Ordination Sunday
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name's Chet. If this is your first time hanging out with us today, we're glad you're here. Things are going to be a little bit different than usual, so I want to start off by saying that. If you have been around a while, you'll realize that as we get going, but if it's your first time, I wanted you to know you kind of stepped into a different situation. Here's what we're doing this morning.
We're actually going to be ordaining Raz Bradley as an elder in our church. I'm very excited about that. It means a lot for our church family. And so we, in some ways, we're treating this a little bit like we treat weddings, which is here's what marriage is, here's what the gospel is, and then we spend some time talking kind of to the couple. And so this morning we're going to say here's what eldership is, kind of here's our story as a church, here's what eldership is. Let me let you get to know Raz a little bit, and then we'll spend some time kind of talking to Raz.
We'll talk to church family as well, but we're going to be talking to him some about what the Bible says, the role of a pastor, the role of an elder is. And so this is a big day for us. And I want to kind of tell you a little bit of history of our church family so you can see this. So Matt Freeman and I, Matt was up here, he was playing the guitar. He and I were roommates in college and both kind of felt called into ministry at the same time. I remember in college I really started, I grew up in a Christian home, and so I really started reading the Bible in college with one basic question.
Do I actually believe this? Do I actually believe that the Bible is God's word, that it's true, that it matters? Is this real? See, I grew up in a Christian home. My grandparents were Baptist missionaries to Nigeria. On my other side, Bob Jones, graduate, independent Baptist pastor and wife.
If I became a Christian, I got it honest. Like it comes family line to me. And so when I got to college, my question was, do I just believe this because my mama did? Or is this real? And so I really just started reading the Bible and asking that question, and I came to the conclusion that I believe it. I think the Bible answers some very fundamental questions for me, and it answers them kind of quickly in Scripture.
One of the things that you'll hear sometimes kind of arguments against Christianity is that it takes a really messed up world. It looks at the world which we know is chaotic and destructive and painful, and it says, no, there's hope and joy and happiness and magic. Like people will argue that Christianity doesn't have a realistic view of the world. But people will also argue that the world is beautiful and wonderful and amazing, and Christianity comes along and tries to spoil it for everybody and tell everybody it's terrible and horrible, and they should all feel bad about themselves. And the truth is Christianity steps into the middle of that argument and says, yes.
And it says that in the first three chapters of the Bible. It says that the world was created by a good God who made things wonderful, and that humans rebelled and brought sin into the world, and that messed everything up. Like if you tried to convince me inside of 30 minutes that the world was a wonderful place, I would believe you. You'd be like, look, rainbows. Like, yeah, rainbows, that's crazy. You'd be like puppies and babies and friendship and love and fried chicken, and I would be on board.
I'd be like, what a glorious land. But then if you immediately took 30 minutes to say, look at how terrible this is. Look at racism and hatred and genocide and natural disasters. The world just at times tries to kill us. What is that? Volcanoes.
It's like a beautiful mountain that spits fire out. And I would be like, you're right, this place is terrible. And Christianity steps in and says, yes, it was created by a wonderful God who made it beautiful and made it amazing, and that sin marred it. Not just us, but all of creation. That creation is an open rebellion against God. But it goes further than that.
It says this is actually a personal problem as well. That this issue of the world being amazing and being rebellious is going on inside of you. And when I read that in scriptures, I'm like, yes, I feel that. Because I think I'm wonderful. I'm special. When my parents told me I was a snowflake, I was like, you're darn right I'm a snowflake.
I was one of those kids. I was cutting snowflake construction paper in school, and they were like, see how your snowflake's different from all the other snowflakes? I was like, I do see that. And they're like, that's what you're like. And I was like, teacher, that's so true. Like, I know that.
I know that humans have value and worth. I see that. I believe it. It's like, I know it without having to be taught that. But then I also see all the stuff in me that is completely messed up.
Selfish. Hateful. Like, if we just said, hey, we're going to project your thoughts from the last week up here, I wouldn't show up. I'd just be like, no, we're not doing that. Because I know what I'm like. Because I have a wonderful wife.
I have a two-year-old son. I'm close. I don't do the months thing. And I care deeply about them. But there are times I'm at my house, and my wife's like, hey, could you help with this?
And my first response is, no. I don't say that. I fight that. But I know what I'm like. I know she's like, hey, could you get up? And my response is like, no, you get up.
He's your son, too. And then we get in the argument about, like, who had to give birth and stuff. And it just kind of breaks down. But I see in me this desire, this kind of this war of both. There's goodness. And there's also just open rebellion.
And the Bible steps in and says, yes. And so as I saw that clearly and that clicked so, so beautifully in my head, I began to ask, okay, so is what the Bible says true? That it's not God doesn't just sit up in heaven and say, now you need to be moral and you need to be good. But he actually looks and says, none of you are going to be able to do this. That all of you have rebelled. All of you have sinned.
