April 5, 2025 • 26 mins
Followers of Christ believe that Jesus will do what He said He would do … and that’s come back again to rescue His people. And we need to be living in a way that you can expect to see Him any day now. But we sometimes get stuck in our thinking, so today we'll be talking about where most people fail to prepare … and that’s in our relationships. Join us now for Moody Presents with Pastor Mark Jobe, president of the Moody Bible Institute.
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S1 (00:00):
How to deal with our relationships in light of Christ's return.
That's next on Moody Presents.
S2 (00:07):
When someone is laboring for others to help people grow,
honor them for it. Give them proper respect for it,
because these are teachers that are helping us grow in
the things of God. And so therefore we honor them.
Anybody that's ever led knows it's a lot of work
to lead.
S1 (00:25):
Welcome to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe, president of Moody
Bible Institute and the senior pastor of New Life Community
Church in Chicago. I'm John Gager, and maybe you've noticed
some people believe that getting ready for the end of
the world means hunkering down in a bunker and stockpiling
it with food and supplies. And then there are others
(00:46):
who think they need to arm themselves against invaders. Pastor
Mark Jobe has stopped by. And I have to ask you, Mark.
Shouldn't believers take a maybe different approach here?
S3 (00:56):
Over the years, I've heard people and gotten emails and
watch things on TV where people are being told sell
all you have, go to a mountain, wait for the coming,
be a prepper. But you know, the Apostle Paul actually
has an absolutely different approach to this. And he basically says,
as you prepare for the coming, work hard at your job.
(01:19):
He talks about our relationships towards others, including our relationships
towards leaders in the church especially. Yes, I want to
just take a moment to just insert this in there.
I want to encourage you to reach out to your pastor,
your leaders, and just encourage them. As you listen to
this message, you'll see the importance of that.
S1 (01:40):
All right. Sounds like there's a lot to process in
today's message that Mark has titled Keeping Your Relationship on
Course for His coming. And it begins right now.
S2 (01:51):
There are only a couple of things that endure forever.
One is the Word of God. And secondly, people, uh,
people endure forever. Now, they don't live forever in this
physical body, but their soul lives forever. And so you
have to know and learn and discover how to make
sure that your relationships with people continue to be clean.
(02:15):
Short accounts. Forgiveness flows fast. You fix things quickly because
none of us want to stand before God with a
whole long laundry list of people that we should have
made things right with, but we never did. How about it?
It tells us in first Thessalonians chapter five, verse 12,
(02:36):
but we request you, brethren, that you appreciate those who
diligently labor among you and have charge over you in
the Lord, and give you instruction, and that you esteem
them very highly in love because of their work. Live
in peace with one another. We urge you, brethren, admonish
(02:58):
the unruly. Encourage the fainthearted. Help the weak. Be patient
with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil
for evil. But always seek after that which is good
for one another and for all people. The Word of God.
(03:20):
There are three relationships that the Apostle Paul deals with
in preparing us for his return. He talks, first of
all about the leaders amongst us, our relationship with leaders,
especially spiritual leaders. So if you're taking notes today, I
want you to write this down. We're talking about getting
(03:40):
our relationships ready, number one. Live ready. So appreciate the
spiritual leaders among you. Notice that he says in verse 12,
he's talking to the Thessalonians. And there were some emerging
leaders among them. And he says, I request you, entreat you,
(04:01):
beg of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently
labor among you. Now this was a young church. They were.
They all started off as peers, but there were some
of them that were excelling in their spiritual leadership more
than others, and they were becoming leaders in the church.
(04:21):
And there's a well, there was a tendency in the
church to look at some of the people that were
becoming leaders and said, hey, who died and made you boss?
I mean, why do I need to listen to you?
And as the church was growing and emerging, the Apostle
Paul is saying that some within the church will begin
(04:43):
to emerge as spiritual leaders with discernment, with gifting. There'll
be some that are empowered and gifted by God to lead. Now,
I believe that all of us have a capacity to
lead to one level or another, but there are certain
individuals that will be empowered to lead groups of people
(05:05):
that are gifted in a certain way to lead, to
instruct that that have a calling of God, a gifting
of God that allows them to lead other people as
those people emerge and rise. The Bible talks about uses
the word elders. That doesn't mean that you have to
be old, but it means that there's a degree of
(05:26):
spiritual maturity that's given to your life calling and gifting
that empowers you to be able to lead, oversee people,
shepherd and care for them. Their feet kicked up and
bark out commands to everybody. That may be the way
it works in the world. But Jesus said, if you
want to be great in God's kingdom, learn to be
(05:48):
the servant of all. You see, biblical leadership is servant leadership.
