The Shepherd's Responsibility B

Faithful pastors are not undisciplined people who show up on Sunday. Faithful pastors are highly disciplined people whose lives are brought into line so that they can pour their whole life into the flock God has given them. The only way you can work hard and be productive is to be disciplined, to be disciplined. This calls for a disciplined life strictly ordered, under control. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You probably know churches that have made changes to the preaching, the music, and even the decor in order to attract today's churchgoer. And the changes seem to work. People are attending those churches. But when you're talking about drawing people to church, before you strategize how to get them through that door, you need to ask this question. What does Scripture say about the purpose of the local church? What are the biblical essentials churches must practice, no matter the demands of the culture?

John's going to help answer those questions today in his study called The Bible-Driven Church. Now before we begin the lesson today, John, I want to pause and recognize the people who support this ministry, many of them listening right now, and I want to say personally to them thank you. And I know you do too. It's pretty hard to overstate how grateful we are for these people and their contributions, even just over the past few weeks. Yeah, and it's always dramatic because we're gone the last part of the year from the office, and then we come back as we have just recently, and there's this mass of mail, a flood of mail that has stacked up, and we start plowing through this. And I think it's the highlight time of the year for our staff, all of us. The generosity has been, frankly, staggering, an amazing outpouring of love and trust from you and others of God's people around the country and around the world. And in light of today's difficulties and the economy is not very secure, and you know, when you make sacrificial gifts to this ministry, it says an awful lot about your priorities and about your love for the Lord. So I trust that it also says something about what we're doing, something about the fact that we're providing what your heart craves and desires, and that's why you're supporting us.

So your support is both an answer to prayer and a mandate, really, for us to keep doing what we've been doing that has caused you to want to support us, and we certainly commit to doing that. I'm very excited about the year 2021. We're going to reach into new areas.

We're going to continue the work of translation, particularly into Russian and Farsi and some other languages. We're going to be reaching places we've never reached before. Great things are ahead.

The Word of God is unchanging, and our commitment to teach it is unchanging as well. So thank you for standing with us and providing resources by which we can do what we do to the glory of our Lord. Thank you for your partnership.

What a great year lies ahead of us. Yes, friend, thank you again. Your generosity, your partnership, is going to help us take biblical truth to unbelievers, encourage pastors and laymen, and strengthen churches throughout 2021, and we are grateful for all that you do for us.

So again, thank you very much. And now to today's lesson. Here's John continuing his series called The Bible-Driven Church.

It's our joy now to study together the Word of God. Open your Bible, if you will, to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We're looking at a section that begins in verse 12 and runs all the way down to verse 22.

It is really a long series of exhortations, commands. What is the shepherd's responsibility to the sheep? Or what are the shepherd's responsibilities to the sheep, plural? Number one, we have the responsibility to labor among the sheep. You'll look down in verse 12 and you'll notice this phrase, those who labor among you. There is the first identifying mark of their pastors, their elders, their leaders, their would-be in process overseers. They diligently labor among you. The phrase is self-evident.

You don't need much of an explanation, just a few technical details. There's that word kapiao again that Paul loves to use that means to work to the point of sweat and exhaustion, to exhibit great exertion and great effort, to work until you're weary. And he characterizes the pastor as one who works diligently, who labors to the point of sweat and exhaustion among his people. That is the sphere of his ministry. His responsibility is not outside the church.

It's not long distance. It's intimately involved with the church like a shepherd would be intimately involved with the sheep, like a father would be intimately involved with the family. He is to be involved with his people, among the people, in the midst of the people, alongside of them in spiritual labor.

What's he doing? Explaining the gospel, explaining the truth, applying the truth, warning them, admonishing them, counseling them, helping them. Paul, you remember in Acts 20 went house to house, house to house, teaching the things of God with great dedication and great effort, touching the personal lives of people, pouring his life into the flock that God had given him even as any faithful shepherd would do.

Go back to chapter 2 for a moment, verse 9, and see a little more deeply into the pattern of Paul, for he did not say what he would not do. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you we proclaim to you the gospel of God. Now when he came there, there was no church to support him.

There was no place to take an offering to sustain him. He had to work with his own hands, earn his own living, work night and day on just taking care of himself and everybody traveling with him, and then had to pour himself totally into the founding of a church. He knew what it was to work hard. He knew what it was to work sacrificially. He knew what it was to give himself, literally to spend himself in reaching those people. And then in verse 7 of 1 Thessalonians 2, he likens himself to a nursing mother who tenderly cares for her own children.

