Godly Men in The Local Church - Pt. 3

This is the Faithful Expositor, a podcast from the preaching and teaching mastery of Pastor Jonathan Sims of Shippable Mills Baptist Church. Welcome to another edition of the Faithful Expositor. I'm your host, Joe Carpenter, and I have the privilege today of sitting in with my brother, Jonathan Sims. And we're continuing our discussion on what it means to be a godly man in the church. We're going to be wrapping up this three-part series on this very important subject. And if you've not listened to the previous two podcasts, let me encourage you to go back and do so at this time. But if you have been listening in with us, we're just going to pick up right where we left off. And the very next mark that we're looking at is that a godly man insists on biblical standards for church leadership. Now brother, Jono, this is a subject that's worthy of an entire podcast. But you and I, we've had this conversation before, and you and I know that you don't just choose a man to serve in a leadership position just because he is well spoken, he's eloquent, he's successful. But there are biblical standards that god has clearly detailed in his word, and those standards have to be adhered to. First Timothy chapter three, Titus chapter one, you know, Acts chapter six are all examples. And this was a struggle for us at first. It always is, the typical church nominates a man for a leadership position much like a beauty contest down at the high school and the results are obvious. But there are biblical qualifications and they're not suggestions. They're absolutes. These are things that god demands before a man can be a deacon. These are things that the Lord demands before a man is put into the office of elder. And we just decided early on that we were going to insist on the biblical qualifications to be met. And so what we started doing way back yonder 22 years ago is what still our normal practice today, when we do interview a man for the office of deacon, he first is given a theological question there, which he writes out in his own handwriting and submits to us. And we make a copy of that for all the elders and all the current deacons and we read through it individually. And then we come together and bring that brother in and we go over it with him. And we bring his wife in. And we have, we go over first Timothy 311 with her, which tells what a deacon's wife must be. We cover that with a elder's wife. I know a lot of men that perhaps on the surface are qualified to be a deacon or a elder that are married to Jezebel. And she just can't control her tongue. She can't control her will. She is a gossip or a murmurer and obviously they're men that can be that way. That's what we've spent this entire session talking about. But a woman can disqualify her husband from being a deacon. Absolutely. A woman can disqualify her husband from being an elder. And by the way, we do a background check. We do a sexual offender registry check and we do a credit check. And you say to me, "Well, man, I'll never submit to that." I say this lovingly, "Okay, I'm not offended. You won't ever be a deacon or elder either. Sorry. I don't mean that arrogantly. That's just the way it is. That's who we are. We've decided to draw a line. We've decided to build a fence here and we're not jumping through the door to get any man to be a deacon in our church. We're not jumping high heels into the air to get any man to agree to be an elder. The standards of the standards and God will raise men up to meet those standards and we won't move an inch until he does. It's the same thing as standards for church members. Absolutely. We're not going to lower the bar just because we want to pump up the numbers. But that's what most evangelical churches are doing. Exactly what you just said. Like what you said here too, you said insist on biblical standards for leadership. Obviously, that starts in the pulpit. But I think you would say this better than I would probably that once you've been able to preach the word, you've served here for 21 plus years now and you're not the one who has to do this any longer. Oh no. The men that are here would insist upon this. It's like any other doctrine that I've told. It's just been accepted as the word of God because it is the word of God. That's why I always say to a young pastor, don't do anything in your church until you first establish biblical authority. And that will be the stronghold from which you launch your offenses. When the church agrees that the Bible is the word of God, then now we just have some battles to fight. And battle number one for me was qualified leadership. That's where I chose to start my leadership here. That's where the spirit of God put the burden on my heart was that, and so I started within the first year, my very first year. I preached on the qualifications of deacons. They were having deacon election come up and I preached the qualifications and just told the church, this year we will be following these qualifications to the letter on nominating men and bringing men before you for consideration for the office of deacon. And it was awkward at first and it was not without opposition. It was not without disdain. But again, I believed