Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
Desiring God Community Church
Give
Desiring God Community Church
Give

Sermons

HomeAll PostsBlogSermons
Close

Why are my Pastors and Elders so Disappointing, and What Should I Do About It?

Blog, Church Leadership, SermonsAugust 13, 2008
(This is a summary of the last sermon in the six-part series, “God Gave Pastors and Teachers,” preached on July 20, 2008. The audio is available here.) What do you expect from a pastor? What do you expect from an elder? Consider this description of the perfect pastor found in various forms on the internet:

The perfect pastor works every day from 7am until midnight and is a wonderful family man. He is content with a salary of $100 a week, wears stylish clothes, drives a late-model car, buys plenty of books, and donates $100 a week to the church. He is 29 years old and has 30 years pastoral experience. He condemns sin roundly but never hurts anyone's feelings. He is enthusiastic about missions, but never encourages anyone's child to live the rest of his life overseas. He makes 5 visits daily to members' families, visits shut-ins and the hospitalized, spends all his time evangelizing the unchurched, never misses a committee meeting, and is always in his office when anyone calls. That's the perfect pastor.

People tend to have high expectations of pastors - and they are often disappointed. Some end up hopping from church to church, trying to find someone who fits their ideal. Others work hard to get rid of each inadequate pastor who comes to their church, expecting to be able to find someone better. But then after a few months or a few years, the next man proves just as disappointing. Surely God doesn't intend us to church hop, nor does He intend us to trade in our pastors for a newer model every two years. How should you handle disappointment in pastors and elders?

Read More

Stay Focused and Alert in the Race of Faith

Blog, Sermons, The Race of FaithAugust 13, 2008
(This sermon on Hebrews 12:1-2 was preached 8/10/2008. For a version that is easier to print, click here. The audio is available here.) You've trained for years. Day after day. Season after season. Long runs. Interval training. You're prepared. Now the opening ceremonies are over. Your Olympic race day has arrived. Over the course of anywhere from a few seconds to a bit over 2 hours, you must put into play all you've learned; you must put into effect all the strength work, all the cardiovascular work you've done. One mistake, one brief loss of focus, one moment of indecision could set aside years of training. What do you need to remember as you race in order to run to win? How will you run the race? A number of you have run in events where place is completely irrelevant. You're not so much running AGAINST others in the race, as WITH them. Your goal is not to beat others, but to complete the distance, or to achieve a particular time. Not so in the Olympic track events. In these races, time is almost irrelevant. Your only goal is to win the race. If you can win in a slow time - that's fine. In order to win, you have to beat your opponents, either mentally or physically. So, particularly in events 400m or longer, every coach hammers this point into his athletes' heads: Your goal is to make the race develop in such a way that others can't catch you, or to make the race develop in such a way that those who can catch you think they can't. A classic example of this took place 54 yars ago this week, in the 1954 Commonwealth Games "Miracle Mile." The Englishman Roger Bannister had run history's first sub-four minute mile on May 6. The Australian John Landy broke that World Record six weeks later. No one else had broken the barrier. About seven weeks after Landy's record race, the two runners met for the first and only time.

Read More

Since We Have Elders, What is the Role of the Congregation?

Blog, Church Leadership, SermonsAugust 8, 2008
(This is a summary of the fifth sermon in the six-part series, “God Gave Pastors and Teachers,” preached on July 13, 2008. The audio is available here.) What roles does the congregation play in the leadership of the church? Do the pastors/elders have all authority, which the congregation must always follow? Or is the congregation the final authority on every issue, able to overturn any decision of the elders/pastors? How should a member of the congregation think about the pastors and elders? Today and next Sunday we will look at several biblical passages that shed light on this question. We will see that the Bible clearly teaches that members should honor, respect, indeed, love their leaders. And they must submit to them. But in the end it is the congregation as a whole that is responsible that the church teaches right doctrine. Elders are sheep, and some will wander from the truth - and will attempt to lead others astray. The church not only may but must deal with an errant elder. We'll look at four responsibilities of members of the congregation, which will serve as our outline. Next week's sermon on how to deal with disappointments in elders will continue this theme. The congregation must honor and esteem the elders 1 Thes 5:12-13, 1 Tim 5:17 The congregation must imitate their elders Heb 13:7 The congregation must obey/submit to their elders Heb 13:17 The congregation must watch over the teaching, purity, and unity of the church

Read More

What is a Senior Pastor and Why Do We Have One?

