Transcript

Grab your Bibles and let’s go to 1 Timothy 3 as we continue on beautifying the bride, her fashion and her function. 1 Timothy is a pastoral epistle. Paul is writing to this young understudy, I consider him the pastor of the church at Ephesus, some might say that’s not exactly what he was but he’s certainly functioning like that. Anyway, he’s overseeing the work there in Ephesus. He’s getting some things in order so Paul is telling Timothy, “Timothy, here’s how I want the local church to be structured and here’s how she is to function.” That doesn’t cover all aspects but many many of them, and we’re talking now about God-called pastors and today we’ll continue with God-qualified pastors.

1 Timothy 3, we continue with part 2 of the God-qualified pastor. Look at it there with me. 1 Timothy 3:2,

2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity 5 (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?), 6 and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. 7 And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Union Theological Seminary is located in New York City. It began in 1836 by the Presbyterians. In its beginning it was a solid, Bible-believing, Christ-honoring, glory of God focused place where preachers could be trained for Gospel ministry, but then it began quickly its descent into radical liberalism. Matter of fact, the, around 1893 or so, ah, the leaders in the seminary believed that we’ve got to branch out beyond the confines of historical Presbyterian doctrine and, ah, we’ve got to be open to new thought. This was about the time that German higher textual criticism crept into American universities and theological, ah, places of training, and professors began to esteem themselves qualified to look at the Bible the way they would study all ancient literatures, whether it be Homer or Shakespeare or whoever, just dissect it, take it apart, see what’s real, see what’s not real, see what’s true and see what’s not true. So in effect, men began, ah, in America probably th th the early part of the 19 , mid part of the 19 century to, to study the Bible as if it was no different than any other book of antiquity. They set themselves up as the authority over the Bible instead of studying under it with the Bible over them as their authority.

So the first thing that began to happen at Union Theological Seminary was the questioning of the verbal inspiration of the Bible, that is, that every word, the very words are inspired by God and put there by God. Now folks, listen to me, that’s where it always starts. That’s where it always begins, is the Bible really the word of God? I guess you have to call up the elite professors of Union Theological Seminary and let them tell us, don’t we? Of course not. Today Union Theological Seminary calls itself “a leading center of liberal Christianity.” Well, I think the Scripture would define Union Theological Seminary as a leading center of the Spirit of the antichrist. Everything ungodly seemingly is embraced and proposed there.

On September 17, this last Tuesday, they held a chapel service there at the seminary entitled “Our Confession to Plants.” They brought all of these plants into the chapel. It looked like they had some corn, maybe some okra and some peas, some different plants, they had them all there and the instruction was that we’re gonna all come in here and contemplate and repent and apologize to the plants. You can’t make this up. This is exactly what they did. In social media to explain the chapel service that day, now you wonder why I fight so hard about sound doctrine and holding to the truth because this is where it gets you if you don’t, here’s what they said on social media, “Today in chapel we confessed to plants. Together we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer offering them to the beings who sustained us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.” So they turned their hearts to the creation instead of the Creator who is blessed forever. The Apostle Paul in Romans 1 says that’s exactly what happens to men who’ve been turned over to reprobate minds, they worship the creation instead of the Creator.

And you think about this and I see this all throughout our culture today, there’s goodness in repentance, there’s goodness in gratitude, there’s goodness in showing appreciation, but the, the, the world we live in, the satanically controlled world takes those good sentiments and twists them and warps them and perverts them. So instead of praising God and thanking God and repenting before God that we are not grateful for all of his gifts as we ought to be, they bring the stinking plants in there. That’s not very fair to plants to be plucked up and put in pots anyway and dragged inside the seminary, and they sit in front of the plants and express repentance and gratitude. What a warping twisted sense of a good sentiment or a good desire to repent and show gratitude.

Well, I submit to you this morning there’s something far more serious than this and that is the constant effort of the enemy to warp and twist the qualifications for Gospel ministry. Satan gets far more done by congregations who choose men to fill their pulpits because they have the natural propensities to be a public leader or speaker but not the godly biblical qualifications for it. They look for the natural skills. He’s a good preacher if he has the gift of persuasion, if he has the right talents, the right people skills, if he’s naturally winsome, and you could go on and on. That’s just naturally where we go. Does he visit well with the people?

