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1 Peter
5:1-4
A Sermon preached by Rev. George C. Hammond
of Bethel Presbyterian Church, Leesburg Virginia
on the occasion of Harry Ronald “Buster”
McLeod’s
Ordination to the Gospel Ministry
May 30, 2003
To the elders among you, I appeal
as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also
will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock
that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must,
but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money,
but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being
examples to the flock. And when the
Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never
fade away. (NIV)
Introduction
There was a family that lived just a few blocks
from a Christian elementary school.
They had a little boy, their first child, and when he turned five,
they determined to enroll him in kindergarten there. He was an independent young man, and he
insisted that he be allowed to walk to school alone. The request did not seem unreasonable,
but his mother was not too sure.
After all, this was her baby.
But she had an idea. She had a friend who lived on the other
side of the street up past the school.
Her son had only met the woman once or twice, and so the mother
called the woman and asked if she would clandestinely follow her son to
school each day to make sure all was well, and then call her and report
each day.
“Sure,” the woman said. “I have
a three year old daughter who loves to walk. We’ll be out there by 8:45 every day, and we’ll keep an eye on him
for you.”
This went on for several weeks until one day the
boy’s teacher noticed the woman following him. She took the little boy aside and said to
him, “I don’t want to alarm you but there has been a woman and
a little girl following you every day.
Do you know who they are?”
“Sure,” the little boy replied,
“that’s the Gutnest family – Miss Shirley, and her little
girl, Marcy.”
“Oh,
so you know them?” the teacher asked.
“Well, I don’t really know them, but
I know about them,” the little boy said. “You see, ever since I’ve
started school, my mom has made me learn the Twenty-third Psalm and recite
it every night. And it says right in
that Psalm, ‘Shirley Gutnest and Marcy will follow me all the days of
my life,’ so I figured I’d just better get used to it.”
That little boy knew his Bible, I suppose, but he
just didn’t know what it meant.
We live in an age in which the same could be said about much of
American Christianity, and about the present state of the church in America: she knows her Bible, it is supposed, but she
just doesn’t seem to know what it means.
In Matthew 28, Our Lord commissioned his Church
with the task she was to carry out until his return. That commission consists of a single imperative, with three
qualifying participles. The single
imperative is “make disciples.”
But the Lord did not just leave it up to us to
determine what that may mean.
He’s told us how to
do it. He’s told us that we
are to make disciples by going, by baptizing into the Name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to observe all that he’s
commanded us.
Now when you consider the accounts of the
Lord’s ministry in the Gospels, how many things did Jesus command us
to do? Three or four? A dozen?
Hundreds? The Lord has told
us that making disciples consists in teaching them not only to know, but to
observe all that he’s
commanded us. That will take a long
time. It is not a quick process.
Making disciples is a difficult, long, and
arduous task, and we live in a culture of instant gratification, in which
the idea of something being long, and difficult, and arduous is not
popular. And so the American church
has quietly made a substitution, whether deliberately or in ignorance, I am
not sure. She has pretended that the
command to “make disciples” really meant “garner
decisions.” Garner
“decisions for Christ” in any way you can. Have them bow their heads and raise their
hands; walk the sawdust trail; come to the altar; say the sinner’s
prayer. And in so doing,
congratulate themselves and pretend that they’ve fulfilled the
Lord’s commission to make disciples.
It has become common for churches to boast of,
and measure their success in, “decisions” per month. And there is a corollary to that as well:
in modern Evangelicalism, churches have come to measure success in how full
the auditorium is. Now of course,
all Christians desire the numerical growth of the Church. But we must understand that a large crowd
is a means to making the gospel known, and not an end in itself. Jesus never pandered to a crowd for the
purpose of retaining it. But for all
too many churches today, though they know the words of Jesus, it is
supposed, they apparently think that what Jesus actually meant was “Good for you, when all men speak
well of you!”
Some time ago a woman visited our Church for a
season. One day she took me aside and
told me how much she liked the Church, how much she really enjoyed the
people, and how I was even tolerable to listen to. “But,” she
said, “it’s very disturbing to hear week after week this talk
of sin, and guilt before God, and the necessity for Christ to die if we
were to be made right with God. If
you’d just not talk about those things, I’m sure you’d
reach a lot more people.” I
looked at her and said, “Ma’am; reach them with what?”
On this solemn and joyful occasion it will be
good for us to consider that the Bible tells us that the ministry to which
this man is being ordained, is the Lord’s
ministry. It is not the Church’s ministry to define as
she wishes or to do with as she wills.
It is the Lord’s ministry,
and he, not the Church, defines its parameters, determines its message, and
establishes the means by which it is brought.
The Apostle Peter was well aware that the
ministry he carried out was a trust from the Lord. Luke the Evangelist alludes to the Gospel
that bears his name when he writes, “In my former book, Theophilus, I
wrote to you about all that Jesus began
to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving
instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.”