It means that people serve and watch out and care.
And within the church, within ministry, within the spiritual lives.
There's people that will be called to to lead. And
he says, brethren, you need to appreciate those who diligently
(06:10):
labor among you. So there's a couple of things that
Paul has as expectation for those that rise up to lead.
Number one, that they work hard. He says, we request
that you appreciate those who diligently labor. They they work
hard at spiritual matters, hard at watching over people's lives,
(06:31):
hard at helping people grow, investing, mentoring, instructing, teaching, exhorting, rebuking,
watching over the care and soul of people's lives. That
this is hard work. And he says, secondly, that they
have charge over you. In other words, they lead. They're
like shepherds that watch over a group of people. Anybody
(06:54):
here who's a parent understands that to raise healthy, strong children,
It's a lot of work, isn't it? Because you're there,
wanting them to grow up, to be all that God
has called them to be. And so you want to
teach them, train them, educate them, show them how to
really make it in life. And it's a lot of work.
(07:18):
And someone may say, well, it must be easy being
the parent because you're the boss. And everybody's a parent says, ha!
Do you realize that being a parent, I read somewhere
that by the time your child is 20 some years old,
especially if they went to college, that it cost the
average American about $350,000 to raise a kid? They're expensive.
(07:49):
And if you you've gone into parenting, you know, the
work and the the just the training, and you take
a piece of your heart and every child you have,
you pour into their heart. And oh, you may be
the leader of the household, but it's not. You're the leader,
you're the parent, and it's a calling that you have.
(08:12):
And so Paul says, God raised some among you. They
diligently labor, they lead in the Lord, and they give
you instructions. So spiritual leaders, they work hard. They have charge.
They give you instruction. I'll never forget when I first started, uh, pastoring,
I was 21 years old. The church was really, really small, uh,
(08:34):
under 20 people. And I remember I would get people
asking me all the time, they would find out that
I was a pastor and they'd say, uh, but do
you have a real job? Like, what do you do
all day? Seriously? You work on Sunday, right? I mean,
what do you do throughout the week? I mean, sitting
(08:55):
in an office and read concordances or I don't understand,
I remember it would make me so mad because the
labor was so intense and night and day we were
having Bible studies and mentoring and calling people and working
with people and discipling and dealing with problems. And people
would say, so, man, you must have a lot of
time to play golf and stuff, right? I mean, what
(09:16):
do you do? And it's funny, to be honest with you.
And I want I want to just just throw this
word out to you because it's been many, many years
since people view it that way. But I want to
tell you, a pastor of a small church usually is
as busy is as busy. I was as busy with
(09:38):
20 people as I am now with over 4000 people.
It's just busy doing different things. When I had 20 people, man,
I was setting up chairs and once in a while
cleaning the bathrooms and and, uh, you know, if anything happened,
I did everything that was there. And so I want
you to make sure that if you ever run into
(09:59):
a pastor of a small church. He deserves as much
honor as a pastor of a large church. Amen. We
give honor where honor is due to the shepherding that's there.
It's really important. Never despise. The Apostle Paul is talking
about spiritual leaders and saying, this is what's part of
spiritual leaders. And I don't believe he's only talking about
(10:20):
pastors in this passage. I believe he's talking about anyone
that diligently shepherds people. We have a lot of home
group leaders here that take a group of ten people,
and they love on them. They struck them in the
word visit. Pray for them, care for them. The church
has a lot of different leaders that arise up, people
(10:41):
that are raising up to shepherd, to watch, to care
for people, to love on people. People that are gifted,
people that are called, people that take seriously the studying
of the word. And what Paul is saying is that
when there are spiritual leaders among you, their responsibilities to
work hard to have a shepherd's heart as they care
(11:02):
for people and to give instruction. Now, here's the thing
about spiritual leadership. Do you realize that the Bible says
that whoever teaches the word will be judged more severely?
That those that teach the word will come under greater judgment? Why?
Because there's a greater expectation that if you're teaching the word,
you better know the word. Now think about that often
(11:27):
that I know that my life will be looked at
with a greater magnifying glass than a lot of people,
because I teach the word. And so as I teach
the word, if I teach the word wrongly, I can
influence a lot of people wrongly. I take it very
seriously the right teaching of the word. Some people think that, well,
(11:49):
you know, you're gifted of God, so you just kind
of show up and throw the Bible open and just
tell stories on Sunday and just kind of all flows
in there and just no, no, no, no. You know,
the Bible says, be diligent in preparing rightly. Divide the
word of truth. Every week, in preparation for the word,
I spend hours in the word preparing. Looking at commentaries.
