Episode 77: The Pastor's Heart

The rule church podcast, that's kind of a lame introduction. I think you should do it

Eddie Welcome to the rule church podcast the number 58 seed

It's gonna be over yeah by the time people hear this that that will have happened a lot of things will have happened we'll we'll

Will the Eclipse have happened by the time this comes out Actually, yeah, this one's this one's coming out should come out

April 10th. So we're okay. So pretty well scheduled right now Yeah. All right.

Well So a lot of we're we're a few weeks out from those events about a month

Actually, but yeah looking forward to a lot of things that are coming up.

Yeah I've got pastor Jacob Ray home coming in this weekend next weekend We're going to the covenant conference and then we have and then before the

Eclipse I'm going to Texas I'm preaching for my friend rental Easter and their Easter week conference at by the word

Baptist Church in Azle, Texas And then the Eclipse we're having revival services Preaching like all this is going to already be in the past by the time this episode comes out

That's right, and I'm I'm leaving out this weekend I'm going to The Kansas to be with our brothers

Steve Burchett and Jim Ellis and those guys up. They're gonna go worship with them and their

Lord's Day meeting and Then have a couple days of Bible intensive. So pretty excited about that Yeah, that's good.

That's good Well brother we should jump in a few things we're going to talk about today one we ought to give credit where credit is due

I listened to a podcast recently the backwoods Baptist podcast the episode where our friend

Harold Smith talked about God give us more pastors and not preachers, so we'll talk about that and then we have the idea of pastors as evangelist and as Evangelist as pastors and sort of walking through all that, but really

I guess the main I think the title of this episode is going to be this the pastor's heart

Mm -hmm. And so One of the things also state this up front

Eddie and let's be clear Absolutely, the pastor must have a heart for preaching and teaching the scriptures, right?

He must be a faithful Preacher it doesn't mean that everyone has to be a

John MacArthur or RC Sproul or Paul Washer or Vodie Bauckham Those are special men

And special gifts, but you do have to be a faithful preacher and you do have to hunger for preaching

You have to be willing to hone your craft as it were to even be willing to take critique. How can you preach better?

I know one of the things I do on this podcast because I have to go back and do the Production and stuff. I say, you know a lot more than I even realized and it's frustrating

So I try to think about that that's it's really gonna come across bad because You hear so many you knows and knowing that I'm trying to think about it and they still come out but you know things like that Things like that that come up in in preaching you want to be able to Hone your craft be a better preacher be a better communicator

So I'm not taking away from that at all. Maybe we'll do a whole episode on preaching and teaching that Absolutely is your primary?

task Give yourself to the Word of God in prayer But when you hear the word a pastor's heart

Having that caveat that's obviously part of the pastor's heart. What do you think of?

Well, you know Jesus tells Peter When he's reinstating him after the resurrection

Feed my lambs and we would say that's right. We got to preach. We got to feed the sheep But he also says tend them you know a pastor is a shepherd and if the only thing the shepherd does is

Go out and pour out the feed You know or push that or lead the sheep over to where there's some other green grass, but then he goes and Finds a good shade tree and takes a nap and just lets the wolves come in Let's the sheep drift off get lost

The shepherd we would say well that guy's not doing his job, right? He's not he's not being responsible

For everything he's supposed to be doing he's doing one thing Making sure they've got something to eat, but he's not

Doing all the things the shepherds called doing So yeah I think the idea of the pastor the idea of the under shepherd of Christ is

That we're to care for the people in the church and that means we're supposed to be looking after their spiritual well -being not just from the pulpit or from the the main teaching, you know of our

In our service times but also That means counseling that means praying with that means being there, you know to minister and to serve them in important moments that are happening in their lives and I think sometimes a lot of people have kind of got it in their head that well

I'm just gonna go in I'm gonna preach and You know, the Lord's gonna do what he's gonna do if it's supposed to grow it'll grow and not really having a heart for evangelism going out to reach the lost and not really even sometimes having a heart to You know go to the hospital or or to be there to meet the needs of our people when they're suffering and they need

They need that kind of pastoral care. Yeah, I see the pastor's heart. I think it's all good brother

I see the pastor's heart with the caveat of the primacy of preaching as also

Serving the church I Understand that you have deacons that serve and serve the physical needs, but I'll just give you some

Real -life stories this just happened Sunday. There was a situation Sunday where Like two minutes before Sunday school was starting there was a bathroom

Situation a men's bathroom toilet was overflowing. Well our other pastor here pastor

Jacob like runs to the the aid You know and he's helping with that now

There were some other men jumping in helping Everybody's kind of getting a mop a bucket and all this thing

Oh actually one of the guys end up getting a little bleach on his shirt So I was grateful, you know for his sacrifice and all that But but one of the things that I want to commend about pastor

Jacob is he could have said look my primary Responsibility here is the ministry of the word and prayer

You guys handle this But it says something about his character to Jump in there and help

Serving the church now. I think that I don't think that pastors are called the fixed toilets or whatever

But it says something about their character if they're not willing to do that.

