How to Recognize a Good Pastor #2

Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. The second characteristic of a good pastor is that he needs to be, secondly, he needs to be a man of the canon.

He needs to be a man of the canon, C-A-N-O-N, not C-A-N-N-O-N, not the boom canon, but the 66 books of the Bible canon. That gives a different boom as the power of God is unleashed through the understanding of His Word. Go back to John 21, if you even left there, I did, but go back to John 21 and in that passage that I read where Jesus establishes Peter's love for Christ and restores him to ministry, notice the commands that he gives him. At the end of verse 15, he says, tend my lambs. Verse 16 at the end, shepherd my sheep. Verse 17, tend my sheep. And Jesus is not talking about literal sheep.

He's not talking about feeding actual animals with wool on them. He's talking about his spiritual body. And so he's not talking about giving them physical food, but he's talking about giving them spiritual food. Peter, give them the spiritual food of my word is what he's talking about there. Tend them, protect them, and feed them with my word so that they would be built up spiritually.

That's the idea. A good pastor understands that his central responsibility is to feed you the Word of God because it is the Word that sanctifies you, it is the Word that equips you. Turn back to 2 Timothy, if you would, 2 Timothy 3, beginning in verse 16, a familiar passage, but notice the focus here. 2 Timothy 3, 16 says that all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Now sometimes we stop there, but just go right through to chapter 4, verse 1.

There were no chapter breaks in the original manuscripts. Having talked about the preeminence of the Word there and the power and the sufficiency of Scripture, Paul commissions Timothy and says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season, reproof, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. He's saying, Timothy, when you go to pastor these people, preach the Word to them.

Sometimes they're going to need rebuke, they're going to be needed to be corrected from their wayward ways. Sometimes they're going to need encouragement, they're going to need instruction and doctrine. Exhort them to follow Christ and all the while be patient as you do so. Do this with great patience as you minister the Word to them. Paul was laying forth the power of Scripture and the importance of communicating it so that the people would be built up.

Earlier in the book of 2 Timothy, if you go back to chapter 2 verse 15, he lays this charge on Timothy. He says, be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of truth. It's about the Word, it's about the truth, it's about proclaiming the truth because if a pastor proclaims to you the truth, gives you the understanding of the truth, then you are going to be built up so that you are equipped to do the work that God has placed into your life. What he's created you to do, a pastor who teaches you the Word is going to enable you to be more effective to the glory of Christ in the providential circumstances that the Lord has given to you. That's the kind of man that you want.

Now look, it's not the flashiest thing to do. You know, there's a reason why people flock after those who promise them health and prosperity and those who are funny and all of that. You walk out and yeah, that was good. You know what, that stuff is meaningless when your kids start to stray away. That stuff is meaningless when the doctor tells you it's cancer. That stuff is meaningless when the trials of life hit and you're reaching out and you have nothing to lay hold of because all of the sugary cotton candy preaching just dissolves in your fingers and there's nothing to lay hold of. That's why I'm so encouraged that you here in Grace Life are so faithful to come to Grace Church and receive the teaching of the Word of God.

I know it's going to sustain you when the trials come and hit you like a full force hurricane. This time of receiving instruction in God's Word, beloved, is not in vain. When I say this time, I don't mean just this hour, but your ongoing commitment to receive the Word of God. So he has to be a man of the canon, a man who leads you into the Word of God. After a man has preached to you, you should be able to go back to that passage on your own and say, Oh, I see how this fits together.

I understand why he said this. I see it for myself in Scripture. No secret messages, no hidden meanings, no pastors telling you, Well, God told me this and you don't have any independent way to verify that. You can walk away from those kinds of men.

It simplifies things greatly. Now, the challenge, however, of determining whether a pastor is a man of the canon is more subtle than asking whether he refers to the Bible, whether he tosses in a Bible verse here and there. Because all of these hucksters, and that's what they are, they're hucksters, they understand that they have to somehow use the Bible to give them some measure of legitimacy, or otherwise you're not going to be suckered into what they want you to do. And so, lots of men will throw in a Bible verse, but here are some things to look for to see if this man truly wants to teach you the counsel of God revealed in the Bible. And these are some things that I mentioned in my message on how to recognize false teachers.

