Congregation and Pastor's Responsibilities

There's an old story, I'll tell you as I set up this thing here. There's an old story of one of these desert fathers. And let's say it's Antony.

So Antony was a desert father living, you know, out in the desert, trying to fight off all the sins and everything. And the demons were, like, exhausted trying to get him to sin. One of the demons came up and said, you know, I tried lust.

The other one said, you know, I tried pride. I tried everything. And no one could get him to sin.

Ah, got to do that part. I should eat saying something and setting up things. So as they tried all that, the demons were exhausted.

I mean, they tried everything and just couldn't get Antony to sin. And so finally the devil, Satan, came up to him. Is that working? Satan came up to him and said, came up to the demons, excuse me, and said, this is ridiculous.

I could have Antony sin in 30 seconds. He said, no way, you don't understand. We tried everything.

This is the same thing about setting up an IT thing. I'll let you go ahead. So we tried everything.

And they said, I'll have him sinning in 30 seconds. Okay, go ahead. So Satan walks up to Antony as he's sitting there and says, and goes up and whispers into his ear, Antony, your brother in Constantinople was just ordained bishop yesterday and walked away.

Well, that should be it, right? It's a nice rock. All right. I think it's in that old mirror thing there.

So I should have done this earlier. Let me see. Right here.

No. Mirror. All right.

So the message, I mean, the saying goes with the idea that it tends to bring emotions in us that we don't expect. And many of you men perhaps that are here and as you wrestle through this whole selection of ministry and everything, some of you it might cause this kind of a jealousy. And I'll say this, that's not all bad.

If it's a jealousy that provokes you to a righteous jealousy, if it's something that it calls all of us to say, okay, so what is my purpose in life? What am I doing? What am I called to? Because every one of us are called to something. I think Brother Paul is going to say something about that after my message. It's a short thing.

It's important that we look at this in a right way. And so, but if it's a jealousy that also it stirs within us different emotions, we have to deal with those things as well. And I think as we look at this message today, it helps us all to get behind this particular calling of a pastor.

Because this topic that was given to me, the congregation and the pastor's responsibility to each other is really an important one. And it's really kind of been batted around in different settings, in pop culture, pop Christian culture. I mean, literally nations have been formed around different ways to do ecclesiology, the way to do church things.

Literally nations have been formed around that. And so this category, as we look at the responsibilities of a pastor, we're looking at one type of calling. And the pastors.

And then what is the responsibility? What is the back and forth between the church and the pastor? And we're going to look at that in particular. That's the topic that was given to me. I'll start off with this little, there it is.

I'll start with this little story. The year was 1992. And Tonya and I recently got out of the army, and we were working for Scroll Publishing.

And one of the jobs I quickly was sent to do was to be at a bookseller's convention somewhere in Texas where all the famous authors were coming around and trying to sell their books to all the Christian bookstores. So we were there representing Scroll Publishing. It was funny.

I was dressed in a robe trying to look like the early church and that kind of a thing. So the early church was abuzz then, and these two particular writers were starting to write about early Christianity. One of them by the name of Gene Edwards, who wrote this book, Tale of Three Kings, which is indeed an excellent book if you haven't read it.

And the other one was a book by James Roots, was The Open Church. And Jim, as he went by, was representing the book there. And it was making a big buzz because he was telling us that in the early church, this whole concept of pastors and ministers and all that is all made up.

And as I went to his booth, and there was a big buzz around it, Trinity Broadcasting, which is, oh, in the 80s and the 90s, was like this big charismatic television station. Tonya and I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and so it was a big thing. They had like this White House thing.

It's crazy. Anyway, we were there, and they were there interviewing, and I was listening as I was at the buzz around the counter and everything. They said, so you're saying, and I heard the interviewer ask, so are you saying that in the early church, like the pastor didn't have any particular role? That's right, Jim said.

Do you mean, and he went through all these different things that we typically see as pastors having a place, and they said, no, the whole thing has just been made up by churchianity. And so I was sitting there. I was a new student of early church, and they had this packet on this open church book of like the first three or four chapters, and they were giving it out to everybody.

