It's easy to be unkind and it's easy to be critical and it's easy to be indifferent to someone you don't know deeply and intimately. But when you know someone and you've come to know them by experience and you understand the passion of their heart, there's a certain respect that is born out of that kind of knowing. And so it is incumbent upon you that you come to know your leaders, and then when you know them, you show them that kind of respect. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. There are countless books, articles, and conferences aimed at helping pastors strengthen and build up the people in their congregations, but there are very, very few, if any, resources on how church members can strengthen and build up their pastors. So today on Grace to You, John MacArthur's going to look at how you can bless your church leaders, how you can be a source of encouragement to them, and take burdens off their shoulders. This lesson on how you can minister to your pastor is part of John's series, The Bible-Driven Church. Turn to the book of 1 Thessalonians and here's John. Well, let's open our Bibles for our time in God's Word, chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians. We're studying verses 12 and 13.
Let me read them to you. First Thessalonians 5, 12 and 13. 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. These two verses discuss how the sheep are to treat the shepherd, how the shepherds are to treat the sheep within the framework of Christian fellowship in the church. We talked about the responsibility of the shepherds to the sheep, how shepherds are to care for their sheep. That, of course, was a message close to my own heart as a shepherd who has sheep and a responsibility before God to do that kind of care. We already looked at the responsibility of the shepherds to their sheep and we noted that they are to labor among the sheep, first of all. Secondly, they are to exercise authority over the sheep and they are to give instruction for the sheep.
We carefully delineated those three things. The first point, laboring among the sheep, you notice there in verse 12, those who diligently labor among you, pastors, elders, overseers, shepherds are to labor hard, work to the point of exhaustion in a sacrificial life of service alongside the sheep. Total dedication is seen there. That's the servant role of humility. And then note, please also, they have charge over you in the Lord. They have authority over the sheep. By virtue of the Lord's calling for His sake, by His will, for His glory, they are to preside and direct and lead. And then at the end of verse 12, they are to give you instruction, instruction for the sheep. Teaching is the primary element. They are to be skilled teachers, skilled at delineating and disseminating the word of truth. Now let's go to the responsibility of the sheep to their shepherds.
And this is very, very basic. I mean, the church has to know this. This is the bottom line in our relationship together. Sometimes sheep can be very hard on shepherds. Somebody said, we think sheep are cuddly little creatures because the only ones we ever deal with are stuffed.
That's true. If you've ever worked with sheep, and I have been exposed to them just enough to know they are weak, helpless, unorganized, prone to wander, demanding, dirty and have sharp hooves. And when the Lord was describing us as sheep, He was talking about sheep as sheep, not sheep as stuffed animals. Sheep can make life joyless for the shepherd if they don't follow the path of their duty.
They can make life miserable if they're not obedient. So let's look at the three characteristics or principles that we're enjoined as sheep toward our shepherds. Number one, appreciate your shepherds. Verse 12 says, we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction. The word appreciate for a moment is oida in the Greek. It means to know. It is a common word used all over the New Testament for to know. But it means the kind of knowledge that comes by experience, to have learned to know, to have come to know, to by experience to arrive at knowledge. And here it has the idea of a deep knowledge and a knowledge that includes in it respect and appreciation. To know and to value is the implication of it here. Perhaps the best translation is the word to appreciate.
Another one might be that you value those who diligently labor among you, that you respect those who diligently labor among you. It doesn't mean to know their names, not that kind of simplistic knowledge. It doesn't mean to know just the names of their children or their wife or their zip code or where they live or whatever school they graduated from or what kind of car they drive or whatever. It means that you have come into a deep and intimate personal acquaintance that leads to appreciation. You know them well enough to care about them.
That word know is sometimes translated to refer to the physical act between a man and a woman, the deep kind of knowledge, the intimate kind of knowledge where a man knows a woman and she becomes the bearer of a child. It's the sense of knowing someone and the worthiness of that someone. I'm constantly given a comment when I enter into questions of people who listen to me preach very, very frequently. They will say to me, I feel like I know you. I've never been personally acquainted with you. I haven't spent a lot of time with you, but I feel like I know you.
And what they're really saying is that because they have listened for so long to the pouring out of the heart of the preacher, there's a sense in which you know that person. And I always reply by saying, well if you've been listening to me, you know me because what you're hearing is what is me. I am not what I look like.
In fact, I tell people all the time when they meet me and say, oh I listened to you on radio for years, I say I know I look better on radio. It isn't a question of what I look like. You don't know me by knowing what I look like, you know me by knowing what I feel, right? You know me by knowing what comes out of my heart.
