The following sermon is brought to you by Capitol Community Church, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. Capitol Community Church is a people awakened to a holy God. If you are searching for a new church home, or from out of town looking for a church to worship with, or simply seeking for answers, Please join us for worship at 1045 a.m. every Sunday morning and six o'clock p.m. for our evening service. If you have any questions, please email us at info at capitolcommunitychurch.com. We pray this sermon will help you grow deeper in your walk with Jesus Christ. It's hard to believe that it's been five years to the day. August 25th, 2019, I think I was sitting where the Fitzgerald's are sitting right now, and Afshin came up here from Texas, and we did an installation service. It seems like in one sense yesterday, and it seems like in another sense a lifetime ago that that happened, that God put me here. I was thinking, who here was there five years ago. Who here has been here for five years? I invite you to just stand up. Stand up if you've been here for five years. So, wow. And I know that a lot of our people are over in the chapel as well, so I'm sure most of the chapel is standing up, but thank you. Look, this is the group that was here. that called me, and you can see that the Lord has added many to our number since then. I read somewhere that the average pastorate in America is 3.5 years. only 3.5 years. So somehow we've managed to beat the average. And I say we because I think a lot of that has to do with pastors leaving their congregations kind of like college football coaches leave teams and also uh congregations asking their pastors to leave. at certain points. So we've managed to beat the average here in America by the grace of God. I wanna thank you. This church, I was telling Russ Andrews maybe a couple months ago, I said, you know, Capitol took a chance on me in this sense. I didn't have any senior pastor experience. And the elders of Capitol, the search committee here, saw the work of God in my life and said, you know what, we're willing to overlook the fact that he doesn't have experience as a senior pastor and called me to be the senior pastor of this church and you've given me a lot of patience. a lot of mercy. I think when I first came here, I was preaching, I don't know, hour-long sermons, and I just so appreciate your love for me, the grace that you've given me. I so appreciate the love that you've given my family, my wife, and my kids, and I want you to know how much I am thankful for you and how much I love you. So I am. I also, as I just reflect on the past five years, I want you to know how much that I depend upon my wife, Grace Anna, in this ministry, and this is very much a team ministry, and you have no idea the prayers and the encouragement and the wisdom that she gives me behind the scenes, and I just want you to know how much how thankful I am for you and how I really couldn't do what I do without you. So thank you for being such a partner to me in this ministry. And one of the things that I also am thankful for, You know, pastoral ministry is an interesting ministry because your life is the ministry. Your life revolves in many ways around the church. And you've probably been up here at the church at various times, weddings, funerals, weekdays, and you've seen my kids around the ministry. And one of the things that's been a blessing to me is that my kids love this church, and they love the ministry, and I know that there's a lot of pressure that's put on pastor's kids. And so I'm so thankful for these kids and their love for Christ. They love the Lord and they love you and they love the ministry. So I'm thankful for them as well. And just, they're... You know, Charles, I don't know if y'all noticed this, but Charles, almost after I finished preaching every sermon, as soon as the service is over, maybe you've seen Charles run up on the platform, he runs up here almost every Sunday and says, Dad, I'm so thankful for that message you just preached. I mean, so I am just so blessed. The Lord has given just incredible elders to this church, elders and their wives, who really grasp this vision of being a church, awakened to a holy God, being a God-centered church from the very beginning, and have stood with me through thick and thin. And I would say the same for the deacons and their wives as well. We just have such wonderful, men and women who come alongside them, who have been partners with me in this ministry the past five years, and just really unbelievable. And then the Lord has brought an incredible staff to us. Really, all of our staff has come since I came. So, with the exception of Babs, everybody is new here at Capitol, so it's been amazing to see how God has brought our staff together. And I really do, I know Kenny was joking earlier, but I really do owe a special thanks to Kenny Jones. He's shaking his head, but Kenny was a lay elder who was working at a bank. He was working at First Citizens Bank. And I just sat down with him one weekday at a coffee shop and I basically asked him, put him through this interrogation trying to find out if he