Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes.
Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, we can more effectively be salt and light in this world together in local communities of believers than we can individually on our own. And that's why God created the church, not just to help you in your own spiritual development, but to be salt and preservative and to be light in this decaying and darkening world.
Welcome to Pathway to Victory. with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. With each new act of Congress and Supreme Court decision, it seems as if our nation is spiraling deeper and deeper into moral decline.
Is there any way to prevent America from falling? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains why the preservation of our nation depends not on individuals, but on the local church. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. As you probably know, most of my messages that you hear on Pathway to Victory originate at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, where I've been privileged to serve as senior pastor since 2007. On occasion, I'm invited to travel to other cities to speak to local pastors. When those invitations come, I do whatever possible to clear my calendar because of the powerful influence these pastors carry in their community.
Well, today I'm inviting you to eavesdrop on a message I delivered to an audience of pastors and Bible teachers. Given this unique opportunity to connect with hundreds of colleagues, I urge them to speak with authority and without fear about America's only hope, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So in that spirit, Pathway to Victory has launched an incredible beacon of hope matching challenge in the amount of $750,000. Because of this matching challenge, every dollar you give between now and July 5th to Pathway to Victory will be automatically doubled in impact. We will use whatever funds given to Pathway to Victory during the matching challenge for one primary purpose, and that is to shine a bright light upon our only hope, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
This gives a gift toward the beacon of hope matching challenge. But right now, I want us to turn our attention to this special presentation I titled today's message for pastors only. And not just from those from without the church, but also from those within the church. In fact, what is so deeply disturbing to me about the most recent attacks from within about the church is they're coming actually from Christian leaders. One pastor who later had to resign his church because of sexual immorality wrote, Now, if there is no more value to going to church than sitting down with a friend for coffee, why in the world would you get up and go through the hassle of coming to church on Sunday morning?
And why would you give sacrificially to an organization like the church if it's not doing any more to advance the kingdom of God than the local Starbucks? And the fact is, with leaders disparaging the church like that, no wonder church attendance continues to decline. And futurist George Barna predicts that that attendance in church will continue to decline.
Within a few years, Barna says millions of people will never travel physically to a church but will instead roam the internet in search of meaningful spiritual experiences. And apparently that's alright with Barna since he says the essence of Christianity is the development of people's character. Spiritual transformation or even intimate worship, he says, does not require worship service but a personal commitment to the spiritual disciplines. How contrary that is to what the Word of God teaches. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 24 and 25, the writer says, Let us consider how to stimulate one another to faith and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some. Spiritual development, even our own spiritual development, doesn't take place just in a vacuum. We need the stimulation, the encouragement that comes from other believers.
But, you know, I have to be the first to admit that local churches do have some serious flaws. I can identify with Mark Buchanan who writes, I assume you're like me. I can get itchy skinned and scratchy throated after an hour or so of church. I can get distracted and cranky when it goes too long.
My feet ache, my backside numbs, my eyes blaze over, my mind fogs, my belly growls. I find myself fighting back yawns and I'm the pastor. And we all identify with that. But, you know, those who would write off the church as an antiquated organization that needs to be replaced by a new paradigm forget one important fact. The church, the local church, was created by God. The church is God's idea. It is His way of fulfilling His mission. He is the one who came up with the composition, the organization, the polity, the priority of the church.
Why do Christians, especially Christian leaders, feel at liberty to discard and replace what God created at the expense of the death of His own Son? The centrality of the church, the local church in fulfilling God's purpose is seen throughout Scripture. In Ephesians 3 verses 20 to 21, Paul concludes that section by saying, Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.
How is it that God is going to be glorified in this world? It is through the church. And remember I've said before, the word church, ekklesia, is used 105 times in the New Testament.
Ninety-five of those times it's referring not to the overall church, all Christians everywhere, but it is referring to local congregations. God's plan to fulfill His mission is through local congregations. The church is the visible representation of the body of Christ. Well what is the purpose of the church?
