Qualifications and Disqualifications for a Minister and His Wife - Steve Zehr

Well, good evening. I'll greet you the name of Jesus.

It's a privileged to be here with you. It's good

to be here at this Wholesey Congregation again to see

very familiar faces. And tonight we have a topic here,

qualifications and disqualifications for a minister and his wife, and

there's a lot of material to cover. I wasn't sure

where all to go with that. What Usually when people

come up with the title, they have something in mind

for it, and so I want to do my best here.

But when you come tomorrow night, any of you will

come through those doors with a name to present, a

name that will potentially change and impact this church for decades.

And what are you going to look for in a

man and his wife. I'm going to start it a

little bit of a different place than we often do

it ordinations in this discussion, because when we are discussing

qualifications for this office, it is important to know what

the office is, what the responsibility is, and how important

that is to consider. And where my mind's going is Matthew,

Chapter twenty five, the parable of the talents you have,

the parable you're familiar with that I'm not going to

spend a lot of time there. But that verse, that

parable kind of starts like this for the Kingdom of

Heaven in verse fourteen is as a man traveling into

a far country who called his own servants and delivered

to them his goods. And it goes on there to

say that he gave out these talents according to their

several abilities. And you know how went there. He gave

five to one and two to one, two to another,

and to the last one he gave one talent. And

I always find it curious how sometimes in this discussion

of this parable the talents, how often it's it's misunderstood

as legal tender, like God's going to come back and

require us currency for our life's work. And it's it's

one of the questions we have to ask when when

we think about a parable. You know, these these practical,

earthly things that have a spiritual meaning. What is it?

One way to understand this parable would be to ask

the question, what is it? What are some things that

are extremely valuable to God? It'd be interesting to just

just open it up here and see what you think

is very valuable to God? What God would give humanity

give men give a leader to keep in trust to

he returns. What are some things that are very valuable

to God that he entrusts to men and to women?

What would you say is his most precious possession? Now,

I'm sure this parable can be taken many different ways,

and I'm not claiming that I have the I have

the answer to what these talents are. I'm sure they

do include us dollars and how you use them. They

include a lot of things. But when I think of

the most precious thing to God that he would entrust

to men, one of the things that comes to mind

is a verse in one Corinthians six, where it says,

for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God

in your body and in your spirit, which is God's.

And I also think of Ephesians five, verse twenty five,

where it says, husbands love your wives even as Christ,

so love the church. And what does it say he did?

He gave his life for it. There's no greater love

than this, that a man laid down his life for

his friend. The Bible says, so you could take it

from these verses that one of the most precious things

to God is the soul of man. And also the church.

And so I believe it's a church that Christ gave

his life for, he died for, according to scripture, and

each of us finds our place in this parable, in

this in this kingdom age, this this church kingdom age.

We find ourselves for a part of it, responsible for

some portion of this church that God has made you

a part of. And you can be a man, you

can be a woman, you can be a husband, you

can be a wife, you can be a young person.

There's a lot of ways that you can be responsible

for the church that you're a part of. But I

think this backdrop is very helpful, whether you have one

talent or whether you're five. What we're looking for in

a man is a man who is most responsible, a

man that is the most responsible that God can give

the most responsibility two for his church. And when you

get to first Timothy three and and Titus one, which

I want to look at First Timothy three, you could

turn there if you would want to follow along, But

First Timothy three is one of the places we traditionally

go to when you look at the qualifications and disqualifications.

But I just want to I want to notice a

few things here we don't We don't see a lot

of thou shalt not thou shalt The Bible don't say

thou shalt not be a novice, because some of some

of the time in our life we're going to be

a novice. But it says the most responsible person should

not be a novice. That's just common sense, that's how

we look at life. But I want you to think

about how in first Timothy Chapter one, this thing of

in the in the in the talents. You have this

thing of value, and you have this thing of responsibility.

