Pastoral Clarity in a World of Confusion
Jeff Purswell

The following is an edited transcript of the audio

As always in any given year, no greater privilege than speaking to this gathering at this conference, to these men and women. Never more so than this year because you are the pastors I know the most. You're the pastors I respect the most, and because we are the pastors God has joined together to serve our savior together, that is a precious reality. It's a precious reality. As I consider that and stand with you all here, I'm just very grateful for what God's given us and all of that makes this message even more significant for me and I think urgent for us. This is going to be different than last night. I'll just tell you now.

Because I could never do what he did last night. Here's why. If you're a pastor with a pulse, then you are familiar with constant regular appeals to the current crisis in evangelicalism. The words even in the subtitle of the book that we passed out, books and blogs, and lectures, lament and seek to diagnose this crisis, although few would agree just what the crisis is. You notice that? For some, it's a cultural crisis. For some, it's a political crisis, left or right. For some, it's a racial crisis, for some, it's a gender crisis, a crisis in social and economic inequality. The crisis in worship, crisis in marriage, in the family, crisis in evangelism. It's a crisis, but an article that came across my desk just last week, and this morning, it made it I believe to the online version of The Wall Street Journal, hints at what may be most concerning. The article was entitled "Generational Divide Among Evangelicals Shakes Prominent Seminary." Subtitle - "Seminary tries to heal rifts after scandal to unite students and donors with widely divergent views." Now, it's not necessary to name the seminary or detail of the scandal, but one line in particularly caught my attention. The new president of the seminary said this about his vision for the future. "I want people to think ..." Meaning, about the seminary, "I want people to think more like Southwest Airlines, a happy place, a national brand." Now, I have no reason to doubt this man's integrity or his orthodoxy. I do not and he certainly inherited a complex mess of a situation, but it did make me wonder. This is a seminary. What is going to drive the theological education offered there? What will be the effect on the churches that those students will one day serve? Will it be an uncompromising devotion to scriptural authority or will it be an accommodation of as many perspectives and agendas as possible?

I'm not here this morning to explore all of that or to mediate the disputes about what the crisis is. Here's what's relevant for our purposes this morning. In this evangelical landscape with all of its competing voices and personalities and passions and conflicts, all this noise, there's something happening that's not making the headlines. The role and the job description of a pastor is becoming less and less clear day by day, controversy by controversy, year by year. The trajectories are not encouraging and everywhere you look, theologically there is a softening. There is a diminishing, even an altering of biblical and theological conviction.

Now, here's what that means for us as pastors, pastors in Sovereign Grace, pastors who are leading your local church, who are caring for the church, there's few things that we need - There's a lot of things we need, we needed last night - but there's few things that we need more than clarity, biblical clarity as to our identity as pastors, and our labors as pastors. For clarity on such issues is increasingly blurry and let me make a risky prediction. It's only going to grow more controversial. Now, there's few better places to gain clarity than Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Please turn there with me. In chapters 3 and 4, we have the most concentrated teaching on pastoral ministry and on leadership in the entire New Testament and this morning, I want to focus on chapter 3 verses 5 to 17. This is a remarkable chapter and the context is instructive for us. I'm not just lifting teaching, the context is particularly important for us. Paul is actually and you guys will know this. He is continuing his famous argument about division in the church that began in chapter 1 and he does an amazing thing.

The issue does not appear in substance to be a theological one. In other words, it's not as if there are factions aligning with different sides of theological arguments. It's not a theological division, but what Paul does as he does throughout this letter is he takes an issue, which is not explicitly theological, and he holds it up to the light of the gospel and diagnosis it theologically. Let me just commend this letter. I know you love this letter. Let me just commend this letter to you, the entire letter. It's just a workshop in pastoral discernment, but that's what he does with the issue of the divisions.

In chapters 1 and 2, Paul works the theological ground by exploring the gospel in particular. He explores the Christ-exalting, sinner-humbling, wisdom-revealing nature of the gospel, those dimensions of the gospel which should be speaking to these factions; and then chapter 3, he turns to them. Look within chapter 3 verses 1 to 4, "But I brothers could not address you as spiritual people." Which is what they fancied themselves, "But as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food for you were not ready for and even now you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, 'I follow Paul.' And another, 'I follow Apollos', are you not being merely human?"

