Five Lessons on Pastoral Leadership (Especially for Young Pastors)
by Deek Dubberly on June 9, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Audio, Biblelife, Churchlife, Pastoring, Sermon
I finished up chapter four of 1st Timothy this past weekend with my church. We’re doing a verse-by-verse study through this book and last Sunday I preached a sermon titled “Five Lessons on Pastoral Leadership” out of I Tim. 4:12-16. Timothy was a young pastor serving in a church where many, even other leaders, were significantly older and possibly more experienced than him. This undoubtedly proved difficult as Paul urged him to confront false teaching and wayward leaders. I too am a young pastor. I serve in a church where many, including all the deacons and lay-leaders, are older than me and have served in this particular church longer than I’ve been around. How was Timothy to address these situations? How am I to address the people God has called me to serve? This sermon seeks to provide a biblical response to these and other related questions. Here’s a brief outline and commentary of what I shared: 1. Lead by Example(I Tim. 4:12)—Whatever the reasons people may have for not wanting to follow the leadership of a person younger than themselves, Paul here says to Timothy to live in such a way that those reasons cannot substantially be claimed.
2. Lead by the Word(I Tim. 4:13)—The leadership of a pastor should be, first and foremost, directed from and manifested out of the authority of the Word of God. Leaders lead per their devotion to the Scriptures and their delivery of the Scriptures. 3. Lead by Being Yourself(I Tim. 4:14)—Timothy had been given a gift by God for leading God’s people. The text doesn’t say, but maybe it was something like the gift of teaching, discernment, or prophecy. Whatever it was, Paul urged Timothy to be the leader God had created, called, and gifted him to be. No apologies necessary for being the person God made you to be! 4. Lead by Hard Work and Growth(I Tim. 4:15)—Devote yourself completely to living out the Christian faith (i.e. ‘leading by example’), to preaching the Word (a la ‘leading by the Word’), and being comfortable in your own spiritual skin, so to speak (that is, ‘leading by being yourself’). As you do this you will grow as a person and as a leader. Let your followers see this progress! 5. Lead by Faithfulness(I Tim. 4:16)—Paul sums up these instructions with the command to “persist in this”—that is, be faithful in carrying out and existing within all these things I’ve told you about. People want a leader they can count on. It’s very simple, though not very easy. Here’s the sermon audio:
[HT: Post header image clipped from CreativeMYK] |
John MacArthur On What A Pastor Is Supposed to Do
by Deek Dubberly on May 22, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Audio, Biblelife, John MacArthur, Pastoring
A small taste of what I’m listening to this morning… Here’s John MacArthur preaching to what I think are a group of graduates from The Master’s Seminary. He is speaking from I Tim. 4:6-16. His address is titled, “12 Marks of Excellent Pastoral Ministry.”
MacArthur describes this address as “a wonderful summary of what ministries should look like.” At sermon’s end he asks the question, “So what does a pastor do?” His answer?
Anyone else been listening to good sermons lately? Do share in the comments below. |
The Accomplishments of Legalism
by Deek Dubberly on May 17, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Audio, Biblelife, Churchlife, Sermon
 I preached out of 1 Tim. 4:1-3 this past weekend (sermon available here). Its a passage where Paul warns Timothy about certain prevalent heresies which involved the forbidding of marriage and abstinence from certain types of foods. Paul explains that these heresies had supernatural origins. They were the deceptive and influential teachings of demons. Among a few other things, this passage serves as an opportunity to address the ever-recurring problem of legalism within various religious sects. A few examples:
At this point everyone was nodding along in agreement. Its easy to see the error of other people’s ways. However, as Christians we certainly are not immune to this sort of extra-biblical ‘prohibitioning.’ We do the exact same thing, only in our own little Christian way. So many Christian groups (including my own SBC) have this perfect picture of what a good Christian is supposed to look like:
As you can see we certainly have our own brands of legalism. And taken to extremes I believe, along with the Apostle Paul (see 1 Tim. 4:1), these legalistic doctrines are the “teachings of demons” as they influence and trickle their way through parishes and congregations all over the world. If you’ve got a church where someone is a liar and everyone knows about it and just sort of accepts it, but a woman who is addicted to smoking cigarettes walks in to your church and is looked down upon….you’ve got a problem. If you’ve got a church where its unspoken and understood that a certain group of persons love to gossip and everyone just quietly sweeps that issue under the rug, but a guy walks into your worship service with long hair, tattoos up and down his arms, and he’s sporting a t-shirt with a big, bold Budweiser logo across the front—if the first thing you think is, “Well, we’ve got to either get this guy cleaned up so that he looks more like us or else we’ve got to get him out of here”…..then you’ve got a problem. And the problem is legalism. Consider what legalism accomplishes:
Legalism is bad stuff. And I’m afraid that its everywhere. What else would you say legalism accomplishes? I’m sure there’s more. I’ve only listed four things. |
It’s Officially Halftime: Taking a Break from the Series through 1st Timothy
I’ve been preaching through 1st Timothy with my church for a few months now. Recently I’ve been sensing a weariness with the series—both on my part as well as on the part of my parishioners. Here’s what we’ve covered so far:
You can see from the references that we’ve just finished chapter 3. That’s exactly halfway through the letter. Because we’re halfway (and b/c of the weariness I mentioned), we’re going to take a brief halftime. This past Lord’s Day I began what should be a three week hiatus from our series. I plan on resuming and diving head first into I Tim. 4 on May 16th, the Sunday after Mother’s Day. In the meantime we’re going to do a few different things with our sermons. Yesterday we preached through Jesus’ series of teachings that centered upon the parable of the sower in Mark 4:1-32. Here’s the audio for those two messages:
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D. A. Carson on ‘The Role of the Pastor’
by Deek Dubberly on April 5, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Biblelife, D. A. Carson, Pastor, Pastoring, Preaching
 D. A. Carson This is definitely one of the greatest sermons/addresses I’ve ever listened to on the nature of pastoral ministry. It’s by D. A Carson so I’m not surprised. It’s been out for a while but I just found it last week. Here’s where I found it over at 9Marks. And here’s a download link and an audio player to listen to it here on my site.
