09-27-26 Study of Acts Chapter 20:29-38 A Charge to The NT Church Leaders Part 2

➡ This Bible study focuses on the Book of Acts, chapter 20, and the role of leadership in the church. It emphasizes that God works through mankind, particularly leaders, to carry out His will on earth. The study highlights that God has established order through leaders in three areas: the family, the church, and the state. It concludes by discussing the qualities of effective leaders, noting that they should be chosen based on their principles and relationship with Jesus Christ, not their physical appearance or popularity.
➡ The text discusses the concept of leadership, particularly focusing on the difference between external, action-oriented leaders (referred to as SNLs or Strong Natural Leaders) and leaders who lead by example, as advocated in the Bible. It argues that true leadership is not about being visionary, aggressive, or indispensable, but about leading people into Christ-like behavior through personal example. The text criticizes the tendency to follow charismatic leaders without understanding their direction, and emphasizes the importance of leaders being consistent in their words and actions. It concludes by stating that being a leader is challenging, as it comes with inherent problems and responsibilities.
➡ Leadership, especially in a spiritual context, is a challenging but rewarding role. It requires leading by example and promoting Christlike behavior. The most important aspect of leadership is personal holiness and maintaining a strong relationship with God. Leaders must ensure their actions align with their teachings, as their life is the most significant lesson they can offer.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of personal holiness and self-care in leadership, especially in religious contexts. Leaders should lead by example, teaching and guiding their followers while also watching out for potential threats. The text warns against false teachings and the dangers they pose to the community. It underscores the need for leaders to be vigilant, to protect their followers, and to ensure they are leading them towards truth and righteousness.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of being aware of false prophets and teachings that can lead people astray from their faith. It warns that these false teachers can appear good and godly, but are actually harmful. The text encourages individuals to be vigilant, to know their surroundings and the people around them, and to remain obedient to their faith. It also highlights that these false teachings can come from both outside and within one’s own community.
➡ The text warns about false teachers who seek followers to spread their misleading beliefs, both within and outside the church. These individuals, some of whom are named, twist the truth to gain influence. The author urges vigilance, advising readers to watch out for these false teachers and to warn others about them. The text emphasizes the importance of understanding and defending one’s faith against such threats.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of prayer, study, and selflessness in Christian life. It suggests that all actions and decisions should be committed to God through prayer, and that studying the Bible helps us grow spiritually and assures us of our promised inheritance. The text also highlights the value of working not only for our own needs but also for the needs of others, reminding us that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of selflessness in ministry, stating that it should be about giving, not receiving. It criticizes ministers who focus on money or ask for handouts, arguing that God will provide for those who serve Him selflessly. The text also highlights the importance of living a Christian life that aligns with one’s teachings, and suggests that the reward for such a life is the love and respect of others. Finally, it encourages leaders to be spiritually engaged and lead by example.
➡ The text discusses the symbolic meaning of gifts in Christ’s life and the importance of leadership guided by the Holy Spirit. It emphasizes that true leadership is not just about managing people, but also about spiritual alignment. The speaker also highlights the potential of businesses to thrive when they incorporate a Christ-like approach and rely on prayer during challenging times. Lastly, the speaker expresses gratitude for the teachings and blessings received through faith.

Well, welcome our, our fellowship family back to Bible study. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re in the, studying the Book of Acts. We’re in chapter 20. We’ve only got nine more chapters to go till we finish the book. We’re doing this again in conjunction with the study on Revelation. We finished Ephesians looking at you as an individual and the application that Paul lays out in chapters 4, 5 and 6 of Ephesians as to your relationship, individual relationship with Jesus Christ. And at the same time we were going through the church, which is, which is the second focused effort of our Christian life is we’re individual in Christ and we are a church.

And so we’re looking at this second part, looking at the charge that Paul gave the New Testament church leaders. And we need to remember that what he’s talking about is basically your life as leader in your church. Now your church is your home, your church is your community. Your church is with other believers, no matter what setting you might be in. So we’re going to, we’re going to continue this and we’re going to particularly look at versus 25. We have already looked at verses 25 to 28 last time, but this passage covers 25 to 38. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna review briefly what we went over last time and then get into some more of, of our charge.

So throughout the years of God’s kingdom on earth, he has always mediated his rules for specially chosen and qualified leaders. Remember, God does not do things on his own. He works through mankind to do his bidding here on earth. So he looks to leaders to do that. In the Old Testament, Thai patriarchs were, were the first group leaders. They were followed by judges, if you recall. That was when that was through Book of Samuel. Samuel was the last judge. So here’s a book of Judges. And then there is Samuel. And Samuel was the last judge when the people requested to have a king like everybody else.

And then there were prophets, priests and kings. Now in the New Testament time, God mediates his rule in the church through, through evangelists and teaching, pastors, or basically we’re all teachers. So he rules this church through us as well as through the indwelling Holy Spirit who guides us individually. Now leadership in terms of all of what God is doing in the world is very important. God recognizes that because of the chaos of sin, things have to be made subject to authority. There has to be some level of structure that is maintained or we would just be pandemonium.

And so there is authority and submission as A twofold operation of God in the. In this world. The first law, that God ruled directly in the beginning. This. If we go back to the creation itself and this direct rule of God, there were no leaders at that time. There didn’t have to be leaders. There was no need for them because they were perfect human relationships under a single authority, which was Jesus Christ. There’s no need to rule over people because there was no unruliness at that time. There was no disorder at that time. There was no discord at that time.

So God ruled directly then. And we’re looking at that point in time of creation directly with Adam. Then sin came in, in the fall. And in the fall, the result was disruption of human relationships. Now, we’ve talked about this in, in our study of Genesis, whereby at the time that God originally created heaven and earth, heaven and earth were one. They were connected. Matter of fact, earth was heaven and heaven was a surrounding earth. And when Lucifer fell in sin, God separated the earth from the heavens and we had the heavens and a fallen state of earth.

And then at a point in time, God decided to put together creation of mankind and reconnected earth and heaven at the point of the mountain of God, which is Eden. And Lucifer was in the valley below the mountain with the mountain connected to heaven. And that is what we’re talking about here, is that the human relationships once again was disrupted. And immediately there was a conflict between Adam and Eve. And Adam questioned God in terms of the statement the woman that thou gave us me. And then we find the disruption of human relationship so obviously illustrated with the story of Cain and Abel.

And there is only the beginning. Now we see chaos of the city of life that begins in Genesis. And so history goes. Now God’s response to this chaos and disorder and the unruliness of men after the fall, God had. Has instituted another kind of order in the world. And God now rules over people through a directed order that falls into three categories. Number one, the family, number two, the church, and number three, the state. Now, in all of these areas, God has set in order that there be leaders and followers, that there be authority and submission in the family.

The parents are the leaders in the church. The. The pastor elders are the leaders in the state, the government officials, our leaders. That’s in God’s ordained pattern. Now, what Scripture tells us is we elect the leaders of the state and we should elect the leaders of the state to be representative of God’s principles. And if we don’t do our homework and we elect the leaders that are outside of God’s principles. Then you get what you get in society, which is exactly what’s going on today. Now we have multiple kind of authority disrupted human relationships are brought into some kind of harmony at least so that humanly humanity can exist in some kind of ease and some kind of peace, if not total peace.