Having laid the theological ground of the gospel, Paul turns to them and reveals that their factions fueled by jealousy and strife revealed a fundamental flaw. This wasn't a horizontal problem. They weren't merely divided. They had distorted the very gospel that saved them, instead of the gospel humbling them and rebuking their arrogance and chasing their ambition, it became a vehicle for their own pride. Leaders were no longer heralds of a glorious gospel, they were embodiments of their own sinful, culturally informed preferences. That's fundamentally the backstory, that's what's going on in Corinth. The gospel was being accommodated to the culture.

It was being thought of, and applied in terms consistent with cultural standards and values, in terms dictated by the culture. That's the ground Paul must clear before he addresses leadership, he takes them back to first principles and this really is going to be a first principles sermon. He turns in verse 5 to address leadership, to address pastors, to address you, to address me and he does so in light of that theological grounding. In other words, in light of the gospel given, the gospel of Christ and him crucified, the very wisdom of God, the power of God for salvation, what does leadership look like? What does pastoral ministry look like? Well, here's Paul's answer to the Corinthians, his answer to pastors everywhere, his answer to all of us here this morning. Over against, we have to be discerning of these things, over against cultural values, and pressures and agendas, in the midst of a confused and increasingly compromised evangelical landscape, this is the clarity that Paul delivers to pastors to guide us, to protect us, maybe even to correct us.

Simply, I'd put it this way, it is the gospel alone that informs a pastor's identity and governs a pastor's labor. We're gospel-centered pastors. We're all just nodding, but let me say it again. It's the gospel alone which informs a pastor's identity and governs a pastor's labor. It's simple, but it is fundamental. It is perennially relevant. It's never been more relevant. Brothers, here's what we have to remember by its very nature, it is a mandate that requires not a nod, not a slogan, not a paper. It requires ongoing and continual reflection and examination and evaluation. The gospel isn't, you know this but I'm going to say it to us again, the gospel isn't merely the message we proclaim, it is the reality that shapes our existence.

You see, the gospel assumes, the gospel embodies certain realities, realities about God, realities about humanity, realities about life, realities about pastoral ministry. This must become - this framework - must become instinctual for us. It must inform our discernment, it needs to become reflex for us, regardless of what happens in culture, or politics, or social media, or as one man called it, Big Eva. The gospel is the only authoritative and reliable measure for our lives and our labors. Not what someone says about the gospel, not what a conference says about the gospel, but what the gospel is and the mandate it gives us. It’s like you know what a plumb line is? It's like a giant plumb line for a pastor.

To ensure that everything is properly aligned. The walls straight, properly grounded, it clarifies who we are and what we do. That, I believe, is Paul's main burden here. That that gospel and that gospel alone informs our identity and governs our labor. And right here, I love this, right here before our eyes in chapter3, we see Paul applying the gospel to pastoral ministry, speaking to our identity as pastors, addressing our labors as pastors, giving us not a slogan for a website, but an imperative, a daily measure for our lives and our labors.

Look with me in 1 Corinthians 3. We're going to read verses 5 to 17. "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it, let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire. The fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple."

In Paul's instruction here, I think we can see at least four marks of a faithful pastor. This is what it looks like when our identity is informed by the gospel and our labor is governed by the gospel. Before we just launch off into points, let me just say friends, let's not view this in the abstract. This could not be more relevant for us. Our cultural moment makes them more relevant for us and these are frightening verses, but they're hope-giving verses. These verses, the truth here if embraced , will position us to endure in pastoral ministry to remain faithful in pastoral ministry.

There's good news. Mark number one of a faithful pastor in light of the gospel. Number one, he is ever aware of his dependence on God. He is ever aware of his dependence on God. Again, simple, duh, but indispensable. We never mature out of this. We never educate ourselves out of this. In fact, the more experience you gain, the more education you have, the more you need this and I believe our older pastors here are no doubt aware of this. In verse 5, Paul moves from their quarrels to their perception of leaders. Look at verse 5a, "What then is Apollos? What is Paul?" And to render the conjunction there in verse five, we might translate this, "What is Apollos really? What after all is Paul?" That's sort of the tone.

