The Rights of the Shepherd

Today's text is 1st Corinthians chapter 9 verses 1 through 15. Am I not free am

I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord are not you my workmanship in the

Lord if to others I'm not an apostle at least I am to you for you at this 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 in 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? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?

Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Do I say these things on human authority? 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? Does he not certainly speak for our sake?

It was written for our sake because the plowman should plow and hope and the thresher thresh and hope of sharing in the crop

If we have sown spiritual things among you Is is it too much if we reap material things from you if others share this rightful claim on you?

Do not do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple and Those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings in The same way the

Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel But I have made no use of any of these rights nor am

I writing these things to secure any such provision For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting

Bow your heads. Let's pray father, thank you for The gift of your word, thank you for this letter where we're over halfway through Thank you for each message so far

Lord, I thank you for our shepherds That work work very hard Lord our shepherds spend hours

Taking care of these sheep Taking care of me taking care of us Or thank you for for who they are

Lord. Help us to take take care of them Lord. I pray that you would Open our eyes to this text that you would convict us that you would reveal

Illuminate this text to us Lord. I pray for Josh Give him the gift of preaching Lord.

Thank you for the gift Lord, we pray for the service. We pray all these things in your name.

Amen We've been blessed at this point in the young life of Covenant Baptist to have very few controversies

But one of them that has raged Since the summer of 2025 is this one

London Baptist Confessional chapter 26 paragraph 10 states the work of pastors being

Constantly to attend the service of Christ in his churches in the ministry of the word and prayer

With watching for their souls as they that must give an account to him It is incumbent on the churches to whom they minister not only to give them all due respect but also to communicate to them of All their good things according to their ability so as they may have a comfortable supply

Without being themselves entangled in secular affairs and may also be capable of exercising hospitality towards others and this is required by the law of nature and by the express order of our

Lord Jesus who has Ordained that they preach the gospel should live of the gospel

So that is in our statement of beliefs. It is written by Older men and it has stood the test of time.

It is deeply biblical it is easily defended from multiple scriptures both in the

Old Testament and the New Testament and if you listen to the recordings if you weren't here if you listen to the recordings on the 1689 we kind of skimmed over we went really fast through them and what's not on the recordings is the question -and -answer

Section afterwards in which I believe at least two of the sessions if not three

Got dominated by this topic. So all cards on the table. I am bivocational

I I work full -time at Springdale High School and I am paid here and the question rages and there are several questions

Can a pastor be bivocational? Do we have to pay a certain amount?

Who else gets paid? These are questions that we have had it really is in many ways and I'm look

I will tell you I am blessed by this being the fact of our church so far is that this is the hot -button

Issue of CBC so far in its young life and I will tell you that's a good hot -button issue to have

All right. I like that. It's a good one It's something to talk about So we have decisions to make and we have had decisions to make about who gets paid how much they get paid

How does this replicate the mission and vision the mission of this church is the Great Commission just like every church of Jesus Christ but the vision of this particular church is to raise up men to be church leaders and to replicate this church by planting churches in First Northwest Arkansas and then our words as it extends from there that requires a lot of time a lot of discipleship and a lot

Of questions about how can this happen? You will have statistics thrown at you often I don't know how true they are

But they are said so many times that they've become dogma and that is the 80 % of church plants fail

I will tell you in practicality. It seems as though when you look at church plants

It's probably not a good idea to send 25 year olds out to plant churches that are given $700 a month from an overarching corrupt institution like the

North American Mission Board. Okay, probably not a good plan So we can go from there and look how can you plant churches and it basically boils down to in our time?

I think that you can have a staff member that is paid a comfortable living or facilities, but not both right, and so the way that we have tried to Peel that apple and look at it here is that we have an eye toward raising up bivocational elders

Who can go and not have the financial strain on a fledgling church?

but maybe can grow into that if that is the desire of the body and there are many things in this text this morning and Paul is going to make arguments over and over again from the lesser to the greater

He is going to first establish his position as being an Apostle capital a

Apostle if I was looking in the scripture and Not giving the pious answer of Jesus and you asked me who is your greatest hero of the scripture?

