2012 Church Servants One 0520: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Okay, we are in 1 Corinthians 16, of course the last chapter, and Paul’s going to wrap up his seminar talking about leadership. And so we’re going to look at church servants. That’s what a minister is; a minister is a servant, okay, that’s what it means. And so it’s a leader. “He that is servant of the greatest among you is” what? Servant of all. He serves everyone. So if you want to be great in God, be great in God’s kingdom, what do you become? A servant. You know, just simple, that simple. And, uh, he starts out in verse 10: “If Timothy comes, see that he may be with you without fear.” Now he’s approaching it from the Corinthians’ membership standpoint, of how they’re supposed to treat a leader.

▶ 0:57 Timothy is a young leader. He’s a young guy coming up through the ranks, okay, and Paul is admonishing the congregation how you should treat a young leader. All right, and so I’m going to call this a young leader’s essentials. Now this is different from the qualifications of a leader found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1. You can’t even be a leader if you don’t qualify. Okay, you got to be able to run your own home, all, you got to be the, you can only be married to one spouse, you can’t take much wine and all that stuff. That’s the qualifications. But here are the basic things that a leader must have to be a leader. Just because you got the qualifications found in 1 Timothy and Titus does not mean you have the basics of leadership. Do you understand that? Yeah, see, all right.

▶ 2:05 So he says first of all, “without fear.” So not only are they not to put him in fear, you know, congregations vote pastors in, vote them out, you know, I know pastors that have died and the family just got kicked out of the church, didn’t even care for the family and all the rest. See, that puts ministries in fear. You know, they can’t support their home, they, you know, they got no security for tomorrow and all this. And he’s said the congregation shouldn’t do that, and neither should the ministry be in fear. And a young leader will not be in fear if they have their confidence in God and His Word, not in their [unclear]. Did you hear that? See, they don’t have to be fearful if their confidence is in the power of God and the power of His Word. Uh, a young leader should know that they’re going to make non-flagrant mistakes, they’re going to fail in a non-flagrant way, they’re going to mess up sometimes, and they know they can correct them, so they’re, you know, they’re not in fear.

▶ 3:17 A young minister knows some people will reject him because of who he is. You know, I’m a country boy, and when I first started preaching I had an accent like you couldn’t believe, and I said words funny, like “resturant” instead of “restaurant,” and some people are going to reject you because of that. I’m a divorced man; some people reject me because my wife ran off with some man back in the old days. Uh, a young minister is going to know people are going to, they’re going to find a reason to reject you. And if they don’t find a reason to reject you, if you’re really preaching the Word, they’re going to reject you because you’re preaching the Word, and the Word holds them responsible, and they don’t want to be responsible. And so a young minister knows that, he doesn’t let that stuff bother him. See, he preaches without fear.

▶ 4:19 Number two: “He does the work of the Lord, as I also do.” See, a young minister must imitate the apostles. Imitate Jesus, not Joel Osteen, not Robert Schuller, not [unclear], not the Pope. Amen. A young minister must imitate Paul and John and Luke and these guys in the Bible that were with Jesus Christ. Can I hear an amen? That’s the basics. See, when we copy after some minister, we are missing the, we are missing the goal way short. You got to go to the apostles and to Jesus Christ Himself.

▶ 5:09 Number three: “For this reason let no one despise him.” See, we’re not to count young ministers as nothing, and this is the danger of young ministers, it’s the danger in this church, you know, young ones are coming up, hopefully one day to take my place and so forth, and some older ones, you know, just can’t stand young ministers. And Mike and Christina and Stephanie and some of these younger ones, you know, that, he, Paul is telling the church, support them, don’t look at them like they’re nothing. Sure, they’re starting out; “don’t despise,” the Bible says, “the day of small beginnings.” You know, they’ve been faithful, they’ve got the qualifications to be a leader, and yes, they got to grow in it, yes, they got to expand in it, but don’t look down on them and count them as nothing. Can I hear an amen?