So I took that back to my hotel room, and at the time, I was reading through the Antonicene Fathers, and I had volume three with me, which was Tertullian. And so as I was reading that, I was noticing that the quotes that he was putting in the book were made up, and particularly the ones that he talked about the early church were actually completely out of context. So me being zealous in my 20s, so I thought, okay, well, I'm going to go talk to him.

Maybe he doesn't know. So the next day, I waited in this line in the booth to talk to Jim Ritz. They're on the right.

They're both passed away by now, by the way. I talked to Jim, and I got up to him, and I said, hey, I wanted to talk to you about some quotes you have in your book and what you said about pastors and how you call the communion service a cross between a frat party and a Super Bowl. That's not what we read in the early church.

He said, oh, no, no, you don't understand. I've read those quotes. I said, well, I have them, and I opened up the book that I had from Tertullian, and I said, look, this is your quote, and it's misquoted.

His face went white, and he said, you need to talk to my publisher. His publisher was the renowned Gene Edwards. So Gene Edwards was there, and I was shaking in my boots.

Wow, Gene Edwards, this is the famous guru of early Christianity. So I went to him, and I said to him the same thing, and I was explaining it to him, and he looked at me, and he said, no, you don't understand. And he went over, and he found this book of pictures, of catacomb pictures and everything, and he had this picture of this communion service, he called it, and he said, look at the picture.

They're smiling. Okay? He said, so all this kind of thing that you're talking about the church, that's not the reality. It's this.

I said, well, what do you do with the whole sets of the Antonite scenes? What do you do with the historic witness of the church? Oh, I haven't read that stuff since seminary. This was the guru who was writing all about the early church. So I said, the brother who was with me, an older brother, said, let's just agree to disagree, me being too young and stupid to know better.

He said, well, I'm just seeking truth. So Gene got a little weird, and he came up to me, and he said, you're doing what? I said, I'm just seeking truth. And he said, oh, that's probably, he said, no, that is the worst thing you could do.

I said, what, seek truth? He said, Paul wasn't seeking truth. Paul was seeking a revelation. So I said, okay, so if I agree with, if I get this revelation, will I agree with Paul? He said, it's the same revelation, it just goes through time, and you tap into it.

I said, okay, so if I get tapped into that, will I at least agree with the Bible? And he looked over at Jim, he looked over at me, he said, throw away your Bible and get the revelation. Of course, my jaw hit the ground. I was paralyzed, and he said, I need to go get a glass of water.

And he walked off, and I sat there and tried to get my jaw picked back up. Lots of people have really done this to this thing. The next book that came out a few years ago, if many of you have seen it, was Pagan Christianity.

Another one, kind of repeating some of the same rhetoric, the idea of the word bishop and elder and deacon are actually generic terms. When we look at them in the scripture, the bishop just means an overseer, shepherd. A deacon is a servant, a minister is a presbyter, it's an older person.

So these aren't offices, these aren't particular places in the church, the argument is. And so we're making too much of it. Gene Edwards was arguing, literally says in the book, fire your pastor and give him a new place in the church.

I wrote a whole article on that particular book, you can scan on there. But this kind of rhetoric is something that has battered the church and it comes up again and again and again. And I'm going to talk about it in this, because it's very important to get the understanding of what is expected from the congregation to the ministry, and what is expected from the ministry to the congregation.

So let's look at what the scripture says, and then I'm going to go pretty heavy on the part of the responsibility of the ministry. So let's look at it. I think I've got... So there is abuse, and we don't need to copy the way that the world does leadership.

The scriptures are very clear, Jesus makes it clear to us, you know they, you know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. And their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you.

But whoever will be great among you shall be your minister, your servant. And whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be the servant of all. This idea of leadership should be very different than the world.

The Roman Empire, there's a quote from Caligula who says, let them hate me as long as they fear me. The idea of leading, whether it's in your home or in the church, leading in fear is not the way we're meant to be leaders. Not to be that way.

And it can sometimes be in the church. John D. Martin, he's going to kill me for quoting him in this. He says, you know D, one of the problems in our Mennonite churches is that we do have too many German shepherds.

So there's some ouch to that. And I can probably say that probably many of you have had some experiences in your life that have been abusive like that. I know that I've been on both sides of that.

The one doing the abuse and the one abuser. We have to be constantly aware of when we're picking up that other side. And you're trying to do things that are not the way of the shepherd.

