My Part of the Peace Plan:
LEADERS > CHURCH:- LABOR . (1 Thes 5:12)
- LEAD . (1 Thes 5:12)
- ADMONISH . (1 Thes 5:12)
CHURCH > LEADERS:
- RESPECT . (1 Thes 5:13)
- ESTEEM . (1 Thes 5:13)
- PEACE . (1 Thes 5:13)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Amen. Open your Bibles with me please to the book of 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians.
00:10-00:44
We're going to be in chapter 5 and looking at just two verses today. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, picking up in verse 12. The apostle Paul says, "We ask you, brothers, let's stop there for a second. This term comes up a lot, you've seen, especially in Paul's writings, "brothers." It literally means brothers and sisters, okay? It's just talking about brethren. It's talking about family.
00:46-00:56
It's a family term. And as Paul's talking to this church, and I'm echoing this for our church here, I understand that we are a family.
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First of all, we have the same father.
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We have the same goals.
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We love each other.
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We protect each other.
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And we encourage each other.
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But sometimes, like a family, sometimes we fight when we don't get our way.
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And does anybody have that happening in your house?
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Maybe fighting going on because you don't get your way or somebody is angry because they didn't get their way.
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And I've got to tell you, I'm at the stage in my life now where I have been able to see it from two different sides.
01:36-01:43
I can remember being a child, insisting on getting my own way, and now I have children that want their own way.
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Anybody else with me on that?
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Do you have like certain things in your house that seem to be recurring fights?
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Don't like tell me what it is, but do you have something in your house that's like a recurring fight?
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Like, "We're going to fight about this again." Does anybody else have that?
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We have that.
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We have that, and I'm not making this up.
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This is a recurring fight that we have in our house.
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I'm not going to mention names, but he's sitting beside his mother right here.
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We just had this fight again on Friday.
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And it always starts with him saying, "I want to be the oldest!" I'm like, "Sorry buddy, you can't be the oldest." "It's not fair!
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I want to be the oldest!" And I'm like, "There is literally nothing I can do about that.
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I can't even coddle that." I'm like, "Your request is ridiculous." He's like, "It's not fair.
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I want to be the oldest." I can't help you with that.
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And it happened again on Friday.
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I was informed, he said, "I'm going to go find a family where I can be the oldest.
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I'm getting a new family and I'm going to be the oldest." And I said, "Hey, you know what?
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If you can find a family of people under nine, go for it.
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Best of luck to you." And really what the argument always boils down to is this.
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I want to be in charge.
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And there are times that Aaron and I have led them.
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They're like, "You want to be in charge?
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Okay, you know what?
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Go ahead.
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Do what you want." They're like, "You know what?
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Mommy and I are just going to sit over here and we're going to watch TV or whatever, and you can do whatever you want." Guess how long that lasts, by the way?
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Take a guess.
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If you said an hour, you shot that way over.
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It usually lasts about 15 minutes.
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"Well, I need this." "You know what, you're in charge and I'll get it yourself." "You're in charge." Eventually there's repentance and there's sackcloth and ashes.
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And he rehires us as parents.
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But if we're honest, even in the church, some of us that are older than nine can get into that mindset.
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"I want everything to be my way." I prefer my preferences about everything.
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You mean like everybody else in the world?
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Yeah!
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Like everybody else.
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But it has to be my way.
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There's a lot of fighting that can happen in the church when we don't get our own way.
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As we turn to 1 Thessalonians, we're coming to the end.
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This letter from Paul was to this young church in Thessalonica.
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The gist of the letter is this.
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Paul says, "I love you and I long to see you guys." You remember Paul sort of had to get out of town in a hurry.
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There was a massive riot, Acts chapter 17.
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He wasn't there very long.
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And he goes, "I just really want to get back and see you.
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And I have so much more I want to teach you." These last two messages, today and next week, this passage Paul just closes with instruction for the church. Verses 12 and 13 that we're looking at today, he's talking about the relationship of the church with the leadership within the church.
05:30-06:11
Okay, so verse 12 says, "We ask you brothers, family, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves." Notice he says in verse 12, "Respect those who labor among you and are," he says, "over you." Notice that unlike in Timothy and in Titus, Paul doesn't mention elders. Why?
