How To Encourage Your Pastor (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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May 12, 2013

Counseling In The Psalms (part 3)

00:00: Father in heaven, we thank you for this day. We thank you for having the opportunity to worship you,
00:07: Father, as a body, to hear your word preached, to sing together, to just declare your glory as a body.
00:14: And we just pray that you would bless church today, the services today. May you bless the preaching of your word.
00:20: May it go forth, accomplish its purpose in the hearts of the hearers, Father. And again, may it bring glory to you.
00:26: And we just pray that you bless this Sunday school now. Help us to listen as an act of worship and just do all things for your glory.
00:34: In Christ's name we pray, amen. So who's in the first service? All right, looking forward to Romans 8.
00:42: Is it good? All right. And we got my favorite hymn for men's all -come choir.
00:49: So I'm looking forward to that too. The last time I spoke was probably in March. And we talked about how to encourage your pastor.
00:59: And we're gonna continue with that. I don't think I stepped on any toes or caused me any problems with that.
01:06: And we ended off, we were talking about the Lord's Day, and I'm gonna continue with that. So that'll be the majority of our time.
01:15: Like last time, we were going through this book about probably three or four years ago. This was given to every family in church,
01:23: Life in the Body of Christ by Curtis Thomas. And it's just a lot of short chapters talking about different aspects of being a member of a church and what our responsibilities are as members.
01:37: So I picked a chapter. It was how to discourage your pastor, but try to flip it into the positive and how can we encourage our pastor, taking his negatives and saying, what can we do to encourage our pastor?
01:49: So we're gonna pick up where we left off. So our jumping off point last time was
01:55: Hebrews 13, 17. Hebrews 13, 17, if you just wanna open there and have someone read that.
02:09: Anyone wanna read? Pastor Dave. Very good.
02:29: So we see our two imperatives as church members are here, obey our leaders and submit to our leaders.
02:37: So these are our action items of sort. And so again, that's our jumping off point when we're talking about how to encourage our pastors, how they can do their job with joy.
02:47: So again, obey our leaders and submit to our leaders. And I think here at BBC, we're blessed with godly leaders, godly men.
02:54: I think we'd all agree that they're committed to preaching and teaching God's word faithfully week after week.
03:00: They're men that set godly examples as fathers, as husbands. I know I look up to our elders as dads and I always go to them if I have any questions about parenting, how to lead family worship, whatever the case may be.
03:17: And they're also men that just seek to honor God in their life and their ministries. So people like that, it's not hard to obey.
03:25: It's not hard to submit to. Maybe other churches, I don't know. Maybe it's not so easy.
03:30: Maybe there's issues. But for me and most others at this church, I think it's a joy to serve our elders.
03:36: It's a joy to sit under them and learn from them. But even if our leaders were not so easy to obey, again, we still have to do so.
03:45: And our responsibility really pales in comparison to theirs. As Pastor Dave read, it tells that they keep watch over our souls.
03:56: They're ones that will give an account. These are our eternal souls, our eternal destinies. They're watching over us.
04:02: And so that's a huge responsibility. And they will have to give an account one day to God. They'll stand before him, they'll have to give an account over the souls that they shepherded while here.
04:13: So that's a huge responsibility. Also, James 3 .1, again, this is all in review, kind of picking up where we, what some of the things we went through last time.
04:21: James 3 .1 tells us that teachers will be judged with greater strictness. So while our pastors certainly minister with great joy, there's also great responsibility, right?
04:33: Like I said, the author of this book, he states things negatively. I wanna turn it into a positive.
04:38: I'm just gonna read that first paragraph, just like I did last time. Again, to show you where we're going and what we're gonna talk about.
04:44: It says, more and more good men are leaving the ministry. Their reasons may include a lack of commitment, a serious sin in their lives, a feeling of inadequacy, the pressure of public responsibilities, erratic and long hours, or some other issue.
04:56: But often the main reason is discouragement caused by church members. Something which Hebrews 13 .17
05:02: says should not occur. How did we discourage our pastors? And then he goes on, he gives quite a extensive list of things we can do to discourage.