Now within that framework of God directed order, we could single out any of those three areas. And the Bible does that for us. We talk about the order of the family. We could how God has instituted authority in the family through the father, first of all over the wife and then through the father and mother over the children. We could talk about the area of government. We could go to Romans 13 and to 1st Peter 1 and find that the Christian is to be subject to the authority that is ordained of God’s governmentally. But for our time of study we’re going to draw our attention to the middle one, which is the church.

God directs his rule in the church through pastors and elders. And that takes us directly into Acts chapter 20. And I only use this just as a lead in to get into the place where you’ll understand the perspective of this chapter. Now as we look at chapter 20 from verse 17 to 38, the apostle Paul is giving information to church leaders, namely pastors and elders. And we’ve said before, and I’m going to remind you now that a pastor or an elder or a bishop or is are the same things spiritually there’s no difference. There isn’t the individual given the responsibility of leading the church of Jesus Christ.

And they are to the church what the priest and the prophet and the patriarch and the king was to the Old Testament to God’s people. So there is a, there is a leadership of the church. Now what, what is it that makes an effective leader? Self assessment, guys. What is it that makes an effective leader anywhere, anywhere, particularly in the church? We talked about this last week. Leadership doesn’t only apply to the church. The same principles of leadership applies to everything you do in life. The world has its standards and we’re kind of getting into the political melee again as we start hearing all this mainstream media stuff regarding so and so is running for this primary and that primary and so forth.

And we hear a lot of all the time about national government and we’re well aware of the fact that there are qualifications supposedly for leadership. If you look at the world’s evaluation of leadership, it isn’t necessarily the same way. God’s plan is how he evaluates it. For example, Israel decided that they wanted a king, remember in 1st Samuel and they found the perfect one. And you know why he was the perfect one? Because there was nobody handsome handsomer in the whole land. They, they did it on beauty. They, they did it on looks. They didn’t do it on leadership.

And not only that, Saul was taller than everybody else, tall, dark and handsome. Saul was anointed king. And look at, look what happened. It was a disaster. So do people still choose leaders on that basis? Well I can tell you that I’ve talked from my, to my mother in law to everybody else and they pick people because they like the doll, not because of who they are or their principles or you know, their relationship with Jesus Christ. They just like them. Which makes no sense. It’s the reason why we already got a world in turmoil. So frequently we, we’re given a certain amount of mentality and a certain amount of glibness and a certain amount of ability to communicate.

Anybody can become a leader in our world because of the qualifications. Now sad to say these qualifications are not always innate internal things. They’re mostly external things. For example, if you looked at the average leader that we know of in terms of the things that we’re familiar with would fall into the psychological category of an snl. Have you ever heard of snl? This, that psychological abbreviation stands for Strong Natural leader. And most people get in that category of leadership and exert a rather dramatic influence are called SNL’s strong natural leaders. They can be categorized by and we could do a whole study on this.

But I’m just going to try to give you some terms here without going down a rabbit hole. They’re characterized by being one visionary. They’re always got great worlds to conquer, great visions of grandeur out there in the future. They’re action oriented, they’re involved, they’re aggressive, they’re courageous. And this even happens in the church very many times. In the church we assume that a man is a great leader in terms of God’s eyes when all he is is a psychological SNL who happens to be a Christian. Now SNLs are also energetic. They’re normally objective oriented rather than people oriented.

They’re egocentric and they always indispensable. In other words, this whole thing we rely, we rely on them as they rise or fall on a nation and in most cases in the world. These are people that get into leadership. But there’s no such category or cataloging of leaders in the Bible. The Bible does not lay down for the church that all of its leaders be SNLs. And I said, and sometimes when I realized that today a lot of people in the church are being sold to bill Goods, that those are the guys that are really doing the job.

I talk about corporate church all the time, but it’s the visionary, action oriented, crusading, one man show, dramatic kind of guys that are dragging a whole bunch of people along and they’re all failing all over each other, not knowing what’s going on or where the, where they’re even going. It’s like going, going mad. We have no idea where we’re going. We’re just following the crowd. And these are the people that are put out as the ones who are great leaders, when in fact some of them may be, of course, and some of them may be God blessed leaders.

But the truth of the matter is that all of the biblical qualifications completely circumvent anything like that. When you look at leaders, you need to look at leaders from a biblical perspective. And as we talked about last time, all of the biblical qualifications for leaders in the church are spiritual and internal rather than external and physical. All of them. The Bible pattern does not hold up the external, but the internal. Now with that in mind, we’re going to draw you to one thing. Most snl leads by precept and power. In other words, this is what we’re going to do and we’re going to do it together.

That’s the indoctrination of our school system. This is what you’re going to do and this is how you’re going to do it together. And they just sort of super motivate people verbally, they have that ability and they sweep people along in the verbiage and dramatists and courage and energy and the action of what they’re doing. That’s all right for some things, by the way, but in scripture there’s only one great way that biblical leaders lead. And it’s not by precept and verbiage, it’s by example, self assessment. And that’s the difference. The difference in your life in becoming a good spiritual leader in whatever you do is you do it by example.

The leader that God ordains and the leader that God blesses is the one who’s not only leads but by precept, but who leads by example. Now I think in a very real sense, this is exactly what America is now going through. In the case of the President, the question that is in the minds of people is this. We know he has led us in his words, but does he qualify as a person to lead us by Example? Well, if you look at what’s going on in mainstream media, that question is being raised all the time as a struggle between right and wrong.

And it’s a justifiable struggle because a true leader is one who leads not only by what he says, by what he does and who he is. And that is biblical. Biblical leadership is seen in the area of example, not nearly so much in power of the precept. In First Peter I want to call your attention to First Peter 5. 3, which we saw last week. The Bible says that an elder is to be an example to the flock. Who’s the flock? That’s the church. In Philippians 3:17 it says, Brethren, be followers together of me and mark them who walk, even as ye have us for an example.

Paul says, take notice and follow the example that is given to you. Leadership is a is a question of example. And in the next chapter of Philippians 4, 9, he says, the things that you’ve learned, received, heard, seen in me, do those again. Another example, in 1st Thessalonians 1:5, Paul reflects on the ministry he had in Thessalonica. He says, for our gospel came into not unto you in word only. The gospel came not in word only. It is not a question of precept along, but also in power in the Holy Spirit and much assurance as you know what manner of men we were among you.

In other words, when you look at yourself and you begin through your continued self assessment, there should not be any credibility gap between what we say and what we were, what we are. You know that our message was supported by our life. And in the next verse and you became followers of us. And the word is mimics. Paul was a great leader because he was an example. In second Thessalonians 3:6 now we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that works disorderly, and not after the tradition which you received of us.

For ye yourselves know how you ought to follow us. He says, watch out who you pattern your life after. Turn aside from those who walk disorderly and follow us. And then he goes on to say in verse nine, not because we have not authority of right. And here he is talking about the fact that he could have taken money from them, but he worked for his own wages. We had the right, but we didn’t take any money because we wanted to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us. In other words, we could have asked him money to support.

This is Paul saying we could have asked him money to support his ministry. But we wanted to show you the example of servitude. So we earned our own thing and you should be willing to do the same. And so Paul said, we lead by example. First. Timothy 4:12. He told Timothy to be an example to the believers in everything. He told Titus in chapter two, verse seven, in all things, showing thyself a pattern of good works. And the idea there is that you ought to be the kind of outline that somebody could put the tracing paper on and copy you.