These these are both built into this parable and in

one Timothy talks about that. It talks about this thing

of value and responsibility and tied it. And Timothy is

giving this responsibility to Timothy. And just notice a few

of the verses here in on Timothy. One verse eleven,

it says, according to the glorious Gospel of the Blessed God,

which was committed to my trust. And so you see

this great thing of value, this glorious gospel. In verse twelve,

you see this responsible person. Paul, I think, and I think, Christ, Jesus,

our Lord, who hath enabled me for that he counted

me faithful, putting me in the ministry, enabling him and

counting him faithful to take care of this thing of

great value. See in verse eighteen, this charge I committed

to these, son, Timothy. So he's passing on this commitment,

this thing of value, this thing of responsibility. And Paul

talks about the care of the churches in another scripture,

how that this was a great this great responsibility. This

this this care of the churches. He compares to the

shipwrecks and the beatings and all these things. Not that

they were tortuous in that way, but they were. They

were a big thing of responsibility that was a part

of his life. And so there's there's different verses here,

But if you get to the end of one Timothy

in chapter six, he says, oh, Timothy, keep that which

is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings

and positions of science falsely so cold. And so we

see this this giving of something value, like these talents

and this responsibility. And so when we think about a man,

I'd like us to think about the responsibility. And actually,

Sunday morning, Lord Willing, when I give the message on

the responsibilities of church members, I want to refer back

to this parable again. Just just briefly to remind you

that you do have a part. You have a talent

that God has given you, and you are actually responsible

for a part of this church. Now, disqualifications. I want

to talk about disqualifications first of all, and then end

with qualifications. There's a lot of things here and I

won't near be able to cover them all, but I

just there's some things that I just picked out that

I think can be helpful to us. The first disqualification

I would like you to think about is what it

says there in verse three, The first phrase there not

given to wine? So how many of you are given

to wine? So the puzzle here is later Paul actually

tells Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach sake. Now,

we as Mennonite churches have pretty much just drawn the

line at wine or alcoholic beverages period, so we just

don't we don't go there. But what we have What

begs the question then, is what is the equivalent of wine?

Wine was used as a way, I guess, to for

the anxiety Paul was facing in life, use a little

wine for your stomach sach. I don't know if that

was just, you know, an old fashioned belly ache. I

don't know if that was like he was talking about

the anxieties of life, how life got to him and

he just needed a way to get a break. But

what is wine for us today in this modern day equivalent?

Because I think it is so important that we, as

responsible men find a way to unwind, find a way

to relax from our responsibility. All of us need that.

So what is that? Some things, it's obviously things that

you could get addicted to and take out of line.

You could go too far with things that are legitimate

things that we should do once in a while, but

that can easily go out out of line, become addictive

and get out of control. We can become undisciplined. And

so what are those things? Some of the things you

can get addicted to but are good for you in

small doses. Well, you can think of recreation in this

world we live. And we had a speaker recently tell

us that in Madress, there he was behind the pulpit.

He said, if you stack hundred dollars bills edge wise,

you could stack those bills all the way from the

Madress Church to within I think he said six miles

of the Boise airport, going up past La grand and

that would be the amount of money spent annually in

the United States of America for recreation. I don't remember

the number, its two hundred. I think it might have

been two hundred and forty some million million or billion dollars.

I don't don't remember what I was a big number. Recreation, hobbies, depression, pills, pain, medication.

These are all things that people can can can get

into and use for a while. Jesus went out by

himself to be alone for a while. But it's easy

to go over the edge and give yourself too much

to these things to become a wine bibber. And for

a minister to become a wine bibber is not a

good It's not a good thing. You know. The hobbies

like hunting, fishing, traveling. Preachers become relatable, perhaps, but you

know they're a human. They need rest, they need a

little wine. But it takes very little to you have

gone beyond what is good for you and the people

you serve. The Christian life is all about discipline. It's

all about, you know, about moderation. A preacher loses his value,

he loses its whole message. It's lost if he becomes

out of control. If he can't control how much he eats,

if he can't control how much he plays, he hobbies, works,

whatever that thing is that gives him a break, that

thing can be taken to the point of undisciplined excess.

And I think of the verse Paul says, but I

keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that,

by any means, when I've preached to others, I become

a castaway for Corinthians nine, verse twenty seven. So that's

the first thing not given to wine, not given to

an undisciplined life. Second thing that would be given here

as something that would be I guess we could say

an undisciplined unqualification would be in verse same verse verse two,

verse three. There the next one of the next phrases says,

not a brawler, not quarrelsome, not contentious, argumentative, but more

if you if you look up the context of those words,

it means, you know, not quarrelsome and contentious, but more

of an emphasis on gentleness, self control, and a peaceful disposition.

And that is that is something that comes very hard

for for some people. For me, I am by nature

enjoyed discussion and you know, say argument. Maybe we use

the word argument kind of loosely. You know, we get

into argument. I don't think all all of what we

call argument is necessarily wrong. You know, we do things

for the sake of argument, you know, we we we

present arguments and things like that. But when it becomes quarrelsome,

when it becomes divisive, when it's not peaceable, you know,

you get a man like that. Now, the thing that

we need to balance this out with. The Bible tells

ministers that they should reprove, rebuke with all authority, and

to earnestly contend for the faith. Paul told Titus that

there are many unruly, vain talkers and deceivers whose mouths

must be stopped. So you know, how do you how

do you do that? How do you do that? In

a way can an unruly vain talker's mouth be stopped

without becoming quarrelsome and argumented. That's you know, that's the

big challenge. That's why the words have to be chosen carefully.

