make $69 ,000 a year. Seems pretty good, until you realize that some MDiv programs are more intense than many law schools. And I would say the master's seminary, amen. But money is a touchy, it's an uncomfortable subject for many churches.
I read this over and over again as I looked online, you know, the pastor needs to be kept humble and we're going to keep him humble by underpaying him. There are a number of ways that we've designed to kind of impoverish the pastor.
We have the bivocational pastor. You know, whenever I see that bivocational translation, he works full time and tries to squeeze in ministry. Some churches have parsonages, which seem like a great idea until you understand what it really means, is that you get to pay the pastor less and he gets more of a tax burden because of it.
We're going to look this morning, and I'd encourage you to open your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 5. We're going to be looking at verses 17 and 18, just to kind of bring us up to speed on where we are, because some of you are probably like, verse 17, what happened to the last 16 verses?
That was last Sunday night, 16 verses in one night, unbelievable. I'll explain why in a minute, but let's just kind of summarize 1 Timothy. I think it's fair to say that leading a church, pastoring a church in any era is challenging.
The Lord knew this, and thus by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he had Paul write this letter to Timothy. Paul had sent Timothy to the church at Ephesus, and he gave him a number of things to do. One of them was to silence those who were teaching false doctrine, those who were leading others astray.
He charged Timothy to proclaim the truth, the gospel, to establish the church's priority of prayer, to raise up godly and qualified leadership. In short, really, Paul wrote his letter so that Timothy would know how he should lead the church and how the church ought to be run.
Well, last Sunday night, we looked at instructions on how the church should interact with one another, kind of interpersonal relations, as it were. Like I said, it was 16 verses, four points. One was to respect your elders.
Secondly, it was to respect your peers. Thirdly, to care for faithful and tested widows. And fourthly, to care for your own family, and you say 16 verses, well, because so much of it, quite frankly, dealt with widows, which is an important subject for us to live out.
Maybe not so good for a four-point sermon or a four-part sermon, but this morning, as we look at our text in verses 17 and 18, I want to draw your attention to three important truths about elders, so that you will view their position, responsibility, their treatment, the way you view them, the way you look at elders and pastors, I want you to see them in a way that glorifies the Lord of the church.
There are a few difficult principles in our passage, and why are they difficult? Because to some extent, they cut against our natural inclinations. And often in scripture, that's kind of the point. Things we get commanded to do things, why?
Because they're not easy. Because they go against what we want. And yet these truths cut right to the heart of the trouble that many churches face today. Let me just say, this is not a campaign for any kind of raise or anything like that.
This is the next text. And this is the word of God. And there are principles here that we need. And you know what? Something else, and I'm going to flesh this out a little bit, we need to encourage other churches to view these principles rightly.
But as I said, this is something that really does bother us. Look at the first point here. Let me just read the text, verses 17 and 18, it's short. 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. Now our first truth about elders is elders must rule the church. Elders must rule the church.
And right away, you're probably just not liking that. Some may not like it, but look at verse 17, let the elders who rule well. This is something that rubs us the wrong way. We're Americans, nobody's supposed to be over anybody else.
This is a democratic society. We don't want anyone to rule over us. I understand that as well as anyone, but the verb to rule means to exercise a position of leadership, to rule direct, be at the head.
Can we trust the elders to run the church? Shouldn't we have a vote? Shouldn't we spread the responsibility around? That's what many churches do, congregational rule. I think it's a fair question. It's fair to ask, but I don't think the scriptures can be more clear.
Look at, we're going to go back to first Timothy chapter five, but look at first Timothy chapter three verses four and five. Here Paul is describing elders, the qualities to look for in an elder. He says, he talking about a person who would be an elder, a man who would be an elder must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive for someone does not know how to manage his own household.
How will he care for God's church? In other words, when you select elders, you look for men who manage and care for their families. Why? Because if they can do that, they might be able to do it at the church.
If they can't do it, they definitely can't. Manage and care. I mean, imagine in your home, your kids going, you know what, I don't know about this whole parental rule thing. I think we should be one child, one vote.
And by the way, by the time you have the next baby, we'll outnumber you guys. Things are going to change around here. That padlock in the refrigerator, it's out. We'd think that was absurd. Yet churches are often run in this kind of congregational way.