Then Paul lays out, begins to lay out, his theology of leadership, uses two metaphors, uses an agricultural metaphor in verses 5 to 9, an architectural metaphor in verses 10 to 15. These metaphors make different points. I'm not going to unpack all of the points, but perhaps foremost is this. Different workers have different tasks, but any credit for growth is reserved exclusively for God. That's the thrust. Different workers have different tasks, but any credit for any growth is reserved exclusively for God. People planted, yes, people watered, yes, but two times in the text, you heard it when we read it in verse 6, verse 7, God gave the growth, God gives the growth. God uses means, yes, God calls pastors, yes, but there was only one who gives the growth. There was only one causal power. There was only one eternally existing cause. One source of spiritual life and change and growth and fruitfulness and brothers, it's not you or me.

What are we? What the heck are we? We might paraphrase Paul. Given the realities of the gospel, given the economy of salvation, we are quite simply servants. Servants and as the metaphor unfolds, we see what kind, servants in God's field. We are field hands. Field hands, verse 9 underlines this. We are God's fellow workers which does not mean, and I heard it preached this way one time, It does not mean co- workers with God. Yes, us and God over against you. No. It's a possessive genitive, it's co-workers belonging to God; and the word "God" is emphatic in the text, you might render it "of God we are co- workers."

The pastor is owned by God, the pastor is sent by God, the pastor is working solely from God, the pastor's fruitfulness is exclusively from God. Just feel the self-importance drain from your body which is a great feeling. Happens so rarely for me. Metaphors do double duty. They communicate truth, but they also create a mood. They have an effective force and an atmosphere and this metaphor evokes the dust of the fields, the dirty work of farming. Paul goes blue collar on us here. He transfers the Corinthians perception of leadership from the corridors of power and philosophical spectacle to the menial toil of a farm. By the way, a despised profession in the eyes of Corinthian power brokers. And in so doing, he chastens any illusions of grandeur that we might have.

Where are you deriving your identity? It's a good question for us, isn't it? Your significance as a pastor? We would not be so vulgar would we? Your position? No. Your prominence? Never. Your labor? Maybe. Your fruitfulness? The size of your church? The buzz in your ministry sphere? Or is it from the one who bought you? Who owns you? Who graciously called you despite your sin, and your arrogance, and your ambition and your fear, and your weakness, and your emotional fragility, your sensitivity to criticism, your intimidation by critics? But God called you.

Okay, the last person on earth who should be proud or concerned about his reputation as a pastor. I mean, it's insanity. To do so is to deny the very grace that called you and gifted you and qualified you. Any ability you have from God, any character you have attained from God. The grace that is behind any fruit you've ever born in ministry. Any single sentence in a sermon that was helpful. Hoping there's one here. This room...This affected me. This room, this conference should be filled with the most light-hearted, self-aware, unimpressed with self, grateful, humble, happily dependent people in Orlando. Wouldn't that be great? Disney should not be the happiest place on earth. This conference should be.

What's going on back home? It's not your field. It's not your farm. Any harvest? It's not your labor. Pastoring that way will relieve a thousand burdens and fears and strivings. You know what else? Pastoring that way will invite the presence of God into your life and the power of God into your ministry, and it will ensure like the theme of the conference, it will ensure that God alone will receive the glory.

That's number one. A second characteristic of the faithful pastor who's defined by the gospel. Number two, he is aware of his need for others. Look with me in verse 8, "He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor for we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." I can think of few texts that apply so specifically to pastoral teams. A Pauline knowledge is here a division of labor in gospel ministry. Some plant, some water, but what Paul does is he totally rearranges the comparisons that the Corinthians were making. They think hierarchy. He thinks division of labor. They compare, he equates and it's not just a rebuke. Paul provides discernment, he gives them a glimpse into God's economy, and we as pastors need this insight into God's economy.

He helps them perceive the particular contributions each one made all from God all by grace. That's a critical value for our pastoral teams. If you look out on the history of Sovereign Grace, and I would say the history of most churches, most networks, it's rare for a church to just blow up. Churches don't spontaneously combust. What blows up is pastoral teams. What fractures are elderships. Churches rarely divide where there is a united eldership, especially a united eldership that is leading biblically. When pastors are united, and people will discern whether they are united, when they are united, there is a clear clarion call that fosters trust in a church, that galvanizes a congregation, that reassures a congregation.

If you want health on your pastoral team, Paul's point must be grasped. More than grasped, Paul's point must be celebrated and cherished and valued. Here's the key, verse 8. "He who plants and he who waters are one." The word is "hin". It's neuter which means they fit into a single category. They share the same status. They're working toward the same purpose. Whatever the task, whatever the sphere, whatever the responsibility, from God's point of view, each one is fundamentally a worker in God's field. We don't think that way often. We tend to invest different roles with different values. We honor some more than others. Perhaps we crave some more than others. Perhaps we envy some more than others.

