Transcript

Let’s go back to our study through this New Testament epistle and we are definitely in that practical section. I guess you could say Timothy, this pastoral epistle, is all practical and be honest, I really struggled and I thought, “Lord, at this time with these unique things we’re challenged with, do I need to be dealing with these practical elements of local church life?” And then it actually before the, the service time this morning it just kinda rang true in my mind, what do you tell people to do when they’re discouraged, when they’re anxiety-ridden, when their hearts are heavy? Here’s what you tell them to do: you do the next duty God’s told you to do. You do the next thing God’s told. You get busy with your duties. You don’t sit around and just wallow in the despair of it, you get busy. So maybe that’s part of the reason why in the providence of God we’re in this practical area just to remind ourselves it doesn’t matter what’s going on out there, we stay faithful to our duties as Christians and as church members.

Now we’re looking at 1 Timothy 5:17 and 18. Ah, the apostle has already dealt quite thoroughly with our duties to church widows, how we’re to honor them, how we are to take care of them, even financially support them regularly if they have no family to help them, and now he shifts from widows to pastors and here’s what he says in 1 Timothy 5:17 and 18 and I’ve entitled this “Churches or Church Members’ Duties to Their Pastors.” Verse 17,

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.”

Now as you come to this very practical, clear exhortation about church members’ duties to support their pastor or pastors, um, it’s interesting the way pastors and commentary writers and scholars have handled this. Just, just out of curiosity I Googled online and I wanted to see what some more, ah, shall I say, moderate or more liberal-leaning guys would do with this text and you know what I find? That even across the board I find that guys kinda glance at the text and then move off of it. It’s, it’s like many of them, they, they diminish the clear teaching in this text in a play of humility, but let’s remind ourselves humility is not thinking low of ourselves and that’s what I see guys doing, they’ll, they’ll take this text and say, “Well, you know, I know what this says but, you know, the pastor shouldn’t this and a pastor doesn’t want that, and we’re not suggesting you do this or that.” That’s not humility, that’s thinking about yourself because humility is not thinking low of yourself, humility is not puffing yourself up, humility especially when we come to the text is forgetting yourself. You forget, “Well, this group may think that or that group may think that, or they may think that of me as the pastor.” You’re to forget yourself and faithfully deal with the exposition of the text regardless of the subject.

So I think when we come to texts like this we outta do what the Apostle Paul did when he was dealing with local churches about and in his case the support of himself and ministers in general, he was direct, he was thorough, and he was downright personal about it. So as we look at this, um, and I’ll have to confess, ah, you know, we’re starting our Pastoral Training Institute in the fall and we have a good number of guys interested right now and, ah, the first two classes that will be offered will be my class, it’ll be 40 hours of instruction, I think I’m gonna call it “The Encyclopedia of the Local Church.” I’m going to just thoroughly lay out biblical truths about local church life and then give them the thorough applications we’ve learned through the years, not in a legalistic sense but to give them something to start on. What I would have given if somebody with 40 years of experience in decently healthy local church life had given me something like that. So I’m gonna do that and then Dr. Tim Sills is gonna teach 40 hours on Expository Preaching I, and then there’ll be an Expository Preaching II, and Tim is imminently qualified. He knows how to handle the text and he has experienced planting and developing a biblically sound church. So I think it’s gonna be good and I’m saying all that to say this, I’m doing some things that has in mind that I’m gonna use this later in my lectures in the Pastoral Training Institute, okay? So you’re getting a little maybe more than, ah, you bargained for here but there’s good stuff for all of us. So today’s session, this morning’s sermon will be all background to where Paul’s getting to when he writes this command to fulfill this duty.

So what’s the background? Where does this all come from? Alright, here’s some thoughts. First of all, let’s remind ourselves that there are duties God gives all Christians to perform in their Christian life but primarily in their local church service and ministry. All of us have duties to perform. Now it just so happens at this point in Paul’s letter to Timothy, he’s dealing with the duties of church members toward their pastors.

