Importance of a Pastor's Life

The Pastor as a Gift to the Church

Another reason that this issue is important, it should be important to every church member. Let me back up a second. It should be an important issue to every pastor. Am I this that God describes? He's giving gifts to His church.

Am I a gift to His church? I'm only a gift to His church if I'm meeting the qualifications that He has set. So every person who wants to be a pastor or a deacon should bring themselves regularly to Scripture, these passages, and say, am I these things?

And not just was I this at one time, but am I continuing to be this and am I growing in this? But then every church member should be concerned about these things also because, let's just talk about the pastor for a moment.

The Pastor as an Example Worth Following

Here's a person who's going to stand in the pulpit and feed you spiritually for hopefully years and teach your children and lead you. And who is it that you're listening to and are, by Scripture, obligated to follow as an example?

What is the character of that man? So Chuck, what do you mean when you say obligated to follow? Right, so not blindly follow, but as he's leading you to Christ, Paul could say, follow me, I'm following Christ.

Imitate me, I'm imitating Christ. And every man of God ought to be able to say the same thing. If you look at the qualifications, which we'll look at later, but if you look at the various qualifications that Scripture gives, so for the elder, he must be able to teach.

Other than that, what qualification do you see there that should not be true of any believer? And so what is it about the pastor, the elder, the deacon, and those qualifications that sets him apart? And I think it is a maturity in those things.

The Elder as an Example to the Flock

So he's to be an example to the flock, Peter says, and he's an example in these qualities. What kind of example is he setting? And is it one that you're willing to follow? Or is it one that you look at and you think, well, no.

And if his life is out of sorts, if the character is out of sorts, will you really give much weight to the words that he says? So there's a marriage, if you will, between his character and the things he says.

The more clearly we see these qualities in the life, I think the more weight we will lend to his words. He wins a right to say these things to you in a sense. So it's not just I'm pointing to the Bible and the Bible says this, you better listen.

But the life adds weight also. You can think about the Apostle Paul speaking to the Thessalonians. He talks to them, I didn't just come to you with, let me turn there. Paul writing to the Thessalonians, and he said that we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness.

Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others. Even though as apostles of Christ, we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.

And he continues to talk about his care for them, how he worked day and night, how he was like a father to them. But it wasn't just his speech, it was also his words. And the words that he brought gave, pardon me, the life that he lived lent authority to the words that he brought.

And people would want to hear what he has to say because he proved so gentle among them. He was an example to them.