05:11: First time around we talked, number one, one way to encourage our pastors to by listening to and obeying the scriptures.
05:19: The pastor's job, as we see in Galatians 4, Ephesians 4, is to equip the saints, to bring them to maturity.
05:28: We also see that right on the top of our bulletin, Colossians 1 .28 and 29, that their goal is to present everyone mature in Christ, to mature the saints through the preaching of the word.
05:41: So pastors labor to that end and we want to encourage them in that labor. So one of the things we can do is strive for maturity as members and do so by listening, thinking about what was preached, thinking deeply about it, going back to it during the week, praying about it, striving to live out what we learned from God's word, the different things, the imperatives that may go forth from the pulpit each week.
06:09: And as an outflow of that, mature saints, as saints mature, they'll do other things that are encouraging to their pastors.
06:16: Mature saints give, mature saints serve, mature saints build up the body in general, by loving others, doing the one another's as they should.
06:24: So that's the first way that we talked about. Second, encourage your pastor by worshiping God in the way you listen to teaching and preaching.
06:32: It's encouraging when you look out and people are attentive, nobody's nodding off. And he talks about, there's a whole chapter about listening to sermons and what we should do to prepare ourselves for worship every week, getting a good night's rest, planning ahead.
06:49: Saturday and really the whole week, if you read some of the Puritans, they would talk about the whole week being preparation for the
06:56: Lord's day and getting ready to, I mean, it's really the culmination of our week. That's when we worship our savior.
07:01: That's when we celebrate together as a body, our savior. And so it really, everything should just point towards that and we should be prepared.
07:10: Lay out your clothes, have breakfast ready to go, get the kids to bed early and just come here ready to go and ready to listen and to be attentive and worship
07:18: God with your listening. Again, this is all in review.
07:25: We're getting, building back up to the Lord's day and how we can encourage our pastors by prioritizing that.
07:34: The very next chapter of the book is actually, again, being better listeners. And again, he gives different ways where we can prepare ourselves for worship.
07:43: The third way that I picked out from his list is encourage your pastor by fearing the Lord more than men. And we went through a bunch of scriptures last time from Acts, where it says that Peter and John, they would go out and they'd preach and they'd be beaten.
07:56: And their response was always what? Stop preaching in this name.
08:01: And they'd say, no, we're gonna fear God more than men. We fear him and we wanna obey him.
08:07: And so just springboarding off of that, then what does it mean to fear
08:13: God? It means to stand boldly for his truth, know his truth. And no matter what the cost, be willing to give that truth to those who need it.
08:23: Number four, encourage your pastor by prioritizing the Lord's day. And so this is where we left off. And this we're gonna pick up here today.
08:32: The primary scripture that comes up anytime you talk about the Lord's day is Hebrews 10, 24 and 25.
08:38: We read that last time, we're gonna read it today. Does anyone wanna read that? Hebrews 10, 24, 25.
08:47: Going once, Kevin. Okay, again, we see here, there's no explicit mention of the first day of the week here.
09:10: But you can certainly make the case from scripture that it was the practice of the early church to get together the first day of the week on the
09:17: Lord's day. Why? What are some of the reasons that they might get together on the first day of the week, on Sunday?
09:25: Which we know it today. Day Christ rose from the dead, the resurrection. That marks us as Christians.
09:32: That's the whole center of our faith. We look forward to Resurrection Sunday each year. Of course, every week's Resurrection Sunday as we remember
09:38: Christ. But we commonly celebrate Easter every year and celebrating the
09:45: Lord's day on the first day of the week points to that, points to that truth. The resurrection happened on the first day.
09:50: The church was officially established when the Holy Spirit was given on which day? Pentecost, which was also the first day of the week.
09:58: Several New Testament verses refer to the first day of the week as the day Christians gathered for worship. Acts 20, verse seven in 1
10:05: Corinthians 16, two, both refer to people meeting, gathering, giving, worshiping on the first day of the week together.
10:13: Back then, it was kind of interesting to think about. There was no concept of a weekend. Sometime you drive and you see, hey, unions, the ones who brought you the weekend.
