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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Building A Strong Local Church, Part 3 | Edwin Anderson | Holy Ghost Meetings 2021 | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
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Glory to God. Hallelujah. Don't you love the Lord? Don't you love the word of God? Don't you love the New Testament church? Glory to God. Oh, hallelujah. Hallelujah. Father, we thank you today. We come with expectant hearts, hungry and in great anticipation that you will show us great and mighty things that we know. Not things that we've never seen before, other things that we've seen that we can see clearer and have greater understanding. Glory to God. Solidify us. Strengthen us. Glory to God in the things that we've seen. Establish us more firmly in our callings, in our local churches and whatever, Father, that you've authored us and authored for us now and in the future because we know great things lay ahead. Hallelujah for the body of Christ, for our individual churches. Glory to God and we thank you for it. Thank you, Father, today for utterance. Help us all, Father. To have hearing ears that we can hear as we ought to hear. Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church by the word of God. Hallelujah. We thank you for that. We believe it. Thank you for utterance in Jesus name. Amen. Matthew 16:18 and I say unto you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. That's what Jesus is doing today. Amen. Now we know that this year is the year of the local church. And that's a special emphasis that the Lord has given us so that we to focus on the right thing. And so the Lord will do that from time to time. You know, he'll give us special emphasis, particularly at the beginning of the year, so that our faith will have something to lay hold of. It stirs us up and then he responds to that. Amen. He'll speak a word of encouragement to us and stir us up because he wants us to respond so that he can respond. And thank God he does that. Praise the Lord. But ever since he left here, he's been building his church. It's what he does. It's what he's all about. He's all in on the church and with God. He. In this age in which we live, it's called the church age. It's not some other age. It's the church age. It's the age of the church. That means what God is doing in the earth, he's doing through the church. Amen. Jesus is not ruling and reigning in this earth apart from the church. He rules and reigns through us. Amen. Because he's delegated his authority here. He said, all authority has been given to me in heaven, and. But then he went to heaven, and so he's taking care of the heaven side, and he left the earth side to us. He said, all authority's been given to me in heaven and earth. Therefore you go. If you put all of the Matthew, Mark, and Luke together, he said it all at one time. Therefore you go into all the nations, take my authority, cast out devils, raise the dead, heal the sick, speak with other tongues, do all the things you're supposed to do. Amen. Amen. In he said, do it in my name. Hallelujah. So all that we do, we do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. I remember hearing Richard Roberts in person a number of years ago, and I think it. It might be. Pretty sure it's the first time and only time I'd ever heard him in person until I started hearing him out here. My wife and I were. Went someplace with Pastor Kearns and George and C.J. i don't remember where it was, but I remember you had a bad headache. Do you remember that? You don't remember that? Yeah, you had a migraine headache. And bless your heart, it was a tough service for you, but Richard Roberts was ministering and he said that when he. He speaks in the name of Jesus, he always says, by the authority of the name of Jesus. Because that's what that means. If we. If we're not careful, we just say things in the name, in the name. In the name. But it helps me to say by the authority of the name of Jesus, Glory to God. Because it's not something we have in and of ourselves, it's been given to us, but it's his authority. Amen. Praise the Lord. Glory to God. So we're talking about the local church. He said, I will build my church. And, you know, of course, this applies to the universal church, but it applies to the local church. And like I said earlier, the concept that the first century believers, whether they were former Jews or Gentiles, the concept of the word church, when they heard it, they heard assembly, they heard a physical place to go where you go and meet with other people. Their first concept was not, you know, the sort of, you know, invisible body of Christ. And though that's a true and wonderful reality, so God's all about the local church. I want us to go this morning to First Thessalonians, chapter five. First Thessalonians, chapter 5. And. Let's look at verse 12. Hallelujah. First Thessalonians 5:12. And we'll read 12:13. And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. Now, you know when verse 12, that he's talking about their pastor. Yeah. And of course, he was writing to the church at Thessalonica, but he. He intended. And indeed, these epistles were shared in different churches. So it wasn't just written to the Thessalonians. That's who it was. That's who it was addressed to and carried to. But it was intended for all the churches to be read, and it's intended for us today. And so he said, I urge you to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord. Well, you couldn't be talking about anybody but their local church leaders, Because traveling ministers were only there very briefly. Not every week, not even by a long shot. Not even probably every month, or it's probably less frequent than that. They didn't have, you know, modern transportation to get around. To just go from one town to another was a big effort and took some time. And so most of the time, it was their pastors that were laboring there. The pastor of the different churches. And. But I want you to notice this. This expression. And are over you in the Lord, and admonished you, admonish you, and esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. Be at peace among yourselves. Well, we could just stop right there. Be at peace among yourselves. You preach on that for a while. Couldn't we. That solve a lot of problems in the church? Amen. If people would just obey that. Amen. Go over then to Hebrews 13. There's a similar thought. And look at verse number seven. Remember, first Thessalonians said, recognize you know and esteem them. Remember those who rule over you. Well, again, who is he talking about? Who have spoken the word of God to you? Well, that could have. You could stop right there and you could say, well, it could be the Apostle Paul. It could be Peter. It could be anybody that has spoken the word of God to them. But notice he said, whose faith follow? Considering the outcome of their conduct, that could really only be talking about