Church Matters (Part 1)

Lead Vocalist (Joel)

Welcome & Announcements (Bubba)

Good morning family!

Ask guests to fill out connect card

____ announcements:

1) Announcement 1

What to do and how to respond

2) Announcement 2

What to do and how to respond

3) Announcement 3

What to do and how to respond

Now please take a moment of silence to prepare your heart for worship.

Call to Worship (Psalm 103:1-5)

Prayer of Praise (Christine Zalameda)

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

Holy, Holy, Holy

Prayer of Confession (Stephen Keatts), Fear of man

Assurance of Pardon (Romans 8:14-15)

There Is One Gospel

The Church's One Foundation

Scripture Reading (1 Thess. 5:12-22)

You can find it on page _________ in the black Bibles

Pastoral Prayer (Bubba)

Prayer for PBC—Faithfulness in our gatherings

Prayer for kingdom partner—Cuidad de Gracia (Carlos Llambes)

Prayer for US—President's cabinet

Prayer for the world—United Kingdom

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

START TIMER!!!

This may be hard for some of you young adults to believe, but Home Alone is more than the name of a classic Christmas movie. It was a reality for many children born before the turn of the millennium.

Me and my eleven siblings were regularly left home alone when I was a child.

And we turned out fine!

In fact, some of my coolest scars and best fight stories come from those hours we were left home alone to fend for ourselves.

Stories like The Lord of the Flies and Children of the Corn are popular because they’re far more interesting than a story about a bunch of safe, happy, and well-adjusted, trauma-free children.

But it wasn’t always blood and chaos when my parents left us alone.

Things always went better when my parents answered three questions before they left:

Who is in charge?

How are we supposed to treat one another?

What are we supposed to do while they’re gone?

Our passage this morning isn’t about parenting practices, or violent children. But it is about those three questions.

Turn to 1 Thessalonians 5:12

The Apostle Paul wants to be with the local church in Thessalonica.

He started the church about twenty years after Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.

But he wasn’t able to stay long before persecution drove him out of the city.

So now, as he prepares to conclude his first letter to this church, he’s struck by several things they need to know.

Who is in charge?

How are they supposed to relate to one another?

What are they supposed to do while he’s gone?

Answering those three questions is Paul’s aim in our passage this morning.

And Paul’s answers are not just important for one local church in ancient Greece two thousand years ago.

They are the Word of God to every local church in every age.

The Big idea I hope to communicate from God’s Word is this: A thriving local church will structure all it does according to the Scriptures.

In our passage, Paul discusses Three Areas of Church Life that Must be Structured According to the Scriptures:

First, we’ll learn about The Local Church and it’s Leaders in verses 12-13.

Second, we’ll learn about The Local Church and its Members in verses 14-15.

Finally, we’ll learn about The Local Church and its Gatherings in verses 16-22.

But there’s so much meat in these verses that we’re going to take two weeks to chew on it. Today we’ll consider points one and two, and next week we’ll consider point three.

Let’s begin by seeing what it looks like to structure according to Scripture...

1) The Local Church and its LEADERS (12-13)

1 Thessalonians 5:12–13—We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

Let’s consider three observations from these verses about how the local church should structure its leadership.

A) The RESPONSIBILITIES of Church Leaders

Paul urges Christians in Thessalonica to “respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you.”

Although Paul doesn’t name who these people are, their responsibilities make it clear that he is talking about an office in the local church.

The most common term that Christians use today for that office is the word “pastor,” even though that term is only used one time in the NT.

The most common term used for this office in the New Testament is the word “elder.”

But hear me clearly: pastors are elders and elders are pastors.

The terms are absolutely interchangeable in the New Testament, and here at Poquoson Baptist Church.

I am one of six pastor/elders here at PBC, alongside Bubba Jones, Mike Klaassen, Mike Lindell, Sterling Tollison, and Jason Wells.

All of us are elders and all of us are pastors.

What are these church leaders supposed to do?