Kelsey could tell you right now who it is It's Paul It's a man that I I revere him his words tear me up.

I love him I will never be as great as him and I can I can Resonate with so much of what he says here because Paul's desire is what

I wish mine was and that desire is to proclaim the gospel and To disciple people.

That's his whole drive. That's what he does That's all he cares about and then this thing gets in the way because there's critics and there's always critics so Paul starts and he is going to give an account at chapter 9 here because we read between the lines and see that there

Are critics at Corinth there are people that are disparaging his ministry, but even more than that probably hurtfully to him

They are disparaging the the Apostle himself. They are calling into question his credentials

They're calling to into question his fruits. There will be another letter written to the Corinthians We call it 2nd

Corinthians or across the pond They call it 2 Corinthians and that one is really dealing pointedly

With the critics of Paul and we see some of the things in that letter that they're saying That he's not really an apostle that he's a grifter that he is there for world again

And that he is preaching a gospel that doesn't result in anything because look at him his gospel gets you persecuted and it's like the prophets of old who the people that were

Contemporaries hated the prophets because they spoke of the judgment of God and then they revered later after they died

He was st. Paul after he died He was a thorn in the side of the religious establishment while he lived and we see this today

If you dare to speak the truth if you dare to go against the conventional wisdom of the culture

That is run by the Prince of the power of the air You will draw critics and they will attack personally

Paul says am I not free? Remember we are in the context of Liberty. We are in the context of last week

We saw in chapter 8 that Paul has warned against syncretism You must not eat the meat of the idols.

You must not be entangled with the blood This was the decree of the Council of Jerusalem and people in Corinth with their sophistry are making arguments that it's okay to go and be seen worshiping in the temple by eating the meat and So Paul comes off of that and he is talking about what real freedom looks like and Paul is going to give us a master

Course in the next few Lessons about what freedom as a Christian looks like and friends as Americans.

We have done ourselves. No favors culturally here I am convinced that we have no idea what

Liberty means in America Held up against not only what our forefathers believed but especially what

Paul the Apostle wrote Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen

Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? 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 Paul was taught by the Lord Jesus Christ for three years in the desert and Paul came back and was vetted and established by the

Apostles in fact Peter says that Paul's writings are Scripture an Astounding thing to say about another man, is it not?

And Paul points to in the face of his critics He points and says your very existence as a church is the seal of my apostleship

If you want to look at my credentials if you want to look at my ministry look at yourselves You are the product of my ministry.

That's what Paul says As a guy who planted a church I can relate I can relate and you guys are very dear to me

And in many ways when I am called before the Great Shepherd and I'm asked to give an account of my deeds

I'm gonna point at you You'll be my resume. You'll be my credentials and I will fail you

But I want to steadfastly work for you as Paul did for the people at Corinth to understand

The pain and Paul is about to give his harshest rebukes. And so he sets himself up this way

His apostleship cannot be doubted but he carries with it authority He is a man who has every right to write this letter

He has planted this church. He has watered it and he is sending letters to rebuke and to cultivate it and So his appeal is going to be how do you treat the people who are in charge?

How do you treat your leaders and your shepherds? And that's where we get through the title of the shirt the sermon this morning

Which is the rights of the shepherd Paul is going to establish the rights and then talk about Liberty Because those those two things are different rights and Liberty are different If you will look we're going to follow through and I'm going to spend

Paul's case Which is established in verses 3 through 14 If you will follow along you're gonna see several ways that Paul makes the case that shepherds deserve earthly Goods for their spiritual work

That is the premise the premise is this and Paul writes it over and over again If you want to mark a place you can go to 2nd

Corinthians 5 and you will see in really clear form Paul's view of the worldly physical versus the eternal spiritual and what he is saying is that what you

Experience here is a far lesser value than the eternal because the eternal is forever

You will surely dwell in eternity based on the decisions you make while you're dwelling in tents here and so when

Paul makes this argument what he's saying is that a shepherd of the church is giving tremendous sacrifice for the

Spiritual good of his people and that the least that he should expect from that is some material blessing

This has been wildly perverted in our day Wildly And I'm gonna let that sit and it has raged on social media this week the age -old

I think I think there may be a bot that's just like using bad actors to recycle things about every five or six months

This month what raged in the reform ghetto news from the ghetto was this?