their pastor. You really can't follow the faith of Brother Doodad on tv. You really can't. I mean, he can have a really slick presentation. And if I had a TV presentation, I'd try To be slick too, you know, but you know, what you see on TV might not be what is happening the next day in people's lives. Whose faith can you really follow? I'm talking about those who are over you and the Lord. The only one you can. Whose faith you can really follow is your pastor. Because he's there day in, day out, week in week out, year in, year out, good, bad and ugly. I mean he's there all the time. And pastors live, like they say, in glass houses. Yeah. And so people can see the conduct and the lifestyle of their pastor and go on over. We read the seventh verse, go down to the 17th, verse seven. Verse seven said, remember those who rule over you. Verse 17 says, obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for their souls as those who must, must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you obey them. Well, what to, to what extent do we obey our leaders? Now many of you will look out here and I'm older than most you. And I turned to brother Steve last. Stephen last night after Brother Ramos come up and he grabbed me and he said something about old men. After he walked off, I turned to see him, I said, why did he pick on me? Single me out as an old man. Amen. But I've been around a while and error and excess seems to come and go in cycles. You know, over the years I haven't, you know, I wasn't around for a lot of the other things that had happened that Brother Hagin had talked about that come around every now and then. But I remember in the 1970s when I first got back into fellowship with the Lord, there was a, a movement or a, you know, a thing in the body of Christ called the shepherdship discipleship movement. Some of you are too young to remember that or know anything about it, but it was a very big and influential thing. Dad Hagen had to address it in his teachings. And the shepherdship discipleship movement, or emphasis, whatever you want to call it, overemphasized the role of the pastor in church members lives. It really got out of hand because you know, you can take any scripture and take it to the extreme and get it out of balance with other scriptures. And you know, this was, it was really today you would think, well, who would be so stupid as to follow the dictates of some of these pastors in controlling people's lives? But they literally controlled every decision that their church, their church members in these churches type of churches made no decision without running it by their pastor. I mean, you know, if they were thinking about taking another job they wanted, they'd go to their pastor and get their pastors to say, yes, you should take this job. No, you shouldn't take that job. Which car you buy, I don't believe you're supposed to. Yeah, it was a group near us, near. Near our location. Later than that, Even into the 90s, everybody in this cult group had to drive a white car. And the pastor had a revelation that sunglasses were of the devil, and so nobody in the church could wear sunglasses. Some of those people left that cult and came to our church and they told us, they said, you know, we knew we should have left longer, you know, way before, but said, you don't understand the threats that we lived under. You know, if you don't obey and do what I tell you to do, you're going to lose your salvation. And so they. They said, we knew we should leave, but we had family members still in the church, and we didn't want to split our families, but some of them finally left children, grown children, and just said, we have to get out. But this. I remember a couple of these families, they said that, the sunglasses thing, he said, we knew it was crazy. So we would drive to the next nearest town about. About 70 miles away, Jacksonville, and we'd wear our sunglasses over there. But when we got back to our county, we took our sunglasses off. Now, you think that's ridiculous, but it happened. And there was all sorts of things. Jobs, marriages. The pastors told everybody who they were to marry and all of that. And I mean, it got down to very personal issues in people's lives. That's an abuse of authority. It's a flat out abuse. And the reason I bring it up is because I know things go in cycles. And God has given us, as pastors, he's given us tremendous authority. The apostle Paul understood authority. He understood his place. Go with me over to First Corinthians 9. First Corinthians 9. And look at verse number 18. What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel of Christ, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge. That I may not abuse my authority in the gospel. Notice Paul recognized that his authority, he could abuse that authority. He was very careful not to. And you don't have to turn there, but Second Corinthians 10, verses 8, and First Peter 5, we have the same instructions. First Peter 5 talks about not lording over those who are in your charge. So it's Important that we stay balanced in these things. And, you know, I've operated on this premise over the years that there are two fundamental ways that I am to influence and influence my church. That's number one by the word and number two by my example. Authority can be a very potent means of manipulation. People can be coerced to do all sorts of thing under the, under the guise of spiritual authority. And a lot of times people fall into it and don't even realize they're into it. And I've noticed this, that the stronger a person, the stronger a pastor's personality, the more careful he has to be. A pastor has to teach his church or should teach his church the, the extent as well as the limitations of his authority. Because people, there's. People commonly have. Have this flaw. There's a tendency in all people to want someone else to be responsible for them. And in the, in the church, when you have a pastor that has a real powerful personality, he needs to be very careful that people don't look to him to be responsible for their life. Amen. And so, you know, the Lord early on gave me this little. I call it an aphorism, a little saying. It's this little term that helps me. And it goes like this. Authority never exceeds responsibility and responsibility never exceeds authority. Those two things perfectly balance each other out. And I have used this simple little key, if you want to call it just a little key. I've used this key and used it and applied it in situations where balance was needed in the area of submission and authority in the church. People are supposed to submit to their. Their pastor, he has authority. But what, to what degree? To what degree? And so, like I said, I have used this rule and applied it, excuse me, to different situations. And it has always solved the problem. I've not, in all of these years, I've not come up against a situation in the area of balancing out authority and submission where this key didn't provide the perfect