Godly Men in The Local Church - Pt. 2

This is the Faithful Expositor, a podcast from the preaching and teaching mastery of Pastor Jonathan Sims of Sheba Wilmil's Baptist Church. Welcome to another edition of the Faithful Expositor. I am your host, Joe Carpenter, and today we are once again here in the studios with Brother John O. Sims, brother. How are you? Doing good today, brother. I'm kind of excited again to pick up where we left off last time, and this is a subject that's so dear to my heart, pressing forward on today with talking about what it means to be a man of God in the local church. This is my heartbeat. And I think I might have said this last time, but this was one of the things that originally kind of knit me to you. Let you at a Shepherd's Conference way back in 2009, and at that time I was serving as a senior pastor in a church, and just wasn't getting a lot of, I guess you could say, help from other men to step up and help me to lead and to serve, and within the church, and you gave me a lot of good counsel on that, and I believe every man of God who's called to serve in the church needs to have, like you said, a band of brothers, just some brothers that are right there with them to sometimes take the punches. You know, it's amazing. This is why I love the proverb of the day, but I read today's proverb, and it said iron sharpens iron, and you know, one faithful brother sharpens the countenance of his brother, and that we need that. One solid brother is an agent God uses to sharpen another brother, and I want to say that's foundational to, like I said last time, men of God are not just made, you know, they're not just naturally men of God, they have to be sharpened, they have to be honed, they have to be challenged, they have to be spurred on, they have to be led, and it's our job to second Timothy two talks about faithful men, teaching faithful men to be faithful men, and that's part of the process of making disciples. It is, and like, like we've said before, that doesn't mean that you've just got a whole bunch of yes men right around you, ready to just do whatever you say. I know in several times when we've had meetings with, within staff or even with us in the deacon body, there've been disagreements for, but there's always respect, there's always love for one another, and it's because we're unified on the main things, which we talked about last week, which were in your message, love of God, glory of God focused, and love of truth. And thankfully we've got that at Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church, obviously we always have room to grow in that, but it's been refreshing for me to be here and to be a part of that for the past several years. Well, I want to keep moving through this message then that you preached that revival message at Brother Le Grand Lamb's Church not long ago, and we're kind of picking up here on number four, we've, as I said, we've already looked at a mark of a godly man in the church as being love of God, also, glory of God, Jeff Noble always says, glory of God's everything. If you get that right, you get everything else right, and I agree with that. We talked about love of truth, and of course when we're talking about truth, we're talking about the word of God. Jesus said, like you said, John 17, 17, sanctify them and thy truth, thy word is truth. But also we're here down today at number four, which is committed to biblical peacemaking and discipline within the church. Talk to us a little bit about what you mean by that. These men need to be committed to a biblical peacemaking process. They all go together. There's so much overlap because we love God with all of our hearts, so mine and strength, because we are in the local church to bring glory to God. Everything we do is for the glory of God, not for self, not for building up self, because we love the truth, and we're guided by the truth. We don't just preach the truth, but we're regulated by it. We cause our ministry to be guided by the truth of the word of God. We actually apply what we say we believe. And what that's going to naturally do is cause us to focus on the words of Jesus Christ about how we resolve conflict within the body. There's going to be conflict. And the way it happens in most churches is they scratch and claw and fuss and fight, and it's like two, you know, fifth graders on the playground at elementary school. And whoever's the loudest or has the most toys wins the fight. Exactly. Children arguing, it's selfishness, it's self-absorption, it's personal opinion, it's preference. Most churches don't divide over things of substance. They divide over silliness that gets blown out of proportion. And so what we believe about the word of God will determine how we resolve conflict in the body. We just had a conversation about this in staff meeting this morning. I don't care who you are, brother, or what you say no matter how strongly I disagree with you, I'm not going to go on social media and just, you know, I sail you. I'm going to pick up the phone and call you and say, hey, brother, can I speak with you for a moment? Could we go out to lunch? Could we sit down and talk? You deserve that as my brother. How much more in the local church? And so rather than letting a group set around in murmur or little clicks in the church or little schisms