Transcript

Grab your Bibles and let’s go back to 1 Timothy. We’re calling this series of expositional messages “Beautifying the Bride” because that’s what I want you to get more than anything else is how glorious God is as we contemplate his wisdom, his power and his beauty in deeming to do his work in the world through the church. And so as he gives all this information, on the human side it’s the Apostle Paul writing this letter to Timothy who’s functioning as pastor or overseer of the local church at Ephesus, and unfolding before us is one area after another of, of local church life and here’s what I’m gonna say to you, if you memorize everything I happen to preach to you and you’re not gonna do that, figure of speech, but if you memorize everything I say to you about how a biblical church is to be structured and how it’s to function but you miss the glory of God in it, then you’ve missed everything and I’ve tried to bring that out some last week as I talked about your place in it and your part in the local church. This is God’s masterpiece. You understand something, your marriage isn’t gonna make it pass judgment day if it lasts that long, but if you were to be alive, married, have your family unit when Jesus returns, it’s over then. You’re gonna, that’s gonna be dissolved into a higher thing but the church will exist forever. After that moment, the church still continues on in glorious perfection and God is doing his work in the world through preaching his Gospel and building his churches and the splash-over into our present situation, that’s the greatest thing we can do to impact the world for good.

I, I would say if, if history was honest without exception the great advances in human rights around the globe came from the preaching of the Gospel. You can go to, um, tribal groups and ethnic groups around the world by quite honestly where their wives and their daughters were brutalized but once the Gospel came, the men’s hearts were changed and those ladies had a new liberation and freedom from the oppression they were feeling. Now it’s, now, now you’re not gonna learn this in your secular university but it’s just the truth. It’s just the truth. If there was not the Gospel influences in our Constitution, the Constitution would have never been written in the way that eventually it would have had to, they would either have to change the Constitution or kept slavery. It’s the truth of the Gospel that changes everything for good.

So what’s our role? Our role is to be the best local church folks training pastors, helping other local churches to be the best they can be for God’s glory both here and throughout the world. Now will we fix everything in the world? Absolutely not but as I’ve said to you many times, our primary goal is not to make Satan’s world a little better world, though we would like to splash some good over and help it, our major goal is to build God’s church in the world.

Well, we’ve come to this section of 1 Timothy where we’re talking about, um, church members’ duties to their pastors. If you’re new around here, it’s a little awkward for me to preach this because it seems so wholly self-serving but I just exegete what’s next in the text. I am taking a good more time with this just to be honest, this is gonna be three sessions that I will teach in the Pastoral Training Institute, so the fact that we mentor pastors and are training pastors, I’m developing this out more than I would probably, well, I know than I would just preaching it to you. But you still need to know this and you still need to stand on this and let me say this as a, is disclaimer the word, upfront. You as Grace Life Church are living out God’s requirement. I’m not saying you’ve arrived but I am the recipient and these other men on staff are the recipients of you living out this truth and so for most of this it’s not a reproof or a correction to you, hopefully it’s an affirmation but yet there’s still neat things to learn from this text.

Alright, we come to part 2 of “Church Members’ Duties to Their Pastors,” and we’re in 1 Timothy 5:17-18. Look at it there with me. Paul writing to Timothy to get everything organized in the local church at Ephesus says,

17 The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

Okay, I., I want you to notice a piercing and profound exhortation. A piercing and profound exhortation. I say piercing here because it just goes straight to the point. Paul just jumps on this topic of elders and how they’re to be cared for by the local church and the way he says it there’s just no getting around what he’s saying. It’s straight to the point. It’s piercing. And then I said it’s also profound. It’s profound because quite honestly if you’re like me, when I came into Christianity, I was converted at age 18, I, I came into Christianity with very little Bible understanding and when I came across truths like this, it was radically opposite of what I naturally thought would be there and, and isn’t that true? I, I love, you remember that phrase I give you sometimes that as I grew in Christ I found out, out that I was more conservative than God? We come to these convictions and conclusions and we just assume, “Well, God in God’s word is gonna line up with that,” and then we get to God’s word and we realize we have to repent and reshape our thinking to match God’s word. So when it comes to churches caring for their pastors, I think there’s some profound things here that are not what we would naturally think should be there and, of course, we come from the context and the environment of the Roman Catholic doctrine of a vow of poverty and then we turn on our televisions and we see televangelists who make millions, literally millions of dollars a year. So you have these radical extremes that you know we don’t agree with in any way. One is, ah, the theology of a vow of poverty and one is the theology called prosperity theology and both are unbiblical but the truth here is piercing, it’s in the present imperative which means it has a command nature to it, he’s commanding this thing, so that’s, that’s part of the piercing, and profound because I think to all of us it’s shocking to our natural perspective when we open the word of God and think about this.