A true leader is one who leads by example. Now, leadership. If I could give you a definition of Christian leadership, it would be Christian leadership is this. It is leading people into Christlike behavior by example. Now, you can put Christlike behavior anything you want. Put a line out and put another, another verb there to be Christlike, example and whatever. Soldering, if you’re on assembly line, assembling cars, if you’re on a. On a. On a factory floor. It could be teaching children, okay, remember, leadership by scripture is your life, not just what you do in a manner as it relates to what your definition of a church is.

Precept is part of it. But the real dynamic of leadership is leading people into Christ like behavior by example. Now, you know what a leader is. Let’s give you a very simple definition. You know what a leader is? Somebody who’s got somebody following him. That’s how we typically think of leadership. A leader is only a leader when somebody’s following. And a true spiritual leader, a true godly leader, is only one when somebody is following the pattern of his godliness and whatever he does, I can only say in the truest sense that I am a spiritual leader when somebody is following the spirituality that I represent.

I’m not. I’m not a spiritual leader if nobody follows that. Now, such responsibility of being a leader is not easy, I can tell you that for sure. It is not easy, especially when people like to throw stones all the time. You get to play Whack a Mole Song in this. It’s not easy to be in a position of being a leader either. It’s like Snoopy said one day in the paper, he said, I hate being the head beagle. It’s not always easy to be a leader because built into leadership are certain problems. One, it’s a tremendous responsibility to be given by God to charge people, no matter what it is.

Managing hundreds of people at Motorola in my young corporate career was a nightmare. A nightmare. You get to play father, mother, husband, wife to a group of adult children. Eight hours a day. And then you get another eight hours a day to do your work. In Hebrews 13:17 says, we have to give an account to God for what we do. James 3:1 says that we have a greater condemnation if we fail. But on the other hand, it can be so blessedly rewarding that it will compensates for the possibility of failures. What does a leader do to do with this? To lead by example.

Because leadership in a true sense is to make people come to the place of Christlike behavior by following your life. Gotta love what it says. In Hebrews 13 and verse 7, he’s telling them about the elders. And he says, regarding the elders, I want you to do this. Whose faith follow? If you’re an elder in this church, in this church, your life is to be exemplary to everybody that crosses your path. They ought to be able to line up beside you and walk with you. They ought to be right behind you. The way you walk, whose faith falls.

See, leadership is a question of example. Now, that brings us right to Acts 20, because Paul is talking to the leaders of the church at Ephesus, if you recall. And it’s very important that they follow the pattern of biblical leadership. It’s important that they know that example is part of it. So what does he do here? He gives them all of the precepts of leadership from verse 17 to verse 38. He covers all precepts, all the areas of leadership. All the way through. He keeps saying, you know, like, I did it, you know I did it to you.

You know how I did it and the way I did it. And over and over and over, he sets himself as the example that they might know the precept and they might learn the principle of example. Now, as we look at this passage, we’re going to pick up at verse 28. And we find in our section for this time there are five priorities to leadership, five priorities to church leadership. And he’s speaking to the elders and the pastors of the church at Ephesus and a church which he founded, by the way. These are men which he himself had discipled.

They have the responsibility of caring for the church. Principle number one. The priority number one in spiritual leadership is to make sure you’re right with God. Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Now, we covered that a bit last week, but make sure you’re right with God. You need to be a vessel unto honor, holy before your ever befit for the Master’s what use you are the key. Personal holiness is the foundational principle of leadership. If something’s going wrong in Your life. What do we always say? Go look in the mirror. Now, just from my standpoint, I could illustrate it this way.

My most important task is to prepare myself. Not by sermon per se, not by teaching per se, but is to prepare lessons, is to prepare yourself to be a channel through which God can effectively work. I don’t need to prepare lessons. I just need to be open. I need to have a fluid sense of a relationship with Jesus Christ that whatever the Holy Spirit is telling me to. To speak about, that I’m openly prepared to allow. It’s more than that. If you’re. If you talk about lessons or discussions or communications or mentorship, that’s one thing. Your life is something else.

You have destroyed the meaning of your lesson. When you don’t understand that you’re. The lesson is your life. It’s more important to me to prepare myself, myself, me individually, than it is to write my notes about what I want to say. Yeah, the notes are important. It gives me a direction and focus and keeps me on point. But myself is more important. And so my primary responsibility is to make sure that my life before God is what it ought to be. In verse 28, take heed therefore unto yourselves. That’s what it says. He says to the elders, take heed unto yourselves first.

That’s where it starts. As you saw in First Timothy and in Titus, the qualifications of an elder last time for a pastor. We’re all spiritual. They were all personally spiritual. See, no man is useful to God who is not holy. And you are only as useful as use are set apart unto God. So you can control. You control this. Nobody else controls it. You control it. We were talking, what, On Tuesday night, I think Trey asked a question about someone going to hell. You can’t control that. It’s not yours to control. What is in your control is, are you going to hell? That’s it.

You know, if we illustrated this from. From a Old Testament illustration that is very graphic, you could look at second Samuel, chapter, chapter 11 and you. Where we go back to David. And in 2nd Samuel 11, 1 it says it came to pass after the year was ended, at the time when Kings go forth, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. And they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged rabbis. But David tarried still at Jerusalem, all of Israel’s army. And everybody goes out to fight a war and David stays home.

You can write a lot about that. The fact that David was where he should, should not have been. He should have been out there with the People that he expected to fight. But what happened was interesting. In verse two, it came to pass an eventide that David arose from his bed and walked upon the roof of the king’s house. He went out and walked on his roof. And in those days and in parts of the world, the roof was functioning. And you did walk on it. It was like a balcony, okay. And from the roof he saw what? A woman washing herself.

And the woman was very beautiful to look on. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, is this not Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Well, what did David do? Think about the consequences of your actions. David should have been on the battlefield. He didn’t. He was at home. He was walking on his roof overlooking a beautiful woman taking a bath. And he sins for her. It wasn’t any kind of clandestine sneaky meeting. He sent a bunch of messengers and grabbed her, and she came in unto him and he lay with her.

And verse five says, the woman conceived and sent and told David and said, I am a child now. Can’t imagine anything much more gross than that, much more immoral, much more violent, overtly sinful than that. And if you think that’s bad, the next thing he did was he wanted this woman so badly that he made a situation that would result in the death of her husband. All for what? Not going to the battlefield. Being where you’re supposed to be when you’re called to do something, you need to go. If you don’t, you create a whole nother setup that you don’t know what the outcome’s going to be.

It you could lead, that decision could lead you into total chaos. And in verse 15, he wrote a letter to the soldiers and he said, set Uriah in the front in the forefront of the hottest battle and retreat, that he may be left there and smitten and die. And so it was. He was killed. Now David committed adultery and then murder. And you know what happened when he did that? He rendered himself in terms of any usefulness to guide to zero. He was an unholy instrument, self assessment. He was useless. But you know, God spoke to his heart and he broke under the weight of his sin.

And when he broke, he wrote down his feelings in Psalms 51. Psalms 51 is the broken heart of David over the sin of Bathsheba and Uriah. And you need to hear what he says because I think this illustration is very pointing of truth. Now here’s David crying out to God in the midst of the Punishment of his own sin. Have mercy on me, o God. Psalms 51. According to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine inequity. Cleanse me from my sin. Of I acknowledged my transgression.