Does that make does that make sense? Yeah, and and let's remember Yes, it would be ideal if All the time in ministry there were plenty of people to help to take up the slack to do that stuff

You know, you know so that we're free to But but let's be honest we're talking about the rule church.

This is the rule church podcast yeah, and the reality in the most rule churches is

If you've got the mentality of I'm here to preach I'm gonna preach guys you guys take care of all that other stuff

That's just not gonna work because there's probably just not Whether it's the resources when it comes to finances and things like that and just the manpower resources

For the pastor to be able to just check out of all that kind of stuff I do believe it's just probably not probably not feasible to some degree for the pastor not to have some involvement

I'm not saying we got to be the ones, you know crawling under the church van, you know

But you but you might have to that's right and there needs to be a willingness So let me speak to the pastor and then

I'll speak to the churches. So there is the mindset Or let me let me back up for a second there is

Yeah mindsets. Okay. There's the mindset that the pastor ought to have that.

I'm willing to serve these people I'm willing to serve To help

I'm willing to move a table. I'm willing to cook a pancake I'm willing to do whatever

I can to love these people. Well now

I would also say that churches need to do a better job of clearing the pastor's schedule so that He can give his

Undivided focus to the ministry of the word and prayer So there's kind of a both and but like you say in the rural context a

Pastor ought to be one time. This is weird one time. I went and helped find a calf.

That sounds like something you should but that's rural church podcast for you, but the point is

The idea the pastor needs to have the mentality that I want to serve

These people I want to love these people I want to walk through their trials I want to walk through their victories

I want to feed them the Word of God But then I'm going to come down from a pulpit and I'm gonna walk among the people and I'm going to show them

This is what it looks like because I believe not everybody would agree with this But I believe that first and foremost a pastor.

He's a Christian first, obviously, but he's he's a church member He is a member

Of the local church. That's right. And so There are things that we expect members of the local church

To do and to be willing to do that a pastor also should model now again

I do think churches most churches I've been a part of now our church is doing a better job at this

But most churches I've been a part of in the past have not done a great job at making sure

Hey, brother Let us get these tables you spend more time and study or how about this everybody else is cleaning up Why don't you have some conversation with our visitors?

Why don't you have some conversation with you? You know free your it's not okay.

So a pastor should not be above physical labor. He should do these things But there should also at the same time like in my vision like a perfect scenario.

He's going up. He's folding up the table He's taking it but someone's stopping and say hey brother You don't do this.

You let me do this And you go over and minister to that family Right, that's that's the but but there should be that mentality there of i'm willing to serve the church when we go to mexico

They do a great job at Trying to make sure we're only there for the ministry of the word and prayer, you know, like But we're still looking for opportunities and when we can we take we take opportunities to to do the mundane

We need more men like that because this is dangerous for us to say eddie because we're on a podcast But today we have too many guys that are worried about platforms podcast protest whatever whatever one alliterated word you can come up with and they're less worried about Pastoral ministry in a pastoral heart you can preach

You can preach There's been a lot of people in the history of the world that have been good public speakers

The fact that you can preach in and of itself Does not necessarily make you a humble christian or even necessarily a christian at all.

The devil's a preacher That's right. That's right You know you think about Even where opportunity to serve people with god's word and even to share the gospel with lost people comes from and sometimes it comes from the fact that we're

Being involved in some of these other things that are taking place. For example this last weekend local

Um Recovery ministry that we are a part of we have a women's recovery

Drug recovery ministry that our church is is a part of where we teach the bible uh every week to these women and and it's it's just a great thing the lord's blessing and drawing people to himself

But they had a banquet this last weekend. Well Because of my involvement with that program

I was asked to pray well They had had some testimony shared and they had had some law enforcement officers that shared at the banquet about the good things

The program was doing all those kinds of things. It was fine. It was all very good The gospel had not been shared so I had the opportunity to pray at the end and because of Now most of what

I do is teaching the bible even in regards to that program so it's still word ministry in that sense

But because of that I had the opportunity to then share the gospel to proclaim the gospel

In that banquet. Well, if I had been hey, my job is to preach on sunday mornings.