All of you have fallen short. And he loves us so much. We're so valuable and yet so broken. That he steps onto earth, that he becomes a human himself and he steps into the brokenness. And that the cross is the celebration that our God both loved us and had given us worth and value. But also knew and hated so much the sin that was in us and the sin that was rampant in the world.
See, I see that if there's a good God, he can't be okay with sin. But if there's a good God, he can't just crush everybody, right? Like there's this balance of does he love us or does he not? And the cross says, yes, he loves us, but he hates our sin and he hates the brokenness in the world so much so that he'll take it onto himself. So in college, I came to the full conclusion that, yes, I do believe this.
And then I asked the question, so what's that mean? And I came to the conclusion that if I actually believe that, that humans were built for an eternity, that at some point we're going to stand before God and either we are going to say, I trust Jesus to be good on my behalf, to have died for my sin and to give me his righteousness, or I trust myself to be good enough. And the Bible says we all fall short in that people will be either saved by Jesus or condemned based on their own rebellion. If I actually believe that we're supposed to exist for an eternity, then everything mattered. Everything I did with my time, my co-workers, the guys I was playing football with currently, everybody in my dorm, like it mattered because eternity matters.
And God loved us enough to join us. And so we planted a church in 2013. I remember feeling specifically like we were supposed to start a church while I was in college. Matt showed back up to the room. And if you all know Matt, he's like just overly positive, aggressively happy. Like that's kind of his nature.
And I'm not that. And people periodically ask how we're friends. And it's like, I don't know, we balance each other out. But he came in the room and I said, Matt, I feel like I'm supposed to build a church. And he was like, oh, it's great. I mean, it's awesome.
Like with bricks and stuff. Like he was immediately happy but had no clue what I was talking about. And I was like, oh, no, but probably should find a different word. Like just with people and the gospel, like I think we should start one. And in 2013 we did with eight people sitting around my kitchen table with one basic simple idea. We think that Christians should be Christians in normal everyday life.
That everything matters. All the everyday stuff, your budget, your time, where you work, it matters. Because your co-workers matter. Your neighbors matter. That if this is true, that if God actually made a world that's rebelled against him and that everyone we know is dealing with the effects of sin, but only Jesus brings hope, then it matters. And there are a whole lot of people, the majority of people in our city, have no desire to be here this morning.
Christians. Christians. Y'all know what we do on Sundays is weird, right? Have you been a Christian so long you've forgotten that? Maybe you grew up in it. I know a lot of people in our church family just became Christians.
They know it's weird. Ask them. What we do is weird. Okay. You're going to tell people who aren't Christians they need to show up early in the morning on Sunday on a day they could sleep in. Most people immediately say no to that because it sounds terrible.
Hey, you remember how you were going to sleep? You know how it's cold outside? You know how your blankets are warm? Yeah. Okay. Get out of your blankets and come outside.
No. Then when we get here, we're going to sing songs to a Jewish guy who lived 2,000 years ago, but we say died. They're tracking so far. Came back to life. People don't do that. And then went into heaven alive in bodily form and later is going to come back to earth to judge it riding a horse.
We believe that. We're going to sing songs to him. Then we're going to open a book and talk out of it for 40 minutes. And then we're going to go try to do it. And I know some of y'all were just like, wait, did he say 40 minutes? Welcome to Mill City Church.
We're glad you're here this morning. I'm glad you came and joined us. It makes perfect sense if you're a Christian, if you actually believe what we believe. But if you don't, this is weird. And so what we believe is that Christians are supposed to be Christians 24-7 outside the doors in relationships with people at jobs that have nothing to do with Christianity. We're not all supposed to go take a full-time job being a pastor or teach at a Christian school.
Those are beautiful vocations and you should do that. But most of us should build doors at a factory. Most of us should work at CarMax. Most of us should go be a teacher at a public school where we can actually begin to love and serve and live like Christians. That we should move into neighborhoods and when we get a pay raise, we should stay in that neighborhood because of the neighbors we've built relationships with. That's what we started with, that simple idea that if we actually believe this, then everything matters.
So we had one community group in 2013. We said Christians should help other people become Christians. Group leaders should train other group leaders. Pastors should train other pastors. And churches should start more churches. So we multiplied, became two groups.
Then we became four. Then we started getting together on Sundays. The reason we got together on Sundays was because we wanted to be able to talk to everybody at once. And then we just kept training up leaders in our groups and multiplying leaders. And then we said that we wanted to raise up pastors locally because it doesn't have much to do with a resume. That the qualifications for a pastor, for an elder, are character qualifications.
And so we actually began the pastor and training process with Raz two years ago in 2015. And it was open-ended. Well, we started it in like 2014. And then we came back and said, this was too early. We don't want to do this. And he was like, okay.