My sin is ever before me. Against thee, the only God. I have sinned and done this evil in thy sight. And thou mightest be justified when thou speaketh and clear when thou judges. In other words, he says, I deserve anything I get. I. I accept whatever you’re going to give me. He says, behold, I was shaped in equity, in sin. Did my mother conceive me? Think about Ephesians 2, that Darius desires the truth in the inner parts, in the hidden part. Thou shalt make me know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou has broken may rejoice. What he’s saying is, God, restore me and bring me back. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not the Holy Spirit from me. In verse 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Now watch this next verse. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. He’s finally getting to the point. David wouldn’t have been worth anything in teaching or in converting anybody unless he was cleansed.

I hope you see what he was saying. It’s no different than now, guys. The first priority in ministry leadership of any man is his own holiness. There was. There was a book I was reading, a devotional book written by Robert Murray Machene. And he wrote the letter, this letter that I’m going to speak about in September of 1840. And he was talking about precepts, an example, and these were his words. Everything I meet with and every day I study my Bible makes me pray more that God would begin and carry on a deep, pure, widespread and permanent work in Scotland.

If it be not deep and pure, it will only end in confusion and grieving. The Holy Spirit of God. I am also deepened in my conviction that if we were to be instruments in such a work, we must be purified from the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. He goes on and says, oh, cry for personal holiness. Constant nearness to God by the blood of the Lamb, be filled with his Spirit are all success in the ministry will only be to Your everlasting confusion. You know how I’ve always insisted on this with you. It is because I feel the need thereof myself.

Take heed, your friend. Do not think any sin trivial. Remember, it will have everlasting consequences. He goes on. He says, be as the holy. Be as holy as God is holy. Pure as Christ is pure, Perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Oh, how much more useful might we be if we were only free from pride, self conceit, personal vanity, or some secret sin that our heart knows. Oh, hateful sins that destroy our peace and ruin souls. End quote. Now he knows. He knew what I know, what Paul says and what you know. A man is only as good as his holiness in the service of the Lord.

Take heed of yourself. Principle one in leadership, make sure you’re right with God. Principle number two is also in verse 28. Feed and lead the flock. Feed and lead the flock. After you’re taken care of yourself, then you must look to the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to feed the church of God and He’s purchased with his own blood. The second priority in your life is to lead and fee. Take your business. You got to take care of yourself first. Then you need to lead and teach by example your workers, in order that they do the things they need to do in accordance to how you want them done.

Too late. What is that? Overseas overseers we saw last time to rule. Some of us perhaps are familiar with what is commonly known as congregational rule, where the congregation rules. Now, that is completely foreign to scripture. That’s the left guys. In the scripture, the congregation does not rule. The congregation is subject to the authority of the elders. And one of the saddest things, I think in any church is congressional rule. I don’t say that because I want to exercise authority over people. I say that because it’s biblical. Mob rule is not biblical. Leftists sending mobs to the street is not biblical because when you put all the people over the leaders, you have violated God’s pattern for the authority in the church.

It would be the same thing as letting the children run the parents or the parents run the government from their level and have no leadership. It’s just not God’s way. And so there is in the church the prerogative of the congregation to choose out from among them men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom and faith. That is exactly what the what the responsibility of you as a Christian to elect leaders in your state. But once those men are chosen of God and ordained of God, and placed of God is theirs to rule in God’s place as they stand as under shepherds for Christ.

See, that’s. That’s the power you give these nonsensical people that you elect. And so leadership is very important. Leading the flock, making wise decisions, leading them into the places and things that are going to be beneficial to them, but also feeding them. Verse 28. As you lead them along, where are you leading them? You’re leading them always to greener pastures, to more food. Growing a business is more food. You could put this in any context of your life and the principles are still the same. And feeding is important. And we feed with the Word, and we’ve studied this over and over and over again and, and try to put it at the forefront of importance in your life.

Being obedient to the Word. Now, a New Testament church leader must take care of himself, number one. Number two, he must lead and feed the flock. He must give his life to the leading and feeding of the sheep, to the pastoring or teaching that God has called him or her to do. Now, the third thing, which is a flip side of number two that we just talked about deposit is, is feed and lead. Here’s the negative. Watch and warn the flock. You have to watch after the flock. Each one of you need to watch after each other and warn of upcoming issues.

That’s the third one. The faithful leader. Not incidentally, there are some pastors who labor in the word and doctrine. There are others who are in the area of ruling who may not be always the ones preaching and teaching, but have the same responsibility as teachers. Yeah. And their responsibility, as any leader’s responsibility uniformly is to watch and warn the flock. That’s an important thing. That’s the flip side of feeding. That this is. Feeding is the positive and watching and warning is the negative. This is what we call protection. A good shepherd doesn’t just blissfully lead his sheep out into some nice meadows and sack out.

He watches the hillsides around. He checks the crevices and the caves and the nooks and the crannies. And he’s watching for wolves who may come in and strip his flock. He’s vigilant over the people feeding and leaning is part of it. And that’s the forward look, but the backward look is watching what’s coming up from the rear. I got your six. And believe me, one of the greatest and most strenuous kind of struggles is to protect the flock. Why? Because majority of you have to be protected from yourselves. Why? Because you don’t do number one, right? And then you struggle all day long trying to figure out how in the world can.

Am I going to get this person to, to think differently? Look at verse 29 and I’ll show you why it’s important. Paul says like this, and it’s pretty clear what he’s shouting, shooting at, okay, verse 29, he says, for I know this. Now, this isn’t a maybe. He says, I know this. Why do you know it? Because I know Satan and I know how he works. Oh, well, we’re told to know your enemy. If you know your enemy and know how he works, I mean, his plan is the same plan. It’s been the same plan since the beginning of time.

You ought to know what his plan is. And the process is the same process. He doesn’t deviate from that process at all. He does it over and over and over again. That’s the reason why I said, if you’re dealing with sin, the same sin that, the same way over and over again, you better check your salvation because something’s not right. He says, I know this. That after my departing shall grievous. And the word could be translated dangerous here could be translated as strong grievous. Wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock. What are these? These are false teachers.

False teachers? Paul says, I know one thing. False teachers are going to arrive as soon as I’m gone. How do you know that, Paul? Because I know Satan. I know he works wherever the word is sown. Satan’s going to sow lies. The law of duality. Whenever you do a good deed, there’s a. There’s a bad deed right behind it. It’s coming, whatever the wheat is, what’s going to be there. The tares, the parable of the terrors. Wherever the truth is proclaimed, Satan will come in with lies to undermine it. He says, I know this. He said, I, I know I.

You know, I, I know this. I, I know it and I try to focus on it. We talk about corporate churches, we talk about false religion, we talk about all, all of this stuff that influences this world. And we again tell. You know, bring the scripture to your forefront of. You’re to think of things above, not the things of this world. You’re not to associate with sinful natures, okay? You’re not to love this world. You’re not to be part of this world. And yet you do it. You know, it’s staring it in your face. We put it in front of you all the time.

And you know you don’t change. And so false teachers will come. And Paul describes them as grievous wolves. And this is the language of Jesus as well. In Matthew chapter 7, verse 15, Jesus made reference to the wolves. And remember the statement, you will when I, when I’m. When I read, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. And again in chapter 10, Jesus sending out people who are going to preach for him and said this, behold, I seen you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. And the 12 went off knowing they could expect to run into some wolves in sheep’s clothing.