That's why it can be difficult. It's easy to be quarrelsome.

Almost anybody can be quarrelsome. You don't have to think

things through. You don't have to prepare your line of thinking.

You don't have to prepare how you say things or

what you're going to say. You don't have to pray

about them. How how can you stop a vain talker's

mouth without becoming quarrelsome? Well, I think the key there

lies in the idea in in in. You know, the

most important thing about you is and me is what

spirit I'm of when I go to talk to somebody.

I've found that to be so true. What what spirit

am I of? To be of the right spirit is

to be led by God. You don't have to have

your your facts correct when you're quarrelsome, but do have

the spirit of God involved in a heated conversation. You know.

That's the what we call the X factor in life.

That is the thing that will change very tense situations

to not be a brawler. The second, the third thing

I'd like to think about. I think I have four

things here for disqualifications. Number three is not to not

be dishonest or coveteous. The verse there says not greedy

of filthy lucre, and that that translates to not being dishonest,

not being dishonest in our business practices, but filthy luker.

It also talks about here coveteousness desiring things that others have.

And one of the things that Paul says later on

to Timothy is that they that will be rich and

so coveteousness may be wanting. You know that the command

and the old testama is don't covet your neighbor's operating,

your neighbor's wife, your neighbors oxen. Don't covet things that

are yours. But Paul extends out a little more to

not make the desire for wealth one of your driving

factors in life. Flee these things were his exact words. Now,

what does it mean to flee these things? As a minister,

as a man of God, He actually tells men of

men of God to flee these things. We over there

in central Oregon, my grandson life, where they live is

right on the edge of the wilderness. Basically, it's just

sagebrush and juniper trees in the back of their house

and in front of their porch there's is concrete porch,

and then for a long time it was just dirt.

They'd probably ten fifteen feet of dirt. They've been keeping

it just work down, just smooth. Eventually they plant of

grass there, but all summer it was just dirt. I

think it's hot there and gets hot. And so Laife

was out there playing under the porch. He'd played run

up and down in that dirt track there. You just

play out there all summer long. And one day they

were out there and they heard this buzzzz and they

found a great big rattlesnake that had found a little

hole under the concrete and crawledon that made its den

underneath that concrete. A month or two ago, they came

home from church and Sunday afternoon, I think we had

a pot luck that Sunday. They came home from church,

went into the house and Abigail looked outside. It's a

clear sunny day. Just looked outside the big window right

towards the fence out there. It couldn't have been more

than from here to the church wall away, and there

was this enormous bobcat just strolling past there like he

had the title to the place. Do you think Dugs

tried to negotiate with that rattlesnake and uh and that bobcat?

His His reaction on both both both cases was quick

and lethal. That's the idea I get when Paul says,

flee these things, and uh, it's a challenge for me

to consider when I in my pursuit of a chunk

of this material world. You know, the world Materialism is

simply the definition is a tendency to consider material possessions

and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. The

tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort more than

spiritual values. And you just think about that for a

little bit. You know, sometimes the comfort of staying at

home on a Wednesday evening when it's raining here and

just not going to prayer meeting. If the deciding factor

is comfort and I you know, sometimes we need to rest.

Maybe that's your wine for the week, don't. I don't

know what you know, And that happens. We can't. We

can't make it everywhere all the time. It's one of

the things you learn in life is that you just

can't do that. But if that's your deciding factor in

life is comfort, then that's materialism. You're making comfort a

priority over spiritual things, and possessions can be like that.

You know, we look at at how much is dedicated

to this topic of warning against materialism in Timothy to

the new minister, it's it's noteworthy Paul is not trying

to identify how much is equals rich and how much

is poor, how much is fleeing and all of that.

But the obvious problem comes when we think about business

more than spiritual things, and it makes a minister ineffectual.

And in ministry we know that when a man doesn't

pay attention to his business, and I'm talking about the

material world, when we all have to pay attention to

our business. If we don't pay attention to our business,

it goes downhill, it starts to fail. And yet it's

it's it's not as obvious to us sometimes what's happening

to failing churches? And I wonder if you know if

the if the inverse is true, if it's an indication,

And I don't think it's always that way. There's many

factors that go into failing churches. But Paul is making

this point. Here's a disqualification that when we are covetous,

when we are not careful in this area. The fourth

thing I want to look at is in verse eleven.

It says, even so must their wives be grave not

slanders sober, faithful in all things. And so this is

this disqualification is for the wife, but it's it's also

it's also true for men. I think this verse comes up,

this idea comes up in that the bishop should be sober.

I think it talks about the deacons. So it's really

for all of us. But James three verse five says,

even so the tongue is a little member and boast

of great things. Behold, how great a matter a little

fire kindleth? Now have you ever wondered why it is?