And then in 2015, he had a great attitude about it. But he acted kind of like we were dumb and we agreed. And then in 2015, we were like, okay, we're for real this time. And he's like, all right, sounds good. And then he actually has been in pastor and training for two years. Some of y'all are like, wait, he's becoming a pastor.
I thought he was. Right. He's been doing this stuff for a while, serving in our church for a while. So let me tell you a little bit about Raz. And then we're going to actually look at what the Bible says about how elders should work and what pastors are supposed to do. So this is Raz and his wife, Christina.
If y'all don't know them, Raz is on the right. So Raymond Bradley, and I hope some of y'all just learned his real name is Raymond. And Raymond Bradley was born in Sydney, Australia, raised in Sydney, Australia. His wife is from South Carolina. And her name is Christina. She helps run our host team.
But Raz grew up in Sydney, not in a Christian home, not with a lot of Christian influences. He did go to a Christian high school, but that's just because it was a good high school in his area. His parents weren't ever like anti-Christian, but they were mostly like do whatever makes you happy. So they're not, they're for what he's doing now because they believe it makes him happy. But they're not Christians.
He didn't grow up in that environment. When he was 16, his mom had been diagnosed with cancer. And he began to really struggle with the idea of how does a good God allow suffering. And when he was 16, he placed his faith in Jesus. The following year, his mother passed away. And I remember talking with him and he said that he kind of felt like when that happened, he was standing kind of at a crossroads.
And there was this, this draw to, to just go chase after everything that makes you temporarily feel good. Come, come just do everything that kind of drowns the pain. And then there was this draw from Jesus that said, just said, come follow me. And he said, he really felt like he was kind of deciding, am I actually going to believe this? Am I actually going to be a Christian? And by God's grace in that moment, he decided, no, I'm going to follow Jesus.
I'm going to double down and I'm going to spend my life chasing after him. When he graduated high school, he was an electrician for a little while in Australia, which we periodically try to get him to do electrical work. But he argues that everything's 220 in Australia, so it doesn't work the same. Plus, he's on the other side of the globe, so his ladders disorient him because of the way gravity works. But he was an electrician for a little while.
Then he served with his church there as an Anglican church. And then he decided to come to the United States to get a master's degree at CIU. So he's been at Columbia International University for the past four years. He got his Master's of Divinity this past December, which we're very excited and proud of him for that. He's transitioned well into being an American. I've got a picture of him here with what I can only assume is one of his childhood heroes.
But he's transitioned well. He's learned how to fit in here. If you'll show the next one, it kind of proves that to you. There you go. He came here. He's like, I need to grow a mullet.
I need to run around with an American flag. I need to make fireworks happen a lot. So there you go. But he recently got his Master's of Divinity. For a while, he was a camp counselor at Bethel Christian Camp and is now on their board of directors. He works at the South Carolina Baptist Convention now.
And all of that is great. And I think his resume is probably really impressive. And I'm sure when you sit down with him to do an interview, his Australian accent makes him stick out in your mind. And so you remember him better. But that matters little when it comes to becoming a pastor.
Biblically, the qualifications aren't what do they look like on paper, but the qualifications are what's their character. And that's why we've walked through this process with him for the past two years. And continually did follow up on here are areas you need to grow, here's where you need to repent. Because it's character-based qualifications. And don't get me wrong. And we're excited that we'll have a pastor who can read Greek.
But we believe in raising up local pastors, local elders, so that we can actually know what they're like. And so we're excited today as our church gets to do something we haven't ever done before, which is take somebody who's been around for a while and have them become an elder here. To tell you just a few more things quickly about Raz. Raz is the type of guy, if you don't know him, he's the type of guy who is good at everything. So kind of the type of person you've hated most of your entire life.
He's the kind of guy that you spend a couple months trying to learn how to play a song on a guitar. And then he goes, what is this, a gore-tar? And he takes it from you, and then he plays it better than you. And he's like, that's neat. And you're like, oh, you know how to play the guitar? And he's like, that's the first time I've touched one.
That kind of guy, like you learn a game, and you're like, I'll teach this to Raz, and I'll be better at him than it. And then he's immediately like, once he learns the rules, he beats you in it. This is a perfect example. He decided, he and his wife decided they were going to knit hats. And when he told us that, when he told me that, I was like, that's cute. That's precious.
No, I love that you're going to knit. That's great. And then like a week later, he sends this picture. That he knit that. And it's like, I don't even know how we're friends. What on earth?
How do you knit that? And then I don't even think he knits anymore, because he defeated it. He won knitting. Y'all didn't even know it was competitive. He won. So here, this is just, as one of your pastors, if you're part of our church family, and even if you're just here today, you're one of Raz's friends, I want to make a request.