was a liberal. And because I knew, I knew that he had the wherewithal in terms of organization, administration to help implement this vision, but I wanted to make sure that he had the convictions to go with it. And I realized, and through this interrogation, that we were brothers in arms and that he was a fundamentalist at heart. that we were committed to the same truth, the same doctrines, and honestly, this church would not be what it is without Kenny and Catherine's partnership, along with Graceanne and myself, so. In terms of the message today, I wanted to do something unique. I wanted to give you insight into my heart as a pastor, how I think about ministry, how I think about the church in many ways. And I wanted to do this, one, so that you could know what are the biblical expectations of a pastor. And I also wanted you to know this so that you can have a greater insight into what God calls a pastor to be. Maybe God leads you from this church to another church. You need to know and understand what are the expectations and the biblical model of a pastor. And I wanted to do this by really pointing you to some word pictures. Now, what I love about the New Testament is oftentimes truth is communicated through illustration. Jesus did this. He did this through the parables in many number of ways. And Paul did this incessantly. And the way that the apostles talked about the ministry is by giving these Word pictures. And these word pictures have been something over the past five years. I came here with these word pictures in mind, but what the Lord has done is he's embedded them even deeper into my philosophy, into my thinking, into my heart, and I've only grown in these. And I just wanted to give these to you briefly this morning. And I pray that in so doing that you would also be encouraged. But I want you to turn to 1 Timothy 6. I'm gonna give you these word pictures from all over the New Testament. This is the first one. The first word picture is the man of God. And by the way, there's eight. So I'm gonna give you eight. We're gonna go quickly. But the man of God, and you'll see this in verse 11 of 1 Timothy 6, Paul tells Timothy, as for you, oh man of God, thank you. flee these things, talking about the love of money and chasing after selfish gain. He says, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness, fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. But what I want to point you to is this phrase that he calls Timothy, this young pastor, he calls him the man of God. That is a phrase that is taken from the Old Testament. The first time that it is used is in Deuteronomy 33 to describe Moses. Moses, the great prophet of God, is called the man of God. Samuel, one of the great prophets of Israel, is called the man of God in 1 Samuel 9. An unnamed prophet who confronts Jeroboam. You remember Jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom. And an unnamed prophet, he's simply called the man of God in 1 Kings 13, comes and confronts him. Jeroboam raises his hand against him and his hand just withers away and disappears. And the man of God prays for him and his hand is restored. But that designation, the man of God, I think designates two things. First, that this man belongs to God. This man does not belong to the people of Israel or Judah or to the church. He belongs to God. And on that note, secondly, he is to speak God's message. He is a messenger from God to the people. One thing that is interesting about this understanding of the man of God, I think, is that you cannot just wake up one day and call yourself a man of God. God must call you to be a man of God. You think about Moses. Moses was called by God when he was 80 years old at the burning bush to be his spokesman. You remember Samuel. Samuel was asleep in the tabernacle along with Eli. and he heard God's voice calling him to the prophetic ministry. The prophets of the Old Testament were called by God. Remember, Paul laid hands on Timothy. The congregation laid hands on him and designated him to be a man of God. Paul says in Galatians 1.1, he calls himself an apostle, not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. So only God can call someone to the ministry, and it is a glorious call. It is a gracious call. Paul calls it a mercy of God in 2 Corinthians 4.1, but it is a calling nonetheless. And here's the point. is that the man of God is owned by God and is God's spokesman. I think one of the great problems in the church today is that you have a lot of people that are claiming to speak on behalf of God who are not sent and who are not called. and who do not understand that God owns them. I saw a clip of the evangelist, Paul Washer. He was asked, what's the problem today with the church? And he said, the problem today with the church is it's pastors. They fear men more than they fear. That is, I think, one of the great problems, is the pastor is to be a man of God, owned by God, who speaks for God, who's called by God. So that's the first picture, is the man of God. Second picture, I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians 4, 1 Corinthians chapter four. The second picture is that of an under rower, an under rower, or you could say a galley slave. 