Well, first of all, he says the elders who, and he uses these two words in the New American Standard, who rule well. We’re still under piercing and profound, okay? Who rule well. God has given the rule over the local church to God-called pastors. Scholars tell us you might can translate this preside well. They oversee it. Three thoughts as I thought about what should you think about if you are evaluating is that pastor ruling well? Is he overseeing well? Now it implies there may be some men who they shouldn’t be fired, they, they shouldn’t be denigrated or undermined but they may be pastors who don’t rule as well as others. That’s actually, that’s basically what the text is saying. Some just do better than others. God has given to the church men and they’re not all exactly the same. But three thoughts come to my mind and you could have eight and you could have six or whatever, but three thoughts come to my mind.

1. If he’s ruling well, he rules in truth. He rules in truth. Brothers and sisters, listen to me, I am not the shepherd of this church, I’m the under-shepherd of this church. I’m the steward of another’s property and I must if it bothers me or if it bothers you, I still must exercise my pastoral leadership and oversight in his truth, the word of God. Sometimes it pricks our hearts, sometimes it’s like a dagger, sometimes we already agree with it but whatever it is, a man who stands in this pulpit or any local church pulpit and exercises his presiding or overseeing of the church must be anchored in truth. I, I don’t care, I saw and, and you can’t help with these things because I saw this pastor come on and apologize and apologize and apologize and apologize and apologize because some people said he wasn’t doing some things just right. I want to be compassionate, I want to hear, I want to listen but you listen to me, burn me at the stake, I’m not backing up on the truth. If everybody misses understand, misunderstands it, if everybody thinks, “Well, that’s just not helpful,” I don’t care. He’s not, it’s not my church, it’s his and he is the way, the truth and the life.

He must rule well by ruling in truth and then I use the word faithful and it’s that would connect to the first one too, but he must rule over the church in faithfulness. That means if, and Paul is saying to Timothy, “You’ve, what you have to watch these, these men and after a season if they’ve ruled well, then here’s the way you take care of them.” That’s what he’s coming to here. So there, there must be a consistency. Never perfection but long-term has he been faithful in what he’s supposed to be doing?

Then thirdly and this one’s difficult, maybe over the years and I literally means years it becomes somewhat easy to identify and that is, is his motivation love? Is his motivation love? Is his motivation love for God and God’s glory first? I love you but I love God and his glory more than you. I would rather make God happy and upset you. If, if a pastor displeases God it doesn’t matter if he pleases everyone and if a pastor pleases everyone and does not please God, it doesn’t matter at all either. Is his motive to love God and love the church?

Alright, he has to rule well, and then another phrase in verse 17, if he does, then he’s to be considered worthy of double honor. Considered worthy is the idea of he’s deserving. Get it in your minds and never let it leave that when you give gifts to God’s purposes through your local church, you are not contributing to charity, you’re paying a debt you owe. It’s deserved. A service has been rendered to you and you are in debt to compensate for it. That’s Christian truth. Charity has a lot of pride in it. “I did these charitable things.” I’m sorry, when you give tithes and offerings at Grace Life Church, you have not contributed to charity, you’re giving your obligation to God. I told you there was some profound or a little bit shocking things in the word of God about this area. I kinda like that. I don’t know about you but I’ve never told you in your finances to do what I do not do, and when Pam and I give our tithes and offerings, I don’t think of it in terms of, “Boy, aren’t, aren’t they, ah, ah, ah, privileged down there that I’m helping them out.” No, I, I understand that God has given me so much through this church I’m obligated to bless back materially.