That's what that's what I do That's all i've got. That's all I do Well, then I wouldn't have had that opportunity to proclaim the gospel

In a different setting probably to some people who weren't believers So if we have this idea that man, it's i've just i've just got to preach on sunday morning, that's my thing

We're just going to lose other opportunities and I seen that you guys this last weekend. I think you guys were in the nursing home

Yeah doing some ministry and if if if you say well, man, we we just got to do the

The ministry of the church or whatever um We're going to miss out on opportunities

Both to preach the gospel to unbelievers and to serve believers well with god's word

Yeah, no, I yeah, I agree with that I think And and one of the things i'm seeing here

So you you have various guys guys are doing the platform thing. You also have praise god for the movement of evangelists that you have in the world today and in Praise god for that, but but some cautions i'm seeing is

Evangelists exist in service of the church now we could talk about is there an office of evangelists or not?

My friend michael coghlan had mentioned a book. I need to read I think it's something about called the third office or something like that that we need more evangelist.

I know that timothy is told In first timothy or second timothy four or five right do the work of an evangelist, you know, so Some things that we could think through with all that but but I made this statement yesterday

That most pastors Or at least many pastors that I observe could use more of an evangelistic heart

And many evangelists that I observe could use more of a pastoral heart what

I mean is We need both. It's not an either or we need a both and we need we need a pastor's heart

A pastor's heart includes an evangelistic heart And an evangelist heart should include a pastor's heart by that I mean an evangelist should be willing to serve the church to be with the with with the body and I think that The pastor should be willing to Evangelize, I don't know anyway thoughts about that.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely um You know all christians are called to evangelize to share the gospel get the gospel out

And then you know when we think of proclaiming the gospel of course

The church is not going to be more evangelistic than the elders than the pastors are it's just not going to happen

But when we think about what even is the evangelist to be doing? Well, really the evangelist is to be helping to equip the other believers to be more evangelistic, uh

And if our only thought is You know to notch the gun, you know you know how many how many people that I pass a tract out to and instead of thinking about Man, how can

I really engage with people? I think A lot of times as pastors our opportunity to have a more pastoral heart and evangelism is to is to really think in terms of I'm trying to engage these people

Like real people. I think sometimes almost and this is probably even beyond evangelism we can almost have a a hyper polemic or a hyper apologist kind of mindset

That maybe isn't even evangelistic at all But but that comes across that way some

I mean it's presented as we're out here to preach the gospel but but really what we're out here to do is is to be polemic or even apologetic in that sense

I'm and i'm not picking on evangelists because you have Praise god for the movement of evangelists.

Oh, yeah, we need it. We need it. I mean The other problem has been prevalent for a long time

Uh, we we just do come and see events we don't go out and that's right But i'm saying this this whole thing is a heart issue

It's actually the same heart issue So the pastors are like I just want to preach I don't care about serving the church

The evangelists that are just like I want to preach. I don't care about serving the church It's the same heart problem, right?

That is the true pastor heart is a shepherd's heart Is a heart i'm just using a different word, but it means the same thing pastor shepherd

It's a heart that not only wants to teach and preach. Yes. Amen priority

We give that but it's a heart that wants to love and equip and fellowship and serve and help

And weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice You know, maybe another thought

And i'd love to get your get your thought on this Maybe even if we we remember the other words the new testament uses to refer to pastors actually the words it uses more often

So episkopos and presbyteros the overseers the elders This kind of heart is a mature

Heart this kind of heart is a heart that taking responsibility for the oversight of the people and probably both evangelists and Pastors in the pulpit need to have that more mature that elder that presbyteros heart need to have that Responsible that taking not just authority but responsibility

For the things taking place in the congregation kind of heart I think sometimes whether it's pastors or evangelists we can have a little bit of a of a you know the the gunslinger coming to town

Kind of idea where? Oh, i'm not responsible for it. I'm just here to preach the gospel whatever whatever happens.

That's not Well, no as overseers Man, our heart is that we're responsible

For some things we're not responsible for how what how people respond, of course But we are responsible for how we lead and shepherd and tend

The congregation oversee what's happening in the congregation and we are responsible to be mature in the way that we engage with people, especially when we take into account that You know, we think of I think of dr.

Martin lloyd -jones, but This is soul work the diagnosis the the the kind of A doctoral work that we're doing is soul work and it's really important and we ought to we ought to do that with a gravity and a maturity

That sometimes we don't do that with I think it's the first year seminary student is like I just want to preach

Well, amen like that's all Amen, you know like what can you imagine scenario is like all you do

Is you walk in you preach you walk out, you know, I was like wow, you know

I say in one sense. It sounds like a dream job, but really it doesn't to me because like That's not like I don't want to do that.

