If you have your Bible, I want you to open with me to the book of 1 Peter, and I want you to go to chapter 5. Identity Check, Part 12. It has been a long, long journey. I know. We have one more message in this series, but today, most of this Scripture is about me as a pastor and about me as a shepherd, so you can rest a little easy today, a little bit, okay? You have a little bit at the end, but I get the spotlight turned on me, so to speak. Now, I want to read this opening passage. It is found in the book of 1 Peter. I want to read the first four verses to begin with. This is Peter, and he's writing to the pastors, the elders, of the church.
"So 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: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, 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 when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory."
Legacy Church, I want you to know something with full assurance. You have the most gracious, most long-suffering, most humble pastor in the United States. In fact, I am assured that you have the greatest pastor in the entire world. I know this, because I'm not him. His name is Jesus. Amen. I am not, nor have I ever been the pastor of you. I am an under shepherd. I am an under shepherd under the Great Shepherd.
You are his sheep. You are his people. The Bible, in fact, calls you the very pride of his life and the apple of his eye, so to speak. You are special to him. You have been set aside. God loves you that much. Is it all right to brag just a little bit in the open about Jesus? He loves you completely. He loves you just like you are, but he loves you enough not to leave you where you are. I can promise you that. He loves you unconditionally. He doesn't have to have a perfect people or a perfect place in order to love you perfectly. That's who he is.
The Bible says, "For God so loved the world, that he…" What? "…gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him [would not] should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." You know what that word saved means? You've been rescued. If you know God, if you've trusted Christ in your life, he has rescued you from a world that is broken, a world that is chaotic, a world that is after your moral makeup, a world that is after your very soul, your very being, and your humanness. It's after it.
It wants to shape you, but the moment you turn your life, that moment in time that you bow your heart, your mind, your soul, everything you are, you are bowing to a God who has drawn you by the power of his love and not condemnation. He has chased you. He has pursued you. He has special things for you. He loves you well. The reason I know that is because we can see it all through Scripture. We know Jesus left all of glory to come and be with you, to spend time with humanity, to be here. Right?
We know the disciples, who were just as frustrated as they could be to him, we are that frustrating to God many times. Are we not? We know they argued about who was going to be the greatest. They had this same argument over and over countless times all the way to when he was experiencing the Last Supper with them. They were still arguing about who was going to be the greatest. This pride, the sin of pride was in their lives.
Yet Jesus has said in the Scriptures that he loved them to the very end. You know, Cassandra already alluded to it in one of her songs. She said this. "You can't escape the love of God. You can't do anything to get God not to love you. He loves you." Amen? That is the God you have in your life. Now, here's my job. My job is the under shepherd. The commitment God has toward you is my commitment to pursue. Did you hear me? The commitment God has to you or toward you is my commitment to pursue.
The way he loves you long-suffering, I am called to love you the same way. Right? The way he loves you unconditionally, I am to love you unconditionally. The way he is all-consuming and wants to be part of your life, that is what I as an under shepherd or any pastors I have on staff or any of my elders are called to love you the way God loves you. We can't love you the way he does unless he lives inside of us.
Since he is living inside of us by the power of the Holy Spirit, all we have to do to love you well is kind of step out of the way and let God love you through us. Amen? That's what we do. The Bible has a lot to say. We're going to get to 1 Peter in a moment, and I'm going to walk through those verses. Before we get there, I have a couple of other Scriptures. It's going to be on your screen. There are three of them. I want you to look at them.
The first thing I want to say to you today is this. I am not called to be a celebrity. Do you hear me? Pastors are not called to be celebrities. When we look at the book of Mark, chapter 10, and verse 45, it reads like this. "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus didn't come to control the situation. He came to serve out of love in order to draw you. Right?
I am not called and no pastor is called to be a celebrity. He is called or she is called to be a servant. I got one clap on that one. If we're not careful, we can live in a world, and pastors can get caught up in hearing their own fanfare, being propped up as greater than they really should be. Here's the deal. I know myself. I'm jacked up. I got an "amen" from the elders back there. I am called to serve you.