You know, I don’t know how many times. So he says, do you even know this guy? He’s never done that. I’ve never seen him do that. I wouldn’t expect that of him. Well, why? Because you don’t know him. I think a poindexter running around with his flip pad and a pen and he sees this person and he analyzes that person. He puts them on one part of the page or the other part of the page. I either want to do something with this guy or I don’t were to know our enemy. How are you going to know your enemy if you don’t know the people around you? There are going to be those who come with a sweet kind, holy kind, religious kind of aura and are going to appear to be so good and so godly and oh, they have the Bible and all they are are wolves.

Satan’s wolves in sheep’s clothing. I’m not sure all of them even know that by the way. So I’m telling you, I’m announcing to you that that’s what. And you’ll know if you’re wolves in sheep’s clothing or not. You might ask, why are you even here? Some, many don’t participate in the fundamental obedience of the church, but yet come to Bible study and listen to this for what? But you’re getting a good history lesson. But it’s history you can’t use. Why? Because you’re not obedient to the word. I think a lot of you, some of you are so deluded.

That your ac belief that what they’re, what you’re propaganding is the truth. I think you’re just so engulfed in the propaganda side of things you want to stir the pot. That’s it. Paul says in Acts to the Ephesian elders, get ready, they’re coming. And you know what? They came. Paul wrote to Timothy twice. Paul wrote to Timothy both those Times while Timothy was the pastor of Ephesus. Did you know he was the pastor at Ephesus? Yeah, I think he may. Those two letters were written to him while he was at Ephesus. And in both of those letters, Paul makes reference to false doctrine.

It came. It’s here now. Many of you are living in it. First Timothy, for example. First time he wrote Timothy while Timothy was still at Ephesus. First Timothy 4. He says, the spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times, and the latter times had already begun. It began when. When Messiah came. The first time. Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. Oh, the new age. Look at, look, look how many. I just jumped on that. You jump from one thing to another trying to find what is missing. And the only thing you need to do is look at one place.

There will be seducers. You know what seducers are? They’re the people that lure you away. Somebody that doesn’t belong to them, they lure them away. Child trafficking is seducers. They seduce children to go into a network. And, and when they get into the network, then they get traffic. He goes on to say in verse 6, this is the point I want to make to you guys. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. You know what a good minister of Jesus Christ does? He reminds the people to watch out for false prophets.

He reminds people to watch out for doctrines of demons. And he reminds people to watch out for seducing spirits. He watches their back. Somebody came to me and said, Do you know one of our individuals is being lured away by such and such a movement? And I thought to myself, that doesn’t surprise me one bit. It didn’t even surprise me when they told me the name of the individual. And I think it’s something that’s over and all the time, done all the time. It didn’t surprise me one bit that it was being done. And really because of the age that we live, I expect more of it than I’m saying.

I think. I just praise God for the purity of the Word. We don’t have any more of of it than we could have easy were we not so conscientious. I thank God for many of you who watch and warn. As I said, some, some of you out there know more about what’s going to happen to me than I know before it happens. I get text all the time. God said, give you this scripture. Oh, this is what he told me. And Lo and behold, here it comes. See, they’re coming. They come in all kinds of ways.

Believe me, they’ll come from the outside to tear away those that are gods. And the Bible condemns these people so strongly, you just. We just read second Peter 2. It’s unbelievable. God calls these people, he calls them false teachers, filth spots, scabs. Filth spots, scabs, wells without water. He calls them clouds thrown around by a tempest. They just come in and they rip off people just escaping from the world. You know who they attack? They don’t attack their own. They don’t need to. They attack people searching for God, looking for religious answers instead of godly answers, just turning away from the world and moving toward God.

And they come in and tear them away. That’s second Peter 2. 18. Those are the ones thereafter. And so Paul, when he writes this, I think he’s mainly thinking about the Judaizers. Remember the legalist, our system of government? The legalists. But you know, it wasn’t long until all of the false teachers you could imagine plopped himself into Ephesus. They got a little bit of everybody there. Ephesus was just one day, one city in Asia Minor. There was also what, Smyrna and Pergamos and Philadelphia and Laodicea and the rest of the cities that are mentioned in Revelation 2.

And by the time Revelation was written already some of the false systems had moved in and taken over those churches. He writes to the church at Ephesus in Revelation, does Christ, and he says, you know something? I like the thing about you anyway, that you hate the doctrine of the Nicolas Nicolations, which I also hate. We don’t know what the doctrine of the Nicolations is, by the way. I mean, specifically, we don’t know. We’ve. We’ve taken a. A guess at it and pretty much an accurate guess that in some kind of gross immorality, but it, it already had begun to move against Ephesus.

Oh, that was new Age. Gather, by the way, that was new Age. And the next statement he says to Smyrna, he says, you have been subjected to the synagogue of Satan. And then he goes on to Pergamos. You’ve been subject to the doctrine of Balaam. And then in the next church, he says, and you have been subject to Jezebel, who brought in fornication to the church. He’s not talking. This was. He was talking about the church pews, but this was into the church. This is your community. False doctrine blitz the little churches of Asia Minor just a few years After Paul finished his work.

Well, guys, you can expect it. It’s already here. It’s indoctrinated in you. You should expect it. The problem that I see is how do you get out of it? You’ve been. Some of you’ve been so indoctrinating it, it’s going to be like doing a Vulcan mind melt to get you out of it, you’re going to have to have a major shift occur. And only God can do that. Now, the second approach of this false doctrine is at verse 30, not only from the outside, but from the inside. And this, if anything, is more subtle. Paul says, of your own self shall men arise.

Just what I’ve said right out of your congregation. These guys are going to rise. Well, that’s what’s going on right here too. All right. Speaking twisted things, perverse things, speaking twisted things. To drag, literally drag disciples after them. False teachers always want to get a following. Always after a following. I made statements over the last several weeks that there’s a group of people that wanted to destroy you, literally. And they’re making a point. They’re trying to gather a following. To do what? To do good? No. You ever notice how false teacher always publish their followings? We have 2 million all over the world following.

See, that’s the whole point. They want a following. They want somebody that will look up to them. They had that little girl character on, that little guy who was trying to grow a mustache. Not sure if you remember this in my day, but he married some girl. And they always have to say girl. Whoever he is with so many followers, or it’s sun, Mao, moon with so many followers, or it’s such and such with so many followers, dragging all away people to what an opinion Cause not the truth. And so the apostle Paul says, not only from the outside, but watch from the inside.

They’ll come up to draw away disciples, false teachers on the inside. Did that happen at Ephesus? Yep. Indeed. Do you know that the church started out under Paul and the elder of the church were all discipled personally by Paul. And the leading elder in that church for years was Timothy, and it still happened. Might say, how do you know it’s going to happen? Or how do you know it’s happening here? Well, Paul even names names. I mean, he just singles them out by name. That’s what I continue to ask. God give me the ability to do that.

Now just. No, he’s not going to do it. For example, he doesn’t even get three verses into First Timothy before he’s Already nailed them. The first letter he wrote only a handful of years after Paul left. There he says to Timothy, as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus First. This is First Timothy 1:3 when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Do you know that some people had already crept into the church a handful of years and started teaching false doctrine? People who had risen right out of the congregation.