Now let me say this. Christian pastors are not elitists. They are not unique and special in the sense that we would say there’s some special holiness to him, or he has this unique and special holiness. No, there’s nothing like that that’s true about of, us rather who are in the ministry. We are sinners saved by grace just like everyone else. Where this comes from is the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Pope, the Cardinals, the Bishops and we reject that as false doctrine. Whether you’re talking about the nun or the parish priest or all the way up to the Cardinal or the Pope in Rome, there is no special sanctity or holiness about those people or about those offices. We’re all the same before God as sinners saved by grace. However, the New Testament says this, 1 Thessalonians 5:13, it says to esteem pastors very highly in love for their works, or one translation says for their work’s sake. Because of the high importance of the work God’s given them to do, therefore, not because they inherently are special, no, therefore because of the work God’s called them to do, hold them in high esteem. And Jesus said this in John 13:20, ” Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me.” Now that’s powerful. Jesus says that, “I’m not gonna let you separate honoring Me from honoring the one I send.”

Now I used to be very prone to want to think that way and I think that’s probably natural for all children of grace starting out. We’re all the same. Nobody’s special. We’re all sinners. Absolutely, but when God puts someone in certain positions because of work or ministry he wants them to perform, he says, “If you’re honoring Me, you ought to honor them, and if you dishonor them, you are dishonoring to Me.” By the way, that goes all the way down the line in the way God’s ordered culture and ordered the church, does it not? Children have to honor their parents if they’re honoring God. They can’t say honor God but I dishonor my parents. And on and on we could go. So while inherently there is no such thing in the Scriptures of the Roman Catholic teaching of some sort of, ah, personal holiness or sanctity to someone. No, it’s just because God has set them apart for a work and for the work’s sake we’re to do that and because if we honor our Savior, we honor those our Savior sent.

Now continuing in a background understanding of where, what brought Paul to this particular place and church life to this particular place of having this compensated full- time, ah, clergy they would say in the old days, or ministers, elders or pastors, these words are interchangeable or those titles are interchangeable. We do know now in the earliest days of the church, the first century AD, the churches all depended on the apostles and the apostles’ associates to be the preachers and teachers. They were itinerants. They would literally go from place to place wherever a group of believers was. They would walk in the door and they had authority, apostolic authority you would call it, and they would preach and teach. And then as Christianity began to spread, this was no longer feasible and so men within the churches began to be appointed by the apostles as pastors or elders in those local churches, and so increasingly the churches depending less on the apostles to tour through and teach them, and they had a regular preacher/pastor/teacher to teach them regularly in their own local church.

Now what happened is as time passed and these men who were appointed as elders, those who were especially gifted in preaching and teaching became more prominent. So we see this chronological evolutionary process but what I want you to understand is that didn’t just happen. It’s not just pragmatic in what the circumstance allowed, it’s God organizing things as he sees fit over time. For example, Ephesians 4:11 just lays this out beautifully, “And He gave some as apostles, prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastor/teachers.” Notice that, in the very beginning there were just apostles, then accompanying them were some prophets, and then they’re accompanying them were some evangelists. Now the evangelist is, I think, maybe more than a little bit different than what we normally call an evangelist today. They would have just been more like missionaries. They went in to pioneer areas, unreached areas, and they preached the Gospel and got a, a group that said they were converted and then they founded and started the local church, and then they would hand that off to somebody and go work at another pioneer unreached area. Alright, we had that going strongly and then he says apostles, prophets, evangelists and then pastor/teachers. Literally that, that word is, it’s, it’s a two parts of one office. Pastor whose job is teaching. Ah, you could as easily translated it a shepherd instructor and that’s the final stage that lasts until Jesus returns and we set up or he sets up the eternal state.

So what we find here is that when these pastor/teachers were appointed in these churches, they began to realize that they could not handle the role and the burden of studying and preparing and preaching and maintain their secular vocational employment, so there came a need for them to be compensated by the church. Now the church had a struggle with this. There were those in the church that were reluctant about, or, or, “Wait a minute. You mean we’re supposed to gather up money and pay this guy? Is that right? Is, is that proper?” I think, um, one of the things that was going on was, first of all, the churches did learn to support the apostles as they toured through but let me just back up a little bit, that didn’t happen automatically. The Apostle Paul ran into a lot of resistance about receiving compensation or a salary for his work as an apostle and this is before the pastor/teachers were ever started or ever put in place, I should say.