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Why?
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This was such a young church, they probably didn't have elders, okay?
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You know that's not how it works.
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It's not like, "Hey, we're starting a church.
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Who wants to be an elder?" It takes some time to get to know people, see who God is equipping and calling to fulfill that role.
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It's not like, "You're a warm body.
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Do you want to be an elder?
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You got saved last week.
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Do you want to be an elder?" You need people who have a shepherd heart and a maturity in their faith.
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And the church at Thessalonica, they just didn't have that at this point from what I can see, but they had to have had some type of leadership.
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So, the principles that he's giving here that I'm going to share with you today just simply apply to people in positions of leadership in the church.
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Harvest Bible Chapel, we would say primarily that refers to the elders and the deacons.
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Now, you're like, "Well, who is a deacon at Harvest Bible Chapel?" We don't have people that we call deacons, but we have people that fulfill the deacon role.
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Okay?
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We have elders, the elder board, of which there are four of us, and then we have what we call the ministry team.
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And in my mind, those are the deacons at the church.
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the people who do the work of the ministry, like deacons are called to do, and equip others to do the work of the ministry.
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At Harvest Bible Chapel, we have elders and we have ministry team leaders.
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So as we're reading these verses, that sets the context of how it applies here.
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All just boils the church down really to just two roles in this.
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leaders in church.
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And I want you to notice in these verses that we read that Paul directs the charge to who?
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He directs it to the church, doesn't he?
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He asks you brothers to respect those who labor among you.
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He isn't really giving instructions for the leadership, he's giving instructions for the church but in so doing, he describes what the leaders are supposed to be doing.
08:22-08:58
The last phrase in verse 13 is really the bow on the package here, where he says, "Be at peace among yourselves." "Be at peace among yourselves." So when we consider the relationship between the leaders of the church and the church body, Paul says the end game of our relationship, and we can get the ministry team up here and the elders up here, we would say the end game of our relationship is having peace in the church.
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I'm going to break it down for us quickly this morning.
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On your outline, I want you to jot some things down.
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My part of the peace plan.
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Okay, what's the peace plan here?
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We all have a part, and first I want to address part of the leaders.
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So church, you're allowed to listen in, but I'm addressing specifically the leaders of this church right now.
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I'm talking to the elders, Darren, Mark, and Jay.
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I'm talking to those sitting here that are leaders in the ministry team.
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Anne, Amanda, Darren, others that are here that are leaders in their respective ministries.
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I'm talking to you guys right now.
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I'm part of the peace plan.
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There's three things that he mentions concerning leaders.
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First of all, in verse 12, we ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you.
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First of all, it's labor.
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What do leaders of the church do?
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They work in and for the church.
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This is a common word for work that Paul uses.
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We've shared it before in different passages we've looked at, but the Greek word for work means to work to exhaustion.
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It means that you work to exhaustion.
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Leadership is hard work.
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I said I was talking to the leaders, but just for a second, I want to talk to the church regarding the leaders and their work.
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I'd like to remind you, especially as we get into these next couple of points here, I'd like to remind you church that oftentimes really all you see is the finished product, not the work that goes into it.
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You see, you can come to Harvest Bible Chapel and you can drop off your children and you can sit here and enjoy just having some time, understanding God's Word and praying.
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What you don't see is all the work that goes into the children's ministry, putting the plan together, the teachers working on the lessons, Mandy working on making sure everybody has clearances that work with children in our church, all the set up that takes place to turn the school into a church for a couple of hours.
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You know, getting take home papers, materials for crafts, all of the stuff that goes into it.
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It's hard work.
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You know, you can come in here and we sing the songs.
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What you don't see is all the planning that goes in to making that happen.
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The planning of the sets, the looking into the new music, what songs are we going to use, what songs are we going to cut, how would this work as part of our worship set?
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The individuals practicing, the band getting together to practice, the work that goes into putting the words on the screen, the people working the AV and the computer during church, realizing that there are people that say, "I'm willing, even during church, to be working our service so that everybody else can enjoy that, so everybody else can worship.
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There's a lot of work that goes into it.
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Speaking from the pastoral and elder side of things, you often just get to see the fun part.
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You know, like playing cornhole at the picnic or getting up and "Hey, I get to study God's Word this week.