answer. And because, you see, like I said, authority. How did I say that? Yeah, authority never exceeds responsibility. I'm not responsible. I cannot be held responsible for something I'm not. I don't have authority over, and I don't have authority over anything. I'm not responsible for. The reason I can't go next door and start disciplining the kids next door is because I'm not responsible for them. Their parents are responsible for them. And so I can't go over there. My authority is over my house. And when my children were living at home, they were under My authority. I've had people in the church over the years try to blame me or some of my staff when their children didn't turn out right, but they can't do it because I never exercised authority over their children. They had the authority, and I kept my hand off of it. And if their children turn out good or if they turn out bad, it's their parents, because they were given the authority. So authority never exceeds responsibility. Responsibility never exceeds authority. Amen. There's another verse that has to do with submission that's real important. Turn to First Peter. I alluded to First Peter, Chapter 5, and we'll go ahead and read those verses. But I want to get down to the next verse. First Peter. Look at chapter five. The elders, verse number one. The elders who are among you? I exhort I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also partaker of the glory which shall be revealed. Shepherd, the flock of God. That's the. That's the verb form of the word for pastor. Pastor. The flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly. Nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. Amen. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. Now look at verse number five. Likewise, you younger people, submit yourself to your elders. I didn't like that verse so much when I was young. I'm liking it more now. No, he said, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Well, that's just talking about younger people and older people. It's not necessarily talking about church leaders. You know, the word elder has a. Has a more natural meaning to it, but then it also applies to ministry. But here in this verse, he's talking about older people and younger people. Then he says, yes, all of you, be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility. For God resists the proud but gives grace to the humility. He said, all of us are to submit to one another. That includes me in my church. That includes me. Amen. Bob Buse wrote a book a number of years ago called the Pendulum Swings. And dad Hagin loved this little book and wrote an endorsement introducing this book. And Brother Buse, we had him preach in our church. He said this is a quote from his book. He said, the best definition of submission is kindness, humility, and respect for one another. Read that again. The best definition of submission is kindness, humility, and respect for one another. Treat each Other as you would treat Jesus, respect the other's view, treat each other gently, with love and kindness. And dad Hagin said that was the best definition he'd ever seen of the concept of submission. And so I just agreed with him. It's the best one I've ever come across. So in pastoring, you know, not everything that has to be done my way. As a pastor now, I have the right to insist that every. Everything be done my way. The problem is I ain't perfect, and neither are any of you. I can be wrong. The church members are happier right now than the pastors are in this congregation. If God had to wait until someone was perfect, are nearly perfect to put them in the ministry, there wouldn't be anybody in the ministry. I don't have to have my way about everything. Yes, I'm responsible for the direction of the church, and I'm responsible for how it turns out. But I learned a long time ago that there are more than one way. There is more than one way to arrive at. At any particular point. I remember when our associate pastor and music director, assistant pastor and music director a number of years ago, I was trying to train him in leading a worship service and flowing with the spirit. And so every Sunday night after service, we would. We would meet and have fellowship, you know, and we would go over that. That worship service. And I'd say, now, you remember when you were in such and such a song and the momentum was growing and the anointing? I said, you know, you waited too long to move to the next place. You took that particular spot because you were enjoying it, and you just sang the life out of it, you know, I said, there was a shift that. He said, yeah, I sensed that, but I was just. I just wanted to stay where we were. And so we would discuss things like that. And it was a great time of training. But I noticed this. Sometimes I would be in the service and I. And I was ready. He would get the service to a certain place, and I was ready to take the pulpit and I was ready to do something, and he would. Instead of turning to me, he would just. He would take service in a different direction. And I think, oh, man, he just. He. It's just like driving down the road, taking a wrong turn. That's what it felt like. Just took a wrong turn. But I. But, you know, I'm not going to just, you know, stop him and correct him in the middle of the service. We talk about it later, but I discovered this. Sometimes I would just stand there, you know, in the pulpit or, you know, I was behind him at the time, you know, on the platform. And I just wait, pray, pray in the Holy Ghost. And it was amazing how many times just a little while later, he'd pull that thing back in the right lane and we'd go on and God get to do. He got to do exactly what he wanted to do. It was just a matter of giving somebody a little bit of time. He went a roundabout way, but he got there. And a lot of things in our local churches, in governing and leading our local churches will be like that. There are other ways. Maybe I'm just not as strong a personality as some people are, I don't know. But I have felt a lot of times just step back and don't have such a heavy hand on this. And people learn that way. And so we do have to submit to one another. And that's what I'm talking about. First Corinthians 13, 5. And I know, you know this verse from the Amplified Classic version, it says, love does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self seeking. Love does not insist on it. And that. Pastors, I, you know, I know, I know. I'm not just talking to pastors. I know this congregation here today, but I also am talking to pastors. Even pastors are not to insist on their own way about everything. Now, I'm not saying there aren't many times, many times where you've got to say, no, this is going to be this way and there's going to be no other way. But not everything in church life is that critical at that particular time. Amen. And another thing I've had to learn, which I already knew, but I've had to learn it painfully, is that some of my decisions are just flat