God sees them all equally, values them all equally. On the final day, there will be no senior pastor category, like at the end of the ceremony, best actor at the Oscars. And all the staff guys and the evangelists, the administrators, they come early, Best Sound Editing, acceptance speeches are all cut off by the music. "Get off, get off the stage, senior pastors are coming." It's not going to be that way. Note the phrase back in verse five. "As the Lord assigned to each ..." God not only values each man in each role equally, he's the one who assigned them in the first place. To despise a role is to despise God's choosing. To despise your role is to despise God's choosing. To exalt a role is to exalt something that is not exalted. Comparison is absurd. Rivalry is absurd. Envy is evil, a particular kind of evil. Competition is wicked.

It's a wheat field where we work together. It's not a battlefield where we fight and quarrel. One thing we all have in common here, insignificance. Join the club, it's great, but you know what? Let me say something we should pause and just consider. I'm just a worker in the field. That means I'm in the field. I'm in the field. What am I doing in the field? How did I get to be in the field? With all my pride and with all my self-importance and with all my self-referential, world revolves around me arrogance, how did I get in this field? There are people in my church way more godly than me. "Everyone seems more gifted than me, what am I doing in the field?" Every pastor here should be thinking, "How did I get here?" And if that wonder is decreasing for you as a pastor, then we need to revisit these verses. We need to recalibrate our identity with the gospel.

Well, the effect of this point I think is clear should be humility. Regardless of our sphere or ministry attainment or responsibility, especially our visibility. The flip side of that should also produce contentment. Contentment in a pastor is a beautiful thing that is going to bear much fruit for eternity. Know this, this is not rocket science. It's only when a particular role is invested with superior significance that discontentment in one's own role begins to fester or the comparisons begin to be made, or that ambition begins to take root.

I want to say a word to some of our younger guys. It's fine, it's good, if you sense a call to a role in the future with greater responsibility. Maybe you want to, maybe you feel called to preach. Maybe you feel called to plant a church. It's fine to sense that; it's good to submit that to others. To explore that while you're faithful and content in your present role. It's fine, pray about that. Submit that, but be very clear. It may be a calling, maybe, but it is not superior and if you're called to it, it's no reflection on you because God assigns the roles. Every young guy, every staff guy, I appeal to you, make your senior pastor's life a joy by your contentment and your wonder at even being on the team, even being in the field. That's going to make for happy teams, happy pastors.

But as God so graciously does, lest we lose motivation and think, "Well, it doesn't matter what I do, we're all equal," Paul introduces a staggering reality, the reality of reward. And he's clear about the basis for that reward. Verse 8, "Each one will receive his wages according to his labor." And the individual aspect is stressed in the text, it doesn't come out in your translation, it's literally e"ach one will receive his own reward according to his own labor." That's in the text. What determines that reward? It's not your position. The nature of your toil. In other words, faithfulness. Faithfulness. That determines actually two things. If you look over, take a peek over chapter 4 verse 5, you'll see the other thing that will determine your reward motive.

Chapter 4, verse 5, "Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart," then and he ties motive to reward, "then each one will receive his commendation from God." There it is. Now, sometimes, just to acknowledge what's obvious, sometimes remuneration pay is based on responsibility. You see that in scripture too. Don't you ... 1 Timothy 5, "Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor," which includes pay, "especially those who labor hard in preaching and teaching."

That's a reality, that's legitimate, that's scriptural. But final reward, lasting reward, eternally resounding reward, reward in the eyes of God is not based on responsibility. It's not based on position, it's not based on visibility because all of that is determined by God. It's labor and motive. By the grace of God, by the power of the spirit that's in your control. Wonderful. Labor motive. Faithfulness and devotion to the pleasure of the master. Let us draw zero conclusions about significance based on our gifts, or our responsibility or even the fruit of our labors.

How encouraging to know on that on the last day, God is not going to measure the abundance of your fruit because God gives the growth. He's going to look at the faithfulness of your labors and the purity of your heart and when that posture pervades a pastoral team, there's going to be humility, there's going to be encouragement. There's going to be deference. The only competition on that team will be to outdo one another in showing honor. That's our competition. That's gospel unity.