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Let me tell you some of the really neat things that I got to study." You get to see the fun part, but often times you don't get to see the agony of dealing with the huge or the heartbreaking issues.
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You don't see the calls in the middle of the night.
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"Hey, somebody's in the hospital.
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We need you to come down now." You don't see the...
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One time several years ago, we had a long day of ministry.
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It was on a Sunday.
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I remember Aaron and I had just gotten home, I think it was before we had kids, but we had just gotten home.
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It was 10.30 at night and I sat down on the couch and I'm like, "I am exhausted." Turned on the TV and as soon as I did, my phone rang.
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"Hello?
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Pastor Jeff, I have a gun to my head and I'm going to shoot myself." You see, in my position, I can't say, "You know, you need to call back during office hours." You can't do that.
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It's "Don't move, I'll be right there." And it was, you remember that?
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All night with this guy.
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It's not always fun and games.
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And I'm not complaining.
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I wouldn't do anything else.
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I wouldn't do anything else because God told me to do this.
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I tried to do other things, but God told me to do this.
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I'm not complaining.
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What I'm saying is, there's a lot of work that goes into this.
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It's not as if, "Okay, it's time to preach another sermon.
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I'll just get on this website and they'll download the notes for me and I'll just get up and share it." On top of all of the other work that goes into it, the counseling sessions, the administrative You also have to find 15 or 20 hours a week to study a passage of Scripture.
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Each ministry, each ministry requires hard work to be excellent.
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Like, well how hard?
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Well, just looking in 1 Thessalonians, remember chapter 2 and verse 7, the apostle Paul says, But we were gentle among you like a nursing mother.
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Sometimes ministry feels like it's that hard.
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The hardest job.
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There's the ultimate example for long and hard work.
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Think of that nursing mother.
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Think of what that mother has put her body through.
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Think of, you know, delivery and up all night feeding and wiping bottoms and giving up or modifying careers often times.
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Why in the world would a mother do that?
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She does it out of love.
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You see, and that's why everybody at the church that are in positions of leadership, that's why we work hard.
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Because Christ is worth it.
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Right, leaders?
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Christ is worth it.
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It's because His mission is worth it, right?
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People are worth it.
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Seeing people saved and transformed, it's worth it.
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I say it every baptism service.
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We have another one coming up October 17th actually at Northway.
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If you need to talk about taking that step of making the public profession a faith, to talk to me as soon as possible.
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We would love to celebrate that with you.
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But I say it every time we have one.
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I say this is why I do what I do.
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To see somebody who's been radically transformed by the love of Jesus Christ, to see somebody that says, "My sin has separated me from my God, "and there's nothing I can do about it.
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"But the glorious good news is God did everything for me.
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"He came and He died.
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Jesus Christ died for my sin, and He rose from the dead to give me eternal life.
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That's why we do what we do.
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That's why we work so hard.
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To be in a place where we can just sit back and watch Jesus Christ change lives.
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To watch Jesus do what only He can do.
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The leaders - we work hard.
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We work hard.
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We don't need to apologize for that.
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We don't need to try to get around it.
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In a position of leadership, it's hard work.
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That's the word Paul uses here.
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He says, "Respect those who labor among you." Secondly, he says, "And are over you." Number two, just write down, "Lead." Again elder team, ministry team, they lead.
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We impart wisdom, we give direction, we protect the flock, we give guidance, encouraging and discipling. A lot of people like the idea of being a leader but they don't want to lead. The previous point because leading is hard work. You have to set the tone leaders, you have to steer the ship, you have to implement a strategy, you have to train people, you have to delegate responsibilities, and then you have to circle back and evaluate how effective and how well we are on mission.
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It requires leadership.
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It requires taking initiative.
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What type of leadership?
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He says, "Over you." See that next phrase?
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"The labor among you and are over you." He says, "In the Lord." In the Lord.
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This is the Lord's structure, this is the Lord's plan, and leaders, ministry team and elders, you're representing Christ in the way that you're leading the people that you're serving.
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You see?
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And there's all these models for ministry, you know, the CEO model, and the, you know, all these business models, and certainly we can glean some wisdom.
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But at the end of the day, our model for ministry is Jesus Christ.
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The leader of everything who came as a servant.