For example, when Paul writes to the Corinthians, we’ll start in 1 Corinthians 9:1-6. Paul is arguing with them if not reproving and rebuking them which actually he is doing that they should be compensating him materially or financially. So he argues in verse 1, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?” Now I don’t have time to unpack all of that but he’s saying, “In every way I have a right to expect you to compensate me.” Verse 2, “If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” My preaching changed your life. Do you not see you owe me back to support me in this work? He says verse 3, “My defense to those who examine me is this,” so evidently there’s a group in the church who rose up to say, “Alright, we’re, we’re not thinking Paul’s worthy. We don’t think Paul’s deserving of this support.” He says in verse 4, “Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” He said, “You seem to have supported other guys, even their families.” Paul says, “I’m single. Do I not have a right to expect you to support me too?” Then he says, “Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working?” That means the secular work, ah, to support themselves. Now we do know in the context Paul said, “Okay, you got a problem with it? Keep your money. I won’t take anything from you.” But then he turns around and writes this letter and rebukes them for it, so it’s kind of interesting. You see the personal aspect here.

So my point is going back before pastor/teachers when there were only apostles, there was a lot of problems with the financial support of ministers even in the apostolic era. Ah, Philippians 4:15 shows a positive side, if you will, he says to the Philippians, “You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone.” He said, “The idea was I gave you spiritual things and I was to receive back from you material things.” He said, “You guys go it pretty quickly. You, you, you caught up in your learning and grasping how this is to work quickly but a lot of others didn’t quite get it yet.” I can take you to a lot of Baptist churches that still don’t get it and, ah, let me throw out this, that, um, Grace Life Church gets it. You take good care of us and there’s no much of a correction here for you. Now there may be a correction in some individual hearts but as a church you’ve, you’ve lived the truth of this and I praise the Lord for that. And by the way, you are the benefactors of that. Your pastors, particularly your teaching pastors cannot be effective if they’re filled with anxiety and worry about paying the bills and buying shoes. Literally I talked with a pastor not long ago and his wife said, “I just struggle to buy my shoes kids for school next year.” God forbid such a thing! You want that man to faithfully proclaim to you the whole counsel of God but you want him to be under such a stinginess that he can’t even comfortably buy shoes for his kids to go to school on. And that’s common, folks. You’re not the normal but you are biblical.

And then we have the positive example of Philemon. Um, I’m talking with some of our businessmen about establishing the Philemon Fellowship. Philemon was obviously a quite successful businessman but he was devoted to the ministry of Paul in training pastors and planting churches, and so Paul when Paul writes to Philemon, he doesn’t even stop to ask, “Can you handle or take care of this and that?” He basically tells Philemon, “I know you’ll take care of me.” They just had that close of a relationship.

So I think in background as we continue on we’re thinking about how this all evolved to the place where there’s pastor/teachers in churches and the churches have a duty to financially compensate and support them. There’s another element I want to bring out and that is the Jewish element of their past. I believe that, um, even the Gentiles, the, the Greeks of the day who didn’t particularly participate in the Jewish religion yet understood well the legalism of the old Jewish system, and when they became Christians they received this Gospel of grace, this new liberty and they’re out from, from under the burden of the law and they’re out from under the coercion and the woefulness of being beat down with this rule and that rule and this rule and that rule or you won’t make it to heaven, they’ve embraced the fact that, “No, Jesus paid my debt. Jesus paid it all. Jesus has cleansed me. Jesus has set me free. I’m not under any coercion of law and burden. I know Christ has set me free.”

So obviously and we know this particularly in some cases but generally speaking these early churches came out of that legalism and they probably thought, “Now if we bring in regular tithes and offerings into the church, we’re going back to that old bondage. We’re going back to the old coercion of the law. We’re going back to that old legalism.” Now let’s talk about the old legalistic Jewish system, the old economy or the old covenant, we might say. What did it teach about tithes and offerings? Well, very simply Leviticus 27:30 teaches that the tithe is holy unto the Lord. In other words, as these guys went out and put their crop in, 10% of that crop was already God’s. It never was theirs. In the biblical understanding of the tithe, the tithe never was ours. From the moment we got whatever we got in, 100 acres of wheat or whatever it might have been in this day, 10% of it belonged to God already. That’s what the law taught, it’s holy unto the Lord.