Paul lists three key responsibilities…

—Elders should work hard

Paul identifies church leaders as “those who labor among you.”

That word translated “labor” was typically used to refer to manual labor.

It means “toil, strive, struggle,” even to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion. [1]

This is a far cry from the ridiculous notion that many have about pastoral ministry, that all pastors do is work for an hour on Sundays.

The faithful elder is faithfully studying God’s Word so he can teach it to others, he is regularly spending time with members in his church, he is counseling sinners and sufferers, he’s preparing for funerals, preparing people for marriage, preparing people for baptism, visiting the sick, praying regularly for the membership, overseeing ministries and volunteers, confronting people caught in sin, and much, much more.

And some of our elders do this work in addition to full-time jobs outside of the church!

John Calvin pulls no punches when he writes this about verse 12: “From this it follows, that all idle bellies are excluded from the number of pastors.” [2]

Brother elders: are you laboring in your ministry? Have you grown weary in well doing? Have you grown lax in your responsibilities?

What is the work we are called to labor in?

—Elders should lead

Paul describes church leaders as those who “are over you in the Lord.”

The authority pastors have does not come from our personalities, from power, or political finesse. The authority pastors have is granted to us by King Jesus.

PBC Members: this means you can and should challenge us whenever we stray from what God has revealed in His Word.

PBC Elders: this means we can and should lead God’s sheep—not because we’ve got it all figured out, but because Jesus has called and equipped us to this work.

And yet at the same time, we must wield this authority with the same tenderness and humility demonstrated by Jesus Himself.

How are we doing, elders? Are we faithfully leading God’s people? Are we confidently and boldly shepherding God’s sheep as those who will one day give an account?

If we’re struggling here, it may help to consider HOW we’re called to lead God’s people…

—Elders should admonish

Elders, our job is much bigger than leading Members Meetings, conducting Membership Interviews, praying pastoral prayers, and serving communion. Our job is to speak God’s Word into the hearts and lives of the people God has called us to shepherd.

That’s what Paul has in mind when he says elders are those who “admonish you.”

In his commentary, G.K. Beale says this about the verb translated “admonish”…

“The word refers not merely to teaching but to instruction aimed at changing one’s moral disposition, with respect to both enlightening and warning the ignorant about potential problems ahead and rebuking those already entangled in wrongdoing.” [3]

Admonishing is Word ministry. It’s speaking God’s Word to God’s people in a way that leads them to change.

It’s what we mean when we say, “We exist to glorify God by shepherding sinners from lost to leader.”

And doing that requires we sometimes admonish God’s people.

Brother elders: in order to do this well, we need to live in between two worlds.

We need to know the world of Scripture. How can we admonish people to obey God’s Word if we do not know what it requires of us?

And we need to know the worlds of our members. How can we admonish people if we do not know where they need to be admonished?

How are we doing, elders? Are we faithfully speaking God’s Word into the lives of God’s people?

Before we move on to consider how members should respond to their leaders, I want you to notice one more thing about the responsibilities of church leaders...

—Elders should share the load

Like many of you, I grew up in a church with a single pastor. The idea of a group of pastors working together to lead a church was foreign to me.

But that idea is NOT foreign to the New Testament.

On his first missionary journey—several years before he started the church in Thessalonica—Paul already had a clear practice of starting churches with multiple pastors.

Acts 14:23—And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Notice the word “elders” is plural and the word “church” is singular.

The clear New Testament pattern is that every one of Jesus’ churches should be led by a team of qualified pastors.

Even in Thessalonica—a church that was brand new, a church already facing persecution, a church that only had a short period of time with the Apostle Paul— even that church had more than one pastor shepherding the flock.

New Testament scholars agree that 1 Thessalonians is the first of Paul’s thirteen letters in the New Testament. Some argue it’s the very first New Testament book ever written.

Isn’t it fascinating that right at the very beginning of the New Testament God gave us instructions on the need for churches to have a plurality of pastors?