in the church where people sit around and talk about the things they don't like and build a coalition and try to sway power their way, it's just so carnal. We have to be, men of God have to lead this. They have to have a steady hand and they have to have a steady resolve that we are not going to fight like that. We're not going to fuss on that level. We're not going to be, you know, act like children. We're actually going to handle conflict in our church biblically. And of course we have Matthew chapter 18, which clearly gives us instructions directly from Jesus Christ of how he says he wants things to be handled as he says in the church. Tell it to the church. He's clearly talking about the local church. But one of the things that we have found helpful is Ken Sandy's book, The Peace Maker. And we have done that now three times in small groups. We've devoted an entire quarter of our small group time to The Peace Maker. And it's just a practical hands on layman's oriented guide for how do you biblically resolve conflict with your brother. And like I said, there's been three times in the life of our church we've done this. And you were there. You were in staff meeting this morning. And I gave brother Ryan, who is over our small groups, a directive this morning, that in 2022, I want us to go through the Peace Maker again. And I think that's something we'll do until the Lord comes again. We constantly bring this before our people because Satan's constantly looking for an opening. He's constantly looking for somebody's flesh to get a hold of, some murmurer, some complainer, some gossip to begin to sow discord among the brothers. And so the men of the church have to be men of God that are willing to openly, redemptively, honestly sometimes, frankly, put down murmuring, put down schisms. Resolve conflicts between two brothers that are at ought with one another. And I'll tell you this brother, this is not in my notes, but having just experienced it last night, the Lord's supper done properly. The Lord's supper properly preached, the Lord's supper regularly and routinely being brought to bear on the church goes a long way of doing away with these types of complaints and schisms and murmurings, which is what was going on at the church at Corinth. There is a unifying healing balm that God applies to the church when that church led by men, overseen by men, seek to biblically resolve differences and biblically resolve conflicts. It's not that the conflicts are unimportant. It's not that they don't matter, they do matter. As a matter of fact, they matter so much that we're not going to sweep them under the pews of the church and act like they don't exist, or form factions and warring parties and throw hand grenades at each other. Paul speaks of a more excellent way in first Corinthians. And certainly there is a more excellent way, and that is men being mature enough to deal with conflict. That's right. I know you from first hand experience that you are there, you're in the meetings, you know how this happens. That this has been taught for so long at our church, and it's been practiced for so long, that there's conflicts sometimes that we as pastors are not even aware of. And we'll go into a pastor's/deacons meeting, and one of the brothers will say, "Hey, I just want y'all to know that me and brother so and so. went over to see this brother last night and we've met with him again and we've laid out for him, you know, the truth here and we've called upon him to reconcile and we just want to give you all an update and I might not even be aware of it. Sometimes our small group leaders handle that. But whenever they recognize that this is something that is not being resolved, they'll come to us and they'll say pastor, this brother needs to be brought before the church for formal discipline because he's so indiscord, he's unrepentant, he's bringing reproach and shame on the name of Christ. And so, you know, that's the benefit of seeing man reared up to maturity. It's pastor the day comes where you're not the guy carrying the ball every time. You got guys to help you, guys to stand with you. Yep. And you never fully arrive and that's why it's so important to keep this before the church often. You mentioned that how the Lord's Supper can serve to one degree in that effect and it did in the church of Corinth. That's absolutely impossible. It was doing it too. But it's important too for the pastor to, you always say repeat rinse and lather. You know, we have a responsibility to keep these things before the body and one good way to do that would be through a small group study of a peacemaker or something like that. There's some things brother, pastoring a church is like the brother that paints the white picket fence on the hundred acre farm. When he gets the north side painted and moves to the east side and to the south side, the north needs to be painted again. It's just an unending thing. And the good teacher repeats the great lessons of the Bible over and over again. You know, you brother Ryan or you shared with me this morning that just over the past short period of time, we've had like 65 additions to our church since we taught some of these principles. Yeah. And y'all were sharing that with me from the standpoint of saying to me, hey pastor, it's time to repeat some of these things because