10:22: Well, they had no weekend. And so in Acts 20, what was the name of the man who fell out of the window?
10:28: Anybody remember? Eutychus. He was probably working all day, poor guy. Probably working all day and he has to show up for the
10:34: Lord's day and Paul's preaching well into the night and poor guy fell out the window and died, thankfully.
10:41: Thankfully, Paul was, through the power of the Holy Spirit, raised him from the dead and it was still a good night. So that would have ruined the
10:48: Lord's day if poor Eutychus died. So John refers to the
10:54: Lord's day in Revelation. He calls, he said he was in the spirit on the Lord's day. We have an example of 2 ,000 years of church history and just historical modern day practices that we celebrate on the
11:07: Lord's day. And that goes all the way back to, or the first day of the week, rather. That goes all the way back to the New Testament.
11:14: One thing I was thinking about this week as I prepared is the Lord's day, a
11:19: Christian Sabbath, so to speak. Is that a day where we would equate it with the
11:25: Old Testament Sabbath? And I just question. Anybody have any thoughts on that? That's perfect, that's perfect.
11:50: I read, Al Mohler wrote a book a few years ago, Words from the Fire, where he goes through the 10 commandments and talks about their application to our lives today.
11:58: And the fourth commandment is often a tricky one, you know, when you're talking New Testament believers.
12:04: And he did a really good job with that. I'll just read a quote. Bruce hit the nail on the head. He says, part of our confusion here has to do with the central purpose of the
12:12: Lord's day. Is it the same as the central purpose of the Sabbath? Is it mostly about rest?
12:18: I would argue that it isn't. The evidence in the New Testament is that the Lord's day is mostly about worship, about gathering, about being confronted with the preaching of the word, about coming together with mutual instruction, about the
12:30: Lord's table, where the communion of the saints points to a meal which is yet to come. The Lord's day points not only back to the resurrection of the
12:37: Lord Jesus Christ and his accomplished work, but it also points forward eschatologically to that rest we will enjoy on that day when we shall be with him.
12:46: And there will be no more work, there will be no more evangelism, there will be no more missions, there will be no more works of mercy, no benevolent ministries in heaven, for there will be mercy and abundance.
12:55: All will be well, every eye will be dry and every tear will be wiped away. The context of the Lord's day is different than the context of the
13:01: Sabbath, whereas the purpose of the Lord's day is different than the purpose of the Sabbath. So I think you hit every point from Al Mohler's book there.
13:11: So what is it like Al Mohler said, what is the Sabbath mostly about? What is the Christian Lord's day mostly about rather?
13:19: It's about worship, not so much about what you can't do, which maybe you get the impression from historically and maybe from the
13:26: Old Testament, things you can't do. All right, the Pharisees would often, John, you have a question? I think that's a personal priority.
13:44: And I know people that work in various fields, whether it's retail or maybe working on Sunday was something they had to do.
13:55: There's no way around it. Certainly I try to make it a priority.
14:00: I know others try to make it a priority, but the reality of it was poor Eutychus sinning by having to work when he had to work, and he didn't have a choice.
14:09: And so we worship in our work, in our vocations, and that's part of what was recovered at the
14:17: Reformation was that there is no holier vocation. We all worship in our vocations.
14:23: And so again, Eutychus didn't have a choice. Many times we don't have choice if we're gonna support our family and obey those commands.
14:30: Certainly many try to order their lives to make sure that they have that opportunity to be together in the
14:36: Lord's day. And I hope that's a good answer. Mr. Dave, anyone wanna chime in?
15:12: Yeah, I had to decide early on. I mean, one of the first things I get at my present job, the first thing they gave me was a cell phone with email access.
15:21: And probably within the first two weeks, you didn't answer my email. I won't, I won't on Sunday.
15:27: I don't pay attention to it. It's nothing that can't wait till Monday morning, and so you gotta make those choices.
15:34: That wasn't popular, and I expected a response. Well, sorry, it's my day for family and worship, and I choose not to answer.