But again, scripture says those whose homes are not well managed, they're not well cared for. The men who run such homes cannot be elders. What are some of the implications of congregational rule? Well, I think it inevitably results in either unbelievers, because in a congregation of any significant size, you're going to have some unbelievers.
You're also going to have some who are spiritually immature, new believers who don't know much about scripture. And you're going to have others who just don't have that desire to be involved in the daily details of the church.
That's why when Paul writes Timothy, he says, you know what, it's a good thing to want to be an elder, because not everybody's going to want that. So in a congregational setting, what you ultimately have is unbelievers, spiritually immature people, people who don't really care all that much about the church per se, and then you're going to have a core group of people who really do care, and they're all going to have equal say in what happens.
That's not God's design. Up in New Hampshire recently, Vermont, I forget they all run together for me, sorry. One of our comrades, one of our brothers in ministry was run out of his pulpit, he was voted out.
Why? Because he taught the gospel. He taught a parable, and he gave the exact same interpretation that the Lord gave, and people in the congregation didn't like it. And they started prayer meetings where they gossiped about the pastor.
He wasn't invited to these things, strangely enough, and over the course of many months, people who left the church because they didn't like what he was teaching, they all came back and they voted him out.
Congregational rule. You won't find congregational rule supported in scripture. One objection gone. Well, wait a minute, won't the elders just turn into dictators? How many of you have ever read George Orwell's Animal Farm?
It's a great book. It's like 96 pages, and I think Orwell had some pretty good insights into the depravity of man. Because here are all these animals on this farm, and they're all upset at the farmer.
They don't like him. He's a tyrant. He's brutal. He makes us work. So the animals all get together, and they overthrow the farmer. Naturally the pigs are the smartest, so they kind of take over. And guess what happens?
Pigs turn out to be bigger tyrants than the farmer ever was. So there's this idea inbred in us that we can't trust anyone, and that naturally, elders must become like these pigs. They must be dictators.
They're going to enforce their will on us. It's going to be horrible. Let's look at 1 Peter, chapter 5, verses 1 to 4. Peter, the preeminent apostle, giving some instruction to those who would lead the church, and he says this, 1 Peter, chapter 5, verses 1 to 4.
So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, I mean Peter really is understating his case here as a fellow elder, but listen, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, he was there, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, notice he doesn't say not for gain, but not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
He says don't domineer, don't dominate, don't be a dictator. Certainly there are historical examples of men who have just gone off the rails and started doing that sort of thing, but elders are not to do that.
We know as men here that we are flawed, we are imperfect. We also understand, and I say this often, our authority ends where the word of God ends. We don't have a series of thou shalt and thou shalt nots, we have a series of God says.
We can give wisdom, but we can't say thus saith the Lord if the Lord didn't say it. I know I speak for Pradeep and for Dave and for Mike when I say we have enough to study, enough truth to study, we have enough in our own lives to worry about without trying to run everybody else's lives.
We don't want to seize control over anyone. And again, notice Peter prohibits elders from domineering the flock, they are to be examples. What do elders do? Well, they may confront. Jesus told everyone to confront those in sin, elders are no exception.
We may encourage, we may exhort, we may give our counsel, we may guide, we may give what seems to us biblical wisdom. Sometimes we see folks heading what we think is the wrong direction with regard to doctrine, but everything needs to be governed by this simple rule.
Our authority ends where the revelation of God ends. Now, back to 1 Timothy chapter 5. The concept of ruling well. What does it mean? Well, here's what it does not mean. It doesn't mean that some elders rule better than others.
Steve not so good, Dave and Pradeep great, that's not what it means. Ruling well, there is one standard, it is a perfection standard. There's one standard for being an elder and one standard for ruling, and anything less than that, well, let's look at the word, what does it mean to be, to rule well?
It means to meet relatively high standards of excellence or expectation, fitly, appropriately, in the right way, splendidly, and ultimately what it means is he either rules well or he needs to change how he rules or he needs to step down.
Elders make the decisions, that's what it means to rule. They give the direction for the ship, they steer it. Essentially, too, the verb there, rule, is a perfect participle, indicating that they have been and that they continue to rule well.
Of the eight times this verb occurs in the New Testament, Paul uses it every single time. Of those six times, or of those eight times, six of those times, it refers to church leaders either in their roles in the church or their roles in the home.