And that, dear friends, as you well know, is a non-stop 24-hour-a-day job nursing a baby. And Paul treated his congregation with the intimacy of a nursing mother. Later on he talks about the particular relationship of the father that he had to them where he took the Word of God right down to their living level and applied it in their individual lives in that same second chapter. Over in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, he says that he commands them in his second letter to them, to stay aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example because we didn't act in an undisciplined manner among you. We didn't eat anybody's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you.

Not because we don't have the right to be supported, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you that you might follow our example. The pastor is to work diligently. You see, what a pastor is doing is basically asking people who are earning a living to also give their lives to the ministry of the church.

They have to do both. Paul says, if I was going to teach you how to do both, I needed to do both also. God does not ask all of us to do that. And if we are not called to do it the way Paul did it, we are certainly called to be so diligent that we spend our lives in giving ourselves to ministry.

That's what Paul was doing. He knew that if he was going to be a faithful leader, he would have to demonstrate the level of effort and exertion and work and labor that was necessary. And so he says, you'll note there again that marvelous statement in verse 7, we didn't act in an undisciplined manner. The only way you can work hard and be productive is to be disciplined...to be disciplined. This calls for a disciplined life strictly ordered, under control. And then down in verse 13 of 2 Thessalonians 3, he gives a good hint and says, don't get weary in doing well. Keep your energy, work hard to the point of sweat and exhaustion.

In order to do that and do it right, you have to be very, very disciplined. Faithful pastors are not undisciplined people who show up on Sunday. Faithful pastors are highly disciplined people whose lives are brought into line so that they can pour their whole life into the flock God has given them. This kind of principle is repeated many, many places, but no better is it stated than in Colossians 1.28 where Paul says, we proclaim Christ, admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present every man complete in Christ.

It's an absolutely astounding goal. Paul didn't say, I'm just trying to get people saved by the chin of their...the skin of their chinny chin chin. I'm not just trying to get them in the door. I am going to admonish every man and teach every man with all wisdom to present every man complete in Christ. I am not content with their salvation. I'm not content with marginal spirituality. I want them complete in Christ and for this purpose I copiao, I labor to the point of sweat and exhaustion agonizing...agonizing.

It's a consuming thing. The faithful shepherd knows his sheep and touches their lives and pours his whole life into them. That's his calling. That's his duty. That's his responsibility. And yet there are so many in the ministry who give so little to the church they're in.

They take a lot, spend their time in other places and other enterprises. First Timothy 4, 10, he says, it is this for which we labor and strive because we have fixed our hope on the living God who's the Savior of all men. And again, he uses that word copiao and agonizomai, we work to the point of sweat and exhaustion and we agonize because we are dealing with eternal matters.

This is a major effort. Paul chronicles the pain of his own effort over and over again. He talks about all of the difficulty that he had. He doesn't decry the responsibility, he's just honest about the difficulty. But in one very interesting text, in 1 Corinthians 15, 10, looking at all the others who have preached and all the others who have worked, he says, I labored even more than all of them.

And then he gives all the credit to the grace of God working in him. It's sometimes hard to get it across to young men who are going to be shepherds, that the difference between great effectiveness in the ministry and mediocrity is effort, is effort. There's no secrets, there's no magic, it's work, it's effort. I'm reminded of the words of Amy Carmichael. She wrote, God, harden me against myself, the coward with pathetic voice who craves for ease and rest and joy.

Myself, arch traitor to myself, my hollowest friend, my deadliest foe, my clog, whatever road I go. Unless you can overcome yourself competing against your own tendency to be lazy and different, to be at ease, you cannot have the disciplined life that results in the exertion and the effort that leads to the effectiveness. Now this sets the example as well as being the pattern for the servant duty that is characteristic of every shepherd. Leadership success comes to those who are willing to work to exhaustion. Listen to this, for the sake of objectives, great enough to demand total sacrifice.

If the objectives are great enough, how can you give less? And someone said, a cross, yes, a cross stands in the way of spiritual leadership, a cross on which the leader must consent to be impaled. It was said of one leader, he belonged to that class of early martyrs whose passionate soul made an early holocaust of the physical man.

And Richard Baxter was right when he said, this is not a burden for the shoulders of a child. It takes a man, every bit a man, to shoulder the responsibility of the labor that is required among the sheep. And I guess it would be true to say the world is run by tired men and so is the church. Now there's a balance there.

I remember when Robert Murray McShane, the Scottish minister, lay dying at the age of 29. He's turned to a friend who was sitting with him by his bed and he said, I have killed the horse and now I can't deliver the message. There's a point at which you maybe go a little too far, but the shepherd's tour of duty in the church calls for exhausting labor among the sheep. It's his responsibility to give himself as a servant to the sheep to meet their needs in every area that he can.