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That's the type of leadership that we are supposed to exemplify.
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The type of leadership that we are supposed to replicate.
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The leadership like Jesus Christ.
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Leadership in the Lord.
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The leaders, you need to labor, you need to work hard, and you are.
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This is meant to encourage you.
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You need to lead.
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You need to take initiative.
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You are.
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I want to encourage you.
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What else do leaders do?
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Look at verse 12.
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He says, "They labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you." And admonish you.
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The Greek word is "noutheou" which is instruction leaning towards correction.
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that has a view towards correction.
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What does that mean?
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You've noticed if you've been to this church more than once, probably, that when we share God's Word, we're not just trying to give you facts.
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You can give facts anywhere.
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These sermons are to encourage you to be who Christ has called you to be and who Christ has equipped you to be by the power of His Holy Spirit.
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That's admonishing.
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It's life change in mind.
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Okay, that's admonishing.
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This is going to sound overly critical, but whatever.
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How many times have we heard this silly sermon from people that's like, "Jesus said it's easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle." Interesting fact, some archaeologists have thought that the eye of the needle refers to this gate that was in the walls of Jerusalem that was sort of shaped like the eye of a needle and it was so low that the camels actually had to get on their knees to scoot through the eye of the needle. Have you ever heard something like that? First of all, we have no way of knowing whether that's true or not. We have no way of knowing.
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Second of all, what difference does that make? Was that the point? Was that the point? You know, that Jesus was trying to, you know, teach this, the eternal Word of God, and it was about these camels walking on their knees? I don't even think camels can do that! And that's the point? That's gonna bring life change?
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Hey, what are you studying at church this week? Oh, I found out that camels can walk on their knees.
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I want to go to that church.
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What was the point of that?
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The point Jesus was making is, it's impossible, right? Isn't that the point?
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And then the disciples got that. Well, it's impossible. And then Jesus said, "With man it's impossible, but all things are possible with God." That's the point. So when we get up and preach that passage, you're not going to be hearing me talk about the stupid camel, what you're going to be hearing me say is, "Listen, all things are possible with God.
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And if you're trusting yourself for salvation or spirituality, you're going to fail yourself.
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It's only possible with God.
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That is what is going to bring life change." All right?
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I wish when preachers preach stuff like that, that people would just throw tomatoes at them, Like in the old days.
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You can do it to me too if I get up and start preaching some meaningless, senseless, unverifiable, historical factoid.
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Who cares?
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Admonish.
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Admonish leaders.
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What does that mean?
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You need to see, look at the people in your ministry.
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You need to see where they are, see where they ought to be, and help them to get there.
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We're talking about life change.
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People say, "You know, I'm growing in the Lord, but I have this area that the Lord's really brought to my attention.
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This is an area where I really need to grow, and our job as leaders is to encourage them towards that.
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You know, I'm a young married person.
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I'm really struggling in my marriage." Okay, we encourage them towards that.
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That's admonishing.
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We want to give instruction with a view towards correction.
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That's what the word means.
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I love, I hardly have a cross-reference here, but I love how Paul said it in 1 Corinthians 4.14.
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He said, "I do not write these things to make you ashamed, "but to admonish you as my beloved children." You catch that?
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Paul says, "I'm not telling you this stuff to shame you.
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"It's not my goal ever to have you walk out of here "with a guilt trip.
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"I don't want you to walk out of here feeling, "Well, I went to church, I'm a loser.
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You know, I'm a disappointment to God.
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That's not true.
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None of those things are true, but oftentimes people leave churches feeling like that.
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And that's exactly what Paul was fighting against here.
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He says, I'm not writing this stuff to make you ashamed.
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Why are you writing this stuff, Paul?
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He says, but to admonish you, I want you to grow in Christ.
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That's why I'm writing these things.
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But look, everybody in this church has issues that we're dealing with, and struggles, and temptations, and trials.
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They just look different from person to person.
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We want you to be encouraged.
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We want you to keep growing.
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We want you to keep pursuing that for which Christ is pursuing you.
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It's admonishing leaders.
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The leaders, the people in your jurisdiction that maybe are acting like knuckleheads, maybe We need some help getting on course.
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Remember, we're not here to shame people.
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We're here to admonish.
