Pastoral Priorities

I want to talk tonight about pastoral priorities. What should people be doing when they undertake work in the church - not just JPC but any church?

In some churches today the answer seems to be social work or just being friendly. But what does the Bible suggest? To find out please turn to Acts 20 and verse 28. Acts 20.28 says:

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

I simply want to go through that verse, phrase by phrase (or clause by clause) and see what it has to teach us about pastoral priorities. Luke is reporting a very moving meeting - a meeting Paul had with church leaders from Ephesus, and a meeting that, he said, would be his last ever with them. Acts 20.25:

Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.

Paul believed he was getting towards the end of his ministry and the end of his earthly life. So he is very concerned to be crystal clear about the pastoral priorities for these leaders when he is gone. Yes, it is an address to the elders of Ephesus who lived in a different world and with a different role in the church, undoubtedly, to most of you. But there are principles here which, to a greater or lesser degree, are for everyone who is involved in Christian work. And in this farewell address Paul does three things.

He first looks back to his own work in Ephesus, which they know about; then on to his coming sufferings, which he knows about; and finally he gives them a charge - the last words that he was ever to speak to them. And in summary form, you have that charge in verse 28. I now I want us to look first at THE CHARGE itself and then secondly and more briefly at MOTIVES for obeying that charge.


First, then, THE CHARGE itself - "Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock."

This is a command to be alert and watchful. And it is twofold. You are to keep watch, first, over yourselves, and, secondly, over all the flock. But what practically does that mean? Let me answer, first, in terms of "keeping watch over yourselves."

That will mean regularly checking your spiritual temperature. There is some bug going round at the moment. I was feeling off colour earlier last week. So I got out the thermometer - and, low and behold, I had a temperature. Some action was then taken and my temperature is now normal. In the same way, Paul would say, "check your spiritual temperature and, if necessary, take action." When was the last time you took your spiritual temperature or had a spiritual health check? But what, you ask, should we check? What questions or areas would Paul have been concerned about? This address to the Ephesian elders gives us some clues.

For example, he saw his own mission, verse 21, as telling people that "they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ". So surely the first question would be, "are you converted?" Nor is that a question too basic for church leaders and church workers. You can use whatever vocabulary you like - being converted, being born again or experiencing the work of the Spirit. The bible uses all those terms for a thorough change which may come slowly or dramatically, and which you may be aware of or not, but without which you cannot serve God in this life, or enjoy him after this life. Why is that?

Well, it is like this. Animals after they are born or hatched naturally do certain things. So young birds fly and young fish swim. The Predators programme last week on BBC2 showed a certain type of baby spider whose first predatory action was to eat its mother! All these things are natural. But the bible teaches that the human young also naturally do certain things. As soon as they can do anything they show signs of selfishness, dishonesty, bad temper and so on. The theologians call this original sin. And you don't have to be a Christian to believe in it. It is self evident. That is why there has to be this radical change which the Holy Spirit alone can bring. So obviously church leaders and workers need this radical change.

Bishop Taylor Smith was once preaching on Jesus' teaching to Nicodemus that you need to be born again. The bishop was explaining this and saying "it is no good thinking you can be right with God by coming to church, or by doing church work. You must be born again." At that point, out of the corner of his eye, he saw his archdeacon sitting there. So he said: "You may even be an archdeacon, but if you are not born again you cannot see or enter the kingdom of God." At the end of the service while all the clergy were unrobing in the vestry, the archdeacon went up to the bishop and said, "Bishop, can I have a word?" The Bishop said, "yes, what is it?" The archdeacon replied, "Bishop, you have found me out." And there and then the Bishop helped the man come to a living faith in Jesus Christ for the first time.

Is anyone like that here tonight? You need the Holy Spirit to give you new life. So you need to "turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus." Like that archdeacon you need to admit you have been going your way and not God's; then you need to look to Jesus who on the cross died for the sins of the world. Then trust him for his free forgiveness and ask him to give you, by his Holy Spirit, that new birth and new life.

So the first question in a spiritual health check is "are you converted". Nor is that "how were you converted? what happened? was it fast or slow, dramatic or dead-pan?" No! Those things are all secondary. What matters is "convertedness".

The second question is "are you a servant of Jesus Christ?" He may be your Saviour, but, is he your Lord and Master? In verse 19 Paul tells us that he "served the Lord". Literally, he was the Lord's slave.

The third question is "are you humble?" Could you say with Paul not only, "I serve the Lord," but as he does in verse 19, "I serve the Lord with great humility"? There are people, sadly, in our churches who do jobs and seek leadership not for the sake of others but to get status or to throw their weight around. How we all need to work at humility.

The fourth question is "is your faith strong?" Look at verse 22. Paul says:

now compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.

That is faith. It is doing what God says, even when you can't see the outcome. That was what Abraham did, as we learnt this morning from Hebrews 11.6:

By faith Abraham, when called to go ... obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

The fifth question is "do you persevere?" Look at verse 24:

I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

Faith and perseverance or (as it is often translated) "patience" go together. The bible says it is through "faith and patience [we] inherit what has been promised" (Heb 6.12). Or are you someone who gives up when the going is hard or the future uncertain?

The sixth question is "are you materialistic?". Paul uses the word "covet". Look at verse 33:

I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing.

I wonder how much Christian work is not being done because of "covetousness" or greed or materialism - whatever you want to call it.

The seventh question is simply this, "are you doing good?" In verse 35 Paul says that "we must help the weak". Yes, we must help those in need in the Church first, but then those in need outside the Church. Jesus was known for doing good:

he went around doing good" (Acts 10.38).

Paul told the Galatians:

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Gal 6.10).