Blog, Church Leadership, SermonsAugust 7, 2008
This is a summary of the fourth sermon in the six-part series, “God Gave Pastors and Teachers,” preached on July 6, 2008. The audio is available here.) What is a senior pastor, and why do we have one? In this series, we are exploring what the Bible says about the role of pastors and elders in the local church. These are vital truths, often misunderstood in the church today, which are key for us to understand if we are to build a church that brings glory to God. Let me remind you of some of what we've seen in first three sermons: The first sermon focused on the centrality and necessity of preaching. The most solemn exhortation in all of Scripture precedes Paul command to Timothy to preach the word. God calls men to a preaching ministry, in part because naturally we don't want to hear the Word - instead, we want to gather teachers to tell us what we like. A man who will preach the Word faithfully in season and out of season, whether people like it and large crowds come or whether they walk out, is a gift to the church. The second and third examined biblical teaching on elders/pastors/overseers (which are all the same office.) The Holy Spirit makes them overseers, not man. They exist to help the church fulfill its threefold purpose:
  • To Express joy in Christ
  • To Spread joy in Christ
  • To Deepen joy in Christ.
Elders accomplish this through shepherding/pastoring. So think of shepherding/pastoring in the terms of Ephesians 4:12: Equipping believers for the work of ministry so that that we all might express joy, spread joy, and deepen joy in Christ. We saw that shepherding or pastoring is a comprehensive term for all that elders do: Preaching, teaching, and exhorting are all parts of shepherding. Indeed, the emphasis biblically in direct commands to elders is on prayer and the public aspects of ministry, though it is also clear that caring for the flock as individuals is important also. We also noted that in calling us sheep, the Bible is not flattering us. Sheep are quite stupid; they are in desperate need of a shepherd. We have that shepherd, the Great Shepherd, Jesus Himself. We also noted that human pastors/shepherds are actually sheep too. They must depend on the Great Shepherd, or they will accomplish nothing. Finally, the ultimate goal of the pastors/shepherds is not healthy sheep, happy sheep, or well-fed sheep. Instead, the goal is for all of us to become the kind of sheep Jesus is: a sacrificial lamb. So the central task of the elder/pastor is to prepare you for sacrifice, to prepare you for laying down your life. So: How do elders function together to accomplish this? Are there different types of elders? Are there authority relationships among elders? The Bible doesn't provide us with detailed instructions here, but it does give us some necessary guidelines. My goal this morning: To look at those guidelines, to describe how Fred and I understand them, and to communicate how we as a church will try to live that out, now and in the future.

Read More

What is Shepherding and Why Must Elders Do It?

Church Leadership, SermonsAugust 7, 2008
(This is a summary of the third sermon in the six-part series, “God Gave Pastors and Teachers,” preached on June 22, 2008. The audio is available here.) What is shepherding and why must elders do it? When you read in Acts 20:28 that the elders are to shepherd the church of God, what images come to your mind? What tasks that pastors or elders do constitute shepherding? Since this is a serious biblical command, we had better understand it well. To understand it well, we need to look at how the Bible uses the term What is shepherding, biblically?

Read More

Train Through Pain Yet with Joy for the Race of Faith

Blog, Sermons, The Race of FaithAugust 7, 2008

(This sermon on 2 Timothy 2:3 was preached 8/3/2008. For a version that is easier to print, click here. The audio is available here.)

Have you ever stepped out in faith? Have you ever made a hard decision, decided, “Yes I will follow God!”? What happened next?

We love stories like that which continue: “And it didn’t seem possible, but by God’s grace I was able to do it!”

Praise God for such stories. Praise God for that way of displaying His faithfulness.

But do you also love stories that proceed differently? What if the rest of the story is: “I fell flat on my face.” Or “there was a great deal of pain and suffering, and no success that I could discern.”

Think of the Apostle Paul in that regard.

Paul wrote his 2nd letter to Timothy from prison. He was cold. Several former co-laborers were now ashamed of him; they did not want to have their names associated with him. So they deserted him. At his preliminary trial, no one came to his defense. He knew his legal case was hopeless; his execution would come soon.

His is not a story that, on the face of it, inspires confidence. Indeed, Paul even reminds Timothy of his persecutions and sufferings.

But he doesn’t say, “I’ve made mistakes in being too public, in irritating religious and government officials, in inviting persecution. Be careful to avoid persecution so you can have a fruitful ministry.”

Quite the contrary. He says, “all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). And he tells him:

Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God (1:8).

Furthermore, he tells him, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3).

Paul tells Timothy to expect pain and, in a sense, to embrace suffering.

What should we expect in our own lives?

Surely we should expect that pain and suffering are a normal part of some Christians’ lives. That much is clear. But Christians over the years have made at least two big mistakes when thinking about pain.

· Some have said: “Pain is a necessary step to becoming like Christ. So I should pursue pain! I should seek pain.” With this in mind, over the centuries, some have whipped themselves, or sat on poles, or gone to other extremes. That is NOT the biblical message.

· Much more prominent in our country today is the second mistake: That is, saying, “Of course, Paul suffered, Jesus suffered, and Timothy was going to have to suffer. The political powers of their day opposed them. But today, we don’t face such persecution by our government, and God wants us to be free from pain. He wants us to prosper. Just believe! Have faith! And He will give you good success.”

This morning, I want to approach this subject of pain via the analogy between running and living the Christian life. For pain plays an important role in running. Someone who says, “My life should be free from pain; I should avoid anything that will cause me pain,” will never succeed as a runner. However, that’s also true of the one who seeks pain. He, too, will fail as a runner.

Read More