that this is where God would have me begin. And I believe this is where God would have me take a stand and I did. And now, you know, these years down the road, God has elevated the, I don't know any other way to say it, but he's elevated the caliber of men that we have that serve in these offices and they're not perfect. And obviously, we know that. I'm not, but we are striving to be what the scripture requires of us to be to hold these offices. Yeah. That's good. You know, and what I'd say a spinoff from that brother would be this, I don't want a group of men. I don't want to be in a meeting, setting in a group of men and then giving me secular counsel. It's common sense counsel. I don't want them just telling me what they heard on the news on the way in it. Amen. Brother, that was good. Men of God open up the Bible and say, "Brother, here's what the Word of God says." Yeah. Why aren't we doing this? Yeah. This is what scripture says. That's right. What God says is the scriptures. That's right. That's right. Yes. Absolutely. And that only comes when you insist upon scriptural qualifications for leadership. And when they love the truth. That's right. Love the truth. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Okay. Number nine. And again, we're talking about the marks of Godly men and a church, something that sadly is lacking. Number nine, you said insist on meaningful church membership. And you used Acts 2.47. The Bible says there, "And the Lord added to the church such as should be saved." So you saved this. By meaningful church membership, I mean biblical church membership. Explain a little bit about what that is. You have to be saved to be a member of the church. Does that just mean a person walks up to me and says, "Hey, I'm saved." And I asked no questions. I'm not trying to make it hard to join our church. But I'll be able to ask you, "Okay, man, and my first response will be, "Well, praise the Lord, man. I'm so glad to hear that you're saved." Now how did it happen? Tell me about it. And I want to talk to you about repentance and sin and how is your life different since then? Can you tell me, can you give me examples of victories that God has led you to when habits that have been broken, mindsets that have changed, behaviors that have been arrested? I'm not asking them to pair it back to me, certain verbages that I want, but I want to hear that they've been converted. And then I'm going to ask them, "Have you been scripturally baptized?" And here's what I'm looking for, that you've been baptized after conversion, by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in a church that teaches salvation by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone. And if that's not in order, then we've got some more work to do. And we're going to be encouraging in the way we do that. And if they're teachable, work will be exactly. Exactly. Gospel humility. It's really a disciple, brother, that there will be a learner. They'll want it. If a person bows up in an interview like that and says, "Well, look, man, I know I'm saved and I don't have anything to prove to you." And I know I was sprinkled, but I think that's fine. To be baptized, and I'm not going to submit to you for baptism, I'll tell them that I love them, but interview over. I'm a gatekeeper. That's right. So do you and Ryan, this morning in the staff meeting, we talk about that all the time. It's not a perfect system, but our job is to shepherd this flock and protect this flock and keep wolves from entering into it. And so meaningful church membership is biblical church membership. And let me just say this too to give you a little bit of history. Again, along with biblically qualified standards for leadership, this is where the Lord led me to engage my fight. 22 years ago, David Brown and I, we were co-pasturing here. He was my associate. pastor which you kind of took his place. And David and I just threw prayer and study the scriptures agreed that we were going to immediately insist on qualifications for leadership because we couldn't do that. If we didn't do that, we'd be disobeying Jesus. And secondly, we knew that God would have us from day one right up front, have a membership process and teach what it means to be a member of Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church. And we insisted on those things within the first year of our ministry and I'm telling you it saved us. It proved to win the day because it kept us from being that church that just accepts anybody at anywhere at any time merely because, quote, they have a profession of faith. It caused us to look beyond what Southern Baptist define as a profession of faith to ask this question, have they been born again? Are they truly converted? And do they manifest some of the fruits of the Holy Spirit? Yeah. I'll never forget. As a senior pastor, a lady brought me her granddaughter once and just said, she is ready for baptism. I believe she's been born again. And I'd say, as you brother, I was just rehearsing so happy. And so I'd like to meet with her. She brought her in and we all three sat down and I just began to speak to this young girl and talk to her about it. And I asked her, I said, it's just some basic things. What