(12:17):
Looking at the original Greek that it was written in.
Looking at the Hebrew. Praying for it. No, I don't
bore you with all the Hebrew and the Greek and commentaries,
because I know most people that's they're not concerned about
all the technical things. But I want to make sure
that I diligently study and know. And there's never a
(12:39):
Sunday that I get up that I haven't spent hours studying, looking.
Unless God changes it at the last minute, and occasionally
that will happen. But that's very rare. And the reason
I do that is I want to be diligent with
the word. I want to make sure that if I
teach the word, I'm teaching it well and right and diligently,
(13:01):
because I know that one day I will be held
accountable for. Amen.
S1 (13:08):
Leading by serving. That's the takeaway of today's message so
far from our series called defiance. You're listening to pastor
Mark Jobe, and this is Moody Presents. You know, to
hear this message again or to listen to any of
Mark's previous programs in our growing collection, you can visit
us online anytime at Moody Presents Dot Moody presents.org. And
(13:31):
while you're online, if you've got a question you'd like
Mark to answer, or if you'd like to connect with
someone on our team, be sure to drop us a
note and just let us know. Our email address is
moody presents. That's moody presents. Moody. What do you say
we jump back into the second half of our study?
(13:52):
There's so much more to learn about keeping your relationship
on course for his coming. Here again is Mark Jobe. Job.
S2 (14:04):
He says, but as a congregation, as the people of God.
Spiritual leaders, whether they be pastors or evangelists or teachers
or other leaders that are teaching the word, he says.
The attitude that we are to have towards them needs
to be an attitude of. Notice what he says. He says,
we ask you, he says, to appreciate those who diligently.
(14:26):
That word appreciate is sometimes translated, respected or acknowledged. The
idea is to honor, to hold in high value those
that labor among you. And then he also uses the
word to esteem them very highly in love. Notice what
he says in verse 13 and that. And that you
(14:47):
esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
To esteem means to honor them highly in love because
of their work. Listen, I want to tell you something.
If you go to a home Bible study here, a
small group, and you show up and there's ten people,
and someone's poured over a study of the word, and
(15:07):
they spent a couple hours during the week after working
40 hours at their job. And, and they study to
prepare a Bible study to really diligently look and pray
for you. Then, you know, part of what you do
is you show up in time. You're you're attentive to
what's going on, why you're esteeming the work that they've
(15:28):
put in to bless you and help you grow. Praise
God for our Sunday school teachers. Yeah, that. Prepare a
lesson to teach our kids. The point being, when someone
is laboring for others to help people grow, then honor
them for it. Give them proper respect for it. Because
(15:50):
these are teachers that are helping us grow in the
things of God. And so therefore we honor them. Um,
anybody that's ever led knows it's a lot of work
to lead. Once in a while I'll run into a young,
young pastor, a young man that's wanting to feels like
they have a call of God, or a young woman
feels like they have a call of God. And, you know,
(16:10):
they think that really it's just preaching on Sunday, and
they don't understand the weight of carrying the people's lives
and feeling the responsibility of people's lives. And I think
every good spiritual leader understands. They feel responsible for the
(16:31):
people that they lead. I've seen our pastoral team weep
and cry over people that have fallen away. I've seen
people struggle and wrestle through couples that are having marital
difficulty and meet with them and and wrestle through the
challenges of it. I've seen people under burdens. I've seen
(16:51):
pastors crash and burn in depression because they're carrying the
weight of so many people. I've seen pastors that have
quit the ministry. There's a lot of pastors that quit
the ministry. You may not be aware of that. They
tell us that pastors typically switch churches every four years.
Associate pastors every two and a half years. Youth pastors
(17:13):
every 18 months. I read recently that over half of
the pastors that start in ministry get out of ministry,
and their wives were surveyed, and a good 70% of
their wives were unhappy that their that their husbands were
in ministry because the pressure of it. Now I want
(17:34):
to say, thankfully, I don't feel that way. Neither does
my wife feel that way. Seriously, I don't feel that way.
I'm really happy I'm in ministry. And I really I
think part of it is I'm part of an incredible team.
I've always understood I don't want to do this alone.
I want to do it with a team. I want
to do it with people. I feel like we have
(17:56):
an incredible church that's moving forward, doing things for God.