There are two things I have learned that Raz is not good at. One of them is putt-putt. Y'all don't know how happy that made me. Because he just melted down every hole. The second one, the second thing Raz is not good at is losing. Because he's been good at everything his entire life.
So here's what I need you to do. Because we compete in things periodically, and our church family hangs out all the time. If you are on Raz's team, I need you to intentionally be terrible. For his sanctification. For his growth. For his growth in humility.
Don't make it super obvious. But be terrible. I just, I'm just asking. I just appreciate that. That's just a rule to apply for the rest of your life. So here's what we get to do today.
We're going to talk a little bit about what it means to be an elder. What eldership is. And then we're going to actually bring Raz up here, and we're going to pray over him. And he'll be an elder in our church family. And so, if you will, turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. If you have one of the white Bibles, it'll be on page 590.
This was a letter written by the apostle Peter. The disciple of Jesus is written to a group of churches. So he's writing to multiple churches at once, and they're supposed to just kind of disseminate this letter around and read it in their churches. And in this section, in chapter 5, where we're going to pick up and look at the first four verses, he's talking specifically to elders about eldership. What eldering is supposed to look like. So let me just define some terms as we get started.
The Bible uses that word elder. It comes from the word presbyteros, which is a Greek word. That's where we get Presbyterian from. That's where we get the word elder from. The Bible also uses the word overseer, which is where we get the word bishop from. And Episcopalian, we get that word from the word that they use the word overseer.
It's translated in a lot of versions. It also uses the word shepherd, which is where we get the word pastor. So, in general, when we talk about it, elder is the office. The actual position, the title. And then oversee, shepherd are things that you do. But we just use the terms pastor and elder interchangeably because we think that the office is actually elder.
But most people say pastor around here. So that's why we're using the terms the way we are. And we believe that biblically there should be multiple elders, multiple pastors in local churches. We like that model. We don't think necessarily that everybody's wrong if they do that differently. But we see that in Scripture when it talks to elders, it's always plural unless it's talking about one specific person.
It'll say this person is an elder, but otherwise it's elders in churches. And so when Raz is ordained today, which is just a fancy word that means becomes a pastor, he'll be as much a pastor as I am, as much a pastor as Matt is. We take this very seriously because in some ways when we lay hands on Raz and ordain him this morning, he's our boss as much as we are his so that we mutually agree, mutually submit to one another and try to serve together as a team in our church family. So that's kind of how that works. Let me pray real quick and then we'll start reading the text. God, we thank you for your grace.
And we thank you for the weightiness of what we're getting to do today and that we get to celebrate this together as a church family. Pray that as we read your word, you would train us, teach us, change us, that we might look more like you. In Jesus' name, amen. 1 Peter 5, starting in verse 1. So I exhort the elders among you.
Exhort means urge or strongly encourage. I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Okay, so he begins to say, I'm exhorting you, I'm encouraging you, and then he gives his three qualifications for doing so. Here's why you should listen to me. And the first two make sense to me and the third one sounded really weird. And it took me a minute.
I had to kind of sit with it for a while to try to understand why he included it. So the first one is, I'm also an elder. I exhort you as a fellow elder. The second one is, as a witness of the sufferings of Christ. Meaning, I was there when Jesus died on the cross. I was one of his earliest followers.
I'm a disciple. Both of those sound like, yeah, okay, those are good qualifications for why I should listen to you. And then the third one is, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. And so I was like, okay, he ended the list with this, and he included it on par with, I'm also an elder, and I was there when Jesus died on the cross. I'm a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. And I think a short way to say that is, I'm going to heaven also.
I'm also going to be with Jesus for eternity. And so it's like, that sounds great, but so are all Christians who place faith in Jesus for their salvation. Like, that's what he does, is he brings us into his glory. He brings us into eternity with him. And it's like, so why is that in the list? It's because that's common to all Christians, but I think the reason Peter includes this is because it is absolutely uncommon to humanity.
That this is weighty, that Christians will partake in glory with Jesus. That we've been called into an eternity to not only just be there, but to reign with him. And so as I read that, I realized how beautiful it is that Peter includes it, because he's saying, I'm going to spend eternity with Jesus. I'm going to partake in his glory. I'm going to be a part of him being elevated and honored and declared worthy for all time. That's why Paul, at one point, when the Corinthian church is having an argument and they're about to take something to court, he says, don't y'all know you're going to judge angels?
Y'all can't even handle simple human matters? What he's saying is we're called into an eternity forever with Jesus. We should see the weightiness of that. And so Peter includes it in this list. And I just kind of wish that as Christians, we would grow out of just giving each other advice, but realizing that we hold weight because Jesus has redeemed us and called us into eternity. So that when you're with your community group and they're asking for like, I'm struggling with this idea, that we wouldn't just be silent, but we wouldn't just also just pop off with the first thing that pops into our head, but that we would actually carry and understand the weight of we've been redeemed and we're going to reign with Jesus.