1 Corinthians 4.1. Paul says to the Corinthians, this is how one should regard us, talking about himself, talking about Barnabas, Silas, all of his associates. He says, this is how you are to regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. I want you to look at that word servants. that word servant. It's the Greek word huporates. Huporates. Hupor means under. Ates means rower. Literally compound word in under, rower. The picture is, think of those old Greek man o' war ships, those big wooden ships that have the oars coming out of the side of the boat. And of course they would have sails on top, but sometimes what do you do when the wind's not blowing? You need the oarmen down below to row the ship. And Paul says, this is how you are to regard those of us who are in the ministry as under rowers. as the galley slaves. What was the job of an under rower? I mean, you would literally be chained there and your job was simply to row with all of your strength, all of your might, according to the call of the, basically the galley leader who would be down in the bottom of the ship. And that's how you would go into war, that's how you would go into combat. There would be flaming missiles going between the ships, there would be arrows, there would be people boarding one another's vessels, but the job Paul says of the minister is to simply be that lowly galley slave down in the bottom of the boat. That word huperetes is also used to describe a shield bearer of a warrior going into battle. So the shield bearer carries that shield, carries that armor of the warrior who is going out to fight the battle. Now here's why I think this picture of Huberetes of a galley slave is important. First, it means that the minister really is nothing. Yes, he's a man of God, but he really is, he's a servant. He's a galley slave, he's an armor bearer. Second, I think it's important because it's a reminder that ultimately the battle belongs to Christ. Christ is the captain. Christ is the great warrior. Christ, tells his apostles, is the one who will build his church. And the gates of Hades will not stand against it. Christ is the one who wins the battles. The huperetes is just there as his servant to be faithful. And this reminds me, that every battle must be won by Christ's power. Every battle, every success is won by Christ's power and not my own. And that's true of all real ministry. All true spiritual ministry is advanced by Christ through his word and the power of the Holy Spirit. Implication, what that means for every pastor, what that means for every congregation, is that we depend upon him in prayer. If a pastor is to have any spiritual power, he must be dependent upon Christ in prayer. And if a congregation is to have any spiritual power, it will be dependent upon Christ in prayer. Ian Bound said this, quote, God's true preachers can be distinguished by one great feature. They are men of prayer. often differing in many things, they have always had a common center. They may have started from different points and traveled by different roads, but they converged to one point. They are one in prayer. To them, God is the center of attraction, and prayers is the path which led to God. These men do not pray occasionally, not a little or at all times, but they so pray that their prayers enter into and shape their very characters. They pray so as to affect their own lives, the lives of others, and to make the history of the church influence the current of the times. He goes on to say that the superficial results of many a ministry and the deadness of others are to be found in the lack of praying. No ministry can succeed without much praying, and this praying must be fundamental, ever abiding, and ever increasing. One time there was a visitor who visited the Metropolitan Tabernacle when Spurgeon was there. And you know, Charles Spurgeon. Y'all know who I'm talking about. Famous Victorian preacher. And Spurgeon said, I'd like to show you around the church. This is before the service started. And showed him into the vestry. You know, showed him the great worship hall. And then he said, I want to show you something really special. I want to show you our boiler room. And the guy was like, well, I'm not sure I want to see the boiler room. The boiler room is where all the power comes from and the fire is lit that provides the energy for the church to have electricity. And Spurgeon takes him down into a basement in the bottom of the church. And there, there was an army of saints praying. And Spurgeon said, this is the boiler room. This is where the power comes from. You see, as under rowers, huberetes, our power is from Christ. And he advances the mission. So that's the second picture, that of an under rower, a galley slave. First was the man of God, third, is the second description here in 1 Corinthians 4. Look back at verse 1. Servants of Christ, huperetes of Christ, and then stewards of the mysteries of God. Look at that word, steward, oikonomos. means house master. Oftentimes that would be a slave who would be responsible to an owner of the house for stewarding