There are times I don't feel like serving you. It's like one pastor said. "Sheep bite." They do. Pastors can be jerks. Amen? Somewhere in the beauty of this ugly tension, God invades my life and invades your life, and we are called to mutual humility, to serve one another. Why? So the world will understand that as messed up as we really are, we know who we follow, and he is perfect, serving humanity through each of us, one to the other. Right?
That's why I don't believe a pastor should be looked at as a celebrity. A pastor should be looked at as a servant, because when I think of Jesus, I don't think of him as a celebrity. I first think of him as a servant. God created all things, and yet serves. I think if Jesus can serve, so can I. Amen? That's the commitment I make to you as a pastor. Here's the deal. If I was left on my own, I wouldn't come up with, "Oh, I have to serve everybody." You wouldn't either. We just wouldn't come up with that. That wouldn't be our idea.
That's how I know God is real. Humans would have never come up with, "Hey, we're just going to serve humanity and serve everybody no matter if they smack me in the face. I'm going to turn the other cheek." We wouldn't have come up with that. We would have come up with something like, "If you hit me, I'm going to bust your teeth out. Then I'm going to back the car up over you, man. Then I'm going to call the ambulance to come get you just because I hope you get better so I can beat you up again." Amen? Hello?
It's in us. We live in a world sometimes where people come to church and are angry at one another, and they're angry at the pastor. The pastor comes so church, and he's angry at the world, and he's angry at the sheep. Somehow or another, we get together, and we're all angry. The Spirit of God falls into place, touching the Spirit of God on the inside of us, and all of a sudden, we start looking at each other going, "Well, you're not half bad." Right? God gets in the mix. We have to move out of the way to allow him to get in the mix. We can't program it. Otherwise, we become celebrities.
Secondly, as a pastor, I'm not called to be unapproachable. I'm called to be approachable. You should be able to approach me. Look at Matthew 9 and 10. Many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. I love that about Jesus. He hung out with the rough crowd. Right? How many of you know that sometimes, the rough crowd has a lot of money in their pockets? Sometimes the rough crowd is homeless, because we're all a rough crowd.
The one thing I see Jesus not spending a lot of time around is religious folk who think they have it all figured out. He hung out with the sinners. He wasn't afraid to associate. He was very approachable. Even so much that in the Scriptures, when kids would run to him, they would try to push the kids away.
He said things like, "Hinder the kids not to come to me. Do not make it so they can't get to me. Allow them to come to me." Approachable. Have you ever seen a pastor who just has the entourage? You know. He's the guy who walks in after everything is said and done. He kind of takes the stage and does it. Maybe he'll slap a few backs on the way out. You can't ever get to him. I am so glad Jesus wasn't like that.
"Well, you know, man. It's because the church is so big." I've pastored a large church in San Francisco, a large church. I was always there first, always there last. You could always get to me. You could always touch me. Do you know why? I figure it like this. If Jesus can be touched, his pastors should be touched as well. Amen? They ought to be approachable. Today, I stand, and I make no apologies for that. I don't sit here and act like I have to apologize for it, because it's the Word of God. I don't even have to over-explain it.
When I was going through some of my ministerial training many years ago, over 20 years ago or better, there were some pastors who were called in to train us young pastors. I can remember one class I had in particular. This particular minister gets up and starts telling stories about the office of pastor and how it is to be revered and respected and all this. Trust me, guys. I get it. What does the Bible say? "Give honor to whom honor is due." I get all that. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
This is what he said. It was a group of us. He said, "You guys are going to be ministers. Let me give you an example. You have to teach your flock to respect you." I think you can teach your flock to respect you by serving. I think if you serve, they will respect. I think that's called influence. Influence will lead a whole lot better than control. Amen? He goes on to say this. "For instance, I want to be called Pastor."
We're all listening. We're young. "Okay. What do we do here?" He said, "I had one of my members one time see me across the road. We were uptown, and I was eating. He started yelling my name, calling my name out by my first name. I heard him, but I didn't acknowledge him. When I got to church, I told him, 'I did hear you, but the reason I didn't acknowledge you is because you didn't call me Pastor.'"
As a young pastor, I was like, "What?" I couldn't believe it. Immediately, I wanted to shut it down. I'm one of these guys who get it. I get it when people are around me as a pastor, and if I'm in a group, people do. They do it out of respect. I do it. I do it to other people. If I'm around another pastor, I'm like, "Hey, Pastor." I get it, but I want you to know, Legacy Church, you can call me dude. I don't care.