And when we speak, there's weight to it because we're Christians. So that's why he includes it in that list. And then here are his instructions as to what an elder ought to do and then how an elder should do that. And then why an elder should do that. So he's going to start off with what he's going to say, how he's going to say, why?
What shepherd, the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight. So shepherd, the flock of God that is among you exercising oversight. We we use that word shepherd. The Bible uses that word shepherd a lot to give us this picture of a shepherd with sheep as Americans. I don't think we're very familiar with that picture. I'm not.
I think Americans are mostly familiar with cattle. If we're familiar with anything, we're familiar with cows. I used to actually help a friend work on a cattle farm like a cow. He had heifers and we helped them get fat. That was the job. Here's the thing about cows.
You don't get emotionally attached to them because you're going to eat them soon. That was the point of the cows. So we were going to help them eat to help others eat. That was the point. And so we didn't name them. We didn't become their friends.
You might become a friend with a dairy cow because you're going to see it a lot and it's going to hang around for a while. But beef cows, you don't. But with shepherds and sheep, there was a much closer relationship. That a shepherd would know his sheep, would care for them, would be with them, would sleep where they slept, would lead them where they were going to be. That when one of them got lost, he would leave the ones that weren't and go find the one that was. That he would, if a predator came along, a bear or a wolf, he would fight it, defend it.
So that a shepherd both feeds sheep and kills wolves. And that's the picture that we're given here where he says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. I want to point out two things, Raz, as we look at this. The flock is God's. It belongs to Jesus. These are his people, his church.
Paul says it this way when he's talking to elders in Acts chapter 20. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. That the church belongs to Jesus, that he purchased by his blood, that he loves and cherishes and cares for. And that he's called certain people to step up and to shepherd and care for them as well. But ultimately it's his flock.
It's his people. It's his church. It also says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. Meaning that pastors, elders should be a part of the church. Normal, everyday Christians. Like, I'm a Christian first before I get to be a pastor.
Raz, you get to be a Christian first before you get to be a pastor. I think it's been damaging and unhelpful. And I've heard in a lot of pastoral circles where pastors say stuff like, I really just need some people that I can be honest with. So I have to seek accountability and relationships outside of my church. I had a pastor one time tell me, he was moving to be a pastor somewhere else. And he said, I learned my lesson with my last church because I lived right near the building.
And I would like run into people that were a part of my church at the grocery store and stuff. And so this time I actually moved 30 minutes away so that that wouldn't happen. And that just hurt me inside. Because as a pastor, you get to be a part of the church. You get to be a normal Christian. You get to struggle with sin.
Like my community group that I get to be a part of is not impressed with me. They don't think I'm special. They had reservations about that snowflake speech I gave earlier. Like I get to be a normal sinner in love with Jesus. Following him in normal life. So you shepherd the church that you're among, that you're a part of, that you relate to in normal life.
Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. Oversight means lead. Make decisions for. Care about. Shepherd. Care about.
Defend. Protect. Love. Chase it down. And exercise oversight, which means lead. Make some decisions.
Be unpopular at times for what's best. One of the things I will tell you all about Raz is that he does love this church. And he does love Jesus. And he cares a lot about whether or not this church is actively seeking to follow and love Jesus. I have probably over the course of our church life existence from 2013 on, I have argued more with Raz than with anybody else in our church family. Maybe my wife.
She's in our church family. We argue from time to time. But Anna, then Raz. He cares. He cares a lot when he's come to a conclusion on something and he believes that this is the best course of action. We argue.
We butt heads because we both care. We both want to see things be good. I remember Raz went to work because he works at South Carolina Baptist Convention. He was working all day. He came to meet us when he got off work for us to argue for two hours about how membership ought to be done. Because we did that this past year where we said this is what it means to be committed to this church family to say, I follow Jesus, but I'm actually going to buy in here and serve here and give here and fight for health here.
And Raz and I argued for two hours about how to do that. And thankfully Matt showed up and tried to help. He made it a little bit worse, but it was good. And then Raz went to go play kickball with some people in his apartment complex. And I just remember texting him that night and I was like, man, I hope we get to argue a lot more in the future. And he sent back anytime.
And I knew he meant it. But you care and you fight for what matters. You seek to lead. That's the calling. That's what pastors should do. Shepherd and oversee.
Jesus is people. But then he tells them how. He says, he's going to say, not this, but this. Like, not in this way, but this way. So he says, not under compulsion, but willingly.
You shouldn't become a pastor because you feel like you have to, but you should actually desire it. You should want to. Being a pastor is hard enough. If you don't want to do it, I think it would be terrible. Like, you should desire to lead, to serve, to take on this position, to lay your life down on behalf of others. So he says, not under compulsion, but willingly.