Now interesting, now what was this for? Why were they to bring? Matter of fact, the Old Testament even amplifies that further and says don’t bring 10%, bring 10% of the first you get in. If you only harvest 10 acres of your 100 acres, bring that 10 acres to the temple first. Then he says not only the first but the best 10%. If you’ve got 100 acres, you don’t say, “Well, we’ve had a lot of rain, You know, that lower bottom down there’s about 10 acres and that’s only gonna produce about half what the rest gives. I’m gonna give that 10 acres to the Lord.” That’s the poorest 10. No, he said, “No, bring the first and the best 10%.” That’s the law.

Now what was that for? Well, Numbers 18:21 and this is taught numerous times throughout the Scriptures, the tithe was given to support the ministers, the Levitical priesthood. To support them for their material. They ate what came in. That’s why in Malachi, and by the way, I’m gonna deal with this some next week and it’s an interesting thing because in Malachi there’s a curse on the land – listen to me – the Old Testament prophet called it a devour has been let loose in the land. And of all things God said, “You know what the primary issue is? I’m sending the devour to devour your houses and devour your crops and possibly to devour your health because you’re robbing Me of tithes and offerings.” We’ll deal with that next week, Lord willing.

In that context, they replied back to God and said, “Well, God, how are we robbing You? We’re not robbing You, God.” And God said, “Yeah, you are. You’re not bringing My tithes and offerings in.” He said, “Bring them,” and here’s how it’s worded, “that there might be food in My house.” That’s weird. Food? I thought this was given unto the Lord? No, it’s food for the priests. God ordained the tithes and offerings would be the material physical sustenance for the priests.

Now trying to get all this in our minds. So the early church came out from under law, the burden of law, the coercion of law including the law of tithes and offerings, and they’re joying in their liberation, they’re celebrating that they’re not under that burden anymore but the problem is they overcompensated. Have you ever heard the word “balance” from this pulpit? They took grace and liberty as a license to sin instead of grace and liberty enable them, enabling them to enjoy what the law required. And they did this in several areas. If you’ll remember, it wasn’t just a few weeks ago in 1 Timothy Paul had to rebuke and correct some ladies in the church, some of the ladies in the church interpreted Christian freedom to mean they didn’t have to submit to authority anymore. They were just out from under their headship and Paul said, “No, you’ve got liberty in Christ. You’re equal before God with your husbands, with the pastors. You’re not secondary. We’re all sinners and all saved the same way but you don’t throw out the God-ordained principle established in creation of male headship.” Now they weren’t being wicked, they just got out of balance. They’re immature. They’re learning. We have the Corinthians, for example. Remember Paul having to straighten out the overcompensation of the Corinthians when they tried to throw the whole concept of marriage out. They thought you’re, you’re really holy if you’re single and can give all your energy serving the Lord and Tom said, Paul said, “No, time out. You’re going too far. You’re missing the point.”

So here we have when it came to tithes and offerings to support ministers they thought, “That’s old law. We need to get rid of that.” So they threw out the baby with the bathwater. So they didn’t get that giving tithes and offerings to support full-time ministers in the church is not wrong and it’s not eliminated because it was taught under the law. No, it should be embraced – listen to me now – not as law but embraced under grace as a blessing. That’s what I want to get to. That’s what I want to pitch a fit about right now. It’s not about your doggone money, it’s about grace changing your heart to glory in the wisdom of God’s ways to build and support his work in the earth. Boy, I’m glad I got an amen out of that. That’s what’s important. By the way, if you’re not born again, if you’re not a child of God, if you’re not a church member, this isn’t for you. This is only for God’s children. This is family stuff.

So now we don’t come to church giving our tithes and offerings primarily because we want God to keep that devour away from our checkbook and our business, though that’s not a bad motive, it’s just not the primary motive. We don’t even come primarily to make sure that Brother Jeff and the staff are well-compensated, though that’s clearly what Paul says here and that’s not a bad motive. The primary motive is, “God’s changed my heart and I’m learning to joy in the wisdom of how He’s put His work together and that’s a part of my part in it.” Grace has taken what was a curse and a burden into a blessing. Praise the Lord.

So Paul’s final argument to the Corinthians, remember we were in 1 Corinthians 9, he’s arguing with them about how they should financially support him and he goes through different various illustrations or metaphors. He said, “By the way, if you’ve got a soldier in your army, how many of you expect that soldier to be a soldier at his own expense? You hire a man to keep your vineyard, how many of you expect him to keep the vineyard and not receive some of it for himself?” That’s the way they paid them in that day. “If you hire a herdsman for your flocks, how many of you expect that herdsman to do his job and not partake of the milk of the flock? If you hire a man to plow your field,” Paul said, “how many of you expect that man to plow your field and not get some of the produce on the field?” He said, “You know the answer to that. You all expect to compensate him.”