Give it a listen and let me know what you think. |
Are you Qualified to be a Leader in the Church?
by Deek Dubberly on March 22, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Audio, Biblelife, Churchlife, Pastoring, Preaching, Sermon
I’ve been preaching through the book of 1st Timothy now for just over two months. This past weekend I finished a mini-series of three sermons on the qualifications for ministry. I’ve titled these messages, “The Man and the Ministry.”
“The Man and the Ministry—Part 1″
“The Man and the Ministry—Part 2″
“The Man and the Ministry—Part 3″
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What Are We to Learn from Paul’s Personal Testimony?
 Ananias restoring the sight of Saint Paul, by Pietro da Cortona (Note: this is a follow-up post to “Learning from the Apostle Paul: Sharing Your Testimony”) I’m continuing to preach my way verse-by-verse through Paul’s 1st Letter to Timothy with my church. Lord willing, we should wrap up the first chapter this Lord’s Day. A couple of weeks ago I preached a sermon on “Paul’s Personal Testimony” out of I Tim. 1:12-17. I’ve already posted some thoughts from that sermon. This post seeks to draw seven practical conclusions from Paul’s salvation story. Our testimonies should make Jesus look good.
Our testimonies should stir our hearts with affection and praise toward God.
God’s grace is enough.
The message of Christ is not simply about getting better, it’s about getting saved.
It is possible to be very religious and yet not be saved at all.
No one is good enough to be saved.
No one is bad enough that they can’t be saved.
What else can we learn from Paul’s testimony? I know there’s more. Help me out. |
Learning from the Apostle Paul: Sharing Your Testimony
 Paul and Timothy The Apostle Paul shares his testimony in I Tim. 1:12-17. I preached out of this passage last Sunday morning (sermon available here | series available here). What I noted was a sort of structure to what Paul shared, a structure that I believe should prove helpful to us as we consider how to best share our testimonies. Paul share six different things with Timothy: I. Who I am Now (I Tim. 1:12)→Paul was a man thankful to Christ, strengthened by Christ, counted faithful by Christ, and placed in ministry by Christ. II. Where I Used to Be (I Tim. 1:13)→Before his conversion Paul was a blasphemer, persecutor, and an injurious man. III. What Happened to Me (I Tim. 1:14)→God’s grace super-abounded in his life with faith and love. IV. How It Happened (I Tim. 1:15)→Jesus did it—Jesus saved him. V. Why It Happened (I Tim. 1:16)→So that through Paul’s salvation God’s patience could be set on display in the most illustrious of ways. Paul’s testimony is an example to us all of how God can truly save a man. VI. When I Think About It (I Tim. 1:17)→ Paul ends this passage by bursting forth into praise. It’s as if by sharing his testimony he cannot help but to be be stirred up with affection for his Lord. This same outline should benefit our understanding of salvation. If Christ has saved us then we should be able to fill in each of these six points with our own details: who we are, where we’ve come from, what happened to us, how it happened, why it happened, and when we think about it… If you’re a believer I encourage you to use these points to rehearse your own testimony right now. Look for someone you can share it with today. |
John MacArthur’s Excellent Sermon/Survey on Spiritual Warfare
by Deek Dubberly on February 17, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Audio, Biblelife, Churchlife, John MacArthur, Sermon
 Archangel Michael fighting Satan on the Coat of Arms of Arkhangelsk, Russia. I’m not one who typically gets into material on spiritual warfare—demons, Satanic influence, doing battle in invisible realms, etc. I certainly believe in all of that, but I think that many who speak and teach on it are WAY too confident in their assertions and are dabbling arrogantly in things that they shouldn’t be. That being said, I stumbled upon an excellent treatment of the subject by John MacArthur. No surprise there—MacArthur is a master at sifting through troves of information and presenting the best of it in a clear and compelling manner. I’ve been listening through his series on 1st Timothy (to see how’s its done!)—because I am currently preaching through 1st Timothy. He does a two-part deal on I Tim. 1:18-19, a passage where Paul charges Timothy to “wage the good warfare.” MacArthur uses the first part of this sermon to spread out and explain as much biblical data as he can on the subject of spiritual warfare. He begins with the fall of Satan and works his way all through to making the point that, as Christians, we are indeed in a war. Therefore, we should live like it. Click here to read the sermon’s manuscript over at the Grace to You site. Or listen below in the media player (which may not be functioning properly if you’re reading this in an email subscription or on Facebook). If you can’t see the player below you’ll need to click-through to my site and view the original post.
Would you lend a hand (or book)?Any good, solid resources related to this subject that you’d be willing to recommend? I’m all ears. |
What Should the Law Do in Our Lives?
by Deek Dubberly on February 15, 2010
in 1 Timothy, Biblelife, Sermon, theology
 I’m currently preaching through the book of I Timothy at my church. A couple of Sundays ago we covered Paul’s initial charge to Timothy against false teachers. Of the many things that he says the false teachers are getting wrong, perhaps the clearest is that they’re not using the law rightly (I Tim. 1:7).
The complete sermon is available here for download. Or you may listen through the player contained at the bottom of this post. (This feature may not be available if you’re viewing this through an email subscription or on Facebook. If that’s the case you’ll need to click-through to my site to use the media player.) Listen here:Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