It means to rule, to lead. The pattern and command of scripture is clear. Elders must rule the church. Second principle, elders must be honored. Elders must be honored. Again, difficult. Who are you, oh elder?
Look at verse 17 again. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor. I'm not making this up anymore that I made up all this stuff about the widows. It's the word of God. Why should elders be honored, let alone double honored?
Is it because they're better than everyone else? I think it's because of the burden of being an elder. We often cite Hebrews 13, 17. In fact, in our new members class, we talk to people about submitting to leadership.
Hebrews 13, 17 says this. Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you.
As I said, we often stress the submission portion of it. Well, what about the other portion of it? That the elders are going to have to give an account for the souls of those under their charge. Can you imagine you're standing before the Lord on judgment day?
Your sins are settled. Christ died for you. That's not the issue. Your works are judged though. Your motivations, your efforts on his behalf. And next, the stewardship of your family. How did you do with what the Lord gave you?
If you're an elder, now you stand there and you have to give an account for the souls of all those over whom you as an elder ruled. It's a sobering thought. Did you pray for them? Did you teach them? Did you shepherd them?
Did you love them? Did you exhaust yourself on their behalf? It's a good thing to want to be an elder. But it's a high call. Let me ask you a question and I'm sure that the answer will be yes. Have you ever grieved over a loved one gone astray?
Someone who seemingly has just departed from the faith. When this happens, I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but you wake up. I mean, I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. But when something this painful happens, you wake up in the middle of the night and your first thought isn't, I need to go back to sleep, I have to wake up at 5 .30 in the morning, 6 .30 in the morning, whatever time it is.
Your first thought is about that person. And there's a sorrow instantly about that person. And in the middle of the night, without looking at the clock, because you don't care what time it is, you cry to the Lord for that person.
You beg God to save them. To turn them from the path that they've chosen. It could be one of your kids. It could be a spouse. It could be a parent. Now imagine having that same responsibility, that same burden for an entire congregation.
Imagine having to handle church discipline and not being able to tell anyone about it. Just carrying that burden around for days, weeks, months. There are so many behind-the-scenes issues which you never know about.
Which you're blessed not to know about. Why would anyone want to be an elder? To serve the Lord. To serve the Lord in a vital way. Paul says it's a good thing. 1 Timothy 3 .1 To serve the people of God.
Serve the Lord, yes. To serve His people, yes. In a vital capacity. 2 Corinthians 12 .15, Paul writes this, I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. That's the attitude of an elder, a teacher, of a pastor.
In chapter 5, verse 3, Paul wrote that true widows, those who meet the qualifications of being a widow in deed, should be honored. They are worthy of our respect and our support. And yet here, verse 17, he says that the elders who rule well are worthy of double honor.
Why? Because they've met the qualifications and they've served and ruled well. Now, what does that mean? How do you give double honor to an elder? Does that mean every time an elder walks in the room, every conversation stops?
You know, we all just turn. Maybe, you know, take a knee. No. No. No. But there ought to be a special affection. A particular respect. And may I ask even a determination to pray for the elders that the Lord has appointed over you.
They do, as I said before, keep the ship afloat and pointed, hopefully, in the right direction. As I said, the elders are not perfect. They make mistakes, but their desire is to serve you and to keep the Lord's ship, as it were, the Lord's church, pointed in the right direction.
Principle number one, elders must rule the church. Principle number two, elders must be honored. Principle number three, elders in full-time ministry must be paid for it. Again, look at verse 17. Especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
I grew up, as many of you know, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are in the latter days, but they are not particularly a church of Jesus Christ. It's the Mormon church. The bishops, or the... I don't even know how to put it.
They're not really pastors, but they're called bishops. The bishops of our wards, our local congregations, would change every so often. Not in a set amount of time, but they would be selected and a new one would come in, and maybe the old guy would move up, whatever.
But the bishops of our wards were not paid. And this was really a point of pride for the church. They'd say, look, you guys paid. Talking about Protestants, you pay your pastors, but ours does it for free.
It wasn't really until I got into... well, until I was saved that I understood why. Again, look at this. Those who labor in preaching and teaching. I've got to tell you something. Bishops don't labor in preaching and teaching.
