Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

This has been quite a week.

We survived our first major snow storm here in the Northwest and our first snow day from school.

It has also been quite a week of continued study through the passage we started looking at last week - Colossians 1:24-29.

As I have said this is a passage that basically lays out the job description of a pastor and highlights what we are to be doing or looking for in those who are called to the role of pastor or elder in our churches.

Even more poignantly this week as the articles have continued to roll out of the Houston Chronicle detailing failures on the part of the church and denomination to protect children from predators - and this week there’s unfortunately no counterbalance like last weeks celebration of Dr. MacArthur’s years of service - instead we see another megachurch pastor James MacDonald from Harvest Bible Church in Chicago being fired.

In an article regarding his dismissal the church cited “a pattern of abusive behavior towards subordinates, and extensive financial mismanagement.”

Is it any wonder that now clergy now rank seventh on the list of most trusted professions - right behind funeral directors and just above journalists - when a mere 20 years ago they topped the list.

Not only are pastors no longer looked at as trustworthy, the role of a pastor is not seen as a particularly stressful position anymore.

A quick internet search found that it wasn’t even listed among the top 100 of most stressful jobs - but positions like event coordinator and taxi cab driver were ranked as high as sixth and tenth respectively.

If that is the case then one might wonder why a 2007 study found that 85% of seminary and Bible college graduates were out of the ministry within their first 5 years of ministry and 60-80% were out within their first ten.

I think Rick Holland summed it up well in his sermon at the Shepherd’s Conference in 2011 “It is not for the faint hearted.

Pastoral ministry is not for wimps.

Pastoral ministry is not a social alternative to another job in the world.

It is the hardest, most rigorous, most painstaking, most crushing endeavor any human can undertake.”

So why am I standing here before you today?

Well, we looked at some of the reason last week as we saw Paul say that despite the challenges and sufferings it is actually a joy to be called into the ministry and this week we’re going to see more of his mindset, his material and his method as we look through the rest of this passage.

A Pastor’s Mindset

Colossians 1:25; Colossians 1:23; John 14:10-11; Galatians 1:6-9; Galatians 1:11-12; Acts 9:15-16; Acts 20:26-27

For the last 30 years leadership has been a major preoccupation of our society.

There are conferences and seminars on leadership.

John C. Maxwell among others, has made a living writing about the topic of leadership.

We are starving for great leadership and even in some cases for good leadership.

Even though a quick internet search of modern leadership styles invariably returns servant leadership as one of the primary models for leadership in the 21st century - the practical examples and outworking of leadership both in the church and outside all too often reveal this to be more of a chimera than a reality.

We may say we want servant leadership but all too often the result of our choices of leadership prove to be something quite different.

A look across the political and the business spectrum demonstrate for us that it is usually those who know best how to wield power that get put into leadership positions whether they can relate to people or not.

The late Steve Jobs said “My job is not to be easy on people.

My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.”

Leadership has a tendency to corrupt the viewpoint of an individual until they think that everything revolves around them and that success of their endeavor rises and falls on their next breath.

I remember a Master Chief in the Navy telling me that Command Master Chief’s sometimes had the misguided notion that they were “kings of the castle” and that they should always get their way.

I think in many ways that same mentality is on display in the church when we see stories like those out of Houston and Chicago - those men forgot what their true role is to be.

I disagree with many things that he says but in this area Andy Stanley had something very applicable to say.

In his book Next Generation Leader he said “Your talent and giftedness as a leader have the potential to take you further than your character can sustain you.

That ought to scare you.”

That is a very sobering statement and one that we shouldn’t just glibly dismiss.

It is this condition that fractures and destroys churches and it is one that Paul would agree with.

In our passage today

Paul makes two statements that are counterintuitive to our modern day notion of leadership.

Paul states it here in verse 25 with two statements - the first is “I have become its servant”.

This is the second time in just a few lines that Paul has referred to himself as a servant.

In verse 23 he says

And now in verse 25 he refers to himself as the servant of the church - in the context of the sentence the it here refers back to the church as the body of Christ.

It is safe to say that the idea of servanthood was the furthest thing from a younger Paul’s mind.

As a rising star among the Pharisees in Jerusalem and as a student of one of the most prominent teachers in Israel at that time, Saul would have been looking for servants of his own not as to how he could serve others.

In fact he was so deeply committed to the Law and his interpretation of its requirements that he was the premier persecutor of the church because he felt that it was perverting the religious system that he held dear.

And yet here he is calling himself a servant of the very institution that he had made it his life’s mission to destroy.

Yet there is a paradox here in Paul’s statements.

There is a question that must be asked - is it possible to be a servant of the Gospel without being a servant of the church or does one imply the other?