And he tells Timothy, don’t listen to this false and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edification. Don’t listen to them. Why are you listening to it? And they were apparently teaching legalism. And listen to this. He even names some of them. First chapter, verse 19. He says, I have made shipwreck the faith. Now listen, of whom are Hymenius and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, and they may learn not to blaspheme. He calls me up again. And then when he wrote second Timothy, he did the same thing in verse 15. He named two more names in chapter two, verse 17.

He’s not done yet, he says, and their word will eat, eat of do a gangra of whom are Hymenius and Philotus? They’ve got plenty of them. And the rest of the unnamed ones are included in second Timothy 3:1 to 9. And he says in verse five they have a. They have a form of godliness and they deny the power of it. Of this sort are they who creep into houses and lead captive a silly women laden with sins, laid away, led away with vicious lust, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

They’re like Janice and Jambr who withstood Moses. Men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. Oh, remember Romans, Enough’s going to be enough of this. And God’s just going to turn you over to your own mind and say, be it. Yes, it’s inevitable. It’s inside and out. False teachers. They’re coming, they are, here they come. All speaking twisted things, perverse things, to draw away the people just escaping from the era of the world. Jude. Jude said this. Beloved, when I give all, all diligence to write unto you the common salvation, it was needful for me to write into you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

What Jude is saying is, Guys, do you know you have to fight? You got to fight to hold on to your faith. It’s not an easy going thing. This Christian life isn’t some kind of a lark. You have to fight to hold on to it. Well, you might ask why, why is it so difficult? For there are certain men who crept in unawares who were before of old, ordained to this condemnation. Ungodly men turning the grace of our God into laschevousness, denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. It started with Lucifer’s fall, Adam and Eve’s transgression, sin.

And you know, he says in the same little book that they showed up at the love feast, their spots on your love feast they’ve got right into the life of the church. You know, you think about it in the past, but you need to be thinking about it in the present. It’s here. I want to say this without fear or contradiction at all. And I say, and I’ve talked to you about this corporate church mess. Most churches in America are dominated by false teachers. It’s sad, but it’s true. Paul says to that in response, look at verse 31.

And I use the word church in a very blanket general sense in that frame of reference. Acts 20, verse 31 here, Paul’s statement, therefore if you know it’s coming from the outside, you know it’s coming from the inside. Therefore what’s the next word? Watch. That’s the first one. And remember that for a space of three years I cease not to what? Warn. That’s the second one. Watch and warn. Those are the two priorities in point number three of our outline for discussion today. See, vigilance is very important. One thing that you have to do as a Christian life focused individual is some kind of obligation or duty because you have to care for the flock, you have to watch for false teachers and you’ve got to watch for the tares being sown among the wheat.

Matthew 13. Jesus said that the tares would be sown. And he said, don’t you try to go around and find all the chairs, because that’s too difficult. They’ll grow together until the harvest. And you know, that’s a scary thing to me because that means if the tears get in, you can’t get rid of them. There’s only one way to keep the terrorists from getting in and that’s to watch and to watch. His part and parcel of responsibilities spiritually as a leader. And it’s up to us to make sure we know who’s here as part of of this family, who’s teaching, who has responsibilities, who sits in the place of leadership.

We owe that to our Lord Jesus Christ for the sake of purity of his test. Version that he wants presented to him as he desires it to be. Paul told Peter in simple words this Watch thou in all things. Feed them, but look around and expect it. It’s coming. False teachers. God said to Ezekiel, ezekiel, you’re my man, and I have set you as a watchman upon the wall. Look for the enemy. He’s coming. The second thing is to warn. And the word there means to admonish. Admonishing is giving counsel with a warning involved. Giving counsel that includes the warning.

It’s a kind of firm gentleness. It’s like me telling you guys, if you’re not obedient, this is going to come. It’s coming. Where? We not only are looking around, but we’re warning people. And I do that for you this morning. I’m warning you. You need to be aware and be alert and expect false teachers will arise. They’re here and they have infiltrated certain areas, and you need to expect it. You need to be in a position to earnestly contend for your faith. You need to fight. And the only way is to be sure that you know the faith that you claim to believe.

So I warn you, just as Paul warned them, You might say, well, that’s a broken record. No, it’s a priority. If I cease not to warn everyone personally. Everyone. Night and day with tears. You know why he wept? Because he knew the terrible consequences of false teachers infiltrating the church. He didn’t sleep much. Oh, well, I’ve said that a lot these days. 1st Thessalonians 2. 9. He says, I labored night and day. 2nd Thessalonians 3. 8. He says, I work like night and day. And he says, I warned night and day. I don’t know when he ever slept.

I mean, you know, when he laid his head on the block and his head got chopped off. That may have been the first time he put his head down in a very long time. See, Paul personalized his ministry. He warned everybody. As the shepherd watches his flock by night, so shall you watch and be vigilant to protect your brothers and sisters from the wolves of false doctrine. Paul is saying, do it. And then he’s saying, do it like I did it. And this is again an example in leadership. All right, in addition to your own spiritual life to leading and feeding, there is to watching and warning.

Now, forcely priority is to study and pray. To study and pray. This dual priority isn’t new. This is called sanctification, guys. It’s as old as Acts 6, at least in the book of Acts, where the Apostle says, we’ll give ourselves, remember continually to the prayer and ministry of the Word. This is the heart of the leader’s life. Well, what do I spend majority of my time doing? Praying and teaching. Praying and studying. I talk to Jesus Christ almost continuously. Verse 32. And now, brethren, I commend you to gods. And you can stop right there. You know what this is? This is what prayer is.

He. I’ve told you everything I can tell you. I’ve given you all truth that is in my heart to give you. I’ve given you all the information that’s in my head to explain every time we get together. I’ve done everything I could do for you to you. You know what I have left to do? The only thing I have left to do is I have to commit you to God because he’s the only one that can change you. That’s the reason why you can’t control other people’s life. You commit them to God and allow God to deal with it.

You know what? And I’m really glad to do that. Why? Because it takes a burden off of me. It takes a headache away. I’ve done it and I do it all the time. I. I tell God, God, if I’m missing something that I need to give, then give it to me so that I can give it to them. If I’ve given everything that you’ve asked me to give it to them, then I can only gain one other thing. I commit them to you and I give them to you to do as you will. And guys, you got to remember, that’s part of your Christian life.

That’s it. You can’t control them, you can’t change them. You plant the seed, you commit them to God and allow God to do the work. When you get to the place where you’re satisfied with what you’re accomplishing, you’re dead. This is his flock, this is his church. And I commit it to him because if it’s his, it’s his ultimately to safeguard and care for. And so Paul says, I commit you to God and everything the church ever does should be bathed in that kind of committal. Because a priority for every kind of ministry in your Christian life.

We must pray about everything. Everything we do must be committed to God. What did I say for? You should not make one decision without talking to the Holy Spirit first. You can take the book of Acts and just start going through. And you’ll find that when they met together to choose somebody to take Judas’s place, they were praying Acts 1:24. By the time you come to to chapter two, they’re praying again. In chapter two, verse 42 it says when they came together, they came for the apostles doctrine by breaking a bed, communion and prayer. You can go on further, the gospel begins to expand and they, they’re praying.