▶ 6:11 Amen. Hallelujah. And the young minister can’t count himself as nothing because people disagree with him and pick on him. And you got to know you’re something in Christ. “I can do all things through Christ who” what? See, young minister, that’s the basics, that is the essentials of a young minister. Number four: “Send him on his journey in peace.” Peace is the absence of war. Don’t fight with the young ministers growing in the church, and, I don’t contest them all the time. They’re not going to do it your way, but as long as it gets done, isn’t that the objective? We be at peace. He’s telling the congregation, be at peace, but the young minister has to be at peace. You see, when you’re at peace, you don’t have to retaliate because people don’t like you, you don’t have to give up. See, a young minister, when they got the peace, how many, you know, Jesus is the Prince of Peace? Have you know most people only know Jesus the Savior; that’s all they know. They don’t know the other 10 things Jesus is. But meeting the Prince of Peace is very important. Hallelujah. And we need to be at peace with young ministers, and young ministers need to be at peace with themselves and the congregation. So young ministers don’t, the basics of young ministry, the essentials is they don’t get angry and lose their temper when they’re talked about evilly and harmfully. They don’t sulk and get depressed. That’s the basics of young ministers.

▶ 8:18 Now that’s good preaching, folks. This Paul knows what he’s doing. They don’t retaliate, and they don’t give up and quit when things get difficult. They hang in there. They don’t say, “The Lord’s leading me somewhere else.” See, that’s the difference between a leader and someone that qualifies for a leader. Say you get the qualifications of 1 Timothy and Titus, you still have to get the essentials for leadership. Can I hear an amen? Amen.

▶ 9:06 Hallelujah. And so this is good stuff for us. And how many of you know you’re all leaders? You’re supposed to lead your own life, and how you going to lead your own life if you don’t even know the essentials of leadership? Hallelujah. You got to lead your own home, and see, these are the essential ingredients for leadership. It’s not just not drinking, and keeping your finances together, and ordering your home, and got your kids under control. These are things that are necessary to lead a church. Hallelujah. Now number five, 1 Timothy 4:12. He writes to Timothy, and Paul tells Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth,” or render you as nothing because of your youth. And old folks, remember, you were young ones, and I don’t care how together you are today, there was a time in your life when you were a mess. Oh, you might have thought you weren’t, but ask the older ones when you were younger. Are you there? We all think we’re the, we’re the greatest. Man, well yeah, I’m 20 years old, man, I had my act together. You didn’t have anything together.

▶ 10:33 And that’s one thing God taught me, Dave: before you act, go back to your age that they were at. And boy, that made a whole difference in how I approached everything. Go back to when you were that age. So he tells young ministers, “be an example to the believers,” and he tells them what to be an example in. “Live” a way that people can follow you; “in word,” be an example in the Scriptures; “in speech,” the way you talk. Here the word is “speech.” Here, be an example in your, in your speech. You know how many, you know, a church leader shouldn’t be using profanity, and they shouldn’t be losing their temper and shooting off words that are hurting and tearing down people. Isn’t that right? And so young leaders, this is the basic: you got to control that tongue of yours. I don’t care if you don’t drink, I don’t care if you got your home in order and your finances and you’re raising your kids right. Do you talk right? Hallelujah. All right, are you an example in conduct? Young leaders have to be an example in conduct. You know, if they’re out there smoking marijuana with the rest of the kids and doing all these things that other teenagers in America are doing, is that an example?

▶ 12:17 No. See, Jesus wouldn’t do that stuff. Jesus didn’t need caffeine or anything for a picker-upper. You know, we’re leaning on medicine so much, I mean drugs just keep Americans going. Now, you know, they take a drug so they don’t get depressed, and then they take a drug so they can get out and get excited. Jeez, get a hold of the Holy Ghost, and you will be excited for the rest of your life. Hallelujah. “In love.” Love your wife, love your husband, good Lord, love lays down his life, love sacrifices. Love your kids, love your parents, love the church members, and love is spelled T-[unclear] in another way. Love God, you got to give Him time. Love your spouse, you got to give them time, time that relates to them. Not, you know, well, Becky, we’re going to go hang gliding. She’s about as excited about going hang gliding as the man in the moon. I might want to go; we’re going to bond together, Becky, we’re going to spend time together, we’re going hang gliding. That isn’t love. Love is going window shopping. Good Lord, that is a sacrifice, let me tell you.