Now certainly a God-called God-qualified man will have some of these in varying degrees but biblically these are not important. If you lay great importance on those, you have a warped and twisted understanding of what a true God-called God-qualified man looks like. In fact, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 again lays down a real powerful foundation of understanding about this. Paul writes to the elitist cultured Corinthians who were used to great orators and men with great skills of persuasion in their speech and he says this, ” And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” He said, “First of all, I could’ve told you a lot more but I came with a simple message because I didn’t want you to mix me up with the flower, flowery, exquisite, gifted orators of your day. I had a simple clear message and I wanted you to get it, and that’s Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Verse 3, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.” Far from being strong and powerful and in charge, I’ve been through a lot of persecution and warfare and, and trouble, and when I got to you, I was a mess physically speaking and emotionally speaking. So I wasn’t very appealing naturally speaking to you.

Verse 4, “and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom,” that’s what the Corinthians would have prized, “Oh, isn’t he powerfully persuasive in his words?” “But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” verse 5, “so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on God.” Paul said, “I didn’t try to be the kind of spokesman that you esteem so highly in your Corinthian culture, that men in your culture would naturally have flocked to and the women would have naturally swooned over. I wasn’t that kind of preacher at all. I just preached a simple message,” but where the Corinthians emphasize persuasion, Paul emphasizes power. “My message has changed your heart. The power of God accompanied it. That’s the proof of my ministry.”

So all the natural gifts that congregations so often say, “That’s what we’re looking for! He can make it happen! Man, he’s, he’s charismatic and he’s gifted, he has such a vocabulary and he’s so winsome and warm and all the people will love him, and dah, dah, dah, dah!” And that may be okay but that’s at the best secondary. So let’s take a look at what the Scripture says about the biblically qualified man of God.

Now this is part 2 so we’ve already seen part of this. I’ll skim through it quickly. First of all, he has to be blameless or above reproach in his moral character, meaning nothing sticks to him. There’s no pattern of sinfulness where if you accused him it has any real or lasting credibility. Then he gives those areas where he needs to be morally blameless or above reproach, he must be sexually pure, he must have a longstanding reputation as a one-woman man. No questions about it. Secondly, he’s not to be excessive, the word here is “temperate.” It means he’s, he’s balanced in what he does. Thirdly, he is self- disciplined, the word in our text is “prudent.” He has discipline about his lifestyle. He’s, he’s not a man whose life is cluttered with numbers of unfinished tasks. He goes for something, he gets it done. He’s well-organized, the word here is “respectable.” F. He’s given to hospitality. We talked about how it was a serious need in this day where Christians were persecuted and often evangelists or preachers were traveling, they had no place to stay, often they had not food, they had no clothes on their back. The pastor should lead in being gracious to brothers and sisters who have special needs. Then, of course, able to teach, and as I look at this, I think under able to teach this might be the only one that really implies a special spiritual gift, as such, that ability to take the word of God and teach it to people and apply the truths of Scripture whether it’s in a private setting or whether he’s a public heralder or preacher like myself.

Now we come to new material, G in our outline, and as we get down into verse, ah, 3, “not addicting, not addicted, rather, to wine.” I call this not a drinker. He’s not a drinker. Not addicted to wine. Now this is the second time he’s dealt with the use of alcoholic beverages. Under temperance he mentioned it before. So we see here that even in a culture where some alcoholic content may be necessary so that they could have something clean to drink because their water often was impure because of the climate and the staleness of the water sources, but even in those settings the Bible has a lot to say about stay away from intoxicants. So this refers to one’s reputation, not that he’s not a drunkard, that’s dealt with really under temperance and we saw that earlier, it means he’s not a guy who’s found in association with drinkers. He’s not a man who is at home with the cocktail crowd. He’s not a man that’s known to hang out at the happy hour or a little bit further down South in Muscle Shoals, he’s not a good ol’ boy that likes to drink a beer or two with the guys and watch the ballgame. That’s not who the man of God is.