I am so grateful that on October 20, 2019 Poquoson Baptist Church took one giant leap towards faithfulness by unanimously agreeing to revise our constitution to reflect this biblical model.

I’m so grateful we quickly moved to install our first three volunteer elders: Mike Klaassen, Mike Lindell, and John Rogers.

I’m not sure I would’ve survived the ministry challenges brought about by a global pandemic a few months later had I not been sharing the burden with these three godly men.

Brother elders: the responsibilities for church leaders are meant to be weighty.

There’s a reason why the Apostle James writes:

James 3:1—Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

But this weight is not a weight you are called to bear by yourself. God intends for the burdens and joys and responsibilities of church leadership to be shared.

If PBC is going to thrive, we must understand and apply what God’s Word says about the responsibilities of church leaders.

But that’s not even the main point Paul is trying to make in these two verses.

Consider with me our second observation from verses 12-13...

B) The RESPONSE to Church Leaders

It’s been awhile, so let’s read again Paul’s words about the local church and it’s leaders...

1 Thessalonians 5:12–13—We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

There are two sinful extremes we can fall into in the way we relate to the elders in our church. [4]

On the one hand, some Christians despise church leaders as if they were dispensable. Many of these Christians refuse to join a local church because they don’t want to submit to anyone’s leadership. Others will join a church, but they’ll keep their leaders at arm’s length and always look at everything they say with a cynical eye.

On the other hand, some Christians fawn over and flatter their church leaders as if they were popes or princes. These Christians would never speak a word against their pastors, even when they are clearly wrong. The pastor’s word is gospel.

The biblical balance between these two extremes is what Paul demands of the Thessalonians: “respect” your pastors and “esteem them very highly in love” because of their work.

It might be awkward for me to preach something like this, if not for the way we approach the Bible at PBC.

If every Sunday I picked a random passage of Scripture—whatever I felt the Lord had put on my heart—preaching a text like this would seem self-serving.

But because our practice is to preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible, it’s not awkward at all to preach this. This isn’t some hobby horse of mine, it’s just the next passage in God’s Word!

PBC: I can tell you from personal experience that you all do well here.

As a church you all treat me, my wife, and my children exceptionally well.

I have no doubt you respect and love me very well.

But I would challenge you in one area: grant the same respect and love to every one of our elders.

Some of our elders have fuller plates than I do, since they’re doing the work of an elder PLUS full-time jobs!

This doesn’t mean our elders are perfect. And it doesn’t mean there’s never a time to confront us when we fall short. But it DOES mean our general posture should be love and respect towards those who lead God’s church.

If PBC is going to thrive, we must love and respect those who faithfully lead Jesus’ church.

And what happens when we do that?

Consider with me our third observation from verses 12-13

C) The RESULTS of Faithfulness

Look at the last sentence at the end of verse 13: “Be at peace among yourselves.”

This might seem like an abrupt statement that has nothing to do with what came before, but it’s not. [5]

What happens when a local church faithfully structures it’s leadership according to Scripture? What happens when those pastors are faithfully shepherding the flock? And what happens when the members love and respect those leaders? Peace.

Think through some of the challenges we’ve walked through as a church since we installed elders in 2019:

A global pandemic,

Strong disagreements about how to rightly respond to the pandemic (even among some of our members),

Two contentious elections,

Tremendous cultural upheaval,

Multiple transitions on our church staff,

And a serious case of church discipline.

Any one of these things could have led to serious division in our church. I’ve seen churches split over less! But PBC remained unified through all of this. Why?

Because when God’s people do God’s work in God’s way we achieve God’s results.

The result of rightly structuring church leadership is peace in the church.

A thriving local church will structure all it does according to the Scriptures.

That begins with rightly structuring our leadership. But it doesn’t stop there.

We must continue by considering…

2) The Local Church and its MEMBERS (14-15)

1 Thessalonians 5:14–15—And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

Before we move any further, notice who Paul is addressing.

Just like in verses 12-13, Paul is writing to “brothers,” which is shorthand for Christians in this particular local church.