You know me by knowing the passions of my life. It's easy to be unkind and it's easy to be critical and it's easy to be indifferent to someone you don't know deeply and intimately. But when you know someone and you've come to know them by experience and you understand the passion of their heart, there's a certain respect that is born out of that kind of knowing. And so it is incumbent upon you that you come to know your leaders. If you're going to respect them and appreciate them and admire them and understand their worth and their value, it means that you are going to have to come to know them. And then when you know them, you show them that kind of respect.
Now I need to say that this has some overtones regarding financial support and again I want to give a disclaimer, I do not want a raise, I will not accept a raise, I'm not asking for a raise, but it is important for you to know that the connection in the text implies that this matter of appreciation involves giving financial support. To show you that, you need only look at 1 Timothy 5 17, just briefly there, where it says, "'Let the elders who rule well, those who do it with excellence, be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.'" Now here are elders ruling and they are worthy men. Their worthiness calls for double honor, timē, worthiness calls for double honor, timē. Now what does that mean? Well it can mean respect, it can mean high regard, but the context here shows that it includes pay. He has just in prior verses, verses 3 to 16, discussed the support of widows. Now he discusses the support of ministers, pastors. And he is saying if they rule well, they are worthy of double timē. By the way, on a number of occasions in the New Testament, Matthew 27 6 and 9, 1 Corinthians 6 20, the word timē is associated with money. And so he is saying give them respect and remuneration and make it double, double honor, double respect and generous pay.
Why? Because you are rewarding the well-ruling elders, those that are diligent, faithful elders. They are worthy, they deserve it. And by the way, as a footnote, there's nobody better to be trusted than a godly man with the resources you give him. In whose hands could you better put that than a godly man who would use it to the glory of the Lord? And at the end of the verse, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching, those who work hard in the Word, trust them with God's money, reward them, show your honor to them in a tangible way.
So there's kind of a flow here. Elders are worthy of honor. Elders are worthy of honor with remuneration. Hardworking, excellent elders are worthy of double honor. Hardworking and excellent elders who major in preaching and teaching are particularly worthy of respect and remuneration.
So every faithful shepherd is to be appreciated, respected, admired, honored and supported. There's a very simple direct verse that states this back in 1 Corinthians 9, and we'll move quickly through the next two points. But back in 1 Corinthians 9, I won't take the time to belabor the point. There is a principle in verse 14, 1 Corinthians 9, 14 that sums it up, so also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. Those who proclaim the gospel are to get their living from the gospel. That means if you spend your life doing it, you are to be supported in the doing.
So now you can go back again to our text in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. The first thing that the congregation is to give to the leaders, the elders, pastors is respect that incorporates care and remuneration, to support them, to double honor them being generous, not just a bare minimum so they have to scrape by, but showing great generosity and respect and admiration to them, knowing they will be good stewards of what you give them. What is the church's responsibility? Respect, admiration, honor, appreciation. Secondly, and this builds right on that, esteem your shepherds, esteem them. He says down in verse 13, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
Now this is very much like the first one, not a lot of difference. To esteem, hegau'mai, means to consider or to regard, to think. It means to go a little deeper than the first duty because it says you are to esteem them, how? Very highly.
You know what that is in the Greek? Beyond all measure, beyond all measure. And then the key word, in love, in love, because of their work.
Not because of their personality, this is not a personality contest, because of their work. You are to regard them beyond all measure. You are to regard a faithful pastor beyond all measure.
The point is there's no limit. There's no limit to the regard you ought to have for that man, to the love that you ought to have for that man. You are to love that man. What does love mean? It means sacrificial, sacrificial service to him. It means affection for him, not because of his personality, not because he's done favors for you, but because of his work, because he ministers to you the Word of God, because he feeds your needy soul. In Galatians, you would notice chapter 4 and verse 14, Paul says, that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition, you didn't despise or loathe. Paul had some bodily condition that made him repulsive to be around, and he says, you didn't loathe that.
There was nothing attractive about the man, nothing at all. You didn't loathe it. You received me as an angel of God. You received me as Christ Jesus Himself. That's the Spirit.
That's the attitude. No matter what the personality, no matter what might be the things that would not be welcomed, such as some loathsome disease, you received me as if I were an angel of God or Christ Himself. And then he says in verse 15, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. It may have been, some think it was, that he had some ugly, oozing eye disease, and he says you would have taken your own eyes right out of your own sockets and given them to me if you could have.
Now that's a steaming beyond all measure. You loved me in spite of what was loathsome about my condition. You loved me in spite of the fact that I wasn't anything to look at, and you would have plucked out your eyes for me. That kind of sacrificial love. In Galatians, you'll be reminded, won't you, that as Paul writes the letter, he really is saying to them, that's how it used to be, what happened to change that? And he writes in a heartbroken way, what happened to change that?