You know, I I just had a birthday, and mercifully

they just put one candle on the cake and we

did the traditional thing. They my little grandson blew it

out a little puff of air and it went right out.

Have you ever wondered why when there's a big, big

forest fire big? You know, we have forest fires over there,

had a lot of helicopters and those fire bombers, and

you know, last summer it was it was hot. It's

like it's getting towards the end of summer. But somebody

a big brush fire at our place got lit, and

fire department came out and everything. Have you ever wondered

why when that happens. They don't come flying out there

with their little pickup trucks and their they're fire engines

with gigantic air compressors on them to try to blow

those fires out with air, Like, why don't they come

out with you know, one eighty five solarir air compressed

and just everybody line up and just blow those fires?

Because why is that? It's because oxygen is fuel to

a fire. Now, it works when a fire is really little,

but oxygen is fuel to a fire. And that's the

way slander gossip these things. As much as it feels

like it's helping, as much as you know, it's maybe

the natural tendency, they don't help their fuel to the fire.

According to James, I want to just read you this.

This is just a description, and I wonder if you

can figure out, you know, when you think about when

you think about addictions, when you think about the dopamine

hits that happen in the brain, what is the cause

of that? How do people get how to men dopamine fixes.

I'll read you this and you tell me what you

think it's talking about. He says that it activates the

brain's reward system, provides a pleasurable feeling of excitement, satisfaction,

or belonging that reinforces the behavior. The release creates a

cycle of rewarding and can contribute to becoming a habitual

or even addictive activity. It's talking about dopamine release into

the brain. What do you think that's talking about, Well,

that is talking about gossip. I found this on my

own study, but I found it because I heard another

preacher talking about it, and he had a whole sermon

that was fascinating about the effects of gossip on the brain.

It's identical to the impact pornography has on the brain.

You know, my wife is a crucial part of the team.

She can use her tongue to encourage, to lift people up,

or to cut people down, to destroy people. And I

think it's some verses, some really good verses. And Ephesians

four it says, let no crupt communication proceed out of

your mouth, but that which is good to use of

edifying that it may minister grace into the hears. And

then what comes next is really interesting. After that verse

about crupt communication, it says, and grieve not the Holy

Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed into the day

of redemption. That's where that verse is found. Grieve not

the Holy Spirit. In connection to our tongue, it says,

let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor and

evil speaking be put away from you with all malice,

and be kind one to another, tenderhearted forgiving one another,

even as God, for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Now,

I don't think a kind woman. I don't think there's

anything so powerful as a woman that is kind. When

a young man is struggling with purity, when he confesses

it in church, you can't seem to get on top

of it. What is your reaction? Are you kind? Or

do you pull out the air compressor? And here's the kicker,

here's the question. Do you think he is going to

get help from a person who is just has addicted

to dopamine as he is. That's something for you to

think about. And they say addicts trigger addicts. Okay, I

have some qualifications, some things that I think will help

us here. So the last qualification was our tongue, not

a slander or a gossip. The first qualification, which I

think is true also of husbands and wives, and bishops,

deacons and pretty much everyone but you find this these description,

these adjectives to include the wives as well. Here. So

what we find here is the word grave, sober and faithful.

To be grave, to be sober has the idea of

not being frivolous, but with weighty dignity, and this qualification

for both the husband and the wife. I know these

these things are not in our world today. These these

descriptions are not things that maybe men would say they

desire in a woman. If you got and ask a man,

what what do you like to see in a woman?

What would you like to see in your wife? I

doubt in today's world you would hear the words grave

and sober. You might hear faithful, But grave and sober

maybe those words, you know, they're not words you would

find in somebody's Facebook description. They would not be bragging

about their sobriety, They wouldn't be bragging about their gravity.

We live in a world where they want the woman.

They want all of us, really, but a woman that

is maybe bubbly and spontaneous, outgoing, fun, full of life,

full of laughter, maybe even a good business head. Aggressive.

Words like grave and sober are not very feminine words,

So why does he have them there? Men? Would not

want them. But are we here? Women? Are we here? Sisters? Ladies?

Are we here to please God? Or to please men? Now?

I've got a sense of humor with the with the

best of you or the worst of you. I don't

know how how you put it, but I can have

a wicked sense of humor. It crosses the line though,

into into you know, cynicism and skepticism. It served me well,

It's kept me saying a lot of times in life.

But you know, the thing that really we need to

think about when it comes to the most important things

that we face as people. You know, hardships like death,

times where the human experience almost crushes us. You know,

you have people that you're going to face that are

having marriage problems, that have lost a son or a

daughter to the world, that are just struggling with tremendous

impacts of sin. All of these things that we face

that are deep important things in the human experience, require dignity.