I remember when I first started out in ministry, um, it was absolutely wholly unheard of that a Baptist minister would drink alcoholic beverages, but some of the more prominent ministers I was around had learned to chew tobacco and, ah, they pretty much felt like, “If I chew tobacco with the guys, it kinda makes me one of the guys. It kinda makes me like them.” Let me ask you something: when is the man of God supposed to be one of the guys? Let me say something to you: I personally may not be worthy of a lot of respect but the office I hold is worthy of great respect. The man of God is not one of the guys and I would exhort preachers our there, “Stop the silly nonsense of trying to be like one of the guys.” But we’re not talking about chewing tobacco here and if you preach and you chew tobacco, I’m not beating you up. Well, I might have a little bit but I don’t mean to. My point is it’s more the heart attitude on that point. What are you trying to prove?

But this, this thing of, um, social drinking and I, I would never have believed 40 years ago when I started in the ministry that there would be Baptist or Baptistic churches who would actually embrace and promote the use of alcohol as a part of their fellowship and their liberties in Jesus Christ when the Bible here twice under the qualification for elder forbids such. Unbelievable to me. They fly the banner of liberty, “In Christ we have liberties,” and that sounds good and that sound spiritual and it is right, but our major banner is not liberty, our major banner we fly is love, and out of love for my brethren. Matter of fact, we’ve got people in our church right now who’ve struggled with the misuse of alcohol, drunkenness, and they’ve been around some of those churches who, who proclaim their liberty and have drinking parties, and they said, “Man, it destroys us. It’s horrible to be in that when we’re trying to fight our way back out of this stuff.” So the point is out of love I would never touch things that are optional that can cause a brother to stumble.

Now back to the point of our text. The man of God should not have a pattern of reputation that he hangs with the social drinking crowd. I’m gonna say this: period. Period. H. He’s not a fighter. The text says here not only not addicted to wine or pugnacious. In other words, this is a man who’s learned not to settle his disputes with his fists. He shouldn’t be known in the congregation that, “Don’t get him upset, he might just whip you.” And I kinda like to hang out with guys like that sometimes but the point is an elder’s gonna get a lot of stuff thrown at him, the pastor’s gonna be misunderstood, there are gonna be folks with evil intentions who will twist his words, who will take what he says out of context and use it against him, and that can be so frustrating, so discouraging, sometimes you want to rise with anger. He has to be known maybe not perfectly but as a long pattern of his life he doesn’t resort to anger. The grace of God gives him the strength to say, “Well, time out. I’m backing off from that. I’m not going there.” 2 Timothy 2:24 says, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged.”

I. in our outline, easily pardons human failures. This is the word “gentle, not addicted to wine or pugnacious but gentle.” This is the idea that he makes rooms for others. He is forbearing toward others. He is gracious in his spirit when others fail. He’s got to have cultivated the capacity to remember the good and forget the evil. God knows in a church you as the pastor are gonna see a lot of things that are wrong and you’ve gotta realize this brother over here may have been despicable at one time but God granted him repentance and over time he’s a different man and you don’t worry about his past anymore, you love him, you forgive him. A pastor has to have that capacity not to remember wrongs committed against the Lord or committed against him. He’s not a record-keeper of wrongdoings that people have committed against him.

I sometimes when I’m teaching pastors, kid with them and say, “You ought to have to pastor at least 30 years in one place so you get to live with your fruit.” Too often a guy makes a mess then he runs off and the next guy comes in and he gets blamed for the mess, but if you stay somewhere like I have, 38+ years, going on 39 years, I’ve got no excuse. You are what you are, you’re my mess, in a figure of speech. You do answer to God for your own sins but you know what I mean. But you know what I’ve also found? I could look across this room and to one degree or another this room is half filled with people who in one degree or another used to be my enemy. You didn’t like me. You didn’t appreciate me. You didn’t like the way I preached. You didn’t like, like my convictions, and I knew it because I could see it on your face when I preached. And you know, so many of you now, you love me, you honor me as your pastor, and I love you and I’ll be honest and I mean this before God, I just don’t have a record of what happened in the past. It just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. But that’s the pilgrimage of the man of God. He’s got to be able to do that.

So he has to easily pardon human failures and I’ve said to you over and over and over again, if a person is caught in a sin, if there’s a brother or sister in the congregation who needs to repent of a sin in their life, what have I told you a thousand times? Always and only, always and only you confront them privately with utmost confidentiality. You do not spread that to anyone and 95% of the time they’ll repent at that level and nobody else needs to know about it. We’re not here to splash our brothers’ or sisters’ weaknesses or failures in front of everybody, amen? Now should they continue in a hardened unrepentant spirit, there will come a time when they would be exposed and removed, but that’s always the last step. We come to them with utmost confidentiality, utmost kindness and compassion, urging them with tears to repent. That’s the way a church is and a pastor has to be that kind of person.