out wrong. Boy, that went over big. I'm not talking about your pastor, I'm talking about my pastor. I'm not talking about Pastor Keys here, I'm talking about me. Because as old as he is, he's learned all these things. He learned them a long time before I did. I think. No, I, I'm human. I can miss it. Even in directing the church, I can make a mistake. And I just have tried to not be so heavy handed about things. And you know, I found out this too. If things get off course, I can bring it back. You have to do it sooner rather than later sometimes. But you know, if you see it's really going, know, off the rails, you can get it back on, you know, Amen. When it comes to counseling people, because we're talking about submission when it comes to counseling people. I teach people to consult the Word and the Holy Spirit and pray it out in their own life. I've never done a lot of counseling. In all my 40 years of ministry, I've not done a lot. Saved myself a lot of headache, too, and a lot of time. In fact, most of the counseling that goes on in my church is done by my wife or my youth leaders. My associate pastor is also my son. He's also the youth leader, and he has tremendous wisdom. And so teenagers need a lot of counseling sometimes. And so, you know, I've not really done a lot of counseling. I do most of my counseling up here in the pulpit, and I expect people to take the word of God and go out and put it into practice, pray it out, pray it through, find out the will of God for themselves. Because I don't want to be blamed for their stupid decisions, and I don't need the credit for their good decisions. They need to know they heard from God. They need to know they didn't hear from God. And it's a painful process sometimes, but everybody has to go through it. It's part of our maturity. And as Christians, and like I said, so I've never done a lot of counseling. And because of that, people in my church don't come to me with a lot of questions and ask me, you know, should I do this and should I do that? Because they know my answer is going to be sort of like Brother Hagin's answer. A friend of mine, Rick McKnight, he went to heaven, I think last. Was it last year or year before last? He was. He was a traveling minister, and he told me this personally. He was in that first graduating class from. From Rhema Bible Training center, graduated in 1975. And there were 58 students who finished the year and graduated. Well, during that, you know, those early years when I went to rhema, between the first and second year, there was over 2,000 students. So dad Hagin couldn't spend time with each class. In my time in 1979 and 1980, he couldn't spend that kind of time. But in 1974 and 75, you know, he had a handful of students. He would spend a lot of time with them personally. He taught them really, you know, up close, and I'm sure it had to be wonderful. And so Rick told me that during the school year, he had an opportunity to pastor a church in a. In a neighboring town. You know, it wasn't too far away somewhere there in Oklahoma. And he had driven over there and talked to the people, and what they offered him was, you know, we want you to pastor this church, and you can, you can come on Sundays, preach, and then you can go back to Tulsa, Broken Arrow or Tulsa at that time, and go back and, you know, go to school during the week and then just come back on the weekends. Well, that's not a very good permanent solution, but they were willing to do that. That was the offer. He would pastor that church on Sundays and go to school, you know, in a different town during the week. So he had prayed about some and he couldn't get clarity. So he decided he'd ask Brother Hagin. So he told Brother Hagin the situation. He said, what do you, you know, what do you think I should. Do you think I should take that church? He said, dad Hagin looked at him with, with an expression. And if you knew dad Hagin, you, you, you can, you can understand this. He said. He looked at him with an expression that was sort of half aggravation and, and, and half bewilderment and just said, how in the world should I know? That's what Rick Knight. That's the way he did it. He said. Brother Hagin said, how in the world should I know? And turned around and walked off and just left Brother McKnight standing there feeling like he was crazy or something. Like, you know, how in the world should I know? What Brother Hagin was illustrating is he didn't have authority because it wasn't his responsibility. And so why would God reveal it to Brother Hagin? Why would God reveal his will for Brother McKnight to Brother Hagin? Now, listen, Church, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Sometimes I perceive the will of God for people. Sometimes you'll pick those things up. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't expect it to happen. I'm not looking for it to happen. And if the spirit of God shows something to me or I get a witness in a sense about something, something, then, you know, well, you just pick things up. But that still is. No, is no indication that I need to push people to do it the way I see it. In fact, this is just. Everybody is going to be different. Some of you pastors are going to do things. You know, the way the spirit of the Lord leads you should do it the way the Lord leads you. And like I said, some people have different personalities. But generally speaking, I don't get involved even when I know people are about to make a mistake generally. Now I do. Every now and then I'll go to somebody if the Lord tells me to, and I'll say, listen, I, you know, I just want you to know I have some, some caution about what you're about to do. This decision you've made, I. I sure hope you'd pray about it some more. I still don't tell them not to do it. That's where the error came in, is, is lording it over people. So anyway, I don't do that. And I let people decide for themselves, follow the leading for themselves. And, you know, there's some risk involved in that. Free will has some risks involved. Because I know this, that when people really want to do something real bad, they will manufacture a leading from the Lord. I mean, they'll perceive that the Lord is leading, leading them. And I've done that before. I've gotten into some real messes because I just wanted to do something so bad. I just talked myself in and really just ignored the inward witness. I had an inward witness not to do it, but I just want to do it really good. You know, this is going to be great for me. And I just continually pushed that inward witness down and I got in trouble. But that's one of the ways we learn. That's part of those sufferings that Pastor Nancy was talking about. And, you know, we learn. And so I let my congregation do that. And I have noticed that a good thing for me, that it works out good for me. And the reason is people want to blame somebody when it doesn't go good. Amen. And Jesus said, you know, don't cast your pearls before the swine. Give holy things to the dogs. Now, I'm