we've got a new generator. No, we bring them through the membership process and we do our diligence. But they've not heard it from the pulpit, you know, and it's time to repeat some of these things. And so it's an ongoing process. That's why I believe it's time for us to teach the peacemaker again is that we've got a new generation of people that need to hear this and need to understand. Biblically, this is what Christ commands us to do. This is how we function and operate. Amen. Amen. That's good. I would just say one other thing while we're on this. For a time, the church will perceive discipline as negative. And in the early years, your community can even be very critical of you as a church for striving and purposeing to practice church discipline because they don't understand it. Yeah. They've never seen it before and it seems odd to them. Pastor, you have to endure those years. Yeah. You have to know in your heart and in your mind that it's right, that it glorifies God, that you're doing it for the love of God and you're doing it for the love of truth. And you have to be content to lead even though you're greatly misunderstood. You know, we've kind of gotten off track here a little bit. But in staff, we've been going through Oswald Sanders book, Spiritual Leadership. And one of the marks of a leader that he gives is you have to have the ability to hold a steady course even when there's temporary loss of confidence in your leadership. Right. And in those early days, when you're teaching on being a man of God, when you're teaching on church discipline, when you're teaching on biblical conflict resolution, there's going to be people that doubt your leadership. You've got to hold a steady course because the only way this church will ever be a biblically healthy church, man of God, you've got to lead. That's right. And you've got to beg and pray that God raises up other men to help you stay in. And when you've got men in your church who have a love of truth, like you said, you continue to preach in these principles, like you've said before too. And eventually, like I think it was brother Jeff told you a long time ago, you kind of preach yourself into a corner. And when those incidents do arise where some type of discipline is necessary, whether it's one on one or even to the level of removal from church membership, you got no other choice. That's right. And those men will see that. And that's what they'll want to do too. When a baby's born, there's a lot of trauma. And that baby cries and its breathing is erratic. It's literally having to learn to breathe. And it's more like a spasm than it is breathing. But as time that breathing levels out, the breathing gets normal. And that's the way it is in pasturing a church. When you first go into a church and you begin to preach and teach these things, it brings great trauma. And there's erratic breathing. But the longer you teach these things and the longer you preach these things, it becomes normal. And whereas in the early years here at Shelbyville Mills, these things were perceived as like weird and you're crazy and you've lost your mind. Now it's as normal. Talking about church discipline in our church is just as normal, as talking about evangelism. It's just as normal as talking about world missions. It's just as normal as talking about the inspiration of scripture, because it is scripture. That's right. One of the things that keeps people from doing precisely what you said about church discipline, being committed to biblical peacemaking in church discipline is fear of man. And your fifth point in this message that you had preached as what we might call a mark of or your thoughts on being a man of God in the local church is you can't fear man. Do not fear man. The Bible says the fear of man brings a snare. But who so puts his trust in the Lord will be saved. That's Proverbs 29.25. The word fear is a worship term. That's why we're commanded to fear the Lord our God. That's why we're told the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear is a word which means to regard. Fear is a word which means to revere or to be in awe of. When you fear man, what you're doing is you're giving all and regard and attention to man in a way that ought to be being given to God alone. So fear of man is a form of idolatry. And it's amazing how much churches don't do because they regard the wrong thing. And it's amazing how much churches do because they regard the wrong thing. And all of that's being driven by man who are either fearing something other than God and doing the wrong thing or fearing God and doing the right thing even if no one understands why. And our job as pastors is to lead them to the latter. And that is to fear God and be safe. The sad part about it is there's a pastor out there thinking, well, I just don't want to hurt the church. And so I'm just not going to take a strong stand on this. I just don't want to disrupt the church. I don't want to bring trauma on the church. And the truth is if you put your trust in the Lord you'll be safe. You're actually subjecting your church to real danger by not standing and by not preaching the truth and by not applying it. And time will prove that to be the case. But I want to just say this, men of God are not men that lick their finger and stick it up into the air to see which