do you believe about Jesus and the cross and the gospel? What do you believe about sin? And when I asked her, I said, now, when you sin, does that bother you? She said, nope, not even a little bit. And we got to a point where we began to realize that she wasn't really taking this seriously. And I'll never forget Grandma got real mad. She always does. She got mad. Sure. We had a lot of those in the early days, a bunch of them. People got fat and mad because they believed. And this goes back to it. This goes back to an unbiblical understanding of leadership. They saw me as the hard gun, brought here to almost, you know, do the right, upstanding things in the community, the way of doing things respectively and being a good Baptist and whatever. And that is when a child turns 12, we get them to make a profession of faith and we baptize them. And how dare you ask any questions? This is, wait a minute, this is my daughter, you baptize her. That's your job. That's what we're paying you for. Right. Rather than no, I'm called of God and I have clear scripture that regulates what I do and why I do it. And boy, that was the rub between whether I'm going to be fearing man or whether I'm going to be fearing God. Yeah. That's what it all comes down to. And so, you know, again, I want to be very clear. We don't make it hard to join Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church. We just try to make it new testament. We just try to put the stress where Jesus put it. The Lord added to the church, such as should be saved. Amen. And again, the word insist, I keep coming back to that. This is not something that even necessarily you or I or brother Ryan has to fully insist upon because we've got men here who love God. They love the truth. Glory of God focused. The whole nine yards, they're the ones insisting on this as well. Yep. And you've told those stories and I could tell it does. And I remember a man visiting our church and he was a member. If they have membership at the church across church, just you can throw a rock from our building right down the road here to the church across church that he was a member at and he was miffed at his pastor over something. And I think he had a kind of I'll show them mindset and maybe a little bit of a shock factor. I'm going to the Baptist church. And so he came here and he went through our membership class and David Brown, I always would go in and I'd teach our doctrinal statement and then David, I'd go preached in the worship service and David would teach the rest of it. And when David came to the section and man, it was one of those classes that was full. We had like 14 or 15 people in that class. And when David got to the section on water baptism and he taught what we believed, what the Bible teaches about baptism, it's not salvific. You know, it's a public testimony of our conversion and our willingness to follow Jesus Christ in his commands. It's a picture of our trust in the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it's not what saves you. You're saved by grace through faith in Christ and through his blood. That guy took his book and threw it across the room and yelled at David, heretic, heretic, and stormed. He said he pointed to David and said to everybody, this man is a false teacher. He's preaching a false gospel. You have to be baptized to be saved and he stormed out the door. And David came and got me just as soon as they got through preaching and the class wasn't over. And he said, I think you might want to come in and he told me what happened. And I walked in and I think I shocked him a little bit. And I said, I am so glad that that happened today. And they all look scared death. You know, and I said, I'm glad that you guys got to see how serious we take church membership and how serious we take Bible doctrine that we're teaching this class to weed out a man like him. That's right. To keep him from coming into our church and doing in the church, what he just did in front of you. And everybody was like, yes, thank God. And I think every member of that class ended up joining. But you know, that's why we do what we do is church membership means something. And to be a member of a local church is a serious thing. It's a serious commitment. It's a covenant relationship with Christ and that body. And we take that very serious. And so I, from the very beginning, sought to not elevate, but just normalize church membership to what the New Testament says it's supposed to be. And that has paid on, matter of fact, our church would not believe, our church would not be what it is today had we not done that years ago. Yeah. Well, the final mark that you had in this message here, and this is one we've talked about before, but it's always worth revisiting. And honestly, this one could be a podcast. And I believe we may have made it a podcast, at least something similar. But Godly men in the church are going to want to be ensuring that the senior pastor stays healthy. Yes. That's, that's going to be their desire. If they love the truth, they want the truth to be fed to them on a consistent basis from the pulpit. And they want their families to be able to come to a church where the word of God's being preached regularly. And so