Five Things Your Pastor Can Do For You

I don’t need to tell you that this has been a very unusual week in the history of First Baptist Church. Back in the early months of this year, when we first started seeking the Lord’s will about the possibility of coming to Allentown, none of us could have foreseen events unfolding in quite this way. In fact, I have never heard of a church where the new pastor comes the week that the former pastor goes to glory.

You may not remember it now, but when I candidated here back in April, I preached a sermon called “Facing the Unknown”. Deuteronomy 31 was my text. In that chapter, Israel faced a leadership transition. Moses was handing the reins of leadership over to Joshua, and then Moses was going to die. As we considered that passage of Scripture on April 25, we never dreamed that we would be facing that exact situation just four months later. But God knew.

And it’s obvious that God has kept his gracious hand upon all of us throughout this whole process. He’s certainly had his hand upon Pastor Kulp. As I was reflecting upon these events, I realized that there were actually two welcomes that took place this week. One of them was when you welcomed the McKnights to Allentown, and I must say how grateful we are for your warmth, and how deeply touched we have been with your love. Thank you for receiving us with open arms, even in the midst of a difficult time.

But the other welcome was for Pastor Kulp. He was welcomed into glory this past week. And his reception committee was headed by our Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine how wonderful that must have been? As good as our welcome has been here in Allentown, I think that Pastor Kulp’s was better!

But there were also two farewells these past few days, weren’t there? A couple of Sundays ago, Carolyn and I shed some tears as we said good-bye to our church family at Lynbrook. We made friendships there that will last a lifetime. But our parting pales in comparison with the sorrow of the Kulp family, and the First Baptist family as you have said farewell to Pastor Kulp.

But even there, God’s grace is sufficient for us. We can all look forward to being together again because one of the things that Jesus Christ died to do was take away everything that separates us. In Him, we’re all going to be brought back together someday and there will be no more farewells necessary.

But in the meantime, there’s work to do, and that’s what I want to talk to you about today. In the passage we read earlier, Ephesians 4, we read that Jesus provides for the needs of His people by giving them gifted leaders.

Ephesians 4:11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

When we drive in the countryside, my youngest boys like to look for cows. But now and then, we’ll come upon a flock of sheep out in the pasture. Do you know the difference between a herd of cows and a flock of sheep? When you see a herd of cows out in a field, you never see anyone out there watching them. They’re all alone. But with sheep, it’s different. When you see a flock of sheep, you almost always see a shepherd, or maybe a sheep-dog, looking after them. Sheep seem to need more supervision. They need leadership.

And that’s the way it is with the church. There needs to be leadership. There’s nothing sadder than a church without leadership. They’re like sheep without a shepherd. God in His sovereignty has provided leadership for the church in the form of the gifted individuals who are described in this passage: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor/teachers.

Now there are no more apostles. The last one, the Apostle John, died around 95 AD. But the apostles served as the foundation of the church. They were the men who had been with Jesus. They were the eyewitnesses of His life and His ministry.

Likewise, there are no more NT prophets. These were men like Agabus, or women like the four daughters of Philip, who had the gift of prophecy. Their function was to enable the church to know what God was saying to them in the days before the NT was written. Once the books of the NT were written and collected together to form the canon, the church no longer needed prophets.

That’s why Ephesians 2:20 says that the apostles and prophets were foundational to the church. When you build a house, you don’t keep laying the foundation, do you? You lay it once and it’s done - then you build the superstructure. The church’s foundation was laid in the first century by the ministry of the apostles and prophets.

But today, we continue to need the other leaders that are mentioned in Ephesians 4. We continue to need evangelists; men like Billy Graham who can powerfully proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that the world cannot ignore. And we continue to need pastors and teachers to build up the church.

I want to zero in on the work of the pastor/teacher today. Incidentally, the two words are linked in the Greek in such a way as to suggest that the two gifts are combined in the one man. He is not just a pastor; he is a pastor-teacher.

What did Jesus have in mind when he gave pastor-teachers to the church? What kind of ministry were they to have among God’s people? What did he want them to do?

Today I want to examine some of the reasons why every church needs a pastor. In fact, let’s make it more personal. I want to suggest five things that your pastor can do for you that nobody else can.

1. He can be, for you, an EXPOSITOR. What’s an expositor? Webster’s dictionary defines an expositor as “someone who expounds or explains”. The first and foremost responsibility of a pastor is that he clearly and carefully expound or explain the Word of God to his people.

Back in Nehemiah 8, there is a good illustration of the work of exposition. The people had finished building the wall around Jerusalem. They had taken out the Book of the Law and we read in..

Nehemiah 8:7 The Levites…instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.

The Levites were expositors.

The Word of God is our spiritual nourishment. You cannot grow spiritually if you are not feeding your soul on the Word. A pastor who is an expositor is like a shepherd who carefully and diligently feeds his sheep. He takes them to the best pasture so that they will be nourished by the rich grass that they find there.

Now the shepherd can’t eat the grass for them; he can only take them to it, and give them a taste for it so that they will eat it themselves. It’s the same way with a pastor and the Word of God. You cannot expect to grow spiritually on the basis of the pastor’s devotional life.

You cannot expect to grow spiritually if your only exposure to the Word of God is the sermons that you listen to each Sunday. You need to be feeding on the Word all week long, independently and on your own.

My aim in being an expositor is that you will grow to love the Word of God so much that you will want to do that. The Sunday sermons should only be a dietary supplement to your spiritual growth.

It’s obvious to me that Pastor Kulp was an expositor, because so many of you love the Word and are growing strong in it on your own.