The implication is clear: When the apostles faithfully carry out
their task, and those ordained to carry the gospel after them do so
faithfully, is in fact Jesus continuing
to do and teach through them.
The over-arching assumption of the exhortation of
this passage is that the ministry is the Lord’s ministry.
His ministers are only ambassadors
who bring the message of the Kingdom, and do the work of the Kingdom within
the parameters set by the King.
A while ago I had a couple come to me seeking to
be married. They did not know the
Lord, but they had become convicted of living together outside of the
commitment of marriage. Since she
was expecting a child, they wished to be married sooner than later, and so
we did not have time to complete the counseling I usually require.
At their wedding, I charged them with the high
ideals of God’s Word for marriage, and spelled out for them the
God-ordained and appointed roles for husbands and wives. The charge met with considerable
discomfort. The sense of discomfort
from them was palpable, and from those who came to witness the wedding as
well.
I spoke with them after the ceremony about it,
and they confirmed that they had been uncomfortable, that what I spoke of
was not the commitment they wanted to make, and that it was not what they
had in mind for marriage. I
explained to them as gently as I was able that marriage was God’s institution, not
theirs. Because of that, God and not
they themselves set the bounds and parameters of it.
In the Washington DC
area, at least, I can tell you that there are many churches that do not
seem to understand that the ministry is the Lord’s ministry.
They seem to believe that the Church’s message, methods, and
the parameters of the ministry are the Church’s to determine, and do
with as she will.
It is incumbent upon the Church to understand
that she is only the Lord’s vehicle for calling a man to the
Lord’s ministry, and it is to him
that that man is accountable.
The Apostle Peter, under the inspiration and
authority of the Holy Spirit, lays out for us what the Lord’s
ministry is to look like. He says,
I.
Shepherd the Flock of God that is under your care
Now how is a man to do that? Again, the Scriptures do not allow us to
fill in the blanks. The uniform
testimony of the New Testament is that the flock of God is shepherded by
faithfully proclaiming and applying the Word of God.
The man called to the Lord’s ministry must
beware of getting sidetracked with the myriad other things that will clamor
for his attention, by the world’s confident assertions of what will
make a minister “successful,” and even by the well-intentioned
but sometime ill-informed expectations of the part of the people to whom he
ministers.
The Risen Lord said to Peter, “If you love
me, then feed my sheep.”
The apostles determined early on, as we are told in Acts 6, that it was not
good for those charged with the preaching of the gospel to neglect it in
order to wait on tables. Provision
was made so that they could devote themselves to the ministry of the Word
and prayer. And that is the task of
all those who follow after them, of all who are ordained to the
Lord’s ministry.
Buster, those called to the Lord’s ministry
are called to proclaim his Word. It
may be the peculiar providence of your ministry to proclaim the Word less
publicly, and more from house to house,
but never lose sight of what the task is.
Do not be dissuaded from it by the world, the flesh, the devil, or
the church. The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy,
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who
will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his
kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and
out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and
careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with
sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around
them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to
hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to
myths. But you, keep your head in
all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge
all the duties of your ministry.
“Keep
your head” – How many ministers have become utterly useless to
the Master because they have succumbed to the fear of man, and have given
into the temptation to tickle itching ears when men would no longer endure
sound doctrine?
It must always be borne in mind that this is the Lord’s ministry. The message must not be compromised, nor
must it be cheapened by the use of unbiblical methods of psychological
manipulation. The goal is fidelity
to the Master’s message, not the fame which comes from being loved by
the multitudes.
Remember that in John 6 we read that many of
Jesus’ disciples turned back and would no longer follow him because
he would not moderate his message, nor would he tailor it to the local
demographic. Every time the Lord Jesus preached, his winnowing fork was in
his hand, and he was clearing his threshing floor. By that Word he separated the wheat from
the chaff. His word did not return to him void, but
accomplished exactly the purpose for which he sent it forth. So too, those who enter the Lord’s
ministry are called to take up the Master’s winnowing fork, not
pander to the local population.
The world measures success solely in numbers, and
the Church today has largely followed suit. Many of them have sought to
widen the narrow way,
to make it more comfortable and palatable for the masses, for after all,
the point is the number of “decisions,” right? But how many of those poor souls,
deceived by the local expression of that very institution which is supposed
to be the “pillar and ground of the truth”
will one day lift up their eyes in hell, because those called to the task
shrunk back from proclaiming the whole
counsel of God?
The gospel, rightly understood and faithfully
preached will be a savor of life
to those who are being saved, to the praise of God’s glorious grace.
And that same gospel will be the stench of death
to those who are perishing, to the praise of God’s glorious justice.