15:45: So it's not, again, nothing that can't wait till Monday, nothing I could even handle. I don't have any access to my systems at work or anything.
15:51: So yeah, you just had to make that line in the sand. So the
15:58: Lord's day, mostly about worship. Jumping back to Hebrews 10, 24, 25, why were people neglecting to get together?
16:06: Why did they neglect this command to not forsake the someone together themselves?
16:13: Probably for most of the same reasons as today. They had work, they had family obligations. I read one commentary that suggested that the
16:21: Jews, maybe to demonstrate their freedom from the old covenant restrictions, they decided they wouldn't be bound by any day.
16:27: They weren't gonna worship on any given day because they were now free. And again, hey,
16:35: Romans 14 says don't esteem one day above another. Okay, but that doesn't mean don't get together at all, and I think that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
16:43: You need to meet together, and again, the practice of the New Testament church has been the first day of the week.
16:50: So Hebrews kind of gets to the heart reason of what's going on when we neglect to worship together.
16:57: Many people today substitute worship in a body for home worship.
17:03: They'll just watch a sermon or listen to a sermon on a computer, maybe sing a couple songs with the family.
17:10: What are we missing there if we're not gathered together? What do we miss by just, Kevin? Fellowship.
17:26: Peggy said accountability. We miss out on that. Bruce? Lord's table together, okay.
17:34: Russ? Is it different learning from an internet video versus hearing the pastor preach in the pulpit?
17:48: Any thoughts on that? So it is, okay. Yeah, so we miss out on a lot of things by not being together on the
17:55: Lord's day. We get together to worship, to stir one another up to good works, to encourage one another.
18:02: It's just to be with our brothers and sisters in Christ. So read another commentary where the guy said that could it be one of the first indications of a lack of love toward God and the neighbor is for a
18:15: Christian to stay away from worship services. He forsakes the communal obligations of attending these meetings and displays the symptoms of selfishness and self -centeredness.
18:24: They stay away. Russ? Right, just to have that opportunity.
18:50: And obeying God and obeying Christ and His commands, isn't that the perfect law of liberty?
18:57: To obey Him is not our joy. It's a good point. And He gives the gifts one to one and another gift to another for the building up of the body.
19:26: So we need each other. We need each other's gifts as the Holy Spirit gives them. And that's important.
19:33: So the last time I read a lengthy quote by John MacArthur, which I thought was great. He made some good points about being under grace versus being under the law.
19:41: He made a point that does grace demand less than the law? He said, as that day approaches, which
19:50: Hebrew says, as that day approaches, we should get together more frequently, not less. We shouldn't forsake that time together.
19:58: Is the Lord's day a matter of obligation? John MacArthur said, it's not something we should check off on our to -do list.
20:04: It's not just some thing we have to do. I have to go to Sunday worship. I have to go to Sunday school.
20:09: I have to do this. No, that's not the point. We get to, it's our joy to serve
20:15: Christ and to worship together with the saints, to build up the body together. And it's just a joyous occasions.
20:23: And the King of Kings has summoned us to do so. Somebody have a comment? Okay, another quote from Al Mohler, same book.
20:29: It says, one problem with so much of our thinking about the Lord's day is that it is natural for us to think it is an imposition in our otherwise busy schedule.
20:36: And yet we are to be faithful to gather together, making it a priority of our lives to be with God's people. And as we are with fellow believers, we gather together to prepare for eternity, to be confronted by the word of God, to edify one another, and to yearn for that eternal rest that is promised to us by the grace and mercy of God.
20:55: So all this to say, how does this encourage our pastors? How does prioritizing the
21:00: Lord's day encourage our leaders? Any thoughts?
22:04: That's the first thing I had is that I read an article by, I was on Ligonier Ministries website talking about that.
22:12: Would you rather, like you said, you prepared a nice meal yesterday. If nobody comes to partake, a tree falls in the woods, you made that meal for people to share in it and to share fellowship.
22:24: And if Pastor Mike prepares a spiritual meal all week and nobody comes to hear, nobody comes to prepare to listen.