A third mark of the faithful pastor informed by the gospel. Number three, his ministry is founded upon and informed by the gospel, founded upon and informed by the gospel. Now, we are gospel-centered, our number one shared value. We didn't make that up. There is perhaps no text in the New Testament that more explicitly mandates gospel-centered ministry than this one. I would say this, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that the long-term health of Sovereign Grace - consisting of your churches and the churches we will plant and adopt by the grace of God - It's not much of an exaggeration to say that our long-term health will depend on our giving heed to these five verses.

Now, Paul shifts to the architectural metaphor and with the change, note this, don't just think abstractly, with the change comes a shift in focus from our identity as pastors to our labor as pastors, and more importantly, the shift brings with it an escalation of urgency. Paul's gaze turns now to those currently laboring in Corinth after it, and it turns to you and to me as well. What Paul does here is he presents himself as like a general contractor who's carefully laid a foundation in others and is now building on it. He has sort of subbed-out the rest of the work to subcontractors, the warning the begins in verse 10B. "Let each one take care how he builds upon it.” That might be slightly weak. Take care. Take heed, watch out, carefully consider. Don't just get up and do it. Take care. Because if your work is not up to code, consequences will be devastating. How do we know? Well, it's all about the foundation, the foundation, Paul laid, verse 10, verse 11, was Jesus Christ.

According to the grace of God given to me, verse 10, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds on it for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ, and in the context of earlier chapters that means Christ and Him crucified. It's the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel that is to be, that must be the foundation of the church. As Paul says in chapter 15, Drew alluded to it, it is the only message, the only reality that is of first importance. As Paul says in chapter 1, any other message, or any ministry that obscures that message, it empties the cross of its power. As he says in chapter 2, any cultural accommodation of that message diverts people's faith from God to man. In other words, any ministry not founded upon Christ crucified, risen and reigning is both God-dishonoring and soul- endangering. Lives are at stake here. Eternal destinies are at stake here. We're not messing around. This is not about us.

Once this foundation is laid, the building erected upon it must conform to the pattern of the foundation. That's the sense of the six building materials that Paul lists here. Paul doesn't develop the meaning of these and so we should not allegorize them. There's one main distinction. The last three are combustible. The first three are not. Some leaders build with fireproof material that will withstand fire, others do not. And what makes the difference, what determines whether they're fireproof or not is whether the building materials are based upon, derived from, consistent with the gospel.

Again, the building must conform to the foundation. You can't lay the foundation of the gospel and then add another floor based on spiritual experience or a new wing founded on social concerns or a new auditorium founded upon secular psychology. Pick your own wood, hay, and stubble. Read the headlines and the articles and the blogs with eyes alert to wood, hay and stubble. It doesn't mean we never address other issues, but the question is, are we building with them? Do we address them within the framework of gospel realities? Or do we address them uninformed by the gospel or without reference to the gospel or in a way that marginalizes the gospel, in a way that diminishes Christ's centrality or in a way that underplays Christ's power or in a way that relocates people's hope to something else rather than him?

That shift can be so subtle. A burden that we take on, a good burden, that slowly begins to eclipse the priority of Christ and Him crucified in our minds, and our conversations and our sermons. The passion with which we speak of something begins to exceed our passion for Jesus Christ, and people will perceive what you're passionate about. Don Carson once said, "People don't learn what I teach. They learn what I'm excited about." The hope we place in a strategy to reach people, to change people displaces our confidence in the gospel's power to save and to transform. We must be ever mindful and discerning of the building materials we use and those materials must be consistent throughout the building.

You need to be discerning as a pastoral team. My Sunday meeting, my small groups, my discipleship structures, my single's ministry, my youth ministry - are they all made out of the same stuff? Same materials, same source of hope, same atmosphere of grace, same object of dependence, same ultimate focus, Christ and Him crucified? All this makes clear what's at stake in verses 13 and following. Look at 13 with me. "Each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done."

Now typically, you're aware of this, this is often applied to all Christians. That's not the text intention and I'm doubtful as to whether it's even a secondary application. Maybe. This is about the judgment of the labors of a Christian leader. This is about us and although salvation is not at stake, the gaining or forfeiture of reward is. As pastors, we await a day. Paul calls it, and yes the articles in the text, "the day" is the day when our labors and what we've given ourselves to, there's a day when those labors are going to undergo divine scrutiny. Not scrutiny by other people, not scrutiny by a website, not scrutiny by a publication, not scrutiny by the larger evangelical ... Divine scrutiny. This day clearly played a role, look at his letters, clearly played a large role in Paul's teaching, but more importantly, I believe it played a role in his soul.