This does NOT mean that the instructions in these verses don’t apply to pastors.

Every pastor here at PBC is also a member of PBC. So these verses apply to us just as much as they apply to the average member.

But the point here is that these instructions aren’t limited to elders. They apply to everyone who is a member of a local church.

Once again, let’s consider three observations from these verses about the responsibilities of church members…

A) Our Responsibility to TROUBLED MEMBERS

Verse 14 is a beautiful verse that I think every Christian should memorize.

It outlines instructions inspired by the Holy Spirit that teach us how to care for members facing different types of troubles.

Notice with me three categories of members and the type of care they need:

—The unruly must be admonished

I know the English Standard Version says we are to admonish the “idle,” but that’s not the best translation of the original word the Apostle Paul used.

The original word is a military term referring to somebody who is out of step with the other soldiers marching in the rank. [6]

The word typically meant “not remaining in one’s place, out of order, undisciplined” [7]

One symptom of a disordered Christian life is being idle or lazy, but that’s far from the only symptom.

Any Christian who is living contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture needs to be admonished. Whether the sin is sexual impurity, embracing false teaching, robbing her employer, refusing to provide for his family, or some other sin.

And who is supposed to do the admonishing?

We’ve already seen in verse 12 that elders are supposed to admonish the members. But now Paul is talking to all church members.

So which is it Paul? Who is supposed to do the admonishing? Church leaders or church members? Yes!

Yes, the elders are supposed to admonish the members. But we are also supposed to be equipping YOU to speak the truth in love to one another.

Paul puts it this way in...

Ephesians 4:11–12, 15—And [Jesus] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, . . . speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

In a recent article, pastor Sam Emadi explained that the church’s members are the front lines of the church’s ministry and the elders are the supply lines. [8]

Christian, you ALSO have a responsibility to live between two worlds.

You also must know continue learning God’s Word so you know what it requires of singles and couples, dads, and moms, young and old.

Do you know God’s Word well enough to speak into these areas?

And you also must know the people in your church well enough to notice when their lives our disordered. And you must have the courage to speak into that with the truth of God’s Word.

Do you know your fellow church members well enough to know what they need?

Knowing each other well also requires we distinguish between an unruly member who needs admonished, and the second category of church member…

—The discouraged must be encouraged

That word “fainthearted” literally means “small-souled” and is typically translated as discouraged.

There is a huge difference between an unruly person who is living in direct disobedience to God’s Word and a discouraged person who is struggling to persevere.

What does the discouraged Christian need? Not admonishment, but encouragement.

If you don’t know whether a fellow church member is unruly or discouraged, try getting to know them a bit. Try asking some questions. Pray for wisdom. Consider asking one of your pastors for help.

But I do think this is the area where most Christians live. Most Christians are not deliberately living unruly disobedient lives. I believe most struggling Christians are struggling because of discouragement. Don’t discount what God can do if you’re faithful to encourage the fainthearted.

And if you don’t really know how to encourage, stay tuned. In a few weeks when we begin 2 Thessalonians we’re going to devote an entire sermon to the topic.

There’s a final category of church member that needs individual care…

—The needy must be helped

When Paul urges church members to “help the weak” he is most likely referring to physical needs.

The word translated “weak” is typically used to refer to physical illness. [9]

People with physical needs—like sickness, economic hardships, disabilities, etc.—shouldn’t be admonished for their shortcomings. And they need more than mere encouraging words. They need practical help.

Are you willing to provide practical help to the weak members in this church? What steps might you take today to become more aware of and involved in this kind of care in our church?

Let me tell you one question I am CONFIDENT our pastors would LOVE to answer: “How can I help a weak person in our church?” If you ask one of us that question, we would LOVE to point you to one or two people you can serve.

Notice the final instruction Paul gives for dealing with troubled members: “be patient with them all.”

If you spend any length of time with troubled people, you’re GOING to be tempted to lose your patience.

