The Shepherd's Responsibility

The church is the most blessed institution on the earth, the only one built by the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one He said He promised to bless. Now we're not saying the church doesn't have difficulty, it does.

It's not a place for perfect people, it's a place for people who admit they're not. And it isn't until the church admits that that it begins to move in the right direction. Maybe you've heard business gurus talk about the importance of having a mission statement that spells out why your organization exists and what your goals are. With that in mind, what should the mission statement of your church be?

What does Scripture say? Consider that as John MacArthur kicks off his study called The Bible-Driven Church, here on Grace to You. Well, John, the year is still new, and this is our first day in the office this year.

So welcome back, and I know you're looking forward to our first study of 2021. We begin a new one today, so talk about all that God has in store in what's ahead. Well, we do have a wonderful new series, and it's titled The Bible-Driven Church. One of the things that happened certainly in our church last year with the COVID issue was the churches were closed, and our church never closed. We were open fully, and people were pouring into our church.

And at the time I was saying, this is a sifting time. There are people who are leaving churches that weren't really answering their heart's cry, that weren't analyzing the issues in the world, that weren't bringing the Word of God to bear. The Superficial Ministries had a hard time getting their people back, and I know in our church we had hundreds and hundreds of people coming every week, and most of those people, it appears, stayed because they found out that we were proclaiming the Word of God, which gave them hope and truth.

And nothing is as important as that in a time when you question what's on the horizon. So it was a great time for the growth of faithful churches. Now it's time to take a look at the Bible and see what a faithful church is like. Well, what does a Bible-driven church look like? When I did that title originally, I was playing off the seeker-driven church and trying to make the point that we aren't designing a church to fit a non-believer. We're designing the church to fit the Bible, because it's the Church of Christ.

So it's a study on 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. And what we're going to be looking at is the fact that a church is not a business in need of a fresh message. It's not an updated marketing plan that the church needs.

It's not about style or program or strategy or some catchy campaign. The church needs to be what the Bible defines it to be, what the Lord of the church desires it to be. And we've got to go back to the biblical blueprint and let the church be the church, particularly in times like this. So in the series on the Bible-driven church, we're going to be looking at the pastor's responsibility, the congregation's responsibility—rejoicing, giving thanks, dealing with problem people, dealing with the Holy Spirit, responding to God's word, prayer.

It's going to be a great series. Don't miss a day. Yes, friend, this series shows you what God expects from your pastor, elders, other leaders, and from you. So, what should your church look like?

What kind of leadership should you look for in a local fellowship? Consider those questions now as John begins his study titled The Bible-Driven Church. It's our joy now to study together the Word of God. Open your Bible, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. They have to do with practical life in the church.

I've entitled this series and this section, Growing a Healthy Flock, from chapter 4 verse 13 all the way down to chapter 5 verse 11. That entire section has to do with the return of Christ, His return for the church, His return to judge the ungodly, which is called the Day of the Lord. And we are a church, like the Thessalonian church, that waits for His coming, that is looking for the return of Jesus Christ. In that sense, we live in future hope.

We are looking forward to what is coming. But at the same time, the anticipation of the second coming of Jesus Christ cannot make us indifferent to the present. And so, transitioning right out of the great discussion of Rapture and Day of the Lord, the Apostle Paul begins to talk about the practicality of how we live in the church today.

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. And so, this section will be instruction for life in the church, very practical, very basic, very straightforward, very direct. And the church needs a good healthy dose of this kind of instruction, believe me. If there's anything that grieves my heart across America, it is the fact that we have so many unhealthy churches, so many churches that do not know the power of God, the presence of God, the peace of God, the joy of God, that do not experience all of the blessings of God that He pours out to those who are walking according to His will and moving ahead toward being like Jesus Christ. We have many, many unhealthy churches. It's a continual grief to me to talk to pastors who are so deeply burdened because they are in a church that demonstrates a lack of spiritual commitment. It also is a grief to me to hear from people who are in churches where their leadership is not committed to spiritual growth and development. This country is filled with busy churches and some big churches, but many unhealthy churches.

One rather cynical writer looking at the church said that the church reminded him of Noah's ark, of which he said, if it weren't for the storm outside, you couldn't stand the stench inside. That's a cynical view of the church. That's a jaded view of the church. And it's far from the reality of what the church should be and what the true church is. The church is the most blessed institution on the earth. The only one built by the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one He said He promised to bless and the gates of hell would never be able to hold it in. Now we're not saying the church doesn't have difficulty.

It does. The reason the church has difficulty is because the church has people. And we're all fallen and we're all sinful and we're all imperfect and we have weaknesses and we face difficulties. Fallen and sinful people make up the church. Weak people make up the church.