Then he gets to his last illustration which I think it’s last because it’s the most important. Here’s his last metaphor or guideline, 1 Corinthians 9:13 and 14. In addition to all of those other things, “Do you not know that those who perform sacred services,” that’s the Old Testament priest he’s talking about, they “eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? So the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.” He said, “Don’t you understand? We’re not under law but God gave us a principle we bring over to the church. Don’t you get it?” You see, the Old Testament law is a type, it’s a foreshadowing of what we live out in the New Testament. The Old Testament has the picture, the New Testament church is the reality. The Old Testament is the shadow, the New Testament is the true thing. The Old Testament gives us something of a shell, the New Testament gives us the substance. It’s not thrown away because it’s under law, it’s fulfilled in grace and it’s no longer law.

Just came to my mind. Do you guys remember the days, we still do some of this but not nearly like we used to, do you remember the days years ago when if you took a leadership position at Grace Life – please don’t stone me for this – we had a list of commitments, a list of standards. That was years ago when we did that. Now we still kinda have that but we’re not so big on it but, you know, back in those days it was common for a lot of folks to believe they were God’s gift to lead and they were very unfaithful in some obvious areas of Christian discipleship and faithfulness. And so I felt like we needed to up the standard and we had all these things, but you know, as we matured in grace and did what we did because we loved God, we didn’t need all the rules anymore because the laws were being fulfilled because out of love we were doing it anyway. Are you with me, church? When you raise your children when they’re little, you’ve got to give a lot of rules, you’ve got to give a lot of specific no’s and do’s and don’ts and those kind of things, but as they get old and grow in wisdom, they do that stuff without you having to bring the rules up all the time. You know what that’s called? It’s called maturity. The Old Testament law is the embryonic stage. A biblical spiritual New Testament church is maturity. That’s where he’s getting to here. Don’t throw it out, just realize how it’s fulfilled and matured in the New Testament church.

So Paul in our book is writing to Timothy about the church at Ephesus to say, “You guys need to get caught up in your thinking here. You need to mature in your thinking here.” Now Paul was quite thorough when it comes to trying to get the churches caught up in their duties to their local church pastors. For example, he said it everywhere he went or to whoever he wrote to basically. In 1 Corinthians he told those Corinthians, “Be subject to such men.” What men is he talking about? Well, at that point the Corinthian church did not have any elders appointed but there were some men who looked like they were becoming the elders, they were working hard and they’d proved themselves and Paul said, “Submit to those men.” In 1 Thessalonians Paul uses the word “to appreciate those men who labor over you.” Then he says to esteem them highly and then he says to love them. That’s what I want more than the rest because if that happens, the rest happens. Hebrews 13:17, to the Hebrew church he says, “Obey them and submit to them.”

Why is Paul doing all this? He said, “I’m trying to get the churches caught up. They came out of the bondage and coercion and legalism of the old dispensation. Now we’re into grace and once we got over into grace some of you got out of balance and overcompensated and think you can throw some things out. They’re not thrown out, they’re fulfilled. They’re not thrown out, they’re perfected in the church. They become a, a heart passion because God through Christ has changed your heart attitude about these things.” So you, there is the duty, you’re to be taught but it’s not a law because it ought to be in your hearts.

So Paul says, “I’m trying to get you caught up. I’m trying to get you back in balance.” Remember, church, that the things under the law are not abandoned under grace, they are perfected under grace. Let me say that again: the things of the law are not abandoned under grace, they are perfected under grace. The law said do not commit adultery, do we throw that out because it’s under law? No, our hearts are changed and we no longer want to be adulterers. See what I’m saying? It’s perfected. It’s not just an outward coercion of law and don’t do this and that, it’s my heart’s changed. The law says to honor your father and mother, I don’t just honor them out of cold external obedience. No, now my heart’s changed and I’m learning to want to honor my father and mother because I know it honors my Lord.

So the law’s not thrown out, it’s perfected under grace and so it is in the area of returning tithes and offerings to support in the Old Testament the priests, in the New Testament it’s perfected to the grace preaching New Testament pastor. So he’s trying to get them to progress forward to full and proper functioning as a New Testament church and, again, this includes embracing the duties they have to their church pastors.