Buster, I understand that among your duties, you
will be ministering to the covenant youth.
Wonderful. But don’t be dazzled by the world and lose your
head. So many “youth
programs” today seek to attract and retain youth with a pathetic copy
of what the world offers. No matter
how big your budget is, I am sure it will never be big enough for you to
out-cheese Chuck E. Cheese.
You’ll never be able to out-dazzle Disney or compete with Hollywood. So don’t
even try. The Lord has given to you
something to offer of which Hollywood and Disney know nothing, and would have no
authority to offer even if they did.
Shepherd the Flock of God. Remember that it is the Lord’s ministry. You are bound and obliged to proclaim his message, by the method of his appointment. Keep your head, and disregard the
world’s siren’s song.
Measure success by fidelity to the gospel.Secondly, the apostle
tells us that those who are called to the Lord’s ministry must
shepherd the flock of God,
2. . . .
Not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be;
not greedy for money, but eager to serve.
The Lord makes it incumbent upon the Church to
provide for the needs of his ministers.
In 1 Corinthians 9, the Apostle castigates the Corinthians for their
failure to do so in his case, and he says, “If we sowed spiritual
things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from
you?” He says further, “.
. . Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of
the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share
from the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to
get their living from the gospel.”
Matthew Henry commenting on this passage, says,
“They might expect that those to whom they were sent would provide
for them what was necessary. The
workman is worthy of his meat. They
must not expect to be fed by miracles, as Elijah was. . . . Though they who serve at the altar may
not expect to grow rich from the altar, yet they may expect to live, and to
live comfortably upon it. It is fit
that they should have their maintenance from their work. Ministers are, and must be, workman,
laborers, and they that are so are worthy of their meat, so as not to be
forced into any other labor for the earning of it.”
But the work of the ministry must never be viewed
as merely a way to make a living. I
know many people, and so do you all, who work at jobs that they can’t
stand because it puts bread on the table.
For those who labor in the ministry, it must be just precisely the
other way around – they must have bread on the table so that they can
carry out the great work to which they have been called unhindered, and
unencumbered by worldly care and employment.
Not long ago a man came by my office. He stood in the doorway with his hands in
his pockets, looked around and said, “Boy this is
familiar.” He went on to say
that he used to pastor a Church. He
said that as far as the ministry went he and his family were well-provided
for. He then told me that he left
the ministry ten years ago, “and” he said, “it was the
best thing I ever did.” He
said, “Now I work a lot less hours, have a lot less stress and
aggravation, and I get paid a lot more.” I quietly and unobtrusively
gave up a prayer of thanksgiving to God that this man was no longer
carrying out the Lord’s ministry.
Those who enter the ministry must do so because
the love of Christ compels them;
because the Word of God is pent up in them like a fire in their bones, and
they weary of holding it in.
It is necessary that the Church provide for those
who labor for the gospel, so that the work of the ministry is not done in
one’s spare time, as was the sad case in Nehemiah 13. But those who would shepherd God’s
flock must do so because they are eager to do so, as God wants them to be.
That they make a living at it is a means
for the ministry. The ministry must
never be crassly viewed as a means of making a living.
Thirdly, the Apostle tells us that those who
enter the Lord’s ministry should shepherd the flock,
3. . . . Not lording it over those entrusted to
their care, but proving to be examples to the flock.
The authority of the ministry is not an intrinsic
authority. It is not an authority
vested in persons. The man who here
charges his fellow elders was the man himself called by Jesus “The
Rock” because he had correctly confessed who Jesus was. But moments later Jesus called that same
man “Satan” because he sought to deny Jesus in the work he had
come to do.
The authority that the Lord invests his ministers
with is the authority of his Word.
It is a ministerial and declarative authority. Peculiar an arrangement as it may seem,
in the Lord’s green pastures, the undershepherds are themselves
sheep, and they must never forget it.
In their persons, they have no more standing, no
greater justification, than any other sheep. It is God
who gives them gifts that differ. And he invests them with the authority of
a special office. But that authority
is maintained and applied through the correct confessing of Christ, the
careful wielding of his Word, and the appropriate application of it to
saints and sinners. Again the Apostle Paul says to Timothy,
Don’t let anyone look down on you because
you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in
love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public
reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your
gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the presbytery
laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters; give yourself to
them, so that your progress may be evident to all. Watch your life and doctrine closely.
Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your
hearers.”
As the writer to the Hebrews says, it is
necessary for the Church to obey her leaders and submit to their authority. But it will be well for those leaders to
remember that their task is to watch over souls, as men who will one day give an account for their stewardship. “. . . Not lording it over
those entrusted to your care, but proving to be an example to the
flock.”
There is one other thing to consider in regard to
the Lord’s ministry, and it is implicit in what the Apostle says
here. It does not come by way of an
imperative.