He’s deserving. He’s worthy, the Bible says, of double honor. I may, I’ve got a little statement here in my notes. It’s right to consider your pastor worthy just out of simple obedience. Sometimes you just have to do it until your heart catches up. Sometimes you do what’s right until your emotions embrace it. That’s the way Christianity, we function on truth, not our emotions. Have you ever heard that from this pulpit before? Boy, wouldn’t it be good if the world functioned on truth and not their emotions? So it’s right to consider them worthy out of central obedience but it’s best, best to consider them worthy from the heart. I love them. I love what has happened in my life. I love the Christ that has been formed in my, my life, and so therefore it’s not just my duty, that’s there but I love them back and want to do it. Considered worthy.

Then he uses the word honor. He says double honor but I’m gonna get to double in a moment but he says consider them worthy of honor, time, simple Greek word. Now A. T. Robertson is probably the best Greek scholar of the last 100-200 years or so and certainly in Baptist life, Evangelical life in general maybe we could say, and A. T. Robertson says this was a common word for the day and often translated “pay” or “price.” It means financial remuneration, honor. It doesn’t exclude honor in other ways but every scholar you look at says it at least includes financial honor. No doubt this is where we get our word “honorarium” from. We do that from time to time, we’ll have a guest preacher in and sometimes the elders will say, “Well, we gonna take up a love offering or give an honorarium,” and I’ll just make my suggestion and say, “Well, you know, he’s only here for a day, why don’t we do X amount of dollars and that’ll be his honorarium.” It’s a financial gift.

I don’t know how our guest preachers would like it if I put my arm around them, we can’t do that right now, but if I put my arm around them and patted them on the back and said, “We honor you, brother, have a good week.” They’d say, “Wait a minute, whoa, whoa, time out. You, you didn’t, you didn’t exegete 1 Timothy 5:17 just right here. You missed what was really implied in the word ‘honor’ here.” My point to you is every scholar says, many scholars say it means only financial remuneration, but all scholars say it must include that, alright?

One scholar said simply what this means is the honor expressed by gifts. Now in the immediate context, we know that this has to refer to material or financial compensation. For example, go back to verse 3, we have the exact same Greek word in verse 3 for widows, ” Honor widows who are widows indeed.” Now in that context honoring widows means put them on the list and financially and materially take care of them. So he takes that same Greek word, he brings it now over to the elders and he says, “Now honor them.” So in the context that’s clearly got to mean financial remuneration and then when we get down to the next verse, verse 18, what is he talking about in 1 Timothy 5:18? “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle the ox while he’s threshing,’ and ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.'” That’s financial compensation. There’s no way to make it mean anything else.

Then, of course, we have the wider context of Scripture, that would be considered the immediate context, and the wider context of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 9:14, “So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.” Matthew 10:9-10, this is a powerful thing because it’s again one of those things that I hadn’t looked at in a while and how Jesus just comes straight out and lays it out. Matthew 10:9-10, “Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts.” In other words, I want you to go out preaching representing me and take nothing with you financially. Then he goes on in verse 10, “or a bag,” don’t even take a, a luggage bag for your journey. Don’t take an extra coat, whatever’s on your body’s enough. “Don’t take extra sandals or staff, for the worker is worthy of his support.” The people you preach the word to out to take care of all of those things for you. That’s what Jesus said.

Again, that’s kinda profound to me. I be quite honest and that’s not saying that’s an absolute law for all men who go out to preach because I want to be honest with you, when I go to preach, I take extra clothes when I go somewhere else. I just don’t know that they’re gonna say, “Here’s a credit card. Go down to Dillard’s and you get plenty of clothes while you’re, we wanna bless you.” It’d be biblical if they did but they simply don’t do that. But obviously it’s the principle. Jesus as he’s beginning the establishing of his church in the world wanted to make it very clear those who go out from me represent me and if they receive me, they receive you, and if they receive you, they’re receiving me and they ought to be taken care of.

Again, I’m a blessed man at Grace Life Church because you work to try to be faithful in these ways and you’ve proven that through the years and to be quite honest, I have to give Dr. Bob Pittman a lot of credit here because when I was his associate pastor he was very strong on this, and he’s the one who began the whole concept when we have guest preachers in, that we’re not paying them for a week, we’re investing in their lives and that’s why as the best of my memory we’ve never had a person come for a four day meeting that we did not at least give them about $24,000-25,000. Some up close to $50,000 because we just said, “We’re just, we’re gonna bless them.” You know why they need to be blessed? Because those dear evangelists, a lot of them had been in a lot of stingy churches. We were doing the exact same thing Paul told the Corinthians, he said, “I’m robbing from other churches to take care of my ministry to you because you’re so doggone backslidden you won’t give me anything.” And so we try to do that for our guest evangelists.