they're going to do everything they can to keep the pastor around for a few more years. They want to make sure that they keep the brother healthy, healthy. I wanted to read this first paragraph you had here. You said recently, I was asked what the most controversial or difficult teaching has been that I've ever done in the church. It's this, how to love, take care of, minister to, and meet the final, excuse me, the financial needs of the pastor of the church. How come that's so controversial? You know, I've had pastor say thinking that my answer would be, well, when I taught on election or when I taught on predestination or when I taught on headship or women's submission, but brother, there is not a close second, the most difficult teaching, the hardest ground that I've ever, I've broken so many, I've broken so many plow blades trying to break up this ground is whenever I've gotten within a thousand miles of teaching how to take care of your senior pastor because everybody thinks you're trying to butter your own brain observing. But this is what came to me, brother, Jeff Noblet told me years ago, he said, this is as much the word of God as John 316 and if you don't teach it, it'll never be taught. And so I just understood that it's my responsibility to teach this and this is what I want to say. And I say this without apology, there is no such thing, never has been never will be. There is no such thing as a man of God in the local church that doesn't love his pastor. No such thing. How could you say that you love truth when you don't love the man God sent to bring that truth to bear on your life? How could you say that you're in this for the glory of God when it says God gave pastors and teachers to the church as a gift to edify you and train you and teach you so much of your sanctification and so much of your growth and so much of your maturity is going to come through the teaching preaching pastor of your church. He is God's agent of sanctification in your life. And I don't believe it's possible for your heart to have been shaped and tenderized and sanctified and fashioned and formed by God and you always hold a question mark over your pastor, always hold him in suspicion, always think the worst of him, always fight him tooth and nail on everything he tries to do. And by the way, believe it's your job to keep him in line. To believe it's your job to keep him from leading the church off of a cliff. And I'm not saying you're not discerning, I'm not saying you're not wise, you be a Berean and you search the scriptures. But if you're walking with God, God's going to do something special in your heart. To make you not only love Christ, but love his man the man he sent to you And this is what I really hammered last week and I pray some guys are listening We want to talk about the doctrine of Election in a bubble We want to talk about the sovereignty of God clinically We want to talk about it, you know from the standpoint of the seminary classroom I want to talk about it from the level of the practical. Yeah, I want to talk about it from the level of the local church You say that you believe that God before the foundation of the world knew you and chose you in Christ Jesus And in time he sent Jesus to down the cross for you and the Holy Spirit to will you and draw you and give you repentance and faith And you became a child of God Well, here's what I'd say to you I agree with you and that's the way I've you Kayla seems Mm-hmm. I believe before the foundation of the world God marked out one girl for me to be married to and her name is Kayla And I believe before the foundation of the world God marked me out to be the pastor of Shaleb even Mills Baptist Church That's how much I believe in election We all say we believe in the sovereignty of God But then it ends when I start talking to you about how God providentially sent you the pastor you have that's right That God in his sovereignty raised up your pastor that God in his providence sent the pastor that you have to you But you you miss years of blessing and you miss years of God's hand being on your church because in the back of your mind There's always a question mark that maybe someday we'll get the man out there God wants us to have maybe someday We'll have the true man God wants us to have that flies in the face of election That flies in the face of God's sovereignty and providence Mm-hmm at some point you have to say look no man's perfect But if this brother Is is he says he's got a divine call on his life and he's given good evidence of it And he's rightly dividing the word of truth and he's preaching to you or have got sure he has Personality quirks sure he has idiosyncrasies that maybe you know drive you crazy sometimes But you in love brother, you have to overlook those things for the greater good of the fact that this is a man of God He's got the main things nailed down and he's teaching us the word of God. Yeah, and You know this is something that I would say and there's so many things we can talk about But this is what's really burning in my heart. I would just challenge any man listening That you should assume You should assume That your pastor's ideas And that your pastor's leadership And the and the the direction