Pastors We got it real hard You guys don't You don't understand what it's like to be me

And I need sabbaticals I Need him. I need time off Does that sound like what

Paul's saying here? Do you think Paul worked hard? Do you think Paul needed to take three -month breaks from preaching the gospel?

I Don't think so. I think we have a bunch of mercenaries that inhabit pulpits today

I think we have a bunch of people who have found That we can put in 15 -hour weeks to make upper -middle -class income and if you can be especially adept at marketing

You can make a lot more than that Because if you can titillate the sheep and the goats by bringing many of them in Then you can make for yourself and even better living and every seven years

I mean, it's it's like the Passover right every seven years you you probably should get three months off So that you can recover

Because it's oh so difficult and my response to that is when when when

It's ridiculous. And it what it does is it degrades this office? Do you see it because we have men who are struggling and working to provide for their house in an economy?

That is not favorable and men are working long hours And when they get a puffy soft -handed guy who stands behind the pulpit saying feminist coded nonsense

Who then says I'm so tired. I need some time off. It degrades the office. That is not what

Paul's talking about What Paul is talking about is a man that strains so hard for the church and for his people that he doesn't have time to row crops

Don't miss it. It was hard to eat in this time There was subsistence farming.

And so the man who was studying the scrolls not the Internet How can I complain

I have every commentary that has ever written that I can bring up with a simple one -word search

And I can see it in the language and I can see all the codexes there is everything there instantly and the men who went before us had

Pieces and parts and they would struggle under candlelight with quills writing sermons and that's what

Paul's talking about What a man But a man who is enslaved to Christ and so he writes to his beloved church

And he makes the argument for why they need to take care of their shepherds Not so they can go on golf vacations to Pebble as much as I would like that Right, that's not it.

It's so they can eat It's so they can eat It's so that they can take the time to study without growing crops and raising beasts of their own

That's what it's about a Man who was going to study needed to study and he needed to pour out his life.

We had the we had the Home corner here. I hope it's good we have a man who is so involved in the community in this time that he's known by the pagans and the

Christians in the community as being a man of God and there are many demands on this man's time because he is the

Educated man in his city or his community and so his time is strapped. That's what

Paul's talking about He's not talking about these soft wheat need guys

Who are making a living being clerics? It's offensive See Paul has been given this authority and because of this authority.

He's not unlike the other Apostles He says the other Apostles they're able to take wives They're able to have homes.

Is it only Barnabas and I that don't get to do that? Because Paul is traveling to all of these churches

He's being harassed and persecuted everywhere. He goes and he says is it just us and the answer is no

It's obviously not it would not have been sinful for Paul to take a wife But there are critics there are critics who point to Paul and they're saying you're just like the other guys who come in and give us really smooth sounding stuff and Make your living off of your rhetoric.

That's why Paul begins in chapter 1 by saying he doesn't come with rhetoric He comes with the simple thing of the foolishness of the cross.

Remember that it's all connected Paul's not coming like a Greek sophist with rhetoric. He's coming with the power of the cross

Why does he not demand to get paid to skip to the end is because he loves the Church of Corinth more than food

Incredible man Incredible man, it makes me sad to think how far we've fallen he is a minister of The gospel and a tent maker, but he is gaining up support from even the poorest churches around in Macedonia Right.

Paul is not against the church contributing to gospel ministry In fact, he's arguing for it here and he first makes the argument from nature.

I hope you see it here He calls out a couple of groups first It's understood by everyone even in ancient times that if you are a soldier your problem not raising crops

Okay, if you're a soldier and you are out making war you do not have time to provide your own provisions

You're going to have to be paid and fed by the magistrate or the government that is sending you out to be a soldier

That stands to reason so Paul makes the argument our shepherds of the people of God not more important than soldiers

Are we ambassadors for Christ he would write in 2nd Corinthians 5 It's understood no one would argue would we say that the men who are overseas right now

Fighting would we say gay guys if you can't make your own food, then what are we even doing here? No, we're obviously feeding them.