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We're here to admonish.
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That's enough for the leaders.
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Now we're going to talk about the church as we wind down here.
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Church.
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Church, this is the way that you need to think of your leaders.
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I'm just going to be honest with you here.
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Can I do that? Can I be honest for a second? This is a tough passage for me to get up and preach. I don't have an agenda. This is one of those things, right, Kerry, verse by verse through the Bible, we don't skip things, right? It'd just be real easy to come to this passage and be like, "Look at what the Bible says, church. Respect me. You need to respect me.
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Do you see it?
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Underline it in your Bible, turn to your neighbor and say, "Respect the pastor." And I certainly don't want to come across that way.
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But let's just see what the Bible says.
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All right?
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You're leaders.
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The other part of this is just simply this.
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Currently, I don't see any issues where there's lack of peace in our church.
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I'm totally missing something.
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We've been in this really blessed season of peace and joy, and great spiritual growth.
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But if we're going to do verse by verse expository preaching, then we are going to unapologetically say, "Church, here's how you need to view the elders and the ministry team of this church." Number one, respect.
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I ask you brothers to respect those who labor.
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OK?
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The other side of the coin here.
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We dealt with the leaders.
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Now we're dealing with the church.
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Church, you need to respect the leaders.
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What does that mean?
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Interestingly, the Greek word for respect here means-- this is really interesting, and you're going to see why he uses this word.
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The Greek word means to know.
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To know.
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to know someone because you're experiencing life with someone.
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What's the point?
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Well, the point is it's easy to dismiss or be unkind or to criticize someone you don't know.
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Okay, from time to time we bring guest speakers in from the outside, and these are people that I know, but I know it'd be real easy in the church if a guest preacher like Luke Aarons or somebody comes and gives a hard word from scripture, it would be easier to dismiss that guy.
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I don't know him.
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Who's he?
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It's easier to dismiss that guy because you don't know him.
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But when you know someone, when you really know someone, there's a sense in which you have instant respect for them because you know their heart.
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For example, when we don't bring in a guy from the outside, we'll just talk about Mark Ward.
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When Mark Ward preaches, you see, he does an excellent job delivering the word, but it means a lot more to me coming from Mark because I know Mark.
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You see, I know how Mark loves his wife.
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I know how Mark interacts with his children.
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And Mark and I have had so many talks together where Mark has just shared his heart about his love for the church and some things that he's been praying about.
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And I know his heart.
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So when I know this man's heart and where he's coming from and his love for the Lord, his love for the family, his love for the church, then he gets up and he says, "I wanna share something with you from the word of God." It's just like, bam, I want to hear this.
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I want to hear what this guy has to say, because I know him.
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I know where he's coming from.
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Does that make sense?
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That's the type of respect that only comes when you know somebody.
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And that's what Paul's saying here, church.
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You need to know your leaders.
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You need to respect your leaders.
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You need to take time to get to know them.
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You need to do life with them.
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That's why we're encouraging everyone, If you haven't been involved in a small group, get involved.
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That's the only way you're going to know people in the church.
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There's a fishbowl and some sign-up sheets.
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You can get some information about any of our small groups.
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We just had a new small group lunch last Wednesday.
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How'd that go, Bob and Dina?
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Yeah, it was awesome, wasn't it?
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It was awesome.
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I bet people were ministered to and I bet you had fun and I bet you left feeling like, "Wow, the Lord really met with us tonight," right?
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That's the only way you're going to get to know people.
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That's what he means by respect.
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Secondly, we've just gone through the passage here.
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Here's how you need to think of your leaders.
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He says, "Respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you," verse 13, "and do esteem them very highly in love because of their work." A mouthful.
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Esteem them, first of all.
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What does that mean?
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It means you speak well of them.
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It means you encourage them.
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It means you pray for them.
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Those are the positive sides.
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Negative, it means you don't gossip.
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You don't criticize.
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The Bible says you need to esteem your leaders.
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You should be encouraging your leaders.
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There's nothing that encourages me more than when somebody, and many of you do this, you come to me and say, "Hey, you know what?
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I'm praying for you." encourages me more than that. You should be doing that for all of the leaders of this church." I'm like, "Well, why should we like, esteem them?
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Why?" "Well," he says, "because of their work.