In fact, we rarely... if you ever went to a Mormon church, and please don't, but if you ever went there, you would not hear anything remotely resembling what we would call a sermon. Now you could say, well, I've been to a lot of churches where I have not heard anything remotely resembling a sermon.
But, I mean, they wouldn't even call them sermons. They were talks, and they were chats, and they would be by all different kinds of people. You know, young people, old people, missionaries would come back, and they were basically very experiential and not scriptural at all.
But Paul's point here is that all elders should be honored, double honored. But he singles out a group, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. All elders rule. All elders must be apt or skilled in teaching.
We would see that in Titus. However, not every elder is going to teach an equal amount. It's physically impossible. What do I say physically impossible? Well, for example, Pastor Dave and Elder Pradeep have demanding full-time jobs.
I'm surprised sometimes that they can even... I mean, these guys work a lot. Talk about bivocational pastors. If you have a man like Pastor Dave or Elder Pradeep, where they're working 60 or more hours a week, and then you say, well, I want them to labor at preaching and teaching full-time.
Okay. That won't last very long. Simon Kistemacher says this, It would be evidence of a lack of honor if the church should demand of a man who devotes himself entirely to spiritual work that he do this for free.
The word labor means to exert oneself physically, mentally, or spiritually. It is hard work. It means to toil, to strive, to struggle. What's the common impression that unbelievers have about being a pastor, being a preacher?
It's easy. I mean, when we see them depicted in movies, I mean, the clergy are often living the life of Riley. I mean, it's simple. It's easy. It's a piece of cake. I mean, how hard can it be? I remember at one TV show where the lead, the father, was a pastor.
And I don't think he ever preached from the Bible. And basically, he'd get up there for five or six minutes and, you know, just say whatever about, You're good. Continue to be good. Have a nice week. That's how people think it is.
It would be very simple to be one who is a pastor if you don't preach the word. No laboring there. No exerting oneself there. No struggling with the text there. And if you have topical messages, if you just kind of pick and choose what you're going to preach, I'll tell you what, you're never going to preach a sermon on widows.
That's not going to happen. You're never going to preach one on paying pastors. You're going to skip over all the things that you'd really, you know, get a little touchy, and you're just going to move on to something juicy.
It's not hard to be a preacher if you keep your messages short and simple. You want to make sure that nobody gets bored, and everyone gets home in time to do all their important stuff. You don't waste anybody's time.
As one flyer I had sent to my house in California said, We won't waste your time. They were boasting. However, if an elder, a pastor, a preacher wrestles with the text, works hard to understand it within its context, works hard to understand it, struggles to figure out how to apply it to the congregation, you know, there are some texts you can understand fully, try to preach them.
Not so easy sometimes. It is hard work. Sometimes it can be kind of intimidating. Again, you know, how would you like to give a 45-minute sermon on how the church should love widows? How about a sermon on any multitude of things here?
I mean, if you go to the Old Testament, you're going to go, How do I preach that? It's easy to skip over the tough passages and just go for the jugular text. You know what a jugular text is? That's one where if you just kind of clamp on, everybody gets the blood, they get the marrow.
Pastors are called to toil, to work hard. And what that means is they get beaten down by the text all week. They struggle with it. They wrestle with it. They apply it to their own lives. And then on Sunday morning for 45 or 50 minutes, they get to share that joy with you.
It is daunting, wearying, glorious, frustrating, fulfilling, frightening, and thrilling all at once. It's interesting, too, how this phrase, preaching and teaching, reads in the Greek. I mean, we would think it would just be the verb for preaching, but it's not.
Literally in the Greek, it says, in word and teaching. There's a contrast that Paul is setting up between preaching in the sense of exhortation and application in word and teaching in the sense of instruction, of being simply a teacher.
And both are difficult. Teaching and preaching are different experiences. I don't often, if I ask a question during a sermon, it's more or less rhetorical. If I ask it during Sunday school, I'll wait and I'll wait and I'll wait for an answer.
It's different. Interaction versus just simply preaching. Paul gives us two illustrations about the rightness of paying pastors. Look at verse 18, first illustration. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads off the grain.
Now, I found that just kind of interesting. You know, I didn't know if I wanted to be called an ox or not. But look at that first word, for. What Paul's really saying, he's going to, I mean that indicates he's going to show us illustrations that he's going to prove his case, that he's going to make his case based on scripture.