So there you have seven questions about conversion, servanthood, humility, faith, perseverance, materialism and doing good. You can add you own questions about your commitment to evangelism or about your hope of heaven or about your use of "the means of grace" - that is, bible study, prayer, Holy Communion, and regularly getting together with other Christians to praise, pray and learn, as Paul puts it in verse 20 - "publicly and from house to house" - for us that means corporately on Sundays and in smaller groups mid-week.

Then, after keeping watch over yourselves, Paul goes on to say, "keep watch over all the flock" - and "all" includes the attractive and the unattractive, the sensible and the silly. But what does "keeping watch" here involve? Look at verses 29-31:

I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

Keeping watch over all the flock, therefore, at least involves watching out for wolves. Paul saw this as so important that he says he spent three years night and day warning people about this problem - the problem of "wolves"

On the one hand there are persecutors. In Afghanistan Afghan nationals and Western workers from Shelter Now International are currently on trial for their lives because of their Christian faith. Listen to Kate Clark, the BBC Afghanistan correspondent, commenting on the lack of support these people have had. She says:

"What's ironic is how little sympathy any potential Christian missionary receives in the West in the year 2001 ... it seems that if the Shelter Now employees had been arrested for being gay or trying to improve women's lives - like carrying out clandestine literacy classes - there would be far more outrage at their arrests."

Then Paul talks about another type of wolf that has to be guarded against. These are "wolves in sheep's clothing" and can be far more dangerous because they can go unnoticed. Verse 30:

Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.

This is not a head on assault by persecution. This is a fifth column attack. This is an undermining of the foundations. These are false teachers. They are plausible because they are classed as "Christian" - but they "distort the truth" and the result is that they destroy the church by division - they "draw away disciples". And notice the motive behind this distortion of the truth. It is wrong ambition. These people are wanting to make a name for themselves. They are preaching heresy in order to get a following - "in order to draw away disciples after them."

How do you combat such heresy?

First, you need courage. Shepherds - and that is what Paul, and the bible, often calls leaders - have to fight the wolves. It is always easier to run away. But that doesn't help the flock! And Christian shepherds need courage even with the faithful. You get a hint of that in verse 20:

I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you.

Some people do not like to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth of God. So some shepherds are tempted not to say things that are uncomfortable.

In the present climate of opinion in this country it is much easier never to say that Jesus Christ is the only way, and that, although you respect members of other religions, or people of no faith, they are wrong. It is much easier never to say that there is not only heaven but also hell. And it is much easier never to say that homosexual sex, or heterosexual sex outside monogamous marriage, is wrong. But Paul would not have hesitated. So courage is necessary.

Then it is vital to preach and teach, as Paul did, "the whole will of God" (v 27) - not some of it, but all of it, and in the right proportion. Heresy is often taking just one part of the truth and ignoring other parts. And it is also vital to be supported in the Christian fellowship by prayer and the encouragement to be rooted in the word of God. Paul committed these leaders "to God and to the word of his grace" (v 32).

So "keeping watch over ... all the flock" significantly involves guarding against "savage wolves" - persecutors and false teachers, and that needs courage and teaching the whole truth. We must now move on and very briefly.


If in the first place Paul's charge is to "keep watch over yourselves and all the flock", what, we may ask secondly, are to be the MOTIVES?

In the rest of verse 28 Paul gives us an answer. He gives us three motives. The first is remembering that, if you're in leadership, you are appointed not by men but by God. Paul says in verse 28, "the Holy Spirit has made you overseers." These overseers, or leaders, in the church at Ephesus were in one sense ordained by men. In Acts 14.23 we are told that wherever Paul went church planting, he and his colleagues "appointed elders ... in each church."

So in one sense appointment in the church is the work of men like Paul. But in another sense, if it is the right appointment, it is also and supremely the work of God, the Holy Spirit. Paul could have said to these Ephesian elders: "I, or some other senior leader, made you overseers." But he doesn't say that. He says, "the Holy Spirit has made you overseers". Paul's concern was that the leaders of the Church should be the people God was calling, not just the people he, Paul, wanted. And that must be the case today. So if Jonathan Redfearn, for example, says, "do you think it might be right for you to do so and so?" his concern is not just with getting a job done, but with getting the person God wants to do that job.

And that should be the concern of all of us - that we do the jobs or, in the language of the New Testament, the "ministries" that God wants done. And ministries are so varied. But everyone needs to see their work as for the Lord, and done in his strength. And as you see yourself called by God, you see yourself there for a purpose. And you then take your work seriously. You want to do it to the best of your ability - because it is God you are working for, not Jesmond Parish Church - that is just his agency.

Secondly, you are motivated when you remember that the church is God's church. Notice how Paul's goes on: "... the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the Church of God."

It is only too easy to think that the shepherds own the Church. They don't. Leaders in the church are just "under" shepherds. For it is God's church. He is the real owner, and Jesus Christ is the "chief shepherd". To remember that is a great motivation.

When someone lets you have the use of something precious that is not your own, you treat it with special care. Sometimes when I travel, I have to hire a car. I don't know if you're like me, but I am so careful with a hired car. Or someone lends you a special camera. You then make doubly sure you are operating it correctly. Similarly when you realize that the Church, including this church, belongs to God, that will affect how you work and serve. For the Church is of infinite value compared to a car or camera.

And that brings us to the third motivation - remembering the infinite value of the church.

Paul says it is the church of God "which he bought with his own blood." or as others translate it, "the blood of his own." It refers, of course, to the Cross of Calvary and the death of Jesus. The church is of infinite value as it's value is the life of the one through whom the universe came into existence, the life of the divine Son of God.

God calls you and me to serve the Church. Then remember - the Holy Spirit appoints leaders; and it is God's Church; and it is of infinite value.


I must conclude. I do so by reading again verse 28:

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.