In many ways we have to say the church is a hospital. It's not a place for perfect people. It's not a place for people who imagine they're perfect.

It's a place for people who admit they're not and they want help. And it isn't until the church admits that that it begins to move in the right direction. Certainly the church has faults. You always hear people say, well I don't want to join the church, there's too many hypocrites to which the proper responses will come on in, we've got room for more. Sure we have faults. The admission of that, the recognition of that is the basic stance from which you begin to grow, from which you begin to move in the right direction. We have to start with a confession of our failures and our weaknesses. So we acknowledge the church is going to have trouble. I've never seen a church that didn't. That's because people have problems and leaders have problems.

Relationships therefore are stretched and strained and made difficult. Then you can add to that the reality that Satan works hard against the church and so do his supernatural agents and so do his human agents. But still, the true church is far better than any other organization, association, or institution on the face of the earth because it moves toward being like Jesus Christ, because it represents Him in the world, because its life is energized by the Holy Spirit, because it lives under the instruction of the Word of God, because it applies spiritual power mutually through fellowship and service among its members.

It therefore is the greatest association, organization, institution on the face of the earth. But it is admittedly people in process. We're not where we ought to be, but we're not where we were.

We're moving in that direction. Go back to chapter 4 verse 1 and be reminded of what Paul said there. There really is a good summary of life in the church. Halfway down through the verse, he says, you ought to walk and please God. Then he says, just as you actually do walk, that you may excel still more. Now there's a church in progress. You're doing well. In fact, you're excelling, but I want you to excel more. You're walking and pleasing God, but I want you to do it more.

That's a summation of the process. Now remember, he had commended the Thessalonian church on a number of occasions in this letter. Back in chapter 1 verse 2, he says, we give thanks to God for you all, making mention of you in our prayers.

He was thankful for all of them. He tells why in verse 3, their work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope was consistent. And then down in verse 6, he says, you became imitators of us and of the Lord. You received the Word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

You became an example to all the believers. Then in verse 8, the Word of the Lord sounded out from you. In verse 9, he said, you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God. In verse 10, he says, you're even waiting for His Son from heaven. And over again in chapter 2 and verse 13, he says, we constantly thank God that when you received from us the Word of God's message, you accepted it not as the Word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God which also performs its work in you who believe. And then again, he says, you became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus and you endured the sufferings that come at the hands of your own countrymen. They were dedicated folks and they had believed the truth and their faith was real and their love was strong.

Their hope was firm. Down in verse 17, they were such a beloved church that he wanted to see their face so badly. He had desired it.

He had tried to come. He says in verse 19, you're my hope, my joy, my crown of exaltation. In verse 20, you're my glory, you're my joy, he says. And over in chapter 3 verse 6, Timothy came back from a visit and brought us good news of your faith and love and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we also long to see you. Verse 8 indicates that they were standing firm in the Lord.

In verse 9, he says, what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account? They were a good church. They were a wonderful church. They were an excellent church. They were moving in the right direction. They were in process. And yet he can say in chapter 3 verse 10, we still want to come and complete what is lacking in your faith. You're doing well, you could do better.

You're moving on the right track, you could even go faster and farther. But whatever spiritual deficiencies existed in Thessalonica, they were not life-threatening to the church. They were not fatal. There was just room for growth. Here was a truly saved church. Here was a sanctified church. They were moving toward the direction of holiness. Here was a surrendered church yielded to the lordship of Christ and following Christian duty to do the will of God with excellence. And here was a soul winning church, evangelizing, sounding forth the Word of God far and wide. Here was a second coming church waiting for the return of Jesus Christ, all things being considered.

This is a noble group. But they could do better. They hadn't arrived. They weren't perfect. There was still process to follow.

There was still progress to make. And even though they were anticipating the coming of Christ and anticipating His gathering together of the church and anticipating the judgment of the day of the Lord at that final coming, they needed to live continually in the present tense, moving along the path of spiritual progress. So here you have in verses 12 through 22 some very straightforward, direct exhortation as to how they are to live within the church here and now. And we will find it, beloved, very instructive and very encouraging to our own hearts as we look closely at it. Now the section falls into four categories. There is a discussion of responsibility regarding leaders, responsibility regarding brothers and sisters mutually, responsibility regarding worshiping God, and responsibility regarding the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Those four dimensions are discussed. In giving them instruction as to how they are to live in the church in order to work toward being a healthy flock, he starts with the relationship between the sheep and the shepherds. Let's look at verse 12. But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work, live in peace with one another.