J in our outline, not quarrelsome. Not quarrelsome. Of course, this, this ties in very close with the others. The word “peaceable” is the word in our text in verse 3. It means he doesn’t cause unnecessary quarrels and disputes and divisions. It’s been my observation through the years that in Baptist churches and usually it’s, there’s only deacons, they typically don’t have elders, but their deacons function as if they’re elders because they have a ruling and authority role which is unbiblical but that’s just the way it is in most Baptist churches, and often some contentious quarrelsome man with an irreconcilable spirit will find his way on the deacon board and the people finally put him there simply to shut him up. He came into the church wanting power and control and they finally give it to him to keep him from causing trouble in the church. That is 100% opposite of what you ought to do. If you’re causing trouble and you’re a trouble-maker, now look, if there are issues in the church that clearly violates Scripture and of a serious and scandalous level, let the elders know, we want to deal with it, but anything less than that, you just need to get over it and keep the peace in the body of Christ, and we’ve got an army of people now. We’ve been through all that kind of stuff here years ago. We’ve been through enough of it and I thank God for the army of men and women, if something begins to percolate out there a little bit, they just put a lid on it and say, “We don’t do that here. We don’t.” We don’t have parties and factions and divisions here over things that don’t matter and we’re not gonna start doing it. And a pastor, certainly, shouldn’t be the kind of guy who tries to spin things up and get one group against another group.

K in our outline, not covetous. That’s the next phrase here in verse 3, it’s actually the last phrase of verse 3, “free from the love of money.” I didn’t say he’s free from money. It did not say he’s free from having much money, but he’s free from the heart conditioning of loving money. That is, that having material possessions is way toward the top of his heart and of his priorities. Matter of fact, 1 Timothy 6:6-10 is a great cross reference here. 1 Timothy 6:6-10, Paul writes later in this epistle, ” But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering,” which would include a roof over your head, “with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich,” now notice the wording here, it’s not that they got rich, it’s that they wanted it, it’s the idea of it was way too high on their priority list; it became the driving force, the idolatry in their heart and in their life. So getting rich is not sin but living to get rich is sin.

Those who want to get rich “fall into temptation,” and notice the domino effect here, temptation, “and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.” Here’s the point: when a man lives his life with a high priority of money, money, money, possessions, possessions, possessions, wealth, wealth, wealth, that, I’ll compromise a lot of things if I get the money and the power and the control, there, there comes a domino effect into his life that will lead to ruin and to destruction. Not the fact that he had a lot of money but the fact that it was a high idol in his life.

Verse 10, “For the love of money,” not money but the love of money “is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang.” Many sorrows follow that in the end. Back up to verse 9, he talks about this plunges men, it literally has the idea of drowning. It will drown you in ruin and destruction. Not covetous. The man of God, nothing wrong with the man of God saying, “I’d like to have nice things and enjoy nice things.” By the way, I like nice things and I like to enjoy nice things but if it means I must compromise God’s ministry to gain them, I don’t want to do that, and there will be times unless you get to follow in a very very sound church and a very very sound pulpit, if you’re a man of God, you’ll have many – listen to me – many times when you’ll have to decide, “My money guys are gonna walk out on me if I don’t compromise here,” so I’ve gotta decide what’s my, what’s, who am I gonna worship, God or money. We had a lot of, we had a lot of money guys walk on out on us here in the early years. Now I don’t mean they’re all evil people, they just didn’t like me, but do you know what God did? He raised up some more money guys who love the Lord and love the church and love me. So I prove if you stay long enough, God just fixes it all.

We, we’ve had a lot of young men come through here who believed God was calling them into the ministry. We had a young man one time and everything just seemed to come out to a financial advantage. He’s always spinning things to a financial advantage and he always seemed to be connecting himself with people who were very well off, and one day I told him, he wasn’t here very long and one day I sat him down and I told him, I said, “You wanna decide something, you’re gonna decide right now, are you gonna be a man of God or So-and-so’s boy? You gonna be a man of God or Mr. So-and-so’s boy?” I’d rather not give commentary on whether or not he’s a man of God but he’s still Mr. So- and-so’s boy. That is a disqualification for the office of pastor in the church.