Certainly the spiritual development of individuals and groups, but it goes beyond that as well. God has another purpose for the church besides your individual spiritual growth. Just as God formed the nation of Israel to be His representatives on earth under the Old Covenant, God has created the church to proclaim His truth and reflect His holiness in the world today. Remember Peter's words in 1 Peter 2, 9, he said, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Now stay with me on this. God could have created a massive organization called The Church with one pastor, and everybody is a member of that massive organization called The Church, but that was not His plan. Instead, God's plan was to blanket the landscape throughout the world with local individual communities of believers we call the local church. After all, look at the New Testament. Most of the books of the New Testament were written to individual congregations, Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae, all with their own unique opportunities, their own problems, their own challenges. Remember in the book of Revelation we studied a couple of years ago, that book was addressed specifically to seven real specific local churches in Asia Minor. God said these churches were like a lampstand by God in the darkness of the world, and that is what the church is.
The church is a light in a dark world. You know, in this series we have said that as Christians our role, Jesus said, is to be salt and light, salt to preserve our nation, to extend its life so that we can be light and share the gospel with as many people as possible. That is our job, to be salt and light.
But think about salt for a moment, to be an effective preservative as it was in Jesus' day, to preserve, to extend the shelf life of meat. What is more effective, one grain of salt or a whole clump of salt? What about a light? If you're in the darkness, what would be better, to have one little 10 watt lamp or a whole cluster of lights?
It's the same way with us. Individually we have an assignment, but salt and light are much more effective in mass rather than acting as individuals. And that's why the church is so effective.
As Solomon said, two really are better than one. We can more effectively be salt and light in this world together in local communities of believers than we can individually on our own. And that's why God created the church, not just to help you in your own spiritual development, but to be salt, a preservative, and to be light in this decaying and darkening world. And that leads to the thesis of what I want to share with you.
Do you know what America's last hope is, what America's greatest hope is? It is the local church. And I want to submit to you this thesis, the preservation of our nation for the proclamation of the gospel depends upon the effectiveness of local churches in fulfilling their mission. Let me say that again, the preservation of our nation for the proclamation of the gospel depends upon the effectiveness of local churches, just like First Baptist Dallas, fulfilling its mission.
And then I want to go one step further. The effectiveness of churches in fulfilling their mission depends upon pastors fulfilling their calling. I realize that watching this broadcast, listening by radio or podcast to this series, we have numerous pastors and church leaders who are tuned in to this series. And I want to talk about specifically the role that the pastor has in helping the church achieve its mission so that our nation can be preserved for the proclamation of the gospel. You know, the fact is, no local church is any more effective in fulfilling its mission than its pastor in fulfilling his calling.
Why is that? Why is the church so dependent upon the pastor? John Maxwell explains it in his book, The Law of Leadership, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. He calls it the law of the lid. And the law of the lid is simply this, no organization rises above its leadership.
No organization ever rises above the commitment of its leader. I know today it's fashionable to say, well, the pastor's not that important in the church. He's just one among many.
You know, we're all in this together. We don't need to, you know, play like the pastor is anything different than anybody else. That's very popular in some churches to say such a thing. And yet the fact is, in 1 Timothy 3, 1, the Bible refers to the pastor as the overseer or the ruler, the leader of the church. You can debate about church polity as much as you want to, whether it ought to be congregational or whether it ought to be elder rule or this kind of rule or this kind of rule. It really doesn't matter.
As my late friend the Adrian Rogers used to say, anything in nature with two heads is a freak and anything with no head is dead. Now that is true in marriage. It is true in the company you operate, and it is true in the church. Any organization has to have a leader. And in the church, that leader is the pastor. He is the overseer, the ruler, the leader of the church. Now pastor listening to me tonight, understand what I'm saying. Your leadership of the church, your headship of the church is not a privilege to be exploited. It is a responsibility to be fulfilled. Because the Bible says as the under shepherd, I mean Jesus Christ is the head of the church, but he's left the building for a while, okay?