Come up and go, "Hey, dude. What are you going to preach next week?" I'll be like, "Bro, let me tell you what I have on my mind." I don't care. You can come up to me in front of the most elite… I love Billy Graham, the preacher of all preachers. If Billy Graham walked in here, and you were around me, and I was meeting Billy, you can come up and go, "Yo, dude. Watch out. Let me meet him." I'll be like, "All right. Get in there." I don't care.
If you want to call me Pastor in the proper context and place because you think it's respectful, go for it. You don't owe that to me. I won't go home and lose sleep over it, because here's the deal. I'd much rather you view me as the servant of all, because Jesus was the servant of all. That is the commitment as a pastor I make to you, because it is the commitment that has been placed upon me.
Next, this is what I want you to know. Pastors are called to be knowable, not unknowable. Okay? The Scripture says this. Jesus said this in John 10. He said, "I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me." Don't you love that? "I am the…" What? "…good shepherd." Right? In the book of Jeremiah, when the people were in huge disobedience, and they were clamoring for someone to lead them, there is a Scripture in there.
I forget where it is, but there is a Scripture where God promises to send Israel, God's people, a pastor of love after their own heart. Well, right here he is. "I am the good shepherd." Look what he says. "I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep." This is Jesus, your shepherd, your great High Priest, your prophet, your priest, your King. That's what he says about you. "I am the good shepherd, and I want you to know me, and I know you the way I know the Father."
Do you see how he gathers to connect? I'm convinced we try to gather people around programs to form relationships instead of having relationships among ourselves first, and out of those relationships, programs are birthed that minister to the world. This is my commitment to you. I am knowable. I am approachable.
Granted, I was having supper last night with some people in the church, and we were talking. I made a statement to them. We were kind of talking about this same subject, and I said, "I have often said this. Do you ever have somebody coming toward you, and the moment you see them, you go, 'Oh, man. There so-and-so comes again'?" Right?
You're that person to somebody. Have you ever thought about that? You know right now if I said, "Is there anybody in your life who when you see them coming, you don't dislike them, but you're like, 'Oh, here's comes such-and such again. They don't ever shut up.'" Right? You're that person to somebody. I'm that person to somebody. Does that mean we avoid them, or does it mean we're called to love them first? We are called to love them. That's my job. Right?
What do you do? If you have these 15 things about them that drive you crazy, what do you do? You find the one thing about them that doesn't drive you crazy, and you love that place and exploit that place in their life. That's when God looks down. Then it's not that they need to be changed. There is an area of your life and my life that needs to be changed. Amen?
Now I want you to go with me to the first verse again in 1 Peter 5. "So 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." I love this, because this is Peter writing to the pastors about how to be a pastor, how to hang in there, how to love people, how not to forsake people. Right? Does anybody remember his story?
Isn't this the guy who sat at the Last Supper and said, "Lord, if they all forsake you, not me." Then one gospel says the rest of them said likewise. So they all said, "Us too! Us too! He isn't the only one who is real special and isn't going to leave you. We won't either. What happened? They all left except for John, the beloved, who hangs out at the cross with Mary. Everybody forsook him.
What happens? He had already told Peter. This is the guy writing to pastors. Peter was the lead pastor of the Jerusalem church. I want you to know something. Out of some of the greatest failures and the greatest chaotic people, God will birth and put the power of shepherd on them. That's what I love about it. Here's the deal. I would have never called me, because I know me, but God called me. God selected me.
The way Peter had grace given to him, grace was given to me. That same grace he gave back away, because he had received it. That's what a pastor does. Jesus had already told in in Luke 22, around verse 61, he had already warned him prior to that verse. He said, "Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times." That takes place in Luke 22:61, and the Bible says that Jesus turned and looked at him and made eye contact. He makes eye contact with him.
Something tells me it wasn't like what we would do. Like, "See. I tried to tell you. If you would have listened to me…" I think it was more this look of, "Peter, I'm not done with you." That's what it was. "You're forsaking me, but I'm not done with you." In verse 62, Peter weeps bitterly, and he runs away. This is the guy writing this.