Here are six questions to ask as you try to determine whether this man is a man of the canon or not. Because it's not just about quoting the Bible, it's about teaching the doctrines of the Bible to lead you into a true knowledge of God, into a true knowledge of Christ. First of all, when does this pastor teach you about the holiness and wrath of God?

That's not a popular topic. A man who doesn't truly love Christ, a man who's not a man of the canon doesn't want to go there. Because he realizes that people don't want to hear that, and so he won't preach that which will drive away the people who are just gathered around for other motives. When does he teach you about the holiness and wrath of God? Secondly, when does this pastor teach you about eternal judgment and hell? Where is that theme in the overall preaching? I'm not talking about just one message, I'm talking about the theme of a man's preaching over time.

What's his ministry over time like? When does he teach you on these things? When does he allude to these things? When does he warn sinners that eternal hell awaits them if they don't repent? Thirdly, when does he teach you about sin and repentance? Fourthly, when does he tell you that justification is by faith alone, not by any works that you could do? Fifthly, when does he teach you about the substitutionary atonement of Christ, that Christ died in the place of sinners and he alone bore the wrath of God in his body on the cross in order that the punishment of sin would be poured out on him so that forgiveness could be extended to sinners? How does he teach you on that?

That the wrath of God was turned away at the cross? Finally, there's lots of other things that we could say, but when does this pastor teach you about your own responsibility to follow Christ and grow in righteousness? Not simply always comfort you and make you feel good, but when does he lay forth the requirements of holiness and righteousness and call you to greater Christian living, greater holiness, greater sanctification as your responsibility as a follower of Christ? When does he talk about those things?

And here's the thing, beloved, I'm going back to what I opened up with. The mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart. If a pastor truly believes those issues, he will speak on them. Not to keep his job, but because his heart convictions will compel him to do so. If you understand, if you have any sense at all that you're a dying man speaking to dying men and that the danger of deception and self-delusion is so great and you realize that people are in spiritual danger, you're going to warn them out of the compulsion of your own heart if you believe these things.

Compulsion to be faithful to Christ, compulsion because you see it in the Word, and compulsion because of the love and compassion you have on people that you do not want to go to hell. This isn't difficult. This isn't complicated. These are the themes of the canon. This is what the Bible teaches. And, beloved, when men like Joel Osteen are silent on these issues, their silence is deafening. That's shouting volumes when a pastor says, well, I'm not called to preach on wrath and repentance and those kinds of things.

Mine's one of encouragement. Matthew 23, woe on you. Woe, woe on men like that who would take a platform and hide the truth of God. It's because they don't believe it that they don't speak on it. Don't give men the benefit of the doubt and say, well, I'm sure he believes that he just doesn't talk about it. No, if he believes it, believe me, he'll talk about it because he'll be so overwhelmed by the urgency of it that he won't want to talk about anything else. He'll understand that the thing for him to do is not to promise you your best life now, but to call you to think beyond this life either to the glories of heaven or the awfulness of the destruction in hell and to have you think spiritually about life and the ultimate appointment that you have by appearing before a holy God in judgment. If he believes that, trust me, he'll talk about it. And if he doesn't talk about it, it's just one step of logic backwards to say he doesn't believe that. And if he doesn't believe it, he's not a man of the canon, that's the point.

All he's doing is leading people down a broad road that leads to destruction. So, beloved, you, right to left and in the middle, you have to be smart enough, you have to be smart enough to look beyond a guy who makes you laugh, who makes you feel good, who always talks about the love of God in some general way but never impresses upon you the holiness of God and your obligation to respond to him. If a guy doesn't leave you with that impression week after week after week, run.