It played a role in his prayers and the context again is instructive for us as pastors. Paul, you know what's happening here, Paul is being assessed. Look at chapter 4r, you really see it, Paul is being assessed by Corinth, he's being judged. His integrity and authenticity, his very legitimacy is being scrutinized. That's the context. We can relate. In the face of this Corinthian version of evangelical opprobrium, what does Paul do? Does he get defensive? Does he ring his hands? No, he waxes eschatological. In fact in chapter 4, verse 5, he cautions them, "Don't pronounce judgment before the time, before the day."

Our day is fraught with premature assessments. We inhabit an eco-culture where instant authoritative accusations are lodged and cheered and amplified and shared and tweeted, and pastors, we can fear and tremble and lose sleep and backpedal and accommodate and compromise. When those pressures come, we have to ask ourselves what day am I more aware of? Today or the day? Yesterday or next week when this meeting happens? Or last year, seven years ago or whatever your crisis was?

As we build and as we sit at our desk and prepare sermons, as we counsel, as we sit in elders meetings, and this goes for all of us, doesn't it? Every aspect of life as we serve our families and as we raise our children, as we nurture our little ones, and we parent our teens, we must never lose sight of the day. There's only one day we're living for. Judgments today are clouded at best, of little consequence, and that includes your judgments. That includes your judgments. Your judgments as you come to a pastor's conference and hear glowing reports about the growth of other churches and the fruitfulness and ministries and the joy of this unified church that's been untouched by anything that's ever happened. You'd just be so tempted to say, you make an assessment of yourself and your future and what my church is going to look like next year. The day will reveal. Back to the context, if we have given, if I have given, if you've given attention to personal comfort or ministry results or self-preservation, social manipulation, personal acclaim, but if neglected the gospel, we will suffer great loss.

Saved mercifully, but as if snatched from a fire. Probably recalling the fire that burned Corinth in 146 BC, people knew about this city burning down. As pastors and teachers, this is a reality, this is a verse, this is the truth that should fill us with the fear of God. It's possible. God is gracious, right? But it's also possible to spend your entire life in Christian ministry, laboring in the church and yet build so shoddily that at the judgment you have nothing to show for. Not because you're weak, not because you feel inadequate, that's not what this is talking about, but if you built shoddily and you built selfishly, and you built centered on man rather than Christ, nothing to show for.

Dear God, spare us from that, but why? Because at some point, at some moment, maybe a crisis, or more likely, gradually, imperceptibly, at some point, you shifted the foundation. It's a fearful thing. Let us take care. Watch carefully, evaluate regularly.

Finally, number four, we've moved in this direction already, but a fourth mark of gospel faithfulness. The pastor is aware of divine accountability for his effect on the church. The pastor is aware of divine accountability for his effect on the church. In verses 16 and 17, the building metaphor blossoms and we find a surprise, verse 9, God's building. Now verse 16, do you not know that you are God's temple? And that God's Spirit dwells in you? You see the surprise, the church is not just a building, the church is not just any building, the church is the very temple of God. It's not the individual Christian, Paul is going to make that application to chapter 6. Here, all the pronouns are plural. It's the church as a whole and note, not the universal church, this local church, your local church, the very temple of God on earth. Do not grow accustomed to this language. When you read your Bible, we got to just be affected by the inherent wonder of sentences, recapture the wonder of this language.

It's an astonishing thing for Paul to say. The temple in Jerusalem was still standing. For Jews, it was the central locus of the divine presence on planet Earth. For Paul, it's like, what are you doing? For Paul to transfer that claim to a group, a ramshackle group of predominantly Gentiles living in Greece of all places. It was the Greek Antiochus IV who desecrated the temple in 167 BC and had a pig sacrificed on the altar and rededicated the temple to Zeus. For Paul to transfer that claim from the temple in Jerusalem to this squabbling, immoral group of Greeks, does that strike you? I mean, it's a shattering hermeneutical move and we should be saying, "How can you do that Paul?" Can I do that with my Bible? No. "How can you do that Paul?"