Look what he says to the elders and the pastors. Watch this. When I'm preaching, guys, I want everybody to know. Put everybody on notice. I'm talking about me. I'm talking about my executive pastor. I'm talking about my campus pastors. I'm talking about my youth pastor. I'm talking about my eldership. We are called to be spiritual leaders.
Do you know what my place is among them? To borrow a phrase from things I've read before, it's this. I am first among equals. That's my calling. I am first among equals. Yet we are called to serve you. We are called to be here for you. The moment I see my pastors and my executive staff, if they're not loving well, I will confront them. Guess what? They'll confront me, because that's what we do. Look what happens as we read this. Look at verse 2. "…shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight…"
The first thing I want you to notice is this. Whose flock is it? God's. It is God's flock, and he has called me to exercise… What? …oversight by… What? …shepherding. We do that, and we do that by loving you well. In other words, I am the guy who stands, and I feed you each week, and I study, and I pray, and I love you well, and I try to be there to serve, and I try to look at your life and your gifts and pull those things out as well as some of the others.
Christopher stands and preaches. Danny stands and preaches. Our elders pray, and we get together and minister, and we visit in hospitals, and we come and are there. We all have different pockets, and we all have different abilities. Some of us share some of the same traits. Others have higher gifts.
Christopher, for example, my executive pastor, what is he doing? He is not only good at teaching and preaching, but he can also run the numbers. He's the one who looks and can watch budgets and present those things. Right? That's what we do. Our teachers on staff carry the same weight. Diane, who teaches for me many times at Ruth's Chris the same way, taking care of the flock that has been placed under us. That's what shepherds do. Right? We give oversight.
It moves on and says this. "…not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you…" Now I want to talk real quick today about the calling of God. This is not a job. I would have never picked this job for me. I can promise you that. I love you. There are days I don't want to love you. I want to feed you. There are days I don't want to feed you. Is this too real? How many days are there when you don't want to come to church, but you come? Right? This is who we are, but it's a calling. It is not a job.
I remember I had a pastor I grew up with one time. I won't name his name. I remember when I was dealing with the call of God on my life to preach, not a job, a call of God on my life to preach, I remember I went to him for counsel, and I said, "Tell me how you knew God was calling you." You know what this guy said to me? He looked at me and said, "What are you talking about calling? It was a great job opportunity and profession, and I got in it. I didn't think I would stay, but I ended up liking it. It's a pretty good job."
I knew to shut the conversation down right then. I knew I needed to walk away. It wasn't long until I felt the full weight of what a calling was. Some of you have heard me share the story, and I want to share with you about this calling. If I were to choose a job for me, and I could have the dream job of anything I wanted to do, do you know what I would do? I would pray that God would open a door for me to be a comedy writer on a show like Seinfeld, or something like that.
I'd like to be a guy who sits at the table with everybody else and goes, "Hey, hey, listen. Elaine is going to come in. I have an idea. This will be hilarious." And we write. That's what I would like to do. I just love comedy. God looked down and went, "No, I'm going to jack your life up. Watch this. Check this out."
So here I am, and one day, Amy and I had just gotten married, and she said, "Listen. I want you to go back to college. Get your education. Get a better job. We're freshly married. You need to make a little extra money. We can move on with our house and our dream." I went to college. I was walking across the college parking lot, and I felt God speaking to me. He said, "Go home. You're going to waste your time. You're going to waste your money."
I got in the car, went home, told Amy. "It didn't go well. I felt like God spoke to me." I said, "Baby, could you give me a couple of weeks?" The next thing I know, our church that I was part of had a revival. It had a guy come in. He was going to preach seven nights of services. I said, "Let me go through the revival. Let me see if I can hear God. I think God is calling me to preach." She said, "I didn't marry a preacher." I said, "Baby, please." She said, "No, no, I didn't…"
You have to understand. When Amy met me, I was in a heavy metal band. I had a song on the radio. I was Mr. Mullet-guy with the spandex in the 80s. How ugly is that? Right? I went to the service, and I was going to go to college to get a CPA degree, because I kind of enjoyed numbers, and that's why I would have gone. I'm sitting in the back with a bunch of young people, and this guy was preaching. I never even knew him.