in which your pastor is leading you you should assume That it's the will of God. Yeah unless right There is a crystal clear departure from the written word of God. That's right Now if he if he's found to be in variance with the scriptures We've got a problem right but but brother these guys that sit around cocky and prodful in a elder Meeting or deacon's meeting or whatever and they just believe it's their job To be the old stubborn mule dragging and pulling and Yanking and and resisting and you know striving with the pastor I got to keep him humble. I got to keep him poor. I got to keep him in line I've got to keep him from making a bad decision brother. That is wicked What kind of a man is he let them do this with joy and not with grief for that's unprofitable for you all of the energy and all of the wonder that could be being spent all of the creative God giftings that your that your God has given your pastor that your family could be benefiting from are being wasted because Quite frankly you're being a horse is rare And you're just dragging your feet on everything and fighting tooth and nail And that's why Hebrews 13 says let them do this with joy and not with grief because that's unprofitable for you Right He's spending all the energy and the effort that he could be Being a benefit to you and your family through you just being tough and hard and rough and hard to get along with And and so that that's one of the ways you just crush your pastor spirit Yes, and his wife and his family and and and just and really short circuit The grace of God in your church and that's why I say this is such an important part of being a man of God in the local church You know the man here most of the men that that I believe right now if I died today wouldn't miss a beat yeah Just and I understand I understand that a man needs to prove himself. I get that I understand that a pastor needs to be willing to show people that they can trust him I get it. Yes, and I know sometimes that takes time, but boy it took a lot of time here I've said before I probably became the pastor this church at a rep about year 12 about two years after the embezzlement thing Finally some guys began to see well, I I think he might be maybe he really does believe the truth Maybe he's not so squirrely. Maybe all those things I heard about him aren't true Um, and while I'm thankful. Yeah, I am grateful for where we are today for that took years. How many years? Yeah, take that took years off my life Yeah, it was just It was grief. Yeah, yeah, and and some of the Some of the thinness that I have in my resolve today and some of the weariness that I battle now come from those years Yeah, and and so I would just say that You should assume That your pastor is leading you in the path of God unless There's a clear departure from scripture. It's right love believes all things and love hopes all things I think you should defer to him. Absolutely. He's the leader. Yeah He's the God ordained leader. Yeah under Christ God sent that pastor to lead that congregation. Yeah I love and we'll end it probably right here because it's such a good place to end it The positive way to look at this too is you know, so how should it look like when you're uh Uh keeping him healthy number one pay him right so that he can live and not worry about making ends meet brother the number one struggle that me and Kayla faced up until The not so distant past yeah, it was money. Yeah We have struggled our entire lives anybody that knows me knows how I live Very frugal Kayla and I have lived by an envelope budgeting system our entire marriage had we not we would have been destroyed devastated But brother the majority of our lives with five children barely getting by barely making it you know how expensive it is with four and every pastor that I talk to Is barely making it you know just just it There's this this carnal Ungodly mindset in the church that You know the pastor's supposed to just barely make it he's supposed to just barely get by Brother that makes me some add I want to speed yeah, it's it's just carnal and it's ungodly What happened to double honor right and what happened to sharing with them Out of the overflow of what God's blessed you which is what Paul said yeah, and that means sharing with them of your You've reaped their spiritual things. It's not so much that they should reap your carnal things yeah, and um You know, I just know so many pastors that literally You know barely make it and you might say well if they barely make it and you know, I'm now 57 years old And I don't believe that retirement subbiblical concept the way the world Um measures it I don't have any plans to retire I can tell you this and I told you and Ryan just this morning. I can't keep doing what I've done for 33 years I'm you know, I I feel myself growing tired. I I can't do you know the level of things which I used to do which was everything And so I'm more than willing for you guys to help me and I don't have a quote retirement plan But I can tell you that I don't want to always do what I'm now doing yeah Um, and whatever a man's plan is I can tell you this most pastors Their churches don't do anything to help them fund their retirement Now, maybe they don't