He's up there in heaven. And he's appointed you pastor as the under shepherd of that congregation. But before you feel all empowered and high and mighty about it, understand this. The Bible says all of us who are pastors are one day going to give an account to God for how we've led our congregations. Hebrews 13 verse 17, the writer says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.
And let them do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. People who cause their pastors grief and sorrow and heartache are going down a dangerous path. And it will lead to unproductive results for them as well as the church in which they serve. If you're a pastor, God has given you the responsibility for your congregation and specifically the responsibility is to help mobilize your church to be the salt and light God has commanded us to be. So how is it that a pastor fulfills his calling? We're going to look at the three distinct callings of every pastor.
And I'm going to take a walk with you down memory lane tonight as well. And first of all, we're going to talk about the pastor as preacher. You know the pastor's primary responsibility is to preach the Word of God.
In 2 Timothy 4 verses 1 and 2, Paul told his spiritual protege Timothy, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by the appearing of His kingdom, preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. What does it mean to preach the Word? That word preach means to herald or to announce.
In Paul's day, an emperor, if he had a message to deliver to a township, he would send his herald to announce the emperor's message. That is what the pastor is to do. He is to preach.
He is to announce the Word. And the clarifying words reprove, rebuke and exhort give the sense of urgency with which the pastor is to deliver the ruler's message. That word reprove means to speak persuasively.
To rebuke means to convince of wrongdoing. To exhort means to come along and encourage in a positive way. But Paul's message here is not simply to preach, it is to preach the Word. No herald in Paul's day was free to formulate his own message.
He wasn't free to say, well I know the emperor said this, but I have something else I want to share with you today. His job was faithfully announce the message that had been entrusted to him and that is the same way with pastors. We are to preach the Word of God and that is one way we help our congregation be the salt and the light that they have been commanded to be. The pastor as preacher. The second role is the pastor as a prophet. Now my experience has told me that the world as a whole is pretty comfortable with pastors preaching.
They don't want to listen to it, but they don't mind. They're not threatened by pastors preaching. Even the most hardened atheist doesn't mind a pastor standing up in his church and preaching to his people. I mean if he's got a congregation filled with gullible people listening to these silly stories and myths and they want to sit there and pay their money to do that.
Most atheists don't have any problem with that. Let the pastor preach the Word. However, when a pastor starts criticizing the city council for allowing the topless bar to open. Or when a pastor starts confronting a state board of education about using a textbook that includes creation as well as evolution. Or when a pastor organizes a protest in front of a local abortions clinic.
Suddenly he is accused of forsaking his primary calling and getting involved in the world of politics. And yet look at the Old Testament prophets. Think of Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah.
They didn't compartmentalize their message. They just didn't speak to the citizens of Israel, to God's people. The fact is they confronted people with more than just about their personal relationship with God. They confronted their culture as a whole when that culture departed from the teachings of God's Word. You know that's what a prophet did in the Old Testament. The prophet was simply a man who confronted his culture with God's Word. The prophet realized that God's interest extended beyond the four walls of the temple or the tabernacle. God was interested in all of his creation. And when government and when people as a whole started forsaking God's commands the prophet did not hesitate to confront that departure.
Why isn't that happening today? Why are pastors so reticent to confront their culture when it departs from God's commands? I think there are three reasons pastors are hesitant to act as prophets.
One reason is a misunderstanding of the Bible. You know when citing the Old Testament prophets as a model for the pastor's prophetic role today, some will say, well now there's a difference between Israel and the church. Israel was a theocracy. And so that means when the prophets spoke to the ungodly citizens of Israel or even to ungodly kings, they were still speaking to those who were in a covenant relationship with God.