They require sobriety, and they certainly require faithfulness. And so

I've learned in life to cultivate that to I've had

to grow in that a lot to bring the sense

of God's sanctity to a situation, the sense of God's sobriety,

a sense of God's gravity as he looks at person

that has been caught in sin. And so these are

things that will serve you well as you serve the

Church of God. The next verse is there verse five

and six, for a if a man know not how

to rule his own house, how shall he take care

of the Church of God. So the verse four there

says the one that ruleth well his own house, having

his children in subjection with all gravity. I should have

read that verse that was verse five. But sometimes I

call this proof of concept. I'm not much of an inventor,

but they say that. You know, if I was an inventor,

it'd be a good idea to build a model for

proof of concept. And you can do this with ideas.

You can do this with things to see on a

small scale how this will work before we ramp it up,

before we best too much money, before we get too

many people involved. And that's basically what this is saying

is you take and you look at a man's life,

his wife and the way he raises his family as

an indicator of how he will be a leader in

the church. Now, one of the things that we've done

for for a long time is ordained men that have

little children. And that's that's what happened to me, It's

what happened to a lot of you. And Timothy was young.

I don't know if he had children. I'm not sure

if the Bible tells us that. I don't think the

Bible tells us that. So how do you know how

a man's children are going to turn out when they're

just you know, little little preschoolers. Maybe when a man

gets ordained or just young. Well, I don't know that

we can. I don't think there is a way to

know how, unless unless you ordain someone who's whose family

is raised already, which of course I don't don't think

that's wrong either, But I believe there are indicators. You

can tell where a man's heart is, you can tell

which direction he's going. We have some young fathers, some

young mothers in our church, just little babies, and I know,

because they've verbalized it. I know that they just they

just feel lost. They don't feel confident that they know how,

you know what they're doing? Like, how do we raise

these children? I can see and feel the uncertainty, and

yet and I've told some of them that I just

I think you're doing a great job. Like from my

point of view, I mean that baby's gonna scream in church,

but I I can't I can't always verbalize it, but

I can tell that they're doing a wonderful job. And

one of the things is that they bring that screaming

baby to church like that, that's a huge thing. You

bring those children. Like when those babies are in church screaming,

that's better than at home screaming. I doubt they're doing

much at her own. And so it's just good. You

can see the direction of a family from an early

stage in life, like are they involved in the church?

Do they show up for the singings, do they show

up for the prayer meetings? Are they there to pull

their weight? And so there's these indicators in this proof

of concept, the family as the pilot project of how

this man will lead and take responsibility in the church.

The second the third one I want to think about

for a qualification, And it's not something we see verbatim

here in this chapter. It's something we see just all

through the life of Christ. We see it in the

life of Paul, especially if you read his letter to

phi Lehman. When it comes to the slave Anesiphus that

had run away, it's the ability to show compassion and empathy.

I think this is very, very important as a leader,

and I think of what Paul said or what Jude

said with Some have compassion making a difference, others save

with fear, pulling out of the fire. You know, there's

a time to be tough, there's a time to save

with fear. There's a time to talk sternly. But one

of the things that we as humans all face, I believe,

whether we show it or not, we all face a

certain level and kind of grief. There's something I suppose

all of you are grieving right now, unless you're really

young and you're still on your honeymoon, but there's something

you're grieving. There's some level, there's something in your life

that you wish. It is hard to even verbalize. You

would hardly say to anybody but your best friend. And

to have empathy is to remember that you are a man,

so which as they are. To remember that you two

are weak, that you two have grief. I was not

long ago I did something I never thought I would do,

and I put I filled my pickup my diesel pickup

with gas. It was almost out of diesel, and I

topped it off with unleaded. It is just the most

boneheaded thing you would ever imagine someone doing. I mean,

I don't do stupid things like that. I never have

till that. I was so spaced out it was unbelievable.

You know, Usually you catch things like that, it's like,

oh that's you know, that's the wrong the wrong handle,

or you catch it when you're halfway through. I've never

even done that. I've never even started like my diesel

with gas. I don't know if I ever even reached

for the wrong handle. But as over the time of

the funeral, it was just I had so much on

my mind. I was so absolutely spaced out that I

not only filled it with gas, I drove home and

when it wouldn't start, I still had no idea what

was going on. I was seriously clocked out, and I wondered,

you know what on earth? And so I had to

go talk to the mechanic. There's a mechanic there that's

very He's got a good reputation. He works on diesels

of all kinds. We've had him work on other things,

and frankly I was sort of embarrassed to go talk

to him, but I had to go. I stopped in there,

and I walked into the shop and I said. He

comes walking out and I said, you know, I got something.