So the principle was established here before I became the senior pastor and, ah, again, ah, the fact, well, let me use Galatians 6:6 reaffirming again how Paul taught this throughout his writings to the churches. “The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him.” So responding back the good things, it means material things because he’s giving you the good things of spiritual investments in your life. Um, when I first became a Christian, I, I had just, ah, I think what would be a common mentality that it, I felt guilty if I was paid. Like I’m not supposed to have anything. I’m, I’m supposed to be, have the most meager, ah, existence in, in, and give it all to the Lord’s work and I, I have through the years, I think, given generously back to the Lord’s work and tried to and, and, and it, and it just didn’t click with me that it’s a blessing and an important minister to, ministry rather to those under you to compensate you. And Bob Pittman used to tell me sometimes when I would, and I was difficult. I was difficult and he had to correct me sometimes on this, he said, “Brother Jeff, don’t rob them of the blessing.” And I thought, “Wow, this actually a ministry and a blessing.” Now look, if you don’t belong to the Lord, if you’re not born again, if you’re not changed by the Gospel, this don’t apply to you but for those who have been, the Spirit affirms this is the right track.

Okay, now we get to the word “double.” He said, “Okay, church, um, those ministers who preside well, they rule well, are to be considered worthy, they’re deserving of honor which includes financially taking care of them.” Well, how much? Double honor. Verse 17, they’re worthy of double honor, diplos if I’m saying that right is the Greek word here. Di, meaning two. It literally means twofold. That’s what you’d use it in other places and just translate it twofold. So he says if the, if you’ve watched this man minister and he’s ministered well for a season of time, then you are to consider him from your heart, I’m adding that but the Christian truth would substantiate that, from your heart consider him worthy of double honor which must include financial compensation. Now again, this was really strange to me early on in the ministry. It was just one of those areas where I just kinda resisted and I thought, “No, this can’t be.” But right there it is.

Now we ask the question here, is this a figure of speech or are we to take this literally? Well, I personally don’t think it’s meant to be held as an absolute law of a double amount of salary. I do see it as a figure of speech. I think that’s how it’s used in Revelation 18:6. Revelation 18:6, the harlot church, what does it say? And God said she’s done all these wicked and evil things in the church, now we’re going to double back to her. We’re gonna pay her back in judgment double of all the wicked things she did in the earth. I don’t think that means literally double, it means large, great judgment’s coming back on her. That’s the idea here.

So when I see this in the text, I think it’s best to interpret that you are to compensate your faithful pastors with double honor not as an absolute double salary but as a large or great salary. That would be the best way to interpret that, but there are some qualifications, are there not? Matter of fact, there’s something of a progression, there’s something of levels taught here in this text. I would lay it out this way, there’s an implication and there’s actually specific instructions involved in the way I’m laying this out. First of all, number 1, any man who functions in the office of elder or pastor deserves honor. Now he doesn’t say it that way here but that’s what’s implied. He jumps right into double honor but it, it implies that all who have the office deserve honor and that includes financial support. Then he says now if they’ve ruled well, let’s go to another level here, if they’ve ruled well, then double honor. Then he goes to another level and he says and especially if they’ve, have a long term reputation proven example of working hard in preaching and teaching. I see three things there. If they have the office, honor. If they presided well, double honor. If they’ve presided well especially in preaching and teaching, then make sure you take good care of those elders in your church.