22:31: Even if you're here, your body's here, but your mind is somewhere else. Again, that's a discouragement. And pastors don't preach to get numbers certainly, but it is an encouragement to see people ready to learn and to worship
22:46: God by listening and obeying his word. So God's word will do a work in the lives of his people.
22:59: So preaching to the saints and watching them hear and grow, that is an encouragement.
23:06: And I think pastors seeing that week to week, I'm sure they can see in many of your lives, as you grow, as you learn, people that have come recently and just in leaps and bounds grown in the word and grown in their understanding and their maturity within a short time, that has to be an encouragement.
23:22: And so it's another important reason to prioritize the Lord's day. So I don't wanna take the whole time and be right at that point, but I think it's important that we prioritize being together, worshiping together, encouraging our pastors by the way we listen to the sermons and by the way we respond.
23:46: Again, it has to be a huge discouragement to see people that have been here 10, 15 years and never progressed past a point of maturity.
23:54: Maybe it's, they don't want to, maybe they make a conscious effort to say, I've done enough or I don't know.
24:02: I don't know what would impede someone from wanting to progress, but it's gotta be a huge disappointment. There's three other ways in,
24:10: I wish there was a buzzer. Somebody said the last time I spoke that I said, um, too much. So I wish you guys all had a buzzer. Every time
24:16: I say, um, you shock me and I'd stop doing it. Okay, there's three other ways in the book that they talked about discouraging your pastor.
24:29: One we've covered, it said, go to the lake on summer Sundays rather than the church. So we've covered that extensively.
24:36: Consistently show up to church services five to 10 minutes late, regularly fall asleep during the sermon because your
24:45: Saturday nights are taken by late activities, which we've touched on as well. And I think the last two points, they touch on the same issue and that's preparing for the
24:53: Lord's day, which we talked about. There's a whole chapter in the book as well called punctuality, a matter of our being considerate.
25:01: And he uses the scripture Philippians two, three, and four. Does anyone want to read that? Philippians two, three, and four.
25:07: I know when we first went to two services, the early service, especially, there would be people would come here.
25:17: I know you want to get to the early service. Good, you get to the early service. You get to Sunday school, you're home before lunch. You know, you get home, you have a relaxed afternoon.
25:24: You got to get here on time. There would be just this exodus of people coming in. People lined up at the door to come into 8 .30
25:31: service. So that probably was a little discouraging, especially to the hymn singer. Bruce. All right, so being late.
25:51: The author of the book says, Curtis Thomas is being late and otherwise unprepared to be at the worship service is not only discouraging to the pastor, it is inconsiderate and disruptive for others.
26:02: So that's something to think about when we're preparing for the Lord's day. We got to be here, be here on time. Men, if your family is consistently late and unprepared for church, again, this is straight from the book, you need to take the lead.
26:14: You need to say, we got to get out of the house. And true confession, I would always be the first.
26:19: My wife is here, she's smiling. First one to blame. First one to, you know, you didn't get the kids ready here.
26:25: The kids were falling behind and well, I was usually the last one in the bathroom.
26:31: You know, I was usually the last. So it's human nature to point the finger and men, it's on us, you know, to lead the family in that way, to get people to church on time.
26:45: So page 53 of the book here, it has some thought provoking and kind of convicting questions about this.
26:54: I'm just going to read a couple of them. Again, about being on time. Make sure
26:59: I'm in the right place. It says, sorry.
27:10: Discuss your own experience with the group regarding punctuality. What causes people to be late? We've talked about being prepared and not staying out late on Saturday night and that sort of thing.
27:20: Not having things ready. Are there members of your church who habitually arrive late? Do we notice that?
27:27: All right. Are they, you know, we've read they're disruptive. They're probably not considering others.
27:33: Then they're certainly not considering the speaker and those leading the worship service. Should you talk to them?
27:41: Should we talk to them? Okay. Explain.
28:04: That's a wise answer. That's good. I think, yeah, you have to consider the situation, but if it's someone just seemingly late for being late sake, then yeah, we should probably exhort our brother or sister.