I did something really stupid, and he just stopped what

he's doing and he looked at me and he said,

what was that. I said, I put gas in my

diesel pickup and I ran at home, and so it's

got gas all through it. And he just looked at me.

What do you think? He said, He's you big idiot, like,

can't you tell green from black? What on what on

earth were you thinking? He said, you see that pick

up out there. He had a big black Duramax and

it was sitting right outside his shop. It was running.

He said, I literally pulled that pickup out of the

shop just before you drove in. He said, a couple

of weeks ago, I pulled into the gas station there

and mad just one of the pilot trucks stop I

picked was out of death. He said, I don't know

what I was thinking. I had so much on my mind.

He said, I even thought about it that I don't

want to mix this up. He said, I bought the death.

I drove to the other side of the parking lot

so that I wouldn't mix it up with the diesel,

and I proceeded to pour it into my diesel tank,

and I drove home with it. I know how you feel.

You think I just left and said, well, what an idiot.

I'm never gonna Why would I take my work to

a mechanic that's that stupid. I loved him for that

story and one of the most sobering things in all

of scripture, I think is one of the most beautiful

writers of poets, David the Man after God's own heart.

It's hard for me to understand the level of inspiration

and song that came out of that man's heart. What

kind of beauty he'd have to stand before, what kind

of hikes, what kind of exposure to nature and waterfalls?

A man like that would have to be exposed to

to be inspired with those beautiful songs. But you know

what he said in Psalm fifty one, he said, my sin,

my sin is ever before me. One of the most ugly,

gruesome specters in all of human's experience, was ever before

that man of God's that man after God's heart, ever

before his face ever before his eyes, and that specter

inspired him to the most beautiful songs we have in scripture.

One of the ways you can learn to be empathetic

is to learn how to be an active listener. And

I hope I remember to talk about this to the

congregation to members later, but as ministers, to learn how

to be an active, lead, active listener. I was terrible

at that. I was the worst at that. I still

struggle with that. To just disengage from boring people. We

can be this far away from me and talking and

I can be thinking about a lot of other things.

It's amazing talent, but people are hurting, People have things

to say. To be self aware, self aware enough of

yourself to think before you talk, and to understand that

silence is a beautiful way to understand people and to

be empathetic with them. People will come to you as

a minister with all kinds of things, with their confessions,

with their grief, with their anger, with their worries, with

their anxieties, with their fears. Are you self aware enough

to see yourself and your response like that mechanic friend

of mine was. Are you sensitive to confidentiality issues and

how you may inadvertently make people look He could have

made me feel like such an idiot, but he didn't.

What was the first thing Jesus said to Peter after

his epic failure. Peter had set himself up so great

with his mouth to just take over the world. He

was going to be the best. He was going to

die with Jesus. He was going to win it all.

He knew everything, and then he ran like a scared

puppy when the Roman soldiers came. But what was the

first thing Jesus said? And it's just a master class

of It's a beautiful thing if you study Jesus' ability

to respond in such an artful way. He doesn't just

come straight in, just torpedoes blazing. He just says he

come to the shoreline when they're fishing. And at first

they didn't even know who he was. Anybody know where

Peter is. We're looking for Peter, big cop, knock on

the door. They didn't even know who he was. And

finally John says, that's that's Christ, that's Jesus, says something

about Jesus that Peter just jumped in and slammed ashore.

I'll let you read that sometime, But it was amazing

how Jesus said, you know, cast your net on the

other side and help them catch fish. First Peter was

not afraid of Jesus. Okay, another one, and this is

for the preachers more preach the word the ability to

preach the word two Timothy four, Verse two here says,

preach the word be instant in season out of season, reprove, rebuke,

exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. Now there's a

combination of words here that maybe we we're not sure

whether what all that means. We're not sure how that looks. Reprove, rebuke,

exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. And so these words,

when you look them all up, they have a combination

of meeting meanings that include the words forbid, convict, to censor, admonish,

and to comfort and plea with long suffering and authority.

This is a big order. This is not just saying

words to bring conviction on a congregation. How do you

bring conviction to a person. You can make them feel guilty,

you can shame them, But to bring Holy Spirit conviction,

you know, that's not something you just invent on the spot.

It's a mystery. Really, it's the Holy Spirit at work

in the preaching Titus two, verse fifteen something similar there,

it says, these things speak and exhort and rebuke with

all authority. Let no man despise thee. Paul had told

Timothy to not let people despise him for his youth,

and now he's telling Titus, don't let them despise you

for preaching in this way. So, according to scripture, this

is the method God has primarily chosen to expound the Gospel,

to save men, to bring conviction, bring salvation to the masses.