Now the word “work hard in preaching and teaching” in verse 17 is a word that literally means “to be exhausted.” It means it’s his task to primarily be responsible for the teaching and preaching of the church and he is to exhaust himself in it. It doesn’t mean he preaches for 60 hours a week, it means the load of it all, the responsibility of it all. That’s what he expends his energy in. Ah, in another place Paul tells Timothy to be up to his ears in his preaching and teaching. That’s what literally the Greek word means. Be up to your ears in it, Timothy. And then in another place Paul tells Timothy, “Timothy, in preaching and teaching, labor to the point of exhaustion.” And I come from a blue collar background. Ah, honestly when I came into the ministry I thought preaching was as far as exhausting you was just nothing. I thought you’ve got to, you’ve gotta get dirty, you’ve gotta skin your knuckles, you’ve gotta shovel dirt, you gotta be physical stuff to say you’ve done any work. Man, was I wrong. I’m telling you, I worked non-union heavy construction, I built and tore down concrete forms and tied reinforcement bar for concrete. Non-union, that means when my job got caught up, I went and did something else hard. And that’s where I come from and that’s what I thought work was but I’m telling you, nothing exhausts you if you’re God-called and care, if you just got the gift of gab and can get up and just throw it out there, that’s a different thing, but if you’re God-called and care, nothing. It’s, I, I tell young preachers if you’re faithful in studying and praying and preparing and preaching the word, it’s like every molecule of your body is, has the energy squeezed out of it by Sunday night and that’s why these words are used, labor to exhaustion, ah, work hard means to, to, to preach and teach and all the energy and it brings you to a point of fatigue. He says, “Okay, that’s the third level. They especially are worthy of this double honor.”

John Milton was a highly esteemed Puritan of his day and he had this simple statement. He said, “Laborious teaching is the most honorable role that one minister can have above another in the Gospel.” This preaching and teaching role. I believe this is where Ephesians 4 gets the office of pastor/teacher. Ephesians 4:11 says God gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and then some as pastor/teachers. I believe there’s a difference between elders, that there are elders who all have to be able to teach but it is God’s pattern to only give a church one preaching pastor, a pastor/teacher, and I think that’s primarily what is emphasized here.

Again, all elders have to be able to teach but often that’s a small group setting or a counseling setting. They are not all gifted to be the preaching pastor and I think also that is the man who is primarily responsible to set the vision for the church. I, I, I’ve had people argue with me, well, disagree with me here. Not in our church, but I’ve had people disagree with me saying now all the elders are exactly alike. I mean, they, they all can preach just alike, they all can teach just alike, they all, I guess, they’re assuming can administrate just alike, they all have the same gifts [unintelligible]. I said, “Hold on, time a minute, time out a minute. Would you want 12 Jeff Noblit’s in one room?” Brothers and sisters, when I see something in the book, it’s like we’re gone. We’re, we’re after it. You don’t need 12 of those people, they’ll kill each other. Here’s my point: do we need 12 Peter’s, Apostle Peter’s? No, you know how Peter is from the text but didn’t he make a good leader when the book, when the Spirit fell in Acts. He stood upfront and was the primary preacher. Now they all preached and taught. Matter of fact, Acts 2 tells us they all went house to house in more of a Bible study format perhaps and taught the, the apostles’ doctrine. But Peter was the primary public preacher at that time. You go to the Gentiles, Timothy preaches and teaches, Titus preaches but Paul is the primary leader, and that’s the structure we see Old Testament and New Testament. There are different gifts and different callings among one elder body.

But the point that Paul is making here is that, um, this is how churches take care of, this is their duty to their pastors. A man in the office of pastor, honor him includes financially pay him well. If he presides well, double honor him which includes large financial payment, and especially if he presides well and is faithful in preaching and teaching the word. I, um, suffice it to say many, should I, could I say most Baptist Evangelical churches are mildly biblical on this point. Do you know how many pastors I work with and help who are living right at or barely above the poverty line? And bless their hearts, I don’t know if these men are actually evil, maybe they’re just ignorant but I talk to the men of their church and they wear it like a badge of honor. “He’s a man of God and we don’t want him to look in the community like he has many material things.” Where’d you get that? You didn’t get it from this book.

So he’s got all the burdens of reforming a church, the warfare, the hatred, being undermined, splits in the church, the other pastors in the community undermine him because they don’t want him to be that biblical, it makes them look bad. He’s got all this stuff coming at him and then he’s gotta worry about, “Can I put shoes on my babies this fall when school starts?” I’m telling you, folks, there’s gonna be – listen to what I’m – there’s going to be a serious accountability at the judgment seat of Christ for deacon boards who didn’t take care of faithful preaching men of God in their churches. I’ve told you many times when it, when, when we deal with guest preachers and we give them these large gifts, I’ll gladly stand at the judgment seat of Christ and hear Christ say, “You know what? You gave that old boy a little bit too much.” I do want, I do not want to stand before my Lord and him says, “I sent My servant to you and you were stingy. Wasn’t, that wasn’t the way I take care of My people.”