And so many of you may be trying to adjust to that and trying to find your way. Let's look at the Word of God and see what it is. The Roman Empire, they thought in this so empire type of thing.

They're going to conquer, get everything together. And as American, particularly American Christianity, we can, well all Christianity, but American for sure, we mix this together. Interesting, look at the picture of Augustus Caesar on the right and George Washington there on the left.

The copying of the Roman Empire is common in our society. And of course the church has copied this with the Vatican and different things like this. You can probably hardly see this picture.

This picture, one of my favorite, it shows the birth of Augustus there up at the top who was born right about the time of Christ. And then down below is a lowly manger. And the purpose of this piece of art is to show the drastic, amazing contrast that happened right at about the year zero with the new calendar of Augustus Caesar and his ruling way and his power and his might and the simple Jesus and his way.

I remember talking about being on the wrong side of this. Years ago as a young minister, I remember really getting into trying to be a better manager. I'm a terrible manager, so I'm trying to be a better manager.

And I'm reading through Napoleon's project management and studying Napoleon and all this. And I remember watching a sermon from one of my favorite preachers and I had the highest respect. And he was going on about you walk like this and talk like this and you don't sit like... And it was very militant.

And I was like, yeah, yeah, I love this stuff. And then suddenly this passage just came into my heart. Take this yoke upon you and learn of me, not Napoleon Dean, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

This idea is different than the ways the Gentile leads. All right, so let's start looking into the Scriptures. What the Scripture says about ministry and the church's response to the ministry is very, very... It makes you tremble.

Look at this passage in Jeremiah. It's one of the most... If there's anyone with any kind of responsibility that can read this without trembling, then I don't know if you've read it right. Jeremiah says this, quoting, getting this from God and his rebuke upon the shepherds of Judah.

He's reading this. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed my people.

You have scattered my flock, driven them away and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doing, saith the Lord. So the idea of not feeding the people properly, the idea of scattering them and not attending to them, not pastoring them, not going after them.

You know, a lot of times it's just, so-and-so left the church, that's too bad. You know, I remember an old revival history thing. I was read once by, I was talking about, Edward Orr.

J. Edwin Orr. And he does a revival history and he was talking to one pastor once who had a big revival, and in the big revival he said, so did you have any additions, any godly additions after the revival? He said, no, but we had some blessed subtractions. And so, that's something inside of us that you have to fight.

These are God's people that He wants for us to shepherd, to pastor. And if we don't go after them, if we don't seek the lost, if that's not within us in pastoring, then we're not doing it right. He goes on to say, and this is the good part of the Jeremiah passage, but, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries where I have driven them, like in rescuing them, I guess, and bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and increase.

I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, saith the Lord. Praise God. The concept of God calling godly shepherds to the ministry is that He's doing this.

He's gathering His people, and He doesn't want them to fear. He wants them to be fed. He wants them to be lacking nothing, or to be dismayed.

Oh, how much all of us, we are dismayed and lacking and fearful. God has ordained a way that we don't have this. So here's the point.

I know we all have gone through some many hard things. If you say something in Latin in either theology or medicine, it sounds more important. Abusus non tollis unsum.

Abuse does not take away the proper use. I know that we've seen abuse. Perhaps you've been abused.

You've been abused yourself. That doesn't take away the proper way that this is done. And so we look at the Scriptures today.

We're going to look at the back and forth between that. And then I'm going to show you an example by a man by the name of Richard Baxter. And then we're going to try to internalize it.

So let's go. Let's look at the Scripture. The congregation and the pastor's responsibility.

This is why we look at the Scriptures. To understand each other's responsibility, we have to know what each other are responsible for. So let's look at the Bible.

In Acts 1 verse 20, it's interesting. Right at the very beginning, it says, and it was written in the book of Psalms. This is when Judas was, and they were going to ordain another person.

Judas is now gone, and they're going to ordain someone else. It's in their quoting. For it's written in the book of Psalms, let his dwelling place be desolate and let no one live in it and let another take his office.

The word their office is episcopate. It's the bishop. It's where we get our word for episcopal or bishop.

It's the overseer position. So right from the very beginning, Judas is replaced. This office is given to us.

Acts 20, 28, which is what we're going to get to with the reformed pastor. Therefore, take heed to yourself. Talking to the ministers there.