Okay, that's always been true. We see another argument He says it's understood that farmers will feed themselves from the fruit of their own fields

And then they will have the milk from their own animals It would be nonsensical for a farmer to raise his crops and then give all of those away and starve to death

No, we would look at that and say that's really dumb If you're a farmer and you raise crops, you should probably have food.

We understand this, right? And so what Paul is making the argument for is that these obvious truths are also in light of this and spiritual goods or more

Valuable than physical and so if we pay for soldiers and if farmers get to take from their own

Orchard then ministers of the gospel should be able to reap the benefits of their own fields

See the argument. This is the less convincing one, but it's pretty convincing now.

Let's go to the Really the airtight one and this is the argument from God's law

You shall not muzzle the ox while it's threshing Does God care more about oxen than he does about people and we even know that to ask that is to answer it

That's an absurd question It's rhetorical and then we would also extend this far and say that oxen

Obviously in Jewish tradition are a metaphor for laborers The oxen are people who are laboring and so the ox is threshing out the grain

It was very hard work. The ox was tied up and walking pulling a heavy load all day long it would be immoral to not feed the beast of burden and Likewise Paul makes the argument from law that it would be immoral not to feed

The shepherd and we have excesses on both sides of this if you guys have been around we have the prosperity

Punks who are going in getting seeds of faith and living lavish lifestyles flying private jets all over the place

You're Kenneth Copeland type, right? But then you also have people who the congregation just starves out

And this is true There are men who have labored their whole lives in churches and they have nothing no house

Nothing to pass on to their children and they are starving to death for their whole life and when they get sick

They're destitute. That is a shame on the church if the church cannot take care of their shepherd

They don't need to be a church at all What's the point if that's what we're saying spiritual goods are worth then?

What's the point of the spiritual goods? So there is a medium ground We're not trying to fly people around on luxury jets, but at the same time we should not be starving people to death see the

Lord directed a class and we can see it and The Lord himself in Luke 10 and the synoptic gospel said to his disciples as they went out to preach the gospel

He said stay in that house eating and drinking what they give you for the laborer is worthy of his wages

Do not keep moving from house to house So when his disciples would go into a town church to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God Then they would stay in a house under hospitality and they would be fed

With the people who own that house and that was the way the disciples were supposed to expect to do ministry

Similarly today a man who is a shepherd of the flock Should be taken care of with the goods of that people

The argument is clear and the Lord makes it See owners were responsible for taking care of their oxen if you'd like to read interesting stuff about oxen

Deuteronomy 22 is a place to go So owners are responsible for taking care of their beast if you let your beast out and it mauls somebody you're responsible

But similarly I found this interesting if you see your neighbor's ox out of its field roaming

The Lord says that what you're supposed to do to love your neighbor is to go alert your neighbor or to pin up that ox

So that they would be given back to the owner See, it's a community where we're looking out for each other

Do we do that and I I think here that we do but there is some practical stuff

We'll get to he follows up his argument from the law of God in Deuteronomy to an argument from temple practices

These are practices that go back to the Levites that align with nature and with God's law as they obviously would

See the priest class of Israel when it was established. They were the Levitical line

They were descendants of Levi and they were given cities that were scattered all over They did not have their own land allotment as a tribe and that meant that they did not have huge areas where they could cultivate

Crops they were dependent on the other tribes to come in and to give them a tithe of food

To protect and to keep the priestly class They had no portion with the other tribes

So the Lord in his wisdom made a class of priests who were dependent on all of the other tribes for their living

Probably would have been scary to be a Levite and what we do is we see from that a lot of bad behavior in the temple

Through the Old Testament, don't we we see the sons of Eli we see the sons of Samuel There's all kinds of bad behavior because what you want to do is you want to naturally build a consortium of rich Benefactors who are gonna keep you in the lamb, right?

Literally so you could get the lamb and the goat and the beef Okay, you wanted that stuff and the

B the beef which we know is delicious That would be by the rich people who are sacrificing in the temple.