I don't think we can fully appreciate this first illustration without looking at the context. I invite you to just keep your finger on 1 Timothy 5 and turn back to Deuteronomy 25. Deuteronomy 25, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 5th book of the Bible.
Although Deuteronomy doesn't mean 5th book of the Bible, it means 2nd law. So, you know, if you look at that and you go, Deuteronomy 5th, no. 2nd law. Deuteronomy 25, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 5.
And the reason I want to do this is because I want us to understand what Paul is doing here. Deuteronomy 25, verses 1 to 5. Moses writes, Verse 3. Excuse me. How did that whole oxen thing get in there?
Well, this is a bit like reading. How many of you have ever sat down and read, say, for example, the California Penal Code? The California Vehicle Code. Really? Okay, well, KC did, yeah. I mean, if you read laws and you just go, what did that have to do with it?
It has nothing to do with that. Verse 4 is its own little law. And it has to do not with beating somebody or, you know, a dead man's wife, etc., etc., etc. This is miscellaneous laws. These are just a bunch of things.
Oh, yeah, you know, we need to cover this and this and this. This is a theocracy, and these are some of the laws that govern this theocracy. So why does Paul use this? I think this is kind of our first, you know, real movement of the people for the ethical treatment of animals.
This is PETA right here, Deuteronomy 25. Let's go back to 1 Timothy, and I'll explain it a little bit. This, because it really is about cruelty to the ox, if you can believe that or not. Here's the picture that an ox would be used to separate the kernels of wheat, the grain of wheat, from the chaff, from the stalk.
And the way they would do this is often it was on a hilltop, but the ox would just kind of walk across the grain. And as he did so, he would, by the force of his weight, separate the wheat from the stuff that you didn't want.
And then the wind would come along and blow away the nonsense, the things that you didn't want, and you'd just have the grain there. So why would somebody muzzle an ox? Well, if that ox is up there long enough, guess what?
He gets hungry. He's working. So you put that muzzle on him, why? So that he doesn't eat any of the grain. In essence, I think you can make this argument. If it was wrong under the Old Testament law to deprive an animal, an ox, of the fruit of his labor, how much worse is it to deprive one who is due double honor from the fruits of his labor?
How can a man possibly shepherd the flock, study as he ought to, and yet still have a full-time job? I submit to you that it's impossible. And it's also wrong and is a shame upon the Church of Christ.
Now, there are situations where it's absolutely necessary, and where a man knows that going in, but I'll tell you what, he is not going to have the kind of time he needs to do this week after week after week, unless he's just brilliant, or he doesn't require any sleep.
Pastor Mike's blessed in that way. So that's the first illustration. Don't muzzle the ox. Second one, verse 18 again. And the laborer deserves his wages. First of all, it's important to note that this is placed on the same level as the first quotation.
It's Scripture. Scripture says, and the laborer deserves his wages. So where does it actually come from? These are the actual words of Jesus himself. He was sending out the 70 on the very first short-term mission.
In Luke 10, the Church's, you know, kind of, well, I guess this isn't really the Church, but the first Christian short-term mission, we can say that. In Luke 10, listen to what he says in Luke 10, verses 4 to 7.
Again, this is an instruction to the 70. He says, carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace be to this house. Verse 6, and if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him.
But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. In other words, they were not to worry about providing for themselves these 70 that Jesus had sent out.
Why? Because they were due wages from their work. The people who took them in were to provide for them, to give them food and drink. Listen to what Paul says. In fact, just turn over to 1 Corinthians 9.
1 Corinthians 9. Again, Paul using some of these same words, but this time referring to himself. And I think this just really drives the point home. And, you know, I hate to jump ahead of Mike in 1 Corinthians, but I think I've got about four or five years, so we're okay.
1 Corinthians 9, verses 1 -11. The apostle Paul writes, Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? The gist of this, and we'll get to it in a minute, is he's telling the church at Corinth he has a right to be paid.
If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?
Verse 7. These are killer questions. Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? I enlisted in the United States Army and I paid my own way. I don't get a paycheck from Uncle Sam every month. I sign the check.
No, that's not right. Next question. Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Again, it's a rhetorical question. The answer is no one. Next rhetorical question. Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?