So Paul summarizes it this way, the blameless moral character of a man in the pastorate, he should have a longstanding pattern of sexual purity, not given to excess, self- disciplined, well-organized, hospitable, skilled in teaching, not quarrelsome, not a drinker, not a fighter, one who easily pardons human failure, and not covetousness. Now I submit to you on this day very humbly I’m still a repenter and a learner but I do believe by God’s grace I wouldn’t just speak for me but for all our elders, there is not an outstanding pattern of this in our men’s lives, and if there is, I believe every one of them would say, “Then I’m willing to step down.”

Now let’s close with this thought, the neverending battle against false teachers and false teaching. The neverending battle against false teachers and false teaching because what’s the point here? You’ve got to have men who are God-called and God-qualified as teachers and leaders in the church because they’ve got to be good men and faithful men and not gullible, ah, not, not, not able to be tempted or drawn away because there’s a neverending batter, battle rather to maintain purity of doctrine and practice in the local church. For example, um, in Ephesus where Timothy is, just gleaning through what Paul says in this letter, the things Timothy was having to correct and address. First of all in 1 Timothy 1, we have false doctrine and non-edifying teaching. Then we have issues with the false use, the exaggerated use of Jewish law. Women who tried to rule over men in the church, chapter 2. Chapter 4, legalistic doctrine sneaking into the teaching of the church. Chapter 5, some leaders did have patterns of unrepented of sin and they needed to be rebuked before all. Chapter 5, some leaders had impure motives, that’s revealed in chapter 6. So lots of, ah, emphasis here on cleaning up the false teaching and the false living among those in the church; having true, pure, godly leaders is of extreme importance because the church will seldom rise above her pastors.

Now not only the false leaders in Ephesus but think about the false leaders in Israel and we can only pick out a few verses here. Over and over and over and over again you name the prophet, what does he do? He goes to Israel or he goes even to Judah and he calls them to repent of embracing false doctrine and listening to and tolerating false teachers. For example, Jeremiah 2:8, “The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’ And they that handle the law knew Me not; The rulers also transgressed against Me, And the prophets prophesied by Baal And they walked after things that do not profit.” Just a whole list of wanton, even gross violations of sound doctrine and sound practice, to, to think that, that the prophets of Israel would prophesy according to Baal. Well, what does Baal represent? Baal represents the culture of the day. Baal represents the, the, the contemporary cultural amusements and entertainments of the day that the people are longing for, and the prophets catered to the people and brought that into worship instead of being faithful to God.

Jeremiah 5:30-31, “An appalling and horrible thing is committed in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely,” that’s first, so their preaching had false doctrine, number 2, “And the priests bear rule by their means.” The priests decide, “Here’s how it outta work, not according to God’s word. We know what’s best to make it work the way that other people are gonna enjoy it. The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule by their own means,” number 3, “And My people love to have it so!” They say, “Do you see how many people are coming? Do you see how popular this is? This is working, man!” Three thousand years and nothing’s changed. Same thing I hear all the time among this gargantuan large congregations and the things they’re doing to keep their crowds coming. But then number 4. Number 1, prophets prophesy falsely; number 2, the priests bear rule by their own means; number 3, “My people seem to love it”; and number 4, “What will you do in the end of it?” There is coming a payday someday. What are you gonna do in the end?

Some of you sit there and you say, “Preacher, it would be a little more fun if you’d loosen up here. It’d be a little more exciting if we could bring in a little of this and bring in a little of that. You know, other churches do it. We don’t have to lose our doctrine.” That’s always the first thing they say, “We’re gonna keep holding to our doctrine. Let’s just bring in some of the amusements and entertainments that the world is so clamoring after today and we’ll keep our doctrine.” Here’s what happens every single time, given a little time and the amusements and the entertainments of the world get more and more important and the preaching of sound doctrine gets less and less important. It’s very subtle and it’s very slow and that’s where it goes, and before long they’re promoting booze as a means to get people to come to church, among other things.