Don't get into it because your parents want you to. Don't get into it because you think you have to, but get into it because you have a desire for it. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. So that people shouldn't become pastors. I think shameful gain is a couple of things. I think that can be, I want the title.
I want the honor that comes along with it. I think some of that's passing away. I don't think people care about pastors as much as they used to. Like, if you grew up in the South, people, it was like a more honored position than it is now. And some of that's okay. And some of it's probably good.
But I think people could get into it as like, I want a respectable, I want to prove to my dad. I want to like, it's a bad reason to do it. Shameful gain could also be monetary. It can be. I know of pastors who are wealthy. I don't know any personally.
But I've seen them on TV. And I've seen them on the internet. And I know that that's a thing in the U.S. That you can actually become a pastor to make money. If that is Raz's plan, just so you all know. He's done that very poorly.
He chose our church. He's not getting paid. So he's going to come on and eagerly. I actually believe that he models this well for us because he's continuing his job, his full-time job elsewhere. But coming on and taking on extra work and extra responsibilities here to serve in this capacity.
I also know that if he was not becoming an elder today, he'd be doing the same thing he's been doing. He'd be doing the same thing we're about to ask of him and wouldn't care. So I'm excited that everybody in our church family who is a pastor, myself, Matt, and now Raz, will have done what we're doing for free prior to getting paid for it. And would still be doing it if we weren't getting paid for it. So it says, Not for shameful gain, but eagerly.
Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. So that you lead by example, not by position or title or forcefulness or volume. That the pastorate isn't a place for bullies. But for humility and servanthood. I remember when I first, first time I sat down with Raz, he was first coming around and was wanting to hop in a group. And he'd been a part of Midtown and he was coming to talk.
Just give a cab coffee with me and ask like, what would it look like if I came and just hopped in with y'all and help start this church? I remember talking with him and I came back and I called Matt on the way home and I said, Hey, this guy named Raz wants to come hang out. He's probably going to hop in my group. He seems really smart. He seems really driven. He seems very knowledgeable.
He ultimately wants to be a pastor or missionary. I think he should hop in and I think we should not let him do anything. He can take out the trash. He can do some real service roles that no one will see him or know who he is. I think he's really probably would be great at almost anything. So let's not let him do anything.
And Matt was like, sounds great. So Raz hopped in and for a long time, we just kind of put our hand on top of his head and didn't let him do anything other than background cleaning. He's done a lot of stuff in our church family that nobody ever knows he did. And he didn't keep saying, hey, guys, I'm really smart. I'm important. I can read Greek.
Y'all need to let me do something else. He just did what we asked of him with a great attitude. And so then we kept asking more and more and more of it. That's what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 20, that he didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And that whoever would be first among you must be your servant. Whoever would be chief among you must be your slave.
Even as the son of man came to give his life. He says that. And so we believe that Christian leadership isn't climbing a ladder, but it's descending one. And it goes from service slavery to death. So if you can't take out the trash and if you can't clean up after everybody's gone and if you can't show up earlier and help everything set up.
And if you can't open your wallet and give money and not have anybody know about it, then you can't lead in the church. Because it only gets worse from there. The more people see you and the more you get elevated, the more you're called to slavery and to death and to giving up your life for them. Raz, realize that as you become an elder today, that's the call. Service, slavery, and death. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being an example to the flock.
The role of a pastor is to not be right or to prove to everyone that you are right, but to set an example, to serve them, to love them, to sit with people and cry, to listen and to listen and to listen and then to speak. And then he's going to say, why? So he says, what? Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. He says, how? Not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you.
Not for shameful gain, but eagerly. Not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And now he's going to say, why? And when the chief shepherd appears, that's Jesus, he will receive the unfading crown, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Jesus is the chief shepherd. On our order chart, Jesus is at the top.
We don't have a senior pastor that's here. We have a senior pastor in Jesus. That's what chief shepherd means. And it says, when he appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Raz, I believe that in that sentence, we have as pastors, both something that should keep us up at night and that should wake us up in the morning. He says that when the chief shepherd appears, meaning that Jesus is coming back, we won't get to shepherd and be pastors forever without the chief shepherd coming back.
He's going to come back. There's going to be a day when we stand face to face with him. Hebrews 13 says it this way. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Leap that up for just a minute.
There's going to be a day when every pastor stands before Jesus and gives an account for souls. For some of you who've grown up in church or have been a part of a church where the pastorate did not look like Peter just described it. It was domineering. It was for shameful gain. It was under compulsion. It was mishandled and misused.
Can I make you a promise? There will be a day when every person who shepherded one of Jesus's churches will stand before the chief shepherd and will be held accountable for souls. And Raz, I think that ought to keep us up at night. I think that ought to drive us to our knees. I think that ought to drive us to prayer and for mercy and for grace and for Jesus to be at work at us through His Holy Spirit that we would handle the care of souls of people who He died for to make His. That when we give an account we can say, Jesus, I trust in Your grace for me.