Verse 8. Do I say these things on human authority? He answers the question with a question. Does not the law say the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.
Is it for oxen that God is concerned? The implication is clear. No. Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake. Because the plowman should plow in hope. And the thresher, thresh in hope of sharing the crop.
If we have sown spiritual things among you, Is it too much if we reap material things from you? Which is more important? Material things or spiritual things? If we impart spiritual things to you, Do we not have a right to material things?
The lesser. The pastor poor? Set the pastor free. Don't make him worry. Don't make him scurry to find some second job. Third job. Don't drive by the office trying to figure out if he's spending enough time.
You'll know by the condition of the church. You'll know by the condition of his messages. Let him devote himself to prayer. To studying the word. So that he might mine, as it were, the very depths of the word of God.
I found online all manner of suggested formulas for calculating how much a pastor should be paid. As I said, I'm not campaigning for a race, but I have a clear conscience on this. I know I would feel the same way if I were sitting out there and I was going to work Monday through Friday.
How do I know that? Because I did it. From the time I got saved, I never cared one second how much the pastor found out. Until I found out how little it was. Until he got paid and found out how little it was.
And I was thrilled when he got a race. It would never have occurred to me to think that my pastor made too much money. That his house was too nice. That he shouldn't have a swimming pool. In fact, I would go over to his house.
I liked his swimming pool. He got a new Mustang. He took me in for a ride. I thought it was great. But I was also with him when he had to confront people in sin. I was with him when he would counsel people with very difficult issues.
I saw the pain in his face when he was betrayed by those he loved. Those he had invested many, many hours, even months into. Elders must rule. Elders must be honored. Elders in full-time ministry must be paid.
There is no amount of money that can compensate a man for going into the ministry. It's really not the point. Let me frame it another way. If your life was on the line. If you stood accused of a capital crime.
Would you open up the yellow pages and try to find the cheapest lawyer? Would you go down and just go, well how much are you per hour? Oh, $1 .75? Okay, thanks. $1 .60? $1 .35? Okay, I found the bargain basement.
You want men who study, who labor intently. So that when they bring the word of God to you, you go, today we heard the word. We listened. And God spoke through him. He didn't speak on his own authority.
He spoke by the Spirit's. He spoke by the Spirit's authority. Again, I'm not after BBC. I'm not after anyone here. Unless you think, unless you're sitting there this morning thinking, how easy pastors have it.
How easy it is to be an elder. If you've thought, maybe up to this morning, that the ministry is an easy, cushy life. I would invite you to review these passages that we've even talked about this morning.
It is hard work. It is labor. It is something that we do because we love the Lord. We love his people. Father in heaven, what a blessing it is to see that your word even addresses difficult issues. Issues that, left to ourselves, we might just want to gloss over.
Not address. Father, as pastors and as elders, we are blessed here at Bethlehem Bible Church. Blessed to have a people that want to hear your word. Blessed to have a people that trust the elders. Blessed in so many ways.
Blessed to have a church that cares for us. That takes care of our needs. Father, I pray that you would use these passages this morning. Your word. To encourage us to think rightly of elders. And not just here, but in others.
My heart breaks when I talk to men who have been in bivocational ministry for years. Because the church won't take care of them. I hear about churches where the pastors and the elders are treated as underlings.
As employees. When people even offer ideas that they themselves pay the pastor's salary. Father, every good thing is from you. You own the cattle on a thousand hills and you supply each of our needs. Everything comes from you.
Father, keep us mindful of that. Lord, let us honor those who labor. Preaching and teaching. Those who will give an account one day for our souls. Those who are willing even to be awakened in the middle of the night.
Disturbed for the souls of those who have strayed. Who are even on the verge of straying. Lord, I pray that you would give us more men willing and able and blessed by you. To carry on your work. To oversee the flock.
To rule, as it were, the church. Father, most of all, we are thankful for your son, Jesus Christ. Even as we think of the gospel and its power. How it takes those who once hated you. Causes them to love you.
To give without question to your work. Not because they're concerned about how much. But because they're delighted in a God who would save them. Father, would you bless each one here. Bless us as we contemplate the truth that Jesus Christ died to save sinners.
Among whom we all are. Would you bless each one here in Christ's name we pray.