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Because of their work. Not because of their personality or because of their talent, because of their work." "Well, that's why. How should we esteem them?" Notice He says very highly, literally in the Greek, he says "beyond measure." You should have esteem for the leadership of the church that goes beyond measure.
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I don't have any room to criticize or speak negatively.
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I have nothing but the utmost respect and esteem for this leader.
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Then he says, "Esteemed and very highly in love because of their work." In love.
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The leaders are doing what they're doing out of love for Christ and for Christ's people.
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That's the currency that you should be exchanging with the leadership of the church.
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Esteem.
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I have a stack of books on my bookshelf that says how to be a pastor, how to be a shepherd, how to shepherd a flock, church management.
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I have a stack of books that talks about how to be a pastor, how to be an elder, how to be a shepherd.
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Nothing is written for how to be a sheep.
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This is what the Bible says.
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Jesus said in John 13, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send, receives me and whoever receives me, receives the one who sent me." Did you catch that chain?
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In other words, if we, elders, ministry team, if we are people who are saved and equipped and sent by Jesus and are faithfully proclaiming His Word and ministering to you, then God's Word says you should be on our side, and for no other reason than the work that we are doing.
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Following this chain that Jesus talked about in John chapter 13, you're ultimately receiving God when you do that. See, if I'm proclaiming the Word of God, Jesus said receiving me is receiving Him and receiving Him is receiving His Father.
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Esteem. Respect, esteem, and then finally, this just kind of takes us back to where we started, doesn't it? Verse 13, He says, "Be at peace among yourselves." There's nothing worse.
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There's nothing worse than a church in conflict. That, that is from the devil.
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See a church that's young and excited and we're seeing people saved and baptized and we're seeing marriages saved and changed lives and addictions broken and we're seeing these things happen.
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But then conflict creeps in and suddenly the pastor can't focus on his job, and the volunteers are discouraged, and the mission is put on the back burner because we're investing so much of our energy in the conflict.
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Suddenly, we're so focused on conflict resolution that we're not focused on making disciples.
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That's what Satan wants for the church.
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Let's just spend all our energy fighting with each other and trying to fix all these little problems, and we're not on offense for Christ.
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not making disciples.
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Conflict resolution has to happen.
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The goal, the end game is to get the church in the place where we are at peace among ourselves.
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What causes the conflict?
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Again, circling back where we started, somebody didn't get their way.
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Somebody doesn't like a decision that was made.
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I have to tell you, church, when decisions are made, there are many hands involved, there's much prayer that goes into it, and there are many reasons for the decisions that are made.
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You need to know that.
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We had an elders meeting, what was that, last Tuesday?
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Was that last Tuesday?
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How long was it?
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It was like three hours long.
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What we're saying is we're spending time praying and seeking the Lord's guidance and will for this church.
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We don't make snap decisions.
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"Jay, what do you want to do?" "I want to do this." "Okay, why?" "I don't know." We don't work that way.
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So when decisions happen that you're like, "I'm not really sure I like that," you have to know that a lot of prayer and thought went into that.
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Then we met at the Frederick's house, elders and ministry team, like all of the leaders met and had a phenomenal meeting.
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Lots of decisions were being made and a lot of discussion was going back and forth with with the mind of how can we make disciples.
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Many hands involved, much prayer involved.
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And I want to, as I close the message, I just want to leave you with this.
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When you're tempted, well two things actually, when you're tempted to get upset, when you're tempted to gossip, when you're tempted to demand a meeting with the elders because you didn't agree on a decision that was made, I want you to ask yourself some questions.
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you can write these down. But when you're tempted to get upset with the leadership of the church, ask yourself these questions. First question is this, "Is this a hill to die on?" Is this a hill worth dying on? This thing that I'm upset about, this decision that was made, is this really worth...
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You're like, "Well, I'm not really sure how to evaluate that." Well, it's easy. Ask yourself, "Will it matter in five years.
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This decision that the church has made, is it going to matter in five years? I've seen churches divided at each other's throats over things like sharing space on the bulletin board. True.
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Like, really? That's what we're fighting about? People are going to hell? And we're fighting about which ministry gets the the bigger half of the bulletin board?
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I don't get it.
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I don't get it.
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So is it a hill worth dying on?