the resources of the house. Y'all remember Joseph? in the book of Genesis. Remember, Joseph was sold into captivity into Egypt, and he became the oikonomos, the house master of a gentleman by the name of Potiphar. And his responsibility, his role, was to steward everything under Potiphar's hand. And Potiphar basically gave to Joseph everything, and Joseph stewarded it. He looked after it. And that's the picture that Paul is giving. He says that we are stewards of the mysteries of God. Now, mysteries are realities that were not revealed in the Old Testament, but are revealed in the New Covenant or the New Testament. The truth, the truth of the gospel, the truth of what Christ has done, his death, burial, resurrection. And Paul says that we are stewards of these truths. When you read the New Testament, there are two components of being a faithful steward. The first is integrity in life, and the second is integrity in the message. So integrity in life, jot down this cross-reference, Titus 1-7. Paul describes elders, overseers. He says, an overseer is God's steward, same word, oikonomos, must be above reproach. If you're going to be a faithful steward, your character has to reflect your master. You have to be a man of integrity above reproach. That means without any accusation being able to be thrust against you. He says in 2 Timothy 4.21, therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. You see, a pastor's holiness is directly tied to his effectiveness. If you want to be used by the master, you must be a holy vessel, a vessel that is set apart. You see, your life must be congruent with your message. Your life must match the pattern that is given of godly character and conduct. You can fool people for a time, outwardly. I've seen pastors do it. I've been in churches where pastors were ultimately disqualified through some sort of scandal. And for a period of time, they fool people. But you know what? You can't fool God. You can't fool God. God, the Holy Spirit, will only use a holy vessel. And if you are not set apart to Him, I'm not saying perfection, I'm not saying complete holiness, but I'm saying a life that is set apart to Him in a general way, then how can you expect to be used by God the Holy Spirit? That is why godly character is so important in the life of a pastor. It's the number one thing. Because if you don't have it, God simply will not use you. That's why Paul says, I discipline my body in order that I might not be disqualified. The word he uses is almost like, I punch myself in the face in order that I might not be disqualified. Godly character is of pivotal importance. And then secondly, integrity of the message. If you have been entrusted with the message as a steward, then you have no authority to change the message. None. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4.2, we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. The message is not my message. It's not any pastor's message. The message has been handed down to us from the prophets, then from Christ, and the apostles in the 66 books of the Bible. 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament. And no man has the authority to contradict God's word. We stand underneath God's word as a steward, as a steward. That's my role. And I don't know if y'all have ever noticed this. I think about this very seriously, that I'm simply a steward. And when I come into the pulpit, I don't say to you, how are you doing? I hope you're doing well. I'm doing great. This is what happened to us over the weekend. I don't do that. And I don't do that because I'm not here representing myself. I'm here simply as a steward of God's truth. And that's my job. That's every pastor's job. We don't represent ourselves, we represent Christ. And there's more to this picture, and several other of the word pictures we're gonna look at. But fourth, I want you to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter five, for the fourth picture, and that is that of an ambassador. So first, the man of God. Second, the galley slave, the under rower. Third, the steward. Fourth, the ambassador. Look at 2 Corinthians 5 verse 20. Paul says, therefore, We are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Paul says that the role of an apostle, the role of the evangelist, the role of a pastor, and really the role of every Christian for that matter, is that of an ambassador. An ambassador is someone who brings a message on behalf of someone else, as a representative of someone else. Similar to a steward, this involves faithfulness, both in life and in terms of the message. In this sense, what Paul is saying is that we are ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ, of King Jesus. He is the King and we are his representatives. We are representatives of his kingdom. And who are we representatives to? We are representatives to a fallen world. Paul says, look at what Paul says. We implore you, we beg of you, we plead with you, we command you, not on behalf of myself, but on behalf of Christ, he says. be reconciled to God. So the pastor The evangelist comes with a message. What is that message? That is the message of