not calling my church member dogs, but in the same way that dogs and pigs don't value precious things, a lot of times church members won't value. And if I tell somebody, if I say, you're making a mistake, don't do that, or you need to do something else. If they act on that because I told them, huh, they do it because I told them to. People's decision making. People's individual decisions tend to follow their overall tendencies in decision making. People that make bad decisions don't usually just make one. People who make rich, really, I'm talking about. I'm not talking about what clothes you wear for the day. I'm talking about important decisions. People that make bad decisions usually make a series of bad decisions. And if I go and say, now, don't do this, you're making a mistake. And they take my counsel and do or don't do based on my counsel, their future decisions are still going to get them into trouble. And guess who they're going to blame. Been trodden underfoot enough times. Jesus said, don't, don't do this, because these dogs and pigs, they'll come back and they'll tear you and trod you. I've been torn enough. And so anyway, praise God, we need to keep balance in all of these areas. Amen. Hallelujah. Well, let me switch gears a little bit and let's go over to first Timothy, chapter three, first Timothy three. Amen. Hallelujah. First Timothy three. And verse number two. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober minded, of good behavior, hospitable. And notice these last three words. Able to teach. Able to teach. Go over to first Timothy 4, verse number 13. Until I come. Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. That word doctrine simply means teaching. That's what the Greek word that's translated doctrine. It means teaching till I come. Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Go to verse number 16. Take heed to yourself and to the teaching. Continue in them. For in doing this you will save both yourself and those those who hear you. Go over to second Timothy, chapter two, second Timothy 2:24. But, but a servant of the Lord must not quarrel. But be gentle to all able to teach. And then go over with me to Titus and look at chapter one and look at verse number. Let me see. Yeah, verse number seven and verse number nine. For a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not self willed, not quick tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money. Verse 9 says, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine, that sound teaching, both to exhort and convict those who are contrary, those who contradict is the way the the king, the new King James says the pastor has to be able to teach. Now there are, there are people who, whom God allows to, to operate as a pastor, to take a church. Brother Hagin was in that situation for a number of years. God allowed him to pastor, but he wasn't really called to pastor. That Jesus when he appeared to him, he said, I never called you to pastor to start with. He did not have the pastoral anointing and yet God allowed him to pastor. Now Brother Hagin also had a teaching gift that dropped down into his spirit one day. But there are a lot of pastors who they don't have a teaching gift. And they're primarily preachers now. I love preaching. I love good preaching. The Church of God denomination I came out of there, the two big Pentecostal denominations when I was growing up was assembly of God and Church of God. And I was raised in the Church of God. And I really, as I got older, I really appreciated the Assemblies of God because they were a little less legalistic than we were in the Church of God. But I can tell you what, we had better preachers. Oh, man, the Church of God had some fine preachers. I mean, they preach on heaven. You just want to go right now. I mean, you just. You don't even want to go eat lunch. You just want to go to heaven. You know, I mean, preach with fire. And my denomination was strong in that. So most of our churches were built on preaching. But remember, Jesus was a preacher and a teacher and a healer in that order. He was. Excuse me, he was a teacher and a preacher and a healer in that order. Teaching was first with the Lord Jesus Christ and his men. He was. He was referred to as teacher. They would come to him and say, you know, teacher, tell us this or tell us that. The over in Ephesians. Turn over there real quick to the fourth chapter in verse 11. Ephesians 4:11 says, he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Now, we know pastors and teachers can be. Those are two different offices. But some Greek scholars that I've read say that the way pastors and teachers are constructed in the original Greek, that it's almost like it's hyphenated office. A pastor teacher. And I think the wuest translation translates it that way, says, you know, he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors who are teachers. I. I firmly believe that the pastoral calling is usually tied to a teaching gift. The pastoral gift and the teaching gift. Go now. The teaching gift is. Certainly stands alone. Certainly there you take Brother Copeland. What a magnificent teacher. Oh, boy. I mean, that teaching gift is so awesome in him. He's not a pastor, though. But pastors are often teachers. Also this verse and then these verses in. In first, second Timothy and Titus, exhortations to. To. To teaching would indicate the same thing. Suggest the same thing that for pastors, teaching is more important. Teach a church. And I grew up this way in a. In a preaching, you know, church. The ministry was built on preaching. And a church that's built primarily on preaching will not be a very deep church. It'll not be a very strong church. And like I said, I love preaching because. And every now and then, the preaching anointing will come on me just you know, occasionally. And I love it when I. When it does. And I can just put my notes down and just. Just go with the inspiration and. And it's exhilarating. Good preaching is. Can be sensational. Sometimes it's. It's beyond sensational. Sometimes it's. It's borders. Borders on the absurdity. I mean, it's just preachers can be so. They can become so grandiose, you know, in their preaching. They just. They get people all riled up, you know, and the anointing is on them. I mean, as long as they're not saying things that aren't right, you know. But I'm just saying people preaching is inspirational and it's intended to move people, to move them to a quick decision to get saved, to live right, you know, to straighten up or to follow God. So it's exhilarating and I love it. But teaching is not inspirational, though. There's an inspiration to it. It's more informational. The one is intended to stir people up to right decisions. The other, the teaching anointing is there to inform people about what to do after they've made their decision. The problem with preaching only is excited faith. Excited faith will only go about halfway through the fight. Yeah. Because there's no foundation