And so you wanted to make them happy So, what do you do to make rich people happy? Well, we know you throw lavish parties

And that's what was going on in the temple and it was a disgrace to God and he killed them

See there is a warning to this in pastors. We can say on the one hand That we should be taken care of by the flock

But on the other hand, we will give account and if we fleece and abuse the people of God There will be retribution

Not many of you should become teachers James in his same letter writes

That we are to show no partiality to the rich because there's always a temptation to have the one who comes in who's a big giver

There's always a temptation to bring them deep into our councils So that they will continue to provide the living.

That's how the grift of the minister goes You can get the masses or you can get the influential and if you're especially talented you can get both and then

Then you can have 20 million dollar church buildings and then the money keeps flowing and that's the way it works

It's a dangerous thing. What's lost in all of that is the fear of God so congregants who starve out pastors don't fear

God because they don't care what he said and pastors who fleece cheap sheep for Filthy lucre don't fear

God either So what do we do? What do we do and that's where we come to the end and I am going to Focus all of our practical this morning on verse 15

It's an astounding verse and it launches what Corey's going to be handling in a couple weeks

But I have used none of these things. Do you understand? I want to stop there. Paul has argued.

He has a complete right To take all these things and in fact, it probably would have been good if the

Corinthians had freely offered to give him these things both of these things are inherent in the text right the

Corinthians gave him nothing and he asked for nothing and There's a two -way street in this.

I Have used none of these things and I am NOT writing these things so that it will be done. So in my case

For it would be better for me to die Then have anyone make my boast an empty one.

What is his boast? His boast is that The gospel is real that there's death in a rejection of Jesus Christ But there's life in Faith that's given through grace that there's life in repentance and if a pastor making some money gives his detractors a valuable sword to cut through his gospel ministry,

I Join with Paul I'd rather die. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

I would rather die than for that to happen See Paul has made the arguments.

There's no way Can you really can you really open Scripture and argue against what Paul says? Shepherds should be paid.

They always were Just like the Levitical line. They should be paid and yet now we see what

Christian Liberty looks like Paul sets these rights aside for himself

Why? Well, we see it to avoid hindering the faith of Gentiles who were used to the grift of high rhetoric oratory skills to promise

Civic and educational benefits what people do is they would come into these Greek towns and they would be fast talkers and they would be able to use the

Philosophy and they would stir people up and they would say look if you follow me if you follow me

Then you're gonna have all these educational benefits. You will rise up through society. All it's gonna take is a small monthly donation

If you've ever watched late -night TV You'll see the commercials piling on and on back in the day right the infomercials about you know

It's less than a cup of coffee a day That's the appeal for thousands of people to do it.

See Paul also does another thing though and I relate strongly to this one He wants to silence critics who would accuse him of being in this ministry for money alone

I want to tell you something astounding the New Testament has no category No category for false teachers who are not in it for money false teachers are always in it for money and I don't mind saying

I Have been accused of that And there was a time at this church where I most certainly and emphatically gave up my right

Because I do not want to be accused of peddling the gospel that is the furthest thing from my intention and in the

Presence of critics who can cast doubt and dispersion there is a biblical

Simple way to cut them at the knees and that is to not take it so that it would not be a hindrance to the gospel

So if Paul is setting these things aside for himself for their good so that they would not think he's a grifter

Also, so that the critics would be silenced because what possible motivation would Paul have to beating his head against the wall time and time again?

In this church if they're not even paying him you understand how crazy this is. This church is a thorn in his side

They have all kinds of problems going on and Paul's not getting paid a dime Why is he even messing with him?

In fact, he says he wants to come back The travel was not easy in the ancient world.

Why does he want to come back? There's a bunch of people who have got their sway that have told him Paul's just he's a liar

Why are you mean listen to them and Paul's like I'm coming back why it's because he loves them like a spiritual father

There is children And we see the Apostle John talked the same way in his letters at the end of the book

About how the church they're his children They are his legacy Everything that he is giving account for to God is dependent on his legacy his children in the faith

That is the joy of being a shepherd shepherd should not whine about the job Do we or do we not have a chance to fill up the sufferings of Jesus Christ?