What did I do to make you change your love? The sheep then are to appreciate more than that. They not only are to give respect and remuneration to one they know as their shepherd, but they are to love the shepherd beyond all measure to the point of any personal sacrifice.
Why? Not because of their personality, but because of their work. They've been called by God, they've been set apart for a special work, and the people are to appreciate them and to acknowledge and love that work they have been called to do. Listen to John 13, 20, truly, truly I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. When you receive the shepherd, you're receiving the great shepherd who sent him and the God who sent the great shepherd in love. You esteem your elders, your pastors, and your esteem for them has no limits. Whatever level of appreciation you have now, increase it in love. You are to love them because of what they do, and if you do not, you're in disobedience to these direct words of Scripture. That love means you seek their best. That love means you overlook their weaknesses and frailties. That love means you speak well of them. That love means you encourage them. That love means you lift them up as called men of God who have brought to you the truth. And finally, and thirdly, he says in verse 13, live in peace with one another. That's the third thing, submit to your shepherds. There is nothing more grieving, more distracting, more difficult, more painful than discord in the church. That concept of living in peace with one another is a very familiar New Testament exhortation. We know about it. It's all over the New Testament and you can find it in Romans 14, 19, in 2 Corinthians 13, 11, in Ephesians 4, 3, Colossians 3, 15, James 3, 18, over and over again the New Testament calls for peace.
But here it's very specific. Here it is in this context of the relation between the sheep and the shepherd and it should be a peaceful one. Submit to your shepherds is the point.
Submit, no strife, eliminate conflict. Obviously it presupposes a faithful shepherd. Where a man is faithful and doing the best that he can in the strength of the Spirit of God, you are to submit to that. That's a command of Scripture. Go to Hebrews 13 and we'll wrap this point up at that particular Scripture.
Hebrews 13 7, you have three Scriptures in Hebrews 13 that direct themselves at the congregation how they're to deal with the shepherd. In verse 7 it says, remember those who led you, your leaders. Remember them. Who are they who spoke the Word of God to you? And the remembering here is a remembering of love.
It is a remembering of affection. And remember they spoke the Word of God to you and consider the result of their conduct and imitate their faith. They spoke to the Word. Remember the result of their conduct, how God blessed their lives and used them mightily. Imitate their faith and know that Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday to day and forever will deal with you in obedience the same way He dealt with them in obedience. And don't you dare be carried away by very strange teachings. You remember those who taught the truth and you appreciate them and you love them and you esteem them. Then down in verse 17 he adds more directly. First he says, remember them.
Remember them with a thankful heart. And now he says in verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them. Obey your leaders and submit to them.
You say, well, I think they might be wrong. Fine. Obey them and submit to them anyway. They have to give the account, not you.
Don't ever think that you can bypass your leadership. They give the account. Unless they ask you to do something unbiblical, unscriptural, ungodly and sinful, you are to follow them. We have a sobering duty as shepherds. We give the account.
You follow the leadership. Obey your leaders and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. That's a very strong statement and a very formidable one for a person in spiritual leadership like me or any other pastor or elder. We have a sobering duty. We will give an account before God. That's a tough enough thing to have to live with.
I live with that all the time. I am accountable to God for the condition of the sheep. I am accountable to God for the decisions that I make. And we as a group are accountable to God for what we decide as we seek the wisdom of the Spirit. That's why we never do anything that isn't unanimous among us as elders because we want to be sure we know the mind of God as we lead you because we have to give an account. So he says obey. Stubborn self-willed people will steal the joy of their pastors and give them grief.
Follow verse 17. Let them do this with joy and not with grief for this would be unprofitable for you. You want a miserable church? Have a miserable pastor. You want a miserable pastor? Don't submit and you'll take his joy away and he'll be a miserable man and you'll be a miserable people. Stubborn self-willed people steal the joy of their leaders and give themselves nothing but pain. That's unprofitable for you, he says.
It isn't going to help you. That isn't going to work for you to have a grieving shepherd, to have a joyless shepherd. Jeremiah certainly knew about that. Jeremiah had a ministry without joy because there was so much conflict. He was in pain constantly because the people rebelled and refused to submit to the things he said even though they were the words of God. In chapter 9 he says, oh that my head were waters, my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Oh that I had in the desert a wayfarer's lodging place that I might leave my people and go from them.