Is it possible to be a servant of the Gospel without being a servant of the church?

In our modern context it would seem that this is possible - I think if you surveyed the modern Evangelical landscape that you would find many men serving who would appear to be serving the Gospel but not necessarily serving their church - or even necessarily serving in a church.

We live in an unprecedented time of mobility and nomadism in our churches.

Whether it is the mega-church pastor who one day shows up to announce his resignation or the local street preacher who doesn’t feel the need to submit himself to the leadership or accountability that is provided under the oversight of a church there are many different instances of men who would say they’re serving the Gospel without serving the needs of the church.

But I don’t think Paul would agree with them - he seems to be implying that service to one is implicit in service to the other.

It is all a matter of who’s call you are responding to .

Paul’s next statement makes it clear Who he had received his calling from.

He says that he is in service to the church in “accordance to the God’s commission that was given to me for you”.

In doing so he is modeling the example set forth by Christ for what leadership should look like.

Repeatedly throughout His earthly ministry Christ demonstrated what servant leadership and service to both the Gospel and the future church would look like.

We have the pictures of Him as a servant in John 13 where He washes His disciples feet.

And in Mark 10 where Jesus said “I have not come to be served but to serve”.

Another picture of Christ as a servant is given in John 14:10

Christ says that even the words that He speaks are given to Him by the Father and that He is speaking on His authority.

The ESV translation of this verse translates it as “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does His works.”

Even the word chosen to denote “servant” and in the Mark passage the verb for serve is interesting.

Generally when Paul wished to refer to himself as a servant he used the term doulos or slave - a word our modern translations have taken to translating as bondservant because of the social stigma of slave.

Here in our passage Paul refers to himself as a diakonos - from which we get our modern term deacon.

There are many definitions and traditions surrounding this role but I think here Paul is giving us the clearest picture in the Scriptures of what a deacon really is to be.

It is a role or an office in the church that appears to have been established by Paul and the only detail we get regarding this office is from his writings.

The word deacon can have several meanings such as table servant or waiter at a meal, in other instances it can mean servant of a master.

Church tradition has made this term malleable and shaped it to fit whatever that particular location wanted it to mean.

But it seems that here Paul is giving us a picture of what a deacon is meant to be.

Another definition of deacon is servant of a master or assistant.

Paul even expands on his role to say that his commission as a diakonos or servant is from God.

He is God’s appointed representative for a specific task in the ministry.

Paul makes it very clear in other passages that his message is not his own - it is only what Christ gave him that he speaks.

This is probably most clear in Galatians 1:6-9

And then a few verses later he wrote

For Paul there was only one Gospel and that was Christ’s message.

He was merely a servant of that message and could only speak what he had been given.

In the same way Christ was a servant and even He, in the verse we just looked at in John 14 said that his words were the words given to Him by the Father.

In Christ’s and Paul’s case they were servants of the Gospel who had to be able to teach - a requirement that is not necessary for modern day deacons.

In his explanation of the roles of elders and deacons Paul clearly leaves the role of teaching in the hands of the elders.

In Paul’s position here as a servant of God, as His representative, his role was to teach the message of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

In Acts 9 when Ananias was being sent to Paul to heal him God answered Ananias objections with the commission that He would be giving to Paul

And then afterward Paul spent three years in the desert learning the Gospel from Christ.

And all of this would take place so that he would be equipped to minister on God’s behalf - to steward the Gospel - to the Gentiles.

Here he tells the Galatians that it was for them, even though he had never met them, that he had been given his commission from God to make the Word of God fully known to them.

Paul recognizes that the message of the Gospel wasn’t his message but that it was God’s message and as a servant of that message he was simply to make the message known - he didn’t have the luxury or freedom to pick and to choose which parts he would teach and which parts he wouldn’t.

I saw a post on Facebook this week that I shared to my page that I thought I’d share with all of you.

When Paul was speaking with the elders of the Ephesian church for the last time he told them

This is the mindset of the pastor - that it is not about me I’m merely a servant who is working on behalf of the Lord to make His Word fully known - but Paul goes on to say more about the material that a pastor has to work with.

A Pastor’s Material

Colossians 1:26-27; Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 4:19

In the ancient world context there were many different types of mysteries.

Plato wrote of mysteries as being hidden teachings that would lead to the divinely appointed way with the goal being the vision of true being.

The aim of this was to distinguish between what is real truth and its symbolical appearance.

Another form of mystery was found in the cultic religions that involved a mystical initiation rite to become a member and then swore their membership to secrecy - much like the modern day Freemason society.

Because of these the term mystery in the social setting came to be used in reference to anything kept secret - private secrets, family secrets or secrets in general.

In Paul’s writings however the term mystery means something entirely different.