But I want to tell you that that there's something
about praying. And I believe I have a prayer support
around me that really keeps me encouraged as well. But
the Bible talks about that, that those that minister and
labor to encourage them, hold them in high esteem. And
(18:16):
by the way, I feel like this church does, and
I have no complaints about the esteem that this church
has for myself, the pastors, the pastoral team there. And
I feel very honored by this church in so many ways.
And so I want to commend you on that front.
It tells us in first Timothy chapter five verse 17,
the elders who direct the affairs of the church well
(18:36):
are worthy of double honors, especially those who work in
preaching and teaching the word. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17,
it says, obey your leaders and submit to their authority.
They keep watch over you as men who must give account.
This verse has haunted me at times because it says,
the leaders among you, they keep watch over you as
(19:00):
men who must give account. Account for what? Account for
how they've led. Account for the lives that they oversee.
We recently had to step a pastor down because of
the condition of his marriage. It was a super difficult,
difficult season because I really, really love this brother and
(19:25):
his wife really did. In fact, I led him to Christ.
Psalm grow, Psalm, teach the word, do an incredible job.
But he had to step down because his marriage was
not doing well. Issues had come up. They separated. If
it was anybody else, he could have stayed at his
(19:46):
quote unquote job. But you see, the pastor, it's different.
It's not just about what you do. And he was
still preaching and still ministering and doing a great job,
even though it was really difficult. But here's the thing
about a pastor. You lead out of integrity and you
have to lead out of example. And if your marriage
falls apart and you're you're on the way to divorce court,
(20:08):
you cannot continue to be a model of what it
means to be a healthy marriage. If your own household
is falling apart, it matters to God and it should
matter to the church. So pray for the pastors. Pray
for spiritual leaders because I believe that they get hit
(20:33):
sometimes at the front more than anybody else gets hit.
Hebrews 13 says, obey them so their work will be
a joy, not a burden for that, for that would
be no advantage to you. And here's what I always say.
The Bible never calls for blind obedience to leaders. Never.
And the church should never feel like some sort of
(20:55):
sanctified little dictatorship. It should never work that way. If
the church just like a husband, you may be called
to lead your household. But if you're leading your household right,
you're not thumping your chest, calling yourself the head, and
barking out orders for everybody to submit. That's a household
out of control. If you have to, as the husband,
(21:18):
as the leader of the household, if you have to
bang your chest and say, I'm the head, I'm the head,
I'm the head. Everybody submit. Then there's something wrong there already.
Good leaders are servant leaders. They don't have to thump
their chest and say obey, but they lead with integrity
and love. So you want to follow them because you say,
I know they love me, and I know that they
(21:39):
want the best for me. And so I want to
follow after this man's leader. Every wife wants a man
like that. Amen. Wives. Amen. Amen. And spiritual leadership is
the same. And I always tell people. Listen, if you
lose confidence in the in the leadership of the church
that you're at, and you can't follow and believe that
(22:02):
there's integrity there, and you drag your feet and want
to oppose everything that's there. And you say, I can't
trust them, then it's time for you to leave that church.
Because if there's no belief in integrity, what you don't
want is people to have to drag you all that.
No one wants to have to drag people behind them
all the time. And so Paul's talking to this congregation
(22:25):
about being ready for the coming of Christ, and he's
talking to them about the relationship with the leaders that
they have and their spiritual covering. And then he goes
on and the second thing that he tells him is
this live ready? So make peace with one another. Verse 13.
Live in peace with one another. How many of you
know to live in peace is sometimes hard, because people
(22:46):
around you have their war paint on. You show up
at work and there's some people that just want to
fight you. There's people in your household. Sometimes they just
want to fight you. But but Jesus, through Paul and
the Holy Spirit says, live at peace with one another.
You can't control people's attitudes towards you, but you can
(23:07):
make right whatever you need to make right towards them.
You can't make them try to love you, but you
can sure clean out your heart towards any bitterness, resentment,
or anger you have towards them. You cannot control other people,
but you can control your response that you have towards
other people.
S1 (23:31):
You're listening to Moody Presents with pastor Mark Jobe. Hey,
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(23:53):
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(24:15):
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(24:38):
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(25:01):
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and next week our Defiance series continues when pastor Mark
shows us how to keep your relationship on course for
(25:22):
Jesus coming. That's next week on Moody Presents with Mark Jobe.
Moody presents is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute.
How to deal with our relationships in light of Christ's return.
That's next on Moody Presents.