way the wind's blowing. Those kind of men will cripple a church. And let me just say most churches are crippled because that's the kind of men. They're afraid of their own shadow. They're afraid of what somebody in the community might say. They're afraid of what you know influential church member might say. They're afraid of what the president of the WMU might say. They're afraid of what the money family in the church might say. But bottom line is they're afraid of everything but God except God. And boy does it show because every wind that blows moves that church in a different direction. So God raises up a man called a pastor and he sends him to the church armed with love of God, armed with love of truth, armed with a glory of God focus. And his job is to so preach and so teach and lead by example that it fosters that it you know causes other men to want to be like that like begets like. And pastor if you're a man given to fear and the fear of man you're going to raise up a generation of men fearing men. But if you're a man that fears God and loves God supremely and chooses to honor and obey him at even at your own peril then you're going to raise up a generation of men like that. And I really say no church rises above its leadership. And the man of God has to fear God supremely and not other things. And it's just amazing how much fear of man cripples a church. It's staggering. I've seen two where when men of God really do take a stand on what say at the scriptures as opposed to that. to what, say, if this person or this group or this denomination, they're often accused of arrogance. They're often accused of just being prideful. But just like what you just said, I think it takes a greater deal of humility to be willing to say, "What does the Bible say?" I'm going to obey God here as opposed to this person over here. That's humility. Well, certainly we need to watch prod. Absolutely. Anytime someone uses the word arrogance, they've got my attention. I want to make sure I'm not walking in arrogance, I'm not walking in pride. But let me just say this, it is the height of arrogance. And it is the height of pride for you to think that you know a better way for God's church to be ordered than God Himself. When you have a clearly revealed passage of scripture in front of you, and you say in your heart, maybe nobody knows it but you, and you say in your mind, nobody knows it but you. I'm just not going to go in that direction. I'm going to take a safer path. That is pride. That's not a loving God protecting the sheep. That's a God that's going to hurt the church. And so sometimes our definitions of pride can be kind of off. Your next point was to be spirit filled. Right. Which in my mind too would kind of, what's the word encapsulate, everything that we've said already. It kind of covers it all. I mean, a man who's filled with the Holy Spirit is certainly going to love God. He's going to be glory of God focused. He's going to love the truth. He's not going to be afraid of man. He's going to fear, Lord, he's going to have his priorities in order. Because the Holy Spirit is the one who play rato has got control of him. Yes. That's right. Yeah. Well, I'm so thankful that when I got saved early in my life, I had several pastors. One in particular, Brother Don Stolton set me down and I mentioned that before and just open up the word of God and exegy the great text of scripture, particularly Ephesians 518, that teach us to be filled with the spirit to come under the control and the domination and the sway of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, spirit filled men are the only ones qualified to lead the church. In Acts chapter 6, it says that they look for men full of the Holy Spirit. First Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1, all of those are, are marks of men that are entwelt by first and controlled by God's own Holy Spirit. It means that the Spirit's controlling the shots and he can't be controlling the shots and you be controlling the shots. So the spirit filled life is all about being yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and how's that manifested through the Word of God? That's through knowing the scriptures, following the scriptures, obeying the scriptures. We think about the fruits of the spirit, Holy Spirit in Galatians chapter 5. There's some of the ones we've mentioned right here, love, very first one on the list. It's impossible to be filled with the Holy Spirit and not be filled with love for God. And so where I would draw a line of explanation here would be this. A lot of times there's well-meaning men in the church and they really do mean well. And I'm not saying that there's not ever some principles we can't learn from but they would be secondary at best. And here's what I mean. There's a man in the church and because he's got a lot of business savvy, everybody thinks, no man he'd be a great deacon. Or there's a man in the church and because he's an effective teacher in the high school, everybody thinks, oh man, he would make a great elder. Or let's say this way, there's a man in the church and he doesn't have the best vocabulary, he doesn't have the best diction, he is not very polished, but he's in his place when he's supposed to be there, he does whatever he's asked to do, he does it with great joy. But everybody