I want to be in the lives of these people I want to Walk through the birth of their children.

I want to walk through the the the death of their grandparents I want to walk through the the highs and then in the lows.

I want to be a family with these people I think that's the shepherd's heart and I think harold smith his episode on that You guys should listen to it.

It's exactly right. We need more pastors not just preachers Now we want pastors that preach.

Well again, I re -emphasize this So that no one's like well our main duty is preaching. I'm not arguing that you know, you agreed agreed

I'm just saying That that is not enough for the pastor and then we've included here

Also the evangelist and we could throw although it's not a a pastoral position

You could even talk about the deacon, you know The deacon who thinks it's his job to just run things in the church

But not actually love the people and serve the people and walk alongside the people and care about them and pray for them

You know pastors I would say this too, but but primarily, I guess I'd I'd Talk about pastors, but i'd add deacons here

But like pastors or deacons like you're not if you're not praying for your church members Like what are you doing in that office?

Right. If you're not taking them before the lord by name And praying for the things that are going on in their life

Why are you in the office of pastor or deacon? You're to give yourself to the ministry of the word and prayer pray for your people

I don't know. There's kind of shotgun approach here, but we're talking about the pastor's heart. Go ahead brother Well, if you're thinking about the heart too, we're also thinking in terms of motivations, right?

And I think there are a lot of guys who They want to preach and let's be honest.

They want to preach to a big crowd They want they want they want to preach to the sunday morning crowd that went

What service has the most people in it? Oh, that's the one I want to preach at and I would say especially if you're you're getting started, but even now, you know, i'm

I don't know 20 something years in on ministry and There is a lot of teaching

I do every week to small groups of people a lot of bible teaching

And proclamation that I do to small groups of people and If you if you say man, the lord's the lord has given me this fire this desire to teach the bible to preach the bible

Then i'm saying well Okay there I I'm sure If you live in even a small town,

I mean marshall's 1300 people right uh I'm sure that there are

I can I can have you somebody to to teach the bible to every day of the week I guarantee you if you're willing to sit down with two or three people

If it doesn't have to be You know 50 60 100 people for you to think it's worth your time

Then I guarantee you I can have you somebody to teach the bible to every week And so I think a lot of times people's motivation is really

Not just the teaching the bible but let's be honest sometimes it's we want the affirmation of preaching to the big crowd

Yeah, I think that's a good word brother, I mean that's the thing if if you want the opportunity to preach

And someone says okay well Let's go to the nursing home and you're like no no

No, like we went to the nursing home and i'll commend gunner We went to the nursing home another day and you know, he preached about a 10 minute sermon or maybe 15 minute and he was good on john 10 and there was like nursing home people

Residents there were like five You know, it was pretty low and There were a couple kind of paying attention, but for the most part maybe not that much, you know

And he just gets up there and he preaches, you know, he did a good job That's the kind of heart

Yes, like if you're like no i'm not doing that, you know, we're like hey we need someone to if you're class

So so we're integrated when it comes to our main sunday morning and sunday night service sunday morning Family integrated, but we do have a sunday school and wednesday night stuff where we do different classes

If you're like I feel the call to teach and someone's like, okay. Well, what do you think about these 10 year olds, you know?

like I'm not called to teach them like then. What do you do? Like what are you doing? Like are you called a teacher or not?

You know, I mean like so I think it's a pastoral heart to not only be able to teach but be willing to teach whoever the lord providentially

Puts into your path Right. That's right. You know, we've got to and and and we've got to be willing to get outside of what's

Comfortable, you know here in searcy county um,

I I don't get to go as often as I used to used to go every week, but done a lot of ministry in the local jail and I know people might at first be like, oh

I could never do that, but i'm going to tell you it's Honestly, they're they're usually excited for you to come

If they don't they'll just go to their cell, I mean, it's not like they're gonna they're not gonna beat you up You know or anything like that?

But if you'll go in there and just sit down at a table You know You might have one guy sit down next to you and listen to what you have to say from the bible

Or you might have eight guys gathered around listen to what you have to say the bible But if you say no, that's not worth my time

Well, then Then I would say if that's not worth your time You're not worthy to stand before the people on the lord's day

Yeah Then i'm not saying everybody has to do jail ministry. Don't hear me saying everybody's got to do jail ministry.