Jeremiah 10:21, Jeremiah said, “the shepherds are become stupid.” I like that language. They’re just stupid. All just like that. The Bible says they’re stupid. I’m not gonna go there. Jeremiah said, the prophets or the shepherds rather are become stupid, “And have not sought the LORD.” It’s the stupidest thing in the world that you say you’re gonna build the house of God outside of God’s teaching and God’s blessing. What a foolish, blasphemous, stupid thing. You’ll build something but it won’t be God’s house. You’ll build a crowd but it won’t be a church. You’ll have a congregation but it will not be an assembly of the righteous. God’s sheep are drawn only to sheep food and that’s my job, is to dispense sheep food. “Therefore they shall not prosper.” This is the ultimate end of it, “and their flock shall be scattered.”

Jesus rebuked false teachers and false teaching in his day. He called them hypocrites. He said, “You make your converts twofold children of hell that you are yourselves.” You talk about tough. Be done with the meek and mild Jesus. Jesus said, “Your converts are twice as much the child of hell as you are.” He was a man’s man. Tough. Straight. Honest. Publicly rebuking. You know, you know why, you know why the church clamors after little mealy-mouth, soft, Caspar Milquetoast kind of preachers? They want to get by with their sin. They don’t want anybody strong. “Pamper me in my compromise, preacher.” I love you too much. I love you too much and I love the Lord more.

Jesus said, “You make your converts twofold the child of hell that you are yourselves.” He says, “You’re blind guides. You’re whitewashed sepulchres. You’re serpents. You’re vipers.” And he said, “You will not escape the damnation of hell.” Paul in Galatians 1 pronounced a severe curse on anyone who preached a false gospel, anathema, he said. Peter described false teachers as spots and blemishes. He calls them wells without water, dogs that return to their own vomit, sows that return to wallow in the mire after being washed. James warns against serious retribution among unfaithful teachers, James 3:1. John calls false teachers the antichrist or of the spirit of the antichrist.

So what I’m pointing out to you is there is great, difficult, unending, warring work at hand for the man called to the pastorate, so the last thing he needs is to have weak character, patterns of weak character so that people can point up to him and say, “I’m not listening to you because of blank.” So there’s gotta be qualifications for him to hold the office of pastor.

In closing, I don’t know where I found this but a pastor who is character-wise unqualified or a pastor who like so many today are willfully false in the doctrines they propose and in the methods they employ in their ministries, they are like stained glass windows, a religious symbol that keeps out the true light and that’s why the initial and overall qualification for spiritual leadership in the church is not skill, not natural gifts, not winsomeness, not oratory, character. Character. The God-qualified pastor.

Now could I beseech you, church family, to do this for me? And God knows I’d rather suffer anything than to end my ministry dishonoring my Lord and hurting his church. I’m asking you to continue to pray for your preaching pastor and for all of your pastors, “God, keep him. Save him from himself. Don’t let him wander in his latter years.” I’ve asked God to let me be effective for him in my old age. I haven’t asked him to let me have a good retirement. I hope I’ll have one. A lot of that’s your responsibility. But if that doesn’t happen, that doesn’t happen. I’ve not asked for certain amounts of health or anything like that, but I have asked, “God, would You let me be effective for You in my old age?” Where Satan can just get me in one area of disqualification, I can’t be effective. Now trust me, I’ve got repenting to do already. You don’t understand the preacher repents a lot as he’s preparing. I’m not perfect but I think by God’s grace our elders qualify. Pray we’ll maintain that to the end.

Now can I challenge you with the challenge I gave you earlier? How are you measuring. These aren’t just pastor, these are Christian qualifications. How are you doing? Are you pugnacious? Are you temperate? Are you given to anger? Are you a drinker? What are you doing that might be a blotch on your reputation for Christ? Let’s all rededicate our hearts to be effective for the Lord.

I just left Brazil where Brother Kevin Millard has aligned his ministry under our ministry and we’ve got, we had men from four Portuguese speaking countries, key leaders that we’re training down there and then many others. Brother Al is here from Scotland who’s followed our ministry for many years and we connect with him to impact that part of the world. We’ve got a brother here from Northwest Tennessee who says, “Could y’all help me impact.” On and on and on and on. Here’s my point: we’ve got to be real so that we can be really used both here and everywhere for the glory of God.