Get away from him just as quickly as you can. And find a man who is a man of Christ and a man of the canon. Now, there's a third way that you can recognize a good pastor.

It's still in John 21 here. He needs to be a man of the church. He needs to be a man of the church. And the message that our own pastor preached at Resolve in 2009 is the full explanation of this.

I'm just going to touch on it briefly. He needs to be a man of the church by which I mean he understands that his primary responsibility is to feed and minister to the flock of Christ. That's his preeminent priority. He is not called to the world, he is called to the church. That's the role of the pastor, the unique role of the pastor. Notice in John 21 verses 15 to 17 at those ending quotes from Jesus, he said, verse 15, John 21 verse 15, tend my lambs, my lambs. Who do I tend, who do I go after, who do I minister to, who do I protect and guard?

My lambs. Verse 16, shepherd my sheep. Verse 17, tend my sheep. As Jesus commissioned Peter to his apostolic ministry, the focus was on equipping the saints. The pastor is not called primarily to the community. His first priority is the church. It is the flock of Christ. He is an under shepherd of Christ to the flock of Christ. The passage that Travis read earlier in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 could not be any more clear about this.

Ephesians 4 verses 11 and 12. Christ gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers. Question, why did he give pastors and teachers? What was the purpose of establishing pastors? What was the purpose of telling Peter, shepherd my sheep, tend my flock?

Why did he do that? Verse 12, he gave them, verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. That's the focus of a pastor teacher. It's not that he is indifferent to evangelism in his own personal life, but he realizes that his primary ministry responsibility is to build up the church. The pastor's job is not trying to redeem the culture, as Travis said last week, to try to become like the culture.

That's baloney. That's just baloney from people who have never understood the primary responsibility of being an under shepherd and one who cares for the flock of Christ. He's not trying to redeem the culture. He's not trying to attract seekers who don't even believe in Christ into the church. A pastor has to understand that his responsibility is to build up the flock.

He seeks to protect believers and increase their sanctification. You're in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 20. Actually, let's go to verse 16.

I have to skip over a little bit of stuff here. In verse 12, he said that he gave pastors and teachers to the building up of the body of Christ. Look at verse 16. Verse 15, as you speak the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, causes the growth of the body, the body, the body of Christ, for the building up of itself in love. The focus here is on the body of Christ, building up the body of Christ. Now, what does that mean?

Well, in verses 17 to 19, he separates what we used to be from the way the Gentiles formerly unsaved people, but now in verse 20, look at this. A man of the church. He's got to be a man of the church. What does that mean? He builds up the church.

What does that mean? He promotes their sanctification and their growth in holiness. Verse 20, remember this is all flowing out of the importance of building up the body of Christ, which is the pastor's primary responsibility. Verse 20, but you did not learn Christ in this way, in the way of the Gentiles, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that here's what the pastor's teaching is supposed to promote, that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Righteousness and holiness. That's what his teaching should be promoting in your life, and that is his responsibility to promote the righteousness and holiness of those who are in the church. That's what he gives his life to. That's what he aims his teaching at. And so as soon as you hear a pastor say, oh, I want to reach the seekers, or I want to reach the community, and that sounds really good and it sounds really spiritual and all of that stuff, understand this. When a pastor speaks like that, red lights and alarm bells should go on in your mind, because you should be asking yourself, where does he express an understanding that he has a responsibility, first of all, to build up the body of Christ? And inevitably, I have seen this so many times, and I'm sure you have too, this is a predictable pattern in those who adopt a seeker philosophy of the church. They push the Bible out of the pulpit, and the Christians who are there quickly get frustrated because no one is feeding them the Word of God.

There's a reason why that frustration happens. It's because the pastor is not pursuing the right priority. And so the saints languish while we minister to people, supposedly while they try to attract people into the walls of the church who really don't have a desire for the Word of God that builds people up and calls them to Christ. A pastor should understand that his primary responsibility is to build you up. If he's concerned about the community, God bless him, but he shouldn't be a pastor. Because the truth is that if a pastor feeds you, if he feeds the flock, if he takes care of his responsibility to feed the flock, outreach will happen as a natural result of transformed lives who are filled with the joy of Christ.