I think it's Ephesus. I can't remember. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.

Here we get the idea, this anointed Holy Spirit place of those shepherds. And Titus, he tells Titus to do some ordaining. He says, for this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you.

And then in Ephesians, he said, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors, and some teachers. This is another thing that this ordination time should do. If this wasn't the calling, particular pastors today, well then what is it? Because I believe some part of that ministry is what's meant to be all the people that are in the church today.

Amen? He goes on. We have more scriptures. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 12, it says, and we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you.

Is that something we can handle today in the 21st century? To have people over you and admonishing us? And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake and be at peace among yourself. Again, I'm in the contrast of looking at the way this whole concept of ministry is thrown under the bus these days. These are powerful passages, right? Another one.

Remember the qualifications of who should be an elder. For one who rules his house well, having his children in submission with all reverence, and then it gives this analogy. And if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? Again, it's not like the Gentiles.

If your mind was already going to the Gentile type of ruling, that's not the way it's supposed to be. And if you have a toxic view of the home, then you might have a toxic view of ministry too. But this with loving and shepherding is the way this is supposed to be.

And that is powerful. To Peter. It's a powerful passage.

Peter says, Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly. Not for dishonest gain, but eagerly. Nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

Wow. Again, both back and forth. It's not to be overbearing, not to be like the Gentiles rule, but yet it's real, right? It's a real thing that's there.

And the scriptures are clear on that. Hebrews, in each of these passages, I'm going to show you four passages in Hebrews. It uses a Greek word, hegemony, which is where we get the English fancy word, hegemony.

Which I know we hardly, might as well be a Greek word. It's an English word that people use for like a country taking over a country. I don't like the word, would not have used it.

He used it. And so maybe we can find a nicer way to use, but the word used here for overseer is that word. So here's the passages.

Look at the Hebrews passages. First in Hebrews 13 it says, Remember those who rule over you. It's the word rule that we see the word hegemony.

Who have spoken the word of God to you whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. Again, we're supposed to look at that. Their conduct.

Obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief or that would be unprofitable for you. That is a scary passage to both.

Leonard Ravenhill, one of my favorite preachers, Leonard Ravenhill says, he was a preacher to the, they say a preacher to the preachers. Very quotable, but he says, I don't know if this is theologically correct, but whatever. In one of his sermons he said there's going to be three judgments.

The judgment of the lost, the judgment of the saved, according to Leonard, and the judgment of the ministry. So it says here that they will give an account. And that's scary because it's kind of like how many dads we have here? How many dads? Yeah, a lot.

Okay, praise God. So you remember the first time that first baby was born. I mean, are you ever ready to be a dad? No way.

But guess what? As soon as you hear that first cry, you're either a good one or a bad one. End of story. And so as God finds us in the ministry and different things, and I know you're not ever, ever able to be there.

I know that, but still, these passages don't change because it's the 21st century. Amen? And that's the response back and forth from the congregation, from the pastor to you, the youth of the pastor, and you understand what they're supposed to be doing, and you understand the way that you're supposed to be receiving them. And then Hebrews 13, 24, greet all those who rule over you and all the saints, those of Italy greet you.

Now, maybe we can come up with some nicer way than hegemoni and come up with it meaning something nicer like, I don't know, suggest or something. There's no way to kind of downplay it. These are real positions that are in the Scriptures.

No matter how you soften it, they're real, right? It's the Word of God. It's not to be like the Gentiles. Amen? The abuse that you've either had or experienced is not right.

It's not to be abusive. It's not to be ruled in fear. But it is real.

Amen? It's real. And then this one I threw in. It's not too common in our circles.

In the book of Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 9, 14, as Paul is making the argument, I'm not going to take any money from you Corinthians. I'm a single guy here doing my own tent making here. And I'm not going to take any money.

But I'll need to make something very clear to you. And the Holy Spirit made this clear. Even so, the Lord has, watch the word, commanded that those who preach the Gospel should live from the Gospel.

Now, we're working ministers, that kind of a thing, and I like that. Through time, I've seen a lot of abuse. I'm a historian.

I look through time and lots of abuse. I like the idea of a working minister. But, this was a single guy.