Now folks, and, and I’ve got, I’ve got part 3, you’re just getting part 2 and I’m gonna deal with some of this thinking because the pastors who watch our broadcast and church leaders and for our training institute I, I developed some other things I want to talk about. This came to my mind, um, you’ll be going down the road sometimes, have you see this on church marquees out front and it says, “We love our Pastor Johnny and Sister Susie.” It’ll be on the marquee out front. I want to roll down my window and scream back out there, “Then pay them well and get his name off the marquee.” The Bible doesn’t say anything about put it. Now that’s a sweet gesture, don’t misunderstand me. If you love him, pay him. Compensate him to where he’s comfortable. Now we’re not talking again about the extreme prosperity gospel stuff and we’re not talking about the unbiblical vow of poverty which is really just a, a false humility, it’s a false show of humility. It’s not true. Humility doesn’t have anything to do with what you got, your stuff, it’s got to do with your heart.

I’m gonna have to hurry. II. A practical and prominent illustration. So Paul reinforces what he’s talking about by using two illustrations that are practical but very prominent in this day. The first one is a threshing ox. That’s the first practical and prominent illustration, a threshing ox. Now the ox would be hooked to a threshing sled and the ox would be made to walk back and forth over that grain, we’ll just say it’s wheat, and as he stomps on it as the sled rolls on it, the pressure and the grinding would cause the grain to separate from the husk then you could gather all the grain up. But the Bible says don’t put a muzzle on that ox if he’s working for you in the grain. He ought to get some too. We see that from, um, Deuteronomy 25:4, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he’s threshing.” So this has been around for generations. Paul even used it when he wrote to the Corinthians about how they should be supporting him financially. “For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle the ox while he’s threshing.'” God is not concerned about oxen, is he? Paul’s saying, “Do you think God just wrote this for the oxen?” So take your PETA hat off, that’s not what we’re talking about here. They’re still beasts, they’re still brute beasts but a good person doesn’t abuse their animals. That’s what he’s saying. God says we’re to have concern for our beasts so have some consideration. If he’s gonna trod that grain out with his nose smelling that grain all day long, don’t be cruel and muzzle him up where he can’t eat a little bit along. That wouldn’t be right.

So the point is if the beast deserves this consideration for breaking the grain out of the husk for you, how much more the pastor who faithfully breaks the bread of eternal life for you? And if the man who would muzzle the ox while the ox is threshing for him is unkind, how much more grievous is the church that does not properly care for the preaching pastor who’s faithfully threshes out the word of God for your spiritual nourishment? That’s the point.

Now the other practical and prominent illustration from the day is, is where he says the laborer, verse 18, last phrase, the laborer is worthy of his wages. We know that Jesus also used this in Matthew 10:7-10, we referred to it a while ago where he said, “Now as you go out and preach, ah, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons, freely you receive, freely give.” In other words, “You preachers now, you’ve been given grace that saved you, you’ve been given the gift of this great teacher of the word of God, now you go out and give it to others but don’t acquire gold or silver or [unintelligible] or a bag or whatever because the worker is worthy of his wages or of his support.” So Jesus used this and what the scholars tell us is this was most likely a phrase that came out of the culture of the day. In other words, under common grace all mankind understand this truth, even the unsaved, unregenerate heathen know this is right. Paul’s point, if the unsaved unregenerate heathen know this, how much more should God’s redeemed church get this? Context and especially when compensating God’s preacher.

Philippians 4:17. Paul is ending his letter to the church at Philippi. The church at Philippi had done what the Bible teaches about compensating the Apostle Paul and so here’s what he says back to them in verse 17, he says, “Not that I seek the gift,” he said, “I got the gift you sent but it wasn’t just about me getting the gift,” he said, “I seek the profit which increases to your account.” He said, “There is fruit, there’s a blessing back to you because of the way you took care of me, God’s preacher.”

Grace Life Church of the Shoals, you have a record of taking good care of me and God, I’m convinced, has brought fruit and blessing back into your lives because of that. Some of you men, your business is still doing good after all these decades because you’ve always stood for let’s take good care of our pastor. That’s exactly what that verse is teaching. The profit comes back to you.