And that's certainly true. But there are also prophets who spoke to other people than Israel. Think about Jonah, Nahum, Daniel, John the Baptist. They all confronted Gentile rulers and people with God's Word.
And they reminded them of the dire consequences of disobeying God's commands. Some people like to point out 1 Corinthians chapter 5 where Paul was criticizing the Corinthian church for not disciplining one of its members. Paul said don't judge those who are outside the church but those who are inside the church. God judges those who are outside the church. Yet when you see what Paul was saying, he was simply saying the church cannot execute a sentence against sinners who aren't a part of the church.
We can't find people. We can't put people in jail. We can only discipline those who are a part of the church. But he wasn't saying you don't criticize ungodly behavior by unbelievers.
The fact is we are called to be prophets and that means not only speaking to ourselves, speaking to God's own people, but speaking to the culture. The second reason pastors many times don't act as prophets is because of a misunderstanding of the constitution. Some pastors and many laymen believe that the separation of church and state prohibits pastors from addressing controversial issues like abortion and same sex marriages. Because such issues are quote politics rather than spiritual issues. Now obviously any policy, any law that violates God's standard is a spiritual issue. Furthermore, and you know this from previous messages, the phrase separation of church and state appears nowhere in the constitution much less in the Bible.
Obviously it has been twisted and perverted to mean something that it doesn't mean. Groups today like the American Civil Liberties Union and my favorite group, the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, they regularly try to intimidate pastors and churches from influencing legislation or elections by threatening their tax exempt status. You probably saw on the news my good friend Barry Lynn, head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, announced he's writing a letter about Pastor Jeffress to the Internal Revenue Service. You know, well he wrote a letter when I was a pastor in Wichita Falls. You know what, anybody can write a letter, a ten year old can write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service.
It doesn't mean one thing at all. You cannot afford to allow people like Barry Lynn and others intimidate you and muzzle you from sharing the truth of God's word. That is important that you stand up for your rights as an American. I firmly believe that the only hope for our nation is found within the walls of churches across America and in the God-fearing Christians who occupy the pulpits and the pews. You see, when the church fulfills its mission, our nation can be preserved for the proclamation of the gospel. It's one of the many reasons we're so excited about the Beacon of Hope matching challenge that's active right now. With your investment in this opportunity, we're empowered to proclaim the truth about Christ and His word. And when we do this together, we can shine the beacon of God's hope around the world. Here's how the matching challenge works. Whatever you're able to give between now and July 5th will be matched and therefore doubled in impact until we reach the goal of $750,000.
That's a large number for any one person, but through the combined efforts of our listening family, I'm confident we can reach and even exceed this goal. Now, when you give a gift toward the matching challenge today, I'm going to say thanks by sending a copy of a special book I've selected for you and your family. It's called The Miracles in American History. In this book, the authors tell the true stories about factual events that, tragically, are not taught in most American classrooms anymore.
You'll read about God's miraculous interventions in the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the winter at Valley Forge, and so many more stories like these. Please give generously so that we can continue to uphold our only hope for America, Jesus Christ. Together, we are making a difference for Jesus Christ in a world that's opposed to the truth of His Word.
David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you invest in the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the book Miracles in American History. Plus, you'll receive a DVD copy of the message America is a Christian Nation.
That's perfect for viewing at home or sharing with a small group Bible study. Call 866-999-2965 or visit our website at ptv.org. And when your gift is $100 or more, we'll also send you the complete collection of audio and video discs for the America and the Bible teaching series. You'll get that along with the highly requested book by Dr. Jeffress called Praying for America, 40 Inspiring Stories and Prayers for Our Nation.
Remember, every dollar you give right now will be doubled in impact by our Beacon of Hope matching challenge until we reach the goal of $750,000. So please get in touch with us today. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could also write to us if you'd like. Jot down this mailing address. PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins wishing you a great weekend. Then join us again next week for the conclusion of this message called For Pastors Only. That's coming up Monday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
And we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