I'd get out of this place and leave these stubborn, rebellious, obstinate, hard-hearted people if I could get away. For all of them are adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men and they bend their tongue like their bow. Lies and not truth prevail in the land. They proceed from evil to evil and they do not know me, declares the Lord. Jeremiah was the weeping prophet. Jesus had the same experience, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft I would have gathered you as a hen gathereth her brood.
You would not, you would not, and he wept. And so the congregation is to live in peace with its leadership. You don't cultivate strife, you don't cultivate conflict, you submit and you obey. They have to give the account to God, not you for what they do. And if you follow their lead faithfully, dutifully, they have misled you somehow, made unwise decisions. They will give an account to God. You will be blessed for being obedient as long as we're not talking about some sinful thing.
There you're on your own to apply the truth of Scripture. Simple duties, aren't they really? If the church is to be a rich, sweet, happy, blessed place, then shepherds are to be responsible to fulfill their duty to the sheep and sheep are to be responsible to fulfill their duty to the shepherds. That means you appreciate them with respect and remuneration. You esteem them beyond all measure in love to the point that you'd make any sacrifice for them and that means you lift them up, you speak well of them, you encourage them, you do everything to make their ministry positive because they are the channel of blessing that God has used to bring the truth to you. And thirdly, you submit to them so that you reduce the church to a place of peace and you eliminate all conflict. When people act like that and shepherds act like that, then the church becomes the place of joy and peace that God intends it to be. I'm reminded when Saul was first made king, there went with him, it says in 1 Samuel 10 26, a band of men whose heart God touched.
And while news of Nahash injuring the people of God came, the Holy Spirit came mightily on Saul, the Scripture says, and as a result of the summons, it says, they came out as one man in the next chapter, chapter 11. Here was a band of men whose heart God touched, who with their king came out as one man. That kind of oneness, that kind of unity is what God calls for in the church. Shepherd and sheep in perfect harmony as the shepherd labors diligently, leads and directs, feeds, and the people appreciate, support, love, and submit. Faithful shepherds, faithful people, makes the kingdom advance, gives glory to God.
You're listening to Grace to You, featuring John MacArthur, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. He calls his current series the Bible-driven church. John, we're talking about being a Bible-driven church, a Bible-driven people.
Here's an important point to make. You're never going to be driven by the Bible if you're not regularly feeding on its truth, if your heart isn't full of it, if your mind isn't meditating on it. And John, even for people who love the Word of God, it still takes work, hard work, to know Scripture well enough to let it drive you.
Yeah, it's like anything. It's a discipline, and we need to be in the Word every day. We don't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and that means the whole of Scripture.
You want to start at that point? Just start reading the Bible. It's amazing how the Bible is so self-explanatory that it'll explain itself to you as you accumulate more reading in the text. So the best starting point for you to be a Bible-driven person is to know what's in the Bible, as you said, Phil.
And here's a tool that we talked about toward the end of the year, and I need to mention it now because we're still early enough in January. It's the MacArthur Daily Bible. There is no substitute for daily Bible reading.
It takes discipline, but you know, fifteen, twenty minutes a day, that is not too much to ask for the benefit that it brings. This daily Bible is basically a reading from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, for every day, 365 days a year. And if you do it every day, at the end of the year you will have read the entire Bible, and with the reading each day is a devotional that kind of points you in the direction of a spiritual truth that can be applied that day. Now, look, January 1 is already in the rearview mirror, and we're moving rapidly away from it, but you can start and catch up pretty fast with the MacArthur Daily Bible. Don't put off getting one. Cultivate the habit of daily Scripture reading, and you can order one today.
The price is very reasonable. Get a MacArthur Daily Bible today and read through the Bible this year. You will see a profound impact on your life, and that will be directly related to your spiritual joy and fruitfulness. The MacArthur Daily Bible is also excellent for family devotions.
It gives helpful structure for learning and growing in God's Word together. To get the MacArthur Daily Bible for yourself or a few copies for your family, contact us today. As John said, the MacArthur Daily Bible is available for a reasonable price and shipping is free. To order, call our toll-free number, 855-GRACE, or use our website, gty.org. Again, the MacArthur Daily Bible will help you read through the entire Bible this year and every year. Order yours by calling 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And while you're at gty.org, make sure you tap into the thousands of Bible-related resources that are available to you, including the Grace To You blog, with over 1400 articles on topics like spiritual growth, dealing with anxiety, responding biblically to persecution, and much more. You can also catch episodes of this broadcast that you may have missed, or download any of John's 3500 sermons free of charge in either audio or transcript format, or both.
That web address, again, gty.org. And to follow Grace To You on social media, you'll find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for praying for John and the staff, and tune in tomorrow when John continues to show you the Bible-driven church. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Friday's Grace To You.
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