We'll stop at that point. Those two verses speak of the issue of the relationship between pastors and people, shepherds and sheep. Beloved, I say to you, this is where health in the church begins. Nothing is more devastating to the spiritual progress of a church than an unwholesome relationship between the shepherds and the sheep. You can't have a healthy flock with that kind of problem. If shepherds are not fulfilling their proper spiritual responsibility to the sheep and sheep are not fulfilling their proper spiritual responsibility to the shepherd, the church can never be what God intends it to be.

It cannot break down at that very, very significant level. And frankly, devastation of a massive proportion occurs in churches where there is a breakdown of confidence, trust, love, affection between shepherds and sheep. When integrity goes and credibility goes and confidence goes and trust goes and love goes and affection goes, at the point of that relationship you have devastated the life of that church.

And even though there are only two verses committed to this, the truths herein are replete throughout the New Testament and we could literally spend months just tracking out the things that you're going to see in these two verses. Whatever the church is of beauty, whatever the church is of joy, whatever the church is of effectiveness, whatever the church is of power is dependent initially upon the relationship between the shepherds and the sheep, the sheep and the shepherds. There have been times when some of the shepherds of Grace Church have been major disappointments to the sheep and the disintegration of relationships at that point has been the most severe trauma this church has ever experienced. And there have been times in this church when the sheep have been of major disappointment to the shepherds.

And again, the trauma of those occasions has been the most severe the church has ever experienced. If we have ever had difficulty in our church, if we have ever had chaos in our church to any degree, and it's always been somewhat minor, but when we have had it, we have had it because there has been a disillusionment in the minds of people at this particular point of relationship. This relationship is crucial. It's very clear that the Apostle Paul in these two verses makes a major point out of that.

Now all we need to do is focus on two points. Let's talk about the responsibility of the shepherds to the sheep, the responsibility of the shepherds to the sheep. What do we owe to you? With the recognition that whatever problems there are in the church can really be laid in one way or another at the feet of this particular relationship, we have to give careful attention to it. What then is the responsibility of the shepherds to the sheep?

Let me give you a little bit of brief background. As the New Testament unfolds, we need to make a point of identification here. As the New Testament unfolds, it becomes clear who the leaders of the church are. The leaders of the church are identified under four basic titles, four basic New Testament descriptions, or words, terms, and you're familiar with them. Number one, the very familiar term elder, pres buteras. Now that identifies a church leader as one characterized by, mark this, spiritual maturity and wisdom, spiritual maturity and wisdom.

The leaders are those who are spiritually mature, spiritually wise. That term elder is used over and over and over again in the New Testament. Very early on as the church is being established in the book of Acts, it is a high priority to make sure that those churches have elders, that is, men who are characterized by spiritual maturity and spiritual wisdom, who can lead the church. And you find very clear characteristics required of such men given in 1 Timothy chapter 3, Titus chapter 1.

Their duties are outlined without any lack of clarity throughout the New Testament. We understand very clearly what an elder is, a spiritually mature, spiritually wise man given responsibility to lead the church. There's another word that is used to describe this man, this leader, that is the word overseer, sometimes translated by the old English word bishop. It is the word episkopos in the Greek means to look over, to oversee. This indicates that the church leader is not only characterized by spiritual maturity and spiritual wisdom, but by spiritual oversight and spiritual authority. In this word you have oversight and authority.

They go together. And you find, for example, that word used in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus chapter 1 as the word to describe church leaders. They are overseers. It is also used in Philippians 1, 1 and Acts 20, 28. Then you have a third word that we're all familiar with and that's the word pastor. It means shepherd.

It comes from poimene. This indicates that the leader in the church is characterized by spiritual feeding and spiritual protection. Here you're looking at the duty that he has to feed the flock and protect them from the wolves. So the leader in the church is characterized by spiritual maturity, spiritual wisdom, spiritual oversight, spiritual authority, spiritual feeding and spiritual protection.

And there's a fourth term that is used. It is the word hegumenos which literally means those who led you. And we'll just use the word leader or chief. This indicates that the one who is responsible as an overseer, elder, pastor should be characterized by spiritual discernment and spiritual guidance. In other words, he is effective as a leader because he can assess the condition and move people to a better condition, guide them in a right path. What then is the leader of the church? He is a man with spiritual maturity, spiritual wisdom, spiritual oversight, spiritual authority who spiritually feeds, spiritually protects people who provide spiritual discernment of their condition and spiritual guidance to a better place.

That's the leader. Now putting such shepherds in place was crucial in the early church and so in Acts you have in chapter 14 verse 23 Paul, ordaining elders in every city. It was crucial that the church had shepherds, shepherds to provide the wisdom and the discernment and the direction and the leadership and the guidance and the teaching and the protection, all of that.