▶ 14:14 Love is watching some chick flick on TV that just drives you crazy, the boohoo and all the [unclear]. Yeah, “Is the movie good, Dave?” “Oh yeah, great.” Yeah. “Give me Rambo.” Ah, let me tell you something: if you loved the church of the living God, you would assemble with the church. Don’t tell me you love God, you can’t love God without loving His people, and you can’t love His people without spending time with them. These people that stay home, they don’t love, they only love themselves. Am I right? I mean, it’s Paul, right? “In spirit.” You know, you can’t just have the knowledge of God’s Word, folks, you got to have the Spirit of it. There’s two things that are essential in the church. What are they? I’ve drilled it into you for 40 years: the living Word and the living presence, that’s Spirit of God. Those two things are essential. And which one is the highest? The Word. I don’t care how you get, if you can’t love your husband on Monday morning and you can’t go to work on Monday morning and you can’t live in life on Monday, what good is the feel-good stuff? Can I hear an amen? So you [unclear], you speak in tongues, you prophesy, so what? Friday through Saturday you’re a mess.

▶ 16:01 Are you with me? Got to have that Spirit. That Spirit drives us into the Word, the Spirit drives us to live right, the Spirit, we need that power, the Spirit in our life. “And in faith”: faith in the Word, faith in Jesus, not faith in Joel [unclear] or Robert Schuller or the Mormon church or the Pope. Your faith has got to be in the Word, amen, and in Jesus Christ. “And in purity.” That goes back to good conduct. “Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine.” How you going to exhort, encourage people if you don’t read the Bible? Huh? If you don’t study it, if you don’t get in a Bible study and learn it, how you going to exhort, how you going to encourage anyone?

▶ 16:58 And so the basic essentials is a young minister must be an example in these things. Can I hear an amen? “And to doctrine.” You got to have the right doctrine. You know, don’t tell me you believe in Calvinism, I don’t even want to hear it. You tell me you believe in Paulism, I’ll listen. You tell me you believe in Johnism and Markism and Matthewism, I’ll listen. But don’t come telling me the [unclear] has some special connection with God, and don’t come tell me Calvin did, or Luther, or anybody else. Doctrine has to come from the Bible. Amen. Hallelujah. That’s number five.

▶ 17:54 Number six. Here he is writing to Timothy again: “I have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your state,” or your condition. See, Timothy was the only one Paul could find at that time that cared how the church condition was, if they were growing or not. And see, a basic young minister must have the essential of a compassion for the church, to see them grow in God, not waiting for the rapture, but growing in maturity, growing in wisdom, growing in knowledge, growing in life. And Paul, who had a lot of people he was connected with, said the only one I could find was this young minister.

▶ 18:48 Timothy, let me ask you: do you care about the condition of God’s church, or do you just care about yourself? Do you go out of your way to be there to encourage, to live an example before them so they could see it, or you just there because you’re going to get something out of the church? “For all seek their own.” Number seven: you can’t seek your own way of living. “All seek their own, not the things which are Christ’s.” See, what is Christ interested in?

▶ 19:32 See, let me, let me further illuminate that. “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him to be a soldier.” You know, as a young minister I had to give up the bowling league and the bridge club and all this stuff to get into the Bible and get into church. I was taken to court because I was supposed to be some fanatical Christian that all I did was spend my time in court, I mean in, uh, church. And you know what the judge said? The judge said to my adversary, “What do you do on Monday night?” “Well, we go bowling.” “What do you do on Tuesday night?” “Well, you know, we have a cards, we play cards.” “What do you do on Wednesday night?” “We bowl again.” The judge stopped there and says, “What’s the difference? He’s going to church, you’re playing cards and going bowling. This guy’s done nothing wrong.” Can I hear an amen?

▶ 20:40 Amen. But see, my heart was in the what? Church. I wanted to grow and I wanted to help people, and I can’t help them if I’m out bowling, surfing, got to have my Saturdays [unclear]. Are you there? You wish you weren’t. See, a young minister has got to get his priorities together. Listen, we are told to work in the Scriptures. It is scriptural to work, it is scriptural to raise a family, it is scriptural to have kids, it is scriptural to handle your finances right, it is scriptural to have leisure time. But then when that’s all we do, we’re not ministers. Now we can’t leave any of these necessary things undone, can we? We got to raise our children, we’ve got to work on a job, we got to do those, but we also got to add to it what? God’s time for His church and helping people.