2. The pastor can be for you an EQUIPPER. Ephesians 4 says that one of the purposes of the pastor is “to prepare God’s people for works of service”. In the KJV, it is translated “for the perfecting of the saints.”

The word “prepare” or “perfecting” is an interesting word. It is the Greek word “katartizo”, and it means to organize, to arrange, to put in good working order. People used this word to describe what fishermen do to their nets when they come back from a fishing trip. They carefully go through their nets, making sure that there are no tears or holes, and they fold them neatly for the next trip. The idea is to get the nets ready for service.

This past week some of you did that for me. It wasn’t with fishing nets, it was with my library. On Wednesday, we had a book-shelving party in my office. Pat Crippen, Ed and Elva Smith, and George and Alma Becker and their grandson Adam took 1,200 books out of boxes and carefully arranged them on the shelves in my study. They ordered those books for service, and in so doing, they equipped me to go to work as your pastor.

That’s what your pastor can do for you. A pastor is not just a man who communicates Biblical information; he is a man who can show you how it applies to everyday life. He can help you get a handle on your Christian life; how to live it, how to get the most out of it, and how to be involved in serving the Lord.

In some churches, the pastor does all the work of the ministry, while the congregation sits back and watches. But that is not how it was meant to be. If you read Eph. 4:12, it says that the pastor’s job is to equip the saints, and they are the ones who do the work of the ministry. The pastor is an equipper.

3. The pastor can be for you an ENCOURAGER.

Our church supports the work of Marv and Denise Robinson in Coney Island. Not far from where they live is the New York Aquarium. This past week, there was a minor crisis at the aquarium. Their pilot whale got sick. In fact, she got pneumonia. She was very listless and weak, and she wasn’t interested in eating. The scientists were quite concerned about her.

Now if that had happened in the wild, the other whales in the pod would have rallied to her assistance. In fact, when a whale gets sick, the other whales come alongside the sick whale and actually lift it up to the surface with their bodies, so that it can breathe.

That picture is exactly what is meant by the Bible’s word for encouragement. It is the word “parakaleo” and it means “someone who is called alongside”. For the past 13 years, you have had a pastor who has come alongside you, and encouraged you. He lifted you up when you were down. He visited you when you were sick. He always had just the right words for you when you were discouraged. He was an encourager.

The Bible speaks of another man like that named Barnabas. His name literally means “the son of encouragement.” In Acts 11, we read that many people came to the Lord in the city of Antioch.

Acts 11:22 News of this reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.

Your pastor can be, for you, an encourager.

4. Your pastor can be, for you, an EXHORTER.

In 1 Timothy 5:1, Paul told Timothy that one of the duties of a pastor was to be an exhorter. Exhortation is a little stronger than encouragement. Encouragement is a pat on the back, but exhortation is a kick in the pants. When you exhort someone, you urge them, you admonish them to do the right thing. And usually you have to do that because you see them doing the wrong thing.

As parents, we exhort our children. We also encourage them, and you have to find the right balance between the two. All exhortation and no encouragement would wear them down. But all encouragement and no exhortation would cause them to be too complacent and comfortable.

We all need exhortation from time to time, whether from a parent or from a pastor. Without it, we so easily can become smug and self-satisfied and complacent. Without exhortation, we can wallow in sin. Paul exhorted the Corinthian church because they were carnal. They were not growing.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Coach Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys, one of the most successful coaches in the history of professional football. Coach Landry once said that a coach’s job is to get people to do what they don’t want to do, in order to become the people they do want to be.

That’s a pretty good definition of the work of a pastor as an exhorter. None of us likes to be exhorted. We don’t always appreciate it. But I think if you’ll look back in your life, you’ll realize that the people who really cared about you, cared enough to exhort you from time to time. Your pastor can be for you an exhorter.

5. Your pastor can be for you an EXAMPLE.

1 Peter 5:1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

1 Timothy 4:12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Titus 2:7 In everything set them an example by doing what is good.

Pastors can tell, but never teach until they practice what they preach. You need your pastor to be an example of how to live the Christian life. An example in his personal walk with God. An example in his marriage and his family life. An example in his financial affairs. The church today in North America is suffering because pastors are not practicing what they preach.

I’m sure that many of you have heard of Lehman Strauss, a great preacher and Bible teacher. Lehman Strauss had a son who is also a pastor. A good friend of mine knows him personally. Pastor Strauss pastors a large church out in California. A couple of years ago, Pastor Strauss was diagnosed with a very serious form of cancer, somewhat similar to the cancer that struck down Pastor Kulp. News of Pastor Strauss’s disease very quickly made its way around the church, and everyone wondered what he would say about it the next Sunday when he got up to preach.

As he stood in the pulpit, very quietly and very humbly, for that is the kind of man he is, he said to his people, “For the past several years, by the grace of God, I have taught you and I have shown you how to live. And now, by the grace of God, I am going to show you how to die.”

In one of our phone conversations earlier in the spring, I asked one of your leaders here how Pastor Kulp was doing. He shared with me that the pastor was so weak that he could barely sit through the services, let alone get up and speak. But then he said something that I will never forget. He said “But Pastor is still preaching some great sermons.”

That’s the kind of pastor he was. His greatest sermon was his life. He was an example to you of what a Christian should be.

I wrote Pastor Kulp a letter before he died. In that letter, I shared with him that my prayer as his successor was the prayer of Elisha: ““Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.” Pastor Kulp was for you an expositor, an equipper, an encourager, an exhorter, and an example. By the grace of God, I want to be serve you in the same way.