there. But informed faith that is also excited. It has revelation. Pastor Nancy was talking about. That person will go all the way through and see the manifestation because their faith is informed, not just excited. And so pastors, if you don't seem to have a teaching gift, you probably, on balance, most of you probably do. If you'll just stir it up, if you'll. If you'll develop it, it's probably there. It might not be. Like I said, there are occasions I've seen, in fact, the pastor that. Pastor Angela and I, the church we started going to right before we went to Rhema was a word of faith church. He was a 1976 graduate, this pastor was. And he didn't have a teaching anointing at all. He was really a prophet, be honest with you. But, you know, it's hard to start a prophet ministry, you know, so he just started a local church, he and his wife. And he couldn't teach his way out of a wet paper bag. I mean, it was. He would try to teach. And I remember one Sunday. One Sunday night or one. One night when we were over there and he was trying to teach and was just dreadful. And finally, I mean, I didn't know what was going on in his mind, you know, but all of a sudden he went, that's it. I'm done with that. I'll never do that again. What are you. Why are you leaving town? What's going on? He said. He said, I'm not a teacher. And I'm telling him, stop trying to teach. And we all went, oh, glory to God. But he would then begin to move in the spirit. And he had, you know, he developed a good church in the sense that he was faithful and loved people and all of that, but he wasn't a teacher. But what he did is he brought teachers in. I was just a fledgling, just a young guy just trying to, you know, get my feet wet in ministry. I hadn't even gone to Bible school. And he would have me come over to his church when I was going somewhere else. He'd have me come over midweek and. And teach in his church because he realized he wasn't a teacher. Well, he hadn't realized it yet when he was having me come, but when we started going there, that's when he did that. He said, that's it. I'm done. I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. But he would bring other teachers in. So, pastor, if you don't really have. If you're not really strong in that suit, get other people who are. And don't be afraid of traveling ministers abilities and their anointings. God put the body of Christ together. He put the ministry gift. We need all the ministry gifts. Now, certainly we need the pastor. The pastor is the most important ministry gift to the individual church member of all. But pastors. I had this man ask me, a good friend of mine, a pastor. We were driving, we had gone to visit them, we're staying with them. And Angela and I were driving with him and his wife. And he and I were in the front seat, and Angela and his wife were in the back seat seat. And his wife spoke up and she said, edwin, she said, why do you have so many traveling ministers in your church? Well, they didn't even go to my church. How do they know how many I had? But I had a few. I never had too many. I've never burdened my church down with, you know, having to give to all these traveling ministers. I have, you know, two or three a year maybe, you know, nothing excessive. Why do you have so many traveling ministers in your church? And I said, because when Jesus ascended on high, he led captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men. And he gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. And I said, if God, if Jesus put these in the church, who am I to dismiss them? Who am I to not use them? Who am I to set them aside? I noticed that was one of the few times she didn't answer me. She didn't say anything. And then her husband piped up, we drove down, you know, a few, you know, a little short distance. And he said, well, he said the reason I don't have all these traveling ministers, he says, because number one, he said, they just teach the same things I teach. Said I teach my church on faith and healing and prosperity and authority that, believe it or not. And I have these traveling teachers in. They just teach on the same things. And I said, well, Pastor, I said, if you're teaching your church the full counsel of God, what would you expect the traveling teacher to speak? They better not be teaching something else. What would you expect them to teach? Well, see, he. He rarely had anybody in his church. And you know, he said that they caused trouble for him. Well, I don't believe any particular classification of ministry has disproportionately caused trouble to the body of Christ. There's some bad apples in all of those categories and all those ministries. I've known some pastors who are as dangerous as prophet. So and so I've seen that. But I'm not going to. I'm not going to, you know, paint every prophet or every pastor with the same big brush and condemn them all. No. God put these ministries in the church and we need them. I remember years ago I had brother Larry Hutton. I don't know if any of you know Brother Hutton. I had him come. This was back in the 1980s, I think it was in the late 80s. I had him come and do a four day divine healing meeting. I wanted him to teach on divine healing. Well, I had taught on healings since day one in my church. I've always been strong on that. Our, you know, our covenant rights healing belongs to us. All those things, different ways Jesus heals. But I had him come and he and I were praying and talking about. And I said, that's what I want you to teach on. I want you to teach on healing. And so he taught for those. I don't know if it was four days, but it was four services, five services. Four days, five services. She always remembers these details. That's why I keep her here. There's a couple other reasons. Reasons. So he, he taught for five Services on healing. And on the. I think the Sunday after he left, this woman in my church come up to me and she was beaming. I mean, her face was lit up. And she said, pastor, I got it. I got it. I said, well, good. What did you get? I don't know what she's talking about. She said, what did you get? She said, it's about my healing. She says, I've been trying to get God to heal me. And Brother Hutton was preaching, and I finally realized Jesus healed me 2000 years ago. I don't need to try to get healed. I am healed. And I said, well, praise God now. And I guess maybe she saw my expression on my face, I don't know. But she said, you know what, Pastor? Once I saw that, it suddenly occurred to me that's the same thing my pastor's been saying. See, I had been teaching her the same thing. She didn't get it. Now with all of my silvery tongued erudition and my great eloquence, you know, I can't imagine why she wouldn't have gotten it. Other people sitting all around her had gotten it and gotten the revelation on it, and they were walking, healing and help. But for some reason she hadn't gotten. Well, that didn't make me mad. Sometimes somebody else will come and do this, preach the same truth, but they'll present it in such a way that will open something up. That's why we have different ministry gifts. You know, there's a. We need all the ministry gifts. Jesus put them all in the church. There's a squirrely doctrine out there that says that they're all supposed to be resident. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the local church needs to. Needs to have all of these ministry gifts. Needs to be exposed to them. Not every day, every week, every month, but from time to time. And a pastor sometimes will sense that I need somebody to come in and teach. I had somebody come just a couple months ago, three months ago, and teach on end time, because I'm not real strong on end time. And I know the basics, you know, but that's not my strong suit. So I brought this man in. This is what he specializes in, and I had him teach on that, on those, on that subject. So we need to do that. I've noticed in the world of medicine, there's a very easy comparison. In the world of medicine, there are primary care physicians and there are specialists. Well, in the. In the body of Christ, there are. The pastor is the primary care Physician. And then sometimes God raises up, you know, these, these other ministers and they become specialists because they have extraordinary, extraordinary insight and revelation because that's, that's what God raised them up to do. God raised up Brother Hagin to bring faith and then later the move of the Holy Ghost. And so he's a, he was a specialist. And a lot of times traveling ministers are, they specialize in those things and they bring insight into revelation and anointing that the, that the local pastor is not going to have. Well, that doesn't, that doesn't, you know, cause me to feel inferior any more, any more than a surgeon will cause your primary care doctor to feel inferior. Primary care doctors don't feel inferior to cardiologists. Just because a cardiologist knows a lot about the heart doesn't mean that your primary care doctor is a bozo because he doesn't know as many, as much about the heart. Primary physicians have to be, they have to have a broad knowledge of all sorts of medicine and regimen and health and stuff in order to provide whole body care. You cannot have whole body care by going to a rheumatologist. You just can't. You'll never get it. In fact, most specialty doctors will not even, will not even see you. They'll not even have take an appointment unless a primary care doctor refers you. Because they know, now listen, they know that primary care is fundamental to specialty care. And in the church, primary care in the local church is fundamental to specialty care. That's why you, you just like you could never get good medical attention just going to an orthopedic surgeon. That's the only person you ever go to. Orthopedic surgeon. If he's worth his salt. He's not going to try to treat your acid reflux, not if he's reputable. He's not going to, he's not going to recommend what you do in anything except orthopedics. Isn't that right? So we need all of these ministries in the local church, these experts. But the fundamental care for the believer is right there in that local church. Amen. And so, Pastor, it's wise to bring, bring people in to do other things. Amen. Now I noticed this. Let me see where I am. Well, let's go to the next section. Go to Matthew, chapter 9. Matthew 9. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Matthew 9. And let's look at 35 and 36. Very, very familiar verse. You've read it many times. Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their Synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep, having no shepherd. Now, you know, like I said before, we need all these ministry gifts, but the pastor is more important. And I know you know this, you've been taught, all of us have been taught this, but Jesus is the one that said that the multitude, he was moved with compassion on the multitude because they were weary and scattered like sheep, having no shepherd, not like sheep, having no prophet, not like sheep, having no evangelists. The local church is more important than any other ministry institution. It's more important than missions, more important than anything. And the ministry of the pastor is more important to the everyday life of the individual believer than any of the other five ministry offices. Because the pastor receives special enlightenment from the Holy Spirit to help the sheep where they need it. The, the traveling minister usually focuses on, on, on one topic. He may, he may have more than one specialty. But I'm saying when he's, when he's teaching, he's on one topic. But I've noticed this, that, that people study, I'm talking about lay people, they tend to study the ones who study the Bible. They tend to study what they're interested in. That's what they tend to study on. They don't tend to have a broad approach to studying the Bible. They tend to study what they think they need. But what they think they need sometimes they need. But there's usually a lot of other things they need. The pastor is he receives special enlightenment from the Holy Spirit to help the sheep in areas where they don't know they need help. It's the pastor's job. He's charged with feeding his church a varied and balanced diet. And the thing about the pastor, that, that's unique from the other ministries, that's one of the things that sets him apart in his ministry ability and his skill is the pastor is endowed with the capacity for balance and clarity that can often escape the ordinary believer or even the ordinary specialty ministry. Even, even those who are in full time ministry that travel around and they have one or two topics they specialize in. It's even easy for them to become blind to other things in the Bible because they're so focused on the revelation that they're receiving from the Lord. And I call it doctrinal myopia. You know, where you only see, you only see this right here. People in the church easily fall prey to that. The pastor is required to have a broad knowledge of Bible doctrine, truth, experience, so that, so that he can. A pastor understands. I do this all the time when I'm listening to someone teach. I'm always evaluating this, just something that's in me. I'm evaluating this and I'm receiving it. But I'm always bringing the other scriptures in the Bible that, that, that correspond to that, or balance that out a different way. And the pastor is unusually, I say, extraordinarily anointed and equipped to bring balance because he knows that any true revelation from God, any true revelation, will harmonize with the whole spectrum of scriptural revelation. And very often people that get one doctrine and that's all they ever build on, it's all they want to talk about, it's all they want to receive information on and read after, they don't really realize when they start going off the rails that, wait a minute, there's a very important fundamental doctrine over here that you just left, that you just trashed because you took this to