4. As a witness of Christ’s sufferings, and one who will also
share in the glory to be revealed . . .
Peter was an eye-witness to the arrest, and to
the crucifixion, the death and the suffering of Christ. But that is not solely what he is
speaking of here. His witness to the
sufferings of Christ consisted in not only what he saw, but in what he
experienced. Note that his
witnessing the sufferings of Christ is coupled with his sharing in
Christ’s glory. As the Apostle Paul indicates in the book of Romans,
to share in his glory, we must also share in his suffering.
Acts 9 records not only the conversion of Saul of
Tarsus, but his rather unusual and immediate call to the Lord’s
ministry. And through Ananias, he
says of Saul “I will show him how much he must suffer for my
Name.” That statement was specifically said
about Saul of Tarsus, but it was not proprietary to him.
All Christians – all Christians - will enter into the sufferings of Christ. But
it will be especially true for those who are called to the Lord’s
ministry.
Look at your Bible from Genesis to Revelation,
and you will see that of all the servants of God, there is not a single one
of them that carried out their ministry unopposed. And the opposition came not only from the
world, the flesh, and the devil, but from at least some of the very people
they ministered to.
Every church attender will say, of course, that
he desires in a preacher of the gospel one who’s preaching shows the
unction of the Holy Spirit, which has attendant with it the ability to
convict of sin, and righteousness, and judgment. Every church attender will say that he
wants a preacher who will stand for righteousness, and denounce sin. Every church attender will say that he
wants a man who lives by the bedrock of principle, not the shifting sea of
personal attachment.
Every church attender will say those things. And every church attender will mean
it. Provided the conviction you
bring doesn’t run contrary to their
comfort and convenience. Provided
that the sins you denounce are not their own beloved sins. Provided that your standing on principle
does not impinge upon their personal attachments.
The minister of the gospel is called to shepherd
the souls of men. I do not know the
people of Gwennyd Church. But the
Bible lays bear the thoughts and intents of the human heart, and everyone
called to the Lord’s ministry is called to minister to people who are
fearful, sinful, prideful, and rebellious.
In three internships, Buster, you have already
encountered some of that. When you
are the object of attack, not from without in the world, but from within, from
members of the visible church, it can be confusing, it can be painful, and
it can be dispiriting and disheartening.
You are entering the sufferings of Christ, my
friend, and I want to tell you that you will face seasons and situations
which will make you want to throw in the towel. At those times, you must
remember that it is the Lord’s
ministry.
Consider the Lord Jesus in the garden of
Gethsemane. He wrestled in prayer
that whole night in anticipation of what he would suffer at the hands of
sinners. And from whom would that
suffering come? From the
Sanhedrin? From the Romans? Yes.
But not only from them. His
suffering would come through those he had walked among; those he had
taught; those he had healed and fed and prayed for – all who would now
betray, or abandon, or deny they ever knew him.
Could anyone here have blamed him if in the
garden, he had prayed, “Father, these are the people for whom I have
labored, the people whom I have loved, whom I have prayed for, whom I have
healed and helped. And this is how
they repay me? O Father, I refuse
this cup. I lay down. To the fires of an eternal hell with
these people! They are just not
worth it.”
But he didn’t. Thank God he didn’t.
Remember, Buster, in those times, and I hope they
are rare, when for all your labor and love, for all your prayer and
preaching, for all of your trouble and hardship you are betrayed,
abandoned, maligned - remember that it is the Lord’s ministry.
Remember that you have been appointed, as the great Apostle said, to
fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely
say all kinds of evil about you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your
reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were
before you.”
But you won’t always need to stir up a
remembrance that it is the Lord’s ministry by arduous
recollection. Sometimes it will be
obvious. You will often be blessed to
see incredible acts of kindness, of generosity, of love, loyalty and
affection that will be so astonishing as to be impossible to understand
apart from the grace of God operating in the hearts of his people.
You may even be privileged, in God’s good
providence, to have come across your path a young man who is at first
highly offended by the exclusivity of the gospel, its denunciation of sin,
and your insistence that the Bible is en
toto the infallible Word of God; who will nevertheless not be able to
pull himself away from what he is hearing, and will come to be so dominated
and conquered by the message, that he will then himself feel irresistibly drawn by God to
proclaim it to others.
And when things like that happen, you will know
with joy and with confidence that it is the Lord’s ministry.
Shepherd the flock of God which has been
entrusted to your care. Not with
your own message and methods.
Remember that you, shepherd, are first a sheep. The Lord
is your shepherd. And if the Lord is
your shepherd, then surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days
of your life.
Remember that.
And even when the work is hard, know that it is the Lord’s ministry. Remember what Peter says about it. Conduct yourself by that great
ideal. Strive to live out the truth
of it. And when the Chief Shepherd
appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.
GCH
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