Alright? And ministers with families trying to do schooling, do ministry. See, all those responsibilities are still there. They don't get away.

They don't go away because you say, well, I'm working at so-and-so. No, they're still there. So let's be careful.

And as our responsibility to our ministry, if you're seeing one who's having to go to work and then he can't do what I'm about to read to you, some examples, or what we just read in the Scriptures, maybe we should try to help him out a little bit. Amen? That's what the Scripture says. Commanded.

Now, there's not too many times that Paul says, this is directly from Jesus. He does with divorce and remarriage. He does with a few things.

This one he got straight from God. I mean, he's all inspired. But you know what I mean? Somehow he had this talk with Jesus afterwards and he got this.

It's important. Let's not lose the concept. All right.

In our Anabaptist setting, the first Anabaptist statement we got together was in the northern part of Switzerland at Schleidheim in 1527. And let me read to you what it says of the responsibility between the congregation and the minister. It's powerful stuff.

Listen to this. The pastor in the church of God shall, as Paul has prescribed, be one who is out and out, has a good report of those who are outside the faith. This office shall be to read, to admonish and teach, to warn, to discipline, to ban, yes, in the church, to lead out in prayer for the advancement of all the brethren and sisters, to lift up the bread when it is to be broken, and in all things to see to the care of the body of Christ in order that it may be built up and developed and the mouth of the slanderer be stopped.

This one, moreover, here it goes again, shall be supported of the church which has chosen him, wherein he may be in need, so that he who serves the gospel may live of the gospel as the Lord has ordained. But if a pastor should do something requiring discipline, they're not above the congregation. If they require discipline, he shall not be dealt with except on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

And when they sin, they shall be disciplined before all in order that the others may fear. It's a very back and forth responsibility there. But should it happen that through the cross this pastor should be banished or led to the Lord, he means like kicked out of the country, through martyrdom, another shall be ordained in his place in the same hour so that God's little flock and people may not be destroyed.

It's interesting why that in my article that I have there, they mention in that pagan Christianity book mentions that the Anabaptists didn't have this kind of leadership. Oh, yes, we did. From the very beginning.

So it's important just to see that back and forth type of thing. Now, you mentioned that back and forth. Now, in our Anabaptist circles, there's two kinds of way we do church.

In general, this is broad stroke, there's the Mennonite style and then there's the Amish style. So let me ask you this. How many of you come from an Amish background? Raise your hand.

And how many of you come from a Mennonite background? And how many of you are Muttonites like me? All right, all right. I praise God, amen. All right.

In general, and I think the scripture leaves a way to do this. I don't think it's spelled out to detail. Mennonites in general think like conference.

It's done this way in Lancaster County, it's going to be that way in Tennessee, it's going to be that way in Ghana, you know. Amish ecclesiology has tended to be more congregational from the very beginning, literally from the very beginning. And so there's pluses and negatives to that.

When you got some trouble, it's really nice to have a conference. Call up the bishops, okay, done, go on. The congregation model, which is what we are, you, it takes a lot of working these things out.

There's a tendency that we can get isolated. There's a tendency we don't care what the rest of the church is. And so there needs to be a balance there and a respect when you're in the congregational side of that.

An axiom that I come up with that I tend to like is that we are congregational yet Catholic, Catholic with a small c, autonomous yet accountable. Congregational yet Catholic, we care about the churches around us, we care about the historic church. We're autonomous, but we're accountable.

Just like an individual is good when you have accountability in your brotherhood, a brotherhood is good. A church needs the accountability of the other brotherhoods. That's just needed.

Autonomous yet accountable. One of my favorite articles, I'm not going to go into it for time's sake, you can scan it there. I wrote an article on this.

One of the most unsung heroes of the Reformation, particularly of Anabaptists, is a guy by the name of Uli Amen. He was the younger brother of Jacob, the famous Jacob Amen, who has been attributed to starting the Amish. Uli Amen, as we know, had some good thoughts, but he was sometimes a little too zealous in the way he did it.

Uli Amen, I think, was 18 or 8, I can't remember, a lot younger than his older brother Jacob. And he watched as the early Amish came upon the scene. Now, the early Amish didn't come until around 1690s, in that time.