That should be a joy to God's people and it should be an extended joy to a man who would want to be a pastor

And we need you if you have that calling if you desire to be a pastor understand you are signing up for hardship

You are signing up for criticism. You are signing up for people to not listen to you You are signing up for hours and counseling and frustration and it's awesome

It's amazing. I couldn't do anything other Paul's gonna say later the gospel compels him to do this and I feel that so strongly from the time

I was born. My mom knew before I ever did that the gospel compels me. I have to There's no other way.

It's an amazing thing that he does He wants to protect his brothers the other

Apostles. Do you see that? Why does he make the argument because it's not for him? He doesn't want to get in the way

But he does know that the church at Corinth is not gonna survive if they don't take care of shepherds No one's going to shepherd them if they're starving to death

So you should pay your shepherds He also knows that his Apostles Peter James the brother of Jesus Jude the brother of Jesus John and all the rest of them.

They do have wives They are getting paid and Paul is cutting the critics off of the knees by saying hey Maybe I'm not getting paid but they deserve to get paid and they should be getting paid

They are doing amazing work Keep paying them keep taking up the collection

He's so pure -hearted and that leads us to the final turn. What about us? What about us?

Here's what we know for sure and then there's wisdom in this What we know for sure is that a man who labors and gospel ministry has a claim to physical goods

I've been thinking about how to best do this Here we go

In the best book written in the English language J .r. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings There is an especially profound chapter.

It's called the forbidden pool It has really nothing to do with the plot of the books In fact, if you look at it, you could be like why is this even here?

And I think Tolkien wrote this for one reason that he was driving at and that is this There is hierarchy in the world and that there is a claim

From the master to the servant Obviously right the one who serves the master the master has a claim to his work and his allegiance

But there is also a claim from the servant on the master If you've never read the story what's wrong with you?

If you have read the story if you have read the story, I encourage you to go back and read that chapter it's about a sniveling little monster who is a liar and a thief his name is

Gollum and He made a lying promise they swear an oath an oath to serve his master and He fully intended to break it and yet do you know what his master did?

He respected that oath and he saved the monster's life Knowing that it would come back to bite him

It's an incredible story Pastors we know we know that we're gonna get bit sometimes our job is to not whine about it

We know what's gonna happen There is a greater call to service and that call to service is between the shepherd and his creator

I don't know how it's gonna work. But someday I'm gonna give an account For our ministry with all of you and they'll ask me about names

How is it going to be if I don't know what you did? It's not gonna go well for me

There is a bond between a pastor and a congregation The pastor owes his flock goods

The pastor owes his flock preaching that is fearless that is trying as hard as possible

To exposit the truth of God's Word and not to cloud it and nuance and cultural niceties

To not bend it to the world But instead to use it as a sword to pierce through the world and the darkness that so envelops us

The pastor owes the flock careful study The pastor owes the flock pastoral care for the sick and the wounded in the needy

That's what shepherds always did They would bind up the wounded sheep They would go after the sheep who had gone astray and they would at great personal cost go to find the one while leaving the others taken care of See the congregation also owes the pastor goods the congregation owes the pastor honor and Care and submission

We are going to mess this up. I am sure of this. You know, why? So we're sinners

You don't know every thought that I have. I don't know every thought that I have. I Don't know every thought that you have there's gonna be miscondemning.

There's gonna be miscommunication there's gonna be Failure to act at times.

There's gonna be ignorance on both sides And what I really hope is being cultivated here is a bond and a trust that can get through mistakes and even sins between us

That's what I want If you're around me long enough, you're gonna see me sin. I Hate it.

I Really do but you're gonna see it And if I'm around you long enough, I'm gonna see you sin and I'm gonna hate it too

And we're gonna talk that out See There's a balance in this place and this is where it gets very practical up for us the balance here that we are having to Deal with is the balance of paying and making him comfortable versus being lean

That's largely dependent on who the pastor is and what his needs are the costs in this area have increased exponentially just in the last five years 50 ,000 is the new 20 ,000 here.

You're barely scraping. It's difficult Okay, it's a really tough thing and yet in the midst of this we want to plant churches

And so I do think that the call here I do think the call is to raise up men who are in the slow boil who learn

Hardness who learn how to shepherd who are watching men who are more experienced and growing in that discipline and growing in that skill

Set so that when they launch out, they're not green 25 year olds who know some theology, but they are hardened

Men who know how to counsel who know how to bind up the sick who know how to be patient with the stupid

You know, we're called sheep. There is one universal principle of sheep if you've ever been around them.