But who’s the perfect example here? It’s Jesus!

When Peter was needy—sinking into the middle of the Sea of Galilee—Jesus reached down and helped him.

When Peter was unruly—rebuking Jesus for predicting His crucifixion— Jesus admonished Him.

When Peter was discouraged—doubting His usefulness after denying Jesus three times—Jesus encouraged Him.

Like Peter, all of us have been at times needy, at times unruly, and at times discouraged.

And Like Peter, all Christians have received exactly what we needed from our patient Savior. Exactly when we needed it.

Because we have received patience from Jesus, let us show it to one another.

If PBC is going to thrive, we must understand and apply what God’s Word says about the responsibilities of church members.

That begins by understanding our responsibility towards those who are in trouble.

Now consider with me our second observation from verses 14-15...

B) Our Responsibility to ALL MEMBERS

Again, it’s been awhile, so let’s read again Paul’s words about the local church and it’s members...

1 Thessalonians 5:14–15—And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

In verse 15 we read two responsibilities towards all members, whether they’re facing troubles or not.

—We must not repay evil for evil

This command is pretty straightforward: if someone sins against you, don’t sin back!

And yet, it is much easier said than done. The truth is, it’s hard to respond kindly to those who sin against us.

But I want you to notice the implication in this command for church membership: Why does Paul even have to say this? Because church members sometimes sin against each other!

If you’re not a Christian, you might be surprised by that. Aren’t we supposed to be good people?

The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not that we are good and they are bad. The difference is we are forgiven and they are not.

EXPLAIN THE GOSPEL

Unbeliever: repent and believe in Jesus!

Christian: Because we have been forgiven, we must follow in Jesus’ footsteps and forgive!

But it’s not enough to negatively AVOID sinning against other church members when they sin against us. There’s a positive instruction for us as well…

—We must strive to do good to one another

Paul instructs church members to “always seek to do good to one another.”

That word translated “seek” means "to move rapidly and decisively toward an objective, hasten, run, press on." [10]

To give you a sense of the intensity of this word, the same word is sometimes translated "persecute."

We are to pursue, with white-hot intensity, opportunities to do good to the brothers and sisters in our church family.

You all do this with encouraging cards and text messages, by kindly greeting one another week after week, by helping each other when you’re sick or discouraged, by watching little ones so a mom can get a break or a couple can get a date, and countless other ways.

I hope you see in this passage the value of church membership.

In his commentary, Ligon Duncan writes:

“We cannot grow in grace, and cannot become more mature in Christ, without one another. We can’t grow to Christian maturity apart from one another because so much of our growth is in our relationships with one another—in the heartbreak of being let down and having to forgive; in the difficulty of having to walk alongside friends in Christ who are under enormous burdens; in the give and take of normal life where we defer to one another and seek to serve one another and bear with one another, and all of those other dynamics of life.” [11]

If PBC is going to thrive, we must understand and apply what God’s Word says about the responsibilities of church members.

And yet, as important as church membership is, God has not called us to a holy huddle where we ignore the world outside these four walls.

Consider with me a final observation from verses 14-15…

C) Our Responsibility to NON-MEMBERS

After commanding us to seek to do good to each other, the Holy Spirit adds “and to everyone.”

Or, as Paul says in…

Galatians 6:10—So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Yes, let’s do good to one another. But let’s not stop there. Let’s live in such a way that our love for one another overflows into love for our community.

So that more and more might come to trust in King Jesus!

Aren’t you glad our King didn’t leave us in the dark while we wait for His return?

Through Apostles like Paul, Jesus has left us clear instructions about who is supposed to lead in the local church.

And He doesn’t only tell us who should lead, He tells us how to lead and He gives us the strength to do it.

He’s also given us clear instructions about how we’re supposed to relate with one another.

And, as we’ll see next week, He’s even given us instructions on what to do when we gather.

So because we love Him, let us strive to structure all we do according to His good and gracious Word.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

O Church Arise

Benediction (Philippians 1:9-11)