And some of that involves delegating and sharing the load, but it's the work that has to be done. Secondly, he not only has responsibility to labor among the sheep, but secondly, authority over the sheep, and that is very clearly indicated. Look at that, verse 12 again, and have charge over you in the Lord, and have charge over you in the Lord. Charge over you, proistemi, means to stand before someone or to preside or to lead or to direct. It's used in 1 Timothy chapter 3, three times, verse 4, 5, and 12, and 1 Timothy 5, 17 in reference to elders and pastors and leaders in the church, and it means to be in charge, to have authority. It is a delegated authority, admittedly, delegated by Christ, but we stand in the place of Christ. We are under shepherds, under the great shepherd, as Peter calls him.

Notice it says we have charge over you. We preside over you. We lead you.

We direct you. We have the responsibility to give you spiritual wisdom, spiritual protection, spiritual direction, spiritual guidance. It's our responsibility to cover all of those kinds of things, to take care of the general health of the church, to set the group spirit, the group morale, the spiritual tone, to bring about a functioning unity, to handle people and personal relationships and all their difficulties in life, to solve problems by discovering problems, evaluating options, finding solutions, working for change. It's our responsibility to do creative planning, strategy, assessment, criticism, find methods to reach spiritual objectives. It's our responsibility to provide that leadership for you. We have charge over you.

Please notice the little phrase, in the Lord. We're not self-appointed. It's not man-made. You didn't give us that authority. We didn't take it on our own.

It's not from men. We are called, equipped, appointed by God as our duty to rule for His sake, the Lord's sake, not for personal power, personal prestige, personal gain, personal career advancement, but for the Lord. That little phrase, in the Lord, is the sphere in which our authority rests. Our authority is in Him. He delegated it to us. We only have it as we're obedient to His Word and His will. We have a delegated authority.

It is not our own. And it does not go beyond the expression of His will, in His Word and through His Spirit. And so, we are given authority, but only in the Lord, not beyond that. I've said to you a number of times, when you get me outside the Word of God and its application to the life of the church, I have no authority. My authority is only in the Lord, delegated to me to operate through the Word and by the direction of the Spirit of God through the application of that Word.

And so we have an oversight of great responsibility. Peter says in 1 Peter 5, we're not to lord it over the flock. We're not to dominate you like it says back in Luke's gospel, the Gentiles, do they dominate.

Not that kind. It is a loving, gentle, delegated authority that does not serve us, but serves you. Does not exalt us, but lifts you up. So the responsibility on the side of the shepherds then is to work hard among the sheep, serving all of their needs and then to exercise authority over them, that is to lead them in the right direction, to correct them, to solve their problems, to bring unity and harmony, to make one people who are disunited, to build back relationships, give direction, to set the spiritual tone, all of that. And then thirdly and finally, and these are very simple and direct, the end of verse 12 says, and give you instruction. The third responsibility of shepherds to the sheep is instruction for the sheep. Labor among the sheep, authority over the sheep, instruction for the sheep, and give you instruction. That's from the verb nutheteo which is often translated in the New Testament admonish.

You've seen it many times, the word admonish in your Bible. And basically it is instruction, but instruction with a view toward correction. It carries the idea of if you keep going this way, you're going to have problems.

You've got to turn and go this way. It is not pedantic. It is not academic. It is not just data.

It is not just information. It is instruction with a view toward changing people, toward correcting them. And I tell young men and teaching them to preach, you always preach for change. You always preach for verdict, for someone to say, I'm here, I ought to be there, this is what I need to do.

Always. Every sermon in principle is to take people to the point where they see what they ought to be, where they see what they are not, and move them toward what they ought to be. So it's teaching with an element of warning, an element of correction, an element of channeling them toward holy living. We could say it's tender instruction toward holy living. It's used in 1 Corinthians 4.14 of how a father instructs his beloved children. Paul telling the Corinthians that I taught you like a father teaching beloved children, I admonished you.

You gently, tenderly instruct them away from those things that hurt them toward those things that bless them. And of course the source of that is the Word of God, isn't it? And shepherds then are to be skilled instructors, skilled instructors. And by the way, that's the only specific skill that they are said to have to have in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1. The only skill out of all the character qualities, the only skill is they are to be apt to teach. 1 Timothy 3, 2, skilled teachers. 1 Timothy 4, 6 and 1 Timothy 4, 16 reiterate the importance of their teaching responsibility. These leaders of the church, these shepherds are to be skilled teachers.

Why? Well, you'll look at Titus 1 for a moment, verse 9, so that they can hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the doctrine. In other words, for the positive effort of holding fast the faithful word according to sound doctrine, in other words, so they can teach the truth, then in order that they may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict, positive and negative. You want to exhort those who believe the truth to do the truth. You want to exhort those who deny the truth to give up their error and accept the truth.