It was a renewal movement. The Swiss Brethren and their area was beginning to grow a little cold, and the Amish came in, and they were a renewal movement. They were the mutton knights of the time.

And as they came in, there were some things that were kind of, you know, edgy between the two. And finally, they ended up with the Amish being excommunicated. But they were so much sorry about how it all worked out that by the end of the 1690s, the whole Amish said, we will hereby excommunicate ourselves as a church to come back in unity with the Swiss Brethren.

The Swiss Brethren said, nah, it's okay. Because you wash feet, and we don't. That's an interesting historical piece there.

But, so the Uli they went on, the Amish started growing in and growing, and finally, just like in all church life, one of the biggest things you see in church life is how much things don't change. An Uli Amon wrote a letter to a church in crisis, and that's what the barcode is there. It's beautiful.

We'll go over it sometime, and just line by line of it. It's so much wisdom. He talks about that leadership is real, that God has ordained leaders in the church, and they should lead.

But then it quickly then turns and says, but they're not to be kings, as he mentions this minister up in Holland that apparently was acting like a king. He mentions him several times. Don't be like him.

But they should be able to present their ideas first to the congregation. But the ministers should get counsel with the brethren and other ministers, and that their way is to be presented, but it's not to be like it's just forcing their way through. And then it goes on to say, and if for some reason, could you even imagine, that there's not agreement in the congregation, and you can't come to agreement, they suggest, Uli suggests, get help.

Here's the kicker. And if you get help, take the advice of the help that you get. It goes on, and it's really interesting the way it says, you should seek the old path.

Let's not try to just be the most modern things. But on the other hand, he goes on to say, if some of our things that we do are no longer valid, or no longer have any real meaning for this era, let's be able to change them. So the balance of it is fascinating.

We'll go over it some time. But Uli Amun gives this back and forth, this respect, leadership being real, and being allowed and blessed to lead, but yet not ruling over like a dictator, and the brotherhood being genuine, and that when you have a congregational type of ministry, we don't have a conference that can just come over and knock some bad bishop on the head and get him out of there. So it takes the responsibility of all of us to hold each other responsible.

It's a very serious idea. All right, so I'm going to show you an example. So this passage, and I'm going to finish this with an example by one of my favorite pastors, not an Anabaptist, by Richard Baxter.

On this passage, therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. Richard Baxter. During the time of Oliver Cromwell days, the 1600s in England, Richard Baxter doesn't fit into any theological camp.

J. I. Packer, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Richard Baxter, himself a Reformed guy, says he doesn't fit. The Calvins won't claim him completely. The Calvinists won't claim him completely.

The Armenians won't claim him completely. No one will claim him. Anabaptists certainly won't claim him.

And so here he is pastoring in this little town called Kittimeister, England. And quite a guy. And I want to lift him up as an example of a wow pastor.

He's inspired many people. As a matter of fact, Charles Spurgeon, the famous Spurgeon who was the famous Baptist leader in England, when sometimes he's recorded that he would feel that his preaching and his pastoring has become too weak, he would call for his wife, go fetch me. And I brought this.

My Reformed pastor, bring me Baxter to quicken my dead heart. And I read one report that he would just read it and weep of the comparison. I got this for, where is Brother Dean? There you are.

I got this for you. This is your copy. And, ouch, I'll give this to you to read.

It's powerful. I also gave one to each of our other ministers when I got them. I said, hey, I should get them for the rest of them.

So when you read that, ouch, and I'm not throwing any stones, I say ouch 100 times more than all of you as I read that. Now, the things that he brings out is the responsibilities of now the pastor to the congregation. We read a lot now about the congregation to the pastors with all these teachings.

Watch how Richard Baxter took the office. So the preacher, he doesn't fit in any camp. He didn't get into all the little theological debates.

Listen, the internet's going crazy. Everything's coming around. You could get so wrapped up in so many theological mumbo-jumbo.

Stop it. Don't be the theological hero in the 21st century. Don't do it.

Focus on being faithful and bringing people to the faith. Try to avoid all that. And we have to defend the faith.

Amen. But he avoided that, and his priority came out in his pastoring. He preached an hour twice a week every Monday and Thursday, and it was said of his preaching that he had enormous energy.

One time when he was almost dying, and it really affected his preaching. He had so many diseases. One thing I read said that he was a veritable museum of diseases because he had all kinds of things he would write in his journal about.