Verse 18 of Philippians 4, Paul continues. Paul says, ” I have received everything in full,” in other words he said, “I can’t, I can’t even hold anymore, you’ve been so generous.” Then he uses the phrase, “I have an abundance,” it means, “I have over and above what I need.” Then he says, “I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent.” Now notice here, Paul doesn’t say at this point it was too much, you shouldn’t have done it, I’m gonna return a bunch of it. He doesn’t say that. He says that kind of giving is a fragrant aroma, it’s the picture of the priest of the Old Testament burning the incense and the image there always was God is so satisfied and glad in that, that environment. “A fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice,” the last phrase, “well, ah, well- pleasing to God.” It means God accepts as an offering to himself when you generously support me in my work like you’ve been doing. Kind of profound, is it not?

Verse 19, now he turns around and says but this is gonna, you gonna get something out of this too, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” That’s verse 19. Now notice he says “my God,” he said “the God I know, the God I preach, the God who saved me, the God who redeemed me, the God who gave me this office of preaching, He will supply.” Actually fully supply is what it means. Actually it means fill to the full. Paul is saying, “I can’t financially give it back but God will fill you to the full.” I forgot what part of this verse but one Greek scholar said it really means to cram it in there. God’s gonna cram it in there for you. He’s gonna put all he can and then he’s gonna take the lid and he’s gonna pull the lid back and stuff some and slam the lid real quick to give you back all you can.

You know why a lot of Christians are still babies and still struggling and deficient in their spirituality? Because they don’t understand the giving and receiving concept in the New Testament that you can’t, and I’ll get into this in part 3, listen, you can’t be given to spiritually faithfully and receive the blessing of it and the benefit of it like you need to if you don’t give back material to the one who gave you spiritually. It’s, it’s, it’s essential part of spiritual disciplines and exercise in God’s economy. And again, you’ve been, in my opinion, you’ve lived this out well for years. If you, look, if you, if our elders were stingy toward me or the staff, I’d tell you. I’d tell you. But they, they don’t. They, they try to honor this truth and, and I haven’t chronicled it on a calendar or anything but, man, I’m th th in my, I’m in my 40 year, I haven’t concluded it but I’ve completed 39, I’m in my 40 year here, time after time after time after time after time after time we’d be doing the budget and it’d be one of those years where it’s just kinda tight. If you’re running a business, you wouldn’t do what I’m about to say we did, and, um, a little exhortation went back and forth maybe and the men decided, “You know what? These guys deserve to be blessed. We’re just going to put it in here to give them,” I mean, this was years ago, there was one, a couple of years if you folks teach school, you know this was years ago, but there were two years where the teachers got a 5% raise and then a 7% raise. Boy, don’t you wish those days would come back, schoolteachers? But that happened but we were in a tough spot at the church and the, the staff hadn’t gotten a raise in a few years but the men came up and they said, “We gotta do it.” And so they did something really generous and I’m telling you, the next year our finances exploded and that hasn’t happened just once or twice, that’s happened many many many times.

He’s going to, Paul said he’s going to bring this back. He’s going to repay you according to his riches in glory. That means the measure of his supply is immeasurable out of the riches of his glory. The emphasis is not only the quantity but the quality of the way God will give it back to you if you do this. Jesus reinforced this in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. They,” he’ll cause, I don’t know who the “they” are but he’ll cause it to come back to you through people somewhere, “they will pour into your lap a good measure–pressed down, shaken together, and running over.” That’s cramming it in there again. “For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”

It’s been years ago but I was talking to a man who was quite wealthy, not a member of our church, and I knew his commitment to God and I knew something of his record to, to give back to God’s work not just out of his personal income but out of his wealth, out of his business, and I mentioned something to him, I mean, it was obvious he wore fine clothes, he drove a fine car, he had a very nice home, it was obvious he had, he had means. He was doing good and we were just talking about this and he said, “Brother Jeff, I live like I live because I give like I give.” That’s what that verse is saying. Now is that 100% all the time? No, but it’s 100% in some of your lives so far. I’ve been watching you. Here’s what I’m saying: don’t stop up the flow. Don’t stop up the flow. Don’t get scared and stop up the flow. Stay with God on this and from your pastor’s heart, thank you that not just in the last couple of years or five years but for a long time this church has purposed to try to live out the teaching of this text in fulfilling your duty as church members to your pastors.