28:17: And it says, if so, how should you go about it? I think Bruce had to, you know, just form a side and say, hey,
28:22: I just noticed this. And again, exhort them lovingly and just explain that we have to consider others and prioritize this day and get here.
28:33: Should your pastor or church leaders address the matter of punctuality from the pulpit? Do we need that?
28:40: Or is just, you know, gentle exhortations enough? All right.
28:46: Other than those given above, what are some of the results of not being on time for church activities? Any other negative consequences from those, from being late?
29:00: Mm -hmm. Okay. Anything else? Russ? Mm -hmm.
29:20: You know, when you're giving a presentation at work and people are rushing into the conference room 10 minutes late, yeah, it's not how you would want to be treated.
29:30: And go ahead, Tom. Mm -hmm.
29:49: All right. I'm gonna move on from Lord's Day and again, encouraging our pastor by prioritizing that day.
29:57: Number five in my list, encourage your pastor by serving and giving to the needs of the body. And again, we've covered this a little bit.
30:03: We're talking about being mature. Somebody can go to 1
30:09: Peter 4, 10 and 11. 1 Peter 4, 10 and 11. Somebody read that.
30:21: Murdoch. All right.
30:43: Kind of what Joni referred to earlier and also in 1 Corinthians 12, it talks about the different parts of the body and how we all work together for the building up of one another.
30:53: And so if God has saved you, if God has placed you here at BBC to sit under the teaching of the word, if you're listening every week, you're responding to the teaching, you're growing, you're striving to mature, then
31:05: I assure you, God has given you a gift to serve others. And we should look to identify that gift.
31:10: And if you're unsure what your gift might be, maybe talk to an elder and talk through that.
31:17: How can I serve the body? And many times you can serve the body by just being available and being willing to do whatever's needed.
31:25: Sometimes serving the body doesn't mean we get to do our dream job. It means that we do what's needed and what's best gonna serve the body at that point.
31:34: And again, this is a joy and it's an encouragement to those around us. And it should be an encouragement to you as the one serving because you get to serve in the body of Christ.
31:43: You get to serve others. And just like the body that we read about in 1
31:49: Corinthians, the body systems in parts, they all work together and they all have their own function. We all should have our own function.
31:55: And so if you've been attending regularly, you've been here for several months or several years, you don't have a ministry. You should see,
32:01: I believe Pastor Harriton is, he's our elder that's overseeing that of assimilation.
32:09: If you don't have a ministry, if you're not serving actively in some part, you should seek that out and go see
32:14: Harry or a deacon or another elder. And certainly we can find a place for you.
32:21: And one other thing I was thinking about this week, it's frustrating. I said, oh my God, I'm distracting myself now.
32:29: So one of the things I thought about this week was we have a BBC announcers. Who subscribes to BBC announce?
32:36: All right, who has Facebook, the BBC's Facebook page? So you get all those announcements. Now I've headed up various events here at church, whether it's conferences or just trying to find people to be greeters and things like that.
32:50: What do you think when you get one of those announcements? What goes through your mind? Do you immediately respond?
32:57: Do you ever respond? And if you don't, why not? Because I can tell you, having headed up some of these ministries, you send out these emails and you don't get one person.
33:08: Not one. And so if you guys think that, oh, somebody else is gonna take care of it, and that's actually another item on his list, thinking that someone else will do the work is a discouragement to your pastors.
33:20: Don't think that way. I'm not saying you should take on everything that comes your way, but maybe work to help find someone.
33:27: Hey, can I be of assistance? I'm busy right now with other ministries, but I can certainly keep my eye out.
33:33: I'll mention, I'll give you a few names. Call these people. I noticed them. They've started coming recently.
33:39: They need a ministry. I encourage you to do that because it is discouraging to people leading up ministries and probably also to pastors to see the same people having to jump on and pick up the slack in certain ministries.
33:53: So if you get those emails, you see those Facebook posts, you hear an announcement from the pulpit, don't think that someone else is gonna do it because they're probably not.
34:00: And I can tell you that from experience. Again, it usually falls to someone who's already been serving, that has plenty of ministries and really it's difficult for them to take on another and do it well and do it excellently.