Now I have four conclusions for practical application, alright, and then we’re done. Four conclusions for practical application. 1. Of course, we learn from God’s dealings with Israel and from the old covenant. There’s so much the church founded through Christ and the Gospel of grace can learn by looking back. Excuse me, it’s allergy season and my throat needs water.

1 Corinthians 10:6, “Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.” Now he’s talking about what happened to Israel. Israel was judged severely when she backslid and craved evil things. So the point that I’m making here is the New Testament says we can learn a lot about the way God will deal with us by the way he dealt with Israel in the Old Testament. Now let’s remind ourselves, 1 Peter 4:17, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” Brothers and sisters, we’re under grace and if you’re a child of grace you’re gonna make it to heaven but God may have to handle you and deal with you sternly between here and there. Remind us or we should be reminded that the way God dealt with Israel is a pattern of the way he’ll deal with us and not just from the standpoint of their rebellion and correction but in many many ways. There’s so much we learn from the old covenant that’s perfected under grace.

2. Let’s glorify God for the wisdom, power and beauty of his unfolding plan. I want you to get that. It didn’t just, you don’t just open the New Testament, boom, there’s pastors. No, God was unfolding not only just the plan of how the churches would be led, and not only just the plan of how those ministers were to be supported but everything is unfolding illustrating God’s power, God’s wisdom and God’s beauty and we ought to glory in that. Everything builds to the crescendo of Jesus Christ, the centerpiece of everything, and his perfect glorified bride. From the embryonic stages of the Old Testament to the coming of Christ and his death on the cross, the consummation of the new plan, the new family, to the beginning of the church age in Acts which is actual birthing of the new plan, the new family of God, to the church’s maturation spelled out in the epistles, that’s where we are, he’s bringing us to maturity, and even the epistles point out that church troubles and trials and difficulties are part of his wisdom to make us what we ought to be, all the way to the return of Christ when we’re perfected and glorified with him God is unfolding what he’s doing.

Now if you go all the way back to the Old Testament and you look forward to what God’s doing, you could only see it in shadows and types. It wasn’t very clear but it began to be opened up over time. What is, what is it all about? As God unfolds all that he’s doing, it’s all about the glory of God. It’s all about causing men to look at what he can do and say, “Wow, only God could do that.” In the specific common everyday thing of having pastors and taking care of them, is a part of that overall huge plan. Here’s what I’m saying: don’t diminish anything God’s ordained. It’s all a part of the wonders of his wisdom and power and the beauty of how he can do stuff and we marvel at it all. “To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen,” Ephesians 3:21.

3. My part in the church body is a key part of fulfilling God’s great purposes. Your part is a key part. That jumps out at me as I think about of all the things Paul mentions, he jumps on two verses, well, actually more than two but when it comes to financially supporting the pastors, two verses and said that’s a part but there’s many other parts. The widows have their part, we studied that. The ladies have their part, we studied that. But all of us have a part in this great plan God’s unfolding and, by the way, as you and I do our part, fulfill our duties – listen to me – it causes even the angels in heaven to marvel. They marvel, they look at it and say, “My, what God’s doing.” I, I, I’d almost call it, so listen clearly because I might call your name out, I want to call some names out because he’s called you to a part and he’s called you to a part and he’s called you to a part and you to a part and you to a part, and when we all do our parts in this great, wise, divinely wise plan of God, God is glorified and we get to get in on it. Nothing is incidental.

1 Peter 1:12, “It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you,” that’s the Old Testament saints, they were serving us in the church age, “in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.” Wow, a lot I could say about that. We preach the Gospel to you in the power of the Holy Spirit so these things can be unfolded to you. You can begin to see the wisdom, the mind, the plan of God. Then he says something interesting, the last phrase, 1 Peter 1:12, “things into which angels long to look.” It’s literally a picture of angels stooping over the edge of heaven and saying, “Wow, did you see God take that little old nothing dude? Did you see God take that woman? Well, she’s the most cantankerous woman you’ve ever seen and He’s converted her and saved her and cleansed her and redeemed her righteously through the righteousness of Jesus, gave her spiritual gifts and now she’s doing her duties in her local church and this is all a part of God bringing His ultimate plan to fruition.” That makes me so happy and you’re looking at me like a calf at a new gate. It outta make you happy. Your job’s important. It’s not incidental. It may not be public but it’s important. It’s important. “God, You’re not just, ‘I’m saving a bunch of people.'” No, he’s saved you and cleansed you and wiped the slate clean. You stand guiltless before God, a child of God and then he gifted you and gave you duties in the local church to the end that one day – are you listening to me – he’s gonna return and perfect and glorify it and, listen, the church is gonna be perfectly exactly the way he meant it to be and you had a part in it. Merciful heavens, that’s good.