How shall they hear without a preacher? You know, the

printing press came along and exposed thousands of people to

the Bible to print it scripture, and that was a

good thing. The Catholics had taken it way out. They

had abused preaching, and nobody could cross check them. They

could just say what they wanted to about what the

Bible said. There's a side of that that was really

really good. But the side I'd like you to think

about is that for hundreds of years there was no Bible,

and so preaching was the method. Now where I'm trying

to go with that is that Paul I think it's

in Romans. Paul tells the Roman Christians, the Jewish Christians,

that you have seen proof. You have seen Christ, you

saw the resurrection, you saw him walk on water, you

saw all these things, and for the most part, it

didn't phasey. It didn't change the Jewish people and how

they viewed Christ as their lord and the Messiah. But

Paul challenges them with the idea that the Gentiles they

just heard, they heard the preaching, and they repented. So

don't ask me how to explain this. I think all

of us would say we'd rather see than just be told.

And yet there's something powerful God has ordained into hearing.

If we're able to preach it as ministers and they're

able to hear it, there's something powerful that can happen.

Another one, mostly related to this, to preaching the word.

This is the fifth one, is to study and give

attention to reading. U as ministers. I'm sure you know

what this is like, and those of you that if

you're ordained, this is something to consider. First Timothy four,

Verse thirteen says First Timothy four. Paul tells Timothy, there

till I come give attention to reading, to exhortation to doctrine,

and then in second Timpathy two verse fifteen, he says,

study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that

needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Now this verse chronologically the second verse. I read there,

Second Timothy two verse fifteen, study to show thyself approved

unto your constituents, those that elected you to office. You know,

in politics today they win a great victory and they say,

we've been mandated, me and my party, we've been mandated

to carry out the pledges and promises that they made

while they were campaigning. And so they study to show

themselves approved unto men, unto their constituents. But that's how

this is different. You study to show yourself approved unto God,

and you have not been elected to the great beautiful

state of Halsey. Your primary concern is to not make

everyone happy at Halsey, although I certainly hope there's lots

of happiness in Halsy. But that's the difference. You study

to be approved unto God. You represent God and sometimes

a newly ordained person. You know, you may think think that,

And I just want to challenge you with this as well,

because I've seen this. You know, you get ordained and

the idea as well. The people must like me, The

people must approve of who I am, of how I

live life. There's nothing for me to change. I've been

mandated the way I live life, my activities, all the

things that I do. I've been given the green light.

You know, none of us start out as mature as

we should. And I you know there's not a Christian

on earth that should not grow. In fact, I want

to close with that idea of growing in grace and

the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So if you've

been ordained, God bless you. God has spoken to you

in a direct way more. It's beautiful that way. And

yet that doesn't mean that everything you do in life

right now, everything you will do in the future, has

been your mandate to live how you like. So you

study for that reason. And also, you know, to give

attention to reading. I like to read. I'm a little

bit of a slow reader, but I have stacks of books.

This is what fuels the engine. You know. You get

to see when you read. You get to see how

what people believed about things thousands of years ago, hundreds

and thousands of years ago. You get to read lots

of really boring things, and you get to read lots

of really interesting things, and you get to see concepts

and you get to see modern ideas that are coming.

It's incredible what you can find by reading. And I'm

not talking about your phone or just the news, but

by reading. Give attention to reading. It says that here

you should learn to read. It's what fuels you. Bible memory.

It's another thing that I'm not great at, but I

have bursts of enthusiasm with it, and but it helps,

you know, to be familiar, you know, to stay on

top of your game. This is your life's calling. This

is the thing you should be good at. And I'm

not as you know, none of us are good as

as we could be. But we want to avoid that dream,

you know we have. You know, I don't know if

you've all had this, this nightmare where you know it's

your turn to preach and you came to church without

your whatever, your shoes and your Bible or you know,

you became unprepared and everybody's depending on you. I've heard

sermons where I don't think it was a dream, like

I think it just was happening in real time and

they don't know it. I've had sermons that way, you know,

where it just it's not that we come with all

beautiful words and poetry and just everybody is star struck

by everything you say. But it's your job to study,

and that takes time to take our jobs. Seriously, you know,

this study and this reading, Like I said, it's what

fuels the engine. They tell me, I've never been the

world's I've never been a premier athlete of any kind.

I thought I was different times that it turned out

I wasn't. But they say, these really great athletes when

they train, you know, so they have these highlight reels,

and they have all these things that they did to

save the day, save the game, the great catch, the

great shot, the great whatever. But they say, like they

did a lot of times, they didn't rehearse that particular play,

Like they didn't just practice and practice and practice that play.

That play happened because of intense mental training and physical

training of the fundamentals, and then when the moment came,

their body and their mind reacted in this great, heroic,

beautiful way that everyone admires. Now, what do you think happened.