That's the way it works. Just a couple of references here that I'll just read to you. Acts 20, verse 28. I alluded to it earlier without quoting it, I think. Acts 20, verse 28. Paul, speaking to the elders at Ephesus, said, Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock. Be on guard for the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. First Peter, chapter five. First Peter five, verses one and three, one through three. Peter says, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God, not for sordid gain but with eagerness, not as lording it over those allotted to your charge but proving to be examples to the flock. To the flock. Now look, it's not that a pastor should be indifferent or cold in evangelism. That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about what his primary responsibility is as a pastor and how that drives what he does as he leads a church.

That's the idea. He needs to be a man of the church. He needs to be devoted to the care, the love, the building up of the church of Christ.

That's what makes his heart beat, is a love for the church. Finally, point number four. Point number four, he needs to be a man of character. He needs to be a man of character. I'll just write down this passage, Titus 1, verses five through nine, the character requirements of an elder. I want to read a few verses out of 1 Timothy 3 as well.

I'll just read one passage for the sake of time. 1 Timothy 3, he needs to be a man of character. Verse three, if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. Verse two, an overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, and on it goes. He needs to, verse four, manage his own household.

Well, look at this, verse five. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God? It's right there in the character requirements that the care of the church of God is what his primary responsibility is. Take care of the church, be a man of sound doctrine. Be a man of character, of biblical holy character, prudent, respectable, gentle, peaceable.

You could put the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5, 22 alongside that and see what he's talking about. But even as the Bible lays out the character of the pastor, it emphasizes his priorities in the church and in teaching. So, he's a man of Christ. He's a man of the canon. He's a man of the church. And he's a man of character, and we're going over the character things too briefly here.

Here's what I want to say. Understand that a man that God has truly called to ministry is going to manifest all four of these characteristics. It's not that you get two out of four, three out of four right, and the other one doesn't matter. Which one would you cast aside? That he doesn't love Christ, but the other three are okay?

No, that doesn't work. You know, he's not devoted to the Bible, that doesn't work. He's not devoted to the church, that doesn't work. Well, maybe his teaching is really good and you know he's really reformed, but yeah, I know his character stinks.

I know that you can't put him in front of children because you don't know what's gonna come out of his mouth at any given time. No, no, all four are zero. This isn't pass, fail.

This isn't graded on a curve. All four of these priorities should be a dominant direction of the man's life. No pastor is perfect, but the dominant direction of his life and what you see flowing out of his teaching, this is what you look for. It's a high calling of which no man is worthy on his own.

It must be a work of God in his life. What's this mean for you? I'm closing as I read 2 Peter 3, 17 and 18. What does this mean for you?

How do you take this and apply it? Discernment and your own pursuit of righteousness. The end of 2 Peter chapter 3.

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. But by contrast, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the clarity of your word. We thank you for your faithfulness to your church to raise up men who manifest these characteristics. We ask you to support them, not just in our church, Father, but men like this throughout all of the world who are faithfully trying to minister on behalf of Christ. Father, we would embrace all of those in this prayer and ask you to gather them up and bless them and direct them. Father, for these that are here, take these words, seal them in their heart, lead them to shepherds that would manifest these characteristics. And as they go, Father, may these words of promise from you be ringing in their minds. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace.

Amen. Well, friend, before we go for today, I just want to let you know of a companion resource to this series that is available on our website, thetruthpulpit.com. It's my book titled John MacArthur, an Insider's Tribute. It gives you a number of insights into pastoral ministry from my up-close observations of one of the greatest pastors of the past 100 years, John MacArthur. You can find that on our website.

Again, the book title is John MacArthur, an Insider's Tribute. You can find it on our website, thetruthpulpit.com. Thanks for being with us. Join us next time as we continue teaching God's people God's word. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's word.