They anoint deacons in chapter six and they pray and they anoint them. Later on they pray when they send out Paul and Barnabas. When they get to a new area, they pray and commit it to God and they go in and minister prayer. Baked everything they did because why? See, they gave everything to God. Where are you on that self assessment part? See, nowadays our corporate church has got methods for all of that. And they say we don’t need the prayer. Prayer sometimes becomes tokenism. Lord, we’re just going to do this. We don’t ask, we’re just going to go do it.

Pray, you’ll bless it. That’s the first time we’ve ever acknowledged he exists. We get this whole thing invented and all mapped out and laid out. Our fantastic thing. Now we tell God to bless it, which is sort of a parachute in case the plan doesn’t work. Instead of asking him what the plan is, seeking his guidance and prepare, preparing the plan, we just will play it out and say, oh bless this. Oh, the parachute is in case because you might need it for a soft landing because it’s a disaster. But see, that’s not how it is in terms of the New Testament.

There’s no substitute for prayer. There’s no substitute. Not prosperity, no. Not good ideas, not good programs, not growth, not success, not confidence, not talent. Now none of those things are substitutes for prayer. But I have to sadly say it’s so easy for the church to get so organized. Got a wonderful program. You got good communities, great methods. Have a lot of carnal success and take the credit for it. You know, if you just commit everything to God, just say, God, it’s yours now. You do with it what you want. Then when it’s done, we are going to thank God.

But if you did it all and it all went well, who are you going to thank? You. And you’re robbing God of glory, see? And you’re robbing God of giving you a blessing. He doesn’t like that at all. God says, I give my glory to nobody. Isaiah 48. Prayer. Everything the church ever does, everything you ever do in your Christian life should be committed to God. Not as an afterthought, not as sort of a sanctified salt on your human ideas. But it’s before it’s ever brought to fruition, it should be committed to him. You know, I started a long time ago changing the way that I thought of the new ideas that popped in my head.

I used to see things in movies at night, in my sleep, my subconscious. Movies were playing. They were in color, by the way, everything in detail. Matter of fact, I met two people in my dream that I didn’t even know and. And within a year I met them personally. See, my philosophy is a little different. I learned a long time ago it’s the only way it works for me. If you have an idea that might work, I just start praying about it. And if it’s supposed to happen, God will make it happen. And if it’s not, it’s not hurting anything because I’m not invested in any kind of programs at all.

I’m interested in saying God, I had an idea the other day. I don’t know if it’s from you or not, but here it is. I’m just going to give it to you. I’m praying about it. I’ll make mention of it in prayers as often as it brought to my mind. And if you want to make it happen, go ahead, make it happen. We’re going to be ready for it if it does. Prayer and study the Word. He says, I commend you to God and to the Word of his grace. And so what happens? He says to these elders, guys, I just give you to God and to the Word.

And that’s Acts 6, 4 again. Our whole commitment is to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And the Word is able to build us up. Spiritual growth, guys, sanctification that you may grow thereby the pure milk of the Word. The Word causes us to grow. And it gives us an inheritance among all them who are sanctified. The Word is that which secures the promise of your inheritance. You know, I have some people that says, I am so insecure, I have so many doubts. Well, I say, and I’ve said it in discussions with you guys as well.

Do you study the Bible? Because if you study the Bible faithfully, the Bible continues to guarantee your inheritance. And among all those that are sanctified, that means set apart, holy unto God. There is an inheritance. Oh, you think it’s an inheritance of just what, an eternal life in heaven? That there’s no inheritance in this physical life? Did you read Ephesians 1:3. And did you understand Ephesians 4, 5 and 6 in the application of Ephesians 1, 2 and 3, whereby the blessings are on a continuous flow to you. Oh, but see, we’re disobedient. So therefore we don’t know.

Prayer and the Word are priorities. As you study the Word, you’re built up and you’re assured that the promised inheritance is really yours, set apart for all those who are holy through Christ. Well, lastly and briefly, the last priority for the. For the Christian life is freedom from self interest. And this touches close to my heart because I’ve seen so much of this over the last 15 years. It grieves me to be honest with you. That’s the reason why I’ve. I’ve taken so much of what I really thought we could do out of the equation. And Paul uses himself as an example.

Verse 33. I have con. I’ve coveted no man, silver, gold or apparel. Ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me. He says, I am not only worked for my own needs, but I work to supply the needs of others. I have shown you all things how that so laboring you ought to support the weak. And remember the words of Jesus Christ, how he said, it’s more blessed to give than to receive. That’s the law. Now Paul is saying one thing you’ll have to remember in all of your ministry.

You’re going to have to look at it as a giving, not a receiving act. Paul said, I never coveted silver, gold, clothes. In doing so, I’ve gained freedom from my self interest. Simply put, God does not bless the Christian life of a man who is concerned about money. God wants you to prosper. He doesn’t want to live your poverty. He didn’t mean you. He didn’t tell you to live in slavery. He wants you to thrive. But he does not want you to love money. I’ve never seen a man in any form of life who got preoccupied with money, who didn’t have Ichabod written on his Christian life.

You can’t serve God and mammon. Mammon by definition is money. It can’t be done. Freedom from self interest. This was Paul’s heart. We came into a town. I have the right to ask you, but I don’t. I’ll work to earn my own keep. Just to show you the pattern for an example. That’s how it’s to be. And if God wants to bless you by giving you something, fine. Paul even said to an elder that who was faithful was worry of double honor in first Timothy five. I have the right to receive from you. That’s fine. It’s wonderful.

I have the right, but I’ve chosen to show you an example of earning my own and not being a burden and not asking for anything. Now I follow this. Oh all in all conditions of my life. I don’t believe a man of God in any ministry should ask for anything. And I’ve talked to a lot of people who said, well I went to such and such church or and the preacher said to the congregation this is what I want. And they negotiated a salary and pastor usually gets what he wants in those conditions. It makes me sick.

See, whatever God gives ministries, It, it should be God’s terms because God knows your need and you just need to be thankful for it. Every monetary support that this ministry gets, not only do I thank God, but I pray over the giver that they may be blessed in accordance to the scripture. I don’t believe it’s right for a man in ministry to ask for anything. In fact, I, I’m so strong that I don’t believe it’s right to ever set a price on anything you do as a Christian minister of God ever. There’s not a price to be paid more than God himself.

We do talk and address people’s needs because it tells us we need to provide the need for the brethren. Like Cody. Thank you for doing that. By the way. People, people talk to me all the time in a lot of ways and say, you know, I had a, had a email from a group out of Pakistan wanting me to think about teaching a Bible study once a month there and they ask, what would you charge? And I said nothing, nothing. I said if God provides me something from it, then God provides me. But I’m not charging you a thing.

I think when you put a price tag on your life, you price yourself right out of the blessings of God. See, I know how it works. I know how it works. Took a long time to learn that. But I, I know that if I just continue to give to service for God, then I have no needs that will not be obtained. Paul would go and do not go and do anything for anybody, anytime for nothing. And if God sent an offering along, fine. Remember the Philippines chapter four? He says, hey, I’m so glad you sent your offering.

I’m. It’s so wonderful. Not because I need it, because you needed to lessen it in giving. I like that. He says, look, I know how to, how to make. I’m the content. I know how to be a a a. And I know how to abound in everything, in all ways and content. And he. Then he Says, incidentally, I know you gave sacrificially, but keep this in your mind. My guide shall supply all your needs according to his riches in Jesus Christ. Don’t you even worry about it. See, God will give you back multiplied what you gave.