All of a sudden, in the middle of the sermon, he stops, and he says, "God wants me to share something." Meanwhile, I had been wrestling in my heart. My heart was beating in my chest. I was going, "God, if there is a call of God on my life, you have to do something. You have to show me." This minister stops his sermon. He walks out of the pulpit. He walks down the aisle. He's looking at me. I'm looking at him. Everybody is in church quiet, going, "What is going on?"
He looks at me, and he says, "You know what? God told me to tell you not to be a CPA but to obey his call." I shoved him out of the way. I ran down to the altar. I gave my calling and heart over to him. Long story short, I was called to preach, went to college, and then God said, "Check this out." He took this country-sounding guy from North Carolina and said, "I'll drop him in the middle of San Francisco. Watch this." That isn't a job. That's a calling.
Again, that's why I don't like it when a pastor is a celebrity, or they're not doing it right. None of us are perfect, but we have the pattern right here that we need to be held accountable to first by God, and then by those in the body, right? The reason I say calling…
I want to do this. My daughter is back there in the back helping. My son is sitting right there. Son, I want to look at you in front of everybody and say something. It is a call of God that calls you into ministry. It is not a job. Son, I want you to know this, in front of these people. If God equips you to do something other than ministry in this world, go for it, but if he ever calls you, he'll call you. I don't call you into the ministry.
You may never be a pastor. You may be X, Y, and Z out there, and I'm proud of that, but it's a call, Son. Just because you carry my last name doesn't mean you carry my call. I want to share that, and I want you to know that, because I love you. It is a call of God. I'm going to promise you this. If it was a job, I'd quit every week. Is that all right? Okay.
"…but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly…" Not for the money. The Bible talks about paying your pastor. It talks about things like, "Don't muzzle the ox." Right? "A workman is worthy of the hire." All those things. The elders and people around put a salary together, and they take care of your pastor and all that, but that's not why I do it. Money should never be the motivation for a minister to preach the gospel. Do you hear me? Ever.
When I was in California, I remember I had a paint-contracting business while I was pastoring my inner-city church. If I told you how much money I made painting, you would go, "And you left that?" Because it was ridiculous. The kind of money… I went to the mailbox, and I would go, "You've got to be kidding." It was big money. I remember being miserable with big money, because I had a call of God on my life.
It's too long to go into, but I remember sitting in an apartment, angry at God. I think I dropped a few cuss words at God. Is that all right? I've done that. You've probably never been mad enough at God to throw something out of your mouth like that, because you're too holy, but I got mad at God. I'm like, "You drug me all the way out here, and I have to paint?" It wasn't the money.
God dealt with me on some things. Then one day (fast forward in the story), I was sitting in my car, and it was like God said, "Now it's time to walk away from your business." I picked up the phone. I made phone calls. I called all of my properties, and I quit every one of them. I then called my wife. I said, "Baby, let me tell you what God spoke to me. He wants me to let go of my business and go full time into pastoring and take the salary they can give me."
Now, when I say it was less than half, it was less than half. It didn't even meet our budget. In fact, it put us $5,000 in the negative each month. Okay? I want you to know this. I say this because it's a calling. I want you to know my heart as a pastor and who I am, because if you don't know me, I can't fully know you. I want you to know who I am. You may not want to follow me as I follow Christ.
I called her, and I told her. Some men would just be afraid of their wives. I have a good wife. I just going to tell you right here in front of everybody… She's not in here. You can probably hear me over there behind the wall. I have a good wife who has submitted to the call of God as I have submitted to the call of God all my life without question. I didn't ask that of her. I've never demanded that. It's just who she is.
I'm not Mr. He-Man. I'm not. She'll whoop my hind end. I'm afraid of her. I'm telling you, she's a good lady. She said this. "What do you want for dinner?" That was it. "What do you want for dinner?" I went home. We needed $5,000. Long story short, one of my overseers in the denomination we were in at the time came to me, and he said this. "You might want to think about going full time into ministry."
I started laughing and told him the story. "How much are you short?" I said, "About $5,000 a month, but God will take care of it to meet our budget and everything like that." He pulls out an envelope and said, "A pastor in the middle of the desert of California with a membership of 22 people sent you this. Open it." I opened it up, and it was a $5,000 check. I never looked back.