ever completely retire, but maybe they step back or maybe they you know Reduce their responsibilities or maybe They just become the preaching pastor only or maybe they you know preach one day a week I don't know as they get old or whatever that looks like Or maybe they're like John MacArthur and just preach full steam ahead until the day they die Which is what I would opt for yeah, but I can tell you that that you know Setting down with financial advisors and those people that counsel with you. I've had them tell me You can't make up. I'm sorry to tell you this mr. Sims, but you can't make up For the years you've lost and and you know asset allocation years the years of compounding interest when you didn't fund your retirement properly I mean, for years I paid 100% of my health insurance, 100% of my disability insurance, 100% of my life insurance, and 100% of my retirement. And that came right off the top of quote, what my pay was. And you know, for years, brother, for years, because of that, you know, we qualified for free lunch at school. For years, because of that, we got the child tax credits, you know, and for years, but because of that, we didn't have the taxable bases on our income because we were looked at below, you know, what that level was. And just almost every pastor I talked to, that's such a misconstrued misunderstood thing. The church will be giving all this percentage of their budget to world missions. But they're not. And they'll be giving all this money to this offering and that offering. Here's what I want to say, you ought not give a dime to missions, you ought not fund a missionary anywhere on this planet to you first take care of your missionary. To you adequately fund your local pastor, you ought not give a dime to anything. That's right. And I believe that with all my heart. And so some men just have to rise up in the church that see this and say, we're going to see that our senior pastor is taking care of so that money's not his number one worry. And so that he can be given to and focused on, you know, the word of God. We're going to treat him with double honor. Amen. That's good. You also say here, and I was curious about you said pray for him and with him every week. And out to the side, you said see booklet, was that the praying for Sunday? It's the praying for Sunday boy. That thing is so helpful. I recommend that to everybody. It's called praying for Sunday. I can't remember what the subtitle is, right, but it's written by Michael Fibera's. That's right. I don't know if I said that right. It's called Fibera's, yeah, something like that. I got that little booklet at the Shepherd's Conference and I called his church and just ordered a whole bunch of them. And it's a outline for weekly how to pray for your pastor. And it's just, I recommend that it's excellent. It really is. Yep. Yep. First Timothy 519, don't receive baseless accusations against him. And again, that's part of that peacemaking process, isn't it? Brother, the Bible says against an elder, you don't receive an accusation, but before two or three witnesses. Yeah. And it's just too easy and a local church for the pastor to be the pincushion, for him to be the recipient of everybody's dislikes, for anybody that has a gripper complaint just to take their feet and wipe them off on the door mat of the pastor's face and family. And I'm telling you, it's not that the pastor is insulated and can't be reached. It's the problem that everybody wipes their feet off on him. And here's what I want to say. Sure he needs to be accessible. Wherever he needs to smell like the sheep, sure he needs to be able to get his hands dirty and all that's going on with the problems that the people in his church face, absolutely that's pastoring. But brother, it ought to be the law and the needs of the Persians that the men of the God face that congregation and say to that church, you better not raise your hand against our pastor. To me, that's a man of God that the men in that church have the resolve to say, look, you can talk to our pastor, you can disagree with our pastor. You might even have a biblical complaint about him, but you're not going to raise your hand against him like that. You're not going to baselessly charge him. You're not going to baselessly accuse him. We are not going to allow you to treat our pastor in an undignified way. We're going to demand that you treat him with respect. And that even if you have a disagreement, there's an honorable way to disagree with him. To me, I don't understand how you be a man of God and not be that way. I remember just as a young man I loved my pastor. I just loved him. I didn't think he was perfect. I could see all of his flaws. But man, I'm telling you, I wanted to be a wall between him and some carnal guy spitting in his face. And I just decided as a young man, that's what I was going to be. And even before God called me to preach, that's what I tried to be for my pastor. And I just believe that's an honorable thing for a man to say, I am going to stand with the man of God and I'm going to try to keep him from being, you know, just the assault of people's dislikes and frustrations and them just taking it out on our pastor. And that is so common in the