He says, I preach as never sure to preach again, as a dying man to dying men. That's the way he preached. But he's really known for his pastoring.

So right there, Worchester is right in the center. Go up the big road there, and you get to the little town of Kittimeister. It's kind of like being in Baltic, you know.

But he had 800 homes that would have been in his area that he would have been responsible for. So twice a week, he and assistant, deacon or something, started on one end of the town and went through the town visiting families. They would stay with each family for approximately an hour, giving them counseling and instruction.

He averaged, you ready for this, 15 to 16 families a week until he had visited all 800 families of this parish. Not all of those would have received him. They would have been a parish, you know what I mean.

And then he would start the cycle again. How did he do it? How's the time? He wrote in his journal, Is it not better to live in reduced economic circumstances than that your parishioners be damned? Your bread is not important than their eternal salvation, is it? In 1655, the Church of England, this is after the Oliver Cromwell era and all that, were trying to get organized. They were trying to have this big minister's conference and he couldn't make it.

I just can't pull myself away. So that's when he got together and in his free time, wrote The Reformed Pastor. The original version was 755 pages.

So someone said this morning, we have a reformed version as well. So it's still really good. And it was on this passage and he divides the book into two parts.

And pastors, ministers, all dads, leaders of any kind, two parts. The first part, take heed to yourself. And the first part deals with that.

That you can't minister, you can't be effective, you can't live your life unless you are first dealing with yourself, according to Acts 20.28. And then to the flock. And that's the way the book divides itself as it goes through. So let's look at the self.

As he talks about the self, it's not an academic, it's not just a doing it in an empty way. It's meeting with God. He writes, perspiration is no substitute for inspiration.

It's not just working hard. It is possible also that many a man has warned others not to come to the place of torment which they have hastened to themselves. Is it possible also that many a preacher is now in hell who has called upon his hearers a hundred times to use their utmost care and diligence to escape its dark destiny? Believe it, brethren, that God never saved any man for being a preacher.

And then he says, how many sleep before us? Talk about people falling asleep in the church. Always blame yourself. How many sleep before us because our hearts and tongues are all so sleepy? And we do not even have enough skill and zeal to wake them up.

Oh, it's a terrible thing for a minister to blame their congregation for not getting it. I can't tell you how many times I have preached somewhere and I've walked and it's like, whew, and I realize I just babbled and blabbed nonsense for an hour. It's my fault.

It's because of something wrong with me. And he hits heavy on that. It's not the congregation's fault.

It's your fault. And if you are in tuned with God, it will be different. Leonard Rabinow hits on the same type of thing.

For pride, oh, he hits hard on pride. For God who thrust out a proud angel will not tolerate a proud preacher either. The very heart of the gospel is the need to be self-abased.

The work of grace is only begun and sustained by humility. When we rebuke a drunkard or a fornicator and state that they cannot be saved without repentance, have we not greater reason to tell ourselves we cannot be saved unless we become humble? Indeed, pride is a greater sin than whoredom and drunkenness. So we must study humility, preach it, as well as possess it, and practice it.

There's an early Anabaptist writer, one of my favorites, Peter Riddemann. He talks about this concept of who is ordained and who is to be chosen for these types of works, and he says this. And his interesting, this document was he was captured, put into prison, and in his area, if you could base your doctrines on the Apostles' Creed, they let you go.

And so he actually put all the Anabaptist doctrines into the Apostles' Creed, and this was the one he somehow pulled ministry out of it. And he said, those who have been on the mountain with Christ and have seen the tabernacle with all its adornments and furnishing, they, and only they, are able to know how to do the work to please Him whose dwelling in it shall be. In other words, the model is heaven that we're bringing to earth.

You've got to be in tune with that to understand that. If anyone is to go out for the Lord, he must be chosen by the Lord and endowed with His power. Very fervent about putting people out in the ministry.

The pastors were sent to the mission field many times. He must feel that power who are working in him. Above all, he must let the Lord's power rule over him and lead him.

Christ will not permit a messenger to go out who was not first clothed with the power of His Spirit. Those who feel this power will heed the command of the Lord who He has sent them. And so what is the main task of the pastor? A few more slides and I'm done.