looks at him and says, well, he's not refined enough, he doesn't have enough skill. So we're not going to look at him for elder or deacon and both are a mistake. The thing that I would say is this, whatever side of the spectrum of God falls on the only question is, is this guy filled with God's Spirit? Is this guy submitted to and yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ? Does he in compliance with the Word of God? All of those natural abilities, all of those secular skills that he may have do not necessarily translate over to him being the one that needs to be leading the church. And the Bible, the men that led the church were holy men and the Bible, the men that led the church were Spirit-led and Spirit-filled men. And I submit, that's the way that it ought to still be today. And I would just say to your brother, don't cut corners here, don't put a man into a position because of his natural abilities and definitely don't put a man into a position because you think by putting him into it somehow, it might develop him into those things. No, sir, he needs to be already under the control and the sway and the nomination and the rule of God's Holy Spirit. This is just what it means to be a man of God. You've told us before too, this is basic Christianity. It is, brother. I mean, obviously, we're talking kind of on a leadership level here, but this should filter down. If you're born again, you should be Spirit-filled. That's not an experience for a deeper life movement. This is God's entry-level requirement for the newly born again Christian. Amen. Amen. You know, it says of Jesus that he returned in the power of the Spirit. If Christ needed to be filled with the Spirit, how much more do we? That's right. Amen. Amen. Be the Mark of a godly man in the church. That's right. Maybe we should have put this one back close to number five, but the next one here is watch pride. Yes. It kind of does go along with what we were talking about just a few minutes ago. We should all, and again, if you're Spirit-filled, you will. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-care. We're going to be aware, hopefully, of pride as it rises up in our hearts. Yeah. Absolutely. Nothing will kill a church quicker than pride. God resists. That's an ongoing resisting. God resists the proud, but gives His grace to the humble. I tell you what I told this church this last week. I said, "You guys can sit around and have pride in your doctrines of grace, pride in your methods of operation, pride in your knowledge of the scripture. God will take His hand off you and go down the road to an Armenian church and bless them." That's right. Because God resists the proud. I would just warn any brother, "Don't ever think you've arrived. Don't ever think we've got it. Don't ever think we're the church. Nobody else is doing it right. All the other churches are wrong. I only am left. Everybody else is bowed their knee to bail. And I alone. My goodness. And the only one left and the Lord can show you thousands that haven't yet bowed their knee to bail. You just don't know about them. You are not the corner on the market for truth. You're not the corner on the market for everything perfect the way church is done. And you need to keep your heart and your mind right there. We say we believe in the sovereignty of God. And I can point to almost several times a year. And the Lord lets me see this to remind me and keep me humble. But several times a year, I run into someone that I'm absolutely convinced. I know they've been born again. They've been regenerated in a completely unhealthy church. And obviously I'm not advocating for an unhealthy church. That's what we're doing this podcast. I'm just saying that God's sovereign enough to use what truth is there to bring them to repentance and faith. And God does that to remind me that look, to continue to use you, you need to be humble. That's right. And to continue to use you, you need to be dependent upon me. And I've seen so many once great churches. And this is really one of my only fears about Shabby Vermeels. And I tell them this all the time. I can't tell you how many once great churches I've known that God took his hand off. And they literally fell apart. Pieces started flying off of them like retreads off a tire because they got prideful and arrogant and thought they were the only ones. And you know, it's very easy for Satan to tempt a reformed church to get here. It's very easy for Satan to tempt a expository preaching church to get here because like the church's emphasis, we so focus on doctrine and we so focus on church discipline and we so focus on systematic theology and we so focus on the qualifications of elders and deacons and we have a membership process and all that stuff is 100% right. We teach and train churches to do this, but if you put your hope in those things. - Right. - If those things are your automatic thinking that we're just everything we're supposed to be because we do this, this, and this, that's pride. - That's pride. - And God resists the pride and he gives grace to the humble. The Bible says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. So I would just challenge you as a man of God, don't ever think you've arrived, and I would challenge you as a pastor, don't ever think you've arrived, and I would challenge you as a