I trust in Your payment for me on the cross. And I trust that I tried to do as best I could. But I do have good news. Peter does not include that in this list to scare us. Although I do think it is kind of scary. Peter does not include it there for that reason.
Oh, can I say one thing, church family, real quick? From this passage since we read it that I think is, that also scares me. Can I just tell you all things I'm afraid of? It says, obey your leaders and submit to them. I think that word obey and submit is very terrifying for me as a pastor who's going to give an account for souls. That's one of the reasons why we want multiple pastors so that we can come to conclusions prayerfully together that the Holy Spirit can give us unity.
We don't do a whole lot of voting. We actually come to it like we, if one of us is saying, I have issues over this, we pray about it. We try to, we say, okay, well let's keep talking about it. Let's keep arguing about it. Let's, let's, so that when, because church family, it's one of the reasons we did membership this past year for you to say, this is where I'm plugged in. This is where I'm going to serve.
This is where I'm going to connect. This is where I'm going to give. This is where I'm going to labor because you're called to obey and submit in a local church. And I know as Americans, those words are cuss words. Liberty or death. I don't obey and submit to nobody.
Right? On the, on the other end of a gun, maybe. My cold dead hands, you know, like we're Americans, we say these things. Christians are called to obey and submit. And I kind of, as a pastor, I really just wish the author of Hebrews had said, consider the things they say. Think about, hold with some weight, but then at the end of the day, you're ultimately responsible for this.
Honestly, I think that actually means that there are house rules in churches. Here's what I mean. I got a two-year-old. Matt and Katie have a two-year-old. As they grow up together, there are certain things that we're called to that all Christian families should do that Matt and I are both supposed to do in our houses that are, this is what it looks like. And then there are house rules.
So when I was growing up, up until the time I left my dad's house, I was 18, I had to be in bed at nine o'clock. My older brother went to college, came back, was living at our house. My dad would say, if you're going to work for me, you're going to be in bed at nine o'clock. He was like 22. He had a bedtime and an early one. That stuck with me my whole life.
At about 9.30, I'm like, I better be getting to sleep. I can't be, I'm not a party animal. Like, when I met my wife, she didn't even have a curfew. I was like, what time do you need to get home? She's like, I don't have a curfew. And my first thought was your parents hate you.
Because my parents were so intense. It just turns out she never did anything real bad, so they didn't really police her that much. We needed a nine o'clock bedtime. So, those are house rules. As Emmy grows older, she may have to be in bed at seven. I don't know.
I may let my kids stay up late. Just kidding, it's nine o'clock. Or if you get loud or annoying before that, that indicates your sleepiness. If you're bothering me at 8.30, it's bedtime. Those are house rules. If I tell my kids to be in bed at 8.30 and they're up at nine, they are actually rebelling against their father, they are sinning, the Bible has told them to obey their parents, that's a house rule.
The Bible doesn't say children should be in bed at nine o'clock. Does that make sense? I think this means that in churches, whoop, I think this means that in churches there are house rules. I'm going to keep pointing like y'all know it's up there. Remember it, what it looked like. I think that in churches there are elders who actually have responsibility of making decisions and that the local church says, I'm a part of this.
And here's what he says though. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be no advantage to you. Church family, Raz is going to become an elder today. And by God's grace he'll get to do that for 20, 40, 60 years. And I hope that our church that at the end of the day he can say it was a joy that I got to serve that church. It was a joy that I got to shepherd and oversee those people.
When they had a problem, they talked to me, they didn't just leave. When they disagreed, we had heated debate because we both cared and we both wanted to do what mattered in the church. When there was something that was outside of, the Bible kind of gave us some guardrails, but we made a decision. They said, we're on this team. We're going to fight for it. We're going to lead in it.
We're going to, I pray that our church makes it a joy to be a pastor here. And can I just say, so far, I know Matt and I are blessed to be able to lead here. It's been a joy. I appreciate our church family. And I know how difficult those first two words are to obey and to submit. And I appreciate how much y'all care and fight and stay.
Thank y'all. And I really mean that. And I pray that we get to continue to do this, continue to pursue the city, continue to fight together. But Raz, as I was saying earlier, Peter doesn't include that to scare us. He includes it not to keep us up at night, but to wake us up in the morning. Because he says, when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
You're supposed to live your life as a pastor, serving, putting yourself last, taking phone calls at random times in the day and night that go get with people, go connect with people, go listen to people, go fight for things that matter when people don't care, go sit down with someone who's actively trying to run away from Jesus and do everything you possibly can to say everything you possibly can so that they won't. And what Peter is saying is do this humbly, continually, eagerly, and willingly. And one day, Jesus comes back and the king of the universe is going to honor you for your struggle and your fight for however long you did it. There's going to be a moment when the God of the universe who deserves all glory and all honor and is ultimately sovereign eternally, eternally, and infinitely worthy is going to pause for a moment and look at pastors and say, well done.