average church. And matter of fact, most pastors just think that's normal, that that's just the way it is. And make jokes about it. Yep. Just make light of it. Well, that's good. There's obviously there's so much more that we could get into here, giving him regular arrests, giving him time away to refuel, giving him a sabbatical of no less than four weeks, preferably six and more. That's neat. And we talked about that one before, but that one just seems so radically different to some people. We're just not used to it. Yeah. But how needful is it? People scoff at that and just say, I mean, he sabbatical. He doesn't need that. Good night. You know, brother, you know, David Brown, you remember this well, came to a staff meeting about a year, a year and a half after he had become the pastor at Cross Baptist Church. Yeah. And I don't think brother David would mind me sharing this. And he came into staff meeting and David, you know, not, not real emotional guy. He was weeping. Yeah. And he said, pastor, oh, you an apology. And I said, I couldn't think of a thing that he would owe me an apology for. We loved each other and worked together very, very well. Absolutely. And he said, brother, for all the years we were together, I thought I knew what you went through. I thought I knew what you faced. I thought I understood everything you faced. I thought I had been through everything you've been through until I became a pastor. And he said the weight and the burden and how you can't turn it off and how it's always with you. He said, brother, it's crushing. He said, I had no idea. And he said, brother, wish I would pray for you more. I wish I would have understood more. I wish that would have been more empathetic. And he was. Yeah. And there was no great deficiency there. But the point I'm making is, is that everybody thinks they understand what being a pastor is. I'll tell you this, brother, the closest person in the world to grasping this, the closest person in the world to understanding me and understanding what it is to be a pastor and the burden I carry is Kayla. And she don't have a clue. She don't have a clue. I've told her that to her face. I think you know, and I think, but until you're in that office and until you have that call and until you bear that responsibility, and I'm telling you right now, these people that think it's their job to keep the preacher humble, their job to keep the preacher poor. It's my job to keep the preacher in line. If they were the pastor for five minutes, they'd self-destruct. The church would blow into a million pieces. They think they understand. There's so much more room for you to be compassionate to your pastor. There is so much more room for you to be loving and understanding and tender-hearted and pray for him because you have no idea. And I know we're going off script here. I can't tell you, brother, just as an example. And I thought about this a million times. I can give you a million different examples. But I can't tell you, I remember one time specifically. I had had a young girl come to my office and I always require a female to be in there with me. And she came to my office and began to recite to me the horrible, horrible, gut-wrenching experiences of domestic sexual abuse that she had experienced in her life and with a family member and all of that had been dealt with by the authorities and all of that had passed, but the ramifications of that brutality and the ramifications of that wickedness and the ramifications of that dark level of depravity and she's telling me all this stuff. And I'm hearing it and it's just crushing my heart. And I walked out of my office and it was a Sunday evening and I had to go preach. And maybe there's a word for wisdom about not taking one of those before you preach, but I'm young. And so I'm coming out of my office having met with this girl for hour, hour and a half, hearing this depth of dark depravity and now I've got to go preach the word and I'm thinking how in the world am I going to preach? I just wanted to go crawl in a hole. And I passed by one of these little snippety women that was just looking for any opportunity to gig me and evidently I didn't look at her and evidently I didn't speak to her. In the next decons meeting I got raked over the coals because you're not friendly to church members. You didn't speak to sister so and so we'll give you evidence Sunday night you walked past her and you didn't even look at her. So I've got two choices. Do I betray confidences in this decons meeting and tell them the filth and the degradation and the perversion that I just listen to a young girl share with me or do I eat it and you just eat it and you do that for a year after year after year in the climate of men not supporting you, not standing with you, being the punching bag, being the pen cushion. And we wonder why we wonder why 70% plus of pastors resign, get out of the ministry. We wonder why the divorce rate is so high among pastors. We wonder why. Yeah, we wonder why health insurance rates are through the roof for pastors. I'll tell you why it all comes to, now let me ask you a question. Is it important that we have men of God in the church? Is it important that we have men of God that