Christ and him crucified, the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of only hope, that Christ died to save sinners. He lived a perfect life, and because of that, he was raised from the dead three days later, that all who trust and believe in his name have the forgiveness of sins. That is the good news of the gospel. It is the good news that transfers sinners from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. And Paul says, look, this is what we are. We are ambassadors of Christ. God makes his appeal to you through us. So I implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. That is the role of an ambassador. An ambassador is someone who represents Christ and pleads with sinners in order to be reconciled to him. Paul says in Ephesians 6 20, I am an ambassador in chains that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Paul tells Timothy, 2 Timothy 4-5, do the work of an evangelist. So the pastor is to not simply teach the faithful, he is also to be an ambassador to the lost. He is to do the work of an evangelist, winning people to the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the things that my father-in-law, who's been a pastor now for, nearly 40 years, challenged me with when I first came here is he said, you know, most churches in America grow by people leaving other churches. He said, I challenge you to grow rather by conversion. where your church grows through lost people coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that certainly is a collective effort. All of us must do our best to win men and women, boys and girls to Jesus Christ. All of us are called to be an evangelist, but how can I call you to be an evangelist if I'm not an evangelist myself? I have to set the example of what it means to be an ambassador for Christ. Someone who pleads with people on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. So that's the fourth picture, that of an ambassador. Fifth, slave. Fifth slave, turn to Galatians 1.10. So we've seen the man of God, the Under Rower, the Steward, the Ambassador, and fifth, the Doulas, the Slave of Christ. I can't tell you how much this verse has meant to me over the past five years of ministry. This verse has been a verse that I've gone back to so many times because it helps set the context of what I am to be and what I am to do. But Paul says in Galatians 1.10, he says, for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, look at the contrast, I would not be a doulos of Christ. I would not be a servant of Christ. That translates the word doulos. It is properly translated slave. I would not be a slave of Christ. Paul fundamentally understood himself, his coworkers in the gospel as slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 1.1, Paul says, Paul, a doulos of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1.1, Paul and Timothy, Slaves of Christ Jesus. Titus 1.1, Paul, a slave, a doulos of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ. What Paul is saying is that he, first and foremost, has an allegiance to one. He is a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, he is accountable to the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice the contrast in Galatians 1.10. This has been really helpful to me. Because so often pressure is put upon a pastor to conform to what the desires of a congregation are, or to what the desires of the culture are. And the pressure is put on to compromise the message, to compromise the position. And Paul says, look, the context with the Galatian churches is that Judaizers had convinced them to adopt this Galatian heresy of adding works to the gospel. And Paul says, look, I have to confront this, and I'm going to confront you because I fear Christ, not you. Because fundamentally, I am a servant of Christ, not a servant of the different churches. Now look, the pastor is called to serve the people, but he does that primarily as a servant of one, the Lord Jesus Christ. I think you get in very dangerous territory when you start trying to please people. It's a dangerous place to be when you become a servant of the people rather than a servant of Christ. Because then you get a pastor who is a yes man and only does what the loudest voices in the congregation want rather than a pastor who has his allegiance only to the Lord Jesus Christ. Charles Simeon is a name you probably are not aware of. He was a pastor in Cambridge at the beginning of the 19th century, 1800s, of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. And he was called to that church as a young man, came to pastor that church. And when he came, for whatever reason, the congregation did not want him. They did not want him to be their pastor. And at that point, they had this weird deal where you could basically reserve pews, buy pews, and you would have the locks to your pew. And you would go on Sunday and you would unlock your pew and that's where you would sit. And the congregation refused to unlock the pews. So nobody could go in. And the congregation that would go in would heckle him while he preached. So they wouldn't allow people to come in and listen to Simeon preach. And