S2 (00:07):
When someone is laboring for others to help people grow,
honor them for it. Give them proper respect for it,
because these are teachers that are helping us grow in
the things of God. And so therefore we honor them.
Anybody that's ever led knows it's a lot of work
to lead.
S1 (00:25):
Welcome to Moody Presents with Mark Jobe, president of Moody
Bible Institute and the senior pastor of New Life Community
Church in Chicago. I'm John Gager, and maybe you've noticed
some people believe that getting ready for the end of
the world means hunkering down in a bunker and stockpiling
it with food and supplies. And then there are others
(00:46):
who think they need to arm themselves against invaders. Pastor
Mark Jobe has stopped by. And I have to ask you, Mark.
Shouldn't believers take a maybe different approach here?
S3 (00:56):
Over the years, I've heard people and gotten emails and
watch things on TV where people are being told sell
all you have, go to a mountain, wait for the coming,
be a prepper. But you know, the Apostle Paul actually
has an absolutely different approach to this. And he basically says,
as you prepare for the coming, work hard at your job.
(01:19):
He talks about our relationships towards others, including our relationships
towards leaders in the church especially. Yes, I want to
just take a moment to just insert this in there.
I want to encourage you to reach out to your pastor,
your leaders, and just encourage them. As you listen to
this message, you'll see the importance of that.
S1 (01:40):
All right. Sounds like there's a lot to process in
today's message that Mark has titled Keeping Your Relationship on
Course for His coming. And it begins right now.
S2 (01:51):
There are only a couple of things that endure forever.
One is the Word of God. And secondly, people, uh,
people endure forever. Now, they don't live forever in this
physical body, but their soul lives forever. And so you
have to know and learn and discover how to make
sure that your relationships with people continue to be clean.
(02:15):
Short accounts. Forgiveness flows fast. You fix things quickly because
none of us want to stand before God with a
whole long laundry list of people that we should have
made things right with, but we never did. How about it?
It tells us in first Thessalonians chapter five, verse 12,
(02:36):
but we request you, brethren, that you appreciate those who
diligently labor among you and have charge over you in
the Lord, and give you instruction, and that you esteem
them very highly in love because of their work. Live
in peace with one another. We urge you, brethren, admonish
(02:58):
the unruly. Encourage the fainthearted. Help the weak. Be patient
with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil
for evil. But always seek after that which is good
for one another and for all people. The Word of God.
(03:20):
There are three relationships that the Apostle Paul deals with
in preparing us for his return. He talks, first of
all about the leaders amongst us, our relationship with leaders,
especially spiritual leaders. So if you're taking notes today, I
want you to write this down. We're talking about getting
(03:40):
our relationships ready, number one. Live ready. So appreciate the
spiritual leaders among you. Notice that he says in verse 12,
he's talking to the Thessalonians. And there were some emerging
leaders among them. And he says, I request you, entreat you,
(04:01):
beg of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently
labor among you. Now this was a young church. They were.
They all started off as peers, but there were some
of them that were excelling in their spiritual leadership more
than others, and they were becoming leaders in the church.
(04:21):
And there's a well, there was a tendency in the
church to look at some of the people that were
becoming leaders and said, hey, who died and made you boss?
I mean, why do I need to listen to you?
And as the church was growing and emerging, the Apostle
Paul is saying that some within the church will begin
(04:43):
to emerge as spiritual leaders with discernment, with gifting. There'll
be some that are empowered and gifted by God to lead. Now,
I believe that all of us have a capacity to
lead to one level or another, but there are certain
individuals that will be empowered to lead groups of people
(05:05):
that are gifted in a certain way to lead, to
instruct that that have a calling of God, a gifting
of God that allows them to lead other people as
those people emerge and rise. The Bible talks about uses
the word elders. That doesn't mean that you have to
be old, but it means that there's a degree of
(05:26):
spiritual maturity that's given to your life calling and gifting
that empowers you to be able to lead, oversee people,
shepherd and care for them. Their feet kicked up and
bark out commands to everybody. That may be the way
it works in the world. But Jesus said, if you
want to be great in God's kingdom, learn to be
(05:48):
the servant of all. You see, biblical leadership is servant leadership.
It means that people serve and watch out and care.
And within the church, within ministry, within the spiritual lives.
There's people that will be called to to lead. And
he says, brethren, you need to appreciate those who diligently
(06:10):
labor among you. So there's a couple of things that
Paul has as expectation for those that rise up to lead.