“Well, I’ve got a self-esteem problem.” Well, get over it. How could you have a self- esteem problem when God’s given you this? Now we all play different roles but we all have a role. 1 Corinthians 12:22-23, “On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary,” huh? “And those members of the body which we deem less honorable,” he’s talking about the church body now, not your physical body, the physical body is the metaphor, those things, parts we seem least honorable “on these we bestow more honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable.” Those lowly jobs, those unseen jobs, those things you think are unimportant God says, “I’ve ordained they’re essential to get the end task accomplished.” “Well, I’m not as important as Brother Jeff. He stands up there and just screams at us and preaches the word of God.” Yes, you are. Yes, you are. It takes all of us doing our duties.

Romans 12:4-5, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

I looked this up. You know an average car has 30,000 different pieces to it. 30,000 different pieces and some of those pieces come together to make up real important things like transmissions or engines, but I found out in my old truck that one 59 cent fuse can blow and the whole thing shuts down. One 59 cent fuse. And that’s the way the church is. Every part is needful. Every part is important and we glory in our God that our part is a part of God fulfilling this magnanimous plan of the ages, building his church and being with her glorified forever one day. I don’t know what God may do through the coronavirus, I don’t know what God may cause or allow through unrest in my country, but you listen to me: the church is going on. The church will be strengthened, the church will be purified, the church will be built up and one day we’ll be glorified with him and we all get to be a part of that.

4. Christian duty should be embraced as helpful guides. Now in particular just for today it could be any Christian duty but the duty Paul has gotten to in our text is the duty of supporting your ministers and it’s clear it’s about materials, financial support. That’s a duty you have, but all the duties are, are included in this principle. They’re helpful guides. In other words, as you fulfill the duties God’s given you, it guides you to nearness of God – now listen to me – and it guides you to fullness of joy. Did you hear me? It guides you to the nearness of God and to the fullness of joy. Job 20:5 tells us that the joy of the ungodly is only momentary. Our joy is not like the ungodly, our joy as believers is now, it’s eternal, and it’s increasing forever. My stars in heaven.

But you have to fulfill your duty to begin to taste this joy. Some of you don’t know the joy, first of all, because some of you don’t know him and some of you know him but don’t know the joy because you’re not faithful in your duties and you’re not near him and you’ve gotta be near him to find the joy. Psalm 43:4 says, “Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy.” Honoring our duties brings nearness of God, which brings increasing joy. “Pastor, it’s, it’s troubling days and my heart is anxious and I’m, I’m concerned. What do I do?” You do your duties. What are your duties? The Scripture makes them clear. We do the best we can under the present situation. In this text, the particular duty was take care of your pastors but there are others, take care of your elders. We’ve already seen that one. And of course, many others.

So as I perform my duties, my nearness to God is increased and the nearer I am to God, the greater my joy, and sometimes we have to just honor our duties until the joy comes – now listen to me – because you’re not gonna be satisfied with the earthly joys that are momentary. You, you want better than that. You want God’s eternal joys. In, in our, in our land right now you know what we’re dealing with a whole lot of? Emotionalism. What we’re dealing with a whole lot of in our land today is sentimentality, just being feelings-driven. Listen to me, Christianity is not about feelings. Grow up, little girl. It’s not about emotions. It’s about truth. I function on truth. Now listen to me, here’s the beauty of it, that’s my duties now, and when I walk in truth, the joy catches up and sweeps me up and carries me along. Sometimes you’ve gotta go forward in your duty because it’s guiding you to the joy. But child of God, your pastor loves you. I’m so grateful to God for you. What are we to do in these trying times? We’re to wake up in the morning and say, “What’s my duty to God today? What’s my duties to God because that’s where I’ll find the joy that’ll keep me through these hours of difficulty and trials.”