Remember the Days of Old…
Deuteronomy 32:7a
After each vacation, I can heartily say that I am pleased to return to the pulpit of the Berean Baptist Church. The time away induced more reflection than usual. While we always trust the Lord as our strength and sustenance, discouragement happens when longing for seemingly better days in the past. Obviously, visits to Kentucky provoke misty-eyed remembrances of marriage and the birth of our children. A self-imposed honorific visiting the gravesites of my wife and of my father and mother are important parts of the Kentucky rituals. This trip also included solemnizing a wedding and seeing dear old friends which broadened my reflections of the past.
Although I have now lived in California for thirty years, the greater part and most active parts of my life were in Kentucky. Those were the formative years which you may blame for my peculiarities. Experience, though, is a different matter. Being a pastor means intimately experiencing the difficulties of varied lives. You manage yours and your family’s while applause or blaming for the joy/grief of otherwise strangers is either my fault or my talent. Too often, godly counsel and direct preaching receive the blame for messy situations God’s people are unwilling to clean up. Shooting the messenger is their easiest solution.
Unless you choose psychiatry or psychology as a profession, no one cares to own these types of responsibilities. There are observers who tell me they would like to have my job perhaps because they want authority and recognition while others truly desire more advanced opportunities to serve the Lord. In his explanation of the duties of pastors and deacons, Paul encouraged this desirable determination by saying, “For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree…” Likewise, pastors achieve approbation: “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.” The Bible never discourages us from desiring rewards for our labor. Our Lord offers them for incentive not for a greedy heart but for the sincerity of those who will endure heartache for faithful service.
The deceptive allure of authority and recognition are not eternal but temporary rewards. They lead to dishonesty, situational ethics, and ultimately heresies. It would be counterproductive for me to encourage distrust of pastors. Understanding this, I caution you about pastors who want all authority, who intrude unnecessarily into private lives and decisions that normally lie beyond the purview of the pastorate, and who instead of warranted godly respect prefer adulation and hero worship.
The scriptures make us aware of the dangers of pride. No one in the church has more potential for it than the pastor. Peter issued a solemn warning countermanding the too frequent narcissism of haughty leaders: “Neither as being lords over God’s heritage…” Pulling in the young, inexperienced, and impressionable, he encourages the proper response to the godly pastor who first molds himself to his own teaching. “…be subject one to another…be clothed with humility…God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”
The remembrances of former years are part of what I used to guide my learning experiences in the pastorate. Father, mother, wife, family, and godly friends have been my solid companions. The Lord uses them now to ward off disappointment, depression, and discouragement. This sounds too much like an alliterated three-part sermon I do not care to write.
Pastor V. Mark Smith