That was their responsibility. Now a very important footnote about the Thessalonian church. We all know that this church is only months old so you have a lot of brand new Christians. How in that kind of congregation can you find elders who are spiritually mature and spiritually wise and who are profound articulators of truth and who can give people great direction for the future and all that? How are you going to find that in a congregation like that?

Well you probably won't. At least you won't find people who have arrived but you will find people who are in process. And while there is in this letter no mention of elders, no mention of overseers, no mention of pastors and no mention of leaders, there is definitely in verse 12 the mention of people who have charge over you. So Paul with apostolic authority led by the Holy Spirit had identified certain men and given them the leadership and they were really sort of like elders in process. They don't bear the title but they were certainly given responsibility and were moving in that direction and someday no doubt would be called elder, overseer, pastor leaders. Not yet bearing the title, they were learning the roles of leadership and that wouldn't have been easy and I'll tell you why.

They were all young Christians. They were all sort of equally old in the Lord which makes it difficult for someone to take the leadership role when others know that he is no more mature in terms of time than they are. It would also be difficult because very likely this church came for the most part from the common people and many of them may have been slaves and then when they were selected for spiritual giftedness and by the apostles identified through the working of the Holy Spirit as those gifted by God to be leaders in the church, they would come out of a kind of a lifestyle where they weren't used to leadership. They wouldn't have come out of the culture as leaders.

They would not have had positions of authority in their society. So they were learning all about leadership and all about spiritual wisdom and all about spiritual maturity all in one process of development. So it was not an easy thing and it could have been that there was a point of conflict in the Thessalonian church and some were wondering why these others had charge over them and they were a little bit non-submissive. And it was that somewhat conflicting situation that promotes these couple of verses, encouraging people to live in peace with each other. Verse 14 says there were some unruly people, there were some faint-hearted, there were some weak and there were some who demanded patience. Verse 15 indicates that some people were rendering evil and you weren't to give evil back. So there was some conflict in the church.

As I said, it wasn't fatal and life-threatening, but it was there. And that kind of conflict in the church could be remedied if the shepherds and the sheep did their proper duties. Beloved when there is conflict in the church and when church is split and they split constantly, it is conflict usually at this level.

And Paul wants that resolved immediately. And so there have been some men identified as leaders. By the way, no doubt Paul did that and he did it under the direction of the Holy Spirit and I submit to you that even though we don't have apostles today to do that, elders, pastors, overseers, and leaders are still to be put in place by the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can raise up shepherds in the church. They aren't self-appointed like the theographies who love to have the preeminence.

They aren't appointed by popular vote. The plurality of godly shepherds in a church become known to the church because it is so obvious that they are Holy Spirit-led, God-gifted men who function in that role. We don't have apostles to identify them now, but we do have mature godly pastor-elders to identify others and even the congregation can assess and see. Now because this relationship was so new in Thessalonica and because they were doing so well and growing so well, Paul didn't want to overstate the case and he didn't want to threaten them as if there was some kind of fatal flaw and so the words that open verse 12 are very gentle. Look at verse 12, but we request of you brethren, very amiable. This is a gentle kind of approach from the apostle. It lacks that apostolic dictum that sometimes he can give. It's more the request from a friend, to use the same phrase by the way in chapter 4 verse 1. Again, not threatening them because they were doing so well.

Here he is saying the same thing. You're doing well in your relationship, shepherds to sheep and sheep to shepherds. You're doing well.

I just want to encourage you to do better and so there's a gentle request here rather than a threat. Faithful shepherds are to discharge that responsibility. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Today John outlined what God expects from those who lead his church. It's part of the series he's titled The Bible-Driven Church. Now if you want to own this study, it comes with a lot of material we won't have time to air on the radio, and you can download it for free at our website. What does God expect a church to be, and what should you look for when you're choosing a church?

This study answers those important questions. To get your copy of The Bible-Driven Church, contact us today. You'll find our website at GTY.org. You can download all eight lessons from The Bible-Driven Church, as well as every sermon from John's nearly 52 years of pulpit ministry. The sermons are available in both audio and transcript form, and there's a lot of video as well. You can also check out our blog with more than 1,400 articles, plus many other resources that will help you dig into God's Word. The address again?

GTY.org. And friend, let me just reiterate the goal of Grace to You, what this ministry is about. We are committed to unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on this radio broadcast, on our website, in books, on television, in everything we do. You know, we have all just come through a year of unprecedented difficulty, and no doubt 2021 will be filled with fresh challenges. Just know that we will still be here, doing everything we can to connect you with the only source of real comfort, encouragement, and direction, and that is biblical truth. So I hope you join us as often as you can this year, including tomorrow. For John and the staff, I'm Phil Johnson, inviting you back for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Tuesday's Grace to You.