Number one, that they work hard. He says, we request
that you appreciate those who diligently labor. They they work
hard at spiritual matters, hard at watching over people's lives,
(06:31):
hard at helping people grow, investing, mentoring, instructing, teaching, exhorting, rebuking,
watching over the care and soul of people's lives. That
this is hard work. And he says, secondly, that they
have charge over you. In other words, they lead. They're
like shepherds that watch over a group of people. Anybody
(06:54):
here who's a parent understands that to raise healthy, strong children,
It's a lot of work, isn't it? Because you're there,
wanting them to grow up, to be all that God
has called them to be. And so you want to
teach them, train them, educate them, show them how to
really make it in life. And it's a lot of work.
(07:18):
And someone may say, well, it must be easy being
the parent because you're the boss. And everybody's a parent says, ha!
Do you realize that being a parent, I read somewhere
that by the time your child is 20 some years old,
especially if they went to college, that it cost the
average American about $350,000 to raise a kid? They're expensive.
(07:49):
And if you you've gone into parenting, you know, the
work and the the just the training, and you take
a piece of your heart and every child you have,
you pour into their heart. And oh, you may be
the leader of the household, but it's not. You're the leader,
you're the parent, and it's a calling that you have.
(08:12):
And so Paul says, God raised some among you. They
diligently labor, they lead in the Lord, and they give
you instructions. So spiritual leaders, they work hard. They have charge.
They give you instruction. I'll never forget when I first started, uh, pastoring,
I was 21 years old. The church was really, really small, uh,
(08:34):
under 20 people. And I remember I would get people
asking me all the time, they would find out that
I was a pastor and they'd say, uh, but do
you have a real job? Like, what do you do
all day? Seriously? You work on Sunday, right? I mean,
what do you do throughout the week? I mean, sitting
(08:55):
in an office and read concordances or I don't understand,
I remember it would make me so mad because the
labor was so intense and night and day we were
having Bible studies and mentoring and calling people and working
with people and discipling and dealing with problems. And people
would say, so, man, you must have a lot of
time to play golf and stuff, right? I mean, what
(09:16):
do you do? And it's funny, to be honest with you.
And I want I want to just just throw this
word out to you because it's been many, many years
since people view it that way. But I want to
tell you, a pastor of a small church usually is
as busy is as busy. I was as busy with
(09:38):
20 people as I am now with over 4000 people.
It's just busy doing different things. When I had 20 people, man,
I was setting up chairs and once in a while
cleaning the bathrooms and and, uh, you know, if anything happened,
I did everything that was there. And so I want
you to make sure that if you ever run into
(09:59):
a pastor of a small church. He deserves as much
honor as a pastor of a large church. Amen. We
give honor where honor is due to the shepherding that's there.
It's really important. Never despise. The Apostle Paul is talking
about spiritual leaders and saying, this is what's part of
spiritual leaders. And I don't believe he's only talking about
(10:20):
pastors in this passage. I believe he's talking about anyone
that diligently shepherds people. We have a lot of home
group leaders here that take a group of ten people,
and they love on them. They struck them in the
word visit. Pray for them, care for them. The church
has a lot of different leaders that arise up, people
(10:41):
that are raising up to shepherd, to watch, to care
for people, to love on people. People that are gifted,
people that are called, people that take seriously the studying
of the word. And what Paul is saying is that
when there are spiritual leaders among you, their responsibilities to
work hard to have a shepherd's heart as they care
(11:02):
for people and to give instruction. Now, here's the thing
about spiritual leadership. Do you realize that the Bible says
that whoever teaches the word will be judged more severely?
That those that teach the word will come under greater judgment? Why?
Because there's a greater expectation that if you're teaching the word,
you better know the word. Now think about that often
(11:27):
that I know that my life will be looked at
with a greater magnifying glass than a lot of people,
because I teach the word. And so as I teach
the word, if I teach the word wrongly, I can
influence a lot of people wrongly. I take it very
seriously the right teaching of the word. Some people think that, well,
(11:49):
you know, you're gifted of God, so you just kind
of show up and throw the Bible open and just
tell stories on Sunday and just kind of all flows
in there and just no, no, no, no. You know,
the Bible says, be diligent in preparing rightly. Divide the
word of truth. Every week, in preparation for the word,
I spend hours in the word preparing. Looking at commentaries.
(12:17):
Looking at the original Greek that it was written in.
Looking at the Hebrew. Praying for it. No, I don't
bore you with all the Hebrew and the Greek and commentaries,
because I know most people that's they're not concerned about
all the technical things. But I want to make sure
that I diligently study and know. And there's never a
(12:39):
Sunday that I get up that I haven't spent hours studying, looking.