Everybody's got to Do recovery ministry. Everybody's got to go to the nurse home my point is to say that if any of those things are like you said teaching the

You know, I've the the sunday school class that I teach is like 10 to 14

Is the age group i've got mostly young boys uh young men and so If if it's man

That's beneath me Well, that's problem. The bigger problem is that your heart says that it's beneath you.

That's the biggest problem Here's a text that just came to my mind. So first of all, we all know philippians, too

But let me set that in context for just a second Back up I don't have my bible in front of me, but back up to philippians 1 -1

Now think about who this letter is to It's to the saints Who are at philippi?

with The overseers and deacons. That's right. So if we take plural commands in the book of philippians

Who can we? Unless context just specifically dictates. Otherwise Who can we assume the plural commands are to?

well the saints of philippi with the overseers and deacons everybody

That's right You set that into context And then you and i'm going to paraphrase because I don't have my bible right here in front of me

But you set that in context Of philippians too and I say I don't have it in front of me

But you know what? I have access to the world wide web. So why can I not just pull this up real quick?

So you go to philippians 2 And paul says so if there's any encouragement in christ any comfort from love

Any participation in the spirit any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind

Having the same love being in full accord and of one mind. Okay, who's that to the saints with the overseers and deacons?

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves

Who's that to the saints with the overseers and deacons? Let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others

Who's that to the saints with the overseers and deacons have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in christ jesus

Who's that to the saints the overseers of deacons now? It's going to tell us about christ who though he was in the form of god

Did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped But emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross Now then, you know god's going to exalt him and every now

But I think if we understand philippians 2 in that light It's like remember this isn't just for church members

Or I should say it's for all church members including The overseers and deacons elders and deacons, right?

So this is the kind of mentality an elder is to have humility in service

To the church. It doesn't mean you should be a doormat It doesn't mean that You have to have a back mount on just a couple weeks ago

I don't remember when this will come out compared to the other one, but we talked about phineas and zimmery. You need a backbone

Yeah, we didn't have a backbone in more ways than one, right? Right to listen to that episode

But the point is you need a backbone you need to stand you need to hold your ground

But you also need to have a humble spirit a humble mind ancient long -suffering

This is how christ is to us. This is how we're to serve the church Yeah, and we ought to think about this too

You when you look at the pastoral qualifications that we find in scripture

What paul writes to timothy and titus what peter says in first peter chapter five the past the the things that would instruct us on What kind of man ought a pastor to be man?

man ought a pastor to be What but what we really see it's just a mature christian a mature christian man, it's not a another category

Like it's not that the pastor ought to be this super kind of christian that all the other christians ought not be

It's no rather a mature christian man who also Has the ability to teach to proclaim god's word to handle it rightly he is qualified To be a pastor an elder an overseer in the church well

If that's true if the if the qualification for the pastor is that he's this mature

Qualified believer. That's really what he is Then whether we're talking about the pastor or the evangelist or other members of the church

The idea is that our heart ought to be to care for one another and to proclaim the gospel

Because we are these mature believers that are above reproach that have these both character and competency qualifications

That the bible speaks of in our families in the church in our love for one another

This is what the bible just describes as a godly christian. Yeah, I think about and i've mentioned this before But I love

A .w. pink as a theologian i'm benefited i'm reading his work on the divine covenants right now.

It's helpful. It's good But his life does serve as an illustration, you know the end of it towards the end of his life

Like he just completely abandoned the church You're like that's dangerous

And how much more might god have used him had he stayed around and served the church?

I think about martin lloyd jones when he finished his Pastoral ministry he stayed around and served the church.

He didn't just head to the heels, you know Yeah, you know you understand what i'm saying That uh the

The mentality of our of a pastor's heart is I want to serve the church unto the glory of god

I don't want to separate my preaching from serving the church. I don't want to separate my evangelism from serving the church

I don't want to separate anything. We're doing we hope even our podcasting here is in service to the church

I know that we both of us have members of our churches that listen and hopefully there are other churches

That's why we want to have this podcast the rural church Podcast it's not just for pastors or preachers or this is for the church

Because we believe in the power and necessity and importance of the local church

This is what god's doing in the world today. That's right. That's right That's right.

And like you and like you've said Uh so well and and so eloquently, you know christ is worthy

Of a healthy church. Did you add the you know in there? As a slide to me as a slight

You know Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

We hope that this has been a helpful Episode to our brothers and sisters listening always willing to take feedback or questions

Quatro nelson at gmail .com c u a t r o n e l s o n at gmail .com

I forget yours eddie cowboy church at something. No, it's eddie ragsdale 17 at gmail .com

I email you but when I do email you I just type in e and it pops up and boom, right? Yeah. Yeah All right.