That’s the condition of life. Did Jesus ever. I’m asking you a question. Did Jesus say things that aren’t written in the Gospels? Well, you read the end of the Gospel of John. He said so many things. I suppose John says the books all over the world couldn’t contain everything he said. And this is just one of those things that he said. It’s more blessed to give than receive. He says to those men, remember, in your ministry the most thing is giving, giving, giving, giving, not receiving. Let me give you an illustration. I think the world expects and I don’t like the fact that the world, I think, sees the image of a minister as somebody who always needs a handout.

One thing that bugs me is when ministers ask for a clergy discount. I hate it. Number one, I just want to ask him, why do you want it and who are you to deserve it? I mean, you’re some poor soul that deserves to take some money out of somebody else’s pocket because you’re a minister. Is that godlike? Don’t you do that to the gospels? What do you think a guy thinks when you come and say I happen to be a minister? Does that mean any discount for me? What does that do to Christianity as an example? That’s the way we live our life.

There are people here that want to subsidize their whole life off of this government. There’s people here who are living in large houses with adequate funds. Who ask for help and as we as a giving family gifts to them. When in fact they could have done the whole part themselves and the money could have been that we gave, could be used for truly needed causes. It burns me. I think one of the greatest ways that our godliness is manifest is in our love of Jesus Christ and the ministry with absolutely no thought for money. And I’ll tell you this, when you begin to do that, God takes care of everything.

When all things are right before him and you’re the kind of man you ought to be, God will supply over and above your needs. Matter of fact, I know billionaires who live on this principle who don’t work other than just doing God’s service. What are the priorities of the ministry? This is you guys. What’s the priority of you, your. Your Christian life? It’s a self examination like you’re doing your self assessment. You feed and lead the flock, watch and warn, pray and study, and you have no self interest. If you live your Christian life like that, you know what your reward will be.

You just have to look at the verses that follow. Verse 36. And when he had thus spoken, he knelt down and prayed with them all. Here’s a group of elders and they’re all kneeling and praying. It says something for the posture of kneeling when you pray. It’s a humble bow before God. And they all wept much and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him. You think they liked him? Think it meant something to them? Sure it did. You know why they loved him? They loved him because there was a consistency, self assessment between what he said and what he was.

If you claim to be a Christian, the opposite. You should be obedient. They even accompanied him to his ship. You know, we should all want that human experience, just human enough to want to be loved, to be loved like Paul was loved. And I know that if we did, through the power of the Holy Spirit, If we can come anywhere close to being the type of minister to people the way the Spirit wants us to be, that God will reward us with the love of the saints, over and abundant that which we need. And I. My hope and prayer for you is I want you guys.

To not only love you yourselves when you look in that mirror, but I want you to love your brothers and sisters in Christ just like that love that was shown Paul, Because that’s your reward. That is your reward. You’re loved back what you show in love. But guys, that ends the, the discussion on your leadership charge from Scripture. Leadership, regardless of what aspect in life. Because leadership starts with a, with a fully Christian life, spiritually engaged with the Holy Spirit that provides its leadership to you in a manner by which you can lead others. And that’s my hope for you guys.

Any comments or questions, points? Hey Jim, can you hear me okay? Sure. I have a question in reference to Mer, was the. That to activate myrrh you have to crush it or break it correct. To get the. Okay, now was that symbolic when the wise men gave the baby Jesus myrrh and frankincense, like the breaking, the crushing of his body symbolically for our sins to activate like the, the blessing of the, of the fragrance of the forgiveness. In essence, kind of. Does that kind of make sense where I’m going with it? I mean, yeah, you could, you could look at it that way.

There’s a lot of similes that could be drawn from that in, in a lot of ways because those were gifts that would be used throughout Christ’s life. Those would be. Some of that was frankincense is a very great oil to use for illness in your body. So a lot of, so a lot of that was, was for fortelling what scripture was going to tell you that was going to be done to Christ, what was being done to Christ, what could be done to your body and so forth as it relates to the crushing associated with forgiveness and all of that.

That is another simile that you can make from that because basically it is the destruction of the makeup of, of what myrrh comes from. And that is also exactly what he did, what he told us would would happen with him. Forgiven your sins as far from the east as from the West. It’s completely gone. So yeah, there’s a lot of similes that you can make from that and, and sure you can think of it that way. Thank you. I have another question, kind of statement maybe about the. You’re talking about leadership skills. And it reminded me of when Moses had issues with the judging people’s problems and he was talking to Jethro and Jethro came up and told him those few examples of what how men had to be.

They had to be able men from all the people and men who feared God, who are trustworthy and hated a bribe and place and place those people over the chiefs of thousands and 50s and tens all the way down. But that just when you were talking about leadership skills, it reminded me of that also. Yes, yes. I mean you can. Leadership is all throughout the Bible, but leadership is not obtained unless it’s obtained through the Holy Spirit. Correct. Yeah. And that’s what’s the important part about this is I know a lot of men that are, are very talented and can manage people well, but they very, they fall very short on leadership.

And that’s a sad thing because they would be so much more effective if they were able to get right with the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to take those talents and really magnify them. I, I see businesses when I, when I was in consulting, I walked into businesses and, and we talked about all kinds of business strategies and whatnot. And one of, one of the things I always talked about was a Christ like experience in business. And so much could be magnified in their, in their business, not only from the ability of, of people, but prophets.

I mean, God wants you to thrive, but he wants you to thrive the right way. And if you, if you get the organization running on eight cylinders. As Ephesians 3:20 says, okay, it talks. It’s talking about you. But the same biblical passage applies to any, any business that you want to do. If you can run on eight cylinders of a business, that way your, your business will just skyrocket. And I’ve seen it, seen it happen. So just got to get. You just gotta know the scripture, interpret the scripture and apply the scripture correctly in whatever endeavor you’re doing in life and let God take over.

I’ve seen a business pray their way out of a quality problem. I mean, they couldn’t figure it out. They had a quality problem. This is, this is going to be a drastic thing. And the leadership of that business is we’re going to hold a prayer meeting and they begin to pray. And within a few days, some little engineer got this little idea and figured it out. And they were dead in the water, or dead in the water without that. So many, so many positive things can come out of what we talked about these last three weeks.

Anything else, guys? Sure. All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you again for a great morning of worship in your Word. Thank you for opening up your holy scriptures in a very powerful way to allow us to see leadership at its total complete system, that system of you, a system of imparting you in everything we do. Father, we just give you all the glory and thanks associated with our, our ability to learn, our ability to comprehend defiling of knowledge and the creation of wisdom and the understanding of revelation from you then. And that the application of those things in various parts of our lives that we could, that we are opening our mind to instead of pigeoning a hole.

Something that we think only applies one way. Your scripture is vast, your scripture is powerful, and your scripture contains all things. So Father, we just give you all the praise and glory. We ask that you take our lives, move our lives more closer to you, providing us with that knowledge, wisdom and revelation that gives us more sanctification into your holy Spirit. Father, thank you for your son. Thank for the death and the cross. Thank you, Resurrection and ascension. Without that, we would not have the ability to go home. And Lord, thank you for this great inheritance that you’ve given us that we can actually receive in this physical realm.

May we all seek the standard of obedience in order to manifest those blessings into our lives. Ask all these things in your son’s name like that.
[tr:tra].