Unless God changes it at the last minute, and occasionally
that will happen. But that's very rare. And the reason
I do that is I want to be diligent with
the word. I want to make sure that if I
teach the word, I'm teaching it well and right and diligently,
(13:01):
because I know that one day I will be held
accountable for. Amen.
S1 (13:08):
Leading by serving. That's the takeaway of today's message so
far from our series called defiance. You're listening to pastor
Mark Jobe, and this is Moody Presents. You know, to
hear this message again or to listen to any of
Mark's previous programs in our growing collection, you can visit
us online anytime at Moody Presents Dot Moody presents.org. And
(13:31):
while you're online, if you've got a question you'd like
Mark to answer, or if you'd like to connect with
someone on our team, be sure to drop us a
note and just let us know. Our email address is
moody presents. That's moody presents. Moody. What do you say
we jump back into the second half of our study?
(13:52):
There's so much more to learn about keeping your relationship
on course for his coming. Here again is Mark Jobe. Job.
S2 (14:04):
He says, but as a congregation, as the people of God.
Spiritual leaders, whether they be pastors or evangelists or teachers
or other leaders that are teaching the word, he says.
The attitude that we are to have towards them needs
to be an attitude of. Notice what he says. He says,
we ask you, he says, to appreciate those who diligently.
(14:26):
That word appreciate is sometimes translated, respected or acknowledged. The
idea is to honor, to hold in high value those
that labor among you. And then he also uses the
word to esteem them very highly in love. Notice what
he says in verse 13 and that. And that you
(14:47):
esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
To esteem means to honor them highly in love because
of their work. Listen, I want to tell you something.
If you go to a home Bible study here, a
small group, and you show up and there's ten people,
and someone's poured over a study of the word, and
(15:07):
they spent a couple hours during the week after working
40 hours at their job. And, and they study to
prepare a Bible study to really diligently look and pray
for you. Then, you know, part of what you do
is you show up in time. You're you're attentive to
what's going on, why you're esteeming the work that they've
(15:28):
put in to bless you and help you grow. Praise
God for our Sunday school teachers. Yeah, that. Prepare a
lesson to teach our kids. The point being, when someone
is laboring for others to help people grow, then honor
them for it. Give them proper respect for it. Because
(15:50):
these are teachers that are helping us grow in the
things of God. And so therefore we honor them. Um,
anybody that's ever led knows it's a lot of work
to lead. Once in a while I'll run into a young,
young pastor, a young man that's wanting to feels like
they have a call of God, or a young woman
feels like they have a call of God. And, you know,
(16:10):
they think that really it's just preaching on Sunday, and
they don't understand the weight of carrying the people's lives
and feeling the responsibility of people's lives. And I think
every good spiritual leader understands. They feel responsible for the
(16:31):
people that they lead. I've seen our pastoral team weep
and cry over people that have fallen away. I've seen
people struggle and wrestle through couples that are having marital
difficulty and meet with them and and wrestle through the
challenges of it. I've seen people under burdens. I've seen
(16:51):
pastors crash and burn in depression because they're carrying the
weight of so many people. I've seen pastors that have
quit the ministry. There's a lot of pastors that quit
the ministry. You may not be aware of that. They
tell us that pastors typically switch churches every four years.
Associate pastors every two and a half years. Youth pastors
(17:13):
every 18 months. I read recently that over half of
the pastors that start in ministry get out of ministry,
and their wives were surveyed, and a good 70% of
their wives were unhappy that their that their husbands were
in ministry because the pressure of it. Now I want
(17:34):
to say, thankfully, I don't feel that way. Neither does
my wife feel that way. Seriously, I don't feel that way.
I'm really happy I'm in ministry. And I really I
think part of it is I'm part of an incredible team.
I've always understood I don't want to do this alone.
I want to do it with a team. I want
to do it with people. I feel like we have
(17:56):
an incredible church that's moving forward, doing things for God.
But I want to tell you that that there's something
about praying. And I believe I have a prayer support
around me that really keeps me encouraged as well. But
the Bible talks about that, that those that minister and
labor to encourage them, hold them in high esteem. And
(18:16):
by the way, I feel like this church does, and
I have no complaints about the esteem that this church
has for myself, the pastors, the pastoral team there. And
I feel very honored by this church in so many ways.
And so I want to commend you on that front.