▶ 21:53 Hallelujah. All right, let’s continue here, verse 12. He talks about Apollos. Now, Apollos isn’t a young minister. Apollos is a skilled, focused minister. He isn’t coming up through the ranks, he is in the ranks. Acts 18:24: “A certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, eloquent” and skilled in speech. By the way, Timothy was a half-breed Jew; he was half Jew and half Gentile. That would turn Jews off. He was uncircumcised at the beginning, that would turn off all Jews. See, he got circumcised so that he could be accepted. That’s how you know that’s a good heart, when you do something that you don’t scripturally have to do so you can win people. But this guy is eloquent, he is skilled in speech, man, and he is “mighty,” he is powerful in the Scriptures, because he spent time in the Scriptures, he spent time learning. He is “instructed in the way of the Lord,” “knowing only the baptism of John,” but he’s instructed in the way of the Lord. He’s limited in his knowledge. He’s “fervent,” he’s boiling hot in the Spirit. See, he has the Holy Spirit involved in his life, not just head knowledge. People with just head knowledge kill you with the Scriptures. You ever noticed that? They just beat you to death with Scriptures.

▶ 23:30 But see, the Spirit knows how to present the Word, when to present the Word. People with the head, no, just, just shoot off everything they know. Timing doesn’t mean anything. “He spoke and taught diligently the things of the Lord,” not the popular speakers of the day. See, he taught diligent, he worked hard. Diligent means you work hard. You’re not going to be a skilled minister if you don’t diligently put time into the Scriptures and speaking the Word of God. When I was a young minister, I turned, I got rid of my TV for several years, because I told God I didn’t have any time, and the Holy Ghost goes, “Huh? You got time to watch 6:00 news, you got time to watch Bonanza, and you don’t have time to read the Word?” “You know, I’m unwinding.” “Well, unwind with Me.” Boy. And so I stopped reading the newspaper for a while, and I gave God that time. See, that’s what it takes. You’re never going to be powerful and you’re never going to be able to speak if you don’t work hard at learning the Word and sharing it with people. Can I hear an amen? That’s how you get skillful. You’re not going to get skillful in the Holy Ghost, [unclear], you know, back in old Pentecost and all that. We would shake, roll on the floor and all that, and feel the presence of God, and we got up thinking, “Man, we’ve arrived,” and they were just as dumb when they got up as when they went down. Why? Because they didn’t spend time in the Word. I had to work through that stuff. God wasn’t excited about me being excited about His presence; He was excited about me learning and obeying the Word.

▶ 25:38 Hallelujah. And what is one of the signs of the Holy Ghost? He will lead you into all truth. And I challenge my Pentecostal brethren, you know, I doubt your Holy Ghost baptism if you don’t have a hunger for the Word, you don’t care about reading it, you don’t care about learning it. There’s, I’m missing here, is that a right challenge? Yeah. “He began to speak boldly in the synagogue.” The synagogues, where the Jews would come, and they had a time where everybody could get up and say their thing. It was a mess, you ever seen those things? Everybody just, man, somebody, man, stood up and he gave him what for.

▶ 26:30 And see, the Jews didn’t believe in Christ. He was in a foreign church, a foreign assembly, speaking the words of Christ. And then “Aquila and Priscilla,” they are a husband and wife team, both of them equal in knowledge of the Word, equal in caring for people. They got him aside and they took and expounded unto him the Scriptures more perfectly. See, I told you he was limited in his knowledge, but listen to this: this skilled man was teachable. Are you teachable, or you got this blockheaded look? You were raised a Baptist or a Presbyterian, you’re going to die one. I was raised a Catholic, I’m going to die c-- Are you teachable? A skilled teacher that moves up in the ranks is teachable.

▶ 27:38 Hallelujah. And it’s coming from a woman. Priscilla is a woman, and she’s te-- this Jew don’t like women, you know, a normal Jew, they, women got to shut up, and here comes Priscilla explaining the Word of God, and he’s got enough common sense in him to listen to the Word no matter who it come through. Ah, church, that was good. And it may, it may come through your child. You know, God picks some strange people to bring you the word, let me tell you. Ah. Some husbands can’t even listen to their wife. That’s a good indication He’ll use your wife.