34:14: So when you get those emails, think about it, pray about it, think about how you can help and fill that need and fill that role at church.
34:24: So that's my little plea to you because I can tell you that it's difficult when you're looking for people to serve.
34:30: Usually the best way is just to identify them in church and corner them. That's how you get things done.
34:41: So again, you get those emails, just do your best to think about it, think it through if you can help. When people serve, you become invested in what's going on here.
34:51: It becomes important, you care about it, you care about others, you care about those who are being ministered to in that particular ministry.
34:58: It honors God certainly, it encourages your pastors to see you serving and it encourages those around you.
35:04: And you're maturing in the process, you're serving others and God uses that to mature us and build us up personally.
35:12: And it's encouraging too that the pastor can't do everything.
35:18: If we read in Acts, what was it, Acts 6, where it talks about the appointing of deacons, is it 6?
35:25: What was the pastor's role? The elders, they wanted to focus on what? Prayer and the word of God.
35:32: And so they appointed deacons to work and serve tables and do that sort of thing.
35:39: I would feel cheated if Pastor Mike and Pastor Steve and whoever's preparing for that week to preach,
35:46: I would feel cheated if they got up here half prepared because they were changing rolls of toilet paper or scheduling the nursery or whatever else is done or the menial tasks around the church.
35:56: We should be excited. Again, that is what you're participating and you're making sure that they can focus on the ministry of the word and that the word will go forth and they'll be prepared and the
36:05: Holy Spirit will have something to work through on Sunday morning. They've prepared a meal all week and the people in the audience, the congregation,
36:12: I won't say audience, the congregation can feed on that. And so that's what you're participating in when you minister, when you step up to the plate and say,
36:20: I can do that. So that's something to think about. So I would say get involved.
36:26: Anyone have any comments, anything to add, Tim? And doesn't that put it in different perspectives, you know, an internal perspective and a worshipful perspective.
37:17: So I'm worshiping God with what I'm doing and again, contributing to the needs of the body. And so it should be an encouragement and a joy to serve and to do those things.
37:26: Anyone else have any thoughts on service? No. So she was saying, yeah, we grow.
37:55: God grows us through those worship, those service experiences. When we're serving others,
38:01: God is maturing us. Number six on my list, encourage your pastor by showing hospitality.
38:07: Romans 12, 13 says, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. It's very simple to be hospitable.
38:14: I've often heard Pastor Mike, we'll be in a discipleship class with him early on when I started here.
38:20: You wanna know how to be hospitable, do what I do. He's a hospitable guy. He smiles, he loves on people.
38:27: So if you wanna see how to be hospitable, observe him and try to emulate that. I think it's difficult to...
38:36: He tries to run and get to everyone and some of the other people here, pastors, they try to get to see the visitors and we've tried to institute this visitor's room, but that's not gonna get to everybody.
38:45: So I would encourage people to be looking around you. When you're sitting in service, note the people in your section.
38:52: Don't leave it on the pastor to get to everyone. It's even better,
38:58: I think, to get somebody in the congregation to come up and say, hi, welcome. So good that you're here. What did you think of the service, the sermon?
39:06: What are your thoughts on that? Anything, just be there, be a smiling face and be hospitable.
39:13: Welcome people here. Welcome them to our worship service. Don't leave it on the pastor to do all that.
39:19: And again, I think it's the pastor, maybe the person will go away and say, no, he has to do that. He has to say hi.
39:26: But if you go, you go out of your way, you see them sitting down in your row or across the way, go out and make the effort to say hi.
39:35: And I think that should be everyone's responsibility is to be hospitable. Also, welcome people in your home.
39:44: You know, you see people that have been coming here for a while. Me and my wife will be sitting around some nights or on the way home from church.
39:49: So -and -so has been coming for a while and I've never really talked to him, you know, just a little bit in church. We should have him over.
39:55: You know, we should get to know him better and just really welcoming them into fellowship. And I encourage you to do that as well.