surround our pastor? So you're not going to do that. You are not going to do that to our pastor. Now that we have a means and a mechanism by which we'll minister to you and your family But you're not going to bring that level of accusation to our pastor We're not going to deal with childish immature baseless things like that and it's so sad that for years a guy has to live there But what a joy it is after teaching teaching teaching teaching patients patients finally some day Some men rise up and decide we are going to be men of God and we're going to stand with the man of God and I'm going to tell you right now If that day doesn't happen Most pastors aren't going to make it but when that day happens The ministry finally becomes a joy and you finally begin to gain some positive ground I want to say this and I know we're way off script But I want to say this the church will never be the church of the Lord Jesus Christ until men rise up never ever Rise up. Oh men of God. Mm-hmm. The church for you, doth weight Her strength unequal to her task rise up and make her great. It has to be more than the pastor There has to be a band of brothers come alongside that man or he's Hamstrung. Yeah, you know Forgive me, but this is this is this is crucial Mm-hmm, and I pray that some man out there listening the Holy Spirit will get a hold of his heart and if nobody else stands with him He would say I'm standing with my pastor. Amen. I'm going to stand with my pastor and do this go and tell him You can assume that your pastor knows. Don't don't assume. Yeah, go to your pastor today and say brothers I just want to let you know something number one. I love you Number two, I respect you Number three, I know you're not perfect just like me and I know you're gonna see in but I want to tell you something today And I want you to hear me and I'm gonna walk it out before you as long as you stay Within the bounds of Genesis to Revelation. I'm gonna die with you. Amen. I'll die with you If you stay within the bounds of the holy Bible I'll be with you to the bitter end. That's right and watch what that does to your pastor. Amen Watch how that emboldens him Mm-hmm encourages his heart and when you got half a dozen men do that. Yeah, when you got 30 that do that When you've got 50 that do that when you got a hundred that do that I'm not saying Satan can't get an entrance But brother, it gags the devil and and I'm not saying that that the church is impenetrable But I'm gonna tell you it it it protects that church in a way that few things can Just by men being men of God. Yeah, and for the pastors out there who As we have early on in our ministries are longing to have those men of God around you I just want to encourage you by saying keep praying for me and keep preaching the Word The Word of God's going to do what it's going to do in time. It will you just have to be patience and believe God and trust him Amen. Well, thank you so much for those words of wisdom I hope that that's not only an encouragement for pastors, but also a challenge for men who are in the church today that are You know that are we don't want men that are going to reflect the culture, but they're gonna stand against it and with the Word of God Spargen said that Pastors to for ministry is his heart and when a pastor serves with a broken heart He's serving with a broken set of tools and sadly most pastors are trying to serve with a broken set of tools They feel unsupported They feel unprayed for they feel unloved they feel unappreciated and you can assume and think oh well our pastor does Wow, you'd probably shop yeah go tell him yeah verbally tell him show him yeah tangibly Tell him and show him in real ways that's right that you love him and that you're with him and that you stand with him most pastors don't Get knocked out of the ministry most pastors get Discurged and broken hearted out of the ministry. That's right and Being encouragement to his family. I'm just gonna put in a plug We've got a small group class in this church. Yeah, that has adopted me and their family My family and every once in a while on a birthday or an anniversary will get a card Yes, we'll get money. Yeah, if they know that we're going on a trip somewhere They'll just give us a couple hundred bucks, and it's just those little things or I say little things Those are huge things they go a long way for us and it's gone a long way from my family too every single time Hey, do you know where that came from boys? I just want you to know This is where that came from the Lord we got men have gotten it's a men's class by the way We've got men of God here in the church that take this seriously I mean, so thank you so much for teaching them and thank you so much for leading us in that again I do pray that that would be a Challenge and encouragement to all of our listeners out there keep in mind guys We love you so much and we obviously we're always wanting to hear back from you So if you've got any feedback or any questions for us, please contact us as soon as possible www.smbconline.com Thank you for listening to the Faithful Exposter for more information on whether John is measuring go to our church website www.smbconline.com and follow him on twitter at John of Sims