It tells us in first Timothy chapter five verse 17,
the elders who direct the affairs of the church well
(18:36):
are worthy of double honors, especially those who work in
preaching and teaching the word. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17,
it says, obey your leaders and submit to their authority.
They keep watch over you as men who must give account.
This verse has haunted me at times because it says,
the leaders among you, they keep watch over you as
(19:00):
men who must give account. Account for what? Account for
how they've led. Account for the lives that they oversee.
We recently had to step a pastor down because of
the condition of his marriage. It was a super difficult,
difficult season because I really, really love this brother and
(19:25):
his wife really did. In fact, I led him to Christ.
Psalm grow, Psalm, teach the word, do an incredible job.
But he had to step down because his marriage was
not doing well. Issues had come up. They separated. If
it was anybody else, he could have stayed at his
(19:46):
quote unquote job. But you see, the pastor, it's different.
It's not just about what you do. And he was
still preaching and still ministering and doing a great job,
even though it was really difficult. But here's the thing
about a pastor. You lead out of integrity and you
have to lead out of example. And if your marriage
falls apart and you're you're on the way to divorce court,
(20:08):
you cannot continue to be a model of what it
means to be a healthy marriage. If your own household
is falling apart, it matters to God and it should
matter to the church. So pray for the pastors. Pray
for spiritual leaders because I believe that they get hit
(20:33):
sometimes at the front more than anybody else gets hit.
Hebrews 13 says, obey them so their work will be
a joy, not a burden for that, for that would
be no advantage to you. And here's what I always say.
The Bible never calls for blind obedience to leaders. Never.
And the church should never feel like some sort of
(20:55):
sanctified little dictatorship. It should never work that way. If
the church just like a husband, you may be called
to lead your household. But if you're leading your household right,
you're not thumping your chest, calling yourself the head, and
barking out orders for everybody to submit. That's a household
out of control. If you have to, as the husband,
(21:18):
as the leader of the household, if you have to
bang your chest and say, I'm the head, I'm the head,
I'm the head. Everybody submit. Then there's something wrong there already.
Good leaders are servant leaders. They don't have to thump
their chest and say obey, but they lead with integrity
and love. So you want to follow them because you say,
I know they love me, and I know that they
(21:39):
want the best for me. And so I want to
follow after this man's leader. Every wife wants a man
like that. Amen. Wives. Amen. Amen. And spiritual leadership is
the same. And I always tell people. Listen, if you
lose confidence in the in the leadership of the church
that you're at, and you can't follow and believe that
(22:02):
there's integrity there, and you drag your feet and want
to oppose everything that's there. And you say, I can't
trust them, then it's time for you to leave that church.
Because if there's no belief in integrity, what you don't
want is people to have to drag you all that.
No one wants to have to drag people behind them
all the time. And so Paul's talking to this congregation
(22:25):
about being ready for the coming of Christ, and he's
talking to them about the relationship with the leaders that
they have and their spiritual covering. And then he goes
on and the second thing that he tells him is
this live ready? So make peace with one another. Verse 13.
Live in peace with one another. How many of you
know to live in peace is sometimes hard, because people
(22:46):
around you have their war paint on. You show up
at work and there's some people that just want to
fight you. There's people in your household. Sometimes they just
want to fight you. But but Jesus, through Paul and
the Holy Spirit says, live at peace with one another.
You can't control people's attitudes towards you, but you can
(23:07):
make right whatever you need to make right towards them.
You can't make them try to love you, but you
can sure clean out your heart towards any bitterness, resentment,
or anger you have towards them. You cannot control other people,
but you can control your response that you have towards
other people.
S1 (23:31):
You're listening to Moody Presents with pastor Mark Jobe. Hey,
did you know that there's a variety of ways that
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in part by the generous financial gifts of listeners like
(23:53):
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(24:15):
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(24:38):
And today when you give a gift of any amount
to support Moody Presents, we'll say thanks by sending you
a copy of our latest Moody Presents resource. It's called
Your Future Self Will. Thank you. Secrets to Self-control from
the Bible and Brain Science. Now you want this book?
Trust me, because it will empower you and encourage you
to establish godly habits to develop more self-control. And boy,
(25:01):
that's a big deal with our God. I don't know
anybody who doesn't want that, so get your copy of
Your Future self will thank you for a gift of
any amount online at Moody Presents. Moody presents. I'm John Gieger,
and next week our Defiance series continues when pastor Mark
shows us how to keep your relationship on course for
(25:22):
Jesus coming. That's next week on Moody Presents with Mark Jobe.
Moody presents is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute.
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