What is the main task of this pastor that we ordain? There's lots of things to do. Is it to get your sermon done? I think of how many times I think, boy, if I could just get my sermon written by before Saturday night, how incredible that would be. And if I don't just make a fool of myself on Sunday morning, I'll be a double bonus.

That's good, or ish. But what did Richard Baxter say the main purpose is? Oh, listen to this. The work of conversion is the first and most vital part of our ministry.

For there are those who are Christian only in name, but have need to be truly born again. The end is not to produce the sermon. The end is not to get the sermon done.

The end is to use this for the conversion of the congregation. And so we do this in any way we can, but the purpose, the drive in you is that you're crying out for the conversion of the souls in the congregation. Not to organize the parties, not to start some, it's the conversion of the souls that you've been in charge with.

Sometimes one-on-one, listen to what he says this. He wrote this on his walk about Kittimeister. I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can, and yet I frequently meet with those who have been my hearers for eight or 10 years, who do not whether Christ be God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of His birth and life and death as if they had never heard it before.

I have found by experience that some persons who have been so long unprofitable hearers have got more knowledge and remorse of conscience and half an hour of close discourse than they did from 10 years of public preaching. I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means because we speak to many at once, but it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner as to himself, for the plainest man, that is, can scarcely speak plain enough in public for them to understand, but in private we may do much more. I conclude, therefore, that public preaching alone will not be sufficient.

Long may you study and preach to little purpose if you neglect this duty of personal instruction." And then he also talks about forming in groups. If you have limited in time, take several together. This is much better than to be hasty with individuals and superficial in your contact with them.

Be sure those who bring together are common friends so they will hold each other's confidence while you talk with them. And holiness in the church is not an option. It's not an option.

I remember in the army, again, this is not to be the way we're to do it, but it's an analogy. In the army, when you're standing guard, like let's say you're protecting a barrack or something, we have these certain statements that you make. I will not relieve my post until I am properly relieved, is one of them I remember saying.

And when you do fire a watch, they would call it or guard or something, you would have to repeat all these. The Marines had one extra. Tonya and I did the School of Music in an amphibious base that had the Marines there as well.

And the Marines say this. A Marine on watch has no friends. Now, that's not the way it's supposed to be done in the church.

Jesus said, I don't no longer call you servants, but I call you friends. And why do I call you friends? Because I tell you everything. Because I tell you everything.

It's not like the Gentiles, not with fear, but as friends. But still, we are to tell. And the holiness is not an optional thing.

I'm almost done. We corrupt... Listen, pastors. Listen, church.

This is what you're to hold your pastors to responsible to do. We corrupt Christianity itself in the eyes of the world when we give the assumption that one, to be a Christian is merely a matter of opinion, or two, the Christian religion demands no more holiness than the false religions of the world. If then the holy and unholy alike are permitted into the same sheepfold, then we defame Christ.

Listen to this little one. We also make good men separate themselves from our churches by our laxity of discipline when we permit the worst of men to remain uncensored. Ouch.

So the idea of being this, the concern, the bottom line is this. You care for the souls. You're going to be held responsible.

You will be held responsible for how things go. And the last slide that I have of his quote is this. Speaking to the ministers in this book, in this conference that he gave this book to, and his encouragement to do this kind of pastoring, Richard Baxter said, Let us hear the words of Christ.

Whenever we feel the tendency growing in us to become dull and careless, did I die for them and you will not look after them? Let us hear the words of Christ. Whenever we feel the tendency growing in us to become dull and careless, let's hear the words of Christ. Did I die for them and you will not look after them? Were they worthy of my blood and yet they are not worthy of your labor? Did I come down from heaven to earth to seek and to save that which was lost? And will you not go next door or to the next street or village to seek after them? Have I done and suffered so much for their salvation and was willing to make you a co-worker with me and yet you refuse that little that lies within your hands.

And so, the congregation and the pastor's responsibility to each other. It's an awesome responsibility. And when you see this, these are the things we are encouraging each other with.

These are the things the office of the Scriptures are requiring and desiring for us. And we as a congregation and as ministers, these are the things that we're held responsible for. Alright, so let's pray and ask God to have mercy first upon me and for all of us.

And then I'll turn it over I think to Brother Paul.