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Secondly, ask yourself this.
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This issue that I have.
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Is it a matter of biblical conviction or personal preference?
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Is it a matter of biblical conviction or personal preference?
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97% of the things that people get upset about are just personal preference things.
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That's not the way I like things.
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Well, sometimes it's going to happen.
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If it's a matter of biblical conviction, we better go after it.
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If it's a matter of, "Well, that's just not the way I prefer it," then maybe that's not the hill worth dying on.
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Thirdly, can I give the benefit of the doubt?
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In other words, okay this decision was made, and I don't like this decision, but is it possible that there are things going on that I don't know about?
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I've seen it happen in the church, the pastor or the elder that he is superhero one day and super villain the next day, like "Oh Mark, he has such a shepherd's heart, we love him so much and he's such a good preacher and Mark has to get up and say, "Hey, the elders decided this." And they're like, "Mark is a bum!
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I can't believe him!
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I knew he was..." Seriously?
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How did that happen?
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Can you give the benefit of the doubt?
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Maybe Mark is getting up because he had a three-hour meeting with the elders and we had to make some tough decisions and he has to announce that.
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Can you give the benefit of the doubt?
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The fourth thing you need to say to yourself, "Am I going after peace, or am I stirring up conflict?" "Am I going after peace, or am I stirring up conflict?" Which are you going after?
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I heard a preacher say one time But you need to imagine everywhere you go, you're carrying two buckets.
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One bucket is full of water and the other bucket is full of gasoline.
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And he said, and I'd like to commend this to you, you know when these little embers of conflict start to come - some bickering, some complaining, some criticizing - and you're walking into that, you have a choice in which bucket you're going to throw on that little flame.
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You see, if you throw the bucket of gasoline, you're just going to make things worse.
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If you're coming in saying, you know what, I agree with you.
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I agree, Mark, or it is a bum.
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I didn't like that decision.
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Can you believe that decision?
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Nobody asked me what I thought, I didn't like it.
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You're throwing the gasoline on the embers.
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Or, maybe in the midst of that criticism, maybe in the midst of those embers of conflict that are starting, maybe you throw the bucket of water on there.
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And say, you know what, I wasn't sure about that decision either, but I've known Mark for a while, and I know they've really been talking about this.
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Maybe there's some stuff we don't know.
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Maybe there's some stuff going on that we just don't know about.
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And in doing so, maybe you're eliminating the danger, instead of firing it up.
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So when these issues come, which bucket are you going to throw?
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Are you going after peace?
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Or are you going to stir up more conflict?
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So, God's word for us today in one statement is just simply this.
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Peace.
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Leaders, do your job.
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Church, love them for it.
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Will you pray with me?
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Father in heaven, I thank you for the peace that we've been experiencing in the church.
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And Father, you know, this church has gone through a season of conflict.
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And we've seen the way that it gets us off track of doing the mission with excellence.
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I thank you so much for bringing us through that.
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And I thank you so much for the peace that we're experiencing now.
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The unity, the love, the natural evangelism that is happening.
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Your Word calls us to be at peace among ourselves.
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So Father, today, especially, I lift up our leadership.
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I pray that we would be people who are diligent and rightly motivated.
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We do the jobs that You've called us to with the urgency that it requires.
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Father, I pray for this church.
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And I thank You for the respect, for the esteem, for the peace that I have sensed feeling like the church is really behind and praying for the leadership.
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I pray it would continue.
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We know, Father, conflict is going to come.
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We're not naive to think that it shall be this way forever in the life of this church.
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But I pray that Your Word here is a reminder to the place where we need to get back.
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Because we're not going to be effective the mission that you've equipped us to fulfill if we're focused on inward fighting.
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Father, we praise You.
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We ask moving forward that Your Holy Spirit continue to be manifested in our relationships.
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The love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the goodness, faithfulness, the gentleness, the self-control. It's all about your glory.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13
Summarize and briefly define the 3 job descriptions of church leaders and the 3 job descriptions of church members that Paul lays out in this passage.
Is Paul directing these verses about "living in peace" towards the church leaders or the church members? Why do you think that is?
What causes churches to lose the peace? How can your small group help prevent that?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for the leadership of the church, specifically that we would stay on mission.