And I want to say this because I think I

don't want to scare you with study, but to fuel

the engine, to keep the tank full is what happens

when Paul stands in front of Felix, and Felix is trembling.

When Herod walks in on wh wh John the Baptist

walks in on Herrid and says, that ain't your wife.

I know Paul spoke of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.

I don't think they spent days preparing some of these sermons,

but their engine was fueled with high octane, and when

the moment came, they delivered. That's what it means to

study and to read. And the last one I have

here is to finish the course. It is so easy

to start things. Any fool can start something. It is

hard to finish something. And he says here in Second

Timothy four, verse seven, I've fought a good fight. I've

finished my course, I have kept the faith. I think

what we're looking at here is a steady kind of person.

Soldiers need to be soldiers, and you soldier on to

the end. That's what Paul did. Here is a example fight,

a good fight, run the race, But what about finish

the course, enduring to the end. How does a person

become a person who can endure? You know, when we

moved to Maddres eight almost eight years ago, it took

me a little bit, but I started to notice something.

The man bought our place from. He was this older gentleman.

He was tall, he walked upright, and he was thin, leathery,

weather beaten, old gentleman. I went down the road and

I rented a farm. Probably a very bad decision, but

that's what I did. And that man was tall, walked

very upright. It was thin, leathery, old man, a weather beaten.

We had a neighbor that came out. I would wake

up in the morning and he'd be riding bike past

our place six o'clock in the morning and he'd stopped

and we make friends and he'd drive his picck of

by early he'd be going down to the swimming pool

early every morning, ride his bike and swim a mile

or so. See in his mid seventies, thin leathery, weather

beaten old guy. Neighbor on the other side. There, he's tall,

he's skinny, he's thin, he's leathery, he's weather beaten, but

he's in very good health. He said. He started he

took up mountain biking four years ago when he was

seventy eight, and he's seventy two now. And I was like,

what kind of guy does it take survive in this land?

What kind of guy does it take to be a

minister of the gospel to endure to the end, to

finish the course? You know, I took a little bit

of interest in I've been doing a little bit of running.

I'm not I don't run marathons, but I found out

one thing about running is that if you take off

at a dead run, at a sprint, you won't get

very far. You should try it. I'll tell you what.

You go. You go home, and you try to run

for three minutes straight as fast as you can, and

you come back Sunday and tell me tomorrow night and

tell me how it land. It is way harder than

you think. And so if it takes four hours to

run a marathon, you think about that when you get

done with your three minutes. But the way they run

distances by being steady. It is by far the best

way to do endurance is to be steady, is just

to run at a steady pace. The idea of retirement.

If you study that concept, it's interesting. You can find

the man in nineteen oh five the valedictory and the

address the John Hopkins Hospital. You'll see these words William Ostler,

And that's where the idea of retirement came from. And

we don't. We don't see this idea in the Bible.

I think there's time for change. I don't think old

men have to carry the same responsibility. Maybe they go

from five talents to two talents. I just don't think

they should bury it. One of the things we know

about Paul is that he was aged and he finished. Okay,

he did both those things at once. We know that

he did those two things for sure. I think it's

a shame we use the long haul to describe truck

drivers instead of preachers. But we need ministers. We had deacons.

We need bishops that are in it for the long haul.

Like I said, responsibilities will change. Maybe we our minds

don't work like they should or did and all that,

but I think we need to keep that in mind.

I don't. I don't. I don't see a place in

script for quitting. Because we want to retire. We want to.

We're tired of it. Maybe maybe are responsibility changes, maybe

we move away, maybe things happen, but just keep that

in mind that we don't quit or give up. Okay,

maybe we get to the end of this and you wonder, well,

I had a name in mind, but now I can't

think of anybody. This is just there is. I had

somebody tell you, like there is. I can't think of

a single person that qualifies. And maybe you will think

that if your name comes up. You know, I tried

really hard not to make this my rules for life,

my rules for the ministry. And it is daunting, but

God's looking for people that won't be daunted. And the

thing that we need to remember is that the Bible,

like I said before, I think it's in one Timothy

second for second Peter, I think where it says grow

in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what God wants from each of us. That's what

God is expecting. He really wants you to grow in grace.

And so if you come with a name, you're looking

for people that have these indicators, that have these potentials,

that have these qualifications in the rough, and God will

help you to find those people. If you come and

you are the name and God has laid it on

other people's heart, I just say God is able to

help you grow into these areas. It took me many,

many years to learn some of these things. I have

no idea what people saw when they put my name in,

but by God's grace, I've been able to be a

better listener, to understand grief, to learn how to study,

and I want to continue growing in that. So don't

give up. Let's remember where humans but God is looking

for vessels for his honor. I'm going to turn the

time overly