They are stupid Very stupid. They're looking for a place to die They will hang themselves

They will starve themselves It's not a compliment when we're called that It's not and we have to know that it takes patience

It takes the fruits of the Spirit and it takes spiritual gifting to do this job I don't do this by my own power.

It is by the gifting of the Holy Spirit. There is no way this was work I do not have the capacity.

I do not have the ability. So what do we do? How do we do this? How many can be paid in this church?

It's a question that bubbles up When do we pay someone for gospel ministry, I will pause it my understanding of it right now

I think when men work at an extraordinary level to make disciples in a pastoral sense

That they are entitled to physical goods from the church We have a bond now.

Can that man lay aside his rights? Of course he can of course he can but also the congregation can say is this man too entangled in secularism?

Or stuff to keep doing what he's doing. Of course you can See the church at Corinth could have written a letter back and said

Paul. You're not even helping us and He would have to address that Similarly if you have a man here who is so involved in his full -time job

That he is not doing the job of being a pastor Then we can call him to attention and say brother something's got to give are you gonna be a pastor?

Are you gonna be entangled and there's hard decisions to be made? The congregation has an increased responsibility when that becomes the conversation

You can't let him starve. You can't let him starve there's going to be a natural growth as this happens from a church plant where I remember in 2023 there was like 14 people in here.

Okay, it would have been ridiculous For me to demand a $90 ,000 a year salary in that setup

That is absolutely preposterous But there is a natural growth and I want to talk about this is where I wanted to end

There is a natural growth from a plant to a stable church and the workload changes with that Let me give you a little bit of a newsflash

It's harder to pastor 60 people than it is 14 people Okay So there but when there are 60 there are more resources and So the claim becomes draped and even more wisdom.

Is there a dollar amount here? No, I think that there has to be prayerful wisdom between an elder and between congregants to answer this question

We've asked the question can church plants support full -time pastors and the answer almost certainly is not by themselves

Not by themselves. So something's got to give there's got to be support from someone else There's got to be a bivocational minister who can float it for a time

If that's the goal to be full -time and to be paid that way then I give Him my verification to say that is a good and godly task but I give him this warning and say you better not do that to work 12 -hour weeks and Fleece the sheep you would better be tired.

And if you're not tired God is watching He will not be mocked

Whatever a man reaps He reaps what he sows every single time if you so laziness

You will get the wrath of God because Paul would write elsewhere that a man who does not support his family is worse than infidel that means he's damned a pastor who is lazy and grips off the sheep is acting like an infidel and I think he's probably a false teacher no matter what comes out of his mouth, and I think that he will likely burn in hell

It's the only way I make sense of the accounts to pastors. I think there's good ones and there's bad ones.

I Think we have a lot of bad ones and I think the fear of God needs to increase in our land Let's pray

Lord. Your Your wisdom is so clear in the scripture or that this is an area where through the

Apostle Paul You gave us such clarity on what's expected of the church on what's expected of shepherds

And Lord, I pray that at CBC that this would not be an issue of division

But that doesn't mean it has to be an issue of full -scale agreement all the time Lord I pray that we would diligently seek you

Seek discernment and wisdom and how we handle this question this year and in the years to come

Lord, I thank you for the generosity of the people here Lord, I thank you for your provision on my house

But even more than that Lord, I thank you for the power of the gospel Lord it's nothing less than the words of life nor we were a dying people and I pray that as we go forth here or that we would remember that there is a bond between congregation and Shepherd and Lord that that bond would be respected that it would be upheld by both sides of that and that we would hold to our duties to each other

So that we would not be run ragged and so that we would not be neglected But instead

Lord that we would work together exhorting each other to grow stronger in the faith as we learn more of your word and as we bring it to bear on the counseling situations that arise in normal life or give your people patience with me and Corrie give

Corrie and I discernment And most of all give all of us the gifts that equip the whole body one member to another in this place and That we would not despise and disparage the gifts that we don't have but we would be thankful for the ones that we do have