Thank you for hustling. Thank you for loving. Thank you for caring for my church. Peter says that so that you would always have a reason to wake up and fight because there's going to be a day when you stand before the chief shepherd and he pauses and honors you. The one, the one being, the one person in all the world that it matters to be honored by. So Raz, it's my hope and prayer that we get to do this a long time together.
We get to be really old, that we get to pastor well beyond our usefulness. I hope we get to do it while we're bad at it and can't even remember anything. Like, I can't remember stuff now. I hope it gets worse and I'm like 80. People are like, you should step down and I'm like, make me. Just kidding.
Raz is shaking his head because all of that was incorrect. But I hope we do get to do this a long time together. Serve alongside one another together. And I hope we get to raise up more pastors in our church family. I hope we get to send out more churches from our church family. And I hope we get to celebrate together all along the way as we chase after Jesus and his fame and his glory and his work here on earth.
Raz, will you come up here? Matt, will you come up here? Here's what we're going to do. We're going to lay hands on Raz, pray over him. Matt and I are and then we'll have a chance to do that as a church family. Raz, pastors are supposed to willingly, eagerly shepherd and oversee God's church until ultimately the Holy Spirit calls you to step down or Jesus comes back.
You get to meet him. By God's grace, are you willing to take on this role and responsibility in our church? Yeah. Okay. Let's step over here.
We're going to pray. Matt's going to pray and then I'm going to pray and then we'll have an opportunity to all pray together. Amen. God, I thank you so much for Raz. I thank you that in your divine sovereign plan that there was a friend that he went to school with that shared the gospel with him. Your Holy Spirit convicted Raz of the sin and he turned from the sin and he placed his faith in you and he's never looked back.
That every bit of Raz's life has mattered since that time. God, you brought him here to the States. You brought him to Columbia International. You brought him to Bethel Christian Camp. You brought him to the South Carolina Baptist Convention. You brought him to Midtown and to be a part of Mill City Church.
God, your hand has been on Raz every step of the way until the time where two of his friends get to stand on his side and pray over him as he becomes an elder of this church and Jesus, we praise you. We praise you for your work in his life. Lord, I thank you for the gifts and the talents and the abilities that you've given him but more than anything, God, I thank you for his heart. I thank you for how much he loves you and how much he loves his wife and how much he loves this church family and how much he loves seeing people come to know you and to worship you and follow you. I thank you for the people that he's been able to share the gospel with.
I thank you for the groups that he's been able to lead as a part of our church family. I thank you for the ministries that he's overseen and God, as he takes a step into being an elder in our church, I pray that you would help him continue to serve faithfully and humbly for many, many years. God, I pray that the three of us would look to you as our chief shepherd that you are the leader of our church and we submit and follow you and that we get to get after it for many, many years here in this city to see more people come to know the love of Jesus and to follow him in the normal, everyday life. God, in the name of Jesus, we commend Raz to you that by your grace you would empower him to keep him from stumbling, to keep him faithful, to help him to grow daily more in love with you, to see your people and the city more the way you see them.
That God, as he steps into being an elder in our church, that you would give him wisdom and humility and patience, kindness and love, that he would sacrifice, that he would be an example to our church family as he follows you, that he would help us look more like Jesus. God, I pray that he would be kept far from sin. I pray that he would be quick to repent, that through your grace you would help him to own his sin quickly, to be honest with his community group, to be honest with our church family, to walk as a broken, weak sinner, saved by grace, changed by Jesus. We ask God that your blessing be on him, that your blessing be on our church, that you would use our church family to help others come to know you in this city.
In Jesus' name, amen. Raz, if you'll step down here and Christina, if you'll come up and stand with him. They're going to stand down here and if you will, church family, if you, if you, we're going to pray for them now, just kind of together, collectively asking God to bless them, to use them in our church family to work through them. If you know Raz or you're in his community group, you're part of our church family and y'all want to come up here and actually lay hands on them and pray around them, I'd ask you to go ahead and move, move, go ahead and move and do that this morning. And we're just going to pray kind of silently.
If you, if you don't know Raz as well, but you're part of our church family, why don't you pray where you are. So, but we're just going to take a minute to, to kind of quietly stand before God on their behalf and ask him to work. through them, to bless them, to guard them, to use them. And then, when we've prayed here for a minute, I'll pray out loud and then, we'll sing, sing a song and finish up today. Let's pray. Let's pray.
Let's pray. Let's go. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, Amen.
In the name of Jesus and by your spirit, we commend them to you, Lord, and we ask you that you would guard them, guard their marriage, bless their service, help them to grow in their love for you. We ask you to work mightily in our church family for your glory and your name. In Jesus' name, amen.