He can do it because the Spirit of God is present in this community. He can do it because it's in churches like this one and yours and mine that praise and worship are rightly offered, the definitive sacrifice having been offered on the cross. He can do it, he must do it because in the New Covenant age, the church is now the divine sanctuary where the living God most fully expresses his presence. Yes, your church, your unimpressive, weak, stumbling church. I doubt it's as bad as Corinth.

As pastors, we must not lose that sense of wonder. We don't want to lose that sense of wonder. That wonder will sustain you. That wonder will protect your heart from bitterness. That wonder will kindle your affections in conflict. That wonder will bolster your faith in baroness. It will compel your labors in weariness whether your church is large or small, or strong or weak or thriving or running on fumes. This is your church. God's holy preserve. Closest thing to the Garden of Eden on earth. The most consequential place on Earth. We hear Spurgeon say it's the dearest place on earth. Yes, it is, but it's much more than that. It's not just dear because we feel it. It's God's very dwelling place on earth, and God will deal severely with anyone and the indefinite pronoun extends this warning beyond leaders to the divisive, to the slanderer, to the internet troll, to anyone who harms her or weakens her, or uses her for their own purposes, or advantages, or self-aggrandizement.

What's most contextually relevant here, especially those who split the church into factions. I tell the guys in the pastor's college every year - there's nothing new about this - I tell them every year, "You become an elder, you join a team, you gain credibility as a leader, you earn people's trust, you better not abuse that. You become dissatisfied, you tread carefully. You do everything you can to maintain that people's loyalty to this pastoral team. Everything you can. You divide this church at your great peril. This is not your playhouse. This is God's temple. Disunity is not just unfortunate. Disunity is desecration. To damage authentic unity of the church is to incur the judgment of God so be careful."

Well, as critical as that warning is and you can't blunt it, you better not blunt it, I better not blunt it. Its intended effect is really a happy one. It is. Paul's hopeful, right? You're supposed to believe that. I'm not just trying to like, "Okay, but whatever. We're good." No, no, no, no, it's a happy point because it is one that will protect us. It's one that will give us hope. If by the grace of God we derive and maintain our identity, our pastoral identity from this text, and if our labors are governed by this text, our future by the grace of God, whatever our culture or critics bring, it's bright.

If we are building with the gospel, when it and it alone is not a slogan on our website, but the foundation of our churches. If it and it alone is the framework for our thinking, if it is the paradigm for our living, if it's the substance of the diet we're providing, if it's the atmosphere of the congregations we're leading, if it's the object to which we're directing other people's hope, if it's the measure of the evaluation of all our ministry, the effect is going to be to align with the theme of this conference, to align our churches with the theme of this conference, to align Sovereign Grace with the theme of this conference - churches that will be a display of the glory of God.

The fruit will be Christians who are mature and sturdy and joyful and grateful and resilient and sacrificial in living, and for us as pastors, though it's all from God, all power, all wisdom, all fruit, all growth, they will be inexplicably a reward. And what a reward? Paul refers to it again in chapter 4 verse 5, "commendation", the word is "epainos." praise. Praise. Praise from God. One word of praise from the master will make every heart ache and every trial and every assault and every tear and every departure and every disappointment, worth it.

You know how that unexpected encouragement note from a grateful person just lifts your soul? Compare that with a word of commendation from Jesus. Take just a moment to anticipate that future. Let it quiet your heart. What would that be like out in the quiet of my office, but in the presence of angels and all the saints of history and you, with all your sin covered, and all your blemishes removed, you are acknowledged and honored with praise from the One who sits on the throne and from the Lamb. The One who's going to disclose the intention of every heart. The One who's going to reveal what really mattered in ministry. You want perspective for the long run? You want motivation to persevere and finish well? One word of praise from the Lamb; there it is. Let's pray.

"Father, thank you, that because of the cross, the fear of God is sweet. Lord, our hands shake, our knees buckle when we consider You the Holy One. When we consider what you have entrusted to us. When we consider what we're responsible for, as Paul says in the next letter, who is sufficient for these things? Lord, we're not, but our sufficiency is of Christ. Hallelujah. Father, may the truths that we've explored, Lord, may they be rekindled. May they come alive, may they be continually functional in our prayers, in our conversations, in our sermons, on our teams, in our families, in our churches. Lord, we place all of our hope in you and what you have promised to do because of Christ, by your spirit all for your glory. That's our hope. In Jesus name, Amen."

Sovereign Grace Churches: Pastors Conference 2019