I had another time that I was a part of a ministry and had to leave that ministry because I disagreed with some things and move into another ministry. I went to the person who led that ministry and tried to share my heart. It was not received very well. In fact, my paycheck was cut off that day. The question asked of me that day was, "What are you going to do for money?" My response was, "I don't need it. I have a call on my life. He will take care of me."
I walked away without a paycheck. I walked away. Day one, I did what I did in the other ministry. I got home after the opening day of that ministry. I was sitting at home, and a lady knocks on the door. "Hey, you passed the plate for an offering. Hey, I didn't get to give. She laid the check down, chit-chatted, walked out the door. I cut the TV back on and started watching. My wife goes, "Are you not going to look at the check?" I looked at the check, and it was $20,000. I don't follow money.
If you're here, and you're feeling the call to ministry, and you're thinking about money, you better stop it, because the love of money will mess you up. You see, one of the things when God speaks is you don't go to the checkbook and go, "Well, he spoke. Let me go over here and look." No. He spoke. That's his business. I can promise you, most of the time, the numbers won't add up.''
"…not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock." We're not called, and I'm not called to control you. I'm called to influence you. A lot of people come into ministry because they want to be fully in control, like they have all the answers. I don't have all the answers. Also, in ministry, what this is talking to us about is this. Before I can have authority, I have to know how to be under authority. Do you hear me?
Usually when I'm training ministers around me, one of the first things you run into is this authority thing. You see, a lot of times, as one pastor said, and it's true, it's not an authority issue between the congregation and the pastor. Sometimes it's an authority issue between elders and common people. They just don't get along. You can't lead unless you can be led, period. Not domineering. That's the thing of a pastor. "…but being examples to the flock."
Look at verse 4. "And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory." Do you know who I ultimately do this for? Him. I do it for him. I have a few more verses to read you as we're playing, because it has to do with you. I'll read it and make a couple of comments as we close. This says one day, as an under shepherd, I'm going to receive a crown of glory that is unfading.
Do you know who I preach to before I ever preach to you? An audience of one. I am not a politician. I do not outline in order for you to feel good or not feel good. I outline and study in order to feel you the Word of God. Okay? That's what it's for. There is one thing I want you to know as we descend into this next part of the text, and I'll read it to you in closing. I want to say something, and I want you to hear this, because it has to do with the laity.
As we grow as a church, people are going to fill positions. Things are going to happen. I wrote something the other day on the Internet. I can't even remember how I wrote it, but it went something like this. I think I did it last night. I said something like, "If you always want to get your way, that means God can't always have his way." That means he's not Lord. That means as we do things, God is going to bring people beside you who have the same skill set.
You may even be the leader of that skill set, and now they have a skill set, and they may actually know more than you. That doesn't mean you're going to be taken out of leadership, but that means you may have to submit to them to learn more about the very thing you're called to do. As a congregation, I want to immediately begin to train you in that so you'll know as a young church what we're doing.
Let me close by reading this. "Likewise, you who are younger…" Speaking to younger elders, speaking to the body. "… be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'" Humility. You as a body are called to do… What? …submit to the under shepherd as I submit to him.
Legacy Church, I want you to know, when we went nondenominational, when we made that choice, one of the things I really wanted to do (and I went to Christopher and made it a point), I said, "My elders God has put in my life are men I trust who can help direct this church." I didn't want these elders to have voting power just to vote down a pastor on any given thing. I don't think it's biblical.
At the same time, there has to be accountability, because these men need to be able to get rid of this guy if I don't submit to the Chief Shepherd. If I start embezzling money, how many of you think I either need to be disciplined or get out? Anybody? All right? If I start sleeping around on my wife, it might be a good thing to get rid of me. Wouldn't you say?
So we put together an accountability board. I have three pastors who, if I ever step out of line, can make a vote and go to them, and they can hire me and fire me. They can discipline me. They can get rid of me and find another pastor. You know why? Because it's the mandate of Scripture, because I'm human.
The Scripture I just read you talks about humility and submission. Do you know in the first century, humility wasn't even a virtue? It wasn't a virtue until Jesus came along. They didn't even have a word for it. It says, "Clothe yourselves…" It's something you have to do. "'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you…" Look at verse 7. "…casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."