So it's a positive and a negative. You have to build your instruction then around the knowledge of the truth and skill in applying it. He says there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers. They have to be silenced.

Who's going to silence them? You are by the strength and power of your ability to refute their error with the word and you're going to build the church by the strength and power of your ability to articulate the truth. We are given, says Ephesians 4, to the church for the edification of the saints.

How do you get edified? Through the Word of God which is able to build you up or edify you, Acts 20, 32 says. So if the Word of God builds you up and my job is to build you up, then I've got to give you the Word of God which builds you up. I have to be skilled at that, that I might do it in such a way that it impacts powerfully your life, in such a way that it impacts those who deny the truth by giving them irrefutable arguments. And if there is anything, and this is a personal word, if there's anything in my life that drives me, that really compels me in the ministry above all other things, it is my view of Scripture. Because I believe the Scripture is the holy, inerrant, inspired Word of God, it is so sacred to me that I have hanging over my head this tremendous fear of ever misrepresenting it or of ever ignoring any of its truths. Realizing every word is pure and every word out of the mind of God given to us on these pages was for our edification in one way or another.

I must be committed to teaching it all. People say, why do you go over every verse, every phrase, every word? Because everyone came from God. Who am I to edit God? I'm not God's editor and I'm not even God's interpreter. I have to allow the Scripture by God to interpret the Scripture. Let God interpret His own word.

And so the thing that drives me and compels me is the view of Scripture that I have. And, of course, behind it the view of God is a holy God who spoke His Word that it might be spoken to men. And so, not only are we to labor among you and take authority over you, but we are to instruct you and that with great skill.

Listen to what Richard Baxter said several centuries ago. To preach a sermon, what skill is necessary to make the truth plain, to convince the hearers to let irresistible light into their consciences and keep it there and drive all home, to screw the truth into their minds and work Christ into their affections, to meet every objection and clearly to resolve it, to drive sinners to a stand and make them see that there is no hope, but that they must unavoidably either be converted or condemned. And to do all this as regards language and style as befits our work and yet as is most suitable to the capacities of the hearers. This and a great deal more that should be done in every sermon must surely require a great deal of holy skill. So great a God whose message we deliver should be honored by our delivery of it. It is a lamentable case that in a message from the God of heaven of everlasting moment to the souls of men, we should behave ourselves so weakly, so unhandsomely, so imprudently or so slightly that the whole business should miscarry in our hands and God should be dishonored and His work disgraced and sinners rather hardened than converted and all this through our weakness or neglect. How often have carnal hearers gone home jeering at the palpable and dishonorable failings of the preacher? How many sleep under us because our hearts and tongues are sleepy and we bring not with us so much skill and zeal as to awake them?" No king, no president, no politician, no doctor, no lawyer, no judge, no military commander on earth has such an awesome responsibility as the one who shepherds the sheep by giving instruction out of the Word of God.

To prostitute that is a frightening, frightening error. What then is the shepherd's responsibility to the sheep? Very simple, to work among you, to have authority over you, to lead you in the path that God has designed and to feed you consistently the truth that will instruct you away from the path of sin into holy living. Faithful shepherds are to discharge that responsibility.

Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the impact of your truth. Thank you for making us part of your church. May we love it because you loved it and gave your life for it. May we love it to the degree that we are faithful shepherds and faithful sheep until Jesus comes, in whose name we pray.

Amen. That's John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, showing you the characteristics you should look for in the men who lead your local church. The Bible-driven church. That's the title of John's current study here on Grace to You. And now, as a compliment to this study, let me recommend John's book, titled Christ's Call to Reform the Church. It examines the Lord's memorable and hard-hitting words to seven churches, which you read about in the book of Revelation. From Jesus' encouragement and his warnings to those churches, you'll find practical strategies for putting off worldliness, for keeping your love for Christ from growing cold. To order Christ's Call to Reform the Church, contact us today. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. The title again of this book, Christ's Call to Reform the Church. You might want to pick up a few copies to go through with your Bible study group.

And remember, shipping is free. To order Christ's Call to Reform the Church, call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And when you get in touch, let us know how John's teaching is strengthening you spiritually. Perhaps your family has been encouraged by the daily devotionals on gty.org, or someone you know has come to faith in Christ after hearing one of these broadcasts.

We love to hear those stories. Email us at letters at gty.org. Again, that's letters at gty.org. Or you can drop a note in the mail addressed to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. And now on behalf of John MacArthur and the Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for tuning in today, and make sure you're here tomorrow when John continues his study called The Bible-Driven Church. Don't miss the next half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.