40:03: What other ways, you know, besides seeing him in church, being hospitable, inviting him in your home, how else can we show hospitality to newcomers and even to, you know, brothers and sisters that have been here for a while?
40:18: All right. I have nothing else. So - And the way
40:57: I used to put it, I used to work with the greeters here and we'd have meetings periodically and I'd tell them,
41:04: I said, you know, everyone who comes through those doors, one of the first things they say usually is, well, how did you find the church?
41:11: I googled expository preaching Massachusetts or I heard you on, I heard the no -code pocket and then
41:16: I heard the preaching and I said, wow, that's expository preaching. That's what I've been looking for. The majority of people will say that, that they're looking for a church that goes expositionally through the scriptures consecutively and that's how they found the church.
41:30: So these people, they're serious about God's word. They're serious about obeying the scriptures and watching the
41:37: Holy Spirit works through the exposition of the word to change lives, to mature people. And if we've been, if we're being transformed by this word, week in, week out, we're hearing it, tell your face, you know, tell your, say, wow,
41:52: Christ is working in me. The Holy Spirit's working in me. Show that, show the love of Christ.
41:58: You know, don't, we shouldn't, a lot of times churches that preach the word, they get branded as cold or lifeless.
42:05: Don't be that. God is working in you. Christ is working in you. Show it by welcoming people, by being warm, by saying, you know,
42:13: Christ lives in me. His love is transforming. Give that love to others, you know?
42:18: So that's what I usually encourage the greeters with. And I think that in general, that's how we should be.
42:25: I don't want to be branded as cold. I don't want to be branded as lifeless because I don't think that's the case. And we just have to show that by being welcoming to visitors and loving visitors.
42:34: Well, I didn't get through my notes again, but I think beyond that, we need to encourage our pastor directly.
42:41: Don't ever think that he's getting his email box flooded with, hey, thank you for the sermon.
42:48: Thank you for talking about that. Thank you for touching on that. I really, I love the sermon this week. Thank you for laboring in the word.
42:54: Don't think they're being flooded with that every week because I don't know that they are. Pastor Dave, you feel, do you ever get flooded with emails after sermon?
43:04: Hey, no. So let's encourage them as well to keep going, keep persevering, keep being faithful in the word because we do appreciate it.
43:14: I appreciate it. You guys appreciate getting this meal every week, this bounty.
43:20: I do. And so I think we should just directly encourage them. Pray for your pastor every day.
43:25: Pray for their families. Let them know you're praying for them. We were at a conference last week and Joel Beakey was the speaker and he was talking about how he visited an elderly woman.
43:37: Better wrap up. But he was visiting an elderly woman and she had a few weeks to live and she knew it was coming to an end and he went in and he prayed for her.
43:49: And then he goes, there wasn't much else I could do. And so I said, I'm sorry, I can just pray for you. He says, excuse me?
43:56: I said, I'm sorry, I can just pray for you. I can only do that. Oh yeah, you can just pray for me.
44:02: You can only bring my needs before the sovereign Lord of the universe. You can only go before the throne of grace through the ministry of Jesus Christ.
44:08: That's all you can do. You should be sorry. She goes, no, thank you. Thank you for praying.
44:15: And let's remember, that's what we're doing when we bring our pastors before God each day, that we're praying and let them know you're praying for them because I'm sure that means a lot to them.
44:24: So anybody have any questions or other comments? Well, I hope
44:35: I didn't hit too hard on the Lord's day or anything like that, but let's pray and get ready for second service.
44:43: Father in heaven, we thank you again for this day. We thank you for this opportunity to worship. I pray that these words are an encouragement and a help and just help us to better love and encourage and not only our pastors, but one another through our service to the body and our service to Christ.
44:59: And we just pray that you would bless the remainder of our day. Bless our worship, our singing, our giving.
45:05: Bless mothers this day, Father. We thank you for our mothers. We thank you for those who are truly
45:11: Proverbs 31 women who are being faithful and serving their husbands, serving their families, raising their children in the fear and admonition of the
45:18: Lord. We thank you for mothers and help us to properly show our love to them today. In Christ's name we pray, amen.