if they did go in, they would heckle him. And this went on for years and years. And yet he persisted. Yet he persisted. How did he persist? I've asked myself this, how did Simeon persist in preaching to like an empty church and hecklers and people standing along the sides, not even having a seat? He persisted because he understood that his fundamental allegiance was to Christ. And he was there to please his master. And eventually what happened? is that God softened hard hearts, people started unlocking their pews, and God gave him an unbelievable ministry that lasted over 50 years. But it took time, and it took persistence, and it took a man who understood himself to be in service to Christ. I once heard Alistair Begg say, the pastor is a servant to all, but he only has one master. That's the idea. Six, turn over to 2 Timothy, chapter two. And this picture is of a good soldier. 2 Timothy, chapter two, verse three. Paul tells Timothy, Sharon's suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. So Paul calls Timothy to picture himself, to think of himself as a soldier, a good soldier of Christ, that he is a soldier who serves Christ. And the implication he draws from this is that as a soldier, he will be involved in warfare. Warfare with who? Satan and his spiritual forces of evil. And he says, in this warfare, you will suffer. You will suffer. He says, you will share in this suffering as a good soldier of Christ. So don't get involved in civilian pursuits. Your main pursuit is the Lord's ministry, and you must be prepared to suffer. 2 Timothy 4.5 says, be sober-minded, endure suffering. Paul says in 2 Timothy 4.16, at my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. What I have found over the past five years is that the pastoral ministry is a ministry of suffering. One, you suffer with your people. You walk with them and you bear the burdens that they bear. And two, you suffer from Satan's attacks. Satan sends his fiery darts. I remember a few years ago, I was doing a message, a series on the family, the family. And I've come to the conclusion that Satan hates the Christian family more than he hates anything else. That's why it's so under attack in our culture with marriage and abortion and all of that. But he hates the family. He hates children. And we did a series on the family here. And Grace Ann and I found ourselves under immense spiritual attack. Just a darkening cloud was over us. And we went to battle with the forces of evil in prayer and with the word of God. But ministry is like that. You know, Paul says in Ephesians 6 that we battle not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And he says, above all else, stand in the evil day. Stand. And our role is to keep standing. Keep standing. Think about Elton John. I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I think about that. You know, I'm just thankful to be standing in the evil day. To keep suffering. I saw a meme one time. It was, this is what the ministry is like, and it was two pictures of Tom Hanks. One was from his early life, I think from the movie Big or something. He's chipper and bright, and he's in a tuxedo. He looks wonderful. And in the second picture is from the movie Castaway, where he's on a deserted island. He's shirtless. He's got a big grizzly beard covered in mud, clinging to a rock, you know, against the surf. And I thought about that. You know, that is the ministry right there. That you go out, you chart out your course, and you have these wonderful expectations, but you don't always, I didn't always think about that one of the things that would occur is great suffering. And if you've been in any ministry long enough, if you endeavor to do anything for Christ, you will have a target on your back. Have you found that to be true? Paul says, suffer as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. That's six, seven, seven. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter four, page over. And this is the picture of a herald, a herald. So we've seen the man of God, the galley slave, the steward, the ambassador, the good soldier, the herald." 2 Timothy 4, verse 1, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Kairuso the word. Proclaim the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. So, verse 2, you see that phrase, preach the word, I use the Greek word keruso, it's the verbal form of the noun of a herald. a herald, we don't, in the days of the internet, we don't really understand what a herald is, but a herald in the ancient world was sent out by the king with the king's message. And he would go out into the highways and the byways and then the cities and the streets of the empire, and he would go to a city or a village and he would say, thus saith the king, and he would read the king's edict, to the people, and then after he went to his appointed places where he would give the message, he would go back, report to the king, report to the emperor that he indeed did give the message to the people. So Paul takes that picture and he says, this is your responsibility, Timothy. You are to be a herald of the word. Now earlier in 2 Timothy chapter 3, he said