church, don't ever think that you've arrived, that God can raise up from these stones, children unto Abraham. - That's right. - And he can certainly use a church other than us, and he does, and he will, and I praise God for it. - These were some of the remarks that you had in your message, I would call these safeguards against pride. - Yeah. - Maybe you said something to the effect of never discipline in pride. - Right. - You know, I think of Galatian 6.1 and goodness, I can't even quote it right now, but there's the idea there of that gospel humility that we're to have for one another, especially those-- - Bear you on another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, you know, exactly. - Yep. - And you know, when I say don't discipline in pride, you take the young guy, and he goes to a conference. - Yes. - And he hears brother Barry King, he hears brother Jeff Noblet, he hears brother David Miller, he hears brother Vody Balkum, or you know, he hears Al Moul, or whatever, he hears some guy preach on church discipline. - Yeah. - And he thinks, okay, praise God, we're going to do it tomorrow. - Tomorrow. - And he goes back to his church to instill church discipline, and he has a mindset almost like the new sheriff in town. If you step out of line, I'm gonna get you. - Yeah. - You mess with me, buddy. I'm gonna flex my muscles. And so church discipline for him is almost a, I'm gonna get you if you mess with me. - Holy nice, brother. - That is pride, that reeks of pride. It has nothing to do with the care of someone's soul. It has nothing to do with the hopes and the wishes and the prayers and the dreams that they would repent, that they would be restored, which is the whole motive for doing church discipline. And so you can have a right action done in a wrong way, and make it a wrong thing. Let not your good be evil spoken of, you know. And so anything you do in pride makes it become toxic. - You say here too, always repent of pride quickly. - Yes. - And to steal a quote from you, if not at all what, it'll fester. - That's right, that's exactly right, brother. It's like a cancer cell. And if left unattended, it spreads. And it contaminates everything. - And everybody around. - Everybody, yep. I think the one that I really like the most out of this list here, and there's several here, never become boastful in your accomplishments, boy, that's good. What's the scripture from the Psalms that all promotion comes from God, you know. The next one you say, always be open to correction and approve, ready to learn. Can you even teach that? - Well, you have to, but it's holy spirit grasped. - Yeah. - And what I would say is this, the word disciple, methodace, literally means a learner, and there is a grace, and there is a maturity, and there is an art in learning how to receive correction, learning how to accept, rebuke, learning how to bear with reproof. I read just this morning, the proverb of the day, the wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Your friend is not the one who always tells you what you want to hear. Your friend is not the pastor who always tickles your ears. Your true friend is the one who loves you enough to take the risk of grace, to tell you the truth, even though he knows that it's gonna sting. It's gonna hurt for a while. And so what I would say is this, the moment you stop learning, you stop growing. And when you start learning, if you stay there long enough, you'll start dying. We have to, from beginning to end, be correctable. We have to look from beginning to end, be teachable. You know, brother, when I was younger, and this is just pride and immaturity, but when you're younger, you just get some joy and pleasure to go into the pulpit and preach in a fiery, rebuking message. Brother, when I have to correct Shelbyville Mills now, it grieves me. I'd rather have my eye gouged stout. I do it because it's required of me, but there's no pleasure in like, boy, I'm gonna tell them. I'm the bible Lord's man. Boy, I'm gonna show them. Because it's not me versus them. I'm a part of this body. When they hurt, I hurt. When they rejoice, I rejoice. And so, I would just say that pride manifests itself when you think you know it all. When you think you've arrived, when you think there's nothing else for me to learn. I think that if any man's honest, my greatest fear is after church, when the seven, eight, nine and 10-year-olds gather around me and start asking me questions, 'cause I'm thinking, oh Lord, I'm not gonna be able to answer all their questions, you know, because they just put it straight to you. - You got good ones. - And I think that that keeps us humble, keeps us dependent upon the Holy Spirit, keeps us reading, keeps us growing, keeps us learning. We never have all the knowledge. And we're always to be learners. That's what a disciple he is. - Amen, brother. Well, we've looked at several of these marks of what it means to be a godly man in the church. And next time, when we get together again, we're gonna pick right up where we left off today. But for now, I just wanna encourage our listeners to be this godly man and know that we love you and God bless you. - Thank you for listening to The Faithful Exposter. For more information on Brother Jono's mystery, go to our church website, smbconline.com, and follow him on Twitter at JonoSims.