the extreme. And so that's why we need pastors. Keep that, keep that balance. Amen. Technology and mass communication often exposes unwary church people to dangerous doctrines. I know that's news to everybody. None of you pastors knew that, right? I mean, there are so many people out there today. You go, you click on the TV or go on the Internet and you can hear just about anything you hear. You can hear anything you want to hear and a lot of things you don't want to hear. And there, and you know this, in, in media, there is no requirement that anybody be balanced or, or anything. They don't have to be ethical. If you've got the money you can get on the airwaves, you can, it doesn't take hardly any money to, to put up a website and start deceiving people. And yeah, and because of that, the pastor has to keep himself aware of these extremes. Pastor's always alert to false doctrine. Over the years, I've been able to protect my church from a lot of squirrely doctrine because I've tried to be balanced and not be in extreme on anything. And I have developed, by God's grace, I have developed a strong church that isn't easily fooled. There have been, over the years, I've had to teach my church about, you know, extremes and what I call charismania, you know, all the flaky things that go through the body of Christ. I've had to steer my church away from those things. And then there's, there have Been other phenomenon, you know, like the feathers and the, you know, my Lord, I never even brought them up. I never even addressed it in my church because I knew my church would not fall for that. I knew they'd never fall for. They were too well taught. And so that's, that's important. Amen. Hallelujah. I don't want to keep you all day because there are other days. That's what I love about pastoring. Come Sunday, you know, in the middle of my message, I know I don't have to finish this. I can do this next week. Praise the Lord. A believer's primary source of ministry and instruction should come from their pastor, not from their favorite traveling TV media minister. Because if you think about it, that would have been impossible. During most of the. Of the church age, not just the first generation, but most of the church age, there was no mass communication. Even radio is relatively new. There was no way for traveling ministers in the first century and most of the succeeding centuries. There was no way for them to communicate. And so if believers were going to be fed, they were going to feed, they were going to get fed at church, and that's God's plan. Now, I'm not against technology, and I think, you know, having access to technology is a wonderful thing, but people, people need to realize only their pastor can you judge their conduct and the fruit of their life. They're the only ones you can watch and observe because like I said, you don't know how. You don't know how brother so and so lives. When he gets off the air, everybody puts on, you know, a great image, and they should. But we've all been around long enough to know that that doesn't work out all that good all the time. In the first century, traveling ministers assisted the pastors in ministering to their flocks. They assisted the pastor in ministering to their flocks and was under the authority of the local pastor where they ministered. I'll close with this real quick. Go with me to Acts 18. Well, I plan to close with this boy that went over real big. We're having fun, aren't we? Verse 24. Now, a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord and taught fervently in spirit. Being fervently in spirit, I should say. He spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. So he began to speak boldly in the Synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God. More accurately, when he desired to cross to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly showing from the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ. Now, there, here in Ephesus, now, this is my opinion, but I refer to this. I refer to Aquila and Priscilla very often in my book as pastors, I can't prove it, but to me, the reason I say that is because when Paul left Ephesus, he left them there, evidently in charge of the church. And when Aquila. And when Apollos came, Apollos was a mighty teacher. He was eloquent. He was mighty in the Scriptures. He had great fervency. He was a very talented minister. But his doctrine was a little bit off, a little bit deficient. And Aquila and Priscilla took him aside. I don't believe they would have done that if they were not in some type of ministry, because Apollos came across with a very. With a very forceful, very impressive ministry. And an eloquence is wonderful. I wish I had more eloquence. But eloquence is. Is. Must be balanced with being strong in the Scriptures. That's right. Amen. Eloquence without spiritual death. Depth is a little more than showmanship, you know, Paul said. Paul's critics said, you know, your. Your speech is contemptible. And he admitted, he said, I was untrained in speech. So he wasn't necessarily the most eloquent man, but he saved the church from legalism with his revelation. It was the depth that he operated. Give me depth any day over eloquence, though. I'd love to have more eloquence, you know, but give me depth. Give me understanding in the Scriptures. And Aquila and Priscilla took this powerful teacher aside. Now, not only that, in the 16th chapter. Now it evidently, most Bible scholars almost are unanimously agreed that first Corinthians was written from Ephesus. He wrote to the church. They had just. Paul and his companions had just left Corinth when they went to Ephesus. And most Bible scholars believe that the Epistle of first Corinthians was written while he was at Ephesus. And in the 16th chapter. You don't have to turn over there, the 16th chapter of First Corinthians, he's, you know, closing his. His Epistle out. And he said that. That the the, the saints in Asia, which is where Ephesus was, greet you and the. And Priscilla and Aquila greet you and the church that's in their house. Now it could have been they could have been lay people having a church in their house. But then in the book of Romans, the 16th chapter. Now later Aquila and Priscilla went back to Rome. That's where they were from. They went back to Rome and Paul was writing to the Romans and he talked about Priscilla and Aquila again. And they had a church in their house there. So that just suggests to me that they were probably pastors. The fact that they took Apollos aside and notice they had the wisdom to take him aside, it was not heavy handed, it was just, hey, brother, you need to correct your doctrine here. You know, Jesus has come. Praise God. And now we're baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost and baptized in the Holy Ghost. Amen. So anyway, praise the Lord. Amen. Amen. And I think we'll close with that. Praise the Lord. Did you get anything out of this today? Hallelujah.
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