all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. So he's talking about the scriptures. He's saying you are to go and you are to herald the word. Preach the Word. This is what you are to do. This is what you are to be about. You're not to be a CEO. You're not to be an entrepreneur. You're not to be a brand manager. You are to be a herald of the Word. He says in verse 3, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine. but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. If you look at verse two, how often does Paul say to be a herald of the word? Two seasons, in season and out of season. In other words, every season, all the time. You are to be a herald of the word all the time. You are to preach the word all the time. regardless of the response to the word. That's what he's saying. End season means that there are periods where the word is more warmly received. where people thank you for giving them the word, where people love coming underneath the word, where people respond to the word. Out of season implies there are periods where people do not want the word, where people beat you for giving them the word, where they stone you. That happened to Paul. because they do not want the word. There are in seasons and there are out of seasons. Your job, Timothy, is to preach all seasons. Doesn't matter if there's congratulatory thanks or there's a stone being thrown at you, you are to preach the word. When I first came here, you know, we, I came here with that intent and that mission, is to have an expository ministry. Week in, week out, and that's what the elders called me here to do. That's what the church, by God's grace, desired, is to have an expository ministry of teaching God's Word and exhorting the flock to obey it. But one of the things that was interesting, I came here 2019, we drew a line in the sand on worship. We said we are only gonna sing songs by faithful, written by faithful artists. We're gonna do worship the right way, centered on the word of God. And a line was drawn in the sand and we lost people. And we had the Kenny Rogers band. I don't know if y'all remember that, but Kenny and a guy named Cole Rogers came up here and started leading that. And then we called Jake Bond with this desire to have a God-centered worship service. But we drew a line in the sand and we lost people because of it. And then in the midst of all of that, we had COVID. We had COVID and I found myself preaching right here to a telephone camera. This being first few weeks broadcast and people started coming back. And when people started coming back, we might've had less than a hundred people would be here. Less than a hundred people. And this went on for, eventually we got over a hundred, but this went on for two years. Two years. And there were some that came to me and said, you know, if you just were told more stories, and if you just preached maybe 30 minutes or less, then people would come. And I just said, just quite frankly, the Lord has called me here to preach the word. preach the word, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to preach expository messages until the cows come home, or until the Lord comes back. Until the Lord takes me, however long. And this went on for about two years. And then all of a sudden, it was almost like the Lord turned on a faucet. The Lord turned on the spigot. And God started bringing people here who desired to be underneath the Word of God. And I noticed that the spigot was turned on. I don't know if Tim and Elizabeth Schweizow are here today. But Tim and Elizabeth moved here, I guess they're in the back or in the chapel. They moved here from St. Louis. to join Capitol. I remember one day they just showed up and they said, yeah, we started watching you on the live stream during COVID and we moved here to be a part of this church. And it was like that moment. God the Holy Spirit begin to really bless the preaching of His Word. And we've been in this in season time. I mean, look at this room, it's full. We have people over in the chapel because of, you know, we don't have enough seats in here. But here's the thing with all this, there might come points in the future that are out of season again. I mean that we might have, who knows? We might have a series of persecution unlike we've never seen before. And we're called uh, with hate speech, and people come and lock our doors, and all of a sudden it's unpopular to be here, and boom, we're in an out of season period. The call of a pastor is to be faithful, to preach the word, regardless of the circumstances that we're in. So keep praying that God will keep blessing the word, keep praying that we would be in season, but the call is the same nonetheless. So that's seven, that of a herald, eight, and finally, his under-shepherd. I want you to turn to 1 Peter chapter five. Verse one, remarkable exhortation from Peter. Peter says, so I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Shepherd the flock, is the Greek word of poiemon. role of a shepherd. He says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. Verse four, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. I take that word under-shepherd, that phrase under-shepherd, by deduction that the elders, the shepherds, are underneath the chief shepherd, the archepoiamin, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd, all elders, pastors that serve underneath him are under shepherds, under the authority of Christ. And in reflecting upon this, I thought about two things. First, is that all pastors are first themselves sheep. All pastors are first themselves sheep. Jesus says in John 10 three, the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. I am a sheep and the Lord is my shepherd. That means that I need and every pastor needs the grace and the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every pastor needs the gospel of Jesus Christ and every pastor's first before he is an under shepherd, a sheep. I'm reminded of what the Lord told the apostles in Luke 10, 20. He says, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. My greatest joy is not in ministry success, but that I am saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the most remarkable thing to me, that I'm a sinner saved by grace, that I need the blessings and the graces of the Lord Jesus Christ just as you need them. And as an undershepherd, I'm also reminded that my ultimate trust for the care of your souls has to be in my chief shepherd. A man can only shepherd you so much, but the Lord Jesus Christ is your chief shepherd, and he will shepherd your soul all the way to the other side. So my trust and confidence, because sometimes the burden of pastoral ministry is so much, and as elders we sense this, but it is a comfort to know that Christ is your chief shepherd. Well, in conclusion, so those were the eight pictures. In conclusion, how do you gauge success at these things? How do you gauge success at being a man of God, an under rower, a steward, an ambassador for Christ, a slave, a herald, an under shepherd, How do we know what success is? Is it how big the congregation is? How big the Instagram following is? Is it how well-known the congregation is? What is success? Well, success in New Testament terms is gauged by the Christ-likeness of the congregation. The Christ-likeness of you. That's my success. The godliness of the flock, that's my success. Paul told the Corinthians, turn to 2 Corinthians chapter three, verse two, you yourselves are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of human hearts. Paul says, do you wanna know what my success is? What my letter of recommendation is? My standard of success? My standard of success is you, he says to the Corinthians. It's God at work in your heart, forming a Christ-like congregation. So the gauge of the success, the measure of the success of any ministry is not the size of the ministry, but the Christ-likeness of its people. And that's why, if you understand that, now when you go read all of Paul's epistles, Peter's epistles, they begin to make sense. What are they concerned with? Are they concerned with how much they're growing, what their building campaign is like? What are they concerned with? They're concerned about the godliness of the congregation. Jesus, with the seven churches of Revelation, what is he concerned with? He's concerned about the Christ likeness of the congregation. Paul says, Colossians 1, him we proclaim, warning and teaching everyone that we may present everyone mature in Christ Jesus. He tells the Galatians, my little children, for whom I am again in anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. So the success of my ministry, of the ministry of the elders of this church is your Christ-likeness. Not even your orthodoxy, orthodoxy is part of it, but your Christ-likeness. So how are we doing? How am I doing here? I think that we've grown. I think that there is godliness and holiness and Christlikeness within our congregation. But we are also a church in progress, a church in sanctification. This isn't a perfect church. You're never gonna find a perfect church this side of heaven. You're never gonna find a church that's completely Christlike, just as you will never find a person who is completely Christlike. So let us endeavor to grow together. We've done five years. Let's keep pushing forward with the goal being conformity to Christ. Conformity to Christ and his word. Love for Christ and his word. And that will propel our ministry forward. Love for Christ. And I do sense that with us. That is truly what makes this congregation a wonderful congregation, is a heartfelt love for the Lord Jesus Christ. But we must continue to grow in that love by God's grace. Heavenly Father, Lord, we pray that we would continue to grow. We thank you, Lord, for the work that you've done in our midst. We praise you, Lord, for all your graces, all your mercies, all your kindnesses to us. We pray, Lord, that we would grow. I pray, Lord, that you would, I know we've done five years. I pray, Lord, that you would empower me to continue to run the race well, to watch my life and doctrine closely. We ask all this for your honor